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A Drop in the Ocean: A Critical Look at Belonging and Community in Carceral Setting
Get PDFIn this commentary, we explore the opportunities and challenges of community building within our own higher education in prison program. Since 2015, the program fostered a community grounded in feminist pedagogy, emphasizing interconnectedness and decentralization of power. However, our 2024 evaluation revealed that new students often feel excluded and marginalized, highlighting the aspirational nature of the community. With this in mind, we examine how incarcerated individuals become members of a learning community and the unique struggles they face. We also discuss the importance of creating classroom communities that support students\u27 sense of belonging, particularly in carceral settings, while also reflecting on the emotional labor involved in creating inclusive community and fostering integratio
Practical Integration of Reality Capture in Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) Workflows: Cost and Application Considerations
Get PDFThis paper explores the practical integration of Reality Capture (RC) technologies, specifically LiDAR and photogrammetry, within Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) workflows. As interest in RC grows, costs decrease, and industry applications expand, this paper aims to clarify the current landscape of research, industry practices, hardware, and software. It provides managers, RC technology enthusiasts, and AECO professionals considering its implementation with essential insights into cost considerations, expectations, and limitations. The paper details common research and industry applications, including as-built documentation, surface analysis, and deflection monitoring, and cross-references cost data and project requirements to provide informed recommendations and considerations for practical implementation. It also discusses the potential future RC advances and uses, touching on the emerging role of machine learning in automating point cloud processing applications. Ultimately, this work offers a feasibility framework to guide informed decision-making for adopting/expanding RC technology in a cost-effective manner
Factors and Their Contribution to the Varying Levels of User Engagement Across Different Social Media Platforms
Get PDFThink back to this morning. Do you recall scrolling on your phone switching between different social media platforms? Do you remember what exactly you watched? Could you list a few of those Instagram reels or what you saw on your for you page. Probably not? And that is because the average person is unable to recall that information. Today is May 29, 2025 and everyone has social media and uses it to some extent. How does one divide their time between each app? This paper will go into detail to answer the question, “ What factors contribute to the varying levels of user engagement across different social media platforms?.
Smart Choices, Strong Voices: Empowering the Next Generation
Get PDFSmart Choices, Strong Voices (SCSV) is a financial and voter education pamphlet for students that is easy to understand and unbiased and helps to create a more financially and politically literate generation. The expectation for young adults in today\u27s current world is for us to be able to make well-informed decisions about finances and politics. However, when we are constantly bombarded by misinformation and lack easy access to reliable, accessible education in these topics, these expectations become unreasonable. Exposure to this misinformation affects how we show up for ourselves and our democracy. As our world becomes more and more politically polarized, the education surrounding financial literacy becomes harder and harder to obtain. SCSV helps to educate students on the importance of voting and finances in today\u27s world. Regardless of your socioeconomic background or political views, getting real information is paramount to making educated decisions, and I believe that giving students resources and tips in an easy-to-understand way is something that is critical to our success
Digitalizing Organization: Creating a Digital and Customizable Bullet Journal
Get PDFThis project presents a digital, customizable bullet journal designed to improve organization, creativity, and accessibility. Using a user-centered design approach and principles of design thinking, the planner addresses common barriers to traditional journaling, such as time-consuming setup and lack of flexibility. Based on survey feedback, the final product includes a 2026 calendar, habit trackers, budgeting tools, and customizable weekly spreads in a print-friendly PDF format. The project highlights how digital tools can enhance personal productivity and well-being, with broader applications in UX/UI design and digital wellness solutions
Optimizing Web Servers with io_uring
Get PDFModern web servers face unprecedented demands for high throughput and low latency [10] [11]. Yet, even the state-of-the-art optimizations often fail under heavy workloads on existing infrastructure. Despite advancements in hardware, communication between applications and the kernel remains a critical bottleneck.
Industry surveys reveal that over 50% of production servers still rely on traditional epoll-based architectures [5]. This research aims to investigate and characterize Linux’s new io_uring subsystem, which has the potential to overcome these challenges. Through controlled load testing of various existing architectures like event-driven, multi-process, and multi-threaded architectures (including other commercial servers), we demonstrate how io_uring can help achieve better benchmarks both with and without cached data. Our methodology employs controlled load testing while maintaining constant network bandwidth as the primary bottleneck, with detailed measurement of key system metrics including syscalls, memory usage, disk I/O performance, and CPU utilization patterns.
This work provides empirical guidance for migrating performance-critical services to io_uring, while also outlining remaining challenges for future work
Single-Sideband Pulse Width Modulation for Parametric Acoustic Arrays
No full textParametric acoustic arrays are directional loudspeakers that operate using ultrasonic carriers to project sound within a narrow beam. Input audio is first modulated onto an ultrasonic carrier and transmitted through air, where it self-demodulates into audible frequencies in the far field.
This thesis introduces a method for preprocessing audio into scaled quadrature signals using a passive analog polyphase filter. These signals are modulated using microcontroller-generated waveforms to create quadrature ultrasonic pulse-width modulation (PWM) signals. The modulated outputs are combined through a wired-OR summer, producing single-sideband ultrasonic content at the desired frequency of 40 kHz. This signal is amplified through high-efficiency switching amplifiers and transmitted via an array of 5x6 ultrasonic transducers (5cm x 6cm). Upon propagation through air, the acoustic signal self-demodulates into highly directional audible sound.
Experimental results demonstrated audible and focused audio within a beamwidth of less than 40°, with effective transmission of at least 4 meters. These results confirm the viability of the proposed modulation pipeline for compact, directional sound projection using parametric arrays
Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing for the PolySim ADCS Lab
Get PDFHardware-in-the-loop, HIL, testing is an important tool for the validation and verification of systems in the aerospace industry. A common subsystem to be tested using HIL testing is the attitude, dynamics, and controls subsystem, ADCS. This is due to HIL tests using realistic simulations of the space environment to control physical hardware. To create a HIL test, a simulation and HIL interface are needed to test and communicate with hardware. Using a Speedgoat Performance Real-Time Target Machine to communicate with a Raspberry Pi and a Simulink model, three tests were conducted to ensure communication was functioning properly. A simulation, in Simulink, was developed to simulate the ADCS of a satellite in low Earth orbit, LEO, experiencing four disturbance torques. This simulation was used to verify the results of a HIL test that simulated the four disturbance forces and used a Raspberry Pi to calculate the dynamics of a satellite in real-time. The three tests demonstrated that communication between the Simulink model, Speedgoat, and Raspberry Pi was functioning. But due to the precision of the data being sent, there were differences in the HIL tests and the pure simulations. The percent error between the tests and simulations grew over time, suggesting the difference in precision caused the disparity in the results, despite identical equations being used in both
When Trees Disappear: Understory Successional Implications of Sudden Oak Death and High-Severity Wildfire in Big Sur, California
Get PDFThe rapidly emerging disease sudden oak death, caused by the non-native pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, is transforming coastal California forests by driving extensive mortality of tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) and increasing fire severity. As a novel disturbance, sudden oak death and its interaction with wildfire may catalyze unexpected shifts in successional trajectories and reconfigure forest understory communities. Furthermore, how tanoak influences the forest understory and how its decline might reshape understory dynamics remain poorly understood. We hypothesize that disease alone and the compounding disturbances of disease and wildfire alter successional dynamics, and that the potential functional extinction of N. densiflorus will promote increased understory density. Leveraging 17 years of plot-level vegetation surveys that span three landscape-scale wildfires in the highly diverse and disease-impacted Big Sur region, we modeled the effects of disease and fire severity on understory diversity and structural composition over time. We found that shrubs gain a successional advantage when high-severity wildfire occurs in stands already affected by disease, indicating a synergistic interaction between disturbances. We also confirmed and extended previous findings that tanoak canopies suppress understory growth, suggesting that a decline in tanoak may favor a denser understory, further shifting fuels structure and likely wildfire dynamics. To mitigate these cascading effects, we recommend integrating disease dynamics into outplanting decision-support tools, expanding the application of landscape-scale prescribed fire, and continuing targeted pathogen management
LIDSS Raft Battery Pack Integration
Get PDFLawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a critical member of the United States Department of Defense. Their Independent Diagnostics Scoring System (LIDSS) uses rafts that operate in the ocean to collect missile test data. Several times a year, the United States will test their Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles by launching them into the ocean near the Marshall Islands. This is where the LIDSS rafts collect their test data. Our project was centered around re-designing the battery pack used by the rafts. The current battery pack design experiences water ingress problems and is difficult to access. Our re-designed battery pack is waterproof to IP67 standards, easy to access, and provides sufficient structural support for both the batteries and the raft as a whole