Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Early Life History Dynamics Of The Fish Community In The Atchafalaya River Basin, B. Thorpe Halloran

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Seasonal overbank flooding in systems like the Atchafalaya River Basin (ARB) provides the opportunity for fishes in the mainstem to access off-channel areas on the floodplain. Typically, newly inundated floodplain habitats allow adult fishes to add biomass, avoid predation, and potentially, to reproduce. However, in systems like the ARB, the timing, duration, and magnitude of flooding infrequently coincides with known reproductive periods of many fishes assumed to be floodplain-dependent. To quantify the level of floodplain-exploitative fish reproduction in the ARB, I collected larval and juvenile fish with a variety of sampling gear that allowed estimates in both ultra-shallow (< 2-m) and continuously-inundated habitats (headwater lakes, canals, and bayous). A suite of water quality parameters, river stage, flow, and hours of daylight were used to gauge the influence of environmental phenomena on age-0 abundance during both inundation and drawdown. The results of the 19-month study suggest that many taxa do not rely on the floodplain to ensure high survivorship. Interestingly, the reproductive ecologies of many ARB fishes appeared to be largely independent of widespread connectivity. Although an increasing hydrograph appeared to enhance reproductive output, the interannual timing and intensity of spawning showed limited variability. Larval densities were also contrasted with the microcrustacean zooplankton (copepods and cladocerans) population to assess if a potential food limitation existed in the weeks and months following hatching. During the study, increased zooplankter abundance was typically preceded by elevated river-floodplain connectivity. Conversely, as floodwaters receded during the summer, zooplankton abundance declined to lowest levels observed during the study. Overall, there was limited synchronous overlap between the hatchlings of most fish taxa and their zooplankter prey. This could have potentially resulted in starvation and reduced annual recruitment. Yet, my analysis of the factors that regulate larval fish abundance in the ARB suggest that the density of zooplankton was highly significant although high numbers of larvae and zooplankton rarely coincided. Finally, I compared the intraday (morning vs. afternoon) density and mean length of larval fish at fixed sample sites. The results suggest that once-daily ichthyoplankton collections may fail to provide accurate density and length measurements for young fish populations.

Augmented Breast Tumor Classification By Perfusion Analysis, Bruce Yu-Sun Lin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Magnetic resonance and computed tomography imaging aid in the diagnosis and analysis of pathologic conditions. Blood flow, or perfusion, through a region of tissue can be computed from a time series of contrast-enhanced images. Perfusion is an important set of physiological parameters that reflect angiogenesis. In cancer, heightened angiogenesis is a key process in the growth and spread of tumorous masses. An automatic classification technique using recovered perfusion may prove to be a highly accurate diagnostic tool. Such a classification system would supplement existing histopathological tests, and help physicians to choose the most optimal treatment protocol. Perfusion is obtained through …

Event Detection From Click-Through Data Via Query Clustering, Prabhu Kumar Angajala

Masters Theses

"The web is an index of real-world events and lot of knowledge can be mined from the web resources and their derivatives. Event detection is one recent research topic triggered from the domain of web data mining with the increasing popularity of search engines. In the visitor-centric approach, the click-through data generated by the web search engines is the start up resource with the intuition: often such data is event-driven. In this thesis, a retrospective algorithm is proposed to detect such real-world events from the click-through data. This approach differs from the existing work as it: (i) considers the click-through …

Representation And Validation Of Domain And Range Restrictions In A Relational Database Driven Ontology Maintenance System, Patrick Garrett. Edgett

Masters Theses

"An ontology can be used to represent and organize the objects, properties, events, processes, and relations that embody an area of reality [1]. These knowledge bases may be created manually (by individuals or groups), and/or automatically using software tools, such as those developed for information retrieval and data mining. Recently, the National Science Foundation funded a large collaborative development project for the semi-automated construction of an ontology of amphibian anatomy (AmphibAnat [2]). To satisfy the extensive community curation requirements of that project, a generic, Web-based, multi-user, relational database ontology management system (RDBOM [3]) was constructed, based upon a novel theoretical …

The Role Of Skeletal Development In Body Size Evolution Of Two North American Frogs, Sarah Beth Havens

Masters Theses

"In order to better understand the evolution of miniaturization in Acris blanchardi, a North American Hylid with a unique life history and of ecological interest in the United States. The development and ossification sequences of 48 larvae, 5 juveniles and 5 adult A. blanchardi were examined. The adult was described by Maglia et al. (2007) to be a miniature and to display morphological novelties. In addition, 44 larvae, 2 juvenile and 5 adults of Pseudacris crucifer a closely related frog that has been suggested to be a miniature, were examined. The cranial and postcranial adult elements of this species, as …

Content Based Image Retrieval For Bio-Medical Images, Vikas Nahar

Masters Theses

"Content Based Image Retrieval System (CBIR) is used to retrieve images similar to the query image. These systems have a wide range of applications in various fields. Medical subject headings, key words, and bibliographic references can be augmented with the images present within the articles to help clinicians to potentially improve the relevance of articles found in the querying process. In this research, image feature analysis and classification techniques are explored to differentiate images found in biomedical articles which have been categorized based on modality and utility. Examples of features examined in this research include: features based on different histograms …

Structure And Content Semantic Similarity Detection Of Extensible Markup Language Documents Using Keys, Waraporn Viyanon

Doctoral Dissertations

"XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) has become the fundamental standard for efficient data management and exchange. Due to the widespread use of XML for describing and exchanging data on the web, XML-based comparison is central issues in database management and information retrieval. In fact, although many heterogeneous XML sources have similar content, they may be described using different tag names and structures. This work proposes a series of algorithms for detection of structural and content changes among XML data. The first is an algorithm called XDoI (XML Data Integration Based on Content and Structure Similarity Using Keys) that clusters XML documents …

Search For Gravitational-Wave Inspiral Signals Associated With Short Gamma-Ray Bursts During Ligo's Fifth And Virgo's First Science Run, J. Abadie, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. Accadia, F. Acernese, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, G. Allen, E. Amador Ceron, R. S. Amin, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, F. Antonucci, S. Aoudia, M. A. Arain, M. Araya, K. G. Arun, Y. Aso, S. Aston, P. Astone, P. Aufmuth, C. Aulbert, S. Babak, P. Baker, G. Ballardin, S. Ballmer, D. Barker, F. Barone, B. Barr

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Progenitor scenarios for short gamma-ray bursts (short GRBs) include coalescenses of two neutron stars or a neutron star and black hole, which would necessarily be accompanied by the emission of strong gravitational waves. We present a search for these known gravitational-wave signatures in temporal and directional coincidence with 22 GRBs that had sufficient gravitational-wave data available in multiple instruments during LIGO's fifth science run, S5, and Virgo's first science run, VSR1. We find no statistically significant gravitational-wave candidates within a [ - 5, + 1)s window around the trigger time of any GRB. Using the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney U-test, we find no …

Apparent Faster-Than-Light Pulse Propagation In Interstellar Space: A New Probe Of The Interstellar Medium, F. A. Jenet, D. Fleckenstein, A. Ford, A. Garcia, R. Miller, J. Rivera, K. Stovall

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Radio pulsars emit regular bursts of radio radiation that propagate through the interstellar medium (ISM), the tenuous gas and plasma between the stars. Previously known dispersive properties of the ISM cause low-frequency pulses to be delayed in time with respect to high frequency ones. This effect can be explained by the presence of free electrons in the medium. The ISM also contains neutral hydrogen that has a well-known resonance at 1420.4 MHz. Electromagnetic theory predicts that at such a resonance, the induced dispersive effects will be drastically different from those of the free electrons. Pulses traveling through a cloud of …

Effects Of Α-Element Enhancement And The Thermally Pulsing-Asymptotic Giant Branch On Surface Brightness Fluctuation Magnitudes And Broadband Colors, Hyun Chul Lee, Guy Worthey, John P. Blakeslee

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We investigate the effects of α-element enhancement and the thermally pulsing-asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) stars on the surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) magnitudes and broadband colors of simple stellar populations and compare to the empirical calibrations. We consider a broad range of ages and metallicities using the recently updated Teramo BaSTI isochrones. We find that the α-element-enhanced I-band SBF magnitudes are about 0.35mag brighter and their integrated V - I colors are about 0.02mag redder, mostly because of oxygen-enhancement effects on the upper red giant branch and AGB. We also demonstrate, using both the Teramo BaSTI and Padova isochrones, the acute …

Triplets Of Supermassive Black Holes: Astrophysics Gravitational Waves And Detection, Pau Amaro-Seoane, Alberto Sesana, Loren Hoffman, Matthew Benacquista, Christoph Eichhorn, Junichiro Makino, Rainer Spurzem

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) found in the centres of many galaxies are understood to play a fundamental, active role in the cosmological structure formation process. In hierarchical formation scenarios, SMBHs are expected to form binaries following the merger of their host galaxies. If these binaries do not coalesce before the merger with a third galaxy, the formation of a black hole triple system is possible. Numerical simulations of the dynamics of triples within galaxy cores exhibit phases of very high eccentricity (as high as e∼ 0.99). During these phases, intense bursts of gravitational radiation can be emitted at orbital periapsis, …

An Evaluation Of Duck And Ring-Necked Pheasant Nest Survival And Nest Density In Relation To Patch Size And Landscape Variables In Eastern South Dakota, Keith J. Fisk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Grassland ecosystems in South Dakota have experienced significant transformations over the last 100 years. Landscapes are currently dominated by large agricultural fields interspersed with small, isolated grassland patches. These isolated grassland patches are hypothesized to experience decreased nest survival rates for ring-necked pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) and dabbling duck species due to small size and high degrees of fragmentation. Several natural resource agencies currently conserve grasslands throughout eastern South Dakota, but wildlife managers seek more information on how the size and spatial arrangement of grasslands affect targeted conservation strategies. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to: (1) evaluate the relationship …

Integrating Education, Evaluation & Partnerships Into Large-Scale Sustainable Stormwater Management Programs, Vivek Shandas, Anne Nelson, Carine Arendes

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Integrated stormwater management using green infrastructure shows promise in saving money and mitigating environmental impacts caused by urban development. Equally important are the potential community benefits, including better understanding of ecological systems, increased access to urban green spaces, safer and healthier neighborhoods, and informed residents that are equipped to take action to improve watershed health. As a partnership between the City of Portland Environmental Services, Portland State University, and residents of the Tabor to the River (T2R) neighborhood, we conducted a survey to understand the role of civic ecology in green infrastructure projects. The survey results indicate a high interest …

Comparing The Chelating Abilities Of N-Acetylcysteine And N-Acetylcysteine Amide In Vitro For Lead Poisoning Treatment, Weiqing Chen

Masters Theses

"Lead poisoning is a perennial and serious health problem around the world. The daily widespread use of lead has dramatically increased the degree and longevity of its exposure to humans, exacerbating the task of lead poisoning treatment. Lead exerts adverse effects on cardiovascular, central nervous, renal, gastrointestinal, and reproductive systems. The common treatment for lead poisoning is chelation therapy. Chelators were proposed to treat lead poisoning a very long time ago. However, chelators have severe side effects that could cause more problems, in addition to lead poisoning. Therefore, another group of drugs has been suggested --- antioxidants. This type of …

Calcium Carbonate Precipitation Mechanisms And Geochemical Analysis Of Particulate Material Found Within The Waters Of Maramec Spring, St. James, Missouri, Kyle Steven Rybacki

Masters Theses

"The purpose of the present study is to determine whether a mineral phase is precipitating from solution in the natural Maramec Spring system giving the spring water a milky blue color, to identify the mineral phase, and to investigate potential mechanisms for inducing precipitation. Maramec Spring is a first-order magnitude spring located 11 km southeast of St. James, Missouri. The water that expels from Maramec Spring varies between being near saturation, but undersaturated in calcium, with respect to calcite (saturation index of 0.994 mg/L). Moving downstream, away from the conduit, the spring waters increase in pH and temperature. Eh is …

Cloud Security Requirements Analysis And Security Policy Development Using A High-Order Object-Oriented Modeling Technique, Kenneth Kofi Fletcher

Masters Theses

"Security continues to be a major challenge for cloud computing, and it is one that must be addressed if cloud computing is to be fully accepted. Most technological means of securing non-cloud computing systems can be either applied directly or modified to secure a cloud; however, no integrated model-based methodology is yet available to analyze cloud security requirements and develop policy to deal with both internal and external security challenges. This work proposes just such a methodology and demonstrates its application with specific cases. Cloud assets are represented by high order object models, and misuse cases together with malactivity swimlane …

Cretaceous/Paleogene Boundary Biostratigraphy And Palynofacies Of The Alo-1 Well, Southeastern Nigeria, Janet Diane Raymer

Masters Theses

"The Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary (K/Pg) has been studied in great detail because of the fascination most people have with the extinction of the dinosaurs. The response of the vegetation to this extinction event has been studied in detail in mid to high latitudes, but little is known about what happened in the tropics. Sixty-seven samples from the Nsukka and Imo formations in the Alo-1 well in the Anambra Basin, southeastern Nigeria have been studied for their palynological contents. The aims of the study was to use spores, pollen and dispersed organic matter components to interpret biostratigraphy, and evaluate depositional conditions across …

Enantioselective Synthesis Of Bicarbocyclic Structures With An All-Carbon Quaternary Stereocenter Through Sequential Cross Metathesis And Intramolecular Rauhut-Currier Reaction, Yuan Qiao, Sanjeev Kumar, William Paul Malachowski

Chemistry Faculty Research and Scholarship

A new extension of the Birch-Cope sequence is described which allows the efficient enantioselective construction of highly functionalized, fused bicarbocyclic structures with an all-carbon quaternary stereo-center in two steps. The two-step sequence includes a cross metathesis between a terminal alkene and a polarized alkene followed by an intramolecular Rauhut-Currier reaction with a trialkylphosphine catalyst.

Noninnocent Dithiolene Ligands: A New Oxomolybdenum Complex Possessing A Donor-Acceptor Dithiolene Ligand, Kelly G. Matz, Regina P. Mtei, Belinda Leung, Sharon J. Nieter Burgmayer, Martin L. Kirk

Chemistry Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Using Mathematics As A Gateway To Literacy For English Language Learners, Krista Hemphill

Honors Program Theses

One teaching approach that alleviates language barriers involves teachers using what students know and can do to develop students‟ understanding of and ability in another area. Thus, 2 teachers can promote ELLs‟ literacy development by integrating knowledge and skills ELLs have from another subject area into their literacy instruction. Specifically, teachers can integrate mathematics into literacy instruction because research suggests that ELLs often understand and successfully carry out mathematical tasks. For example, Gunning (2003) points out that ELLs tend to perform well on mathematical computations. The universality of mathematical symbols seems to promote ELLs‟ understanding of mathematics instruction although lessons …

Developing A Model For Evaluating Software Tools In Education, Vedant Jain

Masters Theses

"This thesis proposes a research model to evaluate computer-mediated learning technology, user acceptance of the technology, and the effect of the technology on learning outcomes. This thesis also introduces two innovative research techniques for such evaluations, that is, eye-tracking and the think aloud protocol. Think aloud protocol allows us to understand a user's state of mind while he/she is interacting with the system. Eye-tracking provides additional insights into a user's cognitive state while using the system and can help triangulate the results. We demonstrated the application of the research model and research techniques in evaluating visualization software designed in a …

New Classes Of Neutrosophic Linear Algebras, Florentin Smarandache, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, K. Ilanthenral

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this book we introduce mainly three new classes of linear algebras; neutrosophic group linear algebras, neutrosophic semigroup linear algebras and neutrosophic set linear algebras. The authors also define the fuzzy analogue of these three structures. This book is organized into seven chapters. Chapter one is introductory in content. The notion of neutrosophic set linear algebras and neutrosophic neutrosophic set linear algebras are introduced and their properties analysed in chapter two. Chapter three introduces the notion of neutrosophic semigroup linear algebras and neutrosophic group linear algebras. A study of their substructures are systematically carried out in this chapter. The fuzzy …

Interval Groupoids, Florentin Smarandache, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Moon Kumar Chetry

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

This book introduces several new classes of groupoid, like polynomial groupoids, matrix groupoids, interval groupoids, polynomial interval groupoids, matrix interval groupoids and their neutrosophic analogues.

Proposed Problems Of Mathematics (Vol. Ii), Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The first book of “Problèmes avec et sans … problèmes!” was published in Morocco in 1983. I collected these problems that I published in various Romanian or foreign magazines (amongst which: “Gazeta Matematică”, magazine which formed me as problem solver, “American Mathematical Monthly”, “Crux Mathematicorum” (Canada), “Elemente der Mathematik” (Switzerland), “Gaceta Matematica” (Spain), “Nieuw voor Archief” (Holland), etc. while others are new proposed problems in this second volume.

These have been created in various periods: when I was working as mathematics professor in Romania (1984-1988), or co-operant professor in Morocco (1982-1984), or emigrant in the USA (1990-1997). I thank to …

Single Valued Neutrosophic Sets, Haibin Wang, Florentin Smarandache, Yanqing Zhang, Rajshekhar Sunderraman

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Neutrosophic set is a part of neutrosophy which studies the origin, nature, and scope of neutralities, as well as their interactions with different ideational spectra. Neutrosophic set is a powerful general formal framework that has been recently proposed. However, neutrosophic set needs to be specified from a technical point of view. To this effect, we define the settheoretic operators on an instance of neutrosophic set, we call it single valued neutrosophic set (SVNS). We provide various properties of SVNS, which are connected to the operations and relations over SVNS.

Processing And Conversion Of Algae To Bioethanol, Sara Katherine Kampfe

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Extra Dimensions And Electroweak Symmetry Breaking, Jong Anly Tan

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

In anticipation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is currently scheduled to start operating in September 2009, Particle physicists have developed various models to predict phenomena that may be observed in the LHC data. One of the ideas that have been developed is warped extra dimensions. The S parameter, one of the electroweak precision observables is predicted by experiments to be less than about 0.1. However, most of the models that try to explain the electroweak symmetry breaking without a Higgs Boson have a large S parameter > 0.2.;We study the possibility of reducing the S parameter in a wared …

Building Efficient Wireless Infrastructures For Pervasive Computing Environments, Bo Sheng

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Pervasive computing is an emerging concept that thoroughly brings computing devices and the consequent technology into people's daily life and activities. Most of these computing devices are very small, sometimes even "invisible", and often embedded into the objects surrounding people. In addition, these devices usually are not isolated, but networked with each other through wireless channels so that people can easily control and access them. In the architecture of pervasive computing systems, these small and networked computing devices form a wireless infrastructure layer to support various functionalities in the upper application layer.;In practical applications, the wireless infrastructure often plays a …

Applications Of Pattern Classification To Time-Domain Signals, Crystal Ann Bertoncini

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Many different kinds of physics are used in sensors that produce time-domain signals, such as ultrasonics, acoustics, seismology, and electromagnetics. The waveforms generated by these sensors are used to measure events or detect flaws in applications ranging from industrial to medical and defense-related domains. Interpreting the signals is challenging because of the complicated physics of the interaction of the fields with the materials and structures under study. often the method of interpreting the signal varies by the application, but automatic detection of events in signals is always useful in order to attain results quickly with less human error. One method …

A Measurement Of The Neutron Electric Form Factor At Very Large Momentum Transfer Using Polarized Electrons Scattering From A Polarized Helium-3 Target, Aidan Michael Kelleher

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Knowledge of the electric and magnetic elastic form factors of the nucleon is essential for an understanding of nucleon structure. of the form factors, the electric form factor of the neutron has been measured over the smallest range in Q2 and with the lowest precision. Jefferson Lab experiment 02-013 used a novel new polarized 3He target to nearly double the range of momentum transfer in which the neutron form factor has been studied and to measure it with much higher precision. Polarized electrons were scattered off this target, and both the scattered electron and neutron were detected. GEn was measured …