Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Transfer Students Guide To Becoming A Pca, Zack J. Krueger

Agricultural Education and Communication

A transfer students guide to becoming a PCA through the AGED department as opposed to AEPS. Agricultural science majors. Classes shown and listed cooperate with the California Department of Pesticide Regulations required course list necessary to take the Pest Control Advisers exam.

Leveraging Defects Life-Cycle For Labeling Defective Classes, Bailey R. Vandehei

Master's Theses

Data from software repositories are a very useful asset to building dierent kinds of

models and recommender systems aimed to support software developers. Specically,

the identication of likely defect-prone les (i.e., classes in Object-Oriented systems)

helps in prioritizing, testing, and analysis activities. This work focuses on automated

methods for labeling a class in a version as defective or not. The most used methods

for automated class labeling belong to the SZZ family and fail in various circum-

stances. Thus, recent studies suggest the use of aect version (AV) as provided by

developers and available in the issue tracker such as …

An Introduction To Shape Dynamics, Patrick R. Kerrigan

Physics

Shape Dynamics (SD) is a new fundamental framework of physics which seeks to remove any non-relational notions from its methodology. importantly it does away with a background space-time and replaces it with a conceptual framework meant to reflect direct observables and recognize how measurements are taken. It is a theory of pure relationalism, and is based on different first principles then General Relativity (GR). This paper investigates how SD assertions affect dynamics of the three body problem, then outlines the shape reduction framework in a general setting.

A Rotating Aperture Mask For Small Telescopes, Edward L. Foley

Master's Theses

Observing the dynamic interaction between stars and their close stellar neighbors is key to establishing the stars’ orbits, masses, and other properties. Our ability to visually discriminate nearby stars is limited by the power of our telescopes, posing a challenge to astronomers at small observatories that contribute to binary star surveys. Masks placed at the telescope aperture promise to augment the resolving power of telescopes of all sizes, but many of these masks must be manually and repetitively reoriented about the optical axis to achieve their full benefits. This paper introduces a design concept for a mask rotation mechanism that …

Predictors Of Ransomware From Binary Analysis, Aaron M. Otis

Master's Theses

Ransomware, a type of malware that extorts payment from a victim by encrypting her data, is a growing threat that is becoming more sophisticated with each generation. Attackers have shifted from targeting individuals to entire organizations, raising extortions from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In this work, we analyze a variety of ransomware and benign software binaries in order to identify indicators that may be used to detect ransomware. We find that several combinations of strings, cryptographic constants, and a large number loops are key indicators useful for detecting ransomware.

Beaver (Castor Canadensis) Of The Salinas River: A Human Dimensions-Inclusive Overview For Assessing Landscape-Scale Beaver-Assisted Restoration Opportunities, Stuart Christian Suplick

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

Across the western United States, researchers are increasingly working with beaver (Castor canadensis) for process-based stream and watershed restoration. One recently-developed geographic information system-based tool, the Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT), analyzes opportunities for beaver-assisted restoration (BAR) at a landscape-scale. However, this tool benefits significantly from human dimensions-inclusive, basin-centralized beaver knowledge for proper interpretation. Unfortunately, this information is scattered or absent in most semi-arid and arid southern California basins. This study thus sought to gather and produce this information through an explorative, benefits-maximizing approach to landscape-scale BAR opportunities assessment in one of these basins, the Salinas River. 49.2 …

Brightest Cluster Galaxy Evolution Exploration: Comparing The Separation Of Cluster X-Ray Light And Visible Wavelength Galaxy Light With Spectral Data, Matthew Aaron Salinas

Physics

Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs), the brightest galaxy in a cluster of hundreds to thousands of galaxies, are some of the biggest, brightest, and most massive galaxies in the universe. Characterizing a BCG can help discover more about galaxy evolution - the aging, changing, and possible merging (collisions) of galaxies. This project involves determining the separation of the peak of x-ray emission of the galaxy cluster, and the peak of visible emission of the BCG to characterize the system as being disturbed or undisturbed that can then lead to discoveries about its formation and evolution. We have found that 17.4% of …

Data-Driven Database Education: A Quantitative Study Of Sql Learning In An Introductory Database Course, Andrew C. Von Dollen

Master's Theses

The Structured Query Language (SQL) is widely used and challenging to master. Within the context of lab exercises in an introductory database course, this thesis analyzes the student learning process and seeks to answer the question: ``Which SQL concepts, or concept combinations, trouble students the most?'' We provide comprehensive taxonomies of SQL concepts and errors, identify common areas of student misunderstanding, and investigate the student problem-solving process. We present an interactive web application used by students to complete SQL lab exercises. In addition, we analyze data collected by this application and we offer suggestions for improvement to database lab activities.

A Study On The Mental Health Of Women In The Csse Department Of California Polytechnic State University, Sophia Lao, Gabriella Garcia Nobili

Computer Science and Software Engineering

The goal of this paper is to explore the perceived effect that the Computer Science Curriculum has on the mental health of female students. To discover these effects we conducted 50 interviews over a period of several months with the female students of the Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE) department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The total amount of Computer Science (CSC) majors at this institution is approximately 680, with 150 of them being female, so we were able to gather responses from 33.3% of the female CSC students from our interviews. It is worth …

Optimizing Electrospun Ceramic Nanofiber Strength Through Two-Step Sintering, Michael Ross

Materials Engineering

Two-step sintering (TSS) consists of a high-temperature step and immediate cooling to a sintering temperature for an extended sintering time, where grain growth is suppressed by severe densification during the high-temperature step. TSS is adopted to enhance mechanical properties of electrospun ceramic nanofibers (CNFs), a class of porous ceramics used for environmental remediation, optoelectronics, and filtration. PVP and Ga(NO₃)₃ nanofiber mesh, provided by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was shaped, oxidized, and two-step sintered to form a nanocrystalline β-Ga₂O₃ CNF tube using a high-temperature step of 1,000^oC. Sintering temperatures and times varied from …

Investigation Of Pervasive Clay Layers And Their Effect On Groundwater Flow Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography In The San Antonio Groundwater Basin, James M. Carlson

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

The United States Geological Survey is developing an integrated hydrologic model of the San Antonio Creek Groundwater Basin to better understand and simulate the integrated surface water and groundwater system. An abrupt 60 meter offset in groundwater depth over a distance of less than one kilometer is observed in well readings within the Cañada De Las Flores region of the groundwater basin. Abrupt changes in groundwater levels are often explained by the presence of a fault in the subsurface vertically offsetting sedimentary units. However, observations of the structural geology of this region indicates that faulting is unlikely and suggests an …

Reach - A Community Service Application, Samuel Noel Magana

Computer Engineering

Communities are familiar threads that unite people through several shared attributes and interests. These commonalities are the core elements that link and bond us together. Many of us are part of multiple communities, moving in and out of them depending on our needs. These common threads allow us to support and advocate for each other when facing a common threat or difficult situation. Healthy and vibrant communities are fundamental to the operation of our society. These interactions within our communities define the way we as individuals interact with each other, and society at large. Being part of a community helps …

Robot Reporter Website Development, Samuel Verkruyse

Computer Engineering

The Robot Reporter Website Development project created a front end interface for interacting with news stories generated by the Robot Reporter script that was originally developed for the Digital Democracy institute at Cal Poly. Various graphs, videos, and other interesting content is displayed to the user in order to create an automated news website focusing on activity in state legislatures.

Labeling Paths With Convolutional Neural Networks, Sean Wallace, Kyle Wuerch

Computer Engineering

With the increasing development of autonomous vehicles, being able to detect driveable paths in arbitrary environments has become a prevalent problem in multiple industries. This project explores a technique which utilizes a discretized output map that is used to color an image based on the confidence that each block is a driveable path. This was done using a generalized convolutional neural network that was trained on a set of 3000 images taken from the perspective of a robot along with matching masks marking which portion of the image was a driveable path. The techniques used allowed for a labeling accuracy …

Keylime, Eli William Partker

Computer Engineering

Josh, Matt and I knew we wanted to develop a mobile app for our senior project because that is what we found ourselves to be most passionate about during our time here at Cal Poly. We started to think of problems we wanted to solve using an application and we came up with a couple ideas but chose to expand on one. Students come to Cal Poly every year new to the area and the food options San Luis Obispo provides. Many of the restaurants in SLO offer a variety of deals to the community and most of them to …

Grammar-Based Procedurally Generated Village Creation Tool, Kevin Matthew Graves

Computer Engineering

This project is a 3D village generator tool for Unity. It consists of three components: a building, mountain, and river generator. All of these generators use grammar-based procedural generation in order to create a unique and logical village and landscape each time the program is run.

Accessible And Responsive Website Design For Cal Poly Dbs Marine Education Program, Charles W. Alexander

Computer Engineering

In this project, I demonstrate how accessible and responsive designs are followed in order to implement a modern, multi-page website which both adapts to the size of the screen as well as has the logical, semantic structure needed for accessible technologies to accurately use the site. This website is designed for a marine education program, Dive Beneath the Surface, which hosts live streams of scientific divers as they interact in real time with students many miles away. Although this site will not be the streaming platform, it needs to host a repository of videos and lessons for those students and …

Identifying Hourly Traffic Patterns With Python Deep Learning, Christopher L. Leavitt

Computer Engineering

This project was designed to explore and analyze the potential abilities and usefulness of applying machine learning models to data collected by parking sensors at a major metro shopping mall. By examining patterns in rates at which customer enter and exit parking garages on the campus of the Bellevue Collection shopping mall in Bellevue, Washington, a recurrent neural network will use data points from the previous hours will be trained to forecast future trends.

Proof Of Concept And Experimental Design For Remote Laser Evaporative Molecular Absorption Spectroscopy Sensor System (R-Lema), Amber Jessica Sucich

Physics

As the Earth’s resources are diminishing, it has become clear that the human race needs to find alternative resources and replenish the Earth’s natural reservoir. One way to do this is to consider interstellar objects. Interstellar objects, such as asteroids, offer mineral and other resources with great potential for mining. Before considering mining a rocky body, it is imperative to first know the complete composition of an object. Using the method of traveling to the objects, drilling into them, and bringing back samples is impractical, inefficient, and expensive. This method is also limiting, as only certain target areas of the …

An Investigation Of The Anomalous Thrust Capabilities Of The Electromagnetic Drive, Hannah J. Simons

Physics

The Electromagnetic Drive (EMDrive) is a propellant-less engine concept hypothesized by aero- space engineer Roger Shawyer. Shawyer’s proposed thruster technology is grounded on the theory of electromagnetic resonant behavior exhibited by a radiofrequency cavity, though the source of any generated thrust is undetermined by current physical laws. NASA Eagleworks Laboratories at John- son Space Center conducted a vacuum test campaign to investigate previously reported anomalous thrust capabilities of such a closed radiofrequency cavity, using a low-thrust torsion pendulum. The team published positive, although small-scaled thrust results in 2017. Following NASA Eagleworks breakthrough result and operating under the assumption that the …

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 …

Implementation Of Multivariate Artificial Neural Networks Coupled With Genetic Algorithms For The Multi-Objective Property Prediction And Optimization Of Emulsion Polymers, David Chisholm

Master's Theses

Machine learning has been gaining popularity over the past few decades as computers have become more advanced. On a fundamental level, machine learning consists of the use of computerized statistical methods to analyze data and discover trends that may not have been obvious or otherwise observable previously. These trends can then be used to make predictions on new data and explore entirely new design spaces. Methods vary from simple linear regression to highly complex neural networks, but the end goal is similar. The application of these methods to material property prediction and new material discovery has been of high interest …

Radish: A Cross Platform Meal Prepping App For Beginner Weightlifters, Spoorthy S. Vemula, Tanay Gottigundala, Cory Baxes

Computer Science and Software Engineering

With the increasing ease of access and decreasing price of most food, obesity rates in the developing world have risen dramatically in recent years. As of March 23rd, 2019, obesity rates had reached 39.6%, a 6% increase in just 8 years. Research has shown that people with obesity have a significantly increased risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers, among other life-threatening diseases. In addition, 42% of people who begin weightlifting quit because it’s too difficult to follow a diet or workout regimen.

We created Radish in an attempt to tackle these problems. Radish makes it …

Lasers, Noah B. Caro

Physics

No abstract provided.

Finding And Analyzing U235 And U238 Ternary Fission Events In The Niffte Fissiontpc, Gabriel A. Oman

Physics

In this analysis, the differences between ternary and binary fission were explored using data from the NIFFTE Collaboration’s fission time projection chamber (TPC). The ratio of binary-to-ternary events for U-235 and U-238 as a function of neutron kinetic energy in the range of 1-30 MeV is presented. The typical value of the ratio is approximately 105 binary fissions per ternary fission, in agreement with previously published measurements. Future work will involve distinguishing the fissions of the two isotopes to provide more insight into this rare process.

Development Of The T0+ Detector For Alice, Austin E. Guard

Physics

The ALICE experiment at CERN is undergoing several major upgrades, one of which is a replacement of the trigger system, which will be composed of a suite of detectors known as the “Fast Interaction Trigger” or FIT. One part of the FIT collaboration team’s objective is the upgrade of the T0 detector, which provides the time stamp for events and acts as a trigger for the rest of the ALICE detectors. The T0+ will detect Cherenkov radiation from charged particles emitted in p-p and Pb-Pb collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The photodetectors are micro-channel plate photomultiplier tubes that …

Differential Photometry Of Active Galactic Nuclei Using Time Resolved Observations With The 1m Nickel Telescope Of Lick Observatory, Chance L. Spencer

Physics

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are exotic objects in the center of some galaxies with luminosities that can greatly outshine the stars of the host galaxy across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. The origin of the UV/optical light is thought to be due to accretion of material onto the supermassive black hole in their centers. Since these objects are too far away to resolve the gravitational sphere of influence of the black hole directly, we make use of a method called reverberation mapping. We measure the lag between the AGN power-law continuum emitted by the accretion disk and the Doppler-broadened emission lines …

Microcontroller Differential Gps To Subtract Signal Delay Due To Ambient Free Electrons In The Ionosphere, Diana Jane Swanson

Physics

The goal of this project is to create a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver that is more precise than one GPS receiver on its own. The technique is to take the difference between a GPS receiver’s measured position and its actual position, then use radio frequency (RF) communication to send that differential value to another microcontroller GPS receiver. This differential value will be added to the measured second location to get a more accurate position for the second GPS receiver, thus creating a differential GPS.

The Performance Cost Of Security, Lucy R. Bowen

Master's Theses

Historically, performance has been the most important feature when optimizing computer hardware. Modern processors are so highly optimized that every cycle of computation time matters. However, this practice of optimizing for performance at all costs has been called into question by new microarchitectural attacks, e.g. Meltdown and Spectre. Microarchitectural attacks exploit the effects of microarchitectural components or optimizations in order to leak data to an attacker. These attacks have caused processor manufacturers to introduce performance impacting mitigations in both software and silicon.

To investigate the performance impact of the various mitigations, a test suite of forty-seven different tests was created. …

Simulating Epidemics And Interventions On High Resolution Social Networks, Christopher E. Siu

Master's Theses

Mathematical models of disease spreading are a key factor of ensuring that we are prepared to deal with the next epidemic. They allow us to predict how an infection will spread throughout a population, thereby allowing us to make intelligent choices when attempting to contain the disease. Whether due to a lack of empirical data, a lack of computational power, a lack of biological understanding, or some combination thereof, traditional models must make sweeping assumptions about the behavior of a population during an epidemic.

In this thesis, we implement granular epidemic simulations using a rich social network constructed from real-world …