Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Greenhouse Effect: Common Misconceptions And Effective Instruction, Trevor W. Strickland

Physics

This study is an extension of the research of Dr. John Keller. It attempts to identify common student misconceptions regarding the greenhouse effect and investigate instructional methods of teaching the greenhouse effect. Dr. Keller developed a test, known as the Greenhouse Effect Concept Inventory (GECI), designed to measure a student’s understanding of the greenhouse effect. A central goal of this project is to investigate the effectiveness of this concept inventory at measuring differences in student knowledge of the greenhouse effect. In addition to the Cal Poly student population that participated in this research, we will be looking at the population …

Developing A B-Jet Tagging Algorithm For Alice: Lessons From Cdf, Paul Chester-John Carlson

Physics

This paper compares the detectors and algorithms developed and used at both A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) and the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF). We found that the detectors share many similarities in data collection and analysis methods and that by adapting algorithms that have been tested and used at CDF, ALICE could augment its existing algorithms. The algorithms formed from this adaptation will help ALICE isolate b-jets quickly and explore the quark-gluon plasma, ultimately expanding our understanding of the strong nuclear force and its role in the evolution of our universe.

Empirical Mode Decomposition Operator For Dewowing Gpr Data, Bradley M. Battista, Adrian Addison, Camelia C. Knapp

Faculty Publications

Signal processing tools available to ground penetrating radar data used for shallow subsurface imaging and hydrogeophysical parameter estimation are significantly handled using the same tools available to seismic reflection data. Overall, the same tools produce interpretable images from both data types, but particular noise (wow noise) in electromagnetic data must be removed before stable and accurate quantitative results can be produced. Wow noise is an inherent, nonlinear electromagnetic interference and a significant component of GPR data. Further, the nonlinear and non-stationary nature of wow noise provides a strong argument for preprocessing radar traces with time-domain operators. Time-domain operators designed for …

The Ecology Of The Peaks Of Otter Salamander (Plethodon Hubrichti) In Sympatry With The Eastern Red-Backed Salamander (Plethodon Cinereus), Norman Reichenbach, Andrew Kniowski

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Peaks of Otter Salamander, Plethodon hubrichti, is found along a 19 km length of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia, USA, often in sympatry with the Eastern Red-backed Salamander, P. cinereus. In a sympatric area of Bedford County, Virginia, we conducted a mark-recapture study on a 10 × 10 m site. Surface densities of salamanders increased as the number of days without precipitation prior to a collection event increased. This suggests vertical movements in response to surface moisture. When salamanders returned to the surface after rain, individuals appeared to “shuffle” between rocks and likely, leaf litter. That is, we were …

Assessment Of Internationalised Domain Name Homograph Attack Mitigation, Peter Hannay, Christopher Bolan

Australian Information Security Management Conference

With the advent of internationalised domains the threat posed by non-english character sets has eventuated. Whilst this phenomenon remains well known in the development and internet industry the actual implementations of popular applications have been tested to determine their resilience to homograph based attack. The research found that most provided features that overcome such attacks, but there remain a few notable exceptions. Should an attacker take advantage of such oversights a victim would likely not be able to spot a fraudulent site or email and thus provide a perfect platform for subsequent attack.

The 2009 Personal Firewall Robustness Evaluation, Ken Pydayya, Peter Hannay, Patryk Szewczyk

Australian Information Security Management Conference

The evolution of the internet as a platform for commerce, banking, general information and personal communications has resulted in a situation where many individuals who may not have previously required internet access now require this connectivity as part of their everyday lives. In addition to this the widespread adoption of mobile broadband has lead to an increasing number of individuals having public facing IP addresses with no firewall appliances present. This situation has dramatically increased reliance on personal firewalls as the first and often last defence against intruders (human and malware alike). The evaluation performed demonstrates the capabilities of current …

Electronic-Supply Chain Information Security: A Framework For Information, Alizera Bolhari

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Over the last few years, the materials and distribution management has developed into a broader strategic approach known as electronic supply chain management by means of information technology. This paper attempts to visibly describe supply chain management information security concepts which are necessary for managers to know about. So, the depth of information presented in this paper is calibrated for managers, not technical security employees or agents. Global supply chains are exposed to diverse types of risks that rise along with increasing globalization. Electronic supply chains will be more vulnerable from information security (IS) aspect among other types of supply …

Exploring The Relationship Between Organizational Culture And Information Security Culture, Joo S. Lim, Shanton Chang, Sean Maynard, Atif Ahmad

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Managing Information Security is becoming more challenging in today’s business because people are both a cause of information security incidents as well as a key part of the protection from them. As the impact of organizational culture (OC) on employees is significant, many researchers have called for the creation of information security culture (ISC) in organizations to influence the actions and behaviour of employees towards better organizational information security. Although researchers have called for the creation of ISC to be embedded in organizations, nonetheless, literature suggests that little past research examining the relationship between the nature of OC and ISC. …

The Program Evaluation Standards Applied For Metaevaluation Purposes: Investigating Interrater Reliabiity And Implications For Use, Lori A. Wingate

Dissertations

Metaevaluation is the evaluation of evaluation. Metaevaluation may focus particular evaluation cases, evaluation systems, or the discipline overall. Leading scholars within the discipline consider metaevaluation to be a professional imperative, demonstrating that evaluation is a reflexive enterprise. Various criteria have been set forth for what constitutes excellence in evaluation. In the context of educational program evaluation, the dominant criteria are the Program Evaluation Standards, developed by the developed by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation.

There has been widespread acceptance and application of the Program Evaluation Standards, and their use is advocated by major organizations and several of …

Finding Words In Alphabet Soup: Inference On Freeform Character Recognition For Historical Scripts, Nicholas Howe, Shaolei Feng, R. Manmatha

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

This paper develops word recognition methods for historical handwritten cursive and printed documents. It employs a powerful segmentation-free letter detection method based upon joint boosting with histograms of gradients as features. Efficient inference on an ensemble of hidden Markov models can select the most probable sequence of candidate character detections to recognize complete words in ambiguous handwritten text, drawing on character n" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: normal; font-size: 16.2px; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; position: relative;">n-gram and physical …

A Robust Damage Assessment Model For Corrupted Database Systems, Ge Fu, Hong Zhu, Yingjiu Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An intrusion tolerant database uses damage assessment techniques to detect damage propagation scales in a corrupted database system. Traditional damage assessment approaches in a intrusion tolerant database system can only locate damages which are caused by reading corrupted data. In fact, there are many other damage spreading patterns that have not been considered in traditional damage assessment model. In this paper, we systematically analyze inter-transaction dependency relationships that have been neglected in the previous research and propose four different dependency relationships between transactions which may cause damage propagation. We extend existing damage assessment model based on the four novel dependency …

Relating Fires’ Effect On Forest Succession And Forest's Effect On Fire Severity In One Burned And Unburned Environment, Tyler Jay Seiboldt

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Wildfires are a natural part of many forest ecosystems and play a vital role in maintaining their health.  Wildfires can have a critical influence on a landscapes plant community through their relative frequency, seasonality, and severity.  One of the most heavily influenced regions by wildfire disturbance is the Klamath Mountain region of California.  I looked at the affect a wildfires severity had on the Whiskey creek valley within the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area.  8 tree species and 4 flower species were examined on both the burned and unburned regions within this valley nearly a year after the wildfire (May 17-23 …

Wake Up Or Fall Asleep: Value Implication Of Trusted Computing, Nan Hu, Jianhui Huang, Ling Liu, Yingjiu Li, Dan Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

More than 10 years have passed since trusted computing (TC) technology was introduced to the market; however, there is still no consensus about its value. The increasing importance of user and enterprise security and the security promised by TC, coupled with the increasing tension between the proponents and the opponents of TC, make it timely to investigate the value relevance of TC in terms of both capital market and accounting performance. Based on both price and volume studies, we found that news releases related to the adoption of the TC technology had no information content. All investors, regardless of whether …

The R Journal (December 2009) 1(2): Complete Issue, The R Foundation

The R Journal

Contributed Research Articles

Aspects of the Social Organization and Trajectory of the R Project, John Fox

Party on! Carolin Strobl, Torsten Hothorn and Achim Zeileis

ConvergenceConcepts: An R Package to Investigate Various Modes of Convergence, Pierre Lafaye de Micheaux and Benoit Liquet

asympTest: A Simple R Package for Classical Parametric Statistical Tests and Confidence Intervals in Large Samples, J.-F. Coeurjolly, R. Drouilhet, P. Lafaye de Micheaux and J.-F. Robineau

copas: An R package for Fitting the Copas Selection Model, J. Carpenter, G. Rücker and G. Schwarzer

Transitioning to R: Replicating SAS, Stata, and SUDAAN Analysis Techniques in Health Policy Data, …

A Study Of The Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere: Noctilucent Cloud Observations And Rocket Borne Density Measurements, Shelton Simmons

All Theses

Herein, a study of a noctilucent cloud, NLC, display from 17 July 2007 is analyzed. A photogrammetric analysis was applied to time lapsed photographs taken from two observation sites, RŸgen and KŸhlungsborn, Germany. Both Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities and internal gravity waves were identified during the NLC display based on the typical characteristics of such waves in the mesopause region. With the two observation sites, the location of details can be identified with an accuracy of ±0.125¡ longitude and ±0.5¡ latitude. A gravity wave with a wavelength of 50km and Kelvin-Helmholtz instability or gravity wave of wavelength 16.5km were observed. The 16.5km …

Light Beaming From A Single Subwavelength Metal Slit, Pengyu Chen

All Theses

In this thesis, light transmission through a single sub-wavelength slit in a silver thin film with periodic gratings at the exit side of the slit has been studied in both the visible and mid-infrared wavelength ranges.
In the visible wavelength range, we first investigate the enhancement of plasmonic light beaming efficiency by near field resonance in a subwavelength metallic slit-groove beaming structure. We show that by varying the film thickness and the separation distance of the beaming grating, the intensity of the near field can be greatly enhanced by resonance, which leads to the increase of the beaming efficiency. Moreover, …

Uptake Of Gold Nanoparticles In An Algae - Daphnid Food Chain, Matthew Osborne-Koch

All Theses

Nanoparticle entry into the environment can result in deleterious effects to exposed organisms, disruption of ecological processes, and accumulation within the wood web. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), which are classified as zero-valent metals, are of significant interest due to their use in a variety of applications including electrical, biomedical, catalytic, magnetic, and optical technology. The wide range of uses for AuNPs can be attributed to a combination of the unique physical properties of the element gold (i.e. density, conductivity, stability, etc.) and the diversity of sizes, shapes, and surface compositions that can be achieved through manipulation of AuNP synthesis. While previous …

Risk Assessment Of Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard For Grassland Birds At The Mcentire Air National Guard Station, Eastover, South Carolina, Marla Hamilton

All Theses

ABSTRACT
There are strict regulations surrounding vegetation management at military airfields for the purpose of reducing Bird Aircraft Strike Hazards (B.A.S.H.). At military installations vegetation heights are set between 17 to 38 cm to discourage the use of animal species such as flocking birds, soarers (e.g. raptors), large wading birds (e.g. herons), and waterfowl that create hazards to flying aircraft. Within designated clear zones, managers have typically promoted the growth of non - non-native grasses without much consideration for how these plantings might impact B.A.S.H. potential, bird occupancy, or avian conservation. Grasslands and grassland associated avifauna are among the 'highest …

The Effects Of Pulsed Exposures Of Suspended Clay On The Survival, Growth, And Reproduction Of Daphnia Magna, Sarah Robinson

All Theses

Suspended sediments are a natural component of aquatic ecosystems but anthropogenic activity such as land development can result in significant increases, especially following rain events due to surface erosion. Continuous exposures of suspended clay and silt have been shown to effect growth and reproduction of Cladocera, leading to a decrease in population growth rate. The mechanism of clay toxicity in these filter-feeding organisms is clogging of the gut tract resulting in decreased food uptake and assimilation. When placed in clean water, daphnids can purge clay from their gut and recover. In many surface waters, aquatic organisms experience episodic exposures of …

An Animation Framework For Improving The Comprehension Of Tinyos Programs, Sravanthi Dandamudi

All Theses

To meet the increasing demand for monitoring of the physical world, there has been an increase in the development of wireless sensor network applications. The TinyOS platform has emerged as a de facto standard for developing these applications. The platform offers a number of advantages, with its support for concurrency, power-efficient operation, and resource-constrained hardware chief among them. However, the benefits come at a price. Even without the TinyOS platform, the inherent parallel and distributed nature of these applications makes it difficult for developers to reason about program behavior. Further, the TinyOS programming model adopts
asynchronous, split-phase execution semantics. Developers …

Roost Selection By Rafinesque's Big-Eared Bats, Corynorhinus Rafinesquii, In Congaree National Park - A Multiscale Approach, Jessica Lucas

All Theses

Little is known about natural roost selection of Rafinesque's big-eared bats, Corynorhinus rafinesquii , throughout their range. The objectives of this study were to determine roost use and selection of big-eared bats in the Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina at multiple spatial scales and test whether roost use and selection differed between maternity colonies and solitary individuals. The study was conducted May-August 2006 and 2007 in Congaree National Park which contains extensive areas of old-growth bottomland forest. Roost trees were located via tree searches and radio-telemetry and I used univariate tests and multiple logistic regression to compare tree, stand, …

Semantic Search, Anup Sawant

All Theses

The thesis describes a Semantic approach towards web search through a stand-alone Java application. An Ontology Web Language(OWL) model is used to build a knowledge database related to different types of Organisms. The goal is to guide the Google web search engine using this OWL model. In the rst approach towards Semantic web search, an inference engine called CLIPS is used and in the second aproach, the Protege-OWL API is used. The thesis goes in detail about the design,
working and comparison of these two approaches. The thesis also deals with design approach for enhancement of the OWL model, once …

Analysis Of Mercury And Lead In Birds Of Prey From Gold-Mining Areas Of The Peruvian Amazon, Peggy Shrum

All Theses

This study was conducted to determine levels of lead and mercury in the raptors of the South-eastern Peruvian Amazon. The study took place within the Los Amigos Conservation Concession in Madre de Dios, Peru. Eighty-six raptors from among sixteen species were captured with Bal-Chatri traps. From each individual, feather samples were obtained for mercury analysis and blood was taken for lead analysis. Each raptor was then released without incident or injury.
Mercury amalgamation for gold extraction is widely used by small-scale, transient mining operations, which are numerous along the rivers and creeks in the tropical forests and other locations in …

Application Of Molecular Modeling In The Noncovalent Dispersion Of Carbon Nanomaterials, Praveen Kumar Madasu

Dissertations

Molecular modeling is a powerful tool to better understand the intermolecular interactions of carbon nanostructures. It provides structures and energies not easily obtainable from experiments and predicts properties that can be tested experimentally. Intermolecular interactions play an important role in the aggregation of various carbon nanomaterials. Three molecular modeling studies of carbon nanomaterial dispersions are presented in this dissertation, with an emphasis on illustrating how effective these theoretical techniques are in providing insight on the selection of dispersion additives. To achieve our goals, we employed molecular mechanics based methods, along with semi-empirical methods, and quantum mechanical methods, such as density …

A Contrast Pattern Based Clustering Quality Index For Categorical Data, Qingbao Liu, Guozhu Dong

Kno.e.sis Publications

Since clustering is unsupervised and highly explorative, clustering validation (i.e. assessing the quality of clustering solutions) has been an important and long standing research problem. Existing validity measures have significant shortcomings. This paper proposes a novel contrast pattern based clustering quality index (CPCQ) for categorical data, by utilizing the quality and diversity of the contrast patterns (CPs) which contrast the clusters in clusterings. High quality CPs can characterize clusters and discriminate them against each other. Experiments show that the CPCQ index (1) can recognize that expert-determined classes are the best clusters for many datasets from the UCI repository; (2) does …

New Infrared Spectral Data For 27 Asteroids: An Investigation Of Meteorite-Asteroid Relationships By Using The Modified Gaussian Model, Katherine Marie Gietzen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Asteroids provide unique insights into the origin and early history of the solar system. Since asteroids are considered to be fairly pristine, studying them provides opportunities to learn more about the primordial solar system, its materials, processes and history. Since the discovery in 1801 of the first asteroid, Ceres, during the era when everyone was searching for the "missing planet", astronomers have been trying to understand what they are, where they came from, why they exist and what they can tell us about how our solar system formed and evolved.

Within the asteroid population are a number of sub-populations, the …

Rainsford Island Shoreline Evolution Study (Rises), Christopher V. Maio

Graduate Masters Theses

RISES conducted a shoreline change study in order to accurately map, quantify, and predict trends in shoreline evolution on Rainsford Island occurring from 1890-2008. It employed geographic information systems (GIS) and analytical statistical techniques to identify coastal hazard zones vulnerable to coastal erosion, rising sea-levels, and storm surges. The 11-acre Rainsford Island, located in Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, consists of two eroded drumlins connected by a low-lying spit. Settled by Europeans in 1636, the Island was later used as the Harbor’s main quarantine station. Previous archeological surveys have identified numerous historically sensitive sites dating to before the Revolutionary War period, including …

Message From The Vice President For Research And Federal Relations, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Notes From The Director, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Economic Investigation Of Community-Scale Versus Building Scale Net-Zero Energy, N. Fernandez, S. Katipamula, M. R. Brambley, T. A. Reddy

Publications (E)

The study presented in this report examines issues concerning whether achieving net-zero energy performance at the community scale provides economic and potentially overall efficiency advantages over strategies focused on individual buildings.