Digital Commons Network^™

Mistranslated, Hee Young Cha

Masters Theses

Mistranslated is an essay based on my research on the patriarchal structure that is inherent in the translation, and an attempt to challenge them through the perspective of a colored woman with a transnational background. I focus on the cognition of cultural identity that is otherwise a subject of oblivion when living in a homogenous nation. Moving between countries that predominantly share the same racial ethnicity and languages, I began to be categorized with the modifier only after I stepped into dynamics of the diasporic community – America. As my presence of cultural identity becomes increasingly apparent after being positioned …

Means And Meaning, Chloe Kaylor

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the impact of class identity on American culture - and the many political and sociological issues that intersect therein - in an effort to magnify the ironic mundanity of the many falsities/failures/shortcomings of the American Dream. Comprised of various short essays, personal adages, and collected cultural detritus, this accumulation of writing is complemented with photographic documentation of an art practice that seeks to do the same.

The Mobile Senior University, Youshurui Li

Masters Theses

With the rapid development of technology, social networking is no longer just a face-to-face connection between people and traditional methods of contact are becoming less and less dominant. During the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation pushed us further apart, but connection through new media has also brought us closer together. Compared with the young, the elderly are generally less familiar with how to use this connection to strengthen each other's social interaction and enjoy the convenience of contact over space. This thesis proposes an architectural approach to bridge this gap and design a mobile university for seniors, focusing on new media and …

From Vault To Platform （Democratizing Museums Through The Lens Of The Metaverse））, Zhaoyang Cui

Masters Theses

The modern history of art viewing moves from private collections to public museums, and the modern museum arises with an intention to encourage a broad range of visitors. However, if we look at the reality of museum access, especially in the digital era, when the methods of attaining knowledge and information have grown ever stronger, it is easy to notice the single-direction circuit of information in the operation of museums from curators to the public, which seems outdated in the times of social media, AI and metaverse. Even if a broad range of visitors enter the museum, the information they …

Glowing Under The Bridge—A Healing Space For Wounded Souls, Ruier Zhao

Masters Theses

The suicide rate among Chinese adolescents is significantly higher than the world average, with academic stress and family relationships being the major causes. This thesis focuses on building a place for Chinese students from upper elementary school to high school, where they can regulate their psychology, relax, and ideally reduce the rate of impulsive suicides.

In Chongqing, the percentage of students who attempt or commit suicide is close to 25%. The proposed site for this place of rest is under the bridge of one of Chongqing’s most crowded monorail stations, which is a semi-abandoned park with a beautiful view of …

Otherworldly Gestures, Sadia Quddus

Masters Theses

OtherWorldly Gestures seeks to give form to the intangible. I work primarily with light as material substance to shape a speculative emotive space in which I make metaphysical phenomena experiential. I collaborate with ecological and technological elements to express a spiritual understanding of Self and World. Most recently, the work translates material objects and architectural elements from my cultural heritage, and gives visual and haptic form to the sacred relationship between body, soul, and natural world.

Through these explorations, I begin to propose a speculative OtherWorld. I delve into the precolonial, ancestral teachings of a mystical spiritual path, referencing Sufi …

Physical Documentation Of Censored Incidents Liberates One From The Doubts Of Existence., Winnie Cheung

Masters Theses

Clouds are free. Hovering aimlessly, they drift with no set forms, looking down on humans high from the sky. As an artist, I explore the freedom between humans and nature, with ‘cloud’ as a carrier, and extend its definition to the perspective of Chinese society and individuals through the format of jewelry.

As both a translator and jeweler, I am acutely aware of the ongoing censorship of language and events in Mainland China. My jewelry documents a diverse range of texts in China that expose the societal constraints imposed on its people, a miserable contrast to the freely floating clouds. …

Intrinsic Tgf-Β Signaling Attenuates Proximal Tubule Mitochondrial Injury And Inflammation In Chronic Kidney Disease, Merve Kayhan, Judith Vouillamoz, Daymé Gonzalez Rodriguez, Milica Bugarski, Yasutaka Mitamura, Julia Gschwend, Christoph Schneider, Andrew Hall, David Legouis, Cezmi A Akdis, Leary Peter, Hubert Rehrauer, Leslie Gewin, Roland H Wenger, Stellor Nlandu Khodo

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Excessive TGF-β signaling and mitochondrial dysfunction fuel chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression. However, inhibiting TGF-β failed to impede CKD in humans. The proximal tubule (PT), the most vulnerable renal segment, is packed with giant mitochondria and injured PT is pivotal in CKD progression. How TGF-β signaling affects PT mitochondria in CKD remained unknown. Here, we combine spatial transcriptomics and bulk RNAseq with biochemical analyses to depict the role of TGF-β signaling on PT mitochondrial homeostasis and tubulo-interstitial interactions in CKD. Male mice carrying specific deletion of Tgfbr2 in the PT have increased mitochondrial injury and exacerbated Th1 immune response in …

Objects Of Daydreaming, Aaron Lorenz

Masters Theses

Daydreaming offers time to detach and slow down, to stretch and move inwards. For a handful of seconds to minutes on end, I float between experiences and imaginings of once familiar ground. Within the open space of the daydream, fragments of memories rise to the surface which then become touchstones, full of potential for future work. Full of sensory detail, these memories whether from a walk pierced by a bird call, a meal with family, or a day at the beach control how new objects take shape. An atmospheric light, a deeply rooted dining table, and lounge chairs all invite …

Interactive Architecture - Intervention Of Virtual Business On Commercial Space, Yihao George Xu

Masters Theses

Traditional mall-based restaurants, such as P.F. Chang’s in the Providence Place Mall, have primarily focused on site-based dining and bar services. However, the food provided by this chain restaurant often lacks depth, and customers seldom learn the story behind the dishes. This thesis explores the integration of mixed reality technology within the physical environment of P.F. Chang’s, an American Chinese restaurant chain with over 300 locations, aiming to transform it into an authentic Shanghai food culture experience. This experience combines virtual and physical stimuli to evoke various periods of Chinese history, providing a unique encounter for customers.

The proposed transformation …

Beyond Burial - Transforming Death: A New Ritual Of Farewell And The Ecological Return Of The Body To Nature, Chang Xie

Masters Theses

Burial and funeral culture have been shaped by human self-awareness and reflect an anthropocentric worldview. The modern funeral industry's multi-billion-dollar enterprise is based on the principle of protecting, sanitizing, and beautifying the corpse to promote the idea of human exceptionalism. However, this practice overlooks the natural process of decay and the potential beauty in returning the body to the earth, with which the body shares the same chemical basis as the earth itself. Modern science has provided Eco-friendly green burial methods, such as soil modification, ice burial, and water burial, making it suitable to contribute to natural ecology using human …

Overlooked Modi Vivendi, Natalia Silva

Masters Theses

Traditional gender roles, performance of heterosexuality, marriage, parenthood, and a large variety of other societal expectations manifest themselves in the domestic realm, both intangibly and spatially. The design of domestic spaces has historically catered towards heteronormative living stereotypes, marginalizing people whose way of living challenges the norm. Even in the present day, designers with non-user clients — developers, investors, real estate firms, etc. — will design with heteronormative households in mind. The rise in feminist and LGBTQ+ rights movements has allowed for non-heteronormative modi vivendi (ways of living) to be more vocally and visibly present in the sociopolitical and cultural …

Manifesto Of Poor Images: Re-Imagine Guggenheim In The Post-Digital Age, Mengning He

Masters Theses

What is the role and value of low-resolution digital images, or "poor images," in a culture dominated by high-resolution and hyper-realistic digital media? This thesis investigates poor images from several perspectives: their technical characteristics, viewer’s experience, creative process, and artistic content.

With low-resolution as the defining characteristic of poor images, these pictures challenge the unceasing longing for ever-higher image resolution. While they seem unstable and untrustworthy, they challenge the obsession with higher resolution, offer an ambiguous visual experience, and provoke nostalgia. Poor images are open to appropriation, allowing users to become editors and co-authors. In the process of image-making, poor …

Bridging Empathy, Qianwen Lu

Masters Theses

As a jeweler, ally, and sympathetic witness to the traumatic stories of survivors, my work aims to support the process of reconstruction and reintegration for victims and the greater community. To move beyond isolation, resentment, and debilitating helplessness requires care and support. I want my jewelry to act as catalysts in the healing process by straddling both sides of the trauma-induced situation, to create greater awareness and empathy. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence shows that women are more likely to become victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or other forms of physical and psychological abuse in unhealthy emotional relationships. These …

Intertidal No. 1, Adriana Dutra, Anna Madruga, Ashley Lang, Asmahan Karam, Brigitte Kim, Chloe Kelly, Claire Chan, Dana Craighead, Elizabeth Brown, Elsie Wordal, Gavin Hart, Gazelle Chen, Alexandra Hardcastle, Ian Pines, Isaac Rudnick, Jack Fowler, Jade Stankowski, Janae Pabon, Jenna Dierkes, Joshua B. Venz, Josie Doan, Maddie Stein, Madison Gonzalez, Malia Weingarten, Noah Ackerman, Noelle Amey, Maxwell H. Johnson, Rebekah Lee, Rebekah Shane, Sam Mosteller, Sarah Chayet, Sarina Vachhani, Shelby Anderson, Sophie Stoll, Sydney Lehr, Taylor Lozano

Intertidal

For the first year ever, Intertidal has surfaced to showcase the art of Cal Poly's students and faculty. An 'intertidal zone' is an area where the ocean meets the land--hidden during the high tide and exposed during the low. Our journal embodies the moment where the tide recedes, revealing stories previously hidden.

Destination Unknown, Dongheng Yang

Masters Theses

Since the end of my undergrad years, I’ve been noticing my increasing tendency to not want to talk much about my work. What is it that lingers inside of me behind such silence? What story could one possibly talk about his studio practice, when he has little to say? Well, this thesis documents the thoughts behind this silence, which, I have to admit, have fueled my works in the past two years. I investigate postmodern phenomena and literary analysis on pop culture in East Asia, including hikikomori and decisionism, to better understand myself and the world around me. Constantly faced …

A Part Apart, Spenser Atlas

Masters Theses

I am fascinated by connections. Things that click, snap, slide, and hold. I care about the ways in which objects meet, looking for answers in the space between. What binds one thing to another?

I believe the world is presented to us in pieces. It’s hard to say how it all comes together. It's easy to believe things are shapeless and detached from each other. Connection is a bridge, a way of linking one thing to another that reveals interdependence, and eventually moves outwards to express a correlation between pieces, once assumed to be discrete and isolated.

This work is …

Garden Etiquette, Kai Wasikowski

Masters Theses

Garden Etiquette is an ongoing project concerned with landscape photography, environmental conservation, and the way they have both served the settler colonialist agenda. I focus specifically on the conservation ideologies shaped in New South Wales (NSW) Australia and New England, United States of America (USA) in the late nineteenth century and the settler visualities that underwrote them. Both countries’ histories were marked by photography and conservation’s common function of mythologising land as empty space—to be invaded, extracted and occupied, and wilderness—to be territorialized and protected, albeit, in distinct ways.

With British, German and Polish settler ancestry, born and raised on …

A.R. Futuristic Scenario In Seun, Yookyung Lee

Masters Theses

Due to social distancing policies during the coronavirus pandemic, people have increasingly turned to digital platforms to fulfill what they previously enjoyed in face-to-face interactions. The high demand for virtual world services, called “metaverses,” has sparked discussions about the possibility of completely replacing the real world, which has raised questions about the role of architects in dealing with physical spaces. However, it is widely believed that digital elements will merge into the real world instead of completely replacing it, which makes augmented reality (AR) a key technology to study in the context of architecture.

In “Learning from Las Vegas,” Robert …

Food, Drink, Time, New Year And Cloth, Jian Li

Masters Theses

My project uses traditional Chinese calligraphy culture and my own family stories to create five daily use products to help my user find a sense of belonging to Chinese culture and also introduce my culture and stories to all audiences.

As an international student who came to the US, I have often struggled with a lack of cultural identity and belonging. This is a common issue faced by many who choose to leave their homes and venture to new places. However, I believe that we can overcome this by creating products that generate an emotional connection with their users.

Unveiling Pain: Wearables For Objective Pain Measurement, Hanqing Tang

Masters Theses

">">Pain perception is a subjective experience that differs significantly among individuals, often leading to inconsistencies in assessment and management. A critical issue within this context is the gender bias in pain evaluation, which contributes to unequal treatment and perpetuates gender inequality within the healthcare system. This thesis presents an in-depth investigation of the problem and proposes the development of a wearable device for objective pain assessment. Physiological parameters — Electrocardiography (ECG) can be collected from cardiac sound signals auscultated by fabrics via nanometre-scale vibrations. Machine learning methods can accurately classify heart rate and acute pain intensity of participants. …

Vanishing Ice, Zhehao Tang

Masters Theses

Many northern cities’ magnificent civilizations, especially coastal cities, have relied on the glacial ruins left by the melt in the past. These bustling metropolises get opportunities from glacial disappearance. But now, they face potential threats from remote alpine glacial melting. Most people view this glacial disappearance indifferently. Moreover, they do not seem aware that we have a potential connection with these remote landscapes. This thesis proposes to use landscape design to raise public awareness of the glacial geological history of cities and the concern for the glacier melt, including the impact of glacial changes in the past, present, and future. …

Home. Objects. Transitions., Fei Gao

Masters Theses

As migratory life challenges traditional understandings of "home," can domestic objects, materials, or substitutes transformed into portable art forms soothe migratory anxiety, navigate connections to home, and become alternatives to the ideal home?

This thesis is an investigation of the value of domestic objects as transitional markers of "home" and their ability to foster positive emotional connection among those whose lives are in flux migrating people. Based on British psychiatrist Donald W. Winnicott's research on "Transitional Objects" or "Transitional Phenomena" such objects not only represent "comfort objects" for infants but also foreshadow the many roles assigned by individuals throughout their …

Flows Of Sound “Harnessing Sound As Critical Urban Resources”, Zuan Lin

Masters Theses

Transportation infrastructure serves as a vital component essential for the efficient functioning of any city. Originally, the design of transportation arterial systems aimed to improve communication and facilitate movement between different regions. Whether catering to passenger or freight transportation, these arterial routes were designed to efficiently transport large volumes of people and goods, utilizing the rapid movement of vehicles within designated spatial corridors. Undoubtedly, transportation plays a significant role in promoting the physical and economic growth of cities. However, it is crucial to recognize that this very infrastructure can also lead to the fragmentation and isolation of communities situated along …

Cities Of Tomorrow Future Urban Planning Strategies, Jingyu Ge

Masters Theses

What is the goal of urban planning? Urban planning aims to increase the urban’s resiliency. During development and achieve a balance between nature and humans. In other words, the purpose of urban planning is to achieve an urban condition that supports a quantity of urban living while being equitable, adaptable, and resilient in the short and long term together. The tipping point is a term that is used to measure the vulnerability and prevent a city from achieving its urban planning goals.

This thesis will start with an urban planning theory generation and bring a new understanding of a good …

Sensible Nature: To “See” As We Once Did, Yuhan Su

Masters Theses

This thesis starts with the premise that our growing dependence on tools and digital technologies has led to a gradual decline in our sensory acuity, causing a disconnect between people and nature.

To address this issue, the thesis aims to re-establish lost connections by utilizing plant-based sensorial designs that evoke emotions and instincts, reigniting empathy and intimacy with the natural world.

By utilizing these strategies, this thesis seeks to enhance our ability to perceive, connect with, and appreciate the world around us, thereby creating a stronger, more intimate relationship between humanity and the environment.

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

Landscape De/Re-Construction Through Art, Manuel Gonzalez

Masters Theses

Contemporary landscape architecture practice and education primarily focus on ecological and technical interventions. The climate crisis we find ourselves in demands scientifically informed decisions and well-engineered execution of projects, but, more importantly, creativity and innovation.

The fine arts, which were once integral and foundational to design, are today largely unappreciated and appropriated. The spiritual power of Art, Aesthetics, and Beauty, explored at length through art history and theory, are often viewed as indulgent or secondary to execution. The gap between Art & Design has widened. As a result, designers face challenges in fostering in individuals the kind of care and …

Uncovering Emotional Contamination: Five Sites Of Trauma, Abigail Zola

Masters Theses

“Emotional contamination,” describes residual feelings associated with a space where a negative or tragic event occurred to an individual or group either personally, historically, or politically. Emotional contamination affects people’s associations with place and informs their willingness to spend time in them. This project considers a set of design principles rooted in uncovering and acknowledging the lifespan of a site, and considers how this acknowledgment can exist as an urban system rather than an individual architectural artifact. My thesis work analyzes five case studies in Berlin where political and economic factors determined the result of intervention, and how these sites …

The Miacomet Movement, Charles Duce

Masters Theses

Nantucket MA, is an island that has failed to refine and regulate the unreasonable uses of freshwater supply, and re-establish the purification processes involved with filtering our wastewater. The validity in claiming re-evaluation for Nantucket’s immoderacies in freshwater consumption and implausibility's in existing wastewater treatments, is seemingly irrefutable. Along with these detriments, Nantucket experiences harsh coastal erosion conditions that are rapidly altering beach profiles and diminishing irreplaceable habitats. Similarly, coastal flooding is causing ecological displacement and in some instances ecological degradation.

The relentlessness and fleetingness sparked by Nantucket’s climatic realities require willing and able action to mitigate impacts; but our …