A great variety of topologically protected defects exist in ordinary and exotic states of matter. Some of them are promising candidates for technological applications such as magnetic memory or quantum computers. Others possess some properties of elementary particles that could lead to potential applications in quantum fields. Nematic liquid crystals...
In 1877 John Kerr described an experiment that demonstrated a quadratic change in refractive index in a plate glass placed in a strong external electric field. This results in a nonlinear relationship between the average electric polarization within the materials and the intensity of the applied electric field. This opened...
Washington State fisheries and Washington State Treaty Tribes are becoming increasingly restricted in harvest of wild salmon due to US Endangered Species Act listings of salmon species, marine mammal predation by both ESA listed Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) and US Marine Mammal Protection Act protected pinnipeds, salmon habitat destruction,...
The Jetson Artificial Intelligence Tool chain (JAI-TC) is a set of packages, APIs and libraries for Artificial Intelligence applications to be deployed on the NVidia SOC, Jetson TX2. JAI-TC automates the installation of these items allowing for a wider set of users to leverage these technologies. Prior to this, the...
This paper analyzes macroeconomic variables to determine their effect on the United States’ trade balance. Data on GDP, exchange rates, money supply and the trade balance are adjusted for inflations to get inflation-adjusted variables. This will lead to a regression with the goal of determining which factors explain the variability...
With growing populations and consumer demand, there has been a turn to the deep sea to meet our natural resource needs. The deep sea provides a range of benefits to humans—called ecosystem services—including carbon sequestration, fisheries, waste absorption and detoxification, and nutrient cycling, all of which are vital to life...
Emerging applications for robotic data collection include ocean monitoring, emergency response and urban search and rescue. At the core of these applications is a robot's ability to make informed decisions on incomplete data. This dissertation addresses this problem by developing novel techniques for modeling and estimating structured environments using deep...
This thesis describes the implementation of ultrasonic sensors to trigger a stimulus to increase peer interaction for children with disabilities using modified ride-on-cars for mobility. Modified ride-on-car technology has improved mobility for children with disabilities by effectively replicating the social benefits of a powered mobility device, yet there are opportunities...
There is a national interest in improving the quality of STEM education in institutions of higher education. One goal of multiple initiatives focusing on such improvement is empowering more STEM educators to implement evidence-based instructional practices, that research has shown best help students learn. Related strategies target change in STEM...
There are many aging bridges in service in the US and around the world that were not constructed to modern seismic design codes and standards. As a result, they are expected to perform poorly during intense earthquake ground shaking. Older reinforced concrete (RC) bridges, in particular, are often supported on...