Digital Commons Network^™

Interorganizational Collaboration And Systemic Change Framework For Building Information Modeling (Bim) Adoption, Rehema Joseph Monko

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

It was found that an integrated framework needs to be developed for the construction industry that allows optimized interorganizational collaboration and systemic change while using Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies. The framework needs to be effective so the industry can adopt BIM through a set of interdependent activities beyond their organizational boundaries. The adoption has been proven difficult because of industry competitiveness and a fragmented work environment. Meanwhile, existing frameworks vary between studies. This research developed an integrated framework, identified critical factors, and provided an evaluation guide for interorganizational collaboration and set of coordinated changes necessary to adopt BIM. This …

String Searching With Ranking Constraints And Uncertainty, Sudip Biswas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Strings play an important role in many areas of computer science. Searching pattern in a string or string collection is one of the most classic problems. Different variations of this problem such as document retrieval, ranked document retrieval, dictionary matching has been well studied. Enormous growth of internet, large genomic projects, sensor networks, digital libraries necessitates not just efficient algorithms and data structures for the general string indexing, but indexes for texts with fuzzy information and support for queries with different constraints. This dissertation addresses some of these problems and proposes indexing solutions. One such variation is document retrieval query …

Cellulose, Chitosan, And Keratin Composite Materials. Controlled Drug Release, Chieu D. Tran, Tamutsiwa Moven Mututuvari

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

A method was developed in which cellulose (CEL) and/or chitosan (CS) were added to keratin (KER) to enable [CEL/CS+KER] composites to have better mechanical strength and wider utilization. Butylmethylimmidazolium chloride ([BMIm⁺Cl^–]), an ionic liquid, was used as the sole solvent, and because the [BMIm⁺Cl^–] used was recovered, the method is green and recyclable. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results confirm that KER, CS, and CEL remain chemically intact in the composites. Tensile strength results expectedly show that adding CEL or CS into KER substantially increases the mechanical strength of the composites. We found …

Perceptions Of Expert Practice By Active Licensed Registered Nurse Therapeutic Touch® Practitioners, Tamara Lynn Wardell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Therapeutic Touch® (TT) is a nursing modality, developed in 1972, with a long history of research completion. It is also one of the leading complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies. A comprehensive review of the literature (over 350 studies) from the 1960s to 2015 demonstrated a gap related to delineating expertise related to clinical practice from the view of the practitioner. This study examined the state of expert practice as envisioned by those who themselves qualified as experts in the discipline of TT.

This study utilized a qualitative descriptive independent focus group methodology (Krueger, 1994, 2006; Krueger & Casey, 2001, …

Understanding The Solid State, Solubility And Dissolution Behavior Of Cefuroxime Axetil Diastereomers In Interactive Mixture Formulations, Namita Dalal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of the first part of this work was to understand the solid-state and solution behavior of a cephalosporin antibiotic prodrug, cefuroxime axetil (CFA). CFA is present in commercial products as a mixture of diastereomers, which commonly form eutectic mixtures. A phase diagram was constructed utilizing differential scanning calorimetry. It was observed that the diastereomers formed a eutectic mixture with a composition of 75% isomer B and a melting temperature of 124.8±0.5 °C. Phase solubility studies on diastereomer mixtures of various compositions showed that the diastereomers interacted to form a complex in solution. This interaction resulted in a solubility …

Investigating Wave Forces On Coastal Bridge Decks, Guoji Xu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tsunamis and hurricane induced waves are responsible for many coastal bridge failures, especially in the last decade. In the current study, three countermeasures (reducing the entrapped air, elevating the structures and rigidifying the structures) are considered, two wave types (solitary wave theory and Stokes wave theory) are chosen, and two bridge types (single bridge deck and twin bridge decks) are taken into account. Parametric studies are conducted based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS Fluent. This dissertation comprises two broad themes according to the wave types adopted. The first one is to make a great effort to investigate solitary …

Multi-Component Characterization Of Strain Rate Sensitivity In Pharmaceutical Materials, Jeffrey Michael Katz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Powder particles are brought into very close proximity by any number of sequential or concurrent consolidation mechanisms during tableting. It is commonly accepted that plastically deforming materials tend to be more strain rate sensitive than brittle materials, but this sensitivity depends on how fast the material can respond to applied stresses. In addition, since many pharmaceutical materials also demonstrate relatively large amounts of elastic deformation, it can be difficult to identify whether a material's strain rate sensitivity is due to changes in elasticity or due to changes in plasticity at different speeds.

Compaction research is often performed on bench-top or …

"A Stranger To The World": Women, Bisexuality, And Performance In Eighteenth-Century England, Jade Higa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As queer theory has evolved and been adapted by scholars of various fields, queer studies has become increasingly important to academic understandings of the eighteenth century. However, the broadness of queer scholarship has resulted in specific sexualities becoming less visible. This project grapples with the concept of bisexuality and its relation to gender, performance, and women in the late eighteenth century. It proposes the intersection of queer temporalities and the gaze to develop a new methodology in which the scholar consciously looks back at the eighteenth century through the lens of the twenty-first century. The project considers representations of bisexuality …

Dietary Strategies To Influence Appetite: Effects Of Oat Beta-Glucan And Thylakoids From Spinach On Satiety And Reward-Induced Eating Behavior, Candida Joan Rebello

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The objective of these studies was to examine the effects of oat-based cereals and a spinach extract, on eating behavior. The cereals compared included instant oatmeal (IO), old fashioned oatmeal (SO), and a ready to eat cereal (RTEC), each containing the soluble fiber beta-glucan. The spinach extract containing thylakoids, the internal photosynthetic membrane of plants, was compared with a placebo. The first study, a randomized crossover trial compared the effect of IO and SO on subjective ratings of satiety, with the RTEC. Subjects consumed isocaloric 150kcal servings of the cereals in random order. Visual analogue scale ratings evaluating satiety were …

A New Ethical Model For The Analysis Of Care For Refugee Women Who Experience Female Genital Cutting, Sharon R. Higginbothan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States is rapidly becoming a location for refugee women who are migrating from countries that embrace different and distinctive practices. One such practice is Female Genital Cutting/ mutilation (FGC/m). FGC is a medical procedure that alters the natural structure and functioning of the female body. It is also a cultural tradition and custom. Until recently, worldwide studies estimated that approximately 80 to 140 million women have undergone FGC and that 228, 000 of those women live in the U.S. However, the estimate of women and girls in the U.S. living with or at risk from FGC has grown …

Exoffender Accounts Of Successful Reentry From Prison, Heather R. Hlavka, Darren Wheelock, Richard S. Jones

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Reentry research often focuses on those who have recidivated, with little work addressing the experiences of those who successfully reintegrate into their communities. This study examines individual accounts of successful transitions from prison to community in the months and years postrelease. Interview data point to three metanarratives used to make sense of reentry: as reverence, as reunification, and as reconstruction. In different ways, each narrative centers on connections to important others through faith, family, or community. We discuss the legitimacy of the self-narratives offered, and add to a growing body of work exploring reentry via the lens of the exoffender.

Utilizing Geographic Information Systems To Examine The Demographic And Socioeconomic Characteristics In Food Oasis And Food Desert In Wayne County, Mi, Arwa Hassan Almadan

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In the last few decades, the concept of a food desert has captured the attention of the public and academia. Research has referred to food desert as an area with lack of access to adequate healthy food, especially for those without a vehicle or who live more than ¼ mile walking distance from grocery stores. Although the food desert metaphor has been used in research in different disciplines such as regional planning and public health, this term has been used loosely without a precise definition and without identifying the factors that might impact it.

This research explores and examines the …

The Formation And Fate Of Internal Waves In The South China Sea, Matthew H. Alford, Thomas Peacock, Jennifer A. Mackinnon, Jonathan D. Nash, Maarten C. Buijsman, Luca A. Centurioni, Shenn-Yu Chao, Ming-Huei Chang, David M. Farmer, Oliver B. Fringer, Ke-Hsien Fu, Patrick C. Gallacher, Hans C. Graber, Karl R. Helfrich, Steven M. Jachec, Christopher R. Jackson, Jody M. Klymak, Dong S. Ko, Sen Jan, T. M. Shaun Johnson, Sonya Legg, I-Huan Lee, Ren-Chih Lien, Matthew J. Mercier, James N. Mourn, Ruth Musgrave, Jae-Hun Park, Andrew I. Pickering, Robert Pinkel, Luc Rainville, Steven R. Ramp, Daniel L. Rudnick, Sutanu Sarkar, Alberto Scotti, Harper L. Simmons, Louis C. St. Laurent, Subhas Karan Venayagamoorthy, Yu-Huai Wang, Joe Wang, Ying J. Yang, Theresa Paluszkiewicz, Tswen-Yung David Tang

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Internal gravity waves, the subsurface analogue of the familiar surface gravity waves that break on beaches, are ubiquitous in the ocean. Because of their strong vertical and horizontal currents, and the turbulent mixing caused by their breaking, they affect a panoply of ocean processes, such as the supply of nutrients for photosynthesis¹, sediment and pollutant transport² and acoustic transmission³; they also pose hazards for man-made structures in the ocean⁴. Generated primarily by the wind and the tides, internal waves can travel thousands of kilometers from their sources before breaking⁵, making it …

Confronting Totalitarianism At Home: The Roots Of European Privacy Protections, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

In the last several years, a consensus has developed that a wide gulf exists between European and American privacy law, although division still exists on whether European law is “more protective” or simply “home to different intuitive sensibilities” than American law. Existing research on the development of European privacy law has focused on two areas: nineteenth-century traditions of honor and dueling, which gave rise to a concept of privacy linked to dignity, and the totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century, in reaction to which privacy protected liberty. This Article offers a contrasting view by showing that European privacy law in …

Employees’ Social Networking Site Use Impact On Job Performance: Evidence From Pakistan, Murad Moqbel, Fizza Aftab

Information Systems Faculty Publications

This paper reinvestigates the impact of social networking site use by employees on job performance by conducting a methodological replication of Moqbel, Nevo, and Kock (2013) using samples (N=139) from Pakistan. In both studies, social networking site use has significant effects on organizational commitment and job satisfaction, and job satisfaction also has a significant impact on job performance and organizational commitment. In comparison with the U.S., we find that social networking site use in Pakistan has no significant impact on job performance through the mediating effect of job satisfaction, yet has a significant effect on organizational commitment and job satisfaction. …

Challenges Of Dementia Management Within Primary Care, Kathyrn Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Monroe Freedman: Servant Leader, Bridge Builder, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

Without question, Monroe was dedicated to serving others, wholeheartedly committed to helping clients and community members achieve their potential. As many have attested, Monroe epitomized the servant leader who freely gives time and support to others. I hope that the many people whom Monroe touched will continue to be sustained by Monroe’s ethic of service.

Efficient Calculation Of Large Finite Periodic Structures Based On Surface Wave Analysis, Xiaoyan Y.Z. Xiong, Ling Ling Meng, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Wei E.I. Sha, Fan Yang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The electromagnetic modeling of practical finite periodic structures is a topic of growing interest. Due to the truncation of infinite periodic structures, surface waves will be excited and localized near discontinuous interfaces leading to the edge effect. In this work, surface waves are numerically extracted and their magnitudes and decay rates are analyzed for different materials and geometries. Based on the exponential decay of the surface wave, a novel method is developed by connecting the solution to the large finite array problem with that to a relatively small one to achieve low complexity and memory consumption. The method numerically reconstructs …

You Are What You Tweet: Connecting The Geographic Variation In America's Obesity Rate To Twitter Content, Ross J. Gore, Saikou Diallo, Jose Padilla

VMASC Publications

We conduct a detailed investigation of the relationship among the obesity rate of urban areas and expressions of happiness, diet and physical activity on social media. We do so by analyzing a massive, geo-tagged data set comprising over 200 million words generated over the course of 2012 and 2013 on the social network service Twitter. Among many results, we show that areas with lower obesity rates: (1) have happier tweets and frequently discuss (2) food, particularly fruits and vegetables, and (3) physical activities of any intensity. Additionally, we provide evidence that each of these results offer different and unique insight …

Estimating Cost Adjustments Required To Accomplish Target Savings In Chronic Disease Management Interventions: A Simulation Study, Rafael Diaz, Joshua G. Behr, Bruce S. Britton

VMASC Publications

Chronic diseases are persistent ailments that are not preventable or curable with medication or vaccination. Many of the leading chronic conditions in industrialized societies may be related to lifestyle choices. The prevalence of these chronic conditions significantly affects the health, suffering, and longevity of patients. This paper demonstrates the utility of system dynamics as an approach to model and simulate the behavior of key cost factors in the implementation of population health management interventions. The study uses modeling and simulation as an evaluative method to identify potential savings stemming from an intervention within a well-defined population group. The model is …

Zakrafah: Ornament In Islamic Style, Amani Alharbi

Theses

Ornament as an art has existed for many thousands of years. It is considered to be one of the most ancient forms of human visual expression. Ornament is a crucial part of such form of decoration as arabesque that has been widely used in Islamic architecture throughout the ages. However, ornament in Islamic art functions not only as a decoration. Patterns and colors used in ornament often convey symbolical meaning, which could be understood only by people of Islamic cultural background. Ornament has absorbed many unique and representative features of the outlook of Islamic people such as prevalence of the …

Photonic-Loop Modeling Using Ghost Waveguides, Parikshit Dale

Theses

In this thesis, we present a new method for the modeling and analyzing photonic-loop structures which is based on a rotated directional coupler and ghost waveguide. This new method is less complicated than available methods. Our method of photonic-loop structure modeling is demonstrated by modeling and analyzing a ring resonator and its parameters. We also model and analyze a multi-ring ring resonator.

Discharge Alternative Non-Urgent Care Education (D.A.N.C.E.) Protocol: Addressing Emergency Department Misuse, Samantha Leon

All Publications

Background: The misuse of the Emergency Department (ED) creates a substantial problem for the health care system, generating gaps in continuity of care, leaving little room for preventative care, and forcing a financial strain on the system. An increasing number of patients are using hospital EDs for non-urgent care despite the availability of alternative care sites such as retail clinics (RCs) and urgent care centers (UCCs).

Purpose: The project’s aim was to educate patients who utilize ED services as a source of care for non-urgent complaints with the use of the D.A.N.C.E. protocol. Enhancing the public’s knowledge of …

Performance And Energy Trade-Offs For 3d Ic Noc Interconnects And Architectures, James David Coddington

Theses

With the increased complexity and continual scaling of integrated circuit performance, multi-core chips with dozens, hundreds, even thousands of parallel computing units require high performance interconnects to maximize data throughput and minimize latency and energy consumption. High core counts render bus based interconnects inefficient and lackluster in performance. Networks-on-Chip were introduced to simplify the interconnect design process and maintain a more scalable interconnection architecture. With the continual scaling of feature sizes for smaller and smaller transistors, the global interconnections of planar integrated circuits are consuming higher energy proportional to the rest of the chip power dissipation as well as increasing …

Effect Of Used Motor Oil On The Macro And Micromechanical Properties Of Crumb Rubber Modified Asphalt, Magdy Abdelrahman, Mohyeldin Ragab, Daniel Bergerson

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The need to be more environmentally conscious has recently shifted toward the forefront of society. With this new focus on environmentally responsible behavior comes the practice of using recycled materials in construction when possible. Used motor oil (UMO) is an example of waste materials that can be utilized in numerous applications to alleviate its environmental disposal burden. In the current work, the effect of UMO on the internal structure of crumb rubber modified asphalt is investigated. This is carried out by employing rheological analysis including dynamic shear rheometer and microindentation testing. Rheological analysis was employed to determine the change in …

The Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation Benchmark (Brats), Bjoern H. Menze, Andras Jakab, Stefan Bauer, Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer, Khan M. Iftekharuddin, Syed M.S. Reza

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper we report the set-up and results of the Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation Benchmark (BRATS) organized in conjunction with the MICCAI 2012 and 2013 conferences. Twenty state-of-the-art tumor segmentation algorithms were applied to a set of 65 multi-contrast MR scans of low-and high-grade glioma patients-manually annotated by up to four raters-and to 65 comparable scans generated using tumor image simulation software. Quantitative evaluations revealed considerable disagreement between the human raters in segmenting various tumor sub-regions (Dice scores in the range 74%-85%), illustrating the difficulty of this task. We found that different algorithms worked best for different sub-regions …

A Robust Deep Model For Improved Classification Of Ad/Mci Patients, Feng Li, Loc Tran, Kim-Han Thung, Shuiwang Ji, Dinggang Shen, Jiang Li

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Accurate classification of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its prodromal stage, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), plays a critical role in possibly preventing progression of memory impairment and improving quality of life for AD patients. Among many research tasks, it is of a particular interest to identify noninvasive imaging biomarkers for AD diagnosis. In this paper, we present a robust deep learning system to identify different progression stages of AD patients based on MRI and PET scans. We utilized the dropout technique to improve classical deep learning by preventing its weight coadaptation, which is a typical cause of overfitting in deep learning. …

Temporary Bonding With Polydimethylglutarimide Based Lift Off Resist As A Layer Transfer Platform, T. Matsumae, A. D. Koehler, J. D. Greenlee, T. J. Anderson, H. Baumgart, G. G. Jernigan, K. D. Hobart, F. J. Kub

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Bonding of lift off resist (LOR) was performed to realize temporary wafer bonding without residue. Bonding process conditions such as spin speed, pre-bake temperature, and bonding temperature were optimized to obtain a large bonded area with high bond strength. Under optimized process conditions, a bonded area covering over 98% of the wafer surface, with a room temperature bond strength of nearly 5 J/m² is achieved. During razor blade testing, fracture often occurs at the Si wafer. Moreover, debonding using an N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP)-based solvent left the wafer surface extremely small amount of residue. Thus, the optimized bonding processed developed in …

Identification Of Novel Qtl Governing Root Architectural Traits In An Interspecific Soybean Population, Lakshmi P. Manavalan, Silvas J. Prince, Theresa A. Musket, Julian Chaky, Rupesh Deshmukh, Tri D. Vuong, Li Song, Perry B. Cregan, James C. Nelson, J. Grover Shannon, James E. Specht, Henry T. Nguyen

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Cultivated soybean (Glycine max L.) cv. Dunbar (PI 552538) and wild G. soja (PI 326582A) exhibited significant differences in root architecture and root-related traits. In this study, phenotypic variability for root traits among 251 BC₂F₅ backcross inbred lines (BILs) developed from the cross Dunbar/PI 326582A were identified. The root systems of the parents and BILs were evaluated in controlled environmental conditions using a cone system at seedling stage. The G. max parent Dunbar contributed phenotypically favorable alleles at a major quantitative trait locus on chromosome 8 (Satt315-I locus) that governed root traits (tap root length and …

Allmaps: Robust Scaffold Ordering Based On Multiple Maps, Haibo Tang, Xingtan Zhang, Chenyong Miao, Jisen Zhang, Ray Ming, James C. Schnable, Patrick S. Schnable, Eric Lyons, Jianguo Lu

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

The ordering and orientation of genomic scaffolds to reconstruct chromosomes is an essential step during de novo genome assembly. Because this process utilizes various mapping techniques that each provides an independent line of evidence, a combination of multiple maps can improve the accuracy of the resulting chromosomal assemblies. We present ALLMAPS, a method capable of computing a scaffold ordering that maximizes colinearity across a collection of maps. ALLMAPS is robust against common mapping errors, and generates sequences that are maximally concordant with the input maps. ALLMAPS is a useful tool in building high-quality genome assemblies. ALLMAPS is available at: https://github.com/tanghaibao/jcvi/wiki/ALLMAPS.