Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Increasing Student Engagement In The Secondary Math Classroom, Chantell Holloway Walker

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis reports on a professional development package developed by the author to help three teachers increase the level of student engagement in their math classrooms. There were three phases: 1) initial presentation of strategies and sample lessons, 2) classroom implementation, 3) reflection and evaluation. As a result of the professional development, the Louisiana Compass Teacher Evaluation Rubric scores of the teachers improved in the area of student engagement. This thesis can be used as a guide for principals or instructional specialists who wish to provide professional development for small groups of teachers, with a focus on increasing student engagement.

Shape Optimization For Drag Minimization Using The Navier-Stokes Equation, Chukwudi Paul Chukwudozie

LSU Master's Theses

Fluid drag is a force that opposes relative motion between fluid layers or between solids and surrounding fluids. For a stationary solid in a moving fluid, it is the amount of force necessary to keep the object stationary in the moving fluid. In addition to fluid and flow conditions, pressure drag on a solid object is dependent on the size and shape of the object. The aim of this project is to compute the shape of a stationary 2D object of size 3.5 m2 that minimizes drag for different Reynolds numbers. We solve the problem in the context of shape …

Excluding Two Minors Of The Petersen Graph, Adam Beau Ferguson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, we begin with a brief survey of the Petersen graph and its role in graph theory. We will then develop an alternative decomposition to clique sums for 3-connected graphs, called T-sums. This decomposition will be used in Chapter 2 to completely characterize those graphs which have no P_3 minor, where P_3 is a graph with 7 vertices, 12 edges, and is isomorphic to the graph created by contracting three edges of a perfect matching of the Petersen Graph. In Chapter 3, we determine the structure of any large internally 4-connected graph which has no P_2 minor, where …

Well-Quasi-Ordering By The Induced-Minor Relation, Chanun Lewchalermvongs

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Robertson and Seymour proved Wagner's Conjecture, which says that finite graphs are well-quasi-ordered by the minor relation. Their work motivates the question as to whether any class of graphs is well-quasi-ordered by other containment relations. This dissertation is concerned with a special graph containment relation, the induced-minor relation. This dissertation begins with a brief introduction to various graph containment relations and their connections with well-quasi-ordering. In the first chapter, we discuss the results about well-quasi-ordering by graph containment relations and the main problems of this dissertation. The graph theory terminology and preliminary results that will be used are presented in …

Topological Dynamics On Compact Phase Spaces, Lieth Abdalateef Majed

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Our main focus will be to investigate the various facets of what are commonly called dynamical systems or flows, which are triples $(S,X,\pi)$, where $X$ is a compact Hausdorff space and $\pi:S \times X \longrightarrow X$ is a separately continuous action of a semigroup $S$ on $X$. Historically, as was introduced by R.Ellis 1960, the enveloping semigroup, which is a closure of the set of continuous functions on a compact space $X$, was discovered to be an important tool to study dynamical systems. Soon, a realization of the existence of a universal compactification of a phase semigroup with an extended …

Partial Cosine-Funk Transforms At Poles Of The Cosine-Λ Transform On Grassmann Manifolds, Christopher Adam Cross

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The cosine-λ transform, denoted C^λ, is a family of integral transforms we can define on the sphere and on the Grassmannian manifolds of p-dimensional subspaces in Kⁿ where K is R, C or the skew field H of quaternions. We treat the Grassmannians as the symmetric spaces SO(n)/S(O(p) × O(q)), SU(n)/S(U(p) × U(q)) and Sp(n)/(Sp(p) × Sp(q)) and we work by analogy with the case of the cosine-λ transform on the sphere, which is also a symmetric space.

The family C^λ extends meromorphically in λ to the complex plane with poles at (among other values) λ …

Analysis Of Nonlinear Dispersive Model Equations, Jacob Grey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this work we begin with a brief survey of the classical fluid dynamics problem of water waves, and then proceed to derive well known evolution equations via a Hamiltonian Variational approach. This method was first introduced in the seminal work of Walter Craig, et al. \cite{CG}. The distinguishing feature of this scheme is that the Dirichlet-Neumann operator of the fluid domain appears explicitly in the Hamiltonian. In the second and third chapters, we utilize the Hamiltonian perturbation theory introduced in \cite{CG} to derive the Benjamin-Bona-Mahony (BBM) and Benjamin-Bona-Mahony-Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (BBM-KP)equations. Finally, we briefly review the existence theory for their corresponding …

Wavelets, Coorbit Theory, And Projective Representations, Amer Hasan Darweesh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Banach spaces of functions, or more generally, of distributions are one of the main topics in analysis. In this thesis, we present an abstract framework for construction of invariant Banach function spaces from projective group representations. Coorbit theory gives a unified method to construct invariant Banach function spaces via representations of Lie groups. This theory was introduced by \Fch\, and \Gro\, in \cite{FG,FG1, FG2,FG3} and then extended in \cite{CO2}. We generalize this concept by constructing coorbit spaces using projective representation which is first studied by O. Christensen in \cite{O1}. This allows us to describe wider classes of function spaces as …

A Study Of Mathematical Equivalence: The Importance Of The Equal Sign, Christy De'sha Duncan

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ understanding and knowledge of the equal sign, so that instructional resources could be identified to improve student’s conceptual understanding about mathematical equivalence. A test, consisting of a combination of items taken from previous studies, as well as items developed by the researchers, was designed to gauge students’ understanding of the equality symbol. The test was administered to 54 seventh-graders in Spring 2015. The results of the test indicated a significant number of students in our district have a limited understanding of mathematical equivalence. This papers ends with some suggested activities recommended …

Knots, Skein Theory And Q-Series, Mustafa Hajij

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The tail of a sequence {P_n(q)} of formal power series in Z[q^{-1}][[q]], if it exists, is the formal power series whose first $n$ coefficients agree up to a common sign with the first n coefficients of P_n. The colored Jones polynomial is link invariant that associates to every link in S^3 a sequence of Laurent polynomials. In the first part of this work we study the tail of the unreduced colored Jones polynomial of alternating links using the colored Kauffman skein relation. This gives a natural extension of a result by Kauffman, Murasugi, and Thistlethwaite regarding the highest and lowest …

Exploring Rational Numbers In Middle School, Robyn Jasmin Boudoin

LSU Master's Theses

The move by the state of Louisiana to fully implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) from 2013 -2014 school year on and to align all state mandated tests to the CCSS has caused teachers to change the way they teach and how they deliver content. The overall most crucial new part of the CCSS in Mathematics is the emphasis on the “Standards for Mathematical Practice”. In order to illustrate the meaning of the Mathematical Practice Standards, non routine problems must be used that allow students and teachers to “dig deeper” and practice their mathematical habits of mind. Rational numbers …

Left-Orderability, Cyclic Branched Covers And Representations Of The Knot Group, Ying Hu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A group G is called left-orderable if one can find a total order on G, which is preserved under left multiplication. In this paper we first give a sufficient condition for the fundamental group of the nth cyclic branched cover of the three sphere over a prime knot K to be left-orderable, in terms of representations of the knot group. Then we make use of this criterion to study the left-orderability of fundamental groups of cyclic branched covers over two-bridge knots and satellite knots.

A New Method In Distribution Theory With A Non-Smooth Framework, Yunyun Yang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this work, we present a complete treatment of the theory of thick distributions and its asymptotic expansion. We also present several applications of thick distributions in mathematical physics, function spaces, and measure theory. We also discuss regularization using different surfaces. In the last chapter we present some recent applications of distributions in clarifying the moment terms in the heat kernel expansion, and in explaining the relation between the heat kernel expansion and the cylinder kernel expansion.