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Exploring Language Center Connectivity in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Across Language Subgroups
Get PDFLanguage deficits are associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but the relation between language skills, corpus callosum (CC), and language connectivity has been underexplored. Interhemispheric connectivity between the inferior frontal gyrus and posterior superior temporal gyrus, and the arcuate fasciculus (AF) were examined in 54 children with ASD and 49 typically developing (TD) children, 3-17 years. There was leftward asymmetry of the AF, but not in children with ASD and impaired language. The severely impaired language group had reduced integrity of the AF relative to children with moderately or no impaired language. Language pathway integrity was associated with better language in ASD and TD. CC volume was associated with pathway integrity in TD children but not in ASD. Results suggest that the severely impaired language group may differ from other ASD subgroups and that the CC may play a different role in language organization in ASD versus typical development
Asset Pricing Models in Crypto-currency and Stock Markets
Get PDFThe dissertation consists of two chapters discussing the asset pricing models in Cryptocurrency markets and stock markets. In the first paper, we design an equilibrium model for the dynamics of the Crypto-currency mining markets in the presence of professional miners and casual miners. We apply our setup to the Bitcoin and Ethereum markets and find that major changes in their prices reflect substantial mining technological enhancements. Our model recovers, by applying Kalman filter, the dynamics of two critical but unobservable quantities: the supply for new computing power, which can be thought of as a random walk capturing the marginal enchantments in the mining technology, and the fixed cost of mining, which is found to decrease exponentially over time. We find a higher efficiency in the market for Bitcoins over Ethereum. Our empirical results show that when the price of Crypto-currency increases, the supply of computing power will also increase, following the direction of the price of Crypto-currency. Causal miners are crowded out, as a result, professional miners are dominant in mining market and there most likely exists monopoly in the mining markets when the price of Crypto-currency keeps increasing. In the second paper, we employ Reduced Rank Regression method to extract GLS latent factors through the time-varying asset characteristics. We show that GLS latent factors have superior efficiency compared to OLS latent factors. We demonstrate that Instrumented Principal Component Analysis (IPCA) introduced by Kelly et al. (2019) and Projected Principal component Analysis (PPCA) introduced by Fan et al. (2016) can be cast in the framework of Reduced Rank Regression that can accommodate both cross-sectional and time dependence. The RRR formulation also provides a framework for rich extensions. We develop maximum likelihood estimators, provide the asymptotic theory and study sparseness. The additional information contained in the more general covariance structure allows for a better and more parsimonious fit and unconditional spanning of the mean-variance frontier. We derive a closed-form limiting distribution for the regression parameters which allows for a more precise mispricing inference
SISTERS
Get PDFThis paper will examine the process of producing my short thesis film SISTERS. It includes a self reflective analysis of my filmmaking approach from start to finish with accompanying documentation to further show the specifics of the production process. My experience as a graduate student in the University of New Orleans film and theatre department will also be discussed in length
Thank You, Neck
Get PDFThank You, Neck is a UNO thesis film that was filmed in November of 2022 and delivered in May of 2023. It was written and directed by Marion Forbes who will presume first-person singular (ie. “I”, “Me”, “My”) in the following reflection paper charting the development, pre-production, production, and post-production of the aforementioned short film. The thesis paper discusses the process of creating the film from concept, pre-production, production, post-production, and completion
The Spirit of Justice: The Emotional Experience of Racial Identity Formation Among Social Justice Activists
Get PDF“Race” and racial identity are concepts that have rarely been explored as psychological or emotional phenomena. The concept of “race” itself is often taken for granted as a “natural” human category; there has been little attention to the emotional consequences of coming into awareness about one’s racial identity, especially in the case of white racial identity. This qualitative study explores the racial identity formation process by examining life history narratives of ten social justice activists with self-described “strong spiritual practices” in the Northeast region of the United States. Six important themes emerged from this project: (1) racial identity formation is marked by shame, trauma, grief, and, for some, spiritual growth and expansion, (2) white racial identity formation is deeply marked by the experience of shame, not to be confused with guilt, (3) shame and trauma share many physiological, emotional, and psychological features, (4) spirituality has been used to personal transmute, transform, and transcend the cultural pain and suffering of racial trauma and shame, (5) social justice and anti-oppression activism appears to be an expression of what the literature has termed “post-traumatic growth,” and (6) spirituality informs how the study participants reconciled racial subjectivity and activism. The study concludes that addressing racism cannot be a purely intellectual exercise. “Race” and racism are embodied phenomena fraught with human emotion and the essence of identity or personhood. As such, there is a need for much research that seeks to understand the role of human emotion in racial identity formation and in healing racism
The Impacts of Changing Trade Policies, the Pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine War on Trade Volumes, Jobs, and Economic Growth in Louisiana Port City Regions and the State of Louisiana
Get PDFOn March 1, 2018, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent levy on aluminum. Citing national security concerns and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the President described the tariffs as an effort to “level the global economic playing field.” Over the next several months, he also imposed tariffs on other goods imported from China as well as ally nations, such as Mexico, Canada, and countries within the European Union. The U.S. is both a consumer of imported steel and aluminum and a major exporter of corn and soybeans. The steel and aluminum tariffs have had far-reaching effects, including retaliatory tariffs imposed by affected nations, and especially China, on U.S. agricultural products. The Lower Mississippi River Port Complex is the largest port complex in the world and a major international trade hub that is critical to the global supply chain system. Trade policies that impact the Louisiana ports can have far-reaching effects that go well beyond their immediate boundaries. The research carried out in support of this dissertation seeks to increase our understanding of how international trade policies can affect the productivity of ports and the economies of the communities that support them. It measures the cargo volumes through the ports following imposition of the steel and aluminum tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs on corn and soybean exports and measures the impacts of the trade policies on employment in the Transportation and Warehousing sector and the economic growth of the port city regions and the state of Louisiana. It also examines the impact on the ports of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia- Ukraine War; global events that occurred concurrently with imposition of the tariffs. Overall, the analysis found that the tariff policy had significant implications for trade dynamics, import volumes, local economic performance, and supply chains. The findings underscore the complex and evolving nature of international trade, which necessitates careful consideration of trade policies and their potential effects on local and regional economies and supply chain dynamics before they are enacted
2023 Statewide Omnibus Survey
Get PDFThe University of New Orleans’ Survey Research Center (SRC) conducted a live interviewer telephone survey of 429 registered voters in Louisiana. Telephone numbers were selected at random from a sample frame of registered voters. Interviews were conducted from October 25 to November 2. The combined landline and cell phone sample matches the gender, age, and race parameters from the voter file obtained from the Louisiana Secretary of State. The margin of error is +/- 4.7 percent at a 95% confidence level
From Child to Children: The Experiences of Economically Marginalized Parents as Their Family Sizes Grow
Get PDFCharacterization of the Structure and Function of Enzymes Required for Phycoerythrin II Biosynthesis in Marine Synechococcus species
Get PDFCyanobacteria are gram-negative oxygen-evolving photosynthetic microorganisms found in aquatic and terrestrial environments. Cyanobacteria utilize a large light harvesting complex, called a phycobilisome (PBS), that is comprised of pigmented proteins. These pigmented proteins, called phycobiliproteins (PBP), include allophycocyanin (APC), which composes the PBS core, phycocyanin (PC) and phycoerythrin (PE), which compose the PBS rods that extend from the core. PBP allows cyanobacteria to absorb visible light energy and transfer this energy to photosystem complexes to enhance photosynthesis. PBP are comprised of α- and β-subunits that have specific cysteine residues (C), where heme-derived bilin chromophores are added. The enzymes that facilitate the attachment of bilins are called lyases. Some lyases not only mediate attachment but can also induce the isomerization of the bilin molecules to alter the double bond conjugation.
In this study, the amino acids that confer the ability to isomerize bilin are investigated in the bilin lyases MpeW and MpeQ from Synechococcus sp. A15-62. These enzymes were selected because they both attach the PEB bilin to MpeA at C83, however MpeQ isomerizes the PEB to PUB. To identify the residues that contribute to isomerization, point mutations were created in these enzymes and studied using a heterologous co-expression system in E. coli. Biochemical and molecular techniques were used to identify the key residues in lyase and isomerase function. It was determined that positions 224, 319, 320, 323, and 348 played a role in bilin isomerization, with position 319 being the most critical for isomerization to occur. Positions 318, 285, and 353 were suggested to be important for lyase activity in MpeQ, but these findings need to be further studied.
Lastly, the putative bilin lyase MpeU was characterized in this work. Previously described enzymes in the same family, CpeF and MpeV, were shown to doubly ligate a bilin to the C48/59 equivalent C residues of b-PE subunits. The CpeF enzyme, from Fremyella diplosiphon, doubly ligates the PEB bilin on CpeB; MpeV attaches and isomerizes PEB to PUB to CpeB and MpeB in Synechococcus sp. RS9916. The function of mpeU from Synechococcus spp. RS9916 (encodes both mpeV and mpeU) and A15-62 (encodes only mpeU) was explored using recombinant protein expression of MpeU, CpeS, CpeZ and the PEI and PEII subunits. The results show that MpeU is a PEB lyase isomerase that can attach and isomerize PEB to PUB at C50/61 of MpeB in RS9916 whereas MpeU from A15-62 acts as a lyase-isomerase for both MpeB and CpeB
