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- Creator:
- Fernandez, Esteban M
- Description:
- Since the early 2000s, a series of new voter identification laws have been passed. These laws could possibly reduce voter turnout in a way that provides a structural advantage to certain candidates. This paper uses state level presidential election turnout data for the elections between 2000 and 2012 in order to estimate the impact of voter ID laws on voter turnout. I find that there is no statistically significant decrease in turnout from these new laws. This may be due to the small number of strict ID laws that are in place during this period. I test this assumption by performing a simulated power-analysis. I find that this state level difference in difference methodology suffers from low power with a sufficiently low effect size. with caveats, this paper concludes by suggesting a different methodology.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438055612
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Economics
- Creator:
- Estrada Tiempos, Jose
- Description:
- The increasing demand for renewable energy sources has accelerated endeavors for the optimization of biomass fuel oxidation for direct liquid fuel cells. Good efficiency for electrochemical oxidation of biomass and other has been observed on palladium (Pd) based catalysts in alkaline media, but further catalyst optimization is required to increase the viability of these fuels for direct liquid fuel cells. as such this work explored the use of a single-walled carbon nanotube support for Pd catalysts (Pd/CNT), in place of a traditional Pd/C (carbon supported) catalyst, for the enhanced oxidation of renewable fuels: formate, ethanol, 1-propanol, 2-propanol, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, and glycerol. of these fuels, the greatest electrochemical enhancement, evaluated via chronoamperometry (CA), was observed for the oxidation of formate, propylene glycol, and ethylene glycol a 2.6, 2.6, and 2.5 fold increase compared to Pd/C, respectively. Furthermore, bimetallic alloy catalysts, such as PdCu/C have also been shown to promote the oxidation of these fuels. as such, a Pd 62Cu37/CNT catalyst was used to investigate whether the individual enhancements due to a Cu adatom and a CNT support are additive. Finally, the efficient electrochemical oxidation of ethylene glycol and glycerol on carbon supported Pd catalysts (Pd/C and PdCu/C), at high concentration and high pH, inspired the exploration of these catalysts for the electrochemical detection of ethylene glycol and glycerol. This work shows that a CA pulsed method is viable for the detection of ethylene glycol on leached-Pd10Cu 90/C and glycerol on Pd/C or leached-Pd10Cu90/C.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438055469
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
- Creator:
- Qassim, Hussam
- Description:
- One of the promising processes to elevate the accuracy of the convolutional neural networks is by increasing the depth of the convolutional neural networks. However, increasing the depth of the convolutional neural network leads to a boost in the number of layers, which means an increase in the number of parameters. Which drive the depth convolutional neural network to be slow in convergence during the backpropagation process and prone to overfitting and degradation. We used two different techniques, the residual learning plus the deep supervision, to build the models. We trained the models to classify a large-scale scene dataset MIT Places 205 and MIT Places 365-Standard. the result from the experiments proved that the proposed models named (Residual-CNDS) have addressed the problems of overfitting, slower convergence, and degradation. the proposed models came in two models (Residual-CNDS8), and (Residual-CNDS10), which include eight and ten convolutional layers sequentially. Furthermore, reforming the proposed Residual-CNDS8 by applying a compression method to optimize the size and the time needed to train the Residual-CNDS8. Therefore, we proposed a Residual Squeeze CNDS, which address the issue of speed and size while maintaining addressing the issues of overfitting, slower convergence, and degradation. with matching the accuracy of Residual-CNDS8 on MIT Places 365-Standard scene dataset, the Residual Squeeze CNDS is 87.64% smaller in size and 13.33% faster in the training time.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438055445
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Computer Science
- Creator:
- Tyre, Anthony
- Description:
- Through interviews, research and a theoretical framework, this study examines “e-sports”, or electronic sports, and considers whether e-sports should be categorized as a sport and its players categorized as athletes. E-sports is the term used to describe professional/competitive video games. in the present study, discourse analysis used two primary interviews from two participants—one involved in e-sports, the other in traditional sports. the study used literature to compare the different aspects of both e-sports and traditional sports and noted where the two overlapped. Additionally, this was backed with existing literature and the theoretical framework of play theory to provide insight into sports entertainment. Results revealed interesting first-hand insight on the future of e-sports and in what way traditional sports fit into the equation. by isolating the terms “athlete” and “sports” as a basis for analysis, the traditional and current definitions can be fully understood. the research also revealed that like play theory, both traditional sports and video games originated from a common place—play, and it is because of this similar trajectory, they are what they are now. This study offers novel insight into how the distinction between traditional sports and the characteristics of athletes has become increasingly unclear; thus, with the amount of overlap between the two, traditional definitions, are changing and moving forward, and as a result, all sports and all athletes will be looked at through the same lens.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438054417
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Communications
- Creator:
- Martinez, Anastasia
- Description:
- West Nile Virus (WNV) is a worldwide concern to the health of the human population. Severe cases of infection can progress into neurological diseases that are potentially fatal due to the lack of treatment or vaccine. the NS2B-NS3 protease is a potential therapeutic target of WNV because of its’ vital role in the viral replication cycle. a drug that can inhibit this protease can serve as a treatment for WNV infections. with the use of a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) assay, a high throughput screen of a chemical library resulted in the discovery of Zafirlukast as a mixed competitive inhibitor for the WNV NS2B-NS3 protease. as an FDA approved treatment of asthma, Zafirlukast is a promising lead compound for optimization as a NS2B-NS3 protease inhibitor. through a series of structure-activity relationship studies, the significant structural elements of Zafirlukast as a WNV NS2B-NS3 protease inhibitor were identified as the cyclopentyl carbamate and o-toluenesulfonamide. Additionally, a Zafirlukast analog that replaced the cyclopentyl carbamate with a phenyl carbamate was found to have an increased inhibition of 92% at 60 µM and an IC50 of 22.58 µM. Molecular modeling of the Zafirlukast analog bound to the WNV NS2B-NS3 protease revealed mainly hydrophobic interactions with an allosteric site. the o-toluenesulfonamide seems to be important in blocking the NS2B cofactor from binding to the NS3 protein; therefore, inhibiting proteolytic activity.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438055254
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
- Creator:
- Bowers, Samuel
- Description:
- The purpose of this study was to explore how avatar appearance and player-avatar interaction impact prosocial and antisocial online play in World of Warcraft (WoW). the Proteus effect, a phenomenon where players shift their in-game behavior based on the appearance of their avatars, is well documented in experimental settings. Variable player-avatar interaction (PAX) is a newer concept that seeks to capture the way a player relates to his or her avatar as if it were an extension of self, a mere plaything, or a distinct social other. Analysis of survey data from 1,353 WoW players provided partial support for many hypotheses. Significant correlations were present between self-report measures of play motivations (relationship, socializing, teamwork, and competing motivations) and numerical data representing avatars’ in-game actions (healing-to-damage ratio and player-versus-player kill ratio). Overall, Proteus effect cues such as avatar attractiveness, gender, size, and clothing color had modest yet significant impact on specific measures of prosocial and antisocial play. Regression models showed PAX dimensions as significant predictors of prosocial and antisocial play. This study contributed to the field of game studies in three ways. First, it established correlations between player motivation and concrete measures of in-game behavior. Second, it tested the influence of the Proteus effect in a large-scale naturalistic setting. Third, it examined the influence of PAX variations alongside Proteus effect cues as predictors of prosocial and antisocial play.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438055377
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Communications
- Creator:
- Huang, Harrison
- Description:
- The Southern California Bight receives approximately 1.5 million gallons of wastewater effluent per day. Although regional monitoring has occurred periodically since the implementation of wastewater treatment practices, few studies have attempted to investigate long-term fish population or environmental changes in response to changes in wastewater treatment. The present study compared Pacific sanddab, California lizardfish, and English sole populations and environmental parameters near a wastewater outfall site and far-field site located in Orange County, California, between 1990 and 2015. Biannual fish trawl data and environmental data (surface temperature, bottom temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen) collected by Orange County Sanitation District’s Ocean Monitoring Program were analyzed using a two-way analysis of variance and regression analysis. Overall, there was no interaction between sample sites and treatment periods on the fish population (except English sole abundance) and environmental parameters analyzed. Fish abundance and relative condition factor did not differ significantly between sites, but all fish species were significantly larger at the outfall site. Wastewater effluent did not appear to adversely impact the three fish populations or the four environmental parameters investigated in this study. Further monitoring and investigation into other indicators of pollution are necessary to manage and further asses the effects of wastewater discharge.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438055247
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Biological Sciences
- Creator:
- Jayaprakash, Neha T.
- Description:
- Recent developments in robot automation have fostered the development of many assistive devices to improve the quality of life for individuals with disabilities. Notable among these devices are autonomous wheelchairs, which are capable of navigating to given destinations while avoiding obstacles. However, the method of destination selection and navigation in unmapped indoor environments remains a challenge for these autonomous wheelchairs. in this work, a novel approach to selecting a destination for an autonomous wheelchair in an unmapped indoor environment using Deep Learning System for object detection, camera, ranging LIDAR is presented. Object Detection Process not only recognizes and classifies object of interest in an image but also localizes each object by along with a bounding box and desired class name around it. the model for object detection was developed on TensorFlow Framework using three classes of dataset ie Forever21, JCPenney and Macy’s. the proposed System scans the environment (prototyped mall) at startup and compiles a list of possible destinations which are fed to object detection system for Predictive Comparison of the Stores. Once the stores are detected, Lidar examines the distance and the wheelchair is successfully able to navigate to the destination along with obstacle avoidance. the system successfully navigated to the destination in100% of the trials for close-range destinations and 90% of the trials for mid-range and long-range destination.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438055223
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Computer Science
- Creator:
- Sebastian, Trevor
- Description:
- Yoga has become an increasingly popular form of exercise in the West with promising findings of improved physiological and psychological well-being. However, researchers have expressed concern in its efficacy in a clinical setting. This study aimed to provide further evidence regarding yoga’s therapeutic efficacy in comparing both meditation and light cardio, along with further understanding whether the breathing (pranayama) or physical (asana) aspects of yoga contribute to its effectiveness. Participants (N = 48) were randomly assigned into either yoga, meditation, or walking conditions and completed five sessions at 30 minutes in length over the course of the week. Differences in reduced levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, along with improvements of mood between yoga, meditation, and walking interventions were assessed through a one-way ANOVA. Significant differences were not found between the interventions, failing to reject the null hypotheses. Considerations were made regarding yoga’s efficacy as a complementary therapy where other therapies, such as meditation or other forms of exercise, may be more appropriate. Limitations and implications for future research were also discussed.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438054950
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Psychology
- Creator:
- Ricarte, Adrian
- Description:
- Copper Transporter 1 has been known to be the main route of dietary copper uptake while the involvement of Divalent Metal Transporter 1 is still disputed. in human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells (Caco2), knockdown of DMT1 mRNA has been shown to reduce rates of both Cu(I) and Fe(II) uptake [18]. Over-expression of mouse or rat DMT1 mRNA in HEK293 (human embryonic kidney) cells has increased Cu(II) uptake [19, 26]. Using divalent ions known to inhibit DMT1, we measured uptake of 5µm radiolabeled 67Cu(I) in Caco2 cells. Neither 50 or 200 uM of Ni(II) or Mn(II) inhibited Cu(I) uptake. CTR1 and a potential Cl dependent transporter were also examined in Caco2 [20]. Silver inhibition (Ag(I)) can be used to determine contribution of CTR1 and substitution of 150 mM Na2SO4 for NaCl was used to assess Cl- dependent uptake. Ag(I) inhibited Cu(I) uptake (30%, p < 0.01). Substitution of 150 mM SO42- for Cl- decreased uptake (~30%, p < 0.01). in the presence of SO42- and Ag(I), ~50% reduction of the total rate resulted suggesting that the effects are additive. Pretreatment with extra Cu failed to change uptake rates significantly; iron status decreased rates significantly by ~60% (absolute rate). to conclude, Cl- dependent transporters and CTR1 make up approximately 60% of the total Cu(I) uptake rate and that DMT1 is unlikely to be involved in Caco2 cells. the remaining 40-50% reveals that there are still other Cu(I) transporters still not accounted for.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Identifier:
- 9780438055148
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry