Digital Commons Network^™

Rescaled Density Processes Of Voter Model Perturbations On R-Regular Random Graphs Converge To Feller’S Branching Diffusion, Tianyue Wu

Dissertations - ALL

Voter model perturbations can be viewed as voter model (neutral competition) plus asmall perturbation rate. Cox (2017) showed that the biased voter model, viewed as a voter model perturbation, converges to Feller’s branching diffusion under mild mixing condition. We extend this result to a general class of perturbation functions on the setting of r-regular random graphs where the nearest-neighbor voting kernel has a strong mixing property, and prove a low-density diffusive limit of which the convergence of biased voter model is considered as a special case. The other special case considered is the q-voter model whose high-density ODE limit on …

Acoustic Behavior, Poaching Risk, And Habitat Use In African Forest Elephants (Loxodonta Cyclotis): Insights From Passive Acoustic Monitoring, Colin Reed Swider

Dissertations - ALL

The African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) is a critically endangered and cryptic species that inhabits the rainforests of Central Africa. Forest elephant populations are severely threatened by poaching for the ivory trade, and an improved understanding of forest elephant behavior and habitat use, and of the anthropogenic pressures that threaten their existence, is essential for conservation of the species. However, their remote tropical rainforest habitat poses logistical constraints on research and makes forest elephants very difficult to observe and study visually. Limited data collection methods have also inhibited our ability to understand the determinants of poaching activity that is driving …

Enhancing The Operational Resilience Of Cyber- Manufacturing Systems (Cms) Against Cyber-Attacks, Carlos Omar Espinoza Zelaya

Dissertations - ALL

Cyber-manufacturing systems (CMS) are interconnected production environments comprised of complex and networked cyber-physical systems (CPS) that can be instantiated across one or many locations. However, this vision of manufacturing environments ushers in the challenge of addressing new security threats to production systems that still contain traditional closed legacy elements. The widespread adoption of CMS has come with a dramatic increase in successful cyber-attacks. With a myriad of new targets and vulnerabilities, hackers have been able to cause significant economic losses by disrupting manufacturing operations, reducing outgoing product quality, and altering product designs. This research aims to contribute to the design …

Party Competition In Swing Districts And Childcare Policy Development In South Korea, Tae Hyun Lim

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation argues that public childcare in majoritarian countries develops as a result of electoral competition over swing district voters. Public childcare is a social policy area that has garnered much academic and political attention in recent years in many advanced industrial countries. The dissertation focuses on the South Korean case for two reasons: 1) the Korean experience challenges the existing academic consensus and reveals the shortcomings of the existing literature, and 2) the Korean case allows me to bridge the study on public opinion and institutions. South Korea dramatically expanded its public childcare between 2009 and 2013, growing childcare …

Three Essays On Residential Mortgage Payment Behavior, Wenzhen No Middle Name Lin

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is comprised of three essays on residential mortgage payment behavior. The first chapter analyzes the simultaneous mortgage-termination risks of 90-day delinquency and prepayment, the second and third chapters study borrower mortgage payment and exiting behavior in the CARES Act Mortgage Forbearance program.

Ding, Tian, Yu, and Guo (2012) analyze transformations of the binomial logit duration model for which the results are an exact binomial logit duration model when the transformation parameter equals one and an interval censored proportional hazard model as the transformation parameter limits to zero. In the first chapter, which is co-authored with Ran An and …

Amplitude Analysis Of B0 Decays To J/Ψπ−K+ And Ψ(2s)Π−K+, Andy Beiter

Dissertations - ALL

Amplitude analyses of B0 → J/ψ(1S)π−K+ and B0 → ψ(2S)π−K+ decays are presented.The data correspond to the full LHCb Run 1 and Run 2 samples, which are much larger than previously analyzed by the Belle and LHCb experiments in similar analyses. Many more exotic ψ(nS)π− states are required for a good description of the data than disclosed by the previous amplitude analyses. For the first time, significant contributions from exotic ψ(nS)K+ states are observed. The JP = 1+ Z(4200)− state, previously established only in the J/ψ(1S)π− mode, is confirmed and observed with the consistent mass and width in the ψ(2S)π− …

Second-Person Surveillance: Politics Of User Implication In Digital Documentaries, Elizabeth Gleesing

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation analyzes digital documentaries that utilize second-person address and roleplay to make users feel implicated in contemporary refugee crises, mass incarceration in the U.S., and state and corporate surveillances. Digital documentaries are seemingly more interactive and participatory than linear film and video documentary as they are comprised of a variety of auditory, visual, and written media, utilize networked technologies, and turn the documentary audience into a documentary user. I draw on scholarship from documentary, game, new media, and surveillance studies to analyze how second-person address in digital documentaries is configured through user positioning and direct address within the works …

Studies Of New Tandem Oxidative Methods In Organic Synthesis, Katelyn Ann Leets

Dissertations - ALL

In terms of organic chemistry, oxidation reactions are defined as a reaction that results in a product with more π bonds, heteroatoms, and/or rings than the starting compound. These reactions are just one of the conventional types of organic transformations. Although many conditions for the oxidation of organic systems have been developed, it is still a class of reactions that are being investigated in current research. Work described in this document includes the development of two new tandem oxidation reactions and the synthetic design of a catalyst with potential to perform C-H oxidation reactions with enantioselectivity. The first section of …

Essays On The Gender Wage Gap In China And The Returns To Higher Education In The United States, Rui Xu

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation presents three separate essays. The first two essays explore the gender wage gap and its dynamics in urban China from 1995 to 2018. The first chapter decomposes the gender wage gap based on the observed wage for workers with a precise measure of the hourly wages. The first chapter examines the observed average gender wage gap in China in hourly wages from 1995 to 2018. Using data from the China Household Income Survey (CHIP) 1995 – 2013 and the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2014 and 2018. This chapter computes wage earners' working hours and hourly wages based …

Design, Synthesis, And Bioconjugation Of Novel Peptide-Based Drugs To Mitigate Negative Hindbrain Side Effects For The Treatment Of Type 2 Diabetes And Obesity, Amber Liles

Dissertations - ALL

This thesis focuses on the design and/or conjugation of peptide-based drugs [oxytocin (OT) or glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1)] for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus and/or obesity with the intent of mitigating common negative side effects caused by their activity in the human hindbrain. Preventing blood brain barrier (BBB) penetrance was achieved through a process termed ‘corrination’: the conjugate modification of a compound, peptide, or protein with a corrin ring containing compound such as vitamin B12 (B12) or biosynthetic derivatives, thereof. Corrination was also used to increase solubility and/or decrease aggregation of peptides with such draw backs in terms …

Designing Lmpa-Based Smart Materials For Soft Robotics Applications, Siavash Sharifi

Dissertations - ALL

This doctoral research, Designing LMPA (Low Melting Point Alloy) Based Smart Materials for Soft Robotics Applications, includes the following topics: (1) Introduction; (2) Robust Bicontinuous Metal-Elastomer Foam Composites with Highly Tunable Mechanical Stiffness; (3) Actively Morphing Drone Wing Design Enabled by Smart Materials for Green Unmanned Aerial Vehicles; (4) Dynamically Tunable Friction via Subsurface Stiffness Modulation; (5) LMPA Wool Sponge Based Smart Materials with Tunable Electrical Conductivity and Tunable Mechanical Stiffness for Soft Robotics; and (6) Contributions and Future Work.Soft robots are developed to interact safely with environments. Smart composites with tunable properties have found use in many soft robotics …

A W-Shaped Convolutional Network For Robust Crop And Weed Classification In Agriculture, Syed Imran Moazzam, Tahir Nawaz, Waqar Shahid Qureshi, Umar Shahbaz Khan, Mohsin Islam Tiwan

Articles

Agricultural image and vision computing are significantly different from other object classification-based methods because two base classes in agriculture, crops and weeds, have many common traits. Efficient crop, weeds, and soil classification are required to perform autonomous (spraying, harvesting, etc.) activities in agricultural fields. In a three-class (crop-weed-background) agricultural classification scenario, it is usually easier to accurately classify the background class than the crop and weed classes because the background class appears significantly different feature-wise than the crop and weed classes. However, robustly distinguishing between the crop and weed classes is challenging because their appearance features generally look very similar. …

Software-Defined Networking Security Techniques And The Digital Forensics Of The Sdn Control Plane, Abdullah Alshaya

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an efficient networking design that decouples the network's control plane from the data plane. When compared to the traditional network architecture, the SDN architecture shares many of the same security issues. The centralized SDN controller makes it easier to control, easier to program in real-time, and more flexible, but this comes at the cost of more security risks. An attack on the control plane layer of the SDN controller is a major security concern.

First, centralized design and the existence of a single point of failure in the control plane compromise the accessibility and availability of …

Kathleen Hanna: An Investigation Into Riot Grrrl, Elena Haffner

Audre Lorde Prize

A zine on the third-wave feminist movement riot grrrl and one of its most prominent members, Kathleen Hanna.

Expanding Accessibility For Guests With Autism-Spectrum Disorder (Asd) Who Visit The Jacksonville Zoo And Gardens In Jacksonville, Fl, Lauren Schermerhorn, Thais Petrocelli

Spring 2023 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

Problem: Due to public events being commonly characterized by crowded spaces, loud volumes, and unpredictable changes, attractions such as the Jacksonville Zoo can be challenging for those with ASD without proper accommodations (Kimura et al., 2020)

Purpose: The purpose of this capstone project was to advocate for updated evidence-based sensory accommodations at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens for those with an ASD diagnosis with the intention of creating a more inclusive zoo experience.

Diffusion Of Ionic Liquid-Modified Polymer Nanoparticles Through Nasal Mucus, Mary Vanlandingham

Honors Theses

Mucosal barriers are a natural defense system for preventing the entry of foreign objects into the body; however, they pose as obstacles for effective drug delivery. Coated polymer nanoparticles have been proven to possess improved rates of diffusion across mucus compared to their uncoated, or bare, counterparts. When choline-based ionic liquids (ILs) are introduced to an aqueous system, their dissociation leads to an increase in solution conductivity which ultimately reduces the viscosity of mucus without significantly affecting its structure. Additionally, ILs are highly tunable, so they work well in a range of pHs and conductivities, making ILs an ideal choice …

Un País Invertido: The Current Immigration Regime Of Colombia, Magdalena Hendrickson

Honors Theses

Throughout its turbulent history, Colombia has seen drastic changes in structure and administration. From military coups to shaky coalitions, the country’s infamous instability has long forced its citizens to find better prospects elsewhere. However, with the rise of the Maduro administration in Venezuela, Colombia faced a massive new flow of migrants and was forced to rectify current circumstances without properly addressing its internal issues beforehand. Despite its historical status as a nation of emigrants, Colombia marks a new norm for the rest of the globe. As new issues like climate change and increased armed conflict grow worldwide, countries on the …

Sleep Duration Is Associated With Caudate Volume And Executive Function, Nicole Jones

Honors Theses

The ineligible role of the caudate nucleus in sleep has been implicated throughout multiple scientific studies. Previous literature has shown that greater caudate volume is associated with longer habitual sleep duration in older adults- ranging from 55 years of age and up. However, the association between sleep duration and caudate volume remains unknown in the younger population. In this study, we examined the caudate volume in youth to older adults (10 to 85 years old) with a greater sample size (N=464) to increase statistical power. The volumetric size of the caudate nucleus showed significantly positive association with habitual sleep duration, …

Odyssey Of A Renegade Queen, Annabelle Harris

Honors Theses

After a violent shipwreck, Savannah washes up on the shores of Outis with no memory of her past. She is found by James, who she thinks is a suave but ill-tempered merchant. Outis turns out to be a more dangerous place than Savannah had thought. Through the aftermath of a traumatic encounter with another islander, she learns that James is a notorious pirate, and she is stuck on an island populated by his dangerous crew. James gives Savannah an ultimatum, and with no choice but to join his crew, she becomes the ship surgeon on the Cyllenia. During their sea-faring …

Medical Marijuana In Mississippi: A Journalistic View Of Physician Opinions And Patient Education, Michael Pitts

Honors Theses

Medical Marijuana in Mississippi: A Journalistic View of Physician Opinions and Patient Education is an in-depth investigative journalism project examining aspects of the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Program. Specific areas of interest were Mississippi physician opinions on the use medical marijuana and their views on the application of the state’s program as well as an examination into how patients are receiving education on medical marijuana. This project involved interviews of healthcare providers, dispensary staff, and patients, in addition to background research that was used to formulate interview questions, determine areas of interest and add necessary context. This project occurred during the …

A Synthetic Approach To The Optimization Of Silicon-Rosindolizine Swir Fluorophores, Timothy Lewis

Honors Theses

Fluorophores emitting within the near-infrared (700 – 1000 nm) or shortwave-infrared (1000 – 1700 nm) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum are of particular interest for their potential to supplement or even outright replace commonly used biological imaging techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanning. Various characteristics make these molecules particularly appealing to researchers, such as their ease of synthetic tunability, generally low toxicity, and high solubility in biological media in comparison to other NIR- and SWIR-emissive fluorophores. Different molecular skeletons have been examined for use as the core of these imaging agents, such as squaraine, cyanine, and …

Development Of An Immunoblot Assay To Detect Antibodies To Sars-Cov-2 Spike And Nucleocapsid Antigens In Serum Of Covid-19 Patients, Christian Hollis

Honors Theses

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has created one of the most world-halting events in recent world history. Its effects have reached every corner of the globe and manifested problems within each country’s healthcare and social systems. During the pandemic, many researchers have searched to develop a more robust understanding of the novel virus’s genetic and structural material. In year three since the emergence of COVID-19, these researchers hope to implement new advancements in testing and detection for the presence of the virus.

This thesis intends to produce evidence for the reliability of COVID-19 antibody tests using immunoblot assay detection. These tests …

The Effects Of Aloe Vera On The Human Gut Microbiome, Samantha Leon

Honors Theses

The human gut microbiome is a diverse community of bacteria influenced by multiple factors including host age, geographical location, and diet. This study observed the effects of aloe vera juice on the human gut microbiome. Fecal samples were taken every two weeks over a period of one year; the subject consumed aloe vera juice in alternating cycles of consumption “on” and abstaining “off” with each cycle lasting for eight weeks. The bacterial community in each sample was characterized using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Sequences were identified and their relative abundances were used to look for patterns distinguishing “on” and “off” …

Predictors Of Future Physician Practice Location, Allegra Latimer

Honors Theses

Healthcare disparities exist throughout the United States. While Mississippi does not stand alone in the maldistribution of physicians and medical practices across the state, it does exist as a state that has been historically medically underserved. According to data collected by The County Health Rankings Model developed by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, in 2019, the ratio of population to primary care physicians in Mississippi was 1860:1. This is nearly 30% higher in disparity than the national average. It is also important to note that of Mississippi’s 82 counties, 79.3% are considered rural with the majority of physicians …

Structural Integrity And Stability Of Dna In Ionic Liquid And Near-Infrared Indolizine Squaraine Dye, Ember Yeji Suh

Honors Theses

Luminol, the most common presumptive test for blood at a crime scene, has multiple issues, such as false positive results with chemical agents, no luminescence due to “active oxygen” cleaning agents on bloodstains, and inability to penetrate textile materials. A combination of indolizine squaraine dye and ionic liquid (IL), or Dye Enhanced Textile Emission for Crime Tracking (DETECT), have shown potential to address these issues. The purpose of this study was to assess the binding mechanism of CG (1:1) and SO₃SQ dye to HSA and how the mechanism can explain the W214 fluorescence quenching effect and to determine …

Associations Between Tiktok Use, Mental Health, And Body Image Among College Students, Alexz Carpenter

Honors Theses

Background. Social media use continues to increase globally, and there is a large field of research examining the relationships between social media use with anxiety, depression, and body image. College-aged students are particularly vulnerable to these associations because they are at a unique developmental point of their life. College-aged students also use social media more frequently than almost any other age group, which may put them at increased risk for negative mental health and body image outcomes related to their social media use. TikTok is a relatively new social media app that has exponentially risen in popularity, especially among younger …

Botulinum Toxin For Abductor Type Spasmodic Dysphonia: A Systematic Review, Keyona Sutton

Honors Theses

A systematic review was conducted to show that BTX (Botulinum Toxin) is the most effective treatment for Abductor Spasmodic Dysphonia (ABSD). There were a total of 117 records screened for inclusion in this review. After the initial screening, there were seven successive rounds of screening for eligibility. This process produced a total of three eligible records that met the following conditions: patients presented with spastic abduction, electromyography BTX type A injection into the posterior cricoarytenoid muscle, and measurement of results with acoustic dimensions. After surveying all eligible studies, it was concluded that BTX is an effective treatment for ABSD. Every …

Pragmatic Elements In Efl Learners’ Request E-Mails To Teachers: A Study Of Learners’ Communicative Success, Hamzah Ahmad A. Kuriri

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Language is a tool for communication. People use it when they converse with each other. One way to comprehend what is being said is based on understating the intended meanings of the conversation, or what is called the underlined meanings (pragmatics). Pragmatic studies how different meanings are conveyed, depending on the utterances provided. A case study to investigate the phenomenon of pragmatics is selected as the methodology to specifically examine English as a foreign language (EFL) instructors’ perceptions of EFL students’ e-mails sent to their instructors. Qualitative methods are used to examine data for a period of almost three months …

Game Design: Competitive Mobile Games, Kalen Wallin

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis explores the design process for a competitive multiplayer game mode in “baldorf,” a ball-throwing mobile game developed by Mystic Rhoads Productions. The research aims to enhance the overall gaming experience by introducing a competitive mode that challenges players’ skills and facilitates interaction with others. The research methodology included reviewing the popular competitive mobile games: Marvel Snap, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans, which boast high download numbers and chart rankings. This analysis helped identify key features and mechanics that contribute to an engaging multiplayer experience. As a result, several designs were proposed, covering the profile, matchmaking, match, and …

Effect Of A Patient Navigator Program To Address Barriers To Eye Care At An Academic Ophthalmology Practice, Arman Zarnegar, Julie Cassidy, Andre Stone, Dana Mcginnis-Thomas, Lauren M. Wasser, José-Alain Sahel, Andrew M. Williams

Journal of Academic Ophthalmology

Abstract

Purpose The aim of this study was to determine whether a patient navigator program can address patient-reported barriers to eye care and to understand patient perceptions of a patient navigator program in ophthalmology.

Design This is a retrospective cohort study and cross-sectional patient survey.

Subjects and Methods A cohort of patients was recruited from a single academic ophthalmology department in the Mid-Atlantic region. Patients included in the study had received referral to the patient navigator program in the first quarter of 2022. Our patient navigator program provided patients with resources to address barriers to care such as transportation and …