Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Empirical Evaluation Of Neural Process Meta-Learners For Financial Forecasting, Kevin G. Patel

Master's Theses

Challenges of financial forecasting, such as a dearth of independent samples and non- stationary underlying process, limit the relevance of conventional machine learning towards financial forecasting. Meta-learning approaches alleviate some of these is- sues by allowing the model to generalize across unrelated or loosely related tasks with few observations per task. The neural process family achieves this by con- ditioning forecasts based on a supplied context set at test time. Despite promise, meta-learning approaches remain underutilized in finance. To our knowledge, ours is the first application of neural processes to realized volatility (RV) forecasting and financial forecasting in general.

We …

Environmental Justice Mapping In The U.S. Pacific Island Territory Of Guam, Ben Rocha

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

Academics, regulators, and the public currently use geospatial analysis tools to identify locations that may be candidates for further environmental justice review in the continental United States (U.S.). However, current environmental justice geospatial analysis tools overlook a small but significant portion of the U.S. - the U.S. Pacific Islands. This study analyzes environmental justice within the U.S. Territory of Guam using existing geospatial analysis methods and publicly available environmental, climate, and socio-economic data to: (1) Spatially map relevant demographic and environmental data and (2) determine the correlation, if any, between the exposure to environmental hazards and the socio-economic status of …

Legislative Language For Success, Sanjana Gundala

Master's Theses

Legislative committee meetings are an integral part of the lawmaking process for local and state bills. The testimony presented during these meetings is a large factor in the outcome of the proposed bill. This research uses Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning techniques to analyze testimonies from California Legislative committee meetings from 2015-2016 in order to identify what aspects of a testimony makes it successful. A testimony is considered successful if the alignment of the testimony matches the bill outcome (alignment is "For" and the bill passes or alignment is "Against" and the bill fails). The process of finding what …

Climate Adaptation And Water Conservation Decision-Making In Paso Robles, California Vineyards, Christopher R. Klier

Master's Theses

This paper examines vineyard perceptions and adoption of climate change adaptation and water conservation measures in the Paso Robles American Viticultural Area (AVA). A survey was distributed to all 220 vineyards and vineyard management companies that operate in the AVA, with a 53.64% response rate. The objective of the survey was to determine vineyard manager and owner attitudes towards climate change and adaptation, as well as their perceptions of how these threats would impact their operation. A second objective was to document the current level of water conservation and climate adaptation while identifying the barriers and opportunities for further adoption …

Analyzing Student Experience On Group Work With The Application Of Different Group Allocation Approaches, An Yee Tan

Management and HR

Working as a group can be as challenging as working by oneself. Common issues like ineffective group work, unequal work contribution, and poor communication are believed to be the reasons why many students preferred to work individually. The purpose of this study is to understand if there is a disparity in student experience on group work by implementing different methods of group formation, which are, intentional group formation and random assignment. Topics around team well-being, team communication, and team effectiveness are the main focus of this study. The second emphasis of this study is students’ opinions on whether or not …

Comparing The Environmental Impacts Of Using Mass Timber And Structural Steel, Khang Hoang Nguyen, Steelee Knight Morgan

Construction Management

Although mass timber has seen a gradual rise in demand in the past, there has been a lack of extensive research on the environmental impacts of using mass timber as a primary structural framing material. This paper compares structural steel, and mass timber’s total embodied carbon emissions. Accurate estimates were made using plans and specs for different projects retrieved from semi-structured interviews. The estimates were input through the EC3 Calculator to provide extensive total carbon emissions measurements between each construction material. Using structural steel framing increased the project’s overall environmental impact by roughly 84% compared to using mass timber. The …

Predicting Personality Type From Writing Style, Tanay Gottigundala

Master's Theses

The study of personality types gained traction in the early 20th century, when Carl Jung's theory of psychological types attempted to categorize individual differences into the first modern personality typology. Iterating on Jung's theories, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) tried to categorize each individual into one of sixteen types, with the theory that an individual's personality type manifests in virtually all aspects of their life. This study explores the relationship between an individual's MBTI type and various aspects of their writing style. Using a MBTI-labeled dataset of user posts on a personality forum, three ensemble classifiers were created to predict …

Exploring Opportunities For A New Community Garden In Santa Fe Springs, Camille Kelem

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Cal Poly Pier Master Plan, Troy A. Lawson

Master's Theses

The Cal Poly Pier (Pier) Master/Facility Plan (FP) document provides the vision of the future for the Pier, a marine science research facility. The Plan facilitates project development and management of the Pier while meeting university and department research goals. Specifically, the FP document establishes goals and strategies to direct long-term development of the Pier, streamlines agency approval and permit requirements, provides context for pier management, and assists the permitting process for future development as it relates to regulatory permits and programmatic growth on the Cal Poly Pier to help meet goals of the Center for Coastal Marine Sciences (CCMS). …

Spatial And Temporal Variation Of Offshore Wind Power And Its Values Along The Central California Coast, Yi-Hui Wang, Ryan K. Walter, Crow White, Matthew D. Kehrli, Stephen F. Hamilton, Patrick H. Soper, Benjamin I. Ruttenberg

Physics

The analysis of the spatiotemporal variability of wind power remains limited during the planning stage of an offshore wind farm. This study provides a framework to investigate how offshore wind power varies along the Central California Coast over diurnal and seasonal time scales, which is critical for reliability and functionality of the grid system. We find that offshore wind power in this region peaks during evening hours across all seasons and maximizes in spring and summer. The timing of peak offshore wind power production better aligns with that of peak demand across California than solar and land-based wind power production, …

The Martingale Approach To Financial Mathematics, Jordan M. Rowley

Master's Theses

In this thesis, we will develop the fundamental properties of financial mathematics, with a focus on establishing meaningful connections between martingale theory, stochastic calculus, and measure-theoretic probability. We first consider a simple binomial model in discrete time, and assume the impossibility of earning a riskless profit, known as arbitrage. Under this no-arbitrage assumption alone, we stumble upon a strange new probability measure Q, according to which every risky asset is expected to grow as though it were a bond. As it turns out, this measure Q also gives the arbitrage-free pricing formula for every asset on our market. In …

Dish: Democracy In State Houses, Nicholas A. Russo

Master's Theses

In our current political climate, state level legislators have become increasingly impor- tant. Due to cuts in funding and growing focus at the national level, public oversight for these legislators has drastically decreased. This makes it difficult for citizens and activists to understand the relationships and commonalities between legislators. This thesis provides three contributions to address this issue. First, we created a data set containing over 1200 features focused on a legislator’s activity on bills. Second, we created embeddings that represented a legislator’s level of activity and engagement for a given bill using a custom model called Democracy2Vec. Third, we …

Improving Swarm Performance By Applying Machine Learning To A New Dynamic Survey, John Taylor Jackson

Master's Theses

A company, Unanimous AI, has created a software platform that allows individuals to come together as a group or a human swarm to make decisions. These human swarms amplify the decision-making capabilities of both the individuals and the group. One way Unanimous AI increases the swarm’s collective decision-making capabilities is by limiting the swarm to more informed individuals on the given topic. The previous way Unanimous AI selected users to enter the swarm was improved upon by a new methodology that is detailed in this study. This new methodology implements a new type of survey that collects data that is …

Socioeconomic Status, Air Quality And Geographic Variation In Emergency Room Visits For Acute Bronchitis On The California Central Coast, Sean Lang-Brown, Heather W. Starnes, Gary B. Hughes

Symposium

IMPORTANCE: Analysis of geospatial variation in acute bronchitis due to socioeconomic and environmental factors can allow the efficient delivery of resources to populations most at risk.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to determine if small scale variation in socioeconomic factors and emergency room (ER) visits for acute bronchitis are associated in small cities or rural communities. We also modeled the effects of air quality on daily rates of ER visits for acute bronchitis in the context of socioeconomic factors to investigate modifying relationships.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: We examined ER visits for acute bronchitis in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties …

A Geospatial Assessment Of Social Vulnerability To Sea-Level Rise In Coastal San Luis Obispo, Jesse A. Carpentier

Master's Theses

This project is an assessment of social vulnerability to sea-level rise in the unincorporated coastal area of the County of San Luis Obispo (County) using geospatial and statistical analysis. The intention of this assessment is to inform local climate adaptation efforts now required by state legislation. A social vulnerability index was generated at the Census block group level using 32 variables positively correlated with social vulnerability. The social vulnerability score for each block group is the sum of scores generated for the following principle components: (1) race/ethnicity and disability status, (2) social isolation and age, (3) income, and (4) housing …

Weights And Balances: Integrating Models For Prevention And Response To Southern California Offshore Oil Spills, Carmen Watts Clayton, Amoret Bunn

STAR Program Research Presentations

Licensing offshore oil and gas reserves in the United States waters are overseen by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Enforcement (BSEE). The licensing application includes planning for any worst-case oil spill scenario between BSEE and the applicant based on lessons learned from historic offshore spills such as the Deepwater Horizon (2010), Exxon Valdez (1989), and the Union Oil Platform Blowout (1969). The process for planning to respond to oil spills involves coordination with multiple agencies, trustees, and stakeholders to ensure that oil spill responses consider multiple factors, including ecologically sensitive species, commercial transportation and fisheries, …

Visual Code: Breaking The Binary, Jacob Johannesen, Andrew Adriance

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

This project seeks to create an accessible programming language that is more visually based. Although some solutions exist, namely MIT’s Scratch, nothing has caught up to the mobile age. This proj- ect aims to reframe creating a game or app into the context of tell- ing a story, putting character creation first. By researching sto- ry-telling and how people learn, and by applying technical and user interface design knowledge, this project intends to deliver a soft- ware solution that opens introductory coding education to more people.

Moor Movement: Automated Docking On Drought-Stricken Reservoirs, Daniel Beck

Landscape Architecture

Moor Movement establishes a mechanized docking system for unpredictable shoreline fluctuations on inland lakes and reservoirs. Due to climate change and warmer global temperatures, the threat of ocean level rise has initiated massive proposals to address the interface between ocean and man-made infrastructure. While this is a monumental problem, ocean level rise is not the only immediate threat. The recently declared emergency drought conditions in California are finally bringing attention to inland lakes and reservoirs. While ocean levels might rise 2-7 feet in 100 years, a lake could drop 100 feet in 5 years. What happens to access roads, marinas, …

Analyzing Alcohol Behavior In San Luis Obispo, Ariana Montes

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Light Pollution Research Through Citizen Science, John Kanemoto

STAR Program Research Presentations

Light pollution (LP) can disrupt and/or degrade the health of all living things, as well as, their environments. The goal of my research at the NOAO was to check the accuracy of the citizen science LP reporting systems entitled: Globe at Night (GaN), Dark Sky Meter (DSM), and Loss of the Night (LoN). On the GaN webpage, the darkness of the night sky (DotNS) is reported by selecting a magnitude chart. Each magnitude chart has a different density/number of stars around a specific constellation. The greater number of stars implies a darker night sky. Within the DSM iPhone application, a …

Development Of A Public Education Website: Building Bridges Over Water, Angelina Mckee

Agricultural Education and Communication

Website created by Angelina McKee to educate the public about water resource issues. Water is the basic unit of life, water resources are the basis for what societies and ecosystems are founded upon. Water shortages and droughts are more prevalent in our ever-changing world. It is no shock that there are discrepancies between various stockholders on either sides of the dry riverbed. This senior project resulted in the development of a website that addresses global water resources, water use in California, water conservation, and water allocation. The website informs the public on water resources and related issues and will hopefully …

Water In The 21st Century, Grayson Michael Shor

Social Sciences

The aim of this research project is to provide a comprehensive and global analysis of water use in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive grasp of current and impending issues. The included five (5) chapters discuss water distribution, conservation, purification, law, international development, economic debates, ethical consideration, as well as educated estimations of the effects water related issues may cause in the next one-hundred years.

Predicting Music Genre Preferences Based On Online Comments, Andrew J. Sinclair

Master's Theses

Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) states that individuals adapt to each other’s communicative behaviors. This adaptation is called “convergence.” In this work we explore the convergence of writing styles of users of the online music distribution plat- form SoundCloud.com. In order to evaluate our system we created a corpus of over 38,000 comments retrieved from SoundCloud in April 2014. The corpus represents comments from 8 distinct musical genres: Classical, Electronic, Hip Hop, Jazz, Country, Metal, Folk, and World. Our corpus contains: short comments, frequent misspellings, little sentence struc- ture, hashtags, emoticons, and URLs. We adapt techniques used by researchers analyzing other …

Climate Planning In Politically Conservative Cities: A Case Study Of Seven Climate Action Plans, Coleman Moore Frick

Master's Theses

Current research indicates that the potential risks associated with human-induced climate change are likely to increase in frequency and intensity. Although there have been several attempts, no effective international treaty or policy has been enacted by the United States with the purpose of combating this global issue. In the past decade, local climate action plans (CAPs) have emerged as a planning solution designed to reduce greenhouse emissions (GHGs). Previous studies have examined CAP attributes, but no research has focused solely on climate planning in politically conservative jurisdictions. This research finds that of 245 CAPs completed to date nationally, approximately 90 …

Determining California National Guard Airmen’S Opinions And Attitudes Regarding Morale, Welfare And Recreation Programs: A Research Project, Natalie Delossa

Journalism

This senior project creates research design parameters that will facilitate two- way communications between the California Air National Guard and its airmen. The benefits of conducting its research are twofold. First, the California Air National Guard can learn more about its airmen. Second, the California Air National Guard can use information about its airmen to better serve its external publics in future public relations and marketing endeavors.

This project addresses the importance of conducting two- way communication between internal and external publics (in this case, the California Air National Guard and its airmen and the California Air National Guard and …

Impact Testing Of Youth-Level Helmets Versus College-Level Helmets, Nicole Hermann

Industrial Technology and Packaging

With so many studies being conducted on professional football players regarding concussions and other related brain injuries, it’s amazing that such an important demographic has been missed. While NFL players are just as subjected to serious injuries as anyone else or even more so, it is important to remember that these players are outfitted, in most cases, with top-of-the-line equipment -- especially their helmets. If the focus is shifted to a younger demographic, youth football players in middle school and high school, the equipment is far less advanced and in a vast majority of cases, has been previously used by …

Media Portrayal Of Individuals In The Lower Class And Its Effects On Attributions Of Educational Hardships, Krista A. Burke

Communication Studies

This study investigated how media portrayals of individuals in the lower class affect people’s beliefs about educational hardships in lower socioeconomic areas. Specifically, this study looked at the attributions of these hardships to determine if media consumption had an effect on the internality of attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would be related to an increased tendency toward internal attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would lead to lower support for policy changes regarding education. A survey was distributed to assess media consumption habits and attitudes toward educational hardships in the lower class. Correlation results yielded …

The Imperative Of Conserving California's Foothill Oak Woodlands, Lauren Phillips

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Recreation Displacement Of Bass Fishermen From Central Coast Lakes, Erin Gray

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

The purpose of this study was to assess the impacts of aquatic invasive species preventative measures on recreation displacement of bass fishermen from Central Coast lakes. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to participants at a local bass fishing tournament. Thirty-six respondents completed the questionnaire. The results indicated that boat inspection procedures do not necessarily cause bass fishermen to displace. This study found that fishermen are likely to avoid recreating at a Central Coast lake in fishing practice conditions rather than in tournament conditions, and are likely to avoid tournaments at their least favorite lake if boat inspection procedures take too …

Misheard Me Oronyminator: Using Oronyms To Validate The Correctness Of Frequency Dictionaries, Jennifer G. Hughes

Master's Theses

In the field of speech recognition, an algorithm must learn to tell the difference between "a nice rock" and "a gneiss rock". These identical-sounding phrases are called oronyms. Word frequency dictionaries are often used by speech recognition systems to help resolve phonetic sequences with more than one possible orthographic phrase interpretation, by looking up which oronym of the root phonetic sequence contains the most-common words.

Our paper demonstrates a technique used to validate word frequency dictionary values. We chose to use frequency values from the UNISYN dictionary, which tallies each word on a per-occurance basis, using a proprietary text corpus, …