Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Go Farm, Goleta: Urban Agriculture Protection For Eastern Goleta Valley, Eli M. Krispi

Master's Theses

This paper explores two potential land use planning strategies that can be used to preserve and enhance the economic viability of agricultural operations surrounded by suburban development in Santa Barbara County’s Eastern Goleta Valley: buffers between agriculture and other land uses, and agritourism. In the case of buffers, academic literature is examined to determine how effective buffers are at various tasks (filtering runoff, mitigating dust and wind, providing habitat, etc.) and how to construct buffers to maximize their effectiveness. Land use plans and codes from several California jurisdictions are studied to see how buffers are put to use. Academic literature …

Onboard Video Stabilization For Unmanned Air Vehicles, Nicholas Stewart Cross

Master's Theses

Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) enable the observation of hazardous areas without endangering a pilot. Observational capabilities are provided by on-board video cameras and images are relayed to remote operators for analysis. However, vibration and wind cause video camera mounts to move and can introduce unintended motion that makes video analysis more difficult. Video stabilization is a process that attempts to remove unwanted movement from a video input to provide a clearer picture.

This thesis presents an onboard video stabilization solution that removes high-frequency jitter, displays output at 20 frames per second (FPS), and runs on a Blackfin embedded processor. Any …

Development And Extrapolation Of An Undergraduate Laboratory Experiment To An Elastomeric Spinal Muscular Atrophy Brace, Richard Sterling Brose

Master's Theses

Ever since the advent of polymer science, polyurethanes have played a huge role in the industrial world. They have been used in endless applications from furniture padding to aircraft coatings, to binders for insensitive munitions. It is therefore important that the chemistry of polyurethanes is well understood as well as the ability to draw relationships between the raw materials selected and the end-use properties of the polymer. Because of the multitude of practical applications, the development of an undergraduate polymer chemistry laboratory focused on polyurethane elastomers is developed and described herein. Polymer chemistry students are exposed to hydroxyterminated polybutadiene (HTPB) …

Developing Digital Field Guides For Plants: A Study From The Perspective Of Users, Emily Roseanne Schwarz

Master's Theses

A field guide is a tool to identify an object of natural history. Field guides
cover a wide range of topics from plants to fungi, birds to mammals, and shells to minerals. Traditionally, field guides are books, usually small enough to be carried outdoors . They enjoy wide popularity in modern life; almost every American home and library owns at least one field guide, and the same is also true for other areas of the world.

At this time, companies, non-profits, and universities are developing computer
technologies to replace printed field guides for identifying plants. This thesis
examines the state …

Point-Based Color Bleeding With Volumes, Christopher J. Gibson

Master's Theses

The interaction of light in our world is immensely complex, but with mod-

ern computers and advanced rendering algorithms, we are beginning to reach

the point where photo-realistic renders are truly difficult to separate from real

photographs. Achieving realistic or believable global illumination in scenes with

participating media is exponentially more expensive compared to our traditional

polygonal methods. Light interacts with the particles of a volume, creating com-

plex radiance patterns.

In this thesis, we introduce an extension to the commonly used point-based

color bleeding (PCB) technique, implementing volume scatter contributions. With

the addition of this PCB algorithm extension, we …

Development Of A Cubesat Instrument For Microgravity Particle Damper Performance Analysis, John Trevor Abel

Master's Theses

Spacecraft pointing accuracy and structural longevity requirements often necessitate auxiliary vibration dissipation mechanisms. However, temperature sensitivity and material degradation limit the effectiveness of traditional damping techniques in space. Robust particle damping technology offers a potential solution, driving the need for microgravity characterization. A 1U cubesat satellite presents a low cost, low risk platform for the acquisition of data needed for this evaluation, but severely restricts available mass, volume, power and bandwidth resources. This paper details the development of an instrument subject to these constraints that is capable of capturing high resolution frequency response measurements of highly nonlinear particle damper dynamics.

Part A: The Use Of Nonionic Associative Polymers For The Thickening And Emulsifying Of Personal Care Products/ Part B: The Synthesis Of A Manganese Sod Mimetic For Reactive Coatings, Mallory Lynn Mcmahon

Master's Theses

Part A

The use of nonionic associative thickeners was proposed for personal care applications. Various limitations of current rheology modifiers used in personal care were discussed. Nonionic associative polymers were examined as both thickeners and emulsifiers. The structure/property relationship for nonionic polymers and their ability to thicken and emulsify were fully examined. Results showed an increase in thickening efficiency for nonionic associative polymers with higher log(P) (partition coefficient) values. This was due to the formation of smaller aggregates and increased bridging between aggregates. The connection between oil polarity, log(P) of the associative polymer, and emulsion stability showed no relationship however; …

The Preparation Of Functional Surfaces, Philip Thomas Dirlam

Master's Theses

Diels-Alder chemistry was utilized to manipulate the surface energy of glass substrates in reversible manner. Glass slides and capillaries were functionalized with hydrophobic dieneophiles resulting in a non-wetting surface. A retro Diels-Alder reaction facilitated by the thermal treatment of the surface’s function to cleave the hydrophobic dieneophile and resulted in the fabrication of a hydrophilic surface. Contact angle (CA) measurements were used as preliminary measurements for monitoring the changes in surface energy exhibited during the initial hydrophobic state (CA - 70±3°), after attachment of the dieneophile creating a hydrophobic state (CA - 101±9°) followed by reestablishment of the hydrophilic state …

Contextual Android Education, J Reed, D. S. Janzen

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Advances in mobile phone hardware and development platforms have drastically increased the demand, interest, and potential of mobile applications. We report on development of a new special topics software engineering course that combines the appeal of Android application development with software engineering topics and entrepreneurial thinking. The primary contribution of this project and the focus of this paper is a series of detailed educational laboratory exercises that are designed to supplement the Android documentation by providing contextual examples, activities, and tutorials. The labs were contributed to the Google Code University under the Creative Commons license, resulting in over 30,000 visits …

Supporting Introductory Test-Driven Labs With Webide, T. Dvornik, D. S. Janzen, J. Clements, O. Dekhtyar

Computer Science and Software Engineering

WebIDE is a new web-based development environment for entry-level programmers with two primary goals: minimize tool barriers to writing computer programs and introduce software engineering best practices early in a student's educational career. Currently, WebIDE focuses on Test-Driven Learning (TDL) by using small iterative examples and introducing lock-step labs, which prevent the student from moving forward until they finish the current step. However, WebIDE does not require that labs follow TDL. Instructors can write their own labs for WebIDE using any software engineering or pedagogical approach. Likewise, instructors can build custom evaluators - written in any language - to support …

Broad-Line Reverberation In The Kepler-Field Seyfert Galaxy Zw 220-015, Aaron J. Barth, My L. Nguyen, Matthew A. Malkan, Alexei V. Filippenko, Weidong Li, Varoujan Gorjian, Michael D. Joner, Vardha N. Bennert, Janos Botyanski, S. Bradley Cenko, Michael Childress, Jieun Choi, Julia M. Comerford, Antonino Cucciara, Robert Da Silva, Gaspard Duchêne, Michele Fumagalli, Mohan Ganeshalingam, Elinor L. Gates, Brian F. Gerke, Christopher V. Griffith, Chelsea Harris, Eric G. Hintz, Eric Hsiao, Michael T. Kandrashoff, William C. Keel, David Kirkman, Io K.W. Kleiser, C. David Laney, Jeffrey Lee, Liliana Lopez, Thomas B. Lowe, J. Ward Moody, Alexzandir Morton, A. M. Nierenberg, Peter Nugent, Anna Pancoast, Jacob Rex, R. Michael Rich, Jeffrey M. Silverman, Graeme H. Smith, Alessandro Sonnenfeld, Nao Suzuki, David Tytler, Jonelle L. Walsh, Jong-Hak Woo, Yizhe Yang, Carl Zeisse

Physics

The Seyfert 1 galaxy Zw 229-015 is among the brightest active galaxies being monitored by the Kepler mission. In order to determine the black hole mass in Zw 229-015 from Hβ reverberation mapping, we have carried out nightly observations with the Kast Spectrograph at the Lick 3 m telescope during the dark runs from 2010 June through December, obtaining 54 spectroscopic observations in total. We have also obtained nightly V-band imaging with the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope at Lick Observatory and with the 0.9 m telescope at the Brigham Young University West Mountain Observatory over the same period. We …

Brizzolara Creek Revegetation & Restoration Plan, Cailin O'Meara

Earth and Soil Sciences

In 2009, a portion of the Cal Poly Farm Shop was removed to create a stream bank supported by rip-rap facing for Brizzolara Creek. However, weed eradication and revegetation measures were necessary to fully restore the riparian corridor. The Brizzolara Creek Revegetation and Restoration plan was implemented in winter 2011. The plant palette was composed of early successional native species including Salix lasiolepis, Salix laevigata, Populus balsamifera spp. trichocarpa, Rubus ursinus, Rhamnus californica, Baccharis pilularis, Sambucus mexicana, and Artemisia douglasiana. A monitoring plan will evaluate the relative success of this project in Spring 2014. The final success criteria for this …

A Map Of Relict Landscapes And Landslides: Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, Kern County, California, Usa, Colin Lawson, Jeanette Mccracken

Earth and Soil Sciences

The San Andreas Fault Zone is a great location to conduct geomorphologic research, because of its recent history of tectonism and related surface uplift. In the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge - located in Kern, San Luis Obispo, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties – a map of relict landscapes and landslides was created. The map was created using a combination of techniques of air photo mapping and field mapping. A digital version of the map was created and used for further analysis of the relict landscapes and landslides. This research serves as reconnaissance for future research in this area, and …

Soil Survey Report For Saucelito Canyon Vineyard Proposed Vineyard Site, Thomas E. Richardson, Ryan S. Stirm

Earth and Soil Sciences

The Saucelito Canyon Vineyard ranch future vineyard site was investigated using eighteen (18) soil pits to document soil morphological properties including soil structure, color, depth, presence of carbonates, and soil chemical characteristics. Pits were also used to obtain soil samples that were delivered to A & L Western Agriculture Laboratories for further soil chemical analysis and to classify the soils.

This collective information was used to classify the soils into five (5) different soil series using Soil Taxonomy. The surface soil textures and slope phases for these soil series were then used to group similar soil types located throughout the …

Strategic Treatment Interruptions During Imatinib Treatment Of Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Dana C. Paquin, Peter S. Kim, Peter P. Lee, Doron Levy

Mathematics

Although imatinib is an effective treatment for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and nearly all patients treated with imatinib attain some form of remission, imatinib does not completely eliminate leukemia. Moreover, if the imatinib treatment is stopped, most patients eventually relapse (Cortes et al. in Clin. Cancer Res. 11:3425–3432, 2005). In Kim et al. (PLoS Comput. Biol. 4(6):e1000095, 2008), the authors presented a mathematical model for the dynamics of CML under imatinib treatment that incorporates the anti-leukemia immune response. We use the mathematical model in Kim et al. (PLoS Comput. Biol. 4(6):e1000095, 2008) to study and numerically simulate strategic treatment interruptions …

Aerial Reconnaissance Of Stream Terraces And Landslides Within Bitterwater Creek Watershed In Kern County, California, Zachary Smith

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

The Implications Of A Robust Curriculum In Introductory Mechanics, Chance Hoellwarth, Matthew J. Moelter

Physics

We have developed a curriculum for introductory mechanics that emphasizes interactive engagement and conceptual understanding using the studio format. As previously reported, we have shown in three different quarters that the curriculum much improved the students’ conceptual understanding compared to the traditional course without significantly affecting the scores on a traditional final exam. Here we report the results for the entire three-year period during which the course was taught, 34 sections of the course were taught with 11 different instructors to over 1200 students. In each term, these sections had common exams, syllabus, and schedule. Student experiences were very similar …

Growing The Urban Ecosystem In Detroit, Michigan, Sean Basalyga

Social Sciences

Many views of the future are seen as bleak and devoid of the life where once stood beauty and abundance. However, the Living Cities Design Competition challenges these views and calls for a vision of the future that inspires hope, biodiversity, and a healthy interaction between human and natural systems. We chose to redesign the city of Detroit, Michigan to be a living city by the year 2035. As the earth scientist on an interdisciplinary team, I acted as an ecological consultant. By developing the urban ecosystem of Detroit, a number of social, economical, and environmental problems can be solved. …

Perturbed Breakup Of Gas Bubbles In Water: Memory, Gas Flow, And Coalescence, Nathan C. Keim

Physics

The pinch-off of an air bubble from an underwater nozzle ends in a singularity with a remarkable sensitivity to a variety of perturbations. I report on experiments that break both the axial (i.e., vertical) and azimuthal symmetry of the singularity formation. The density of the inner gas influences the axial asymmetry of the neck near pinch-off. For denser gases, flow through the neck late in collapse changes the pinch-off dynamics. Gas density is also implicated in the formation of satellite bubbles. The azimuthal shape oscillations described by Schmidt et al. can be initiated by anisotropic boundary conditions in the liquid …

Guateca: A Carbon Footprint Viability Analysis, Kyle Reynolds

Physics

This report seeks to analyze the carbon footprint of the Guateca summer school program in 2011 run by Dr. Pete Schwartz. Through use of the listed carbon footprints of various substances in a Materials Engineering database, the CO₂ emissions associated with various technologies and practices to be implemented by Guateca in the village of San Pablo, Guatemala are calculated and compared to estimated emissions of alternative standard practices that are currently in use or might be in the near future. The results are varied, and while many are heavily reliant on how well they can be implemented, most of …

Search For Cosmic Strings In The Cosmos Survey, Jodi L. Christiansen, E. Albin, T. Fletcher, J. Goldman, I. P.W. Teng, M. Foley, G. F. Smoot

Physics

We search the COSMOS survey for pairs of galaxies consistent with the gravitational lensing signature of a cosmic string. The COSMOS survey imaged 1.64 square degrees using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Our technique includes estimates of the efficiency for finding the lensed galaxy pair. We find no evidence for cosmic strings with a mass per unit length of Gμ/c² < 3.0 × 10⁻⁷ out to redshifts greater than 0.6 and set 95% upper limits. This corresponds to a global 95% upper limit of Ω_strings < 0.0028.

Thermal Rise Time In Nuclear Reactors After Loss Of Coolant Or Loss Of Power Accidents, David Hafemeister

Physics

No abstract provided.

Investigation Of Factors Affecting The Accumulation Of Vinyl Chloride In Polyvinyl Chloride Piping Used In Drinking Water Distribution Systems, Ryan Walter, Po-Hsun Lin, Marc Edwards, Ruth E. Richardson

Physics

Plastic piping made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and chlorinated PVC (CPVC), is being increasingly used for drinking water distribution lines. Given the formulation of the material from vinyl chloride (VC), there has been concern that the VC (a confirmed human carcinogen) can leach from the plastic piping into drinking water. PVC/CPVC pipe reactors in the laboratory and tap samples collected from consumers homes (n = 15) revealed vinyl chloride accumulation in the tens of ng/L range after a few days and hundreds of ng/L after two years. While these levels did not exceed the EPA’s maximum contaminant level (MCL) …

Mathematical Models Of Feedback Systems For Control Of Intra-Bunch Instabilities Driven By E-Clouds And Tmci, C. Rivetta, J.D. Fox, T. Mastoridis, M. Pivi, O. Turgut, W. Hofle, R. Secondo, J.-L. Vay

Physics

The feedback control of intra-bunch instabilities driven by electron-clouds or strong head-tail coupling (transverse mode coupled instabilities TMCI) requires bandwidth sufficient to sense the vertical position and apply correction fields to multiple sections of a nanosecond-scale bunch. These requirements impose challenges and limits in the design and implementation of the feedback control channel. This paper presents different models for the feedback subsystems: receiver, processing channel, amplifier and kicker, that take into account their frequency response and limits. These models are included in reduced mathematical models of the bunch dynamics and multi-particle simulation codes (WARP / C-MAD / HEADTAIL) to evaluate …

Studies Of Rf Noise Induced Bunch Lengthening At The Lhc, T. Mastoridis, C. Rivetta, J.D. Fox, P. Baudrenghien, A. Butterworth, J. Molendijk

Physics

No abstract provided.

Finding Good Paths: Applications Of Least Cost Caloric Path Computations, Zoë J. Wood, Greg Hoffman, Mark Wazny

Computer Science and Software Engineering

As you walk around during your daily life, you commonly make path finding decisions based on the world around you. For example, when you are walking in the outdoors, you take the path of least resistance over a terrain. We present two applications which demonstrate the importance of using the least cost caloric cost path computation in two different domain settings. One application uses the popular Google Earth API to explore the use of least cost caloric path computations to create an interactive path-finding tool. The second tool uses least cost caloric path computations to enhance crowd simulations in the …

Intermediate Representations For Controllers In Chip Generators, Kyle Kelley, Megan Wachs, Andrew Danowitz, Pete Stevenson, Stephen Richardon, Mark Horowitz

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Creating parameterized “chip generators” has been proposed as one way to decrease chip NRE costs. While many approaches are available for creating or generating flexible data path elements, the design of flexible controllers is more problematic. The most common approach is to create a microcoded engine as the controller, which offers flexibility through programmable table-based lookup functions. This paper shows that after “programming” the hardware for the desired application, or applications, these flexible controller designs can be easily converted to efficient fixed (or less programmable) solutions using partial evaluation capabilities that are already present in most synthesis tools.

Semantically-Enhanced Information Extraction, Hisham Assal, John Seng, Franz Kurfess, Emily Schwarz, Kym Pohl

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Information Extraction using Natural Language Processing (NLP) produces entities along with some of the relationships that may exist among them. To be semantically useful, however, such discrete extractions must be put into context through some form of intelligent analysis. This paper1,2 offers a two-part architecture that employs the statistical methods of traditional NLP to extract discrete information elements in a relatively domain-agnostic manner, which are then injected into an inference-enabled environment where they can be semantically analyzed. Within this semantic environment, extractions are woven into the contextual fabric of a user-provided, domain-centric ontology where users together with user-provided logic can …

Reactive Routing In Hidra Networks, Scott Michael Marshall

Computer Engineering

In recent years, the Internet has grown so large that the future scalability of the Internet has become a major concern. The two primary scalability concerns are the size of the forwarding table and the ability for BGP to converge while distributing hundreds of thousands of routes.

HIDRA is a new Internet routing architecture that is backwards-compatible with existing routing technologies and protocols that focuses on feasibility-of-implementation. HIDRA remedies the first Internet scalability concern by proposing a means to reduce the number of entries in the default-free zone (DFZ) forwarding table.

This project extends HIDRA by designing a complete reactive …

Evidence Of Tectonic Uplift Along The Oceanic Fault Near San Simeon, San Luis Obispo County, California, George Gecy

Earth and Soil Sciences

Post-Seismic satellite imagery after the 2003 earthquake near San Simeon confirmed 10s of millimeters of north-east side uplift along the Oceanic Fault. In order to determine whether or not there has been a history of tectonic uplift northeast of the Oceanic Fault zone, longitudinal profiles of Morro Creek and San Simeon were made using a digital planimeter and 1:24,000 scale maps. Utilizing the stream profiles, convexities could be observed in the streams coinciding where the streams crossed the Oceanic Fault; of the stream profiles, the convexity along San Simeon Creek could be confirmed to be caused by north-east side uplift …