Digital Commons Network^™

Endothelial And Smooth Muscle-Dependent Vascular Reactivity In Immature Arterialized Collateral Capillaries, Caitlin Koeroghlian

Biomedical Engineering

Peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD) occurs due to the build up of atherosclerotic plaque and reduces blood flow to cause chronic ischemia. Patients with PAOD may experience intermittent claudication, or the pain in limb skeletal muscles due to a decease in blood flow. Collateral arteries can act as a natural bypass and improve blood flow to hypoxic tissue by creating an alternate route for blood to flow, but not all patients with PAOD have pre-existing collateral networks. Animal studies indicate that tissues without pre-existing collateral networks can form de novo collaterals from capillaries following occlusion of a feed artery. Unfortunately, …

Functional Vasodilation Is Impaired In Arterialized Capillaries In The Spinotrapezius, Joshua P. Cutts

Biomedical Engineering

Ischemic diseases are the result of atherosclerotic plaques, which occlude conduit arteries. Ischemic disease in different tissues leads to different conditions, such as coronary artery disease (CHD), cerebrovascular disease (CVD), and peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD). Patient vasculature architecture is variable; some patients having many collateral vessels, which are connect one arterial branch to another, and readily serve as natural bypass routes to atherosclerotic occlusions, to enlarge and provide blood flow to tissue distal to the occlusion. Patients with many natural collateral vessels are ischemia protected. Unfortunately, not all patients have collateral arterioles to remodel into conduit vessels and provide …

Lamb Bacon: How The Method Of Brine Distribution And Addition Of A Dry Rub Influences Yields, Morgan Metheny

Animal Science

This study was conducted to test the whether lamb breasts can substitute as the raw material in producing a bacon product. Due to the difference in fat saturation between pork and lamb, this research was used to test how successful lamb absorbs the brine in order to make bacon. The yield results of two different processing techniques, injection and tumbling, were compared along with comparing the affect of adding a dry rub of seasonings to the lamb surface. The 120 lambs breasts were split into four groups of 30. Each group received a different treatment: plain tumbled, plain injected, seasoned …

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.

Latino Rhythms In Downtown Los Angeles: A Case Study Of The Social, Physical, And Economic Environment Of "La Broadway", Ulises Antonio Gonzalez

Master's Theses

In an attempt to practice inclusive planning, this research project explores whether Broadway Avenue functions as an ethnic commercial strip and identifies social, physical, and economic components that contribute to the Latino neighborhood/ barrio. Using pilot studies Loukaitou-Sideris (2000), Loukaitou-Sideris (2002), Rojas (1993), Manzumdar et al. (2000), Main (2007), and Fernando (2007) as a foundation, this research uses a single case study in addition to several research methods: 42 random surveys, literature review and analysis, site observations/pictures, and land use survey.

Various scholars write that barrios have unique physical, social, economic, and political attributes. A new aesthetic, art, symbols, …

Cooperative Construction In Schools In California, John Mauck Donley

Master's Theses

Cooperative Construction in Schools in California

John M. Donley

The construction industry has lost efficiency since 1964, while becoming increasingly more litigious. Schools in California can ill afford the time to allow the construction industry time to fully evolve. It may take years or decades to fully improve the efficiency of, and reduce the conflict within the construction industry.

At the same time, the construction industry has developed new processes to improve efficiency and reduce conflict. These processes are beginning to be broadly embraced by the industry. They all contain cooperative elements. Taken together they represent a new organizing principle …

Automated Pet Food Dispenser, Kevin M. Shibley

Electrical Engineering

Electronics revolutionize the world and simplify life. The Automated Pet Food Dispenser (APFD) revolutionizes the pet industry and provides unprecedented food capacity and delivery capability, giving pet owners worry-free vacationing. Sensors and timers optimize functionality and reduce waste while improving reliability and usability. User-defined settings and customization gives the device adaptability to meet every customer’s needs.

Geography Of Development Of Eastern Europe, Kathryn E. Dyas

Social Sciences

The aim of this senior project is to evaluate the long-standing effects the geography of development has had on Eastern Europe since the 1900s onward. The analysis concentrates on Poland, Croatia, and Ukraine thoroughly examining the political, cultural, and geographic nature that has affected the history and development of these countries. The author outlines theories of development and how they are applicable to Eastern Europe’s continuing development. The focus of this paper is on the influence of socialism and communism, as well as the affect the European Union has had, and continues to have on Eastern Europe as a whole. …

Cosleeping: A Universal Human Phenomenon, Sarah E. Nasatir-Hilty

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Mapping And Analyzing Historical Sanborn Maps Of San Luis Obispo From 1905 And 1950, Troy A. Lawson

Social Sciences

This project was conducted to map, analyze, and determine historical changes in the city of San Luis Obispo, California. Sanborn maps from 1905 and 1950 were drawn showing streets, parcels, creeks, and buildings of the city. These publications had limited use because they were in a physical format without any geographic reference. Here, these maps were digitized into a GIS format to analyze building trends and identify cultural and historical buildings not on the City’s list of Historic and Culturally Contributing Buildings, as well as published online on the City of San Luis Obispo’s website and on ArcGIS Online. Additionally, …

Nutrition Transition In California: Examination Of The Nutrition Profile, Desiree Rodriguez

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

The Future Of The Music Experience, Kayla Caballero

Graphic Communication

This study was intended to gain a strong understanding of where the music industry and accompanying artwork is today, how music is primarily experienced, and how it will develop in the future. The widespread shift from physical to digital platforms has reached the music industry and how listeners experience their favorite music. Although there are many positive results from this shift, it is important to pay close attention to how these changes affect how one experiences music and what is lost in the shift to digital. Even more importantly, where this shift might take music and its artwork’s relationship in …

Consumer Opinions With Quality Of Cosmetic Packaging Designs, Madison Mccormick

Graphic Communication

No abstract provided.

The Laes Pocketbook For Filmmaker Enthusiasts, Steven (Sven) Thien Le

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

The LAES Pocketbook for Filmmaker Enthusiasts was written to be an essential tool for Cal Poly students to use when approaching the broad spectrum of film making. This introductory pocketbook tackles many of the confusions and questions that arise when first starting with film making and utilizes the equipment available at Cal Poly to make the film making process simpler for students. Printed out on standard 8.5" x 11" paper, this portable pocketbook is meant to be folded, stapled down the spine, and carried with the student on their filming endeavors.

This pocketbook will go over types of filming equipment, …

Fully Accessible Raised Garden Beds, Ethan Lockwood

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

The Ranch, a local nonprofit that is a community gathering location for recreation and education, providing outdoor employment opportunities for area residents with developmental disabilities and a unique experience for volunteers and visitors., was lacking a farming and gardening environment that was fully accessible for all people including those in wheelchairs. This project provided substantial background research for the mission of The Ranch, demonstrated sustainable design, secured material donations, CAD modeled raised beds, and provided meaningful employment during the construction of the raised beds. The project resulted in three different raised bed designs that are all in use by The …

Photosynthetic Thermal Tolerance And Recovery To Short Duration Temperature Stress In Desert And Montane Plants: A Comparative Study, David William Gallagher

Master's Theses

• Climate change models predict an increase in frequency and amplitude of extreme weather events, including heat waves. To better predict how the composition and distribution of plant assemblages might respond to these changes in temperature, it is important to understand how species currently respond to these extremes. Photosynthetic thermal tolerance (T₂₅)and photosynthetic recovery (RT₂₅) were quantified in 27 species. We also studied the relationships between T₂₅, RT₂₅ and leaf mass per area (LMA). Leaf temperature was also monitored in the field.
• Leaves used in this study were collected from two distinct …

Real-Time 3d Person Tracking And Dense Stereo Maps Using Gpu Acceleration, Kendall Merriman

Master's Theses

Interfacing with a computer, especially when interacting with a virtual three di- mensional (3D) scene, found in video games for example, can be frustrating when using only a mouse and keyboard. Recent work has been focused on alternative modes of interactions, including 3D tracking of the human body. One of the essential steps in this process is acquiring depth information of the scene. Stereo vision is the process of using two separate images of the same scene, taken from slightly different positions, to get a three dimensional view of the scene. One of the largest issues with dense stereo map …

Water For Santa Cruz County: Nonprofit Advocacy And Public Policy, Matthew Alexander Orbach

Master's Theses

This professional Masters project involved turning the Sustainable Water Coalition (SWC), an unincorporated group of Santa Cruz residents advocating the work of the two local water agencies, into a California Nonprofit Corporation and an IRS recognized 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. This paper examines the biophysical, human, and institutional systems surrounding water use in Santa Cruz County, California, and the roles that a nonprofit advocacy organization can play within that framework. These roles are illustrated through an exploration of citizen involvement and advocacy in the comparative cases of the scwd² Desalination Program in Santa Cruz, California, and a proposed wastewater …

Sensitivity Of Stormwater Management Solutions To Spatial Scale, Jeffrey Michael Barich

Master's Theses

Urbanization has considerably altered natural hydrology of urban watersheds by increasing runoff volume, producing higher and faster peak flows, and reducing water quality. Efforts to minimize or avoid these impacts, for example by implementing low impact development (LID) practices, are gaining momentum. Designing effective and economical stormwater management practices at a watershed scale is challenging; LIDs are commonly designed at site scales, considering local hydrologic conditions (i.e., one LID at a time). A number of empirical studies have documented hydrologic and water quality improvements achieved by LIDs. However, watershed scale effectiveness of LIDs has not been well studied. Considering cost, …

Consumer Evaluation Of Cheese: Linking Hedonics, Emotions And Perception Of Product Attributes, Kristine Patricia Martinez

Master's Theses

As the food industry continues to grow and the marketplace becomes saturated with similar products, consumer researchers and sensory scientists are looking to dig deeper into the minds of consumers to reveal greater distinctions between products and ultimately deliver multi-dimensionally desirable products to consumers. Concurrently, rates of adult and childhood obesity have been increasing nationwide. Food companies are now facing a paradigm shift as health initiatives and consumers are beginning to demand healthier alternatives to commonly consumed food products. With this in mind, it has become imperative to identify product attributes that drive consumption so they can be replicated in …

Neuromodulation: Action Potential Modeling, Vladimir Ruzov

Master's Theses

There have been many different studies performed in order to examine various properties of neurons. One of the most important properties of neurons is an ability to originate and propagate action potential. The action potential is a source of communication between different neural structures located in different anatomical regions. Many different studies use modeling to describe the action potential and its properties. These models mathematically describe physical properties of neurons and analyze and explain biological and electrochemical processes such as action potential initiation and propagation. Therefore, one of the most important functions of neurons is an ability to provide communication …

Design And Validation Of A Wearable, Continuous, And Non-Invasive Hydration Monitor That Uses Ultrasonic Pulses To Detect Changes In Tissue Hydration Status, Zoie Engman

Master's Theses

Chronic dehydration is an endemic problem for many population groups. Current methods of monitoring hydration status are invasive, time consuming, cannot be performed while exercising, and require lab resources. A proposed solution is a wearable, continuous, and non-invasive device that uses harm-free ultrasonic pulses to detect changes in tissue hydration status over time. Customer and engineering requirements were defined and used to guide the design process. Literature reviews were performed to identify essential information on dehydration, assess current methods, discover state of the art devices, and describe ultrasonic theory. Market research was performed to identify athletes as the target population …

A Multi-Gpu Compute Solution For Optimized Genomic Selection Analysis, Trevor Devore

Master's Theses

Many modern-day Bioinformatics algorithms rely heavily on statistical models to analyze their biological data. Some of these statistical models lend themselves nicely to standard high performance computing optimizations such as parallelism, while others do not. One such algorithm is Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). In this thesis, we present a heterogeneous compute solution for optimizing GenSel, a genetic selection analysis tool. GenSel utilizes a MCMC algorithm to perform Bayesian inference using Gibbs sampling.

Optimizing an MCMC algorithm is a difficult problem because it is inherently sequential, containing a loop carried dependence between each Markov Chain iteration. The optimization presented in …

Toward General Purpose 3d User Interfaces: Extending Windowing Systems To Three Dimensions, Forrest Freiling Reiling

Master's Theses

Recent growth in the commercial availability of consumer grade 3D user interface devices like the Microsoft Kinect and the Oculus Rift, coupled with the broad availability of high performance 3D graphics hardware, has put high quality 3D user interfaces firmly within the reach of consumer markets for the first time ever. However, these devices require custom integration with every application which wishes to use them, seriously limiting application support, and there is no established mechanism for multiple applications to use the same 3D interface hardware simultaneously. This thesis proposes that these problems can be solved in the same way that …

A Comparison Of Image Processing Techniques For Bird Detection, Elsa Reyes

Master's Theses

Orchard fruits and vegetable crops are vulnerable to wild birds and animals. These wild birds and animals can cause critical damage to the produce. Traditional methods of scaring away birds such as scarecrows are not long-term solutions but short-term solutions. This is a huge problem especially near areas like San Luis Obispo where there are vineyards. Bird damage can be as high as 50% for grapes being grown in vineyards. The total estimated revenue lost annually in the 10 counties in California due to bird and rodent damage to 22 selected crops ranged from $168 million to $504 million (in …

Jester: A Device Abstraction And Data Fusion Api For Skeletal Tracking, Kevin Samuel Schapansky

Master's Theses

Humans naturally interact with the world in three dimensions. Traditionally, personal computers have relied on 2D mice for input because 3D user tracking systems were cumbersome and expensive. Recently, 3D input hardware has become accurate and affordable enough to be marketed to average consumers and integrated into niche applications. Presently, 3D application developers must learn a different API for each device their software will support, and there is no simple way to integrate sensor data if the system has multiple 3D input devices. This thesis presents Jester, a library designed to simplify the development and improve the accuracy of 3D …

Studies And Research Regarding Sound Reduction Materials With The Purpose Of Reducing Sound Pollution, Timothy G. Hawkins

Master's Theses

Noise can be defined as unwanted sound. There are many cases and applications that reducing noise level is of great importance. Loss of hearing is only one of the effects of continuous exposure to excessive noise levels. Noise can interfere with sleep and speech, and cause discomfort and other non-auditory effects. High level noise and vibration lead to structural failures as well as reduction in life span. The importance of noise issue could be well understood by looking at regulations that have been passed by governments to restrict noise production in society. Industrial machinery, air/surface transportation and construction activities are …

Oceano Community Health Plan, Eugene Phillip Brennan

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

Oceano Community Health Plan

Phillip Brennan

Recent, mounting research shows that chronic disease, the leading causes of death and primary driver of health care costs, cannot be effectively addressed through education or preventative health alone. A physical environment that promotes health—through access to healthy food, opportunities for physical activity, quality housing, transportation options, and safe schools—is an integral part of making our communities healthier. This research and accompanying Healthy Community Plans will serve as a way for the County to begin looking in-depth at the ways the built environment (our streets, parks, and neighborhoods) contribute or detract from the …

Smarticles: A Method For Identifying And Correcting Instability And Error Caused By Explicit Integration Techniques In Physically Based Simulations, Susan Aileen Marano

Master's Theses

Using an explicit integration method in physically based animations has many advantages including conceptual and computational simplicity, however, it re- quires small time steps to ensure low numerical instability. Simulations with large numbers of individually interacting components such as cloth, hair, and fluid models, are limited by the sections of particles most susceptible to error. This results in the need for smaller time steps than required for the majority of the system. These sections can be diverse and dynamic, quickly changing in size and location based on forces in the system. Identifying and handling these trou- blesome sections could allow …

The Role Of Sirtuin Inhibitors On The Proteomic Responses Of The Mussels Mytilus Galloprovincialis And Mytilus Trossulus To Menadione Induced Oxidative Stress, Hayley C. Chilton

Master's Theses

Global climate change imposes physiological constraints on marine ecosystems that can alter the distribution of intertidal organisms. In one such instance, the native cold-adapted mussel Mytilus trossulus is being replaced along its southern range by the invasive warm-adapted Mytilus galloprovincialis. These blue mussels occur throughout rocky intertidal zones where they are subjected to greatly varying environmental conditions known to induce oxidative stress. We hypothesize that while under acute stress, related Mytilus congeners undergo a shift in redox potential from NADH-fueled respiratory pathways to pathways producing NADPH as a way to decrease the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and …