Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Determining California National Guard Airmen’S Opinions And Attitudes Regarding Morale, Welfare And Recreation Programs: A Research Project, Natalie Delossa

Journalism

This senior project creates research design parameters that will facilitate two- way communications between the California Air National Guard and its airmen. The benefits of conducting its research are twofold. First, the California Air National Guard can learn more about its airmen. Second, the California Air National Guard can use information about its airmen to better serve its external publics in future public relations and marketing endeavors.

This project addresses the importance of conducting two- way communication between internal and external publics (in this case, the California Air National Guard and its airmen and the California Air National Guard and …

Media Portrayal Of Individuals In The Lower Class And Its Effects On Attributions Of Educational Hardships, Krista A. Burke

Communication Studies

This study investigated how media portrayals of individuals in the lower class affect people’s beliefs about educational hardships in lower socioeconomic areas. Specifically, this study looked at the attributions of these hardships to determine if media consumption had an effect on the internality of attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would be related to an increased tendency toward internal attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would lead to lower support for policy changes regarding education. A survey was distributed to assess media consumption habits and attitudes toward educational hardships in the lower class. Correlation results yielded …

Reaching The Gold Standard: Assessing Driving Ability Among Student And Expert Drivers, Alyssa Davis

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Examining Introductory Students’ Attitudes In A Randomization-Based Curriculum, Joshua Ryan Beemer

Statistics

Student attitudes regarding introductory statistics courses are not always the most positive. The purpose of this research is to utilize the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics to evaluate introductory statistics students’ attitudes pre- and post course. Furthermore, comparisons of attitudes within different introductory course curricula across institutions will be made. Various components within the survey, such as difficulty, value, and interest, will be assessed in order to determine where students’ attitudes are affected the most and how they are correlated with other variables such as current GPA and curriculum taught. The outcomes for these models look at demographic predictors that …

Nba Salaries: Assessing True Player Value, Michael Ghirardo

Statistics

This paper analyzes and calculates an advanced NBA statistic that is becoming more and more widely used in the NBA. The Adjusted plus-minus (APM) statistic measures a player’s contribution, independent of all other players on the court. The most appealing aspect to the APM is that it only attempts to capture how a team’s scoring margin changes with a particular player on and off the court. Scoring margin in basketball effects winning percentage greatly, so it only makes sense that players with high APM’s will increase their team’s scoring margin and, therefore, help win games. The APM statistic is not …

Emirical Assessment Of The Future Performance Of The S&P 500 Losers, Nicholas Powers

Statistics

In the Wall Street Journal in early 2013, there was an article posted by Andrew Bary that explored a trend in the previous 3 years of the S&P 500. The article pointed out that the average returns for the top 10 percentage decliners for 2009, 2010, and 2011 outperformed the S&P 500 for the first two weeks of the next year. These top 10 percentage decliners or losers well enough to bet on. This study looks to see if there is statistical evidence that the losers outperformed the S&P 500.

Pedestrian Detection Using Image Blending, Hannah Haggerty

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Process Characterization Using Response Surface Methodology, Katherine A. Eng

Statistics

A local engineering firm proposed a joint collaboration with the Cal Poly Statistics Department to investigate the sources of variability in a certain measurement process, understand normal operability characteristics of the machine, reduce variability in machine measurements, establish process monitoring and control for the system, and verify utility of the proposed process control through designed experimentation. This senior project entailed designed experimentation and analysis using response surface methodology to better understand the normal operability characteristics of the machine. Further experimentation and analysis is necessary to devise, implement, and verify statistical process control measures.

Journal Acceptance Policies On Etds, Chelsea Kern

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Is Obesity Socially Contagious?, Ciani Jean Sparks

Statistics

The main objective of this paper is to analyze three different articles that discuss whether obesity could be socially contagious. According to the World Health Organization in 2013, obesity is the fifth leading risk for deaths around the world. This disease has dramatically increased in the last decade, which has led scientists to believe there are other factors contributing to the epidemic besides genetics. The first article I analyzed, written by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, provided a logistic regression model to estimate the odds of a person becoming obese. The model included the explanatory variables: age, sex, education, smoking …

Views On Sexual Assault Among Ifc Fraternities, Steven Legore

Statistics

The data collection and analysis for this project was performed for a consulting client Cierra, a fourth year Sociology major that works at the Safer Office on campus. She went to the consulting center on campus for help with the analysis of her project. She wanted to survey the IFC fraternities at Cal Poly on their views on sexual assault and rape. Thirteen IFC fraternities were surveyed with a total of 488 respondents. The responses to the 30 question True/False survey were used to evaluate the respondent’s empathy towards women, hostility towards women, and sexual aggression. Another research interest was …

Investigation Of A Pregnancy Lifestyle Intervention Using Mediation Analysis And A Power Analysis Simulation, Kelsey Grantham

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Alcohol Use Among Pregnant Women In San Luis Obispo County, Samantha Law

Statistics

Drinking alcohol during pregnancy is harmful to the fetus, and can lead to serious alcohol related developmental birth defects. Utilizing prenatal screening, such as the 4P’s Plus© screening tool, during a woman’s first prenatal doctors visit can help educate women and reduce continued alcohol use during pregnancy. Currently the CDC reports that 1 in 13 women in the US drink alcohol while pregnant compared to local reports that 1 in 3 women in San Luis Obispo County continue to drink alcohol during pregnancy. A primary concern for many local county health care experts and organizations is to raise awareness that …

An Analysis Of Risk Reduction Choices In Dcis Breast Cancer Patients, Lauren Soltesz

Statistics

The main focus of this paper was to evaluate possible demographic and clinical characteristics associated with a woman’s choice of breast conserving surgery (BCS), unilateral mastectomy (ULM), or bilateral risk reduction mastectomy (BRRM). The cohort consisted of patients presenting to the City of Hope National Medical Center with ductal carcinoma in situ breast cancer who elected to have cancer directed surgery (N=305). Analyses to examine associations of patient characteristics with type of surgery were conducted using a multinomial logistic regression. Results showed that older women were more likely to choose breast conserving surgery over bilateral risk reduction mastectomy than younger …

Comparative Analysis Of Dispersion Parameter Estimates In Loglinear Modeling: Applied To E-Commerce Sales And Customer Data, Scott Davis

Statistics

When loglinear models are applied to count data the issue of over-dispersion often arises. Moment and maximum likelihood estimation methods in accounting for over-dispersion are widely used because they allow for model checking tools such as Chi-square, F, and likelihood ratio tests. Here is a comparison between R functions that each uses one method; glm.nb uses MLE, and glm.poisson.disp uses MME. The Index of Dissimilarity and visual model selection (ECDF plots) are also incorporated. These are applied to sales data using product and customer information compiled over the last five years that was generously provided by an e-commerce company.

Adaptive Randomization Designs, Jenna Colavincenzo

Statistics

Adaptive design methodologies use prior information to develop a clinical trial design. The goal of an adaptive design is to maintain the integrity and validity of the study while giving the researcher flexibility in identifying the optimal treatment. An example of an adaptive design can be seen in a basic pharmaceutical trial. There are three phases of the overall trial to compare treatments and experimenters use the information from the previous phase to make changes to the subsequent phase before it begins.

Adaptive design methods have been in practice since the 1970s, but have become increasingly complex ever since. One …

Analysis Of Dietary Patterns Over Freshman Year Of College, Chelsea Lofland

Statistics

This analysis is an investigation of changes in Cal Poly students’ eating habits over freshman year. The motivation behind this was an interest in college students’ lifestyles; college is the first time most students live on their own and it can be an important maturation period. College is stressful, exciting, liberating, and terrifying all at the same time. This distinctive life experience, along with my desire to handle big and messy data, led me to this research question.

The response variable analyzed was food consumption and the explanatory variables were: sex, race, quarter, food group, stress, exercise, BMI, sleep quality …

Lifestyle Choices In Relation To Bmi And Blood Pressure, Shawna Perry

Statistics

Cal Poly currently has one of the largest ongoing university health studies in the United States. Launched in Fall 2009, the Cal Poly FLASH study, led by the Kinesiology department and STRIDE, is a longitudinal study that tracks the classes of 2013 and 2014 through online surveys and physical assessments. The data collected covers various areas such as perceived health, lifestyle choices, and actual physical health.

My project analyzed the FLASH data to investigate the relationship between various perceived variables and actual health measures for Cal Poly freshmen. The motivation for this analysis was an interest in both diet and …

Predictors Of Hypertension And Prehypertension In Cal Poly Students, Toria Mock

Statistics

This study analyzed predictors of hypertension and prehypertension in Cal Poly students. Hypertension and prehypertension are known to increase the risk of blood clots, plaque buildup, and tissue/organ damage from blocked arteries. Researching predictors of hypertension and prehypertension can help to determine methods of minimizing the probability of hypertension and prehypertension in a patient. Data from the FLASH study was used to analyze associations between possible predictor variables, such as stress and physical activity, and hypertension/prehypertension. BMI, bodyfat, and the interaction between videogames per weekend day and gender were found to be significantly associated with hypertension and prehypertension in Cal …

Blunt Impact Performance Evaluation Of Helmet Lining Systems For Military And Recreational Use, Jaclyn Siniora, Ryan Taylor, Darren Suey

Industrial Technology and Packaging

With the increasing problem in collegiate athletes experiencing injuries to the brain, different helmet liners where put to the test to see which liner provided athletes the greatest protection under specific conditions.

This senior project evaluates five different liners in football helmets. Each of the helmet liners were tested at three different temperatures: hot, cold, and ambient. Each helmet had seven different impact locations which were put to the test. The project was designed to be used to test ACH military combat liners as well. Due to shipping bottle necks the ACH combat liners have been left to future Cal …

Improvement Of Statistical Process Control At St. Jude Medical's Cardiac Manufacturing Facility, Christopher Lance Edwards

Master's Theses

Sig sigma is a methodology where companies strive to reproduce results ending up having a 99.9996% chance their product will be void of defects. In order for companies to reach six sigma, statistical process control (SPC) needs to be introduced. SPC has many different tools associated with it, control charts being one of them. Control charts play a vital role in managing how a process is behaving. Control charts allow users to identify special causes, or shifts, and can therefore change the process to keep producing good products, free of defects.

There are many factories and manufacturing facilities having implemented …

Analyzing Multiple Independent Spatial Point Processes, Neal Grantham

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Using The R Library Rpanel For Gui-Based Simulations In Introductory Statistics Courses, Ryan M. Allison

Statistics

As a student, I noticed that the statistical package R (http://www.r-project.org) would have several benefits of its usage in the classroom. One benefit to the package is its free and open-source nature. This would be a great benefit for instructors and students alike since it would be of no cost to use, unlike other statistical packages. Due to this, students could continue using the program after their statistical courses and into their professional careers. It would be good to expose students while they are in school to a tool that professionals use in industry. R also has powerful …

An Analysis Of Breast Cancer Metastasis, Jennifer Lee Gildner

Statistics

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate possible socio-economic status, clinical, and treatment associations with the occurrence of distant metastasis in Stage I – III breast cancer patients. After analysis in a logistic regression model, four variables were found to be significant with occurrence of distant metastases. These variables were: education, disease group (Triple-negative, Her2Neu-positive and Luminal A), stage at diagnosis, and concordance to chemotherapy based on the NCCN guidelines. Patients without a college degree were found to be more likely to develop distant metastasis than those with a college degree (OR = 2.46 95% CI 1.44 – …

Manova: Type I Error Rate Analysis, Christopher Dau Wei Ling

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Music And Radio Preferences On The Cal Poly Campus, Rory Bloch

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Using Survival Analysis Methods To Study Santa Barbara County Divorces, Joel Vazquez

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Dietary Patterns In Relation To Sleep And Stress In Cal Poly Freshman, Emily J. Conklin, Jongyoon Lee

Statistics

The Cal Poly FLASH study is a research project that was developed to assess overall health of college students. Beginning in Fall 2009, data have been collected longitudinally via online surveys and physical assessments on Cal Poly freshmen. Responses from 1520 students from Fall 2009 were used to investigate whether stress and sleeping habits are related to dietary patterns among Cal Poly students.

Factor analysis was used to categorize 33 food frequency variables into two categories – junk food and healthy food. Then, stepwise selection in a general linear model was conducted to identify lifestyle and demographic variables associated with …

An Exploration Of Non-Detects In Environmental Data, Juliana Fajardo

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Roms Estimated Posterior Error Utilizing 4dvar Data Assimilation, Joseph Patrick Horton

Mathematics

The appropriateness of the approximate error calculated by the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) is analyzed using Four-Dimensional Data Assimilation (4DVAR) performed on a numerical model of the San Luis Obispo Bay. An effective method of sampling data to minimize the actual error associated with the assimilated numerical model is explored by using different data sampling methods. An idealized state of the SLO bay region ("Real Run") is created to be used as the real ocean, then a numerical model of this region is created approximating this Real Run; this is known as the "Simulated State". By taking samples from …