Digital Commons Network^™

A Comparison Of Risk Assessment Models For Pipe Replacement And Rehabilitation In A Water Distribution System, Lyle John Nemeth

Master's Theses

A water distribution system is composed of thousands of pipes of varying materials, sizes, and ages. These pipes experience physical, environmental, and operational factors that cause deterioration and ultimately lead to their failure. Pipe deterioration results in increased break rates, decreased hydraulic capacity, and adverse effects on water quality. Pipe failures result in economic losses to the governing municipality due to loss of service, cost of pipe repair/replacement, damage incurred due to flooding, and disruptions to normal business operations. Inspecting the entire water distribution system for deterioration is difficult and economically unfeasible; therefore, it benefits municipalities to utilize a risk …

Exploring Data Driven Models Of Transit Travel Time And Delay, Bobjot Singh Sidhu

Master's Theses

Transit travel time and operating speed influence service attractiveness, operating cost, system efficiency and sustainability. The Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) provides public transportation service in the tri-county Portland metropolitan area. TriMet was one of the first transit agencies to implement a Bus Dispatch System (BDS) as a part of its overall service control and management system. TriMet has had the foresight to fully archive the BDS automatic vehicle location and automatic passenger count data for all bus trips at the stop level since 1997. More recently, the BDS system was upgraded to provide stop-level data plus 5-second …

A Solution To The Circular Restricted N Body Problem In Planetary Systems, Jay R. Iuliano

Master's Theses

This thesis is a brief look at a new solution to a problem that has been approached in many different ways in the past - the N body problem. By focusing on planetary systems, satellite dynamics can be modeled in a fashion similar to the Circular Restricted Three Body Problem (CR3BP) with the Circular Restricted N Body Problem (CRNBP). It was found that this new formulation of the dynamics can then utilize the tools created from all the research into the CR3BP to reassess the possibility of different complex trajectories in systems where there are more than just two large …

Skewer: Sentiment Knowledge Extraction With Entity Recognition, Christopher James Wu

Master's Theses

The California state legislature introduces approximately 5,000 new bills each legislative session. While the legislative hearings are recorded on video, the recordings are not easily accessible to the public. The lack of official transcripts or summaries also increases the effort required to gain meaningful insight from those recordings. Therefore, the news media and the general population are largely oblivious to what transpires during legislative sessions.

Digital Democracy, a project started by the Cal Poly Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy, is an online platform created to bring transparency to the California legislature. It features a searchable database of state …

C-Salt: Conversational Style Attribution Given Legislative Transcriptions, Garrett D. Summers

Master's Theses

Common authorship attribution is well described by various authors summed up in Jacques Savoy’s work. Namely, authorship attribution is the process “whereby the author of a given text must be determined based on text samples written by known authors [48].” The field of authorship attribution has been explored in various contexts. Most of these works have been done on the authors written text. This work seeks to approach a similar field to authorship attribution. We seek to attribute not a given author to a work based on style, but a style itself that is used by a group of people. …

Hall Effect Modeling In Fem Simulators And Comparison To Experimental Results In Silicon And Printed Sensors, Leonardo A. Frem

Master's Theses

Finite element method simulation models for thin-film semiconductor-based Hall sensors were developed using secondary data in order to understand their behavior under strong magnetic fields. Given a device geometry and charge carrier density and mobility, the models accurately calculated sensor resistance, Hall voltage under a normally-incident constant magnetic field, and expected offset from a population of Hall devices. The model was successfully matched against data from integrated chip Hall sensors from St. Jude Medical. Additionally, the feasibility of creating Hall effect devices with common carbon ink was explored experimentally. The material properties obtained from testing these ink-based devices through the …

Low-Frequency Series Loaded Resonant Inverter Characterization, Alfredo Medina

Master's Theses

Modern power systems require multiple conversions between DC and AC to deliver power from renewable energy sources. Recent growth in DC loads result in increased system costs and reduced efficiency, due to redundant conversions. Advances in DC microgrid systems demonstrate superior performance by reducing conversion stages. The literature reveals practical DC microgrid systems composed of wind and solar power to replace existing fossil fuel technologies for residential consumers. Although higher efficiencies are achieved, some household appliances require AC power; thus, the need for highly efficient DC to AC converters is imperative in establishing DC microgrid systems. Resonant inverter topologies exhibit …

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 …

Categorizing Blog Spam, Brandon Bevans

Master's Theses

The internet has matured into the focal point of our era. Its ecosystem is vast, complex, and in many regards unaccounted for. One of the most prevalent aspects of the internet is spam. Similar to the rest of the internet, spam has evolved from simply meaning ‘unwanted emails’ to a blanket term that encompasses any unsolicited or illegitimate content that appears in the wide range of media that exists on the internet.

Many forms of spam permeate the internet, and spam architects continue to develop tools and methods to avoid detection. On the other side, cyber security engineers continue to …

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 …

Nanosatellite Probes In Interplanetary Space: An Augmented Cassini Mission, Trent T. Voris

Master's Theses

The exploration of interplanetary space is one of the most challenging and costly ventures in human history. The relatively low amount of information on other sites beyond Earth is largely due to the rarity of effective trajectories as well as the high levels of risk and complexity inherent in innovative space exploration. One solution to this lack of information is the use of deployable satellite probes to help augment the main mission and its instrumentation. This “Mother- Daughter” architecture allows for the low-cost exploration of hazardous sites and numerous points of interest without compromising the primary mission.

While the end …

Academic Senate - Agenda, 5/24/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Directed Energy Missions For Planetary Defense, Philip Lubin, Gary Hughes, Mike Eskenazi, Kelly Kosmo, Isabella Johansson, Janelle Griswold, Mark Pryor, Hugh O'Neill, Peter Meinhold, Johnathan Suen, Jordan Riley, Qicheng Zhang, Kevin Walsh, Carl Melis, Miikka Kangas, Caio Motta, Travis Brashears

Statistics

Directed energy for planetary defense is now a viable option and is superior in many ways to other proposed technologies, being able to defend the Earth against all known threats. This paper presents basic ideas behind a directed energy planetary defense system that utilizes laser ablation of an asteroid to impart a deflecting force on the target. A conceptual philosophy called DE-STAR, which stands for Directed Energy System for Targeting of Asteroids and exploration, is an orbiting stand-off system, which has been described in other papers. This paper describes a smaller, stand-on system known as DE-STARLITE as a reduced-scale version …

Executive Committee - Meeting Minutes, 5/17/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Minutes

No abstract provided.

Executive Committee - Agenda, 5/17/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Executive Committee - Agenda, 5/10/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

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 …

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.

Teaching Numerical Methods In The Context Of Galaxy Mergers, Maria Kourjanskaia

Physics

Methods of teaching numerical methods to solve ordinary differential equations in the context of galaxy mergers were explored. The research published in a paper by Toomre and Toomre in 1972 describing the formation of galactic tails and bridges from close tidal interactions was adapted into a project targeting undergraduate physics students. Typically undergraduate physics students only take one Computational Physics class in which various techniques and algorithms are taught. Although it is important to study computational physics techniques, it is just as important to apply this knowledge to a problem that is representative of what computational physics researchers are investigating …

Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion Of Photons Through Β-Barium Borate, Luke Horowitz

Physics

An apparatus for detecting pairs of entangled 405nm photons that have undergone Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion through β-Barium Borate is described. By using avalanche photo-diodes to detect the low-intensity converted beam and a coincidence module to register coincident photons, it is possible to create an apparatus than can be used to perform quantum information experiments under a budget appropriate for an undergraduate physics lab.

Modeling The Sps Feedback And Feedforward Systems For Improved Performance, Jake Hargrove

Physics

The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is the last link in the chain of accelerators providing protons to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The SPS is currently the limiting factor on the maximum number of protons and thus collisions in the LHC. The SPS upgrade is under way to expand the discovery potential of the LHC. The accelerating system — Radio Frequency (RF) — is being improved. Models of the SPS RF feedback systems were developed. These models could assist with design choices, evaluating the upgraded system performance, and anticipate limitations and issues.

Numerical Development And Optimization Of A Phase Change Material Solar Thermal Storage Unit System Model, Jared Tower

Master's Theses

In this work, the feasibility of a phase change material (PCM) thermal storage unit is determined, and the design is then optimized to minimize the time it takes for the PCM to completely melt. The PCM provides a large energy density due to its characteristically large heat of fusion, but has a low thermal conductivity, leading to slow transient responses. Thus, a heatsink is employed to increase the melt rate. The heatsink is analyzed using three different methods to determine which method provides the best results in the least amount of time. First, SolidWorks’ simulation tool with a variable specific …

Optimization Of Rfid System Coverage In A Manufacturing Environment, Scott D. Malatesta

Master's Theses

This paper compiles existing ideas, theories, and experiments across multiple disciplines to provide guidance for a company looking to implement an optimal RFID system in their production facility. The desire is to maximize the information received by the system while minimizing the cost. Four potential layouts of RFID antennas, two with overlapping antenna coverage and two with non-overlapping layouts, are first analyzed to understand the special coverage and the number of antennas required. The value of information is then quantified to determine whether higher coverage layouts are worth the additional costs associated with the higher number of antennas required. It …

Malawi: Orphan Children’S Project, Jasmine A. Lomax

Construction Management

Habitat for Humanity International Global Village recruits and sends volunteers to work on various construction Habitat for Humanity construction projects around the world. The village of Khobili in the Mulanje District of Malawi, Africa was selected as the location to construct three homes for villagers that had lost their homes during severe flooding. For me this was an incredible opportunity to come together with a team of other volunteers to build homes for orphans and their caretaker in a rural Malawian village. The Habitat team worked with skilled local masons to build safe, durable and comfortable houses from the foundation …

Comparison Of Gaussian And Super Gaussian Laser Beams For Addressing Atomic Qubits, Katharina Gillen-Christandl, Glen D. Gillen, M. J. Piotrowicz, M. Saffman

Physics

We study the fidelity of single-qubit quantum gates performed with two-frequency laser fields that have a Gaussian or super Gaussian spatial mode. Numerical simulations are used to account for imperfections arising from atomic motion in an optical trap, spatially varying Stark shifts of the trapping and control beams, and transverse and axial misalignment of the control beams. Numerical results that account for the three-dimensional distribution of control light show that a super Gaussian mode with intensity I~ e^-2(r/w₀)n provides reduced sensitivity to atomic motion and beam misalignment. Choosing a super Gaussian with n = 6 …

Executive Committee - Agenda, 4/19/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Executive Committee - Meeting Minutes, 4/19/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Minutes

No abstract provided.

As-812-16 Resolution Requesting That Cal Poly Administration Develop An Integrated Strategic Plan, Academic Senate Budget & Long-Range Planning Committee

Academic Senate Resolutions

Charges the Budget & Long-Range Planning Committee with providing oversight and support of the implementation of new strategic plan

Academic Senate - Agenda, 4/12/2016, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Broad HΒ Emission-Line Variability In A Sample Of 102 Local Active Galaxies, Jordan Runco, Maren Cosens, Vardha Nicola Bennert, Bryan Scott, S. Komossa, Matthew A. Malkan, Mariana S. Lazarova, Matthew W. Auger, Tommaso Treu, Daeseong Park

Physics

A sample of 102 local (0.02 ≤ z ≤ 0.1) Seyfert galaxies with black hole masses M_BH > 10⁷M_⊙ was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and observed using the Keck 10 m telescope to study the scaling relations between M_BH and host galaxy properties. We study profile changes of the broad Hβ emission line within the three to nine year time frame between the two sets of spectra. The variability of the broad Hβ emission line is of particular interest, not only because it is used to estimate M_BH, …