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Collection Description
Collection of student theses and dissertations from as early as 1939, but mainly from 2010 to present.
Pages
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- A chicken in the city: A documentary film
- In the last 50 years American food production has become increasingly industrialized, often leaving the average American consumer wondering what they are really consuming. Crops covered with petroleum based fertilizer, animals pumped full of antibiotics, and labels containing unrecognizable ingredients only serve to confuse the American eater. The task of the grocery store shopper has become exhausting. Additionally, the current American food system relies on finite fossil fuel resources and may be ill equipped to handle eventual population growth or political instability abroad. This Project and the film, A Chicken in the City, explore the urban farming movement in three regions of the United States. It is a collection of personal stories across the country of people who have looked to urban farming for personal satisfaction, community development, and a response to growing insecurities about their food., San Diego State University
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- A classification and study of intersective polynomials
- Intersective polynomials, that is, polynomials in Z[x] with an integer root in any modulus, have many applications in Galois Theory. Some examples of intersective polynomials include any polynomial in Z[x] with an integer root. Some more complicated examples exist, such as the polynomial (x_ -- 19)(x_ + x + 1). In this paper, we explore the inner workings of intersective polynomials, using only elementary number theory. We show how to create intersective polynomials by multiplying non-intersective polynomials with certain properties. We also discuss intersective polynomials as a semigroup and factorization properties
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- A co-constructivist small group curriculum approach to working with at-risk dual language learner preschoolers
- Recent studies have found that a school readiness gap between at-risk dual language learners (DLL's) and Caucasian English-only children occurs prior to kindergarten; therefore, providing the necessary support for these children during the preschool years is imperative. Unfortunately, the needs of these children are seldom addressed in preschool programs for a variety of reasons, including the lack of education and training for preschool administrators and teacher on how best to meet the needs of DLLs and the limited research on the most effective approaches and strategies for working with DLL's. Many State and Federal preschool programs use a prescriptive teacher-directed curriculum; however, this approach fails to take into account the children's unique cultural backgrounds, experiences, interests, language, and developmental levels. Working under the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy, this exploratory mixed methods study followed the journey of one preschool director who worked to address this issue at her preschool by implementing a co-constructivist curriculum approach with a concentration on small group activities using the California Preschool Learning Foundations to build on the children's interests and developmental levels. This study assessed the effectiveness of this approach through pre- and post- kinder readiness assessments as well as through data compiled from the kindergarten entry assessments.
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- A collection of short stories: Two roads
- Two Roads is a collection of school tales that has been taken from my own personal experience in teaching high school students in a school composed of primarily minority students--Negro, Mexican-American, Samoan, Filipino, Japanese-American, Chinese, and Indian. The characters are basically composites of those who I taught and, in general, present types characterized by the particular problems they must resolve. The main purpose of Two Roads is to provide reading material with familiar settings and problems for low-ability readers who live in the inner city and know the problems of that living. Sentences are limited in length and complexity, and the vocabulary is regulated to facilitate reading for these students. The stories are intended to provide discussion material in Personal Values, a topic that is of urgent concern if there is a desire to bring two cultures--the Culture of Affluence and the Culture of Poverty--into some accord. Each story will provide a common experience for the members of the class so that there may be some single springboard for class discussion centering around decision-making in accordance with one's values. Each story deals with some problem that a student of the Poverty Culture might face. Vincent Minelli must decide whether to join his father's tuna fleet or continue his education. Danny must determine his future life with a foster family. Shiori must resolve for herself the conflicts between her Japanese and American backgrounds. Kally must decide whether to face public censure in the face of her dating a white boy, one not of her own kind. Archangel must adjust to an alien environment and language or return to the Philippines. Lou Anne and Betty struggle with parental supervision. William must decide whether to respect the teacher or salvage his own ego. Tom and Jim wrestle with their convictions against giving information to the police. Each story ends at the point of decision, and each decision is one that might decide the whole course of a character's life or the whole direction of his personal development. It is intended that there will be enough clues in the development of the characters that students will be able to determine what choice he will make. But if they are unable to do this, the two options, at least, will be clear, and the story itself will present the means for discussing which of the "two roads'' would be, in the long run, the most rewarding. It is expected that the "one less traveled by" would be encouraged, and that the students would be able in the end to have formed some acceptance, no matter how small, of that "less traveled," less accepted road., San Diego State College, Digitization of this archival thesis was made possible through a generous donation from Robin B. Luby.
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- A combinatorial system for Turing machines
- In essence, this thesis presents a system closely related to the concept of Turing machines, wherein the output of a Turing machine, or a portion of the output of a Turing machine, is compactly represented as a production. This thesis develops the concept of treating particular occurrences of words produced by Turing machines as components of production. These productions are treated as elements of combinatorial systems. The recursive unsolvability of the word problems for such systems is established. Certain relations between such systems and the set of real numbers are noted, but not extensively investigated. It is shown that such systems form cancellation semi-groups, and provide an example of a cancellation semi-group not entirely composed of words for which the word problem is recursively unsolvable. Some suggestions for further work are mentioned at the end of the thesis., San Diego State College, Digitization of this archival thesis was made possible through a generous donation from Robin B. Luby.
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- A community needs assessment for outdoor access among San Diego youth in under-parked communities south of the interstate
- Spending time outdoors benefits youth in several ways. Outdoor access provides youth with opportunities to be physically active, to relax and destress, and to spend quality time with friends and family. Being physically active promotes healthy weight, cardiovascular health, reduces stress and anxiety, and promotes quality sleep and improves memory. Although San Diego has vast green and blue spaces throughout the county, not all residents have equitable access to the outdoors, particularly communities South of the Interstate 8 which have fewer park acreage, higher rates of overweight youth, and greater rates of poverty. In the literature, there is a lack of research conducted in under-parked communities to assess barriers to outdoor access, and particularly a lack of research overall that includes youth participants. The thesis aims to investigate; a) How do youth get outside, where do they go, who do they go with? b) What barriers do San Diego youth experience when accessing outdoor spaces? c) What recommendations emerge from the needs assessment data that can inform interventions to promote outdoor access for youth? The needs assessment design implemented multiple data collection methods, including a survey, focus groups, and a photovoice project. The population of interest for this consisted of San Diego youth ages 11-18, residing South of Interstate 8. Youth were recruited to participate from snowball sampling and recruitment from Outdoor Outreach and Barrio Logan College Institute. Prominent themes that emerged from the qualitative and qualitative data sources in terms of outdoor use are, visiting outdoor spaces with family, and visiting spaces to relax, socialize, and exercise. Themes from the qualitative data relating to barriers for outdoor access are, transportation barriers, safety barriers, sanitation and maintenance concerns, freeway overpass concerns, concerns about racism and inclusion, and Covid-19 barriers. Recommendations emerged from the needs assessment for future polices and interventions to improve communities by promoting affordable and efficient public transportation, safe and well-lit parks, and parks that are sanitary and clean of litter. Furthermore, land managers and civic leaders must promote inclusivity and opportunities for youth involvement in policy change., San Diego State University
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- A commutative algebraic approach to Hamiltonians and graphs
- Includes bibliographical references (page 55)., The primary focus of this thesis is to study when a graph is Hamiltonian or not. Our goal is to understand maximally non-Hamiltonian graphs. These are graphs with as many edges as possible, while still not containing a Hamiltonian cycle. A maximally non-Hamiltonian graph is a graph such that the addition of one more edge will make the graph become a Hamiltonian graph. This thesis derives some mathematical results so that we can understand Hamiltonian graphs. Once we have gained a better understanding of these objects, we create some code to try and help us efficiently find all maximally non-Hamiltonian graphs for any given number of vertices. We proceed by first characterizing all possible simple graphs on n unlabelled vertices through degree sequences. Afterwards, we employ a commutative algebraic criterion for when a graph contains a Hamiltonian cycle, first studied by Deloera et al., so that we may eliminate these graphs from our search. Once all the Hamiltonian graphs have been removed, we create a poset, ordered by subgraph containment, so we may look at the maximal elements in this poset. Finally, once we have generated our maximally non-Hamiltonian graphs, we examine their structure and some well known results.
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- A comparative analysis of five songs from 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours and 21st Century Breakdown by Green Day
- Originating in Northern California's underground punk scene more than two decades ago, Green Day became one of the first punk bands whose music effectively entered into the mainstream culture. Although Green Day's biography has been documented in several books and the field of music analysis has expanded to include popular music, there has not yet been a detailed study of Green Day's music. The purpose of this study is to critically analyze five songs from Green Day's first album, 1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours (1991) and five songs from their most recent album, 21st Century Breakdown (2009) to determine how the musical style of Green Day has changed over an eighteen year period. The study implements an adaptation of Jan LaRue's Guidelines to Stylistic Analysis, which examines sound, harmony, melody, rhythm, growth, and text. By comparing the analysis of the two albums, the study concludes that the musical style of Green Day's latest album became less confined to the historical notion of punk music.
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- A comparative analysis of interpolation techniques for estimating transmissivities in San Antonio Creek Valley, Santa Barbara County, California
- Defining the spatial distribution of hydrologic data is an important aspect in many water-resources investigations. Estimating values of a particular parameter in areas where no known data exist may be accomplished by employing an interpolation technique. Several techniques are available, each producing results of varying degrees of accuracy. Six interpolation techniques were compared in this study for estimating the transmissivity distribution for San Antonio Creek valley in Santa Barbara County, California. The interpolation techniques considered in this study were nearest neighbor, inverse distance squared weighting, least squares, Laplace, Laplace plus splines and kriging. The basis of comparison was a transmissivity distribution produced by a calibrated two-dimensional steady-state ground-water flow model. A hypothetical fault was introduced to determine the accuracy of each method when a discontinuity exists. Methods of analysis included verification of ten known values suppressed and subsequently estimated by each technique and whole-dataset analysis. The verification procedure included an error analysis, use of scatterplots and simple regression. Scatterplots and simple regression were also used in the whole-dataset analysis, as well as a qualitative analysis consisting of comparisons of transmissivity distribution, contours of the difference between real and estimated transmissivities and contoured water-level elevations generated by using each estimated and the real transmissivity distribution in the model. The error analysis for the verification data indicated that Laplace plus splines had the best overall average error, 67 percent. Kriging interpolation produced the most estimates with errors less than ten percent, an arbitrary criterion of acceptability. However, other kriged values had errors much higher than those of Laplace plus splines. Scatterplots showed that least squares produced the best fit about the real equals estimated line with Laplace plus splines also producing a good fit. Nearest neighbor interpolation produced the worst plot, with much scatter about the real equals estimated line. Simple regression analysis indicated the Laplace plus splines had the highest correlation coefficient and coefficient of determination and lowest sum of squared deviations and standard deviation about the regression line. Least squares interpolation produced results similar to those of Laplace plus splines. Nearest neighbor produced the worst results. Scatterplots for whole datasets for both the with- and without-fault data showed that Laplace plus splines provided the best fit about the real equals estimated line. Laplace interpolation also produced a good fit. In this case, however, least squares produced the worst fit, with many outliers. In general, simple regression for whole datasets supported the scatterplot analysis. For the without-fault case, Laplace plus splines produced the highest correlation coefficient and coefficient of determination and lowest sum of squared deviations and standard deviation about the regression line. Laplace interpolation, however, produced slightly better values for the with-fault case. Least squares provided the worst results. The qualitative analysis provided similar results. Laplace plus splines and Laplace interpolation techniques produced the most accurate results in estimating transmissivity values in the San Antonio Creek valley. Kriging, inverse distance squared weighting and nearest neighbor can produce satisfactory results when data are abundant and uniform. Least squares interpolation has a tendency to produce values that increase without limit near the basin boundary., San Diego State University