Digital Commons Network^™

Dna-Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles For Chemiresistive Vapor Sensing, Kan Fu

Master's Theses

Chemiresistive sensing with functionalized gold nanoparticles is a powerful new technology for vapor sensing. Utilizing changes in behavior of electron tunneling through conductive gold nanoparticles and insulating organic capping layers upon analyte adsorption, this system can achieve intrinsically high sensitivity and rapid response time. A number of thiol-based small-molecule organic ligands have already been successfully used to functionalize gold nanoparticles, yielding an array of organic sensors having various sensitivities towards different organic vapors. With the aid of chemometric analysis tools, gold nanoparticle-based chemiresistive sensors have been rapidly maturing into a vapor quantification and identification technology.

A limiting factor for its …

Characterization Of Changes In Composition And Physicochemical Properties Of Casein Micelles From Raw Milk To Buttermilk, Melissa Ann Looney

Master's Theses

It is well-documented that buttermilk has poor coagulation properties due to changes that occur to the casein micelles during the butter-making process. These modifications are generally attributed to the pasteurization of the cream upon which interactions between the proteins are promoted. It was hypothesized that churning is also a critical step for the changes that occur in composition of the casein micelles. The objective of this work was to learn more about the interactions that occur between casein micelles and MFGM components during the butter making process.

Raw cream was processed using a rotary churn at 18°C for approximately 30 …

Effect Of Liquid Contamination On Hermeticity And Seal Strength Of Flexible Pouches With Lldpe Sealant, Francesca Delle Cese

Master's Theses

Flexible packaging is a growing successful market and the majority of flexible package applications are for the food industry. The demand for process optimization and reduced production costs, has led to an increase in flexible packaging. However, fast production lines can result in contamination in the seal area. For flexible food packaging, contamination is considered any food particle or substance trapped in the seal area. Current quality control processes can detect contamination in the seal area, but it is not determined if seal contamination effects seal quality. Oil-based and sodium based snack foods are two common categories that can be …

Gender Identity, Ethnic Identity, And Self-Esteem In Latino Adolescent Males, Miriam Asya Reder

Master's Theses

The relationship between gender identity and psychological adjustment has long been investigated, but it is only in the 21^st century that gender identity has been examined as a multi-faceted construct. According to Egan and Perry (2001), there are five dimensions comprising a person’s gender identity and they have demonstrated a significant relationship between these dimensions and youth’s psychological adjustment. Three of their gender identity constructs are pertinent to this study: gender typicality, gender contentedness, and felt pressure. While subsequent studies have had similar significant results (Carver, Yunger, & Perry, 2003; Yunger, Carver, & Perry, 2004), one study found that …

Development Of A Bicycle Level Of Service Methodology For Two-Way Stop-Controlled (Twsc) Intersections, Nathan R. Johnston

Master's Theses

This thesis fills a missing piece in research on multimodal performance measures for traffic on streets and highways. The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) published by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) provides Level of Service (LOS) methodologies which enable engineers and planners to evaluate the overall performance of roadways and highways based on the physical characteristics of facilities. This allows for the evaluation of those facilities and offers a means for recognizing issues and planning, designing, implementing, and ultimately assessing improvements. Originally, level of service was developed for automotive traffic only, but with recent developments as part of the complete streets …

Twill: A Hybrid Microcontroller-Fpga Framework For Parallelizing Single- Threaded C Programs, Douglas S. Gallatin

Master's Theses

Increasingly System-On-A-Chip platforms which incorporate both micropro- cessors and re-programmable logic are being utilized across several fields ranging from the automotive industry to network infrastructure. Unfortunately, the de- velopment tools accompanying these products leave much to be desired, requiring knowledge of both traditional embedded systems languages like C and hardware description languages like Verilog. We propose to bridge this gap with Twill, a truly automatic hybrid compiler that can take advantage of the parallelism inherent in these platforms. Twill can extract long-running threads from single threaded C code and distribute these threads across the hardware and software domains to more …

Quantifying The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Of Hazards: Incorporating Disaster Mitigation Strategies In Climate Action Plans, Michael Germeraad

Master's Theses

Reconstruction after natural disasters can represent large peaks in a community’s greenhouse gas emission inventory. Components of the built environment destroyed by natural hazards have their useful life shortened, requiring replacement before functionally necessary. Though the hazard itself does not release greenhouse gasses, the demolition and rebuilding process does, and these are the emissions we can quantify to better understand the climate impacts of disasters.

The proposed methodology draws data from existing emission and hazard resource literature and combines the information in a community scale life cycle assessment. Case studies of past disasters are used to refine the methodology and …

Comparative Analysis Of Two Successive Vintages Of Cabernet Sauvignon Must And Pre-Barrel Wine From Two Distinct Soil Types, Jon Garret Page

Master's Theses

The objective of this study was to determine if there were significant statistical differences in the response variables of Cabernet Sauvignon must and pre-barreled wine analyzed from two vintages from two distinct soil types.

Research was conducted at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo to examine the quantitative chemical analysis of 22 different response variables of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. The same 22 variables were analyzed in must and pre-barreled wine samples harvested from both Calodo Clay Loam soil and Zaca Clay soil. The analyses were done at both California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo and Vinquiry Inc. Labs. The results …

On The Growth Rate Of Turbulent Mixing Layers: A New Parametric Model, Jeffrey L. Freeman

Master's Theses

A new parametric model for the growth rate of turbulent mixing layers is proposed. A database of experimental and numerical mixing layer studies was extracted from the literature to support this effort. The domain of the model was limited to planar, spatial, nonreacting, free shear layers that were not affected by artificial mixing enhancement techniques. The model is split into two parts which were each tuned to optimally fit the database; equations for an incompressible growth rate were derived from the error function velocity profile, and a function for a compressibility factor was generalized from existing theory on the convective …

Compacting Loads And Stores For Code Size Reduction, Isaac Asay

Master's Theses

It is important for compilers to generate executable code that is as small as possible, particularly when generating code for embedded systems. One method of reducing code size is to use instruction set architectures (ISAs) that support combining multiple operations into single operations. The ARM ISA allows for combining multiple memory operations to contiguous memory addresses into a single operation. The LLVM compiler contains a specific memory optimization to perform this combining of memory operations, called ARMLoadStoreOpt. This optimization, however, relies on another optimization (ARMPreAllocLoadStoreOpt) to move eligible memory operations into proximity in order to perform properly. This mover optimization …

Learning About Led Lighting Technology Through Patents, Joe C. Liu

Master's Theses

Patents and published patent applications are valuable resources to students, engineers, and researchers for learning about technology. This thesis investigated the ability to learn about a technology through the disclosures that are made in published patent applications and issued patents.

This thesis first provides an overview of U.S. patent law, system, and resources that are available to the public. It is through an understanding of U.S. patent law and system that one can appreciate that patents and patent applications are a resource for learning about technology.

By providing the basic building blocks of LED lighting technology as learned through the …

Investigation Of Degradation Effects Due To Gate Stress In Gan-On-Si High Electron Mobility Transistors Through Analysis Of Low Frequency Noise, Michael Curtis Meyer Masuda

Master's Theses

Gallium Nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) have superior performance characteristics compared to Silicon (Si) and Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) based transistors. GaN is a wide bandgap semiconductor which allows it to operate at higher breakdown voltages and power. Unlike traditional semiconductor devices, the GaN HEMT channel region is undoped and relies on the piezoelectric effect created at the GaN and Aluminum Gallium Nitride (AlGaN) heterojunction to create a conduction channel in the form of a quantum well known as the two dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Because the GaN HEMTs are undoped, these devices have higher electron mobility crucial for …

Classification Of Plot-Level Fire-Caused Tree Mortality In A Redwood Forest Using Digital Orthophotography And Lidar, Brian David Bishop

Master's Theses

Swanton Pacific Ranch is an approximately 1,300 ha working ranch and forest in northern Santa Cruz County, California, managed by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). On August 12, 2009, the Lockheed Fire burned 300 ha of forestland, 51% of the forested area on the property, with variable fire intensity and mortality. This study used existing inventory data from 47 permanent 0.08 ha (1/5 ac) plots to compare the accuracy of classifying mortality resulting from the fire using digital multispectral imagery and LiDAR. The percent mortality of trees at least 25.4 cm (10”) DBH was aggregated to …

Evaluation Of Red Alder Mortality In The Little Creek Watershed Following The 2009 Lockheed Fire, Dylan Robert Theobald

Master's Theses

Five hundred eighty red alder along a 2.16 km portion of the Little Creek riparian zone were assessed for mortality following the 2009 Lockheed Fire near Davenport, California. The study area was divided into burn severity zones and every red alder within the riparian zone was observed and assessed for mortality. Height, diameter at breast height (DBH), and age were collected on selected trees. An estimation of red alder large woody debris (LWD) input to Little Creek since a 2010 LWD survey (Smith, 2010) was calculated using average red alder tree dimensions applied to Smalian’s formula (MLNRO, 2011). The mean …

Tunnel Road Safety: A Look At Older Drivers' Performance And Sight Impairment, Edith Lopez

Master's Theses

In California, there is an observed trend in which collisions cluster in and around tunnels. The break in road continuity created by the tunnels disturbs traffic flow that can lead to collisions. One of the main contrasts between open roads and tunnel roads occurs in lighting. Drivers with sight deficiencies are unable to adapt their sight to the change in the lighting environment and may crash due to misperception of road alignment, vehicle’s speed and other physiological reactions, such as tension. The suspect population group of crashes occurring under the influence of tunnels conditions is older drivers.

The literature suggests …

Territorial Behavior And Cortical Brain Plasticity In Adult Male Sceloporus Occidentalis, Daniel R. Pfau

Master's Theses

The hippocampus is a brain region that can undergo tremendous plasticity in adulthood. The hippocampus is related to the formation of spatial memories in birds and mammals. In birds, plasticity in the hippocampus occurs when formation of such memories is directly relevant to survival or reproduction, such as for breeding or food caching. In reptiles, the homologues to the hippocampus are the dorsal and medial cortices (DC and MC). In several lizard, snake and turtle species, these structures have been related to spatial memory. Experimental investigations indicate that differences in DC volume are related to space use associated with differing …

Flight And Stability Of A Laser Inertial Fusion Energy Target In The Drift Region Between Injection And The Reaction Chamber With Computational Fluid Dynamics, Tiffany Leilani Mitori

Master's Theses

A Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE) target’s flight through a low Reynolds number and high Mach number regime was analyzed with computational fluid dynamics software. This regime consisted of xenon gas at 1,050 K and approximately 6,670 Pa. Simulations with similar flow conditions were performed over a sphere and compared with experimental data and published correlations for validation purposes. Transient considerations of the developing flow around the target were explored. Simulations of the target at different velocities were used to determine correlations for the drag coefficient and Nusselt number as functions of the Reynolds number. Simulations with different target angles …

Development Of Safety Standards For Cubesat Propulsion Systems, Liam Jon Cheney

Master's Theses

The CubeSat community has begun to develop and implement propulsion systems. This movement represents a new capability which may satisfy mission needs such as orbital and constellation maintenance, formation flight, de-orbit, and even interplanetary travel. With the freedom and capability granted by propulsion systems, CubeSat providers must accept new responsibilities in proportion to the potential hazards that propulsion systems may present.

The Cal Poly CubeSat program publishes and maintains the CubeSat Design Specification (CDS). They wish to help the CubeSat community to safety and responsibly expand its capabilities to include propulsive designs. For this reason, the author embarked on the …

Optical Security Using The Double-Random-Phase Encryption With Photon-Counting, Adam Markman

Master's Theses

We investigate a full phase based photon-counting double-random-phase encryption (PC-DRPE) method. A photon-counting technique is applied during the encryption process creating sparse images. The statistical distribution of the photon-counting decrypted data for full phase encoding and amplitude phase encoding are derived and their statistical parameters are used for authentication. The performance of the full phase PC-DRPE is compared with the amplitude-based PC-DRPE method. The photon-counting decrypted images make it difficult to visually authenticate the input image; however, advanced correlation filters can be used to authenticate the decrypted images given the correct keys. Initial computational simulations show that the full phase …

Performance Of No Vibration/No Admixture Masonry Grout Containing High Replacement Of Portland Cement With Fly Ash And Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag, Eric Bateman

Master's Theses

When hollow concrete masonry is used for construction in high seismic regions, structural designs typically require fully grouted walls. The grouting process is labor-intensive, time-consuming and has a high energy demand due to requirements of consolidation in each and subsequent grout lifts. Self-consolidating grout with admixtures has been successfully used without segregation in walls of up to 12.67 ft. in height. Investigation of self-consolidating grout mixes without admixtures has potential for sustainability improvement.

This thesis reports on the compression strength and consolidation observations of self-consolidating characteristics of no vibration/no admixture grout made by substituting various proportions of Portland cement with …

Design Of Controlled Environment For Tissue Engineering, Malcolm Gerald Lapera

Master's Theses

Design of Controlled Environment for Tissue Engineering

Malcolm Lapera

Tissue engineering aims at relieving the need for donor tissue and organs by developing a process of creating viable tissues in the laboratory setting. With over 120,000 people awaiting a transplant, the need for generating tissue engineered organs is very large [3]. In order for organs to be engineered, a few issues need to be overcome. A work space that both creates an environment which maintains cell viability over an extended period of time as well as accommodates the necessary fabrication equipment will be needed to further tissue engineering research. Therefore, …

The Ecological Effects Of Cattle Grazing On Reptiles And Small Mammals In A San Joaquin Valley Grassland, Michael William Tom

Master's Theses

Livestock grazing is a common and extensive land use practice in the United States occurring in a wide range of habitat types. As such, livestock grazing has the potential to alter ecosystem structure, function and community composition. The primary component (Chapter 1) of this thesis examined the effects of cattle grazing in a San Joaquin Valley grassland on two target taxa: reptiles and small mammals. The study took place on the Chimineas Unit of the Carrizo Ecological Reserve, San Luis Obispo County, California during Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. These taxa were sampled on matched pairs of two grazed and …

Study The Effects Of Core Orientation And Different Face Thicknesses On Mechanical Behavior Of Honeycomb Sandwich Structures Under Three Point Bending, Joshua M. Lister

Master's Theses

This study will present the Experimental, numerical and analytical characterizations of composite sandwich structures needed to optimize structure design. In this study, the effects of varying honeycomb core ribbon orientation and varying face sheet thickness’s have on the flexural behavior of honeycomb sandwich structures was investigated. Honeycomb sandwich panels were constructed using Hexcel 6367 A250-5H carbon fiber face sheets and Hexcel Nomex HRH-10-1/8-5 honeycomb cores. The mechanical properties of the constituent materials were discovered experimentally using ASTM standards and theoretical models using honeycomb mechanics and classical beam and plate theory are described. A failure mode map for loading under three …

Plant Invasion Along An Urban-To-Rural Gradient, Carolyn O. Ariori

Master's Theses

Humans are the most important drivers of invasive species introduction and natural habitat transformation globally. Ecological differences between areas of dense human habitation and minimally managed natural habitats were explored across an urban-to-rural gradient of land use in southern New England. These differences were examined through presence/absence and leaf functional traits for a set of invasive species; and urban and rural environmental conditions. Some species were more restricted to particular sites than others along the urbanization gradient, based on introduction history and habitat preference. A priori urban-classified species showed trait values associated with drought tolerance, including higher LWR, greater leaf …

Roubaud's Circus: Playing With Words And Animals In Les Animaux De Tout Le Monde, Miranda R. Mueller

Master's Theses

It is commonly held that there is a solid, defined line existing between men and animals. This thesis explores the ideological boundary and, through a close examination of Jacques Roubaud’s collection of poetry Les animaux de tout le monde, imagines the line as a fluid structure that can be broken, approached, and multiplied.

In a circus theme following the playful style of Roubaud’s own verses, I include several close readings of poems as well as an analysis of Roubaud’s influence from Lewis Carroll’s nonsense genre, the Fables of Jean de la Fontaine, and Medieval bestiaries in order to create a …

The Relationship Between Obesity And Occupations Among The U.S. Population Based On Occupational Tasks, Luz D. Flaherty

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

A Social Ecological Approach: Understanding The Factors Associated With Hiv Risk In Fishing Communities In Lake Victoria, Uganda., Paola Chanes-Mora

Master's Theses

Uganda has an estimated 1.4 million Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) -positive adults (United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS [UNAIDS], 2011). The initial cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Uganda were identified in fishing villages on the shores of Lake Victoria in 1985 (Serwadda et al., 1985). Fishing villages continue to remain at high risk of HIV transmission (United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS [UNAIDS], 2012). Evidence suggests that the HIV- prevalence rates among fishermen and commercial sex workers (CSWs) in the Wakiso District are more than 20 percent (Alex, Michael, & Nordin, 2011). The purpose of this study was to …

Effects Of Urbanization On Sediment Microbial Communities In Lotic Ecosystems, Bradley Drury

Master's Theses

The world is becoming increasingly urbanized, with the majority of the world's population now living in urban areas. Urbanization has the potential to significantly alter lotic ecosystems and the services they provide. Benthic microbial communities are key components of lotic ecosystems due to their contributions to primary production and nutrient cycling. Two types of human inputs associated with urbanization that may impact benthic microbial communities in lotic ecosystems are the input of wastewater treatment effluent and the input of emerging contaminants, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products. This work examines the effects of treated WWTP effluent on benthic microbial communities …

A Hierarchical Framework For Estimating Heterogeneous Architecture-Based Software Reliability, Wayne Morris

Master's Theses

Problem. The composite model approach that follows a DTMC process with constant failure rate is not analytically tractable for improving its method of solution for estimating software reliability. In this case, a hierarchical approach is preferred to improve accuracy for the method of solution for estimating reliability. Very few studies have been conducted on heterogeneous architecture-based software reliability, and those that have been done use the composite model for reliability estimation. To my knowledge, no research has been done where a hierarchical approach is taken to estimate heterogeneous architecture-based software reliability. This paper explores the use and effectiveness of a …

Child Abuse Reporting: When Given The Option, Do Youth Choose To Report?, Michelle L. Vos

Master's Theses

Christensen and Prout (2002) explain, "The task of the social scientist is to work for the right of people to have a voice and to be heard. In the case of children, `age' is perhaps one of the most dominant factors used to discriminate against children being heard and listened to" (p. 483). And in the case of children experiencing neglect or abuse, the opportunity for them to be heard is even more limited. This project analyzes data from the National Runway Safeline - one place where children's voice can be heard. NRS, established in 1971, offers confidential and anonymous …