Digital Commons Network^™

Veganism And 'The Analytic Question', Adam Reid

Between the Species

The (practical) dilemma I explore in this paper concerns two advocacy-oriented aims which, though not mutually exclusive per se, are nonetheless quite difficult for vegans to jointly satisfy in practice. The first concerns the need for individual vegans to rebuff (by example) certain familiar stereotypes about vegans as ‘militant,’ ‘angry,’ ‘self-righteous,’ etc.; the second concerns the need to tactfully resist familiar prompts to, as it were, conversationally parse the logic of one’s own convictions ad nauseam. To better explain, and partially respond to, this dilemma, I exploit an instructive analogy with the (so-called) ‘analytic question’ in epistemology (roughly, …

The Commonsense Case For Ethical Vegetarianism, Mylan Engel Jr.

Between the Species

The article defends ethical vegetarianism, which, for present purposes, is stipulatively taken to be the view that it is morally wrong to eat animals when equally nutritious plant-based foods are available. Several examples are introduced (i) to show that we all agree that animals deserve some direct moral consideration and (ii) to help identify and clarify several commonsense moral principles—principles we all accept. These principles are then used to argue that eating animals is morally wrong. Since you no doubt accept these principles, the argument demonstrates that consistency with your own beliefs and values commits you to the …

Semantic Document Clustering Using A Similarity Graph, Lubomir Stanchev

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Document clustering addresses the problem of identifying groups of similar documents without human supervision. Unlike most existing solutions that perform document clustering based on keywords matching, we propose an algorithm that considers the meaning of the terms in the documents. For example, a document that contains the words "dog" and "cat" multiple times may be placed in the same category as a document that contains the word "pet" even if the two documents share only noise words in common. Our semantic clustering algorithm is based on a similarity graph that stores the degree of semantic relationship between terms (extracted from …

Culturally Speaking: Ways To Tame Our Sweet Tooth, Phillip Tong

Dairy Science

No abstract provided.

Executive Committee - Agenda, 1/26/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Review Of Slaves Of Our Affection: The Myth Of The Happy Pet, Katherine Allen

Between the Species

This article reviews Charles Danten’s Slaves of Our Affection: the Myth of the Happy Pet, outlining and evaluating Danten’s arguments for the abolition of the pet trade. The review delineates Danten’s main points; that the commodification of companion animals is antithetical to their welfare, that veterinarians, pet food manufacturers and breeders serve the dictates of the economic bottom line rather than the interests of animals, and that the majority of pet owners, while well-intentioned, are ill-equipped to meet the physiological and psychological needs of their animal companions.

The reviewer asserts that Danten’s arguments are generally successful, but suggests that …

Review Of Our Children And Other Animals, Corey L. Wrenn

Between the Species

Cole and Stewart’s 2014 release, Our Children and Other Animals: The Cultural Construction of Human-Animal Relations in Childhood, offers an important sociological contribution to liberatory vegan research. The book's primary value is its critical examination of childhood socialization processes that habituate humans to speciesism through the institutions of family, education, and mass media.

Design And Development Of The Sunswift Eve Solar Vehicle: World's Fastest Long-Range Electric Car, Sam Paterson, Pujith Vijayaratnam, Charith Perera, Graham Doig

Aerospace Engineering

The Sunswift project of the University of New South Wales, Australia, exists to provide university students with a multi-disciplinary engineering challenge, enhancing the true educational value of their degree with a unique hands-on real-world experience of creating solar–electric hybrid vehicles. The design and development of the low-drag ‘solar supercar’ Sunswift eVe car are described here, detailing the student-led process from initial concept sketches to the completed performance vehicle. eVe was designed to demonstrate the potential of effective solar integration into a practical passenger-carrying vehicle. It is a two-seater vehicle with an on-body solar array area of 4 m² and …

Executive Committee - Agenda, 1/5/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Interactions Of Shock Tube Exhaust Flows With Laminar And Turbulent Flames, Joel E.C. Chan, Paul M. Giannuzzi, Kaveh R. Kabir, Michael J. Hargather, Graham Doig

Aerospace Engineering

The interactions of flow features emitting from open-ended shock tubes with free-standing propane flames have been investigated using high-speed schlieren imaging and high-frequency pressure measurements, with additional data from validated numerical modeling. Both compressed air-driven interactions with non-pre-mixed laminar diffusion flames (small-scale) and explosively-driven interactions with turbulent non-pre-mixed turbulent flames (large-scale) were tested for various flame locations and shock tube stagnation pressures (and therefore Mach numbers). In the small-scale tests it was observed that the flames were not significantly influenced by the passage of either the initial shock if placed close to the tube exit, or the weaker pressure waves …

Growth Rate Of Copepods In The San Francisco Bay, Brooke Bemowski, Wim Kimmerer, Toni Ignoffo

STAR Program Research Presentations

The San Francisco Estuary is a complex ecosystem. A key part of the foodweb are zooplankton crustaceans, specifically copepods. Many fish, especially the endangered delta smelt, rely on copepods as a food source. Measuring the growth of copepods assists in predictions if enough food is available for delta smelt. Traditionally growth rate is measured through lengthy and involved processes. The objective of this research project is to develop an imaging process to analyze biomass of copepods more efficiently. For this research, field samples of copepods were collected and grown over three days. Subsamples were taken and preserved at three predetermined …

Timing Movement Of Water Through The Biosphere 2 Rainforest Using Deuterium As An Isotopic Tracer, Katie Almeda, Joost Van Haren, Till Volkmann

STAR Program Research Presentations

Rain forest ecosystems play an important role in global functions such as being home to half of the species of plants and animals on the planet, acting as a carbon sink, and moving water from the ground back into the atmosphere. In the Amazon, approximately 50 to 80% of moisture produced remains in the ecosystem’s water cycle. As a result of deforestation and rising global temperatures, less moisture can be moved back into the atmosphere. The objective of this study was to trace how water moves through a rain forest system in order to gain insight on how different species …

Giovanni Battista Palumba's Mythological Progeny, Giancarlo Fiorenza

Art and Design

No abstract provided.

Visual Literacy For Libraries: A Practical, Standards-Based Guide, Nicole E. Brown, Kaila Bussert, Denise Hattwig, Ann Medaille

Library Scholarship

When we step back and think about how to situate visual literacy into a library context, the word critical keeps coming up: critical thinking, critical viewing, critical using, critical making, and the list goes on. To understand our approach, start with your own practice, add images, and see where it takes you.

Do you encourage students to think critically as they research?

How can you extend this experience to images?

Do you embrace critical information literacy?

Can you bring visual content to enrich that experience?

Do you teach students to critically evaluate sources?

How can you expand that practice to …

Culturally Speaking: Of Rotary Phones And Dairy Foods, Phillip Tong

Dairy Science

No abstract provided.

Partial Calcium Depletion During Membrane Filtration Affects Gelation Of Reconstituted Milk Protein Concentrates, H. Eshpari, R. Jiménez-Flores, P. S. Tong, M. Corredig

Dairy Science

Milk protein concentrate powders (MPC) with improved rehydration properties are often manufactured using processing steps, such as acidification and high-pressure processing, and with addition of other ingredients, such as sodium chloride, during their production. These steps are known to increase the amount of serum caseins or modify the mineral equilibrium, hence improving solubility of the retentates. The processing functionality of the micelles may be affected. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of partial acidification by adding glucono-δ-lactone (GDL) to skim milk during membrane filtration on the structural changes of the casein micelles by observing their chymosin-induced …

Bolthouse Farms Case Study, Garret Powell, Brett Banducci, Anna Greene

Case Studies in Agribusiness

The history, growth and current operations of Bolthouse Farms is presented, with a discussion of carrot growing, processing and marketing.

Designing And Creating A Website: "Low-Stress Handling Beef Cattle", Lauren Rothstein

Agricultural Education and Communication

No abstract provided.

Density-Based Clustering Of High-Dimensional Dna Fingerprints For Library-Dependent Microbial Source Tracking, Eric Johnson

Master's Theses

As part of an ongoing multidisciplinary effort at California Polytechnic State University, biologists and computer scientists have developed a new Library-Dependent Microbial Source Tracking method for identifying the host animals causing fecal contamination in local water sources. The Cal Poly Library of Pyroprints (CPLOP) is a database which stores E. coli representations of fecal samples from known hosts acquired from a novel method developed by the biologists called Pyroprinting. The research group considers E. coli samples whose Pyroprints match above a certain threshold to be part of the same bacterial strain. If an environmental sample from an unknown host animal …

Gopher Intrusion In Cropping Systems, Kenneth Romero, Paul Cardinalli

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this project was to determine if no till vs. till on gopher populations was more beneficial. Which is more efficient at controlling gophers and explain the damage they can cause and the diseases they can potentially vector. What are the different options of pest managements that have to be used when dealing with a gopher infestation in a tilled field vs. a no-tilled field.

Co-Rotational Finite Element Solid Simulation With Collisions, Patrick Riordan

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This paper is a tutorial on how to implement a deformable solid simulation with collisions based off of Matthias Mueller's Real Time Physics Course Notes. It covers the topics continuum mechanics, finite element analysis, implicit Euler integration, and handling collision.

Real-Time Digital Effects Processing Using Ios, Jonah W. Clinard

Computer Engineering

In today’s society, we are seeing incredible improvements in terms of creating smaller technological devices that behave more and more like the personal computers of yesterday. Mobile “Smart” devices, in particular, are becoming incredibly powerful not just in terms of processing power, but in the fact that they are able to provide assistance to users in their everyday lives. Application developers are now able utilize the power and size of these devices, to create and realize ideas that would have been previously viewed as impossible. This project applies the fields of digital signal processing, music, and mobile application development, to …

Native Deer Mice (Peromyscus Maniculatus) Use Of Invasive Grass Seed (Ehrharta Calycina) In Coastal California, Megan Wong

Biological Sciences

No abstract provided.

Una Legua Cuadrada: Exploring The History Of Swanton Pacific Ranch And Environs, Jeanine Marie Scaramozzino

Master's Theses

Swanton Pacific Ranch is an educational and research facility owned by the Cal Poly Corporation and managed by the Cal Poly State University (Cal Poly) College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences. Located about 180 miles north of campus and just 14 miles north of Santa Cruz, California on Highway 1, the property was first leased to and then donated to Cal Poly by the late Albert E. Smith in 1993. The rancho’s original inhabitants included Native Americans, Spaniards, Mexicans, as well as various European immigrants and their descendants; currently, the staff, faculty, and students of Cal Poly occupy the …

Graduate Internship In Agriculture Education - Central Valley High School, Jessica Lynne Cardoso

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

An in depth evaluation of the agriculture program for Central Valley High School in Ceres, CA

Microcontroller Application For Linear And Rotational Motion Sensing, Zachary Mintzer

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

Platform For Environmental Sensing Of Algae, Alex Wu

Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Master's Of Agriculture Education, Katrina Marie Chamberlin

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This internship/project report includes validation documents required in 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 Independence High School conducted by representatives of the California Department of Education. The internship included the development of a chapter website to provide information and publicity for the Independence FFA Chapter. It serves as a repository of chapter information and documents, a home for current information, and as a public face for the chapter. The project also includes the development of an Advisory Committee for Independence High …

A Lidar Based Semi-Autonomous Collision Avoidance System And The Development Of A Hardware-In-The-Loop Simulator To Aid In Algorithm Development And Human Studies, Thomas F. Stevens

Master's Theses

In this paper, the architecture and implementation of an embedded controller for a steering based semi-autonomous collision avoidance system on a 1/10^th scale model is presented. In addition, the development of a 2D hardware-in-the-loop simulator with vehicle dynamics based on the bicycle model is described. The semi-autonomous collision avoidance software is fully contained onboard a single-board computer running embedded GNU/Linux. To eliminate any wired tethers that limit the system’s abilities, the driver operates the vehicle at a user-control-station through a wireless Bluetooth interface. The user-control-station is outfitted with a game-controller that provides standard steering wheel and pedal controls along …

Digestibility Of Two Complete Pelleted Diets By The Horse (Equus Caballus) As A Model Animal For Nondomestic Hindgut Fermenters, Emily M. Schwartz

Master's Theses

Estimating nutrient and energy requirements of exotic animals is a necessary component of nutrition management in zoos and other wildlife facilities. In the absence of species-specific data, domestic animal models are often referenced. Herbivorous hindgut fermenters, such as horses, zebra, and rhinoceros, rely on microbial fermentation in the cecum and colon to utilize dietary structural carbohydrates. The study objective was to measure the digestible energy of two (LOW, HIGH) complete pelleted diets by the horse as a model for nondomestic hindgut fermenters. Seven, individually housed, adult Quarter Horse (Equus caballus) geldings were assigned to one of two diets as 100% …