Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Assessing Environmental Impact Of The Built Environment By Adopting Life Cycle Design: Using Swanton Pacific Ranch As A Case Study, Hope E. Springer

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

To combat the carbon emissions contributed to the atmosphere by the built environment, it is imperative that low-embodied-carbon materials choices be prioritized throughout the building design process. To achieve this, this professional project creates an Excel-based, open source, and user-friendly tool for the construction sector to make design decisions that prioritize the sustainability of structures, as one such tool does not currently exist. The use of OpenLCA software and the EcoInvent34 database are utilized to calculate the environmental impact of 25 different building materials, as well as energy and electricity consumption. Swanton Pacific Ranch (SPR) in Santa Cruz County is …

Greenhouse Gas Emissions And Fire Behavior Impacts Following California Fuel Treatments, Lindsay M. Senechal

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

Fuel treatments are being increasingly applied across California landscapes as communities struggle to recover from wildfire disasters nationwide. Increased funding for treatments stems from grants under CARB’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and funding requires reports accounting the yielded benefits from these fuel treatments. Using data from real-world local scale fuel treatments, I used the forest simulation model FVSFEE and fire behavior software IFTDSS to quantify GHG emission benefits and fire behavior impacts 70 years after treatment. Results suggest that fuel treatments do not yield significant GHG benefits, and fire behavior impacts (conditional flame length) are minimal but overall show slight …

The Methods Of Communication And Education Used To Train Forest And Fire Personnel Through The Swanton Pacific Ranch, Christine Brittney Johnson

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

California does not have a cohesive curriculum for educating and training forest and fire professionals. The Swanton Pacific Ranch Fuels Management Training Program is Cal Fire affiliated and provides online and in person training to assist in equipping fire and forest professionals throughout California with the necessary skills to be successful fire and forest practitioners and managers. An exit survey was offered to all workshop participants after the Swanton workshop concluded. The survey was answered by 331 Swanton workshop participants to assess the effectiveness of the training program, the educational practices used to teach participants, and what factors of a …

Environmental Controls On Soil Organic Matter Fractions In Post-Fire Landscapes, Alexis Heuer

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

In the past few decades, the world’s climate is being altered by anthropogenic forces such as the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions due to fossil fuel combustion (Paraschiv and Paraschiv, 2020). In California, the impacts of increased CO2 concentrations have created longer fire seasons, warmer temperatures, and increased lightning strikes which allow for wildfires to become more frequent, severe, and larger in scale (Westerling et al., 2006). Wildfires of this magnitude result in acceleration of landscape scale processes such as erosion and aggregation which in turn affects soil organic matter (SOM), the basis of soil health (Gonz´alez-P´erez et al., …

Establishing A Monitoring Framework To Evaluate Impacts Of Grazing Exclusion And Inform Restoration At Santa Rita Ranch, Annie Booth, Annie Booth

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

Santa Rita Ranch is a 1,750-acre cattle ranch in Templeton, California, that was privately owned and continuously grazed for the past 70 years. In 2021, The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo (LCSLO) acquired the property, and in the winter of 2022, they built a fence that bisects the ranch, excluding the cattle from 800 acres to preserve the riparian habitat. The LCSLO is currently defining the ecological baseline for the ranch to inform future management decisions. Given that cattle grazing has many environmental tradeoffs, they wanted to establish a long-term monitoring study to understand how relieving the pressures of …

Fire Effects On Soil Organic Matter In The Creek Fire, Gracie E. Doolin

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

Wildfires have increased in frequency and severity over the past few decades due to the increased concertation of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic influence. Soil carbon (C) sequestration has been identified as a climate change mitigation strategy; however, the influx of large-scale wildfires has accelerated landscape processes such as erosion, reducing soil aggradation, and soil C and nitrogen (N) protection. This trend is highlighted by the Creek Fire that occurred in September 2020 and burned 379,895 acres in the Sierra National Forest. This research is designed to close the knowledge gap regarding the impact of burn severity on soil organic matter …

Identifying The Stream Depletion Paradox By Monitoring A Stream’S Response To Aquifer Pumping From Neighboring Wells, James Klueber

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

Current groundwater models utilize a constant head (Dirichlet) boundary condition which assumes stream stage is fixed and does not experience any drawdown in the event of pumping from an interconnected aquifer despite the presence of stream depletion. Therefore, constant head boundary implies that streams and lakes in a groundwater model behave as an infinite supply of water when aquifer pumping occurs. This study aimed to determine if a stream located in the California Central Coast experiences drawdown and depletion when pumping occurs within an aquifer-stream system. This was achieved by measuring stream stage, aquifer water levels, stream discharge, and the …

Pumping-Induced Drawdown Of Streams In Proximity To Agricultural Wells, Sara Alina Sternberg

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

In the context of unprecedented drought and aquifer overdraft in California, understanding surface water and groundwater connectivity have become increasingly important. While there is a clear understanding of how wells induce drawdown in aquifers (Theis, 1935; Hantush, 1965), secondary effects on local streams have not fully been considered. Current mathematical models targeting aquifer drawdown do not address stream drawdown response in aquifer-stream systems with strong connectivity; instead, they assume the stream to be a constant head boundary. In the drought-stricken and summer-dry climate of California, streams often run dry for months out of the year, which is currently not reflected …

The Seoul National University Agn Monitoring Project. Iv. Hα Reverberation Mapping Of Six Agns And The Hα Size–Luminosity Relation, Hojin Cho, Jong-Hak Woo, Shu Wang, Donghoon Son, Jaejin Shin, Suvendu Rakshit, Aaron J. Barth, Vardha N. Bennert, Elena Gallo, Edmund Hodges-Kluck, Tommaso Treu, Hyun-Ji Bae, Wanjin Cho, Adi Foord, Jaehyuk Geum, Yashashree Jadhav, Yiseul Jeon, Kyle M. Kabasares, Daeun Kang, Wonseok Kang, Changseok Kim, Donghwa Kim, Minjin Kim, Taewoo Kim, Huynh Anh N. Lee, Matthew A. Malkan, Amit Kumar Mandal, Daeseong Park, Hyun-Il Sung, Vivian U, Peter R. Williams

Physics

The broad-line region (BLR) size–luminosity relation has paramount importance for estimating the mass of black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Traditionally, the size of the Hβ BLR is often estimated from the optical continuum luminosity at 5100 Å, while the size of the Hα BLR and its correlation with the luminosity is much less constrained. As a part of the Seoul National University AGN Monitoring Project, which provides 6 yr photometric and spectroscopic monitoring data, we present our measurements of the Hα lags of high-luminosity AGNs. Combined with the measurements for 42 AGNs from the literature, …

Functional Nanocomposite Coatings For Use In Food Packaging, Camden N. Webb

Master's Theses

Plastics are a class of materials known for their cost and property advantages, increasing significantly in their usage worldwide. Unfortunately, these benefits come with an increasingly concerning environmental impact. A combination of inadequate disposal options and combinations of materials have led to environmental disasters that will impact generations. One of the worst areas for plastic waste is food packaging. Plastic as a material generally excels at durability and longevity, but as food packaging, it outlives its intended purpose by several orders of magnitude. This leads to plastic food packaging materials sitting in landfill or leading to the environment for hundreds …

Covalent Adaptable Networks For Wood Coatings, Jachin Boaz Clarke

Materials Engineering

Wood swells and shrinks causing problems with seasonal humidity. Applying thick coatings of reactive finishes based on cross-linked polyurethane, epoxy, or polyesters can slow moisture-vapor exchange. However, the use of thick coatings leads to cracking and crazing sooner than thin finishes. This research proposes the addition of 3.3 mol % triazabicyclodecene, a conventionally used covalent adaptable network catalyst, in a commercially available polyester-based wood coating. The self-healing of the wood coating is tested using DMA stress relaxation and compression molding. The result from DMA renders inconclusive and compression molding indicates the novel wood coating oxidizes at elevated temperatures. The wood …

Optimizing Solid Thermal Storage In Insulated Solar Electric Cookers, Stefan Avramov

Physics

Insulated Solar Electric Cookers, more commonly known by their acronym ISECookers, are an alternative to biomass cooking. The ISECooker in its simplest form is a solar panel connected to a heating element, in contact with a cooking pot in an insulated chamber. An aluminum puck can be heated as solid thermal storage (STS) for increased power and night time cooking. Power was limited to about 500 W by the interface between the STS and cookpot. Powdered graphite and silver were separately applied to increase thermal flow. However, the powdered graphite decreased the thermal flow, while powdered silver decreased the temperature …

Learning The Game: Implementations Of Convolutional Networks In Automated Strategy Identification, Cameron Klig

Master's Theses

Games can be used to represent a wide variety of real world problems, giving rise to many applications of game theory. Various computational methods have been proposed for identifying game strategies, including optimized tree search algorithms, game-specific heuristics, and artificial intelligence. In the last decade, systems like AlphaGo and AlphaZero have significantly exceeded the performance of the best human players in Chess, Go, and other games. The most effective game engines to date employ convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to evaluate game boards, extract features, and predict the optimal next move. These engines are trained on billions of simulated games, wherein …

Representations From Group Actions On Words And Matrices, Joel T. Anderson

Master's Theses

We provide a combinatorial interpretation of the frequency of any irreducible representation of Sn in representations of Sn arising from group actions on words. Recognizing that representations arising from group actions naturally split across orbits yields combinatorial interpretations of the irreducible decompositions of representations from similar group actions. The generalization from group actions on words to group actions on matrices gives rise to representations that prove to be much less transparent. We share the progress made thus far on the open problem of determining the irreducible decomposition of certain representations of Sm × Sn arising from group actions on matrices.

Exploring The Mass To Light Ratio Of Massive Galaxies With The Rubin Dp0 Preview Dataset, Denvir Joy Higgins

Physics

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will perform the 10-year long Legacy Survey of Space and Time expected to begin in 2024. LSST will cover the Southern Hemisphere, collecting over two million images with an 8.4-meter telescope and 3200-pixel camera. In collaboration with the scientific community and based on the Outer Rim Simulation \citep{heit19}, the Rubin Observatory released a simulated dataset (DP0) of the data that is expected to be in hand at the 5-year mark. Using this simulated dataset, I have explored the number and luminosity of the most massive local galaxies. Using a sample of the brightest, closest galaxies …

A Monte-Carlo Simulation Of Gamma Rays In A Sodium Iodide Detector, Ben Kessler

Physics

Gamma rays principally interact with matter through Compton scattering, photoelectric effect, pair production, and triplet production. The focus of this simulation is to study the theoretical energy spectrum created by gamma rays from a Cesium-137 source, which produces gamma photons with an energy of 0.662 MeV. At this energy level, most interactions are results of Compton scatters and the photoelectric effect. Therefore, this simulation only models those two effects on gamma rays. Using Monte Carlo methods and the Metropolis algorithm to sample the probability distributions of the two effects allowed for the simulation of gamma rays in a Sodium Iodide …

Diffusion-Driven Aggregation Of Particles In Quasi-2d Membranes, Oscar Gullickson Rausis

Physics

Many biological membranes can be modeled as two-dimensional (2D) viscous fluid sheets surrounded by three-dimensional (3D) fluids of different viscosity. Such membranes are dubbed quasi-2D as they exhibit properties of both 2D and 3D fluids. The Saffman length is a parameter that describes the energy exchange between the membrane and bulk fluids and controls the cross-over from 2D to 3D hydrodynamics. We aim to model diffusion-driven aggregation of particles embedded in a quasi-2D membrane. It is known that hydrodynamic interactions between solute particles significantly reduce their aggregation rate in 3D fluids. It is expected that in quasi-2D membranes the reduction …

Optimization Of Flagellar Locomotion In The Low Reynolds Number Regime, Aidan M. Trodden, Aidan M. Trodden

Physics

This report investigates the computational and theoretical techniques - modeled by E. Lauga and C. Eloy - used to optimize the shape of an activated flagellum for enhanced cell motility. Cell motility is ubiquitous and has a large affect on biological systems such as marine life ecosystems, reproduction, and infection. The physical principles governing flagellar propulsion are explored using computational fluid dynamics simulations, mathematical modeling, and the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) optimization algorithm. Through iterative refinement, we can identify optimized flagellar shapes that would minimize the energetic cost dependent on a single dimensionless sperm numbers (Sp). The computation of the …

Groups Of Non Positive Curvature And The Word Problem, Zoe Nepsa

Master's Theses

Given a group $\Gamma$ with presentation $\relgroup{\scr{\scr{A}}}{\scr{R}}$, a natural question, known as the word problem, is how does one decide whether or not two words in the free group, $F(\scr{\scr{A}})$, represent the same element in $\Gamma$. In this thesis, we study certain aspects of geometric group theory, especially ideas published by Gromov in the late 1980's. We show there exists a quasi-isometry between the group equipped with the word metric, and the space it acts on. Then, we develop the notion of a CAT(0) space and study groups which act properly and cocompactly by isometries on these spaces, such groups …

An Empirical Evaluation Of Neural Process Meta-Learners For Financial Forecasting, Kevin G. Patel

Master's Theses

Challenges of financial forecasting, such as a dearth of independent samples and non- stationary underlying process, limit the relevance of conventional machine learning towards financial forecasting. Meta-learning approaches alleviate some of these is- sues by allowing the model to generalize across unrelated or loosely related tasks with few observations per task. The neural process family achieves this by con- ditioning forecasts based on a supplied context set at test time. Despite promise, meta-learning approaches remain underutilized in finance. To our knowledge, ours is the first application of neural processes to realized volatility (RV) forecasting and financial forecasting in general.

We …

Predicting Location And Training Effectiveness (Plate), Erik Rolf Bruenner

Master's Theses

Abstract Predicting Location and Training Effectiveness (PLATE)
Erik Bruenner

Physical activity and exercise have been shown to have an enormous impact on many areas of human health and can reduce the risk of many chronic diseases. In order to better understand how exercise may affect the body, current kinesiology studies are designed to track human movements over large intervals of time. Procedures used in these studies provide a way for researchers to quantify an individual’s activity level over time, along with tracking various types of activities that individuals may engage in. Movement data of research subjects is often collected through …

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A Novel Approach To Extending Music Using Latent Diffusion, Keon Roohparvar, Franz J. Kurfess

Master's Theses

Using deep learning to synthetically generate music is a research domain that has gained more attention from the public in the past few years. A subproblem of music generation is music extension, or the task of taking existing music and extending it. This work proposes the Continuer Pipeline, a novel technique that uses deep learning to take music and extend it in 5 second increments. It does this by treating the musical generation process as an image generation problem; we utilize latent diffusion models (LDMs) to generate spectrograms, which are image representations of music. The Continuer Pipeline is able to …

Distributed Control Of Servicing Satellite Fleet Using Horizon Simulation Framework, Scott Plantenga

Master's Theses

On-orbit satellite servicing is critical to maximizing space utilization and sustainability and is of growing interest for commercial, civil, and defense applications. Reliance on astronauts or anchored robotic arms for the servicing of next-generation large, complex space structures operating beyond Low Earth Orbit is impractical. Substantial literature has investigated the mission design and analysis of robotic servicing missions that utilize a single servicing satellite to approach and service a single target satellite. This motivates the present research to investigate a fleet of servicing satellites performing several operations for a large, central space structure.

This research leverages a distributed control approach, …

Deep Learning Recommendations For The Acl2 Interactive Theorem Prover, Robert K. Thompson, Robert K. Thompson

Master's Theses

Due to the difficulty of obtaining formal proofs, there is increasing interest in partially or completely automating proof search in interactive theorem provers. Despite being a theorem prover with an active community and plentiful corpus of 170,000+ theorems, no deep learning system currently exists to help automate theorem proving in ACL2. We have developed a machine learning system that generates recommendations to automatically complete proofs. We show that our system benefits from the copy mechanism introduced in the context of program repair. We make our system directly accessible from within ACL2 and use this interface to evaluate our system in …

Attainable And Sustainable Home Building Solutions, Katrina Matthews

Construction Management

Sustainability has fortunately been a recent concern in the construction industry as climate change continues to impose potentially insurmountable threats to the global environment. Although many new methods have been adopted in efforts to lessen the adverse environmental effects of construction-related activities, as a society, we still have much room for growth as the built environment accounts for almost 50% of global emissions. Many changes and standards must be adopted to make these solutions efficiently beneficial. To set industry standards, we must start with the most basic form of construction- residential building. This report covers two attainable framing solutions for …

Exploring The Potential Of Pavegen’S Kinetic Energy Generating Floor For Sustainable Energy Solutions: A Proposal For Cal Poly Slo, Brandon J. Cuneo

Construction Management

This paper proposes the installation of Pavegen's kinetic energy generating floors at Cal Poly’s campus as a sustainable energy solution. Pavegen has developed a pioneering technology that converts footsteps into clean and renewable energy. The versatility of these floors is demonstrated through successful implementations in various settings, such as transportation hubs and public spaces, generating power from foot traffic. Collaborations with Schneider Electric, installation at Dupont Circle, and integration at Heathrow Airport showcase the potential for sustainable urban infrastructure. This paper outlines research conducted on Pavegen and similar solutions, including communication with company representatives and examining proposed installation locations at …

Tdcosmo - Xii. Improved Hubble Constant Measurement From Lensing Time Delays Using Spatially Resolved Stellar Kinematics Of The Lens Galaxy, Anowar J. Shajib, Pritom Mozumdar, Geoff C.-F. Chen, Tommaso Treu, Michele Cappellari, Shawn Knabel, Sherry H. Suyu, Vardha N. Bennert, Joshua A. Frieman, Dominique Sluse, Simon Birrer, Frederic Courbin, Christopher D. Fassnacht, Lizvette Villafaña, Peter R. Williams

Physics

Strong-lensing time delays enable the measurement of the Hubble constant (H₀) independently of other traditional methods. The main limitation to the precision of time-delay cosmography is mass-sheet degeneracy (MSD). Some of the previous TDCOSMO analyses broke the MSD by making standard assumptions about the mass density profile of the lens galaxy, reaching 2% precision from seven lenses. However, this approach could potentially bias the H₀ measurement or underestimate the errors. For this work, we broke the MSD for the first time using spatially resolved kinematics of the lens galaxy in RXJ1131−1231 obtained from the Keck Cosmic …

What Does The Geometry Of The Hβblr Depend On?, Lizvette Villafaña, Peter R. Williams, Tommaso Treu, Brendon J. Brewer, Aaron J. Barth, Vivian U, Vardha N. Bennert, Hengxiao Guo, Misty C. Bentz, Gabriela Canalizo, Alexei V. Filippenko, Elinor Gates, Michael D. Joner, Matthew A. Malkan, Jong-Hak Woo, Bela Abolfathi, Thomas Bohn, K. Azalee Bostroem, Goni Halevi, Carol E. Hood, J. Chuck Horst, Maxime De Kouchkovsky, Benjamin Kuhn, Douglas C. Leonard, Raúl Michel, Melanie Kae B. Olaes, Daeseong Park, Jordan N. Runco, Remington O. Sexton, Isaac Shivvers, Chance L. Spencer, Benjamin E. Stahl, Samantha Stegman, Jonelle L. Walsh, Weikang Zheng

Physics

We combine our dynamical modeling black-hole mass measurements from the Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2016 sample with measured cross-correlation time lags and line widths to recover individual scale factors, f, used in traditional reverberation-mapping analyses. We extend our sample by including prior results from Code for AGN Reverberation and Modeling of Emission Lines (CARAMEL) studies that have utilized our methods. Aiming to improve the precision of black-hole mass estimates, as well as uncover any regularities in the behavior of the broad-line region (BLR), we search for correlations between f and other AGN/BLR parameters. We find (i) evidence for a …

Xylitol As A Phase Change Material: Exploring The Replacement Of Erythritol By Xylitol As A Phase Change Material, Elsa C. Micklin

Physics

To circumvent the cost and environmental damage associated with batteries, phase change materials have been employed in solar cookpots to enable cooking in unfavorable weather conditions. Researchers at Cal Poly have traditionally employed the sugar alcohol erythritol as a PCM due to its high latent heat and a fusion point above the boiling point of water, but have discovered issues with the polyol’s degradation over extended periods of cycling. This paper explores the viability of erythritol’s sister-compound xylitol as a PCM in insulated solar-electric cookers, or ISECs. An ISEC was constructed with a xylitol PCM, and the data collected from …

The Nature Of Lobal Qsos. Ii. Hst/Wfc3 Observations Reveal Host Galaxies Dominated By Mergers, Mariana S. Lazarova, Gabriela Canalizo, Mark Lacy, Wyatt Behn, Kaitlyn Raub, Vardha N. Bennert, Duncan Farrah

Physics

Low-ionization broad absorption line QSOs (LoBALs) are suspected to be merging systems in which extreme, active galactic nucleus-driven outflows have been triggered. Whether or not LoBALs are uniquely associated with mergers, however, has yet to be established. To characterize the morphologies of LoBALs, we present the first high-resolution morphological analysis of a volume-limited sample of 22 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-selected LoBALs at 0.5 < z < 0.6 from Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 observations. Host galaxies are resolved in 86% of the systems in F125W, which is sensitive to old stellar populations, while only 18% are detected in F475W, which traces young, unobscured stellar populations. Signs of recent or ongoing tidal interaction are present in 45%–64% of the hosts, including double nuclei, tidal tails, bridges, plumes, shells, and extended debris. Ongoing interaction with a companion is apparent in 27%−41% of the LoBALs, with as much as 1/3 of the sample representing late-stage mergers at projected nuclear separations <10 kpc. Detailed surface brightness modeling indicates that 41% of the hosts are bulge dominated while only 18% are disks. We discuss trends in various properties as a function of merger stage and parametric morphology. Notably, mergers are associated with slower, dustier winds than those seen in undisturbed/unresolved hosts. Our results favor an evolutionary scenario in which quasar-level accretion during various merger stages is associated with the observed outflows in low-z LoBALs. We discuss differences between LoBALs and FeLoBALs and show that selection via the traditional balnicity index would have excluded all but one of the mergers.