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- Creator:
- Paul Christian Dunn
- Description:
- Incident solar radiation (insolation) passing through the forest canopy to the ground surface is either absorbed or scattered. This phenomenon is known as attenuation and is measured in forest ecology using the extinction coefficient (K). The effect of K on understory photosynthetically available radiation (PAR) and microclimate may be associated with plant species diversity, as distinct species and communities have unique habitat requirements. The objective of this study is to model insolation and canopy structure to observe effects of predictors representative of K on understory plant biodiversity using remotely sensed and botanical field data. We used two taxonomic diversity indexes (Menhinick’s and Simpson) to describe the surveyed plant community in a natural temperate montane forest, modeling the index values at the plot level as response variables. Independent variables included localized area incident solar radiation estimated using a solar model, LiDAR derived canopy height model, effective leaf area index (LAI) estimates derived from multi-spectral imagery and canopy strata metrics derived from LiDAR point cloud data. Considering the impact of atmospheric components above the canopy layer and an assumption that incident short- wave solar radiation to Earth’s vegetated surfaces is primarily absorbed in the canopy layer, we used a multiple linear model to predict canopy metrics controlling the sub- canopy surface radiant flux to develop the hypothesis that 1.) canopy structural variability is associated with the biodiversity of stand plant species through habitat partitioning and, 2.) a prediction model can be developed to validate this relationship spatially. The available data indicated many and varied correlations between predictor and response variables as well as a statistically valid linear model comprising the canopy relief, the texture, and vegetation density with understory plant diversity. When analyzed for spatial autocorrelation, the predicted biodiversity data exhibited non-random spatial continuity.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Geography & Environment
- Creator:
- Savvides, Michael Roger
- Description:
- The proliferation of Information and Communications Technologies is a gamechanger for international relations, and the classical theories are not suited for application in cyber studies. The current literature on cyber studies, is fragmented, and lacks a common theoretical framework. Additionally, the current cyber discourse treats cyber governance and cybersecurity as two separate concepts when in fact they are intertwined. This paper addresses these shortcomings by examining the models of cyber governance, followed by an analysis of key cybersecurity events. This paper takes a multidisciplinary approach by synthesizing concepts from international law, computer sciences, and IR. After analysis of the preceding, this paper offers a novel theory, dubbed the Governance and Security in Cyberspace (GSC) framework, which is designed to understand IR as it relates to cyberspace.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- International Relations
- Creator:
- DeMaiolo, James F.
- Description:
- Through Gogol’s Satirical Eye examines in detail four productions of The Inspector General. The productions include the premiere of Gogol’s play in 1836, Meyerhold’s 1926 production, Evreinov’s satire on the play and directors of the time, and Peter Sellars’s 1980 production. I discuss how the play’s farcical elements are contrasted with the social satire of Gogol’s work and how this contrast created the controversies surrounding these productions. Study of this contrast helps in looking at what adaptation and interpretation provide for a specific community, and in assessing the success and failure of the play when each of the dual layers of farce and satire is limited. This duality has helped to spawn far-reaching global translations and adaptations, not only on the stage but in film, opera, and television.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Theatre and Dance
- Creator:
- Rashty, Josef
- Description:
- My thesis will argue that the best form of corporate governance is a democratic system in which employees can be heard whenever their beliefs come into opposition with those o f their employers. It will also argue that employees have a responsibility to report any ethical violations through the proper channels within their organizations. If they chose to report the alleged violations to an authority solely to collect a financial reward, it would be degrading to them and would not contribute to their Aristotelian excellence. Additionally, such a bounty-hunting response would harm their employers and the corporation’s stakeholders. Thus, it is in the best interest of both whistleblowers and corporations to encourage voluntary, internal reporting of violations.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Selzer, Mark Albert
- Description:
- Plato’s dialogues lack a complete account of dialectic as a philosophic method. To contribute to such an account, I show how dialectic is a process of ethical cultivation and an ethical way of life. I argue that there are three distinct forms of Platonic dialectic. The first form comprises the asking and answering of questions, and it refutes inconsistent or false beliefs. The second form begins with a likely hypothesis, and then negates the initial hypothesis and any subsequent hypotheses until a true hypothesis is confirmed. The last form is noetic dialectic and it ascends to an understanding of the first principle, and descends from that understanding to derive Plato’s entire metaphysics and epistemology. When unified and understood in the overall framework of Plato’s philosophy, the three forms of Platonic dialectic are a method for balancing the tripartite soul so that one may grasp the first principle and act in accordance with justice. Thus, dialectic is a process of ethical cultivation.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Alunāns, Aleksandrs Yano
- Description:
- In this thesis, I aim to demonstrate how I believe that Friedrich Nietzsche can in fact be viewed as a supporter of a virtue ethic in the Aristotelian tradition, using similarities with the theories of Mengzi, or Mencius, to show that this is plausible.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Henderson, Brien Kenneth
- Description:
- This is a musical composition which demonstrates my artistic development over the course of the master’s program and reflects on issues of finding norms in an increasingly diffuse musical landscape while also creating a link to musical tradition. The objectives of the project were to create a musical language, both innovative and reminiscent of the European musical tradition, and to implement that language in a tripartitioning of musical material, delineated as (1) Composition, (2) Fragmentation, and (3) Re-composition. The language itself is firmly rooted in the contrapuntal procedures of the fifteenth century but utilizes as foundational material a musical scale of my own construction. These objectives necessitated a methodology wherein music was composed, that same music was broken up into over a hundred small fragments of material, and then those fragments were used to re-compose new material.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Music
- Creator:
- Zalewska, Maria
- Description:
- This thesis is an attempt to analyze the shift in Polish and German cinema’s respective approaches to the historical narrative of WWII and the Holocaust. It deals with concepts of post-1989 national identity and the politics of film/cultural memory reflected through cultural texts (films) and institutions (cinema). The thesis examines the question of the correlation of (state) funding and filmmaking in post-1989 Poland and Germany. This thesis focuses on a short and recent period (1989 - present) to examine the nature and the socio-historical context of the shift in Polish and German cinema rather than the outcomes of such change. In a sense, it is a case study of the political changes reflected through cultural texts (films) and institutions (cinema) in Central Europe as a consequence of the fall of the Iron Curtain. Putting this more broadly, it argues that state-funded cinematic productions exhibit a significant and ideological shift in the Polish and German portrayal of WWII and the Holocaust.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Humanities
- Creator:
- Marquez, Christina Maria
- Description:
- While there is a positive relationship between self-compassion and compassion toward others (Crocker & Canevello, 2008; Gilbert, McEwan, Matos, & Rivis, 2011), the extent of the relationship between the two variables has not often been investigated. Researchers have identified stressful life events and parenting behaviors as possible predictors of compassionate outcomes throughout development (Kelly & Dupasquier, 2016; Satici, Uysal, & Akin, 2015). A total of 266 (83.70% female) undergraduates (Mage = 23.62, SDage- 5.167) participated in an online study. Participants were asked to complete selfreport surveys specific to measuring stressful life events, recent experiences with positive parenting behaviors, and levels of compassion. It was predicted that positive parenting behaviors would mediate the relationship between stressful life events and compassionate outcomes. Replicating previous work and in support of the hypotheses, there was a positive relationship between compassion toward others and self-compassion, and compassion toward others and stressful life events were also positively correlated. Additionally, self-compassion was inversely correlated with stressful life events reported at 3 months and 12 months while the relationship between life events experienced at least once showed a positive association. The proposed mediation was partially supported such that the relationship between stressful life events at 12 months and compassionate outcomes was mediated by positive parenting behaviors. Specifically, more reports of positive parenting behavior from students who experienced higher rates of recent stressful life events were indicative of higher levels of compassion reported within the sample. Findings from this study provide implications for developmental interventions focused on expanding the capacity for compassion across the lifespan.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Gilbert, Brandilyn Judith
- Description:
- From victimization literature, it is known that victims are often selected because they display nonverbal signals that flag them as easy prey. With the established knowledge that bullies are driven by the urge to dominate, it stands to reason that nonverbal signals of submissiveness may flag individuals as ideal victims. This paper expands the bullying victimization literature by exploring the potential role of nonverbal behavior of victims, specifically their body posture. Participants watched video clips of groups with individuals posed in either dominant, neutral, or submissive posture. They wrote notes to specified actors and then made bullying victim selection judgments. The notes showed less supportive behavior toward male actors with submissive posture than toward those with neutral posture. Participants selected actors with submissive posture significantly more for victimization than actors with neutral or dominant posture. This finding was consistent for male and female groups, as well as for Asian and Caucasian groups. These findings suggest that submissive posture flags individuals for bullying and, for males, results in less supportiveness from peers.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Bachechi, Brenda S.
- Description:
- The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher efficacy and attitudes of elementary and middle school (k-8), general education teachers towards teaching learning disabled, emotionally and behavioral disabled, and significantly intellectually disabled students in an inclusive classroom setting. An online survey, along with 7 face-to-face interviews, was conducted as a means of gathering data regarding teacher attitudes and efficacy toward inclusion. Results from the online survey suggested that while teachers may at first appear to feel positively towards inclusion. Their attitudes are significantly impacted by the amount of time students are included in their classroom, the type of disability student’s presented with and whether students benefitted from inclusion for academic or social goals. Overall, more efficacious teachers were consistently more willing to consider classroom adaptations, modifications, and changes in teaching style to support all learners, then less efficacious teachers. Results from the personal interviews provided some insight as to why teachers had highly different attitudes towards the inclusion of students with different disabilities.. No matter how teachers felt about inclusion, most teachers agreed that all their students benefitted from using different modalities for instruction. All of the teachers interviewed agreed that they could benefit from more training and support in order to successfully include all students in their classroom. This study concluded that further investigation is needed in order to consider the implications of including children of various disabilities and the factors that, impact teachers’ attitudes towards these students.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Drutz, Karlie Alicia
- Description:
- The Great Recession from 2007 to 2009 created a financial crisis in the United States, which in turn affected the operations of nonprofits, including museums. In this thesis, the impacts of the recession on museum fundraising operations are explored; fundraising tactics of successful museums are also examined in order to learn lessons from the crisis. By conducting a literature review and case studies of three institutions that effectively weathered the recession, key strategies are uncovered that museums have used to develop strong donor stewardship programs, and adjust to different situations swiftly. Recommendations are also made on how museums can prepare themselves for future financially challenging times, as well as improve their fundraising model in general.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Art
- Creator:
- Cleveland, Justin Bard
- Description:
- Powerful Narrations: Incorporating Oral History into the Museum Model seeks to investigate how museums can effectively collect and utilize oral history collections. In response to the limited current literature on oral history’s role in museums, four case studies representing diverse museums with oral history programs were examined in conjunction with the relevant literature in the field of oral history. Through this research it becomes apparent that oral histories can be a tremendous resource for museums. By utilizing oral history collections, museums become more engaging and relevant to the community they serve. Museums are increasingly recognizing the value of oral history. However, establishing an oral history program can be a daunting endeavor for museum staff. This thesis provides recommendations and guidance for museum employees on how to successfully incorporate oral history into the museum model.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Art
- Creator:
- Capisani, Simona Mila
- Description:
- In this paper I examine the compatibility of truth and public reason in the process of public justification in John Rawls’s Political Liberalism. I argue against Joshua Cohen’s proposal that a political conception of truth is available for public reason. I conclude that the political conception of truth does not resolve the problem of truthfs exclusion from public reason. To support this I present the following argument: (1) If Cohen’s truth conception resolves the discrepancy between truth and public reason then it is either (a) an internal or (b) an external claim; (2) in either case (a) or (b) Cohenfs political conception of truth is unsatisfactory on its own terms. I provide support for accepting (1) as a plausible interpretation. I argue for (2) by arguing separately that (a) requires further motivation and that (b) violates the Rawlsian constraints required for the political conception of truth. I then suggest possible alternatives for strengthening objectivity that are acceptable to Rawlsians.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Lau, Lung Yuen
- Description:
- With the advancements in contemporary medicine and the improved standards o f living, people are living longer than ever before. Yet, this growing demographic is facing a challenge that consistently threatens their well-being. Falls account for the main cause of fatal/nonfatal injuries among older adults. Once a fall occurs, immediate medical attention is needed to minimize long term effects and mitigate the health condition. The severity of a fail, in fact, heavily depends on the rescue time. Although falling cannot be completely prevented, their damage can be minimized by taking appropriate precautions and by shortening the rescue time. This research project attempts to investigate the feasibility of using floor vibration captured by accelerometers to detect fall location and estimate its severity as part o f a three-dimensional fall detection system to overcome the drawbacks of the current stateof- the-art fall detection system. The performance of the proposed system is investigated in a controlled lab-scale testbed and the results from this study confirmed the feasibility of the proposed system and showed its great potential of using the system to accurately detect falls in real-time.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Engineering
16. State-society relations in Israel : an analysis and application of Migdal's state-society theory
- Creator:
- Luong, Sandy
- Description:
- Joel S. Migdal’s work is centered on power through domination, how it is established, achieved and maintained. Migdal argues that the state is a fragmented structure that competes for power against a multitude of social organizations making up society. This allows for a system by which various aspects of the state are in contact with various aspects of society. As a result, these incidents of competition and contact allow both the state and society to transform and shape each other. However, in this study I argue that although Migdal’s work is a major contribution to the field of comparative politics, the case I will be using in my study is an exception to Migdal’s state-in-society thesis. By applying Migdal’s model to the Israeli state and the Israeli Arab community, I argue that the Israeli state is an exception to Migdal’s thesis that the state-society divide is penetrable. Although the Israeli state has been able to influence the Israeli Arab community, the Israeli Arab community has not been able to penetrate and transform the state. I close this thesis with a speculative analysis of the impact of a Migdalian state-society relation in Israel on the various attempts at peace in the larger issue of the decades long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. I
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Political Science
- Creator:
- Dunn, Glenna
- Description:
- Observations of the globular cluster Omega Centauri taken with the Ultraviolet- Visible channel of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3/UVIS) on the Hubble Space Telescope are used to detect some of the first candidate white-dwarf/main-sequence binaries in a globular cluster. In color-magnitude diagrams, white-dwarf/main-sequence binaries occupy the region between the white-dwarf sequence and the main sequence which, in the absence of high-quality proper-motion measurements, is also populated by main-sequence halo stars. We demonstrate that color-color diagrams can be used to distinguish background main-sequence stars from cluster white-dwarf/main-sequence binaries. This work is aimed at helping to elucidate the complex evolutionary and dynamical histories of binary stars in globular clusters by estimating the white-dwarf binary fraction for a globular cluster.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Physics and Astronomy
- Creator:
- Zargar, Paymun
- Description:
- In this paper, I argue that Slote’s agent-based virtue ethics amount to a voluntarist virtue ethics that contrasts sharply with ethical intellectualism. Ethical voluntarism is the view that a proper ordering of motives is sufficient for a moral agent to act rightly. That is, the grounds for judging whether an action is morally good or bad are found solely in our assessment of an individual’s inner motives and states. Ethical intellectualism, in contrast, maintains that moral values are independent rational constraints, and that a virtuous person does the right thing by knowing and abiding by them. I will argue that Slote’s agent-based virtue ethics falls short in two ways: (1) his argument for the relevance of the world in linking inner motivations to morally right conduct simply does not succeed, and (2) his agent-basing, or voluntarism, is unable to accommodate the real complexity of moral experiences in the way that the ethical intellectualism defended in this paper can.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Giacomini, Colin
- Description:
- This thesis seeks to explain why Turkey in the post-Arab Spring era pursued a strategic partnership with Russia and Iran. Through utilizing the theory of neoclassical realism, the results of this analysis indicate that Turkey’s behavior can be attributed to fundamental changes in the regional structure that occurred around 2016, which precipitated a hostile environment that threatened Turkey’s national security. During this time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government faced a series of domestic problems that jeopardized the survivability of the ruling regime. The severity of this internal crisis significantly limited the foreign policy choices available to respond to external pressures, and effectively precluded Turkey’s ability to rely on the United States for assistance. Forging a pragmatic and transactional partnership with Russia and Iran mitigated these complex threats. While the decision benefitted Turkey in the shortterm, this study maintains that the three-country partnership is fragile and lacks longevity. In addition, while prospects of U.S.-Turkey rapprochement are slim, reconciliation in the medium-term is still possible.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- International Relations
- Creator:
- Baldwin, Zebulah Scott
- Description:
- This thesis analyzes how the narrative strategies of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man function to engage and contest conventional (socially dominant) assumptions and reading practices. While this novel is widely critically determined to be a “coming of age” novel or Bildungsroman written in a “double-voiced” narrative style, the socio-political significance of these central formal aspects of the text has received very little attention. By elaborating a structural, rhetorical, and theoretical approach that analyzes the socio-political significance of the text in terms of its narrative construction (as opposed to its apparent content), this thesis situates the novel’s critical significance within generic and ideological conventions, and serves as a corrective to the critical perspectives that have treated the novel as if it were a political tract written in neutral or simply transparent language. The first chapter approaches the text through the lens of genre studies, analyzing the novel’s structural and thematic aspects in terms of the European Bildungsroman. The second chapter explores the functionally problematic construction of tropes and figures through Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of novelistic dialogism and Henry Luis Gates’ theory of Afro- American “Signifyin(g).” The third chapter explores the consequences of the novel’s conflicted formulations of subjectivity, employing critical theory to analyze the social, political, and literary consequences of the way that the text destabilizes readerly assumptions, particularly those surrounding the discursive identity constructions that facilitate modem socialization and that are conventionally produced in a “coming of age” novel.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- English Language and Literature
21. Natural beauty
- Creator:
- Meazle, Jackson Gardner
- Description:
- These poems and translations constitute work written between 2011 and 2013. Much of the work is made up of moments written down or perceptions on things around the author. The city and its sounds, visions, and friends are the predominant concerns of the poems. The translations in this work are from German.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Creative Writing
22. /Reverential/
- Creator:
- Burgert, Sarah Elizabeth
- Description:
- / r e v e r e n t i a l / is based in vivid memories of childhood summers past. This collection is a retelling of family histories half imagined, half transcribed. The work highlights a young boy's experience with the beauty in nature, the magic that summertime holds, and nuanced conflicts within families. Also present is the narrator’s ongoing quest for a lost figure, another manifestation of the young boy, now grown with his own history, which is seen through short vignettes.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Creative Writing
- Creator:
- Schlief, Dennis
- Description:
- Our research begins with a standard quadratic programming problem from the field of optimization. One family of solution methods is called interior point methods. These methods trace a path through the feasible region until they converge to the optimal solution. This path, defined by polynomial equations, is a piece of the central curve. Recent work has been done studying the degree and total curvature of the central curve in the linear programming case. We broaden the scope and look to prove similar results in the quadratic case. Through computer experimentation we hypothesized that the degree can be considered just for the case that the objective function has a generic diagonal matrix. We prove the reduction to diagonal and consider the degree of the central curve only in this case. We proceed by constructing a monomial ideal resulting from the optimality conditions of our quadratic program. We prove the degree of this monomial ideal, and show that this degree is an upper bound for the degree of the quadratic central curve. While the proposed degree is in fact exact, we only prove an upper bound for this thesis. Our result has nice symmetry with the main result of its linear counterpart.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Mathematics
24. No bus, no taxi
- Creator:
- Blumberg, Vanessa Hemingway
- Description:
- This collection of short fiction explores the bounds of solitary life and the expectations, joys, and challenges of human relationships. Always at play are fate, luck, and blame, as well as the truly accidental nature of our lives.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Creative Writing
25. Presenting culture : how museums are helping children better understand and appreciate diversity
- Creator:
- Kelly, Corinne Marie
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Art
- Creator:
- Peckens, Sadie Eileen
- Description:
- This thesis discusses socially engaged museum programming, defined as programming that uses museum content as a catalyst for providing a service. Museum program practitioners can review the thesis to learn best practices. Chapter 2 reviews the museum field’s shift from a collections focus to an audience focus, and the role of museum education within that shift. Techniques for delivering programming and operating programming are reviewed in Chapter 3. Three case studies are presented, namely: The Pacific Science Center’s Science On Wheels; The Tenement Museum’s Shared Journeys', and The Hull Lifesaving Museum’s Maritime Apprentice Program. Case studies reveal how socially engaged programming models can operate, and how content can be delivered. Analysis of the case studies and literature review indicate best practices in content delivery and program management, discussed in Chapter 7. In Chapter 8, recommendations are made, and it is concluded that museum programming can be essential to communities.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Art
- Creator:
- Heiser, Shawn Christopher
- Description:
- This study examines the environmental and land use history of Mussel Rock from Ohlone settlement to the present. Mussel Rock is home to a notoriously unstable garbage landfill, which sits directly on top of the San Andreas Fault Zone and the second largest active landslide on the California Coast. Some people embrace Mussel Rock for its unique geography, history, and beauty, and choose to live here with little regard for the potential calamity resulting from fault movement, landslides, and other erosion processes. Among the geologic and coastal processes that have shaped the geomorphology and ecology of Mussel Rock, the San Andreas Rift Zone and Mussel Rock Landslide are the most significant entities. Yet, at a local level and on a shorter time scale, human alteration and modification of the landscape made a substantial environmental impact. The alteration of the landscape by human activity, including residential subdivisions and a municipal landfill, have placed its residents directly at risk from seismic and landslide hazards. Poor land-use decisions combined with natural processes threaten to push the Mussel Rock area 'over the edge' of the continent.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Geography & Environment
- Creator:
- Perez, Maria Isabel
- Description:
- Farhad Babaee and June Huh introduced the tropical Laplacian of a tropical surface and used it to disprove a generalized Hodge conjecture. We study four families of tropical surfaces arising from the root polytopes of types A ,B ,C and D. We compute the spectra of their tropical Laplacians for type A, and describe them conjecturally for types B, C and D. Our results confirm that these tropical Laplacians have exactly one negative eigenvalue, as anticipated by Babaee and Huh. Moreover, we give an explicit eigenbasis for the tropical Laplacian of An- i , proving its diagonalizability.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Mathematics
29. Cartographies
- Creator:
- Boyle, Kathleen Therese
- Description:
- This is a creative text of poems exploring place, memory, and identity.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Creative Writing
- Creator:
- Tatman, Jaime Lynn
- Description:
- This case study applies geographical frame analysis to the Bolinas Lagoon restoration planning process. Two conflicting frames of restoration are identified based on interviews with government and non-governmental organization stakeholders, and the extent of consensus for restoration among study participants is evaluated. According to the narrative of frame one, sediment accretion is degrading the ecological value of Bolinas Lagoon and large scale sediment dredging is conceptualized as a restoration solution that will re-establish subtidal habitat conditions at the lagoon. In contrast, within frame two Bolinas Lagoon is conceptualized as a healthy estuary that can be made healthier through non-invasive and primarily land-use based restoration measures including watershed restoration. In contrast to frame one, frame two portrays sediment dredging as ecologically detrimental and non-sustainable. Frame analysis was also used to explore the types of information and knowledge participants privileged in their descriptions of Bolinas Lagoon restoration to understand how the conflicting frames developed. Participants supported restoration frames with local, science, and policy knowledge as well as an environmental framework. Dengler’s heuristic of “knowledge spaces” in collaborative planning is identified as a potential model to resolve conflict in this restoration planning process. This case study contributes to understandings of how geographical frame analysis can be used to clearly define points of conflict among stakeholders engaged in contentious environmental planning, with the goal of facilitating conflict resolution.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Geography & Environment
- Creator:
- Hunter, Austin Taylor
- Description:
- In this paper, I argue for an account of personal identity that I find in David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature. I argue that this unity of self is a feeling of reason and that this feeling is produced by a demand for explanation found in experience. I argue that a conception of personal identity is assumed by the aims of Hume’s Science of Human Nature, and makes possible the fiction-debunking enterprise of that science.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Philosophy
- Creator:
- Yee, Susan Elaine
- Description:
- The study explores the effects of a school-based mental and behavioral health program on the truancy rates of students at a large, comprehensive high school in Oakland, California. The study, guided by socio-ecological and systems theories, compares the number of face-to-face encounters students receive from mental or behavioral health providers to students’ attendance patterns over the course of one school year. Review of the literature shows that truancy is reaching epidemic proportions in the United States; this is especially problematic as truancy has been found to be closely connected to other delinquent behaviors and negative outcomes in life. The results of the study were consistent with previous research on the impact of mental health services on truancy. The findings show the positive effect of face-to-face encounters with mental and behavioral health providers on students’ attendance. This study lays the groundwork for further study of the impact of school and community program partnerships on student academic performance.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Social Work
- Creator:
- Craik, Isabel Sierra
- Description:
- This case study described the process used to teach narrative development to a 22-year old adult who benefits from AAC using the model of a community Storytelling Club that incorporated peer-confederates. Methodology for testing the psychosocial implications of the group were measured using pre-test post-test surveys. Methodology for intervention included the implementation of narrative support materials including a self-graphing checklist and story template. Results were analyzed using statistical analysis of a two sample t-test to determine if a change occurred with 1) the confidence of individuals with their storytelling 2) the complexity of their narratives. Results of the analysis determined that no significant change occurred with intervention however, clinical implications will be discussed.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Communication Studies
- Creator:
- Buchbinder, Margot Valerie
- Description:
- With the predicted acceleration of sea level rise in the mid-21st century, salt marsh restoration efforts are faced with the challenge of building and maintaining sufficient sediment to elevations that support vegetation. The highly subsided Sears Point restoration site uses a novel technique involving the construction of earthen mounds to support sediment accretion; however, the mounds are rapidly eroding. I planted mounds using native Spartina foliosa, and I hypothesized that S. foliosa would stabilize sediments and lead to sediment accretion, while changes to soil due to S. foliosa presence would foster development of soil invertebrate communities. Results show that S. foliosa is able to stabilize sediments and reduce erosion compared to controls over time, with the highest-density plantings providing the most protection. Further, significant increases in macro-organic matter and trends in some invertebrate measures suggest active revegetation will facilitate marsh community development.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Biology
- Creator:
- Rodriguez Bandala, Laura Alejandra
- Description:
- This thesis examines how art non-profits process loaned objects for temporary and traveling exhibitions in the context of special or toxic materials. Safety guidelines, emergency planning, and proper registration procedures for exhibitions in both museums and art non-profits are examined through a literature review and a survey of content experts. The survey results indicate that a lack of implementation of safety guidelines and procedures exist in art non-profits, and that training to ensure staff safety is limited. It is concluded that art non-profits need to learn more about how to integrate museum safety practices and procedures into their practices; should make use of Safety Data Sheets (SDS); and must provide better training to ensure the protection of the health of staff involved in processing, unpacking, and installing exhibitions. Finally, recommendations on improving art non-profits’ safety protocols and awareness of occupational health are presented.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Art
- Creator:
- Peters, Phillip E.
- Description:
- Previous literature has shown that parents of children with autism experience more stress compared to parents of children without autism, but little is known about factors that reduce such stress. Based on Baker-Erikzen et al. (2005) explanations of stress, the present study investigated associations between parental stress, advocacy skills, self-efficacy, social support, and service utilization in a sample of 38 mothers and 8 fathers who had a child with autism (Mean Age = 7.17, SD = 3.7). First, social support and selfefficacy were hypothesized to additively explain levels of stress. Additionally, service utilization was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between advocacy skills and stress. Results indicated that more parental stress was associated with fewer advocacy skills, less social support, lower self-efficacy, and lower service utilization. Unexpectedly, service utilization did not mediate the effect between advocacy skill and stress, and social support did not significantly add to a reduction of stress after self- efficacy was explained. In a hierarchical linear regression self-efficacy, advocacy, and service use each uniquely predicted parental stress. Implications illustrated additional support focusing on developing advocacy skills and accessing social support is needed.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Tumanyan, Gurgen
- Description:
- Detection of functional sites of proteins is an important problem in computational biology and has wide implications in computational drug discovery. FEATURE by Stanford Helix Group is a system for predicting protein function based on a set of physiochemical properties of functional microenvironments and using Naive Bayesian classification for recognition of functional sites. In this work we explore the application of a novel classification method for FEATURE system with the goal of increasing its prediction accuracy. We address the challenge of learning in small sample size, highly imbalanced and high dimensional setting. We employ Support Vector Maehine(SVM) classification algorithm, which is known to be tolerant of high-dimensional low sample size problems. We analyze the performance of the Support Vector Machine learning algorithm and compare it with Nave Bayesian algorithm currently used in FEATURE using identical accuracy measures, data, and experiment methodology. We establish that Support Vector Machine classification is advantageous for prediction of functional sites for the functional families examined. We show that SVM approach is capable of identifying functional sites that both Naive Bayesian classification and sequence based methods misclassify. We also demonstrate that for Naive Bayesian classification neither homology filtering, nor the selection of the prior have effect on classification accuracy. The improved classification mechanisms allow higher confidence in pre-screening of functional microenvironment candidates. Improved software will be made available to the public and benefit the broader research community. The work is done in collaboration with Stanford HELIX group.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Computer Science
- Creator:
- Niles, John Hart
- Description:
- The Noble Hills Formation (NHF) is a ~500 m conformable sequence of generally coarsening-upwards ≥3.34 Ma basin deposits that is extensively exposed the Noble Hills, southern Death Valley, California. The NHF contains sediments derived from both the Owlshead Mountains to the north and Avawatz Mountains to the south. Strata of the NHF display intensive, post-3.34 Ma, northeast-vergent contractional deformation that has previously been interpreted as secondary to contractional deformation along the southern Death Valley fault zone (SDVFZ). Structural and strati graphic relations and provenance considerations bring into question previous interpretations of large-magnitude, rightlateral offset on the SDVFZ in the Noble Hills. Northeast-vergent contractional deformation in the Noble Hills and greater southern Death Valley is viewed as being driven by clockwise rotation of the northeast Mojave domain about an axis in the Avawatz Mountains, resulting in northeast-directed block movements north of the Garlock fault.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Earth & Climate Sciences
- Creator:
- Botti, Mark Aldo
- Description:
- Raymond Carver’s short fiction contains fascinating parallels to his life. Carver’s childhood was inexorably shaped by the actions of his parents, especially his father, and these actions continued to influence him in adulthood, as he repeated many of the decisions of his father while experiencing the firsthand challenges and difficulties of fatherhood. This thesis explores how Carver’s fiction was dramatically shaped by these experiences and claims that Carver’s writing acted as a sort of catharsis, allowing him to come to terms with confusing feelings of hopelessness, disillusion, and powerlessness.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- English Language and Literature
- Creator:
- Torres, Alyssa Marie
- Description:
- Museum archives include administrative documents, staff files, and other valuable legacy data that considered together, supply an institutional history for staff, scholars, and the public. In this thesis, the current state of museum archives management in the United States is assessed, as the topic is widely unexamined and well-managed archives are critical to successful museum operations. After a literature review is conducted that explores archival management, best practices, policies, and outlines the important role museum archives play in institutions, the survey results presented highlight how museums accredited by the American Alliance of Museums manage their archives. A discussion of the survey results follows, offering several conclusions and recommendations concerning the future development of museum archives. It is concluded that while museums need to develop professional guidelines, that many collections staff work to manage archives, and that few museum-wide archives policies exist, museums are doing their best to ensure proper archives management.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Art
- Creator:
- Raghuwanshi, Prashis
- Description:
- Developing hardware to mimic neural networks in the brain is becoming more realizable as technology advances and improves. In this research, a model of neural networks for visual edge detection is analyzed. The various challenges in verifying the models of a neuron and a complex cell are taken into consideration. The research presents a verification model for the neuron and complex cell hardware using Verilog as well as System Verilog
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Engineering
- Creator:
- Ballard, Jack
- Description:
- Creekside High School is a high-performing public high school where students who are not White or Asian face a racialized school environment. This dissertation examines the school’s initiative to detrack its ninth grade Algebra class. Detracking is the process of placing students in heterogeneous classes instead of grouping students by ability. The framework of design-based research was adopted to perform this study. Design-based research places the researcher and practitioners in collaboration working to iteratively design interventions. Chapter Two is a qualitative study that examined the perceptions of tracking shared by teachers and the community. This study found that the community holds many misperceptions about detracking due to lack of communication from the school and the district However, the study also found a small group who want to build more equitable solutions. Chapter Three is a quantitative study of student outcomes. There was a slight drop in student grades between the tracked course and the detracked course with no drop in exam scores. Furthermore, students in the detracked course were more successful in their subsequent Geometry courses. Chapter 4 is qualitative study of pedagogy and teacher perceptions. Pedagogy changed during the detracking process. The tracked course was very teacher-centered, and the rigor was not universal due to there being two levels of Algebra. During the first year of the detracked course, the course became much more student-centered, and the average level of rigor increased. However, for advanced students, rigor and challenge were missing, and this was an area of focus for the second year. Teacher perceptions also changed throughout the process. The teachers on the team have grown into viewing Mathematics as an interconnected, non-linear system of thought and have moved beyond questioning detracking to developing solutions. Chapter Five is a qualitative study synthesizing all of the data collected in Chapters Two through Four. These data were used to propose a leadership framework called Critical Design-Based School Leadership. Critical refers to the use of a critical lens focused on equity and Design-Based refers to the use of design-based research techniques as the mechanism for school leadership.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Zevgolis, Alysia Nicole
- Description:
- The low ionic conductivity across solid-solid interfaces and through the solid electrolyte is a limiting factor for commercial implementation of all solid state batteries. Through the understanding of Li+ ion diffusion by using first-principles molecular dynamics, significant insights in developing new battery materials can be achieved. Previous research has determined the mechanism for the lithium ion diffusion pathway through Li3lnBr6 and noted its non-Arrhenius behavior at high temperatures.18 The results presented in this thesis expand on those previous findings by simulating diffusion in Li3lnBr6-xClx at temperatures between 700-900 K. It was determined that the substitution of Cl anions for Br anions changes the character of bonds, especially polar-covalent bonding interactions. The Li-Br/Cl bonds are not ideal in the octahedral site, especially in LisInBrsCb. These frustrated bonds could lead to an increased jump attempt frequency. This increased jump attempt frequency in Li3lnBr3Cb could be the cause for such high diffusivity despite LisInBrsCh’s high activation energy barrier.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Chemistry and Biochemistry
44. Evidence for an emotion maintenance deficit in schizophrenia : implications for motivated behaviors
- Creator:
- Cooper, Shanna
- Description:
- A common symptom in schizophrenia is amotivation, which has been linked to lower quality of life and deficits in cognitive functioning. Currently, however, the underlying mechanisms of amotivation are not well understood. The present study investigates emotion maintenance, or the ability to maintain information from an emotional experience, as one potential mechanism of amotivation. Twenty-eight patients with schizophrenia and 19 healthy comparison subjects participated, as part of a larger ongoing study, in a laboratory-based computer task judging intensity of emotionally evocative stimuli after a delay. Following this emotion maintenance task, participants rated the emotional experience of each previously viewed stimulus individually. All participants completed analogous tasks judging brightness of neutral stimuli. Patients with schizophrenia also completed an additional visual working memory task and a series of clinical interviews. Findings indicate that, relative to healthy controls, schizophrenia patients have difficulty maintaining an emotional experience when explicitly instructed to do so, even when controlling for visual working memory. Maintaining an affective state is likely an integral part of goal-directed behavior, and deficits in this area may be a future target for treatment.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Psychology
- Creator:
- Rozakeas, Stratis
- Description:
- Recent research has shown the benefits of horticultural therapy with hospital patients by enhancing their well-being and improving recovery. The purpose of this present study was to expand on this past research in hospital settings, and to explore whether a brief horticultural therapy intervention yielded any improvements in a patient’s well-being and experience with food. Twenty hospital inpatients voluntarily participated in a two-session therapeutic rooftop garden program. Participants completed a pre and post-test survey and personal interview. Post-intervention results indicated statistically significant improvements in patient well-being and satisfaction of food. The significance of this study shows potential benefits of horticultural therapy improving patient quality of care by enhancing recovery, improving clinical outomes, and cost savings for hospitals. With major health care reform and changes currently occurring, horticultural therapy can be an inexpensive, non-invasive and effective augmented modality in a traditional hospital setting.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Family, Interiors, Nutrition & Apparel
- Creator:
- Herrmann, Andrew John
- Description:
- In the 1960s, Eugene Ehrhart developed Ehrhart theory to enumerate lattice points in convex polytopes. An important tool in Ehrhart theory is the Ehrhart quasipolynomial, which encodes information about continuous and discrete area, lattice boundary points, and lattice interior points. Here, we will give an introduction to Ehrhart theory and outline some of the methods used to characterize polytopes based on their corresponding Ehrhart quasi-polynomials. We will discuss work done recently, and then expand on this work to classify all half-integral polygons by the coefficients of their corresponding Ehrhart quasi-polynomials.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Mathematics
- Creator:
- Rubin, Jennifer Donna
- Description:
- Creating and disseminating online content is an integral means of managing one’s identity, lifestyle and relationships. Exploring virtual participation becomes especially vital when considering the importance of online participation for adolescent queer women of color. This cohort often encounters harassment from peers, family members and teachers, ultimately compelling them to seek virtual means of forming friendships and community. The current study explores the negotiation of sexuality and race within online spaces for queer women of color ages 16-19. The author employs a mixed methods approach that incorporates both a survey (n=60) and interviews (n=8). Findings reveal that online engagement may be an effective instrument for social equity, but this is dependent upon levels of outness, adult surveillance, and the minimization of the offline/online divide through social networking. Understanding how young queer women of color agentically negotiate identity provides further insight into the complex interactions between online spaces and offline environments.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Human Sexuality Studies
- Creator:
- Weese, Bettina Susanne
- Description:
- This thesis analyzes East and West Berlin society before and shortly after the Wende, the social changes that occurred after the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification. This is best depicted in the stories The Wall Jumper. The Lives of Others and Good Bye Lenin!. These stories about German society illustrate the attitudes of East and West Berliners in their respective societies by showing good and bad aspects of democracy and socialism.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Humanities
- Creator:
- Mak, Shui Lam
- Description:
- Comparative quantification is now almost a routine method for analyzing quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) data. This method employs reference transcripts to minimize sample variability, but there is little experimental evidence to support that all transcripts behave identically within the same system. Reference transcripts could introduce experimental bias if there is any difference in reference and target transcripts degradation rates or RT efficiency. Since endogenous reference transcripts have a great influence on comparative qPCR studies, the overall aim of this study was to examine the sensitivity of eleven endogenous reference transcripts to RNA degradation. The experimental results demonstrate that heating RNA at 37°C, 70°C and 90°C decreased RNA integrity resulting in a first order RNA degradation process, in which degradation rates stratified into two groups with different half-lives (short versus long). The implications of the disparity in transcript half-life are apparent when using an endogenous reference transcript to control for RNA integrity. The results suggest when both the reference and target transcripts have similar half-lives, the original transcript distribution can be maintained even when RNA integrity is comprised, but cannot be maintained when both these transcripts have significantly different half-lives. The halflives of transcripts seem to correlate with GC content and number of exons per transcript. In conclusion, these studies suggest that reference transcripts should be selected so that they have similar half-lives to the target transcript to control for variability in RNA integrity.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Chemistry and Biochemistry
- Creator:
- Brown, Lauren Guza
- Description:
- This creative work is a novel depicting life in a California desert town and the ways in which the town’s residents are affected by the implementation of a controversial city planning strategy, known as “naked streets.” The concept behind this strategy is a seemingly counterintuitive one: the traffic signs we put up to give drivers rules and guidance may actually be making our streets less safe than they would be without any signs at all. The novel imagines the first town in America to remove its traffic signs and explores the impact this decision has on the townspeople. Furthermore, using the signless streets as a metaphor, my work examines human relationships to order and chaos, society and solitude, and design and improvisation.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Francisco
- Department:
- Creative Writing