A Preliminary Report of the Carotenoid Assessment in Adults 50 Years of Age and Older in Louisiana

Fruits and vegetables are at the core of a healthy, balanced diet. They assist in preventing the development of chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer (Fadnes, et al., 2022). Aging is a natural biological process followed by disease, cognitive impairment, and a natural decline of the body’s ability to perform at its best. The older adult population is currently the fastest-growing population globally (El-Shebiney et al., 2022). Vitamin A is crucial for several parts of the body to function correctly. Despite the positive effects of Vitamin A on the body, the recommended dietary intake is not being met in the United States. This is especially important in the growing population of adults ≥ 50. Educating this population on the importance of a healthy lifestyle and diet is crucial in preventing the onset of chronic diseases and other age-related issues. This study assessed the consumption of Vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables in adults ≥ 50 residing in Northwest Louisiana using the Veggie Meter® device and selfreported fruit and vegetable intake. This cross-sectional research design included a researcher-developed electronic questionnaire and non-invasive physical measurements of skin carotenoids. Participants were recruited via email invitations, flyers, and personal contacts. Eligible participants include those ≥ 50 years of age who are free-living, noninstitutionalized, and can self-report food intake. Data was collected using the Veggie Meter® Instrument and through Qualtrics Survey Software. The survey consisted of 5 demographic items, 11 health and vitamin supplement items, the REAP-S diet quality tool (14 items), six eating environment items, three medication items, three diet counseling items, and a Vitamin A food frequency component modeled after a previous study conducted in the Nutrition and Dietetics program at Louisiana Tech University (Putnam et al., 2023). A total of fifty-nine adults participated in this study. However, only fifty-six completed the electronic questionnaire and all non-invasive Veggie Meter® measurements. The majority of participants were females (66.1%), and 33.9 percent of participants were males. The majority of participants were White and Non-Hispanic (98.0%), while the smallest proportion of race was African-American or Black (0.03%). The mean age of participants was 67, while participants ranged from ages 52 to 84 years of age. Several findings were revealed in this study. It was reported that males had higher mean carotenoid scores than females; there was a significant positive correlation between food frequency scores, total REAP-S scores, and mean carotenoid scores. There was no correlation between BMI in older adults ≥ 50, which is a different finding from that of younger adult populations. There was no difference in carotenoid scores between age quartiles; however, the sample size was small. There was a positive correlation between REAP-S diet quality scores and participants who rarely skipped breakfast. Participants who rarely skipped breakfast scored higher on the REAP-S portion of the questionnaire. Those who saw a Registered Dietitian for any reason in the past scored significantly higher on the REAP-S portion of the questionnaire, which resulted in a positive correlation. There was a negative correlation between age and eating out. As age increased, the number of times participants ate meals outside of the home per week decreased. Unlike in a previous study, no significant correlations were found between this sample and BMI. The REAP-S items regarding fruit and vegetable intake revealed that 68% of participants are not eating ≥ two servings of fruit per day and 79% are not eating two or more servings of vegetables per day Expanding the size and diversity of participants and conducting more research could give insight into more appropriate interventions for this population. By implementing more educational pieces to the puzzle, adults 50 years of age and older could develop healthier habits overall and increase their quality and longevity of life

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics for Free-Surface Flows and Time Series Forecasting Approach for Computational Fluid Dynamics

With the increase in computing power, numerical simulation has become an essential approach to solving problems in engineering and science. Numerical simulations provide a platform for theoretical validation and facilitate novel discovery. Even though extensive mesh-based numerical methods are utilized, significant limitations exist, particularly in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Because of the grid distortion, issues related to large deformations, moving interfaces, and free surfaces may lead to considerable computational errors, constraining their efficacy in numerous applications. As a mesh-free method, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) was introduced in 1977 and has been widely applied in many fields such as astrophysics and hydrodynamics (D. a. Liu 2015). Free surface flow problems are covered in various domains, including hydraulic engineering, mechanical engineering, ship hydrodynamics, and petrochemical engineering. Hence, studying the free surface flow problem has theoretical and practical significance. Due to the advantages of SPH in handling large deformations and free boundaries, SPH is particularly suitable for free surface flow problems. Furthermore, new achievements in computational power improve computing efficiency; this enables SPH to simulate complex free surface flows. This dissertation studies the validation of SPH for free surface flow applications and explores a time series forecasting method to enhance CFD. There are four main contributions to this dissertation: First, we introduce artificial viscosity into SPH. In the meantime, this improved method is shown through demos of free surface flow in different cases. Second, based on the demos of the improved SPH method in Chapter 3, we discuss the water break models to explore the further application of SPH in complex coastal environments in Chapter 4. We also analyze the interaction between waves and various water break designs. Then, we assess the effects of different structures on wave overtopping to identify the optimal water break configuration. Third, we address the importance of water level research by examining water break models. In Chapter 5, with historical water level data from the Mississippi River, we discuss a time series analysis model based on ARIMA to forecast future water levels. The forecast results are in line with the actual trend. Finally, we show how GPU parallel computation dramatically improves the simulation efficiency of our model

The Moderating Effect of Empathy on the Relationship between Psychological Reactance and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a phenomenon found across cultures, genders, and sexualities. Those who are victimized are more likely to experience negative health and psychological outcomes than those who have not and are also at an increased risk for becoming perpetrators themselves. This has resulted in a significant need to identify the risk factors associated with perpetrators, so cycles of violence can be broken and violence can be prevented. Previous research has utilized a predominately feminist perspective to understand IPV perpetration risk factors and has focused predominately on exclusively male samples. Additional research is needed to develop a broader understanding of the interactive processes that lead individuals to become IPV perpetrators. Using psychological reactance theory as a framework, the purpose of this study was to investigate if empathy moderates the relationship between psychological reactance and IPV perpetration. This study surveyed 278 participants recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) survey platform. Results found verbal psychological reactance to be higher in those who did not endorse IPV perpetration and behavioral psychological reactance to be higher in participants who endorsed IPV perpetration. Empathy was not shown to be statistically significantly related to verbal or behavioral reactance and was also not found to moderate the relationship between reactance and IPV perpetration. Overall, the findings suggest that although there is a link between reactance and IPV perpetration, empathy does not strengthen or moderate the relationship between psychological reactance and IPV perpetration

Solid-State Crystallization of Zeolites and Their Use in Plastic Upcycling Applications

Plastics have been an irreplaceable component of modern technology as well as everyday life. They have brought much convenience to us with their characteristics of great malleability, durability, and stability. The versatile and low-cost nature of plastics also enables their wide engagement in many modern industries including automobile, medical, communication as well as aerospace. Polyethylene (“PE”), made from polymerization of ethylene, is one of the most widely used plastics in the world. Being cheap, flexible, and long-lasting, they are extensively used in the packaging industry, especially for plastic bags and other sorts of containers. However, the durability of plastics, on the other hand, leads to increasing environmental problems. Annually, over 400 million tons of plastics are manufactured globally and only less than 9% of them are recycled. The majority of plastic waste ends up in landfills or other natural environments including the ocean, leading to severe concern for both animal and human health. The main cause of the low plastic recycling rate is due to the limitations of current recycling methods. Many challenges and obstacles, including plastic diversity, contamination, and downcycling, lead to a low incentive for plastic recycling, as they are not economically profitable. Efforts have been made to explore the possibilities of upcycling plastics into value-added products for a better economic drive in plastic recycling. One promising solution is catalytical recycling, which breaks down the polymer chain through less energy-intensive processes to form basic building blocks, wax, fuel, or other valuable materials. Zeolites are crystalline aluminosilicates that are widely used in the chemical industry. They have specified pores that are defined by their crystal structures, which make them highly selective in many catalytic reactions. The solid acidic sites of Bronsted and Lewis acid also help to effectively break down polymer chains as catalysts. Given their desired porous structure and solid acidic properties, there is much potential for catalytical recycling of polyethylene using zeolites. Yet, the current use of zeolites in polyethylene recycling still suffers from several drawbacks like high temperature (energy intensive), and low selectivity towards desired products (not enough value for recycling). Not to mention that conventional zeolites with micropores often encounter diffusion issues which would reduce catalytical efficiency and lead to coking. New methods are needed to make better and cheaper zeolites as well as improve the upcycling effectiveness to make the process more economical. Hierarchical zeolites with mesopores have better diffusion for large molecules such as polyethylene. Traditionally hierarchical zeolites are made either using expensive templates involving hydrothermal treatment, which produces liquid waste and is energyintensive, or through complicated post-synthetic procedures. We here report a new solidstate method to synthesize hierarchical ZSM-5 without using any mesoscale template. The hierarchical zeolites we synthesized have a particle size of around 300-400 nm and larger pore volume and surface area compared to commercial ZSM-5. The synthesis conditions for these hierarchical zeolites were also optimized by changing aging conditions, SDA/TEOS ratio, reaction temperature, and time. To evaluate the catalytical properties over PE upcycling of our hierarchical zeolites, we performed the depolymerization experiments of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) with both solid-solid reaction and solvothermal systems. Reaction results were compared between conventional microporous zeolites and our newly synthesized mesoporous zeolites. Higher conversion and selectivity towards liquid products were observed using our mesoporous zeolites (Meso-ZSM-5 in particular). Detailed analysis of liquid and solid products was made for the upcycling process at a temperature range of 240-320 ℃ . We also investigated the reaction results using different solvents (hexane, cyclohexane, and petroleum ether) to further explore the possibilities of solvent-assisted depolymerization of LDPE using zeolites

Enhancing University Retention through Faculty/Staff Mentor-Mentee Relationships: An Interpersonal Communication Approach

This study investigates the role of interpersonal communication in faculty and staff mentorship and its impact on undergraduate student retention, focusing on struggling students at Louisiana Tech University. With a national retention rate of 68.2% and persistent disparities among underrepresented groups, improving student retention remains a critical issue in higher education. The research addresses a gap in understanding how communication practices, such as active listening, empathy, and constructive feedback, influence mentorship effectiveness. Guided by Interpersonal Communication Theory and Social Support Theory, this qualitative study utilized semi-structured interviews with 12 undergraduate students. Thematic analysis revealed key findings: mentors who demonstrated empathy, maintained proactive and accessible communication, fostered trust and open dialogue, and provided supportive feedback significantly enhanced students ’sense of belonging and academic confidence. These practices contributed to students\u27 academic persistence and overall retention. The study offers practical recommendations for designing mentorship programs that emphasize effective communication, alongside suggestions for future research on mentorship dynamics. These findings highlight the importance of relational support in fostering student success and advancing institutional retention strategies

If You Were a Sesame Street Character, Which One Would You Be? Natural Language Processing and Personality with Big Bird and Friends

This paper examined and compared several natural language processing and machine learning techniques in predicting self-reported Big Five personality traits from text responses. The models were validated on the open-source 2019 SIOP Machine Learning Competition dataset (N = 1,689). The techniques evaluated included bag-of-words, Empath dictionary, LSTM networks, fine-tuning Transformer models, and stacked generalization. Results indicated that the present study’s models had lower error in four of the five constructs analyzed. Limitations of the study include use of an MTurk sample and small sample size. Future research should explore similar techniques on larger applicant samples. Practical implications and contributions to the literature are also discussed

Creating a Framework to Develop Project-Based Platforms to Support Engineering and Technology Education

Engineering education has evolved over the last few decades to increasingly include project-based learning (PBL) throughout the curriculum to give students more hands-on experience. However, there can be a hesitancy from faculty and instructors to move from traditional lectures to PBL-based curricula. Research has been conducted to identify barriers to research-based instructional strategies (RBIS), which include PBL. However, this research does not go into depth about the specific barriers for these individual RBIS. Furthermore, it has been found that the adoption of a new practice within a community has more success through a propagation paradigm, where the change agents are actively involved in engaging the community to adopt the new practice, as opposed to the dissemination paradigm, which relies solely on the evidence of the success of the new practice to lead to systemic adoption. This dissertation identifies the specific barriers to PBL and introduces a new project development tool, the Project Development Canvas (PDC), which guides the user through the project development process. The research detailed in this dissertation leverages the propagation paradigm to help faculty and instructors overcome key barriers to increase the adoption of PBL in classrooms through training on the PDC. The methodology for this research is based on Action Research, a collaborative approach to bringing about change in a community through an iterative research cycle involving planning, action, analysis, and a conclusion. To propagate the framework into the engineering education community, faculty and instructors in the engineering education community were engaged through two separate workshops. The first was a local, two-day workshop held in the College of Engineering and Science at Louisiana Tech University, which provided an in-depth description and demonstration of the PDC. The second workshop was held at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) annual conference. It followed the same format as the local workshop, although somewhat abbreviated due to time restrictions. Both workshops incorporated a pre-survey and post-evaluation to gauge what barriers the attendees identified, what barriers the framework and associated workshops reduced, and whether the training increased their willingness to use PBL. The key findings of the results identify the most common PBL barriers to be “Lack of information/familiarity” and “Too much prep time,” and show that both were addressed through training on the PDC. Additionally, the results show an overwhelmingly positive change in the participants’ willingness to use projects in their classrooms. This research not only establishes this new framework tool in the engineering education community, but also provides proof that it is effective in building interest in the use of PBL in the classroom

An Exploratory Case Study of a Community Food Pantry in Northwest Louisiana

Many individuals are struggling with food insecurity in Louisiana; according to the Louisiana Food Bank Association\u27s website, Feeding Louisiana’s 2023 impact report, an estimated 683,100 people in Louisiana experience food insecurity. In northwest Louisiana, 30% of the population lives below the poverty line, with an average income of $34,485 per household. Common Ground is a nonprofit community outreach program in Northwest Louisiana, specifically Shreveport. The program has been in operation for over 20 years and strives to provide a place free of judgment and a place of common ground for those in the Cedar Grove community. Each week, they have a variety of programs for both children and adults, in addition to a community meal and the opportunity to access their food pantry (Common Ground, n.d.). All service organizations were strained during the COVID-19 pandemic as they are in other crises such as natural disasters. This research project sought to reflect on the experiences of this organization, the challenges encountered and the strategies it employed to provide supplemental foods to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic periods. It is not unusual in the best of times for these organizations to report financial constraints, limited storage for food, limited volunteer labor and needed connectedness with the clients (Cahill et al., 2017; Vaterlaus et al., 2018). The challenges, process changes, delivery of services, and organizational resilience were explored. Many food system changes, including food access and delivery during the pandemic, resulted in many strategic changes for service organizations, particularly feeding the food insecure in the community. Organizations needed to make quick adjustments to operational process, some were temporary others were retained after the pandemic. Case studies such as this one may assist organizations in reflecting on the actions taken during times of stress, such as natural disasters and pandemics in order to prepare for future stressors and by building successful strategies and resilience. The specific objectives of this retrospective case study included 1) determining the changes in the community meals served and the pounds of food distributed via the food pantry before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic using retrospective organizational data, 2) conducting an analysis of the management strategies for serving meals and operating the food pantry using in-depth interviews with key management personnel. This organization\u27s quantitative data was used to support key informant interview responses. Data collection commenced following approval from the Common Ground organization and the Louisiana Tech Institutional Review Board (IRB 25-025). The quantitative data chosen for this study was documented during June, July, and August during the years 2019, 2021, and 2023. The year 2019 represented the pre-pandemic period, 2021 represented the occurrence of the pandemic, and 2023 represented the post-pandemic period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the organization\u27s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the grant writer, and five long-term volunteers. Data indicated an increased need in the community, as the pounds of food distributed were significantly higher during COVID-19 compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. This may be related to job loss, not being eligible for SNAP initially and the period of time it took to receive approval for support, or having reached the maximum amount of benefits that did not fully meet the needs of the household (Pandemic Unemployment Insurance Provisions; n.d.). The pounds of food distributed post-COVID remained higher than the pre-COVID number. This could be related to the extended time it took for community members to recover financially when returning to work, those taking part-time jobs, having only one worker in the household when previously there were two, and returning to work at lower paying jobs. The number of households served at the food pantry also experienced interesting trends. The number of households served at the food pantry was the highest during the pandemic and the lowest during the post-pandemic period. One explanation for this could be that the Common Ground food pantry was distributing an increased amount of food to a smaller amount of households. The number of community meals served post-pandemic was slightly higher than those served during the pandemic and was substantially higher than the pre-pandemic months. The pandemic introduced new households to the services provided by Common Ground and more may have been accessing the community meal in addition to the food pantry services. The financial recovery time may also have impacted the use of the meal service. An additional explanation for the increase in the community meal attendees could be the community\u27s excitement and need to engage with their community post-pandemic. The interviewees confirmed that new community members who engaged with Common Ground during COVID-19, stayed engaged with Common Ground after COVID-19. The consistency of the program and its volunteers may have contributed to developing the relationships with the clients, which extended client engagement. Additionally, the ability to engage in relationships with others in similar circumstances and feel welcomed by the volunteers might have aided the community members in not feeling embarrassed or shame when accessing these types of services for the first time in their lives. When interviewees were asked what they would recommend to other organizations going through crisis situations, the majority stated they would advise them to simply be flexible and lead with consistency and compassion. They also reported that listening to their community was an essential part of their management strategy so they could quickly adjust processes to meet their needs. The immediate issue was to adjust their process for receiving the large amounts of food needed from a large food bank organization. This meant there was a need to address the food storage issue. One way to prepare for this problem is to consider purchasing or leasing temporary storage for dry or perishable goods and to identify alternate storage sites within the organization. Perhaps some rooms used for congregating could be temporarily used for storage. A plan in place prior to a crisis for food storage can be essential. It was also noted that the volunteers did not receive formal training regarding food safety or creating food boxes or in this case infection control measures. Offering formal training to volunteers would increase efficiency and aid in any confusion that could occur during a crisis. Having the organization develop a written plan for crises and training multiple people on this plan is essential. As with COVID-19, in organizations with very few paid staff, all need to be cross-trained, as key employees or volunteers may have become unable to perform duties due to illness. All organizations could also benefit from communicating with other organizations to create a collaborative plan for emergencies to reduce redundancy of effort. As this organization had an extended reach into the community, it was able to draw upon new volunteer labor. This should be modeled in a collaborative, community plan for future crises. In volunteer-based organizations, the toll on the volunteers can be great if the workload and duties are greatly increased. This was seen in this organization. For example, original efforts at meeting community needs extended past what volunteers could provide and had to be reduced to a manageable level, although still higher than the pre-pandemic period. This organization was nimble enough with adequate resources to move their pantry and community meal services outdoors. Because they owned property near the building, they were able to open two car lines to distribute food. Common Ground had an increased presence on social media, which continued after this experience. The car lines to pick up food boxes also served as marketing for the programs. Volunteers noted that this might have given them some of the new clients, as well as new clients spreading news of the services by word-of-mouth. Future work with volunteer organizations could focus on assisting with development of emergency procedures and strategies for management during crises. Assisting these organizations with finding resources for policies and best practices is essential. It may benefit these organizations to seek like organizations to reflect on their experiences and their management strategies to inform them of the development of crisis plans specific to them. Future research could investigate and document the reasons for continued high levels of access to needed services. This would enable researchers to study the factors that most effected food needs during the pandemic in order to plan for mitigation

Real-Time Prediction of Dynamical Systems Using a Hybrid Analog Computer: Network Traffic Modeling

As the number of online users grows exponentially, the number and severity of cyber threats escalate, urgently requiring advancements in real-time network modeling and response. Swiftly predicting and analyzing network traffic is crucial for effective network monitoring and control, preventing cyber breaches, and maintaining healthy network functionality. This research presents a novel approach to real-time modeling based on analyzing evolving properties and patterns in a dynamical network system using a hybrid analog-digital computer. An analog computer was utilized as a co-processor to compute differential equations that model the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) window size. A comparative analysis was conducted between the digital model, using Euler’s numerical integration method, and the hybrid model. Based on the Median Absolute Percent Error (MedAPE) statistical metric, the digital model attains a 98.87% accuracy in predicting TCP window size, while the hybrid model achieves 91.85% accuracy, excluding the precision loss from the pre-processed input signals. The hybrid model demonstrated a 570% improvement in execution time performance compared to the digital model, proving superior speed with minimal sacrifice on accuracy. The analysis further compares linear and nonlinear dynamical approaches, including Model Predictive Control (MPC), frequency-domain techniques, and Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs), underscoring the hybrid system’s speed advantage, particularly for complex, real-time applications. The findings establish hybrid analog-digital systems as a potent alternative for dynamic network traffic modeling, providing a foundation for broader applications in nonlinear dynamical systems