Digital Commons Network^™

Investigation Of Iron Reduction By Green Tea Polyphenols For Application In Soil Remediation, Jacqueline S. Oakes

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Between Mobility And Stability: Immigration, Free Trade, And Human Rights In The Context Of The Latino Immigrant, Joseph M. Stosberg

Master's Theses

This work takes a multi-dimensional approach to understanding human rights abuse toward Latino immigrants. It is argued here that the opening up of Mexico and Central American countries to free trade, and the restricted movement across borders has increased human rights abuse toward immigrants. In order to investigate these issues this research looks at: the opening up of Mexico and Central American countries to free trade; a pervasive narrative that portrays the Latino immigrant as a threat; and U.S. immigration policy. I use these respective bodies of literature to guide the discussion of the Latino immigrant experience, from the decision …

The Plight Of Kenyan Domestic Workers In Gulf Countries, Caroline Muthoni Gikuru

Master's Theses

Kenya’s economy remains the regional leader within the East African Community (EAC) and among East African countries at large. However, political instability such as the 2007 post-election violence and the region’s social and political instability trickling into Kenya, have negatively affected the country’s economic growth. To bridge the economic gap, Kenyan women are seeking employment in the domestic service sector in the Gulf Countries, with Saudi Arabia being the most popular destination. At their destination countries, some domestic workers are subjected to various forms of abuse by their employers, leaving the worker without recourse due to the lack of legal …

Re-Visiting Homosexuality In Cameroon: Effective Advocacy On The Path From Homophobia To Dignity And Equality, Jean Cedric Ndzomo

Master's Theses

Cameroon, one of the countries in the world that continues to criminalize homosexuality, has been on the news recently due to the torture and murder of young journalist and gay activist, Eric Ohena. This paper examines the discrimination faced by the LGBTI community in Cameroon by exploring the origins of homophobic violence, the role played by Cameroon's legal system, and the struggles of LGBTI Cameroonians in their fight for a better life. The analysis includes a review of the work by scholars on colonialism and sexuality in Africa, and questions the roots of violence and abuse against the LGBTI community …

The Role Of Information And Communication Technology In The Acculturation Of Vietnamese Refugees, Khanh A. Tran

Master's Theses

One of the most significant refugee populations in the United States is the Vietnamese. This group initially fled their native country to escape political oppression at the conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1975 and continued to flee in a series of separate waves that continued for more than three decades. As a relatively new immigrant group in the U.S., the Vietnamese still face a variety of challenges as they try to reestablish their lives and adapt in a new cultural environment. Acculturation is a complex process that is influenced by a number of factors. Throughout history, U.S. immigration policy …

Biochemical Assay Optimization And Computational Screening Efforts To Identify Potential Luxs Inhibitors, Keeshia Q. Wang

Master's Theses

Quorum sensing (QS) is a process of coordination of bacterial gene expression in response to cell population. System two QS is regulated by the small signaling molecule autoinducer-2 (AI-2) and is implicated in the infectious behaviors of various bacterial species. AI-2 is biosynthesized from S-ribosylhomocysteine (SRH) by the enzyme LuxS and induces interspecies cell-to-cell communication. Inhibition of LuxS would therefore inhibit interspecies QS. Herein, a search for novel molecular species that will competitively bind with SRH in the LuxS binding site is performed in silico. Computational screening results are then validated in vitro using an optimized LuxS inhibition …

Maternal Reaction To Diagnosis: Examination Of Categorization And Methods Of Scoring, Alison Bradley

Master's Theses

This study examined the potential usefulness of a continuous rating system for the Reaction to Diagnosis Interview (RDI; Pianta & Marvin, 1992) compared to the already validated dichotomous coding system. Measures of family functioning, parent psychological well-being, and parental coping were also correlated with the continuous rating system. Participants were 116 young children (29 with asthma, 37 with diabetes, and 50 with cancer) and their primary caregivers. Parents were interviewed by a trained researcher and completed well-validated self-report measures of family functioning and parent psychological well-being and coping. Consensus conferencing for classification disagreements was discussed. Differences and similarities among subcategory …

Practice And Patient Characteristics Associated With Primary Care Physicians’ Use Of Electronic Consults With Their Patients, Timothy Kenneth Eng

Master's Theses

Electronic consults (e-consults) are types of communications systems used between physicians and their patients to communicate outside the medical office. While nothing can replace the traditional face-to-face interaction, e-consults can be used to help manage patient queue, share non-urgent information, and provide an alternative avenue of communication while recording electronic copies. Literature reveals that lack of a standardized reimbursement system, uncertain workloads, and perceived risks to patient confidentiality are barriers to mainstream adoption of e-consult systems. The purpose of this study is to investigate the practice and patient characteristics of the use of e-consults between primary care physicians (PCP) and …

Evidence And Implications Of Weight Clustering Among Adolescents, Jennifer C. Acker

Master's Theses

Both obesity and eating disorders (ED) are increasingly conceptualized from an ecological model of health, which emphasizes the importance of individual and contextual variables. The peer context is particularly important for understanding adolescents’ weight related attitudes and behaviors; however, specific peer processes that impact obesity and EDs are unclear. Because social comparison is common during adolescence, how teens view their body in comparison to the body size of their close friends may be influential. The purpose of this study is to examine how adolescents’ perceptions of their friends’ body sizes relate to their weight-related cognitions, behaviors, and mental health symptoms, …

Active Learning Using Model-Eliciting Activities And Inquiry-Based Learning Activities In Dynamics, Jeffrey Phillip Georgette

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on a year-long project of implementing active learning in undergraduate dynamics courses at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from 2012-2013. The purpose is to increase conceptual understanding of critical dynamics concepts and to repair misconceptions of the students. Conceptual understanding in Dynamics is vital to understanding the big picture, building upon previous knowledge, and better understanding the behavior of engineering systems. Through various hands-on activities, students make predictions, test their conceptions, and solve real world problems. These active learning methods allow students to improve their learning of Dynamics concepts. Education research on active learning is present in …

Design Of A Low Power Cargo Security Device Using A Micropower Ultra-Wideband Impulse Radar, Brian M. Wihl

Master's Theses

Each year, thousands of cargo containers are broken into during shipping, costing billions of dollars in lost and damaged goods. In addition to removing its contents, intruders can also add unwanted and dangerous materials to a container, posing a threat to National Security. The possibilities of cargo container break-ins require that the containers go through check points at which they are physically searched. These searches often require the opening of the container, unloading and inspecting all cargo, and then loading the container and resealing it. This is a long and costly process.

Because of the high costs of break-ins and …

Measuring The Counter/Assumption Model's Effect On Argumentation Quality, Evan D G Ovadia

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a new platform called See the Reason, built upon a tree- structured argumentation model called the Counter/Assumption model. In the Counter/Assumption model, a topic is posted first, then under that topic, reasons for and against, and for each reason, counterarguments, and for any counterargu- ment, more counterarguments. The model enables us to systematically determine whether a claim is “tentatively true” or “tentatively false,” in an effort to motivate people to make their side’s claims tentatively true and the opposing side’s claims tentatively false, thus encouraging conflict. Research suggests that debates with more conflict are better, so this …

In Perfect Xen, A Performance Study Of The Emerging Xen Scheduler, Ryan Hnarakis

Master's Theses

Fifty percent of Fortune 500 companies trust Xen, an open-source bare-metal hypervisor, to virtualize their websites and mission critical services in the cloud. Providing superior fault tolerance, scalability, and migration, virtualization allows these companies to run several isolated operating systems simultaneously on the same physical server. These isolated operating systems, called virtual machines, require a virtual traffic guard to cooperate with one another. This guard known as the Credit2 scheduler along with the newest Xen hypervisor was recently developed to supersede the older schedulers. Since wasted CPU cycles can be costly, the Credit2 prototype must undergo significant performance validation before …

Thermal Modeling And Validation Testing Of A Miniature Xenon Ion Thruster, Samuel R. Parker

Master's Theses

To support the research of miniature ion propulsion, Cal Poly's Miniature Xenon

Ion (MiXI) thruster has been modeled and tested. Using ANSYS Fluent, a two-

dimensional model of the transient thermal environment of MiXI-CP-V3 was

created. Validation testing was conducted in order to assess the accuracy of the

thermal model. During testing, temperature was measured at eight locations

across MiXI. From the test data it was determined that the thermal model did a

poor job of predicting temperature due to incident radiation at the four locations

nearest the keeper electrode. The four remaining locations were affected mostly

by conduction and …

Analysis Of An Inflatable Gossamer Device To Efficiently De-Orbit Cubesats, Robert A. Hawkins Jr.

Master's Theses

There is an increased need for spacecraft to quickly and efficiently de-orbit themselves as the amount of debris in orbit around Earth grows. Defunct spacecraft pose a significant threat to the LEO environment due to their risk of fragmentation. If these spacecraft are de-orbited at the end of their useful life their risk to future spacecraft is greatly lessened. A proposed method of efficiently de-orbiting spacecraft is to use an inflatable thin-film envelope to increase the body's area to mass ratio and thusly shortening its orbital lifetime. The system and analysis presented in this project is sized for use on …

Alcohol Consumption And Unwanted Sexual Experiences Among College Females: The Mediating Role Of Protective Behavioral Strategies, Kayla Darlene Moorer

Master's Theses

The narrowing gender gap regarding consumption has resulted in more alcoholrelated consequences specific to females. Compared to males, females report more sexual consequences, such as doing something they later regret, as a result of alcohol consumption. For this reason, there is a vital need for researchers to identify active methods that females can engage in while consuming alcohol in order to reduce the risk of unwanted sexual experiences (UWS). Protective behavioral strategies (PBS) have been shown to decrease overall alcohol-related consequences, but further investigation is needed to determine which strategies are most influential in reducing the occurrence of specific alcohol-related …

Friction Ridge Dysplasia And Its Preponderance In The Afghanistan Population, Chelsea Elyse Woullard

Master's Theses

Friction Ridge Dysplasia is a rare genetic disorder in which the friction skin ridge units do not fuse together to form continuously flowing friction ridges. The skin affected by Friction Ridge Dysplasia is generally localized to one area and gives a similar appearance of the pebbled state of skin on the snout of a dog. Many authors have briefly discussed Friction Ridge Dysplasia in their publications; however, in-depth reflection as to the cause and rate of occurrence of Friction Ridge Dysplasia has not been documented. The objective of this study is to determine whether or not Friction Ridge Dysplasia is …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Measures Of Service Quality And Satisfaction Of Golf Spectators In A Korean Ladies' Professional Golf Association Tournament, Jaemon Sun

Master's Theses

A variety of spectator sports, leisure activities, and internet media developments have changed the sport market environment into a serious global competition. In this sport market environment, it is necessary to execute customer satisfaction management to meet the wants and needs of sport spectators. Understanding which service quality factors best predict customer satisfaction is an important issue in the sport events industry. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction for spectators in attendance at a Korea Ladies' Professional Golf Association Tournament event. A secondary purpose of the study was to …

Narratives By Six Year Old And Nine Year Old Boys: Brute: Institutional, And Non-Institutional Mental Facts, Adam Craig Whipple

Master's Theses

Brute facts, institutional facts, and non-institutional mental facts were studied. The philosophy of constructionism and the theory of intent provided a framework for this research. Intentionality provided the basis for social facts. Brute, institutional, and noninstitutional mental facts were operationally defined. This study analyzed the use of these facts in the narratives of 6-year-old boys and 9-year-old boys. There were a total of 19 participants in this research. This research established brute, institutional, and non-institutional mental facts as appropriate operational categories for studying children's narratives. The 6-year-old boys produced more brute facts than the 9-year-old boys. The 9-year-old boys produced …

Action Potential Simulation Of The Hirudo Medicinalis's Retzius Cell In Matlab, Zechari Ryan Tempesta

Master's Theses

Modification of Hodgkin and Huxley’s experimentally derived set of nonlinear differential equations was implemented to accurately simulate the action potential of the Hirudo Medicinalis’s Retzius cell in MATLAB under analogous conditions to those found in the Retzius cell environment. The voltage-gated sodium and potassium channel responses to changes in membrane potential, as experimentally determined by Hodgkin and Huxley, were manipulated to suit simulation parameters established by electrophysiological Retzius cell recordings. Application of this methodology permitted additional accurate simulation of the Hirudo Medicinalis’s P cell under analogous conditions to those found in the P cell environment. Further refinement of this technique …

Hollow Plume Mitigation Of A High-Efficiency Multistage Plasma Thruster, Scott Alan Mcgrail

Master's Theses

Since 2000, a relatively new electric thruster concept has been in research, development, and production at Thales Electron Devices in Germany. This High Efficiency Multistage Plasma Thruster, or HEMPT, has promising lifetime capabilities due to its plasma confinement system. However, the permanent magnet system that offers this and other benefits also creates a hollow plume, where ions are accelerated at angles rather than up the thruster centerline, causing a dip in ion current along the centerline. A laboratory model, built at JPL, was run at Cal Poly to characterize this plume shape and implement a shield to restore a conical …

Effects Of Waste Placement Practices On The Engineering Response Of Municipal Solid Waste, Jason Taylor Cox

Master's Theses

An extensive laboratory and field investigation was conducted at Santa Maria Regional Landfill (SMRL) in Santa Maria, CA to determine the effects of waste placement practices on the engineering response of municipal solid waste (MSW). Laboratory and field testing was used to determine the engineering properties and monitor field response of MSW.

The specific gravity (G_s) of manufactured MSW (MMSW), fresh MSW (FMSW), and old MSW (OMSW) was determined experimentally using a modified version of standard soil testing procedures. Effects of particle size, compactive effort, and degradation on the specific gravity of waste were evaluated. Specific gravity …

Design Of A Robotic Arm Manipulator Camera Unit For Mini Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles, Michael John Poretti

Master's Theses

Underwater remotely operated vehicles are essential tools for marine researchers and workers. Their robust nature allows them to serve a wide range of purposes. For example, they can be used for remote visual inspection of pipelines and can manipulate tools such as screwdrivers and claws. Cameras are the main method for providing operator feedback to the surface as they enable an operator to accurately maneuver or handle objects from thousands of feet away. Although large ROVs have cameras attached to their robotic arms for closer inspection of objects, mini ROVs do not because no camera tool has been specifically designed …

Parsing Of Natural Language Requirements, Jamie L. Patterson

Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to automate verification of the software requirements for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator with minimal manual rework. The requirements were written in plain English with only loose stylistic constraints. While full automation proved infeasible, many significant advances were made towards solving the problem, including a framework for storing requirements, a program which translates most of the natural language requirements into the framework, and a novel approach to parts of speech analysis.

Carton Clamp Methodologies And The Effects On Load Containment And Retention, Tyler D. Blumer

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

Carton Clamp Test Methodologies and the Effects on

Load Containment and Retention

Tyler Don Blumer

A carton clamp is an alternative device for moving packages and material. Instead of using iron tines like that of a conventional forklift, a carton clamp uses two large aluminum platens to slightly compress and secure the load for handling. This is advantageous as it allows operators to move layers of a unitized load individually, and eliminates the need for a pallet when handling full unitized loads. When using a carton clamp attachment, it is often difficult for operators to accurately gauge the amount …

Melancholia & Metaphor In Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains Of The Day, Kristin Lasheaú Teston

Master's Theses

Critics widely acknowledge the psychological grounding of Kazuo Ishiguro's writing. His 1989 novel The Remains of the Day presents a central character deeply afflicted by his inability to acknowledge his condition. Both literal and figurative loss proliferates throughout the novel, and turning to Sigmund Freud's influential essay, "Mourning and Melancholia," allows us to understand how loss influences Stevens's narrative. In this essay, Freud explores conditions that result after the loss of person or an ideal. For Stevens, the lost object is the myth of pre-war English traditions. Freud's theories regarding melancholia provide a crucial insight to Stevens's inability to acknowledge …

The Tweet Delete Of Congress: Congress And Deleted Posts On Twitter, Theresa Loraine Cardenas

Master's Theses

Since 2006, increasingly more politicians have joined , and are active on, social media networks, in order to reach out to constituents. However, politicians, such as Anthony Weiner, have started to find themselves in the middle of Twitter scandals and criticism, since their posts are openly available to the public. These ramifications may be leading politicians to delete their tweets, but thanks to the Sunlight Foundation and its website Politwoops, deleted tweets by politicians are now archived and ripe for political research. This raises the question Which members of Congress are deleting tweets and why? Thus, I conduct the first …

Dense Recordings Reveal Typical And Atypical Development Of Tense Productivity In A Child Previously Diagnosed With Asd, Iris Chin

Master's Theses

Research on tense development has found that typically developing (TD) children are productive with tense morphology starting between two to two-and-a-half years old. Research findings on children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), however, have been mixed. To better understand how tense development may differ between TD children and children with ASD, we examined the speech of two children, one TD [Cleo] and one that previously presented symptoms of ASD [Audrey]. This study is novel in its use of the Speechome Recorder, which collects dense audio-video recordings of children’s speech in home environments. We found that both children were productive with …

Modeling The Emergence Of Natural Language Lexicons, Russell Richie

Master's Theses

It is largely acknowledged that natural languages emerge from not just human brains, but also from rich communities of interacting human brains (de Boer, 2000; Galantucci et al., 2012; Senghas, 2005). Yet the precise role of such communities and such interaction on emergence of core properties of language has largely gone uninvestigated in naturally emerging systems, leaving the few existing computational investigations of this issue (de Boer, 2000, i.a.) somewhat ungrounded. Here we take a step towards investigating the precise role of community structure in the emergence of linguistic conventions with both naturalistic empirical data and computational modeling. We first …

State Bred Event Days Effect On Attendance And On-Track Wagering In Comparison To Open Race Day Counterparts, Cynthia C. Gumber

Master's Theses

Since 1978 casino and gaming facilities in the United States have grown substantially. Drawing outside customers has helped to improve the local communities surrounding the gaming facilities. In a similar fashion, United States horse racing aims at increasing traffic and wagering at race tracks throughout the United States (but unlike casinos little expansion). Along with the fiscal impact to the United States, the horse racing industry has created thousands of jobs, and the industry is experiencing continual growth in nominal gross wagering. Many state’s have breeder programs that enhance purses and horses bred and raced in- state. The goal of …