Digital Commons Network^™

Multi-Vector Tracking Of Wifi And Zigbee Devices, Calvin Andrew Laverty

Master's Theses

Location privacy preservation has shifted to the forefront of discussions about next generation wireless networks. While pseudonym-changing schemes have been proposed to preserve an individual's privacy, simulation has shown that new association attack models render these schemes useless. The major contribution of this thesis is the implementation of a tracking network with commodity hardware on the California Polytechnic State University campus which leverages the combination of de-anonymization strategies on captured wireless network data to show the effectiveness of a pseudonym-changing scheme for wireless identification across WiFi and Zigbee protocols.

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 …

Colloid Thruster To Teach Advance Electric Propulsion Techniques To Post-Secondary Students, Alexander M. Powaser

Master's Theses

Colloid thrusters, and electrospray thrusters as a whole, have been around since the 1960s. When they were first developed, the high efficiency and fine thrust control was overshadowed by the high power requirement for such a low thrust that the system provides. This caused the technology to be put on hold for aerospace applications. Now, as small satellites are becoming more prevalent, there has been a resurgence in interest in electrospray thruster technology. The recent advancements in tech- nology allow electrospray thrusters to use significantly less power and occupy less volume than their predecessors. As electrospray technology continues to advance, …

An Analysis Of Changes In Stream Temperature Due To Forest Harvest Practices Using Dhsvm-Rbm, Julia B. Ridgeway

Master's Theses

Forest harvesting has been shown to cause various changes in water quantity and water quality parameters, highlighting the need for comprehensive forest practice rules. Studies show a myriad of impacts to ecosystems as a result of watershed level changes, such as forest harvesting. Being able to better understand the impact that forest harvesting can have on stream temperature is especially critical in locations where federally threatened or endangered fish species are located. The overall goal of this research project is to assess responses in stream temperature to various riparian and forest harvest treatments in a maritime, mountainous environment. The results …

Adapted Trailer Hitching System, Joseph Neil Hearn, Maxwell M. Selna, Maximilian D. Cossalter, Eric B. Ringsrud

Mechanical Engineering

This report highlights the entire design process of an adapted trailer hitching system for Taylor Morris: a navy veteran and quadruple amputee. This begins with problem definition through customer and product research. Objectives are generated after the problem is defined and the boundary of the project is set. This outcome of the project focuses on modifications/improvements to the vehicle side of the problem and leaves the trailers untouched. Engineering specifications are developed to constrain the concept design direction, which ultimately dictates the outcome of the final design. The final design is used as a basis to manufacture a structural prototype …

Compact Farms: A Step Towards Sustainability, Chad A. Porter

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This project report accounts for the potential benefits compact farms can have for agriculture and sustainability. The report details the design, implementation, and management of Whistle Stop Farm, a 1-acre, diverse farm producing vegetables, fruits, and gourmet mushrooms for direct markets in Atascadero, California. The farm focuses on economic and environmental sustainability. A large part of the farm revolves around soil science and how to manage soils to promote a healthy soil ecosystem.

Characteristics Of A Viscous Damper: Finding The Damping Coefficient, Roman Lara Iv, Tiffany Wang

Architectural Engineering

The authors of this report are undergraduate Architectural Engineering students at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. This report documents the implementation, design, and experimentation of a damper with unknown properties. This experimentation data will be used to find the damping coefficient of a viscous damper alongside damping characteristics. Using knowledge from previous courses, this report focuses on dynamic responses through an assumed viscous damper. Through forced oscillatory motion testing with specified frequency and amplitude using the seismic shake table and equipment, compactDAQ instrumentation, and damper, values can be pulled from the data experimentation, which can be used …

Damage Detection Of Identical Structures, Garrett M. Peterson, Kira Deguchi

Architectural Engineering

This study is concerned with measuring the vibrations of similar (and seemingly identical) structures, and attempting to detect damage in the structure by identifying outliers from the data. Furthermore, this study attempts to provide a logical conclusion surrounding the MPIT software by correlating each modal analysis program with MATLAB results from testing. Light poles around Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo are the subject of this study because the variability in structure among adjacent poles is hypothesized to be insignificant. A biaxial accelerometer device was mounted to each light pole and used to collect data. Initial tests were completed on six …

Bihongora Library And Community Center, Nicholas M. Dekker, Elyssa L. Adams

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Brain Tumor Classification Using Hit-Or-Miss Capsule Layers, Spencer J. Chang

Master's Theses

The job of classifying or annotating brain tumors from MRI images can be time-consuming and difficult, even for radiologists. To increase the survival chances of a patient, medical practitioners desire a means for quick and accurate diagnosis. While datasets like CIFAR, ImageNet, and SVHN have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of samples, an MRI dataset may not have the same luxury of receiving accurate labels for each image containing a tumor. This work covers three models that classify brain tumors using a combination of convolutional neural networks and of the concept of capsule layers. Each network utilizes …

Analog Single Sideband-Pulse Width Modulation Processor For Parametric Acoustic Arrays, Vikrant A. Marathe

Master's Theses

Parametric acoustic arrays are ultrasonic-based loudspeakers that produce highly directive audio. The audio must first be preprocessed and modulated into an ultrasonic carrier before being emitted into the air, where it will self-demodulate in the far field. The resulting audio wave is proportional to the double time-derivative of the square of the modulation envelope. This thesis presents a fully analog processor which encodes the audio into two Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) signals in quadrature phase and sums them together to produce a Single Sideband (SSB) spectrum around the fundamental frequency of the PWM signals. The two signals are modulated between …

California Waterfix Impacts On The City Of Modesto, Samuel J. Cunningham

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Microscope System, Virginia Brannaman, Gavin Shavey, Ricardo Lasa

Biomedical Engineering

This project aims to improve upon the current microscope stand for the Olympus compound microscope in the Microcirculation and Vascular Regeneration (MaVR) laboratory in order to minimize angular deflection of the microscope objective with respect to surgical stage.

Understanding Trauma And Victimization In Women's Incarceration: California's Treatment Response, Marissa Tuttle-Roache

Social Sciences

The purpose of this review is to provide an exploration of past research on women's pathways to incarceration, specifically discussing how this problem affects California women. Using research from various case studies, both quantitative and qualitative, this review examines the correlation between life experiences and incarceration for women. California laws and policies that mitigate the impact incarceration has historically had on women will be discussed. This research provides a better understanding of the treatment needs of incarcerated women and the programs that could provide them with some positive resources to succeed post incarceration and avoid recidivism.

Redefine: Messages About Masculinity, Anna Leonidovna Goryachikova, Mason Mitchell Montgomery, Hannah Jayne Martell

Communication Studies

REDEFINE: Messages about Masculinity was held in the Berg Gallery on May 7th, 2019. REDEFINE’s story began on an evening of Fall Quarter of 2018 at Barrelhouse in Downtown San Luis Obispo. The overarching goal of the event was to start a conversation about masculinity and to educate. As communication students, we studied the value of building relationships and communicating effectively. We believe that listening to personal narratives of diverse interpretations through monologues, music, and video is a great way to learn about masculinity. As audience members and performers, we came to understand how crucial it is to create a …

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.

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.

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 …

Analysis Of Hardware Sorting Units In Processor Design, Carmelo C. Furlan

Master's Theses

Sorting is often computationally intensive and can cause the application in which it is used to run slowly. To date, the quickest software sorting implementations for an N element sorting problem runs at O(nlogn). Current techniques, beyond developing better algorithms, used to accelerate sorting include the use of multiple processors or moving the sorting operation to a GPU. The use of multiple processors or a GPU can lead to increased energy consumption and heat produced by the device as compared to a single-core GPU-less implementation. To address these problems, specialized instructions and hardware units can be added to the processors …

A Numerical Simulation Optimizing Droplet Motion Driven By Electrowetting, Jake M. Lesinski

Master's Theses

A numerical simulation of electrowetting on a dielectric was performed in COMSOL to grant insight on various parameters that play a critical role in system performance. The specific system being simulated was the Open Drop experiment and the parameters being investigated were the applied voltage, contact angle at the advancing triple point, and droplet overlap onto neighboring actuated electrodes. These parameters were investigated with respect to their effect on droplet locomotion performance. This performance was quantified by the droplets velocity and the dielectrophortic (DEP) force’s magnitude; the DEP force was calculated from integration of the Maxwell Stress Tensor, however, the …

Journeyman International - Kilimbi Community Center And Eco-Lodge - Rwanda, Africa, Chris Audi

Construction Management

This project based senior project is an interdisciplinary partnership with a non-profit called Journeyman International (JI) and students from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). Journeyman International worked Empowering Villages and our design team to design a community center, eco-lodge, and guest houses to enable the local population to take advantage of a tourism heavy area creating jobs and income. Empowering Villages objective is to empower, train, and build up the people they work with and hope to someday see Villages around the world become self-sufficient by working with locals …

Logistics Of Construction In Agbokpa, Ghana, Fletcher David Podosek

Construction Management

In August of 2019, three Cal Poly CM students will travel to the remote fishing village of Agbokpa in Ghana. Our project is to install a water filtration system that will create potable water for the villagers that currently have to walk miles to obtain clean water. We will be laying nearly 1000 ft of pipe, installing a solar powered pump, and building a water filtration system hours away from any electricity. A project of this type requires a great deal of logistical planning in order to ensure that all aspects of the project is thought of and planned for. …

A Framework For Bim Model-Based Construction Cost Estimation, Michael Clark

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a framework to conduct a quantity take-off (QTO) and cost estimate within the Building Information Modeling (BIM) Environment. The product of this framework is a model-based cost estimating tool. The framework addresses the cost uncertainty associated with the detailed information defining BIM model element properties. This cost uncertainty is due to the lack of available tools that address detailed QTO and cost estimation using solely a BIM platform. In addition, cost estimators have little experience in leveraging and managing information within semantic-rich BIM models. Unmanaged BIM element parameters are considered a source of uncertainty in a model-based …

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. …

Effects Of Barotrauma On Four Species Of Pacific Rockfishes (Sebastes Spp.), Lesley Salter

Master's Theses

Physoclistic fish, such as Pacific rockfishes (genus Sebastes), have closed swim bladders that help them regulate their buoyancy. When anglers catch these fish and reel them to the surface, gases within their swim bladder expand due to the decrease in pressure. This can cause their swim bladder to over inflate––a condition known as barotrauma. Overly buoyant fish experiencing barotrauma often struggle to swim back to dwelling depth if released at the ocean’s surface. These fish may experience high rates of mortality by thermal shock caused by the warmer surface temperatures, starvation, predation, or vision problems caused by barotrauma. Assisted …

Viewpoint Optimization For Autonomous Strawberry Harvesting With Deep Reinforcement Learning, Jonathon J. Sather

Master's Theses

Autonomous harvesting may provide a viable solution to mounting labor pressures in the United States' strawberry industry. However, due to bottlenecks in machine perception and economic viability, a profitable and commercially adopted strawberry harvesting system remains elusive. In this research, we explore the feasibility of using deep reinforcement learning to overcome these bottlenecks and develop a practical algorithm to address the sub-objective of viewpoint optimization, or the development of a control policy to direct a camera to favorable vantage points for autonomous harvesting. We evaluate the algorithm's performance in a custom, open-source simulated environment and observe affirmative results. Our trained …

Stationary Exercise Bicycle Instrumentation And Verification Of Opensim Pelvic Residual Loads In Seated Cycling, Bradley Robert Wash

Master's Theses

The study of cycling biomechanics typically requires measurement of pedal loads through force transducer instrumentation. However, analysis of seated cycling often necessitates the additional measurement of the loads exerted on the rider by the seat and handlebars. A stationary exercise bicycle was instrumented with two commercial six-axis force transducers at both the seat and handlebar locations via a custom designed mounting system. The system was tested by applying known forces and moments to the fixtures and proved capable of accurately measuring the loads. Additional data collected from cycling tests were compared to values from the literature to add supporting evidence …

A Case Study Examining The Structure Of The Event Process At California Polytechnic State University, Ryan R. Baker

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the structure of the event process on Cal Poly’s campus. An intrinsic case study method was used, and data were collected and analyzed using triangulation from three sources of information: documents, interviews, and participation research. Overall, the structure of the event management process on campus was found to be stable, but could use improvement. Cal Poly should consider establishing a specific, designated organization that would help centralize the event management process at Cal Poly. This organization could be in charge of training and updating event managers, approving events, monitoring volume of events …

The Effects Of Weld Thermal Cycles On Additively Manufactured 316l Stainless Steel, Hajime Yamanaka

Master's Theses

To address the size limitation of the powder bed fusion system in additive manufacturing, the welding properties of 316L stainless steel manufactured by SLM 125HL are investigated by conducting hot ductility test and nil strength temperature (NST) test with a physical thermal mechanical simulator, Gleeble. In this study, the print orientations (Zdirection and XY-direction) and the laser patterns (stripe and checker board) are studied. In NST test, the orientation showed a statistical significance in NST: Z-direction was 1384°C and XY-direction was 1400°C. In hot ductility test, all of ductility curves show similar behaviors: hardening region, recrystallization region, and liquation region. …

A Cubesat Orbital Test Platform For An Electrothermal Plasma Micro-Thruster, Sean L. Crowley

Master's Theses

As the viability and capability of CubeSats increases, a demand for propulsion systems is becoming apparent. The limitations put forth in the ``CubeSat Design Specifications" and the additional difficulties of low available Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) for propulsion systems aboard CubeSats have left a technological gap that many are trying to fill. One class of propulsion, micro-propulsion systems, fills this gap nicely as they generally have low size and weight with a reasonable amount of power draw. Many can function for reasonable lifetime scales utilizing pressure vessels under one atmosphere and less then 100 watt-hours of stored chemical energy …