Digital Commons Network^™

Coordination Protocols For Verifiable Consistency In Distributed Storage Systems, Ashwin Ramaswamy

Master's Theses

Achieving consistency in a highly available distributed storage system has been formally proven to be an impossible task when the system faces network partitions and faulty processes. The complexity is exacerbated when the system allows concurrent processes to send transactions to all the other servers and coordinate the consistent commitment of different transactions. In the event of a partition, each server may allow clients to request updates involving the current state of the data, which makes achieving replicated consistency challenging. To solve the inconsistency problems, several consensus protocols are used, but have strict requirements in order to make progress and …

Use Of A Utility-Scale Solar Energy Facility By Avian Populations In Central California, Quratulain Ahmed

Master's Theses

With an ever-increasing demand for renewable energy in response to climate change, utility-scale solar energy (USSE) is on the rise, particularly in California. Although solar energy is viewed as an essential resource for transitioning from a fossil fuel economy, USSE installations can cover thousands of acres of habitat used by avian species. Little is known about the effects of USSE on avian populations, although some evidence suggests that USSE facilities may be leading to bird mortality. The lake-effect hypothesis suggests that birds may mistake solar arrays for large bodies of water resulting in injury or mortality. Though several studies describe …

Motivational And Participatory Experiences Of Female Service Members In Crossfit, Nicole M. Levine

Master's Theses

CrossFit is a high-intensity exercise program that has expanded globally over the last several years. Its minimalistic approach targeted at multiple aerobic and muscular strength domains make it accessible and applicable to populations with limited space and equipment, such as overseas military installations. Despite several studies examining the motivational factors of individuals engaging in CrossFit, research is scant on the motivational factors of military professionals participating in CrossFit outside of their formalized operational training. Additionally, there is no specific literature on female military participation in CrossFit. This study qualitatively explored the participatory motivations of 15 female U.S. military service members …

Acoustic Lens Design Using Machine Learning, Wei-Ching Wang

Master's Theses

This thesis aims to contribute to the development of a novel approach and efficient method for the inverse design of acoustic metamaterial lenses using machine learning, specifically, deep learning, generative modeling, and reinforcement learning. Acoustic lenses can focus incident plane waves at the focal point, enabling them to detect structures non-intrusively. These lenses can be utilized in biomedical engineering, medical devices, structural engineering, ultrasound imaging, health monitoring, etc. Finding the global optimum through a traditional iterative optimization process for designing the acoustic lens is challenging. It may become infeasible due to high dimensional parameter space and the compute resources needed. …

"For Better Or Worse": Imagining Innovation In Smart City Municipal Design, Kevin M. Kochever

Master's Theses

The smart city concept recently (ca. 2010) emerged as a corporate-led system-as-a-service (SaaS) tool to meet city needs of accessibility and efficiency. I looked at three Western cities—Reykjavík, San José, and Toronto—to discover what it meant for city managers to meet municipal needs by embracing smart initiatives. Senior-level city managers, consultants, and technologists invoked vocabularies of smartness and innovation, adopting Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) as tools to facilitate human resource and service efficiency needs. I found persistent ambiguity in how city managers described and measured outcomes for city smartness. I also found stakeholders used smartness to …

An Analysis Of Thermal Comfort Perception In Cal Poly's Math & Science Building, Pouria Ali Fariborzi

Master's Theses

Since Americans, on average, spend approximately 90% of their time indoors according to the EPA, it is crucial to provide room occupants with the best, most comfortable, and healthiest possible environment, which is known as Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). This thesis aims to identify how we can provide comfortable learning environments to improve student success. To determine the best possible environment for occupants, a model of the Math & Science Building was developed, validated, and modified using DesignBuilder. In addition, we compared thermal comfort surveys to actual measured conditions for some classrooms. Analysis indicates that students prefer a cooler thermal …

Randomness Distillation To Improve Key Quality For Context-Based Authentication Schemes, Jackson West

Master's Theses

Context-based authentication is a method for transparently validating another device’slegitimacy to join a network based on location. Devices can pair with one another by continuously harvesting environmental noise to generate a random key with no user involvement. However, there are gaps in our understanding of the theoretical limitations of environmental noise harvesting, making it difficult for researchers to build efficient algorithms for sampling environmental noise and distilling keys from that noise. This work explores the information-theoretic capacity of context-based authentication mechanisms to generate random bit strings from environmental noise sources with known properties. Using only mild assumptions about the source …

Calcium-Mediated Induction Of Vibrio Fischeri Es114 Biofilms, Katia Elizabeth Semenchuk

Master's Theses

Vibrio fischeri bacteria form biofilms that facilitate symbiotic colonization of the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes. These host-associated biofilms require production of the SYP polysaccharide. However, it has been difficult to observe robust biofilm formation in vitro in a laboratory setting using wild-type strain ES114; instead, most work investigating syp-dependent biofilm formation has relied on genetically altered strains. Guided by recent findings that increasing calcium induces c-di-GMP (Tischler et al., 2021), a molecule known in other systems to promote biofilm formation, the question was posed as to whether high levels of calcium alone could promote syp-dependent biofilm formation by ES114. …

Modeling The Impact Of Peer Mentorship To Support First-Year Student Well-Being, Sarah Broner

Master's Theses

The transition to college is characterized by instability in a variety of life domains, with some students experiencing sharp declines in well-being across the first year of college (Conley et al., 2014). Well-established in the literature is the link between this life transition and increased rates of mental illness, including depression, anxiety, stress, and relationship problems (Auerbach et al., 2018). The adjustment to higher education can be particularly difficult for underserved students (Carter et al., 2013; Kalsner & Pistole, 2003), who may not have access to the same types of knowledge, resources, and privileges as their White counterparts on campus. …

Andrews University’S Thought Leadership Communication On Linkedin: A Textual Analysis, Nana Ama O. Akoto-Boateng

Master's Theses

Thought leadership is fast becoming a powerful communication tool for most industries and sectors including higher education institutions (HEIs). This study employed textual analysis to determine how Andrews University's thought leadership on LinkedIn compares with four other top-ranking Adventist universities, namely Loma Linda University, Pacific Union College, Southern Adventist University and Walla Walla University. The text elements that were analyzed during the study were image posts and video posts on the respective LinkedIn pages of these institutions, spanning from January 2021 to June 2021. Among other findings, the results of the study revealed that Andrews University compares as the least …

Characterization Of The Ch Addition Product From Meta- And Ortho-Xylene + Ch Reaction And Direct Experimental Observation Of The Tetrabromine Cluster Br4 Using Synchrotron Photoionization Mass Spectrometry, Rory R. Mcclish

Master's Theses

This thesis is centered on the use of a unique gas-phase spectroscopy technique to characterize products and elucidate reaction mechanisms. Experiments were carried out at the Chemical Dynamics Beamline 9.0.2 of the Advanced Light Source located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA. Computational work was performed on the scientific supercomputer at USF to supplement experimental findings. Chapter 1 contextualizes the work spurred in response to the deleterious interactions of anthropogenic emissions on Earth’s climate. Chapter 2 describes the theoretical manipulations foundational to the experimental design and interpretation. Chapter 3 delves into the physical details of the experimental …

The Effect Of Foreign Direct Investment On Colombia’S Economic Growth And The Role Of Human Capital: Does Foreign Direct Investment Foster Growth?, Jean K. Plantin

Master's Theses

Abstract: Since the pioneering work of John H. Dunning on the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the economic growth of the United Kingdom, many experts have debated the growth effect of FDI in an economy. This study investigated the impact of FDI on Colombia’s economic growth from 1990 to 2019. Moreover, it explored whether the Colombian economy has benefited from positive spillover from FDIs. Additionally, the paper examined how the stock level of human capital conditioned the effect of FDI on GDP per capita growth. To this end, the analysis separated tertiary enrollments from the human capital …

The Influence Of Teleconnection Patterns On Renewable Energy Resources, John Kyle Bergerson

Master's Theses

Energy providers are shifting their supply from carbon based forms of energy to renewable sources in response to policy changes aimed at reducing pollution and anthropogenic influence on the environment. Wind and solar energies are notable sources that have been adopted around the globe and are increasing in installation and efficiency, but relying on weather-dependent sources of energy has limitations. Variability in energy supply and demand becomes further dependent on the state of the climate, and thus predictability of that state is critical. Climate modes are correlated with climate variables and are used to make mid-term (>10 days), seasonal, …

Looking Into The Future: Predicting Future Video Frames Using Monocular Depth Estimation And Egomotion, Meera Kumar

Master's Theses

Micro-mobility has become a growing market that has altered transportation withincities. While helping people reach their destination efficiently while using fewer fossil fuels and resources, e-scooters lack tailored safety protocol. Using depth and ego-motion machine learning estimation through a live video stream, we hope to identify possible oncoming hazard for e-scooter users. To approach this problem, we tested methods that removed the pose network with a scaling transformation which was derived via linear regression. Our intuition was that training and inference will be faster with the removal of the pose network and was validated by the results. We also found …

Linear Inverse Problems And Neural Networks, Jasjeet Dhaliwal

Master's Theses

We investigate two ideas in this thesis. First, we analyze the results of adaptingrecovery algorithms from linear inverse problems to defend neural networks against adversarial attacks. Second, we analyze the results of substituting sparsity priors with neural network priors in linear inverse problems. For the former, we are able to extend the framework introduced in [1] to defend neural networks against ℓ0, ℓ2,and ℓ∞ norm attacks, and for the latter, we find that our method yields an improvement over reconstruction results of [2].

Ionic Percolation Networks In Composite Electrodes For All-Solid-State Batteries, Corey G. Abraham

Master's Theses

As the demand for high performance lithium-ion batteries grows, materials research isneeded to provide a safer alternative to the use of flammable liquid electrolytes. All-solid-state composite electrolytes consisting of a polymer host and ceramic filler can balance both the need for high ion-conductivity and mechanical flexibility within operating battery systems. The high interfacial resistances between such electrolytes and electrodes, as well as within porous electrodes, however, is a prohibitive performance attribute characteristic of this class of materials. One strategy to mitigate the inhibitory diffusion kinetics associated with the interface is to introduce an ionic percolation network into the electrodes. This …

Tuning Poly(Isopropyl Glycidyl Ether-Block-Polyethylene Glycol-Block-Isopropyl Glycidyl Ether) Poly(Iprge-Peg-Iprge) Triblock Hydrogels For Use In 3d Printing, Alexander B. Le

Master's Theses

Additive manufacturing, otherwise known as 3D printing, is an emerging technology with wide applications. The goal of this work is to study hydrogels comprised of the poly(isopropyl glycidyl ether-block-polyethylene glycol-block-isopropyl glycidyl ether) triblock copolymer, poly(iPrGE-PEG-iPrGE), for 3D printing. The hydrogel blends contain poly(iPrGE-PEG-iPrGE) along with varying concentrations of 2.5k PEG, 4k PEG, 8k PEG, 18.5k PEG or 2.5k iPrGE homopolymers. The effectiveness of the blends was measured by comparing the gel point, storage modulus, equilibrium modulus, and yield stress of the hydrogels. The average gel point for the samples ranged from 7.03-12.78 °C and the hydrogels were thermoreversible. The concentration …

Negotiating Transportation Insecurity: Local Responses And Coping Strategies In San José, Ca, Andrew K. Ng

Master's Theses

Transportation insecurity causes adverse effects on people’s lives by limiting access to opportunities and resources even in San José. Understanding how people experience transportation insecurity in metropolitan areas may contribute to building a better transportation system. I conducted my research study by interviewing downtown San José residents and analyzing their stories on the effects of transportation insecurity and what they did to cope with the situation to move around San José. I analyzed the contents of the interviews through qualitative data analysis. Findings suggest that people experience transportation insecurity as time infringement through congested traffic, convoluted schedules, and service complications, …

A Chemical And Minerological Fingerprint Of Hydraulic Mining Sediment, In The Yolo Bypass, California, Stephanie Annette Meursing

Master's Theses

Hydraulic gold mining in California, began not long after the discovery of gold in 1848. This type of mining dislodged large amounts of sediment, which were then deposited downstream. The Yolo Bypass, downstream from several northern California rivers, has received and continues to receive hydraulic mining sediment (HMS). The main goal of this study was to document the chemical and mineralogical characteristics of HMS in the bypass. Twelve borehole cores from the bypass and five in-situ auriferous gravel samples, which were used for background concentrations, were collected for this study. All twelve cores had higher Hg concentrations than the in-situ …

Sparse Coding For Data Augmentation Of Hyperspectral Medical Images, Rojin Zandi

Master's Theses

Hyperspectral imaging presents detailed information about the electromagneticspectrum of an object in three dimensions. The significant point about the hyperspectral images is that it contains tens or hundreds of spectral layers, which provide precise data about the composition of the studied material. Therefore, hyperspectral images have been popular in many fields of study, such as medical diagnostic imaging. Speed and precision are key points to save human life in disease diagnosis, and applying machine learning techniques to medical hyperspectral images helps answer this need. Convolutional neural networka are one of the most popular machine learning methods for classifying medical images. …

Computational Analysis Of Changing Wavelength On Bottom Rib And Side Rib Wavy Microchannel Heat Sinks, Ty C. Kieger

Master's Theses

As the power capacity of microelectronics continues to increase while their volume and size decrease, many different on-chip methods including microchannel heat sinks (MCHS) are being explored to cool down the temperature of these electronics. Wavy MCHS have been proven to yield better heat transfer performance compared to straight MCHS, while only producing a slightly larger pressure drop. This study investigates the heat transfer performance of MCHS following a vertical wavy design and a horizontal wavy design that have the same cross-sectional area. The simulations show that vortices are produced along the channel in the peaks and troughs of the …

Two-Level Data Augmentation With Transfer Learning For Classification Of Medical Images With Limited Data, Nihil Pudota

Master's Theses

Machine learning used in the medical industry can potentially detect cancer in humancells at an early stage. However, training the machine learning models, especially deep learning models require thousands to millions of samples in order to reach an acceptable accuracy level. It is well-know that obtaining medical data is tedious hence in most cases, medical datasets have limited number of data samples. One solution for this problem is utilizing transfer learning such as pretrained networks on another dataset. Another solution is to increase the number of training data points with data augmentation. Common data augmentation methods for images include not …

Faster Depth Estimation For Situational Awareness On Urban Streets, Sanjana Srinivas

Master's Theses

Depth estimation algorithms are useful components of computer vision systems toassess video streams on urban streets. They can provide important information about the street space and improve situational awareness for humans. Deep learning algorithms for depth estimation are slow in providing on-time street evaluation for the users. To provide situational awareness to humans, the inference time needs to be small, so that results are fresh and meaningful. This paper explores approaches like switching to efficient convolutional neural network, quantization and pruning to improve inference time with a little compromise on the performance. We explore the impact of each of these …

An Examination Of Factors Predicting Academic Engagement And Commitment Among Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Students: The Moderating Role Of Gender, Tasanee S. Thienpothong

Master's Theses

The purpose of the present study was to examine the role of gender on the relationships between the predictor variables (i.e., sense of belonging, grit, and support systems) and academic engagement and commitment to major among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. Specifically, this study proposed that gender would act as a moderator of these relationships such that the relationships between the predictor variables and the outcome variables would be stronger for women than for men in STEM. A total of 254 undergraduates from a university in Northern California participated in an in-person survey. Although results did not show …

Millipyde: A Cross-Platform Python Framework For Transparent Gpu Acceleration, James B. Asbury

Master's Theses

The prevalence of general-purpose GPU computing continues to grow and tackle a wider variety of problems that benefit from GPU-acceleration. This acceleration often suffers from a high barrier to entry, however, due to the complexity of software tools that closely map to the underlying GPU hardware, the fast-changing landscape of GPU environments, and the fragmentation of tools and languages that only support specific platforms. Because of this, new solutions will continue to be needed to make GPGPU acceleration more accessible to the developers that can benefit from it. AMD’s new cross-platform development ecosystem ROCm provides promise for developing applications and …

Optimizing A Virtual Human Platform For Depression/Suicide Ideation Identification For The American Soldier, Christina M. Monahan

Master's Theses

Suicide surpassed homicide to be the second leading cause of death among people 10-24 years old in the United States \cite{1}. This statistic is alarming especially when combined with the more than eight distinctly different types of clinical depression among society today \cite{2}. To further complicate this health crisis, let’s consider the current worldwide isolating pandemic often referred to as COVID-19 that has spanned 12 months. It is more important than ever to consider how we can get ahead of the crisis by identifying the symptoms as they set in and more importantly ahead of the decision to commit suicide. …

Jited: A Framework For Jit Education In The Classroom, Caleb Watts

Master's Theses

The study of programming languages is a rich field within computer science, incorporating both the abstract theoretical portions of computer science and the platform specific details. Topics studied in programming languages, chiefly compilers or interpreters, are permanent fixtures in programming that students will interact with throughout their career. These systems are, however, considerably complicated, as they must cover a wide range of functionality in order to enable languages to be created and run. The process of educating students thus requires that the demanding workload of creating one of the systems be balanced against the time and resources present in a …

Map-Gan: Unsupervised Learning Of Inverse Problems, Brandon S. Campanella

Master's Theses

In this paper we outline a novel method for training a generative adversarial network based denoising model from an exclusively corrupted and unpaired dataset of images. Our model can learn without clean data or corrupted image pairs, and instead only requires that the noise distribution is able to be expressed analytically and that the noise at each pixel is independent. We utilize maximum a posteriori estimation as the underlying solution framework, optimizing over the analytically expressed noise generating distribution as the likelihood and employ the GAN as the prior. We then evaluate our method on several popular datasets of varying …

Medial And Lateral Tibiofemoral Contact Forces For Individuals With High Body Mass Index In Gait And Cycling Training, Reymil Fernandez

Master's Theses

The prevalence of knee osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease characterized by the degradation of articular cartilage, is correlated with the rise in obesity. The rising rates of obesity in children and adults highlight the need for identifying a sustainable physical activity that promotes fitness while mitigating initiation and progression of osteoarthritis. The objective of this study was to determine an effective rehabilitation and lifelong fitness sustainment exercise regimen that minimize risk of osteoarthritis in individuals with high body mass index (BMI). The aim was to examine knee medial and lateral contact forces in gait and cycling training. Gait at self-selected …

Triangular Cosserat Point Element Method For Reducing Soft Tissue Artifact: Validation And Application To Gait, Jake Edward Deschamps, Stephen Klisch

Master's Theses

Human motion capture technology is a powerful tool for advancing the understanding of human motion biomechanics (Andriacchi and Alexander, 2000). This is most readily accomplished by applying retroreflective markers to a participant’s skin and tracking the position of the markers during motion. Skin and adipose tissue move independently of the underlying bone during motion creating error known as soft tissue artifact (STA), the primary source of error in human motion capture (Leardini et al., 2005).

(Solav et al., 2014) proposed and (Solav et al., 2015) expanded the triangular Cosserat point element (TCPE) method to reduce the effect of STA on …