Digital Commons Network^™

A History Of The Underground Comix Scene: The Seriousness Of An Unserious Genre, Harris Darcie Shugart

Master's Theses

The Underground Comix Scene of the 1960s and 1970s was born out of an age of censorship. The Comics Code Authority, a regulatory body created by the Comics Magazine Association of America in 1954, established guidelines requiring publishing houses to self-regulate following a recommendation from the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1953. Comix with an X, for their X-rated nature, represent an emerging counter-culture in the latter half of the 1960s and the 1970s, with an epicenter of San Francisco. These comix and their artists were not interested in obtaining the looming ‘Seal of Approval’ from the …

Boundary Influence In Truncated Groundwater Models: Reconstructing A Local-Scale Modflow Model From A Consultant-Developed Regional Model In The Monterey Subbasin, Bruce K. Liscomb

Master's Theses

Regional groundwater models built by consultants contain valuable calibrated frameworks but are often too large and complex for repeated local-scale analysis. Rather than rebuilding an entirely new smaller model, this study truncates the existing consultant-built regional model of the Monterey Subbasin, preserving the original grid structure and parameter framework while reducing the active domain to a manageable size for planning-level use. A key finding is that boundary-condition representation exerted a dominant influence on simulated groundwater behavior within the truncated domain, highlighting that truncation is a structural decision that meaningfully affects how the model responds. Model performance was evaluated two ways. …

Hot Hands Or Chance Happenings? A Simulation-Based Approach For Wnba Teams, Ruben Jimenez

Master's Theses

The hot hand is a polarizing topic in basketball analytics: fans, stakeholders, and even players themselves assert confidently their belief or disbelief in the idea that players who perform well will continue to do so over an extended period of time. Statistical research has been conducted since as early as 1985 to attempt to disprove or prove the existence of this phenomenon. More recent works have refuted the earliest objections to the hot hand’s existence, with conclusions aided by robust simulation techniques. In this work, we compare hypothesis tests using multiple simulation techniques to explore the hot hand at the …

Effects Of Hot Water Dipping And Sub-Zero Saline Chilling On The Microbial Safety Of Broiler Carcasses And Recycled Chilling Water, Elen Zhu

Master's Theses

Broiler meat became the most widely consumed meat within the United States and across the world in 2019. The trend of increasing broiler consumption is expected to continue due to affordability, health benefits, and production efficiency. To meet the growing demand of broilers, a substantial number of birds need to be produced and processed while minimizing bacteria contamination, water consumption and wastewater generation.

In this study, the microbial safety (mesophilic aerobic bacteria, coliforms, and Escherichia coli) of broiler carcasses and post-chill water (red water) was assessed, using innovative processing techniques and red water recycling. A total of 144 broilers …

Independent And Combined Effects Of Early-Life Iron Deficiency And Antibiotic Exposure On Growth And Hematological Outcomes In A Piglet Model, Ginger M. Fitzpatrick

Master's Theses

Iron deficiency (ID) affects over 2 billion individuals globally. Children under 5 are at increased risk of ID due to rapid growth and are especially vulnerable to its negative consequences because of iron’s essential role in cognitive development and immune maturation. ID is the leading cause of iron deficiency anemia (IDA), with IDA affecting approximately 40% of children in this age group. Antibiotic (abx) exposure is also prevalent during early life and may disrupt growth and through gut dysbiosis, with increasing use posing additional risk in younger populations. Geographically, there is overlap in regions with high anemia prevalence and those …

Spaceotter: A Floating Spacecraft Simulator Air Bearing Vehicle For Hardware-In-The-Loop Experiments And Research, Alexander Debartolo

Master's Theses

Growing interest in nanosatellites has increased demand for accessible ground-testing methods, which have historically been expensive and restricted. Floating Spacecraft Simulators (FSS), built around Air Bearing Vehicles (ABVs), address this gap by approximating a zero-gravity, friction-minimized environment suitable for testing spacecraft control systems, robotics, and propulsion on the ground.

This thesis presents the design, realization, and initial performance characterization of the Space Optically Tracked Testbed for Experiments and Research (SpaceOTTER) ABV, developed for the Cal Poly Space Robotics Lab. SpaceOTTER is the first step toward emulating the 3 degree of freedom (3-DOF) planar dynamics of a simulated spacecraft and is …

Pedagogical Perspectives Of Practitioner-Turned-Instructors In Upper-Division Computer Science Courses, Sinchana Shivaprasad

Master's Theses

Computer science and software engineering are disciplines in which a substantial proportion of graduates enter software engineering careers immediately after completing their undergraduate degrees. However, research continues to highlight a persistent gap between the knowledge acquired in university settings and the practical skills necessary to succeed in industry. Faculty who bring prior industry experience may be well-positioned to help bridge this gap by integrating applied perspectives and real-world problem-solving into academic instruction. As professors with practitioner experience are being hired into computer science departments, there remains limited research exploring how their professional backgrounds influence teaching approaches and shape computing education. …

Political Inconsistency Detection Across Legislative Speech And Public Communications, Scott M. Pramuk

Master's Theses

Political actors communicate about legislation across multiple contexts, including committee hearings, recorded votes, and public-facing press releases. Differences between these forms of communication can provide useful signals for journalists and researchers seeking to understand how legislators present policy positions to different audiences.

This thesis extends the Digital Democracy Project, a legislative transparency initiative that provides access to California state legislative hearing transcripts, voting records, and related legislative data. Specifically, this work incorporates publicly accessible, legislator-authored news releases into the Digital Democracy Database and develops a pipeline for analyzing legislative communication across multiple sources. The system collects news releases from California …

Thermally Induced Color Changes In Iron Oxide Pigments Used In Architectural Coatings, Han Diep

Master's Theses

The 2025 Palisades Fire was one of the most destructive wildfires in the history of Los Angeles, destroying thousands of structures and severely impacting the communities after. This widespread destruction demonstrated an urgent need for more effective wildfire prevention strategies. Architectural coatings do not only provide aesthetics and protection against environmental conditions but can also function as a thermal indicator when a fire breaks out. This study examines the thermally induced color transformation of iron oxide pigments, commonly used in earthtone paint, to provide information relevant to CAL FIRE for improved analysis of wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire behavior and mitigation …

Hidden Behind Happiness: Bhutan’S Global Image And Ethnic Exclusion, Deepesh Das Shrestha

Master's Theses

Bhutan has gained international recognition for its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which promotes holistic development through principles of well-being, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and good governance. Yet this celebrated image conceals a darker history: the systematic expulsion of the Lhotsampa, the Nepali-speaking ethnic minority of southern Bhutan. This study critically explores the contradiction between Bhutan's international image as a model of happiness and the lived experiences of Lhotsampa refugees who were displaced during the early 1990s.

Using a qualitative phenomenological research design, the study draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with six resettled Bhutanese Lhotsampa refugees living in the …

La Maquiladora De Sueños Is Where The “American Dream” Ends: The Socio-Cultural Impact Of Hai(T)Ijuanenses In The United States-México Borderlands, Pedro Aleman Perfecto

Master's Theses

Historically, Tijuana has been the destination for migrants who have been left out from the United States, Mexico, and the rest of the world. The city is at the epicenter of globalization where many transit, leave, and arrive. Sometimes considered a “third country” due to its binational and bicultural identity with its sister city, San Diego, California. The growing number of Haitian refugees that arrived in Tijuana in the mid 2010s to seek asylum in the United States overwhelmed the city’s infrastructure and left the Haitian community vulnerable, yet it created new opportunities and reshaped new identities in the region. …

Cyberspatial Cartographies: Mapping Digital Nationhood Within The California-Punjabi Diaspora., Saihajpratap Singh Bajwa

Master's Theses

This research investigates the phenomenon of digital nationhood, the idea that a new form of community is actively produced through interactions taking place within digital social networks and forums. These spaces function as more than repositories of information or cultural archives; they are living ecosystems in which identity is constructed through mutual encounters among members of a diaspora, where shared references, meanings, and concepts proliferate across multiplex networks. The central questions animating this inquiry are: can a nation exist without a territory, and are these encounters producing what we might conceive of as a digital nation?

The Punjabi people serve …

A Stadium In Our Backyard: Community Participation In Stadia Redevelopment Projects, Sofia Zazueta

Master's Theses

The Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid, Spain and the Chase Center in San Francisco, California are two stadium redevelopment projects that exemplify the stakeholder dynamics that come into play when developers pitch a multipurpose stadium located a few blocks away from people’s backyards. Urban development patterns must be in constant evolution to meet the needs and demands of the current generations. In cities, stadia redevelopment projects have entered the picture to reimagine the role that these structures once played. The stadium once used for the sole purpose of holding matches has become a venue that now hosts different events such as …

Middle Management Diplomacy: An Examination Of Us Foreign Policy Analysis In Middle-Echelon Diplomatic Professionals, Isaac R. Silvino

Master's Theses

This study analyzes the role which managerial level U.S. military Foreign Area Officers and Foreign Service Officers play in shaping and implementing U.S. foreign policy. By analyzing the individual professional at the middle-echelons of an organizational hierarchy, we make an effort in dispelling ourselves from obscured perceptions of IR centered on character and state idealization driven narratives. Doing this may help bridge the foundational gap between academics and practitioners while shifting towards a paradigm of IR analysis focusing on human agency and decisions.

Result

Individual managerial echelon diplomats do not directly make policy, but rather play a crucial role in …

Trust, Civic Institutions, And Crisis: A Study Of Civic Culture In Italy, Nolan Joseph Sherwood

Master's Theses

This paper examines whether cultural familism — the orientation of trust toward family at the expense of strangers and civic institutions — shapes civic institutional engagement in Italy across three levels of analysis. The first analysis links four familism indices constructed from the European Values Study (2017) to pre-COVID municipal 5 per mille tax allocation rates across approximately 7,700 Italian municipalities, finding that higher Trust Gap and Institutional Distrust robustly predict lower baseline civic giving, both nationally and within each region. The second analysis uses a Regression Discontinuity in Time design exploiting the sharp onset of COVID-19 in 2020, finding …

The Feather Of The Quill: How Folklore Shapes Human Relationships With Wildlife, Taylor Breeanne Nelson

Master's Theses

This thesis examines how folklore and cultural phenomena shape human relationships with wildlife, arguing that the stories a society tells about animals are not merely reflective of its values but are constitutive of them. Drawing on narrative research methods sourced from literature and academic journals and interviews with academics, conservationists, and community members, this project examines the role of animal folklore.

I discuss how narratives around wildlife evolved alongside the development of the United States, arguing that the beginnings of mainstream American conservation not only displaced existing communities but also erased the sophisticated human-animal relationships their traditions had long sustained. …

Examining The Ligands, Location, And Function Of Toll-Like Receptor 10, Kiefer Keanu Tam

Master's Theses

Toll-like receptors are a class of innate immune pattern recognition receptors that detect pathogen-associated molecular patterns and regulate downstream inflammatory responses. Toll-like receptor 10 remains the only human TLR whose ligand specificity, cellular localization, and immunological function are not fully defined. Emerging evidence suggests that TLR10 may play an anti-inflammatory role and can heterodimerize with TLR2 to modulate immune signaling. Previous studies from our laboratory demonstrated that stimulation with heat-killed Mycobacterium tuberculosis promotes TLR2-TLR10 heterodimerization and trafficking to the cell surface. In this study, we expanded our ligand panel to include additional gram-positive bacteria, particularly anti-inflammatory probiotic species, to further …

Flowing Borders: U.S. Border Externalization In Latin America And The Los Angeles Declaration On Migration And Protection, Magdalena Olvera Hernandez

Master's Theses

In recent years, Latin America has emerged as a central transit region for extracontinental migrants originating from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East who seek to reach North America through alternative routes. This thesis examines the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, among other regional migration governance frameworks that have reshaped migratory flows, state responsibilities, and protection outcomes in the Western Hemisphere. Focusing on the Darién Gap as a strategic chokepoint, the study analyzes the effects of coordinated migration policies, border externalization, and differentiated state roles on extracontinental mobility.

Drawing on official migration statistics from Panama, the United States, …

Meeting Their Needs: Experiences Of Uc Berkeley International Graduate Students Navigating Financial Strain, Ryann M. Hirt

Master's Theses

Of prior research on student experiences with financial strain, little has specifically focused on international student experiences in higher education while studying in the U.S., in tandem with financial strain. This qualitative study, through utilization of narrative methodology, explores the ways in which international students–in particular, graduate students–experience and navigate financial strain during their studies at a large, R1: Doctoral university: the University of California, Berkeley. The research was guided by three questions: (a) What are UC Berkeley international students’ stories of navigating financial strain? (b) What are the experiences of UC Berkeley international students with external and internal (campus) …

Vietnamese American Anti-Imperialism: South Vietnamese History And Analysis Of Publications Pre-1975, Jeannie Nguyen

Master's Theses

During the Vietnam War, citizens contested US imperialism at multiple levels. In South Vietnam, citizens published newspapers and magazines to challenge their government and expose the depth of US aggression in South Vietnamese society and culture. Inside the imperial core, Black, Chicano, and Asian American activists formed solidarities to resist the war and challenge racial inequality. At the intersection of imperialism inside and outside its borders, lies a group of South Vietnamese students and scholars who became American, migrating during the war via state-structured projects. However, in response to the heightening of war and drawing inspiration from their ‘Third World’ …

The Undaunted: How Young Adult Activist Literature Depicts The Fight For Social Justice, Emma Stack

Master's Theses

In this thesis, I will explore a wide range of young adult fiction novels that feature themes surrounding activism. My goal will be to use a number of novels to illustrate the importance of analyzing literature that features young people as activists within social justice movements. My main overarching question is: How are young people represented as activists in young adult literature, and how can young people use such literature as a catalyst for social change? I also plan to explore questions relating to how young people are represented as activists, why their voices are so integral when promoting social …

Sull'essere Umani "On Being Human", Benjamin S. Woodard

Master's Theses

The thesis describes the essential parts of the compositional process and how music expresses the individual philosophies of the composer. The goal is not to describe an overarching, and therefore overbearing, ruleset for what makes the compositional process human, but to describe it in relation to personal experience, with the rise of large language models in mind—sprouting from this research, composing a piece of music that reflects both the new electronic music that has now been embedded academically and the centuries-old tradition of performing on analog instruments. “Sull’essere Umani,” the English translation being "On Being Human", was the piece that …

Extracting California's Land Grant History: A Comparative Study Of Rule-Based And Llm Methods For Historical Document Processing, Anthony Colin Herrera, Anthony Colin Herrera

Master's Theses

This thesis explores methods to extract structured data from historical documents, making them more accessible for analysis and visualization. The goal is to provide historians and Digital Humanities scholars with tools that save time and reduce the manual effort required for this kind of research. We work with census records and historical texts from the Early California Population Project and Spanish Colonial census, covering California's 18th-19th century transition from Spanish and Mexican control to U.S. statehood. The system has three components: person matching across records, family tree generation, and land grant extraction. For person matching, we use a modified Levenshtein …

Hormonal, Cytokinetic, And Skeletal Response To A Single Weighted Vest Exercise Treatment: A Pilot Study To Determine Weighted Vest “Rucking” Treatment For Osteoporosis In Post-Menopausal Women, Eleanor Pell

Master's Theses

Osteoporosis is characterized by a deteriorating of bone tissue leading to brittleness and increased fracture risk that affects both men and women as they age. Postmenopausal women are of particular interest due to high risk of declining bone density, a characteristic of this population. Treatments for osteoporosis range from menopause hormone therapy, bisphosphonates, biologics, nutritional changes, and exercise. Load bearing exercise interventions have shown effectiveness for stimulating bone growth, but many factors such as lack of access, motivation, self-confidence or knowledge, prevent long term compliance. “Weighted vest rucking” refers to a variation of rucking, which is a form of exercise …

The Effectiveness Of Local Historic Place-Based Educational Programs: A Scoping Review, Danielle Bellantoni

Master's Theses

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of local place-based history education programs on adolescents aged students in 6th to 12th grade in the United States public school system. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) to summarize key research findings and identify gaps in the literature. Through thorough evaluation, three studies were included based on the eligibility criteria and each study showed that local place-placed history education programs are effective in the cognitive and affective domains. Although there is a gap in research, it is believed that …

Comparative Development Of Mof‑Based And Mof‑Free Agnp Functionalized Zno Nanorod–Cotton Fabric Composites For Photocatalytic Applications, Md Al Mamun

Master's Theses

Photocatalysis offers a cost‑effective and environmentally friendly strategy for degrading organic pollutants and addressing energy and environmental challenges. This study initially explored MOF‑based cotton‑fabric‑supported ZnO nanorod composites but found that the MOF component primarily acted as an adsorbent rather than an effective photocatalyst. Consequently, MOF‑free composites were developed by directly growing ZnO nanorods on cotton fabric and functionalizing them with silver nanoparticles. Photocatalytic testing revealed that AgNP‑modified ZnO nanorods, particularly at 10 mM AgNP, exhibited superior dye degradation efficiency, thereby demonstrating a scalable and effective photocatalytic platform.

Evaluating Modern Neural Network Architectures For Suicide Prediction, Kyle Brown

Master's Theses

Suicide remains a leading cause of death among adolescents despite more access to healthcare information than ever before. Medical professionals struggle to make accurate diagnoses and catch warning signs with the overwhelming amount of data available. Machine learning algorithms, including neural networks, have previously been employed for this task, yet it remains an understudied domain.

This research aims to evaluate the capabilities of Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) and a selection of its successors, ResNet and MLP with a category embedding layer, at the task of predicting suicidal ideation among high-school students. This research finds ResNet to be the most capable at …

"Ostracized As We Are With God": Mina Loy's Anti-Career And The Search For Originality, Peyton L. Phillips

Master's Theses

Among many modernist artists, Mina Loy remains one of the most complex and allusive. Recent posthumous exposure of Loy's life and work adds to this precarity. A significant piece of Loy's life that is especially complex to contemporaries is her time spent writing. By establishing Loy's subjective relationship with her Victorian upbringing, this paper seeks to show examples of its influence on her search for originality. Mainly, the paper examines Loy's concept of originality, where that concept may have come from, and how it is reflected in her literature. The paper analyzes three of Loy's literary works, her poems "Virgins …

Volunteer Spotlighting: Costly Signaling To Promote Volunteerism, Clyde A. Raible V

Master's Theses

Prosocial behaviors, because they are initially costly and do not guarantee a direct benefit to the actor, can nonetheless increase social status by signaling a willingness to incur cost on behalf of another. Given this signal value, nonprofit organizations may be able to leverage this knowledge to increase donations, such as through the provisioning of attention to, and recognition of, volunteers through social media. I predicted that the costliness of spotlighted behavior and the target signal clarity (i.e., individual vs. group spotlight) would interact with participants’ dispositional dominance and prestige-based status motives to influence volunteerism interest. To explore these associations, …

Investigating Racial And Ethnic Differences In Help-Seeking Recommendations And Intentions For Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms And Symptom Clusters, Josselyn Yanisbeth Telule

Master's Theses

Racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) communities experience disproportionate exposure to adverse events, including discrimination, socioeconomic disparities, justice system involvement, and limited access to healthcare. These inequities increase the likelihood of experiencing potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and developing trauma-related mental health concerns such as posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Despite this elevated risk, REM populations consistently underutilize mental health services. Although several explanations have been proposed—including differences in symptom recognition, perceived need for care, cultural values, mental health literacy, and preferred sources of support—less research has examined racial and ethnic differences in help-seeking intentions (HSI) and help-seeking recommendations (HSR), particularly in response …