Digital Commons Network^™

A Machine Learning Approach To Network Intrusion Detection System Using K Nearest Neighbor And Random Forest, Ilemona S. Atawodi

Master's Theses

The evolving area of cybersecurity presents a dynamic battlefield for cyber criminals and security experts. Intrusions have now become a major concern in the cyberspace. Different methods are employed in tackling these threats, but there has been a need now more than ever to updating the traditional methods from rudimentary approaches such as manually updated blacklists and whitelists. Another method involves manually creating rules, this is usually one of the most common methods to date.

A lot of similar research that involves incorporating machine learning and artificial intelligence into both host and network-based intrusion systems recently. Doing this originally presented …

Genetic Diversity In The Leucoagaricus Cultivar Fungus Of Trachymyrmex Septentrionalis Fungus-Growing Ants, Lee Deininger

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Family Structure On Mental Health Problems In Adolescents In The United States, Adekemi Olaide Suleiman

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Marital Relationship, And Its Association With The Physical And Emotional Health Of Women In A Low-Income Community Of Mumbai, India, Nita Thapa-Chhetri

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Understanding Trade-Offs Between Built And Natural Assets In Coastal Management Projects For Inland, Coastal Residents Using Latent Class Modeling Techniques: An Application To The Connecticut Coastline, Julia Dumaine

Master's Theses

Climate change threatens our established communities worldwide through consistently increased average surface temperatures, rising sea levels, and precipitation extremes, and Connecticut is no exception (U.S. Global Change Research Program 2017). As coastal communities in Connecticut increase their focus on mitigating the effects of climate change, they are not always able to incorporate town residents’ preferences and values into their planning; particularly those residents who may not receive a direct benefit from the plan of which they contribute tax dollars towards. Our study attempts to estimate these preferences and values by using a choice experiment survey distributed across the Connecticut coastline …

The Impact Of Junk Food Marketing Regulations On Food Sales: An Ecological Study, Yumi Kovic

Master's Theses

Objectives. To evaluate the impact of junk food marketing policies implemented worldwide from 2003 through 2014 on nationwide junk food sales and to identify the most effective policy characteristics in reducing junk food sales.

Methods. Junk food marketing policy data were obtained and categorized through a thorough literature review. These data were analyzed using a repeated measures design against EuroMonitor junk food sales data from 2002 and 2016.

Results. Countries with junk food marketing policies saw a decrease in junk food sales after implementation, while those without said policies saw an increase in sales. Countries with statutory policies saw a …

Thermophysical Properties And Characterization Of Diamond Silicon Carbide, Alexandra Merkouriou

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Naatm1: Examining The Mechanism Of A Heavy-Metal Abc Exporter, Dennis Hicks

Master's Theses

ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) Transporters are a superfamily of integral membrane proteins that have been found embedded in both the cellular membranes and internal organelles of all species yet analyzed (1). This extreme conservation throughout the tree of life is due to their vitally critical and broad task of transporting all manner of things into and out of the cell and related organelles. This broadness of responsibility has led to an abundant diversity of this family, which in turn, has allowed life to adapt to the many environments found on Earth. While the importance and variability of this family is abundantly …

Effect Of Bio-Augmentation Product Biowish® Septic Rescue On The Wastewater Treatment Performance Of Residential Septic Tanks, Kimberly Michelle Lamar Merilles

Master's Theses

Residential septic systems provide reliable wastewater treatment for over 26 million homes and facilities in the United States, and many more worldwide. When properly maintained, these systems are reliable, low-cost, and long-term treatments for residential wastewater. When neglected, septic systems can fail and lead to health concerns and ecological harm to soil and groundwater contamination through the improperly treated wastewater effluent.

This study tested the effect of the bio-augmentation product BiOWiSH® Septic Rescue of BiOWiSH® Technologies International, Inc. (hereafter referred to as BiOWiSH) on the biological treatment of residential septic tanks. BiOWiSH is meant to act as a bio-augmentation product …

Indoor Air Monitoring Of Ethanol And Benzene In A Pilot Winery Using Active Sampling, Andrew I. Kaneda

Master's Theses

Acute indoor concentrations of benzene and ethanol were evaluated in the California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo’s pilot winery workroom. Air samples were collected during four different wine-making activities: fermentation, fermentation with Brix content testing, post-alcoholic fermentation pressing, and storage/finishing. Average workroom benzene concentrations ranged from 0.05 to 0.12 mg/m³. Ethanol concentrations in the winery workroom varied with the activity, ranging from 0.9 to 12 mg/m³. Pressing and fermentation with Brix content testing both led to higher indoor ethanol concentrations than fermentation without Brix content testing and storage/finishing.

Tracer gas decay air exchange tests were …

Real-Time Ray Traced Global Illumination Using Fast Sphere Intersection Approximation For Dynamic Objects, Reed Phillip Garmsen

Master's Theses

Realistic lighting models are an important component of modern computer generated, interactive 3D applications. One of the more difficult to emulate aspects of real-world lighting is the concept of indirect lighting, often referred to as global illumination in computer graphics. Balancing speed and accuracy requires carefully considered trade-offs to achieve plausible results and acceptable framerates.

We present a novel technique of supporting global illumination within the constraints of the new DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API used with DirectX 12. By pre-computing spherical textures to approximate the diffuse color of dynamic objects, we build a smaller set of approximate geometry used for …

Dish: Democracy In State Houses, Nicholas A. Russo

Master's Theses

In our current political climate, state level legislators have become increasingly impor- tant. Due to cuts in funding and growing focus at the national level, public oversight for these legislators has drastically decreased. This makes it difficult for citizens and activists to understand the relationships and commonalities between legislators. This thesis provides three contributions to address this issue. First, we created a data set containing over 1200 features focused on a legislator’s activity on bills. Second, we created embeddings that represented a legislator’s level of activity and engagement for a given bill using a custom model called Democracy2Vec. Third, we …

Effectiveness Of Windrow Composting Methodology In Killing A Thermo-Tolerant Species Of Salmonella During Mortality Composting, Spencer Gabriel Myers

Master's Theses

In a large agricultural operation, such as the one at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, disposal of deceased animals is an immense issue. The cost of transporting and rendering every dead animal is inhibitory to the general function of the agricultural operations and their thin budget. Therefore, we propose that composting mortalities could be an economical alternative. Composting is a recognized method for taking animal waste products along with carbon waste and turning it into a pathogen-free, nutrient-rich topsoil. Carcass composting is in fact performed in other countries and states to varying degrees of success. However, the California EPA limits …

Suitability Of Cultivated Forms Of Native Shrubs To Support Pollinators, Jacob Gordon Ricker

Master's Theses

There is increased interest in native plants for landscaping to support pollinators. The majority of native plants sold by nurseries are cultivars. Some consumer and conservation groups question the suitability of native cultivars to support pollinators. This work evaluated insect pollinator visitation for six native shrub species, and one or more cultivars of each species. The following species were installed in a full sun field behind the University of Connecticut Floriculture Greenhouse Facility in a randomized complete block design with three replicates: Aronia melanocarpa, A. melanocarpa ‘UCONNAM012’ Ground Hog®, A. melanocarpa ‘UCONNAM165’ Low Scape Mound®, Clethra alnifolia, C. …

Microplasmas In Zno Nano-Forests Under High Voltage Stress, Nafisa Noor

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Conflict Management Training In Video-Based Teams, Alexis Ward

Master's Theses

In the wake of an emerging economy that demands organizational agility, globalization and an increasing number of independent contractors, corporations have exponentially incorporated virtual teams in their organizations. However, despite their financial and geographical convenience, research has indicated that virtual teams have consistently experienced more conflict and lowered performance and satisfaction levels than that of their traditional counterparts. The present study sought to examine whether conflict management training could help video based virtual teams demonstrate more positive conflict handling techniques and less negative techniques, which would result in higher group process and group outcome satisfaction. This study did not find …

Pro Or Bust: Career Aspirations Of Division I And Community College Basketball Players, Alexander Shahriar Engel

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

Pro or Bust: Career Aspirations of Division I and Community College Basketball Players

Alexander Shahriar Engel

The purpose of this study was to determine the difference, if any, between Division I and community college basketball players career aspirations. Interviews were held with eleven athletes from the Cal Poly Men’s Basketball team, and ten athletes from the Cuesta College Men’s Basketball team. The interviews were used to determine the impact of different variables on the athletes career aspirations, and to explore themes in the data. To look for themes, both axial and open coding was used. Division I athletes were …

Infection Control In Total Knee Replacement Prosthesis Using Nitric Oxide Releasing Biomaterials, Ashley Widing

Master's Theses

Replacing a weight-bearing joint is accompanied by long procedures, even longer recovery times, and intensive monitoring. This burden increases after infection; a complication requiring revision surgeries and therefore extensive additional recovery time. Infection can present itself at any time during the process, making it hard to predict. Currently, a two-part revision surgery is completed by removing all infected tissue and implanting an antibiotic spacer. The spacer fills the joint gap and is removed prior to the revision total knee replacement. A revision total knee replacement follows the same procedure as the initial surgery. Not only is this detrimental to patient …

California Livestock Owners: An Assessment Of Familiarity With New Antimicrobial Rules And Access To Educational Outreach, Philip Theodor Paulson

Master's Theses

The purpose of this research is to support the California Department of Food & Agriculture (CDFA) with education and outreach about recent changes regarding antimicrobial use in livestock, and to enhance their emergency communications network. This was done by characterizing a population of small-scale livestock owners underserved with regards to educational outreach about animal health issues, such as antimicrobial use rules. The project also seeks to enhance public understanding of the importance of responsible antimicrobial use in animal and human health.

To accomplish this, the study used a survey administered in person at local farm supply stores and online to …

The Role Of Polyamines In Enteroviral Attachment, Thomas Mckenzie Kicmal

Master's Theses

Polyamines are small polycationic molecules with flexible carbon chains that are found in all eukaryotic cells. Polyamines are involved in the regulation of many host processes and have been shown to be implicated in viral replication. Depletion of polyamine pools in cells with FDA approved drugs restricts replication of diverse RNA viruses. Viruses can exploit host polyamines to facilitate packaging, transcription, translation, and protease activity but other mechanisms remain largely unknown. Picornaviruses, including Coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3), are sensitive to depletion of polyamines and remain a significant public health threat. We employed CVB3 as a model system to investigate a potential …

Dissecting A Role For Polyamines In Rift Valley Fever Virus Infection, Vincent Mastrodomenico

Master's Theses

Bunyaviruses are emerging viral pathogens that cause encephalitis, hemorrhagic fevers, and meningitis. Rift Valley fever virus is a particularly devastating bunyavirus, infecting both humans and livestock with significant morbidity and mortality. By coordinating several host and viral processes Rift Valley fever virus is able to produce infectious virions. Polyamines are small, positively-charged host-derived molecules that play diverse roles in human cells and in infection. We previously demonstrated that polyamines are crucial for RNA viruses; however, the mechanisms by which polyamines function remain unknown. Here, we investigated polyamines' role in the replication of the Rift Valley fever virus (vaccine strain MP-12). …

A Possible Role Of Clostridium Difficile Association With The Gi Tract In Relapsing Clostridium Difficile Infection, Asiyya Ashraf

Master's Theses

Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), caused by the anaerobic spore-former C. difficile, is a major cause of health-care associated morbidity. CDI occurs in individuals that have a disrupted GI tract microbiota, typically in patients who are on antibiotic therapy. After recovery from an episode of CDI, approximately, 15-30% of patients experience relapse of disease. The mechanism of relapse is not well understood. It is plausible for relapse to occur if C. difficile cells and spores associate with the GI tract mucosa during infection and persist after infection. However, little is known about the association of cells and spores with the GI …

Modulation Of Coxsackievirus Protease Activity By Polyamines, Courtney Noelle Dial

Master's Theses

Coxsackievirus type B (CVB3) is one of the six serotypes of the Coxsackievirus family of non-enveloped, linear, and positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses. It is a pathogenic enterovirus that belongs to the same genus as the notable pathogen poliovirus. CVB3 can cause a range of illnesses from a fever to gastrointestinal distress but is most noteworthy for the ability to cause viral myocarditis, a swelling of the heart muscle. Coxsackievirus, like all RNA viruses, tends to develop mutations rapidly due to its error prone polymerase and lack of proofreading activity. These mutations can be advantageous for the virus, allowing it to …

Molecular And Biochemical Phenotypes Underlying Reactive Astrocytosis In Primary Optic Nerve Head Astrocytes, Anita Kirti Ghosh

Master's Theses

Glaucoma is a progressive optic neuropathy that manifests in a pathological triad of optic nerve head remodeling, damage to optic nerve axons, and retinal ganglion cell death. Optic nerve head astrocytes (ONHAs) are the primary cell type in the optic nerve head. ONHAs undergo reactive astrocytosis, an activated phenotype characterized by altered gene and protein expression and increased cell migration and proliferation, early in the disease pathology. Reactive astrocytosis is thought to underlie optic nerve head remodeling. The first goal of this thesis was to determine if exposure of primary adult rat ONHAs to hyperbaric pressure (25-30 mm Hg above …

Longitudinal Urinary Microbiome Studies: A Need To Transition To Voided Urine, Baylie Hochstedler

Master's Theses

It is now established that the bladder is not sterile; it contains communities of microbes (microbiota). While the healthy bladder microbiota have been defined using expanded quantitative urine culture (EQUC) and urines obtained by transurethral catheterization (TUC), longitudinal and population studies have not previously been possible. These studies cannot be done using TUC urines, as it would be impractical to catheterize participants daily. Instead, we must transition to using voided urines.In order to make this switch, we have addressed three main issues raised by using voided urine. First, we showed that EQUC out performs standard urine culture on voided urines …

Synthesis And Evaluation Of Novel Silica Hydride-Based Stationary Phases For Bioanalytical Applications, Seiichiro Watanabe

Master's Theses

Most HPLC columns are packed with silanol (Si-OH)-rich type-B silica that often participates in undesired electrostatic interactions with sample solutes and produces a poor analyte peak shape. These silanols are also known to facilitate the surface hydration required for HILIC mode to retain polar analytes. However, the hydrated surface composition can easily fluctuate, which results in poor reproducibility and requires a lengthy equilibration step. In this study, four novel stationary phases have been developed by using the TYPE-C™ silica material, in which up to 95% of the surface silanols have been replaced with Si-H group. One of the advantages of …

Investigating The Anti-Cancer Properties Of Novel Hybrid 1,4-Dihydropyridine Derivatives In U-87mg Glioblastoma Cell, Tendai Hunyenyiwa

Master's Theses

Glioblastoma is the most devastating of brain cancers with a very high death rate and a low survival rate of less than 15 months after diagnosis. Glioblastoma is a cancer of astrocytes which are the majority of the brain glial cells that support neurons and help create the blood-brain barrier among other functions. The current approach to treating this disease is surgical removal of the main tumor, followed by radiotherapy and limited chemical intervention by the use of temozolomide (TMZ). This disease is characterized by high invasion and recurrence after surgical removal of the main tumor as a result of …

Synthesis And Screening Of Novel Hybrid Benzothiazoles In U-87 Mg Glioblastoma Cell Line, Priscilla Kyi

Master's Theses

Benzothiazole is a heteroaromatic compound known for its wide range of bioactivities including anti-cancer, anti-viral, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-convulsant, anti-diabetic, anti-helminthic, and anti-tubercular activities. Research has shown that derivatives of benzothiazole exhibit inhibition of proliferation via apoptosis in various human cancer cell lines, such as liver cancer (Wang, et. al., 2011). In this study, a series of novel hybrid benzothiazole α-cyanostilbene derivatives and styrylbenzothiazole derivatives containing boronic acid and non-boronic acid pharmacophores were synthesized. The anti-cancer and anti-invasive properties of selected benzothiazole α-cyanostilbene derivatives on U-87MG glioblastoma cells were investigated in vitro.

U-87MG cells were incubated with synthesized novel hybrid compounds …

Servant Leadership: A Study About Organizational Health, Leadership Styles And Practices In Missao Bahia Sudoeste Of The Seventh-Day Adventist Church And The Possible Relation Between The Ministerial Areas Low Engagement Level In The Small Groups Program, Osmar Borges Lima

Master's Theses

Problem

Due to the low engagement of the pastors of Missão Bahia Sudoeste (MBSo) in the Small Groups program as compared to other field within the União Leste Brasileira (ULB) it was decided to investigate the organizational health, the leadership practices and styles, as well as the job satisfaction on the part of the MBSo’s pastors.

Method

The study was conducted among 52 pastors who represented the three levels of leadership designated by the OLA research instrument (Top Leadership, Management and Work Force) which analyses the perception of the participants six key areas of leadership, as well as six levels …

The Mission And Role Of Women In Graeco-Roman And Judeo-Christian Contexts, Fabienne Liana Maslet

Master's Theses

The place of women in the world has changed and progressed in the past decades. When I was a young girl, women were not really valued in the Church and in the service for God. There were always excuses not to allow them to serve God and they were rejected in a lot of areas in the Church service. However, the worse thing is that frequently women are the ones who are belittling themselves, who denigrate themselves, who undermine themselves or the capacities that God gave them to be used in Church. This occurs because they had been educated this …