Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Student Motivations In Using A Newly Developed Study Abroad Application, Danica L. Schutt

Communication Studies

This study examined student motivations to use a newly developed application for their study abroad needs. Though prior research suggests that identifying with certain perceived groups increases their sense of belonging, critics also recognize that every unique individual has his/her own set of specific needs to be satisfied regardless of social membership. A survey style interview was conducted in which twelve Cal Poly students answered open-ended questions surrounding application use and travel needs. The interview assessed their opinions on perceived membership as a Cal Poly student, their motivations to utilize travel applications, and their ideas on what features make travel …

Sand Foot: A Prosthesis For Walking On Sand, Samantha A. Galicinao, John Dewing, Daniel Dugan Dotson, Christopher Urasaki

Biomedical Engineering

This critical design report describes the product development of a prosthesis for use on sand. Quality of Life Plus (QL+), a national non-profit organization aimed to develop prostheses for veterans and people with disabilities, introduced this project and its accompanying challenger, Sgt. Brady, to Cal Poly’s Interdisciplinary Senior Project class in September 2018. After consulting with Sgt. Brady and QL+ and performing extensive research, the Sand Foot team defined customer requirements and engineering specifications to meet these requirements. Comfortability, durability, and sandproof were key customer requirements. Several conceptual models were brainstormed and a final design was selected based on the …

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 …

Robot Navigation In Cluttered Environments With Deep Reinforcement Learning, Ryan Weideman

Master's Theses

The application of robotics in cluttered and dynamic environments provides a wealth of challenges. This thesis proposes a deep reinforcement learning based system that determines collision free navigation robot velocities directly from a sequence of depth images and a desired direction of travel. The system is designed such that a real robot could be placed in an unmapped, cluttered environment and be able to navigate in a desired direction with no prior knowledge. Deep Q-learning, coupled with the innovations of double Q-learning and dueling Q-networks, is applied. Two modifications of this architecture are presented to incorporate direction heading information that …

Field Emissions Of Methane And Nitrous Oxide From California Landfills, Alexandra D. Limpert

Master's Theses

Comprehensive and systematic aerial and field investigations were conducted at representative California landfills to quantify emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. Landfills are highly engineered; however, they are one of the largest anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases, causing human health and safety concerns. Methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) are significant greenhouse gases with high global warming potentials that are generated in a landfill environment.

For site selection, sites were evaluated based on waste in place, climate zone, faults and oil and gas operations, population density, cover conditions and percentage of cover types, age of waste, …

Study Of Paper Microbial Fuel Cells For Use In On-Site Wastewater Testing, William A. Tolmasoff

Master's Theses

This study demonstrated a technique for fabricating simple, low-cost Paper Microbial fuel cells (PMFC’s) in the model of a previous study to, for the first time, produce voltage from wastewater effluent. The PMFC’s were created by stacking and gluing the main components of an MFC together: reservoir layer; anode; cation exchange membrane (CEM); air cathode. A wax printer was used to create the hydrophobic borders of the PMFC’s on filter paper, and graphite paint was applied to the paper to create the anode. The CEM’s considered were filter paper, wax, and Nafion, with Nafion being the most efficient. Finally, the …

The Effects Of Agricultural Waste-Based Compost Amendments In Organic Pest Management, Gregg T. Stephenson

Master's Theses

Soil-borne pests and pathogens, such as Verticillium dahliae, can devastate a wide range of annual and perennial crops. Current management options for organic production are limited and sustainable management of pathogens, weeds, and arthropods is important for staying profitable and reducing the use of harmful chemicals. Organic soil amendments play an important role in supplying some of the nutritional needs of vegetable crops and improving soil structure, while also contributing to pest control. The objective of this research was to determine the effects of grape and olive-based composts on soil pathogen load, arthropod communities, and weed biomass and diversity. …

Carbonate Chemistry Characterization In A Low-Inflow Estuary With Recent Seagrass Loss, Jolie Higgins

Master's Theses

Estuaries are dynamic environments that are strongly affected by natural variability, as well as direct and indirect anthropogenic impacts. A better understanding of the drivers of carbon fluxes and biogeochemical variability in estuarine systems is needed, particularly with the increasing threat of ocean acidification. Morro Bay in Central California is a small nationally protected estuary, with seasonally low freshwater inputs. Since 2007, the bay has experienced a significant loss of native seagrass, Zostera marina, which is an important component of the marine ecosystem. Because seagrass photosynthesis decreases carbon dioxide and increases oxygen in the water column, the loss of seagrass …

Strawberries And Gut Health In Postmenopausal Women, Morgan T. Macneill

Master's Theses

The gut microbiota has been implicated in both health and disease. As such, diet is a significant determinant of gut health, whereby diet induced dysbiosis is associated with cardiometabolic risk. Interestingly, a higher proportion of Firmicutes and a lower proportion of Bacteroidetes are implicated in obesity. Strawberry polyphenols have been shown to reduce cardiovascular disease risk in addition to exhibiting prebiotic activity by increasing probiotic bacteria in the gut. Polyphenols have also been shown to reduce the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes. Therefore, dietary modifications such as strawberry consumption may help improve health outcomes through the gut. The objective of …

A 3-Dimensional In Silico Test Bed For Radiofrequency Ablation Catheter Design Evaluation And Optimization, Carolyn Teng

Master's Theses

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the disordered activation of the atrial myocardium, which is a major cause of stroke. Currently, the most effective, minimally traumatic treatment for AF is percutaneous catheter ablation to isolate arrhythmogenic areas from the rest of the atrium. The standard in vitro evaluation of ablation catheters through lesion studies is a resource intensive effort due to tissue variability and visual measurement methods, necessitating large sample sizes and multiple prototype builds. A computational test bed for ablation catheter evaluation was built in SolidWorks® using the morphology and dimensions of the left atrium adjacent structures. From this geometry, the …

Dynamic Response Validation Of Cubesats Through Testing And Finite Element Analysis, Peter Rivera

Master's Theses

During a rocket launch, satellites withstand large dynamic forces due to vibrations that are transmitted from the launch vehicle. As such, they must undergo testing to ensure that their function is not impaired by such forces. CubeSats are cost-effective nanosatellites, and like their larger counterparts, undergo dynamic testing for launch qualification. While dynamic analysis can done on a CubeSat alone, other assembly constituents also affect the response, and including them in the analysis can provide insight on the true dynamic behavior of CubeSats. To show this, the work presented here recreates a vibration test setup using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) …

Dna And Protein Sequence Analysis Of Neuronal Markers Neuronal Nuclei (Neun) And Doublecortin (Dcx) In The Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus Oreganus) And Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus Occidentalis)., Brett M. Vassar

Master's Theses

Neuronal Nuclei (NeuN) and Doublecortin (DCX) are neuron specific proteins that are used in histological studies of brain structure in a variety of vertebrate taxa.Antibodies against NeuN (anti-NeuN) bind to the Fox-3 protein, an RNA binding protein common in mature neurons. Anti-DCX labels a microtubule-associated protein expressed in actively dividing neural progenitor cells and migrating neurons. The DCX gene encodes a protein that is well conserved across mammalian, avian, and a few reptilian species, therefore anti-DCX staining has been used successfully across a range of vertebrate taxa. Successful neuronal staining using anti-NeuN has been demonstrated in mammals, birds, and the …

The Effects Of Providing Social And Nutritional Enrichment To Dairy Calves On Development, Behavior And Learning, Kendra Leigh Kutina

Master's Theses

The objective of this study was to measure the effects of both a nutritional (water nipple) and social (partner calf) enrichment on calf body weight, grain intake, water intake, behavior and learning. The enrichments included 1) water provided from a nipple vs. a bucket (nutritional) and 2) visual and tactile access to a partner vs. isolated rearing with no visual or tactile access to a partner calf (social). A total of 72 Holstein and Jersey dairy calves were pseudo-randomly distributed into 4 treatments at birth [Individual/Bucket (IB), Paired/Bucket (PB), Individual/Nipple (IN), Paired/Nipple (PN)]. Socially and nutritionally enriched calves drank more …

The Proteomic Response Of Northern Elephant Seal (Mirounga Angustirostris) Pups To Physiological Stress During Development, Melissa P. Voisinet

Master's Theses

Background: Northern elephant seals transition from terrestrial nursing pups to pelagic foraging juveniles in a short period of just 8-12 weeks. During the post-weaning period, pups rely solely on the energy reserves gained during nursing for their caloric demands and water supply. The prolonged absence of food after weaning is the first of many fasts for which the seals have evolved adaptations such as decreased urine production and increased blubber reserves. The stressors experienced from learning to dive for the first time are also stressors that they will experience frequently as an adult and for which they have evolved adaptations. …

Sexual Citizenship, Incest, And The State: "The Unseen Of The Crime", Kelsey Zazanis

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper analyzes the colonial state’s role in manufacturing sexual violence. Deconstructing parallels between sexual violence in state detention centers and incestuous abuse of children, this paper examines theories of normativity, sexual citizenship, U.S. nationalism, and Marxist interpretations of the family unit. In identifying all citizenship as sexual citizenship—and identifying queer as all those who are denied sexual citizenship—I suggest that liberation from the state is crucial to queer liberation and the amelioration of sexual violence.

Say Their Names: Black Feminist Thought And The Power Elite, Francisco Gaspar

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This article investigates the critical affinities between contemporary sociological theory and Black feminist thought. It specifically aims to assert the significance of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s “Say Her Name” report through the lens of C. Wright Mills, who uses the concept of the power elite to describe political, economic, and militaristic affairs. By providing a comparative analysis of this theoretical framework, I intend to convey how misogynoir and other oppressive ideologies have informed the dissemination of social justice work and knowledge production. Throughout this article, I reference several Black feminist scholars’ works in conversation with Crenshaw’s report. Additionally, I offer comparisons to …

Haunted By Fatness: Medicalization, Diet Culture, And The Failure Of Chrononormativity, Catherine Jeffery

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

In the summer of 2016, BBC Three filmed an autopsy of an obese woman in a documentary called Obesity: The Post Mortem. In addition, BBC has released a “behind the scenes” video of the procedure, detailing the real-life process of shipping a body overseas for “medical research.” This essay begins by pointing out the expressions of fears of fatness and of fat people present in Netflix’s full-length version of the autopsy as well as in the behind-the-scenes clip, by focusing on narration in the films as well as stylization such as sound and cinematography choices. I will use the …

(W)Holes Of Your Heart: Trans Utopian Performance In Janelle Monáe’S “Pynk”, Carlos J. Gómez

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This essay wields trans methods to trace the trans cultural production of Black feminist thought, specifically by asking the following question: what is trans about Janelle Monáe’s Black feminist theorizing in “Pynk?” Thinking of Black feminist studies astrans studies allows us to disorient the white, which is to say anti-Black, disposition of trans studies. In this analysis, I describe the trans utopian performance of Black feminist sociality, inhabitation, and fugitivity. Moreover, I delineate the trans critiques of sex/gender essentialism, individualism, the State, and the body embedded in Monáe’s film and suggest the radical potential of a Black feminist theory …

What Advantage Does Difference Make? Leveling The Imperial Playing Field, Daniel Heinz

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

In this article, I revisit the last ten years of international sport policies on gender testing in order to revise normative constructions of the athletes’ bodies. Specifically, I focus on the International Association of Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) new regulation from 2018 governing the eligibility of certain female athletes with differences of sexual development accompanied by elevated levels of natural testosterone. I argue that the IAAF testosterone regulation is based on a colonial continuity of upholding gender norms and racial hierarchies.

Review Of Dominique Lestel's Eat This Book: A Carnivore's Manifesto, Angus Taylor

Between the Species

Dominique Lestel sets out to demolish the fundamental claims of ethical vegetarianism (including veganism) and to propose as an alternative what he calls ethical carnivorism. Although he fails to present a logically sound case against ethical vegetarianism, that fact is unlikely to diminish the lure of the “circle of life” ideology that he articulates.

Executive Committee - Agenda, 5/14/2019, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Graduate Internship Report- Dinuba High School, Nicole R. Borba

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This graduate internship report includes the documentation 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 Dinuba High School conducted by representatives of the California Department of Education. The supporting material includes information to receive state and local funding, outline the goals and objectives of the program, along with an overview of Dinuba High School, the agriculture program and the community.

Comparative Thermal Ecology Of Coastal And Inland Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Oreganus), Hayley Layne Crowell

Master's Theses

Global biodiversity is declining as a direct result of anthropogenic climate change. Ectothermic species have become focal organisms for studying the ecological effects of altered climates due to the clear relationship between environmental temperatures and ectotherms’ basic physiological functions. Historically, examinations of these effects have focused heavily on heliothermic lizards, and most others have tended to focus on single populations or sympatric species within a single community. Addressing the longterm energetic implications of environmental temperature variation will provide valuable insight into the cascading physiological effects that certain populations or species may experience as a result of altered climates.

In this …

Graduate Internship Report - Fowler High School, Victor Evans

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 Fowler High School conducted by representatives of the California Department of Education. The internship included the construction of a facility to house and care for fair livestock. Accompanying the project report are photos illustrating the construction steps and educational processes utilized to complete the project.

Left Atrial Model, Borna Sobati, Sarah Porello, Tess Pate

Biomedical Engineering

The objective is to produce an electrophysiological model of an adult human left atrium. This model will be used to test mapping probe catheters used for locating cardiac arrhythmias against current technology used in practice. Dr. Chris Porterfield requested this model and other physicians or probe catheter manufacturers may also use this product in the future. Dr. Porterfield also discussed the possibility of future senior project groups using the model as a bench test for designing new catheter tips. The model will precisely simulate electrical behaviors of the heart in normal as well as arrhythmic conditions. Ideally, the model will …

Executive Committee - Agenda, 04/23/2019, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Executive Committee - Meeting Minutes, 4/23/2019, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Minutes

No abstract provided.

Executive Committee - Meeting Minutes, 4/02/2019, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Minutes

For meeting agenda, see https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/senateagendas/1264/

Executive Committee - Agenda, 4/02/2019, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Nature Vs. History: The Fight For National Park Designation, Kieran Althus

Paideia

National Parks are a pinnacle of the United States recreation scene. Providing the U.S. with over 52.2 million acres protected for the use of the public and for conservation and scientific research. National Parks are not the only entity in the National Park System that provides protections for land deemed valuable by Congress. There are National Monuments and National Historic Landmarks that are tasked with maintaining historic or natural areas for the sake of education and science. Within these three types of Park, there are to implicit types of locations someone can visit: one protected for its natural scenic/ scientific …