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An Examination Of Daily Dietary Intake And Swallow Function In An Older Adult Population, Lillian A. Barone

Master's Theses

This study aims to determine the relationship, if any, of daily dietary intake of adult individuals living independently in the community and swallow function/ dysfunction. It appears that individuals modify their diet as they age and the correlation between this awareness of diet modification and dysphagia is unclear. Using the Yale Swallow Protocol and a study specific questionnaire, this relationship was examined. The results indicate future research should focus on the bi-directional relationship between malnutrition and dysphagia in the aging, community dwelling population.

“You Don’T Just Eat ‘Em, You Get Match Ready With ‘Em”: A Content Analysis Of Alcohol, Food, And Non-Alcoholic Beverage Advertising In The United States During The 2014 Fifa World Cup Brazil, Melissa M. Feulner

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Create: Clinical Record Analysis Technology Ensemble, Skylar Eglowski

Master's Theses

In this thesis, we describe an approach that won a psychiatric symptom severity prediction challenge. The challenge was to correctly predict the severity of psychiatric symptoms on a 4-point scale. Our winning submission uses a novel stacked machine learning architecture in which (i) a base data ingestion/cleaning step was followed by the (ii) derivation of a base set of features defined using text analytics, after which (iii) association rule learning was used in a novel way to generate new features, followed by a (iv) feature selection step to eliminate irrelevant features, followed by a (v) classifier training algorithm in which …

"Ye Sons Of Mars": British Representations Of The Sudan Campaign In Print Culture, 1884–1899, Crystal E. Smith

Master's Theses

From 1884 to 1885 the British were first engaged with the Mahdist forces of Sudan in an effort to first rescue the inhabitants of Khartuom, and later to rescue the rescuer Charles “Chinese” Gordon. The affair played out both in Parliament and the newspapers as journalists became the cheerleaders for Empire. My thesis focuses on Britain’s 1884-1890 Sudan Campaign through print culture using political debates, journalism, literature, memoirs, and art. I show how the activism of the press and the romanticism of the larger media reinforced ideas about imperialism and the British role within the Empire at large.

Complex Filters As Cascade Of Buffered Gingell Structures: Design From Band-Pass Constraints, Nicole M. Hay

Master's Theses

Complex filters are multi-input, multi-output networks designed to discriminate based upon the relative phase difference between input signals. Complex filters find application in modern wireless systems for single sideband transmission and image-reject reception. This thesis presents one active complex filter implementation using two operational amplifiers per stage, termed “type-II” topology. The “type-II” originates from the passive RC-CR polyphase topology presented by Gingell in his 1973 paper, “Single sideband modulation using sequence asymmetric polyphase networks.” This new topology gains several advantages over existing complex filter implementations, namely “cascadability” (multiple sections placed in series to create a higher-order response) without altering the …

Quantifying The Impact Of Truck Only Lanes On Vehicular Emissions On A Limited-Access Highway, Edward Chee Tang

Master's Theses

This thesis seeks to estimate CO₂ emissions on a portion of the U.S. 101 highway in San Luis Obispo County before and after construction of a truck only lane on the Cuesta Grade. Towards that aim, the microsimulation software, VISSIM, was used in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions model, MOVES. The microsimulation model was calibrated and validated against historical and present traffic volumes obtained from Caltrans with good results using several validation measures. It was found that CO₂ emissions did decrease between 1998 and 2012 (pre and post lane addition), but this effect was shown to …

A Geospatial Assessment Of Social Vulnerability To Sea-Level Rise In Coastal San Luis Obispo, Jesse A. Carpentier

Master's Theses

This project is an assessment of social vulnerability to sea-level rise in the unincorporated coastal area of the County of San Luis Obispo (County) using geospatial and statistical analysis. The intention of this assessment is to inform local climate adaptation efforts now required by state legislation. A social vulnerability index was generated at the Census block group level using 32 variables positively correlated with social vulnerability. The social vulnerability score for each block group is the sum of scores generated for the following principle components: (1) race/ethnicity and disability status, (2) social isolation and age, (3) income, and (4) housing …

The Population Genetics Of Morro Bay Eelgrass (Zostera Marina), Julia Gardner Harencar

Master's Theses

Seagrass populations are in decline worldwide. Zostera marina (eelgrass), one of California’s native seagrasses, is no exception to this trend. In the last 8 years, Morro Bay, California has lost 95% of its eelgrass. Eelgrass is an ecosystem engineer, providing important ecosystem services such as sediment stabilization, nutrient cycling, and nursery habitats for fish. The failure of recent restoration efforts necessitates a better understanding of the causes of eelgrass decline in this estuary. Previous research on eelgrass in California has demonstrated a link between population genetic diversity and eelgrass bed health, ecosystem functioning, and resilience to disturbance and extreme climatic …

Transnational ‘Interruptions’ In Eritrean Refugee Lives In The Bay Area, Meron Y. Semedar Mr

Master's Theses

For many refugees, the day they flee their home country is the start of the interruption of their life. For refugees, such interruption brings the absence of continuity and loss of vision for the future, that they have to be present in the current situation – not knowing their future. This interruption literally 'interrupts' the life plan of refugees. Many Eritrean refugees vocally state that, "Our body might be here, but our soul is all in Eritrea". Eritrean refugees, having fled an oppressive regime, continue to experience nonstop interruption to their lives in their new country. Due to both the …

Are We Out Of The Woods Yet? How Democrats And Progressives Need To Rethink Their Message Framework, Lauren E. Feuerborn

Master's Theses

The aftermath of the election revealed that the Democratic Party made critical errors and had structural issues that made executing our messaging more difficult. The Democratic Party needs to return to a set of principles that prioritizes all people and their wellbeing to win elections. What do Democrats and progressives need to fix so they can deliver better messages? To better understand the dynamics that impact the Democratic Party’s capacity to create messaging I believe one must look at the relationship between the Democratic Party as an institution and the art of political messaging. The research of this paper focuses …

The Acquisition And Analysis Of Electroencephalogram Data For The Classification Of Benign Partial Epilepsy Of Childhood With Centrotemporal Spikes, Jessica A. Scarborough

Master's Theses

In this thesis, I will expand upon each step in the process of acquiring and analyzing electroencephalogram (EEG) for the classification of benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes. Despite huge advancements in the field of health informatics—natural language processing, machine learning, predictive modeling—there are significant barriers to the access of clinical data. These barriers include information blocking, privacy policy concerns, and a lack of stakeholder support. We will see that these roadblocks are all responsible for stunting biomedical research in some way, including my own experiences in acquiring the data for the second chapter of this thesis.

This second chapter …

Do Marketing Strategies Impact Condom Sales In Uganda?, Meyhar Mohammed

Master's Theses

What attracts people to buy condoms? HIV/AIDS remain one of the biggest health dangers of the world, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. A lot of efforts have been pursued in the past two decades to drastically reduce prevalence of HIV and increase awareness about preventive mechanisms. In order to prevent relapse of success achieved so far, it is important to recognize transformation of consumer behavior due to growth in social networks, education and awareness over time. There are a lot of behavioral triggers captured by social marketing interventions in the field of public health. In an attempt to investigate the role …

Inentives And Education: Experimental Evidence From Medellin, Colombia, Theodore D. Wisinski, Alessandra Cassar

Master's Theses

This research uses an experimental design to investigate how incentive structure influences goal achievement among disadvantaged high school students in Medellin, Colombia. Of particular interest is how treatment effects influence school performance as well as how this may vary with differing key characteristics of the participants. Medellin, Colombia, like much of South America suffers from high levels of inequality in the city proper. Improving educational outcomes in impoverished neighborhoods is essential for the growth of these neighborhoods and the greater community in which they are located. The model used in this experiment is inspired by the Family Independence Initiative (FII). …

The Rise Of The Maquiladoras And Crimes In Mexico, Christelle K. Bamona

Master's Theses

While it is generally argued that a stronger labor market is negatively associated with crime, there exists a “consensus of doubt” around the relationship between employment and crime. This paper examines the impact of the rise of female labor participation in manufacturing on various types of crimes in Mexico from 1998 to 2012. A fixed effects specification and an instrumental variable approach with regional and time fixed effects are employed to compare the crime rates in municipalities that were heavily exposed to local factory openings to municipalities that did not receive a labor shock of the same magnitude. By introducing …

Income Shocks And The Acceptance Of Intimate Partner Violence In Indonesia, Matthew N. Krupoff

Master's Theses

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive issue affecting 1 in 3 women worldwide. Despite the negative welfare impacts, it is still seen as acceptable in some parts of the world, even amongst women. This paper examines how elastic these accepting attitudes towards IPV are to changing economic conditions. Specifically, this paper focuses on changes in intra-household resources from negative shocks to male-sourced income. The setting and context takes place in coastal communities in Indonesia, where fishing is a main source ofincome generated primarily by men. This paper uses satellite-derived fishing conditions to measure how women's attitudes towards IPV change …

La Madre Competitiva: An Experimental Study Of Women's Competitiveness In Medellin, Colombia, Miranda I. Lambert

Master's Theses

Abstract: This project is a follow up to Cassar, Wordofa, and Zhang (2015), which aimed at testing whether extending incentives beyond cash would alter the estimated competitive tendencies of men and women. Here we extend this work to an urban Colombian setting. In the previous study conducted in China, men have proven more competitive than women; however, once the incentive changes to a child-benefitting voucher, women increased their likeliness to compete. This research uses statistical and regression analysis to test whether or not women become more competitive when competing for a voucher, which directly benefits their child as opposed to …

Competitive Mothers: An Experimental Study Of Female Competitiveness And Polygamy In Togo (West Africa), Aminata Cissokho

Master's Theses

Are women in a patriarchal society like Togo as competitive as men? How does being a parent, in a polygamous vs. monogamous marriage and having high income affect one’s willingness to compete? With an incentivized experiment, we explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments, especially when the incentives switch from cash to voucher. This experiment is conducted in Togo, West Africa, with 428 subjects including females-males, parent-non parent. Overall, the findings reveal no significant differences between the females and males’ willingness to compete. Female parents are more competitive than male parents regardless of the incentive. Subjects …

Financing And Productivity: Evidence From Indian Manufacturing Industry, Tingyi Wu

Master's Theses

India grows rapidly in recent years, not to mention its high-technology industry. What are secrets behind this fast-growing situation? This paper intends to find the answer using a firm-level panel data in India and examine the loan-productivity relationship via both contemporaneous and lagged models. I find positive and statistically significant results that loans play an important role in firms’ performances.

Political Intrusion On Firms: Effects Of Elections On Bank Lending In India, Shivprasad Prabhakar Gunjal

Master's Theses

This paper examines the intrusion of political system on performance of Indian firms, employing state and constituency level financial borrowing panel data by firms from domestic banks from 2010 to 2015. Using conditional logistic and fixed effects regression models, the results suggests that firms located in regions aligned politically with the ruling party enjoy possible preferential access to financing from banks. We find average productivity efficiency loss of 2.77% in the short term as a result of politically motivated redistribution of scarce capital. These political effects are statistically robust to the inclusion of region fixed effects, time fixed effects and …

Gender Differences In Willingness To Compete: Experimental Evidence From Bosnia, Boris Jokic

Master's Theses

Abstract: This research examines gender differences in willingness to compete with differing incentives . The results of previous experiments show that women are significantly less competitive, even when they perform equally well as men. However, in these experiments cash was the only incentive provided. Therefore, we investigate what happens to gender differences in willingness to compete when we switch the incentive from cash to non-cash prize. Similar to Cassar, Whordofa, and Zhang (2016) who found that women become equally competitive as men when incentive is related to wellbeing of their children, we find that the gender gap in competitiveness still …

Investigation Of Absolute Photoionization Cross Sections Of Cyclic Ketones, Low Temperature Combustion Of Propargylamine By Synchrotron Photoionization Mass Spectrometry, And Computational Study Of Hypersalts, Chelsea Liliana Price

Master's Theses

The presented research was carried out at the University of San Francisco. Measurements of absolute photoionization cross sections of both cyclopentanone and cyclohexanone, as well as the Cl-initiated oxidation of propargylamine were completed through the use of a multiplexed photoionization mass spectrometer (MPMIS) located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Advanced Light Source (ALS). Furthermore, the design of novel LiF containing hypersalts, constructed from superhalogens and superalkalis, were explored due to their enhanced ionization energies and electron affinities. All determined calculations were completed using the CBS-QB3 composite model with the Gaussian09 program.

Agricultural Technology Adoption And Adaptation Under Climate Change: Microevidence From Niger, Berenger Djoumessi Tiague

Master's Theses

Many regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are experiencing fast increases in human population pressure and urbanization. By 2050, feeding a planet of 9 billion people will require an estimated 50 percent increase in agricultural production. Farmers in in the Sahel are exposed to a highly variable weather over time, and to their limited adaptive capacity, therefore often use livestock as income generator, export earnings, and as insurance against weather risk. There is an increasing demand for livestock products, which increase pressure on crop residues use on the land. In this study, I use panel socio-economic data combined with village rainfall …

Goal Effectiveness In Achieving Educational Outcomes: Experimental Evidence From 9th Graders In Medellin, Colombia, Daniel Salicath, Alessandra Cassar

Master's Theses

Does goal setting among low-income ninth graders leads to higher average goal achievements of educational outcomes? This question is explored by a field experiment motivated by the acknowledged California-based Family Independence Initiative (FII), to analyze the effectiveness of individual goal setting, incentives and self-help groups on the achievement of educational goals. By randomizing treatments and control with the cooperation of the Secretary of Education in Medellin, different classrooms were assigned to five different experimental groups that met systematically for five months. The results show that goal setting is a cost-effective method to help low-income students achieve educational outcomes. Setting a …

Financial Sector Development And Agricultural Productivity, John J. Onoja

Master's Theses

Global concern is rising about the performance of the agricultural sector in view of its integral role in poverty alleviation, economic development and meeting an ever-increasing nutritional demand. At the epicenter of the concern is declining productivity due to poor financial inclusion of the sector leading to low investment and returns to agriculture. A cursory examination of the existing literature on the subject reveals quite varied dimensions to the analysis of agriculture productivity-financial development nexus. Focusing on the role of financial sector development as a catalyst to agricultural productivity, we employ panel data and advances fixed-effects econometrics approach to empirically …

Drawings From Syria's Lost Generation: Psychological Impacts Of The Refugee Crisis, Rafael Panlilio

Master's Theses

Since the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011, more than 11 million people have been forcibly displaced and exposed to violence. Even if the civil war were to end tomorrow, the refugee crisis will be expected to last for decades more. With nearly half of the refugees being children, the impact of the loss of health, education, social networks, and home environments on children have resulted in what is being called Syria‟s lost generation. A potential solution in mitigating these psychological impacts is the reintegration from refugee camps into non-camp host communities or the resettlement into other countries. …

People, Land, And Profit In The South Of Market: A Critical Analysis Of The Central Soma Plan, David Woo

Master's Theses

The South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco has undergone several transformations, especially since WWII, that have largely characterized the broader relationships among local city government, private interests, and the public in San Francisco. These transformations have included deindustrialization and the restructuring of the local economy after WWII, Urban Renewal, the intensification of office uses, and the first and second technology booms. City planning and the implementation of area plans (a type of city planning development tool) have also played a significant role in facilitating these changes. By historically situating the current moment in San Francisco, this research paper seeks …

Embodying The Oppressed And The Oppressor: Critical Mixed Race Studies For Liberation And Social Justice Education, Gwendlyn C. Snider

Master's Theses

This study will focus on the educational and social experiences of mixed race Filipinx PEP (Pin@y Educational Partnerships) instructors in the San Francisco/Bay Area and the connection of these various, lived experiences to their teaching pedagogy and praxis in Ethnic Studies curriculum. The main purpose of this research is to create additional evidence for the need of critical mixed race studies and acknowledgement of mixed race students’ unique experiences to be valued and included in Ethnic Studies curriculum. In addition, the research will also serve as reaffirmation of not only the efficacy of Ethnic Studies curriculum but also the need …

Ambiguity Aversion: Adoption, Uptake, And Trends, Adam Franklin

Master's Theses

What is ambiguity aversion and what is its role as a determinant of technology adoption? This study develops and implements a novel ambiguity preference instrument in the context of an ongoing RCT pilot program in southwest Uganda promoting adoption of an improved variety of sweet potato. No correlation between ambiguity aversion and crop adoption is observed, although it is suspected that RCT treatment arms including supply- and demand-side information reduced the ambiguity of the new variety, probably overcoming any ambiguity-preference-related constraints and clouding the picture. Methodological lessons learned regarding the development and implementation of an apporopriate ambiguity preference measure point …

Development And Application Of A 30-Year Vegetation Dataset To Assess The Impacts Of Fence Removal Within The Kruger To Canyons Biosphere Reserve, South Africa, Helaine M. Linden

Master's Theses

Maintaining habitat heterogeneity is favorable when conserving protected areas due to its positive relationship with biodiversity. Fence removal across protected areas improves connectivity and allows herbivory to occur over a larger landscape extent. In the mid-1990’s, reserves within the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve (K2C) removed their fences, becoming connected to Kruger National Park (KNP). The fundamental research objective was to determine how fence removal influenced the vegetation dynamics within the reserves residing in the K2C. We had three goals: 1) determine if multiple satellite sensors could be used within the TIMESAT program to provide robust vegetation metrics that measure …

Mapping The Embryological Development Of The Temporomandibular Joint With Cone-Beam Computed Tomography, Sonya Kalim

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.