Digital Commons Network^™

Graph-Based Data Visualization In Virtual Reality: A Comparison Of User Experiences, Paul Andrew Sullivan

Master's Theses

Virtual reality is currently in the spotlight, attracting intense scrutiny by the press, technology companies, and consumers. After twenty years of dormancy, the technology has experienced a renaissance following advancements in both hardware and software. Most of these developments, and thus press attention, have been centered on entertainment. However, if the technology is going to continue to grow, it must be useful in a wide variety of situations. This paper explores the effectiveness of visualizing data in virtual reality in comparison to traditional presentations.

In this thesis, we present an approach to displaying data in a virtual reality environment. We …

Beneath The Surface Dive And Beach Cleanup Festival, Megan Van Hamersveld

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

A Fish Out Of (Open) Water: A Close Textual­-Intertextual Analysis Of The Monterey Bay Aquarium, Danielle Berton

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

The Built Environment, Nicholas J. Petrarca, Aaron Boucher, Nathaniel Hall, Alejandro Lopez, Nicholas Reindel, Emily Setoudeh, Sean Westpahl, Lacy Williams

Architectural Engineering

This project was a very fast paced and high pressure design project where Architectural Engineering students and an architect worked with an noteworthy artist to design and construct a large steel sculpture made purely from recycled materials.

Design Of An Aquaponics System, Jesse Birsinger

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

This Senior Project discusses the design, cost analysis, and evaluation of an aquaponics system. The system incorporates aquaculture and hydroponics to create a source of fish protein and various crops. The system was sized based off a minimum requirement of pounds of fish available per week. The system designed is capable of generating 2080 pounds of catfish, and 16,000 pounds of produce annually. The first year of operation the system will operate at a loss due to the significant cost of the components of the system, however, the project is projected to generate a minimum stream of revenue of $10,600 …

Evaluation Of The Estrogenic And Osmoregulatory Impacts Of Exposure To 4-Nonylphenol Pollution In The Estuarine Arrow Goby, Clevelandia Ios, Kaitlin Marie Johnson

Master's Theses

Recent evidence indicates that some of California’s coastal estuaries are contaminated with the chemical 4-nonylphenol (4-NP). Tissue burdens of 4-NP detected in the intertidal arrow goby (Clevelandia ios) in California are among the highest recorded worldwide, however, it remains unknown whether these fish are impacted by this 4-NP contamination. 4-NP is an established endocrine disrupting compound with estrogenic properties that can alter reproductive function. Furthermore, evidence that estrogens can modulate iono- and osmo-regulatory function in fishes implies that estuarine fishes exposed to 4-NP may also experience an impaired ability to maintain hydromineral balance. In Chapter 1 of this …

Ultra-Light Bear Canister, Naveen Beasley, Eli Rogers, Cory Wilson, Donald Wood

Mechanical Engineering

A bear canister is the primary tool used by outdoor enthusiasts to protect their food from bears while camping or backpacking. There are many effective products currently on the market, however many are not designed with reduced weight in mind. Hardcore backpackers want to have the lightest gear possible to ease the strain of carrying a large pack for sometimes weeks at a time.

Current bear canisters exist that utilize carbon fiber for weight reduction, however they rely on stock carbon tubes and lack engineering analysis, and no competitor has a fully composite bear canister available. Our sponsor, Nick Hellewell, …

Stress Ecology Of The Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Oreganus And Crotalus Helleri), Natalie Claunch

Master's Theses

Stress is a physiological state induced by disturbance or adverse environmental conditions and is modulated by the glucocorticoid hormone corticosterone (CORT) in reptiles. Stressors can have various impacts on vertebrate trait expression and may affect survival or reproduction. Little is known about the effects of chronically elevated CORT in free-ranging reptiles, or the effect of disturbance stress on venom composition in captive snakes.

In chapter 1, we investigated the effects of researcher induced disturbance on CORT levels and venom composition in a group of captive Northern Pacific rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus). Venom protein concentration and plasma CORT levels were …

Modern Horror Film And The Evolution Of The "Final Girl", Josi Bertling

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Learning From New Zealand: Disaster Risk And Emergency Management, Augustina E. Remedios, Justin Sauder

Focus

Augustina Remedios and Justin Sauder, juniors at Cal Poly’s BSCRP program, had the opportunity to participate in a program on disaster risk and emergency management at New Zealand’s Massey University in the summer of 2016. Constantly affected by severe earthquakes types of natural disasters and other types of emergency, New Zealand and its governmental agencies offered our students a great learning opportunity in this fundamental field of city and regional planning. In this article, Augustina and Justin share their thoughts with us.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Stamina Combat Overhaul, Richard Rattner

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

No abstract provided.

The Default Art Of Classifying The Occult, Brett B. Bodemer

Library Scholarship

Even as the world of information moves increasingly away from print, academic librarians and patrons spend significant time in neighborhoods of books organized by Library of Congress Classification. Close attention to specific neighborhoods and historical inquiry into their organization opens windows into past and present constructions of knowledge. This essay examines one such neighborhood – the latter ranges of BF, and particularly its tail end, Occult Sciences. It explores the creation of this neighborhood in a deliberately recursive fashion, and the journey to determine how such content came to be collocated by the Library of Congress leads through other classification …

After The Paris Agreement: How India Can Use Climate Financing To Implement A Sustainable Clean Cookstove Program, Hannah Kornfeld

Master's Theses

The burning of biomass for cooking purposes without proper ventilation and filters poses a massive health and climate risk. Health implications from exposure to household air pollution from this type of fuel impacts women and children in many developing countries, who spend many hours a day cooking and gathering fuel. Climate implications from burning solid biomass results in increased carbon dioxide and black carbon emissions, which contribute to global climate change. This thesis aims to explore the issues associated with biomass cookstoves in terms of both health and climate, and seeks to understand how a new national clean cookstove program …

Pacifying Paradise: Violence And Vigilantism In San Luis Obispo, Joseph Hall-Patton

Master's Theses

San Luis Obispo, California was a violent place in the 1850s with numerous murders and lynchings in staggering proportions. This thesis studies the rise of violence in SLO, its causation, and effects. The vigilance committee of 1858 represents the culmination of the violence that came from sweeping changes in the region, stemming from its earliest conquest by the Spanish. The mounting violence built upon itself as extensive changes took place. These changes include the conquest of California, from the Spanish mission period, Mexican and Alvarado revolutions, Mexican-American War, and the Gold Rush. The history of the county is explored until …

The Influence Of Exclusive Breastfeeding On Growth Trajectory From Birth To Year 5 In A Wic Cohort, Lindsey Arevalos

Master's Theses

OBJECTIVE. The impact of exclusively breastfeeding (EBF) on child body mass index (BMI) from birth through 60 months of age was investigated.

METHODS. 60,190 mothers and children attending Women, Infant and Children (WIC) clinics in the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties of California provided data on breastfeeding duration, maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, and child weight-for-length (WL) was measured at 3 month intervals until 5 years of age. Missing time points were interpolated in determining child BMI/WL z-score trajectories plotted on the Center of Disease Control (CDC) infant and child growth curves. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to contrast …

Polyfs Visualizer, Paul Martin Fallon

Master's Theses

One of the most important operating system topics, file systems, control how we store and access data and form a key point in a computer scientists understanding of the underlying mechanisms of a computer. However, file systems, with their abstract concepts and lack of concrete learning aids, is a confusing subjects for students. Historically at Cal Poly, the CPE 453 Introduction to Operating Systems has been on of the most failed classes in the computing majors, leading to the need for better teaching and learning tools. Tools allowing students to gain concrete examples of abstract concepts could be used to …

Rearing Temperature Affects The Expression Of Proteins In The Adhesive Of The Striped Acorn Barnacle, Balanus Amphitrite, Melissa J. Daugherty

Master's Theses

Barnacles are dominant hard–fouling organisms in marine waters. They attach to substrates by secreting a complex proteinaceous adhesive. Understanding the chemical composition of this multi–protein underwater adhesive and how it is affected by environmental variables, such as oceanic temperatures, is critical for developing nontoxic solutions to control biofouling. Previous experiments in our lab revealed an inverse relationship between critical removal stress (CRS) and temperatures at which barnacles were reared. Further investigations showed that this correlation is not attributed to differences in physical properties such as barnacle size or short–term changes in the viscosity of adhesive. Therefore, the observed effects may …

Wildfire Detection System Based On Principal Component Analysis And Image Processing Of Remote-Sensed Video, Ryan F. Radjabi

Master's Theses

Early detection and mitigation of wildfires can reduce devastating property damage, firefighting costs, pollution, and loss of life. This thesis proposes the method of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of images in the temporal domain to identify a smoke plume in wildfires. Temporal PCA is an effective motion detector, and spatial filtering of the output Principal Component images can segment the smoke plume region. The effective use of other image processing techniques to identify smoke plumes and heat plumes are compared. The best attributes of smoke plume detectors and heat plume detectors are evaluated for combination in an improved wildfire detection …

The Bottlefly Ios Application For Wine Recommendations, Carson James Carroll

Master's Theses

The use of smartphone applications has taken over the way people interact with the world. The design of an application has become an important aspect in keeping the user engaged [22]. People are looking for applications that are easy to use and will get the job done. This thesis focuses on the design of a mobile application for iOS that recommends wine in various retail locations that match a user’s taste preferences.

The goals of this thesis are to design an iOS application that recommends wine to consumers, improve upon the wine recommendation algorithms by acquiring more customer data, and …

Characterizing Neurotransmitter Receptor Activation With A Perturbation Based Decomposition Method, Stephen Gregory Jue

Master's Theses

The characterization of postsynaptic potentials, in terms of neurotransmitter receptor activation, is of clinical significance because information associated with receptor activation can be used in the diagnosis and study of neurological disorders. Single-unit recordings provide a method of measuring postsynaptic potentials in neurons using a microelectrode system, but yield no detailed information regarding the neurotransmitter receptors that contribute to the potential. To determine the types of neurotransmitter receptors that result in a compound postsynaptic potential from a microelectrode reading, decomposition of the potential is necessary. In this work, a perturbation-based decomposition method developed by R. Szlavik is evaluated for this …

Assessment Of Micronutrient Status In Pregnant Malawian Women Before And After Treatment For Moderate Malnutrition, Cambria M. Glosz

Master's Theses

Background: Multiple micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent in pregnant women in developing countries and can result in adverse effects to both the mother and infant. Multiple micronutrient supplements or supplementary foods may be a way to combat micronutrient deficiencies.

Objective: To assess change in micronutrient and protein levels in moderately malnourished pregnant Malawian women after receiving one of three nutritional interventions.

Methods: Serum retinol, 25-hydroxyvitamin D, ferritin, vitamin B₁₂, folate, zinc, albumin and C-reactive protein concentrations were measured in pregnant women with MUAC >20.6 cm and

Results: Baseline micronutrient concentrations indicated high rates of deficiency …

Comparison Of Foaming Properties Between Chelated Reconstituted Smp And Caseinates, Boya Liu

Master's Theses

Caseinate powders have been well accepted because of their foaming properties. In this study, 10% solution of reconstituted skim milk powder (SMP) chelated with sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) and trisodium citrate (TSC) at 1 mEq, 50 mEq, and 100 mEq were prepared to conduct a comparison with sodium caseinate, potassium caseinate, and calcium caseinate solutions. Foamability, foam stability as well as the preferential locations of αs-casein, β-casein and !-casein in their foams were analyzed. It was hypothesized that the foamability, foam stability and the preferential locations of these three caseins in the milk foams are different from treatment to treatment. Milk …

Just Meat: Chicken-Pain, Intergenerational Justice, And The American Diet, Stephen Scales

Between the Species

Peter Singer’s arguments against the morality of the typical American diet focus on the pain of animals, and lead to the conclusion that we must become committed vegans. His approach ignores the impact that different psychological capacities can legitimately have on our moral appraisal of the interests of beings. Although we ought to eat less meat because of the externalized environmental costs that factory farming inflicts upon future people, an ideal diet may contain some environmentally sustainably raised meat. Finally, the perception of ethical puritanism in committed vegans may be an obstacle to achieving the real reductions in animal suffering …

Limestone Flora Of The Simonton Corner Quarry Preserve, Rockport, Maine, Usa, Margaret Stern, Ian D. Medeiros, Luka Negoita, N. Rajakaruna

Biological Sciences

Limestone is a distinctive substrate that has significant effects on soils and plants. The present study characterizes the diversity of vascular plants, bryophytes, and lichens at the Simonton Corner Quarry Preserve, an abandoned limestone quarry in Rockport, Maine, USA, which was in operation in the late 1800s. We document vascular plant diversity and associated edaphic features (i.e., soil pH and elemental chemistry) using 30 535 meter plots spread throughout the site. For vascular plants, 114 species in 96 genera and 50 families were observed; few of these species are known to prefer calcareous environments, and 38% are nonnative. Conversely, the …

Separation And Characterization Of Reconstituted Skim Milk Powder Treated With Mineral Chelators, Amy Kringle

Master's Theses

The proteins found in milk are largely important in the functionality of many dairy products and dairy processes. The casein micelle system in milk is a complex and highly studied system. The micelle is thought to be a sponge like structure containing four caseins, α_s1, α_s2, β, and κ casein, and bound together with colloidal calcium phosphate. When a chelating agent such as a citrate, phosphate, or polyphosphate are added to milk systems, the CCP is bound to the chelator and removed from the micelle. It has been shown through past research that the use of …

Effect Of Lactose Source, Lactose Level, And Type Of Emulsifying Salts On The Properties Of A Processed Cheese Product, Gabrielle Alyss Gunter

Master's Theses

Previous studies on the use of nonfat dry milk, whey protein concentrate 34 and lactose powders in processed cheeses or cheese analogs found that increasing the percentage of lactose was associated with an increase in browning and crystallization. There has been little work done of the effects of lactose in processed cheese functionality. Therefore, the objective of this research is to build on and understand the effects of lactose from by three commercially produced dairy powders (nonfat dry milk (NFDM), whey protein concentrate 34 (WPC), lactose) and two different emulsifying salts on properties of processed cheese. Processed cheeses were made …

Cal Poly Climate Action Plan, Adrienne Greve, Chris Clark, William Riggs, Jesse A. Carpentier, Curran K. Lord-Farmer, Crp 410/ 411 Community Planning Lab

City and Regional Planning Studios and Projects

The Cal Poly Climate Action Plan (PolyCAP) is designed to achieve the California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s mandate to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2040 (CSU, 2014). California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) Facility Management and Development (FM&D) and the City and Regional Planning (CRP) Senior Community Planning Laboratory developed the PolyCAP during the Fall 2015 and Winter 2016 quarters, with editing and refinement in subsequent quarters. The goal of the PolyCAP is to reduce Cal Poly’s GHG emissions and to adapt the Campus to a …

D Clark Aged 539, Don Clark

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

The following document will provide a short narrative for each of the 12 Quality Criteria established by the CDE’s Agricultural Education Unit. We will also provide a brief chronicle of an area I see which is in need of continual improving. Finally, we will provide the Supporting Completion Materials necessary which would be required during an on-site review.

Teacher Internship Report - Norco High School, Ross Allen Macy

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This internship report includes validation documents required for meeting the quality criteria for secondary-level programs of instruction in agriculture. The documents are concurrently used for the Agriculture Incentive Grant review process at Norco High School, which is conducted by representatives of the California Department of Education and the local Agriculture Advisory Committee. The internship included the implementation and designing of the curriculum for an Agriculture and Soil Chemistry course. The internship also included the writing of a specialized grant and purchase of over $20,000 in data collection technology.

Irrigation System Design For An Almond Orchard, Dylan Soares

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

No abstract provided.