Previous research has shown that women are increasingly sexualized in a variety of media contexts. I conducted a content analysis of film trailers from 2018 and 2019 to examine the relationship between the sexualization and objectification of female-presenting characters to the popularity of the film and its trailer. A random...
Simultaneous speech-to-text translation remains a difficult yet important problem for modern machine learning models whereby a text translation is generated concurrently with receiving partial speech inputs. One state-of-the-art simultaneous speech-to-text model is the augmented memory transformer whose encoder breaks a speech input into fixed-size overlapping segments composed of left, right,...
Ocean Drifters are a low-cost and easy-to-use platform that are commonly used for studying ocean currents. With added interest in studying the ocean, emphasis has been taken to make it more accessible. A pilot course focused on introducing the topic of ocean sensing was announced. The HC 407 course will...
Artificial collectives are useful for accomplishing tasks that require teamwork from multiple simple robots. Multiple robot and collective testbeds have been developed, yet none stay committed to leverage the local interactions, group size, and imperfect information assumptions that strengthen biological collectives. A review of the collective and multiple robot literature,...
Due to increasing populations, food production must increase significantly to be sustainable. The Internet of Things has been shown to have potential in the field of agriculture to make farming practices more efficient. However, for IoT to be properly integrated into agriculture, sensors must be applied within the field and...
Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) have gained much popularity in the search for alternatives to clean sources to harvest energy. Given their capability to harness an electric potential given a temperature differential across their opposing faces, and the foreseeable prevalence of naturally and/or commonly occurring temperature gradients in multiple applications, TEGs are...
The goal of this project is to create a lightweight radioactive isotope identification program for an embedded system using the C programming language to perform isotope matching on a subset of isotopes. First, the physics behind radioactive spectra and their key features are explained. Next, the characteristics of the spectra...
To detail common paths followed by companies to produce innovative products, I reviewed existing literature and conducted several semi-structured interviews with a variety of people from different companies and fields. Based on this research, I found that most (but not all) innovative products follow a few general paths. These paths...
Bird and bat collisions with wind turbines are a problem that needs to be better quantified for its impact to be fully understood. This thesis documents portions of the design of a sensor patch module for use on wind turbines blades to detect impacts caused by birds and bats. This...
Locating sources of radio signals can be useful in many applications. From pointing antennas at nearby radio towers to fox hunting, being able to determine the relative location or direction to a radio transmitter can be very useful. Generally, it is necessary to have the current GPS locations of both...
As human-robot interaction becomes more commonplace, roboticists should understand how robot behaviors are perceived by people to avoid misunderstandings. In our lab, we are exploring the use of a Cozmo as an interactive, break-taking aid in workplace settings. Before our interactive aid can be released into the wild, we must...
Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals have recently gained attention to classify associated hand movement. This is particularly useful for amputees with prostatic hands or people who are unable to move their hands voluntarily. Among the decoding algorithms used to classify hand movements are support vector machines and multilayer perceptron networks. In this...
Due to the advancement of incredibly low power microcontrollers and small form factor integrated circuits, energy harvesting can be considered as an alternative, low power source for remote ocean sensing and measurements. To demonstrate the effectiveness of harvesting thermoelectric energy contained in the temperature differential between ocean surface water and...
The United States depends on the electrical grid infrastructure for nearly every facet of its operation. Understanding how inclement weather affects the reliability of the grid and what the U.S. is doing to ensure its resiliency will be a key step moving forward into the 21st century as global climate...
The clean cookstove sector has long sought the tools and analysis methods needed to accurately quantify social, environmental, and economic impacts of projects in diverse settings. To respond to this need, Climate Solutions Consulting and Oregon State University have developed a novel integrated suite of sensors to collect fuel usage...
Wearable electronic devices are becoming increasingly widespread and are being used to fulfill a variety of needs. These devices range from purely infotainment type systems such as smartwatches and fitness oriented devices to specialized medical devices such as insulin pumps and heart-rate monitors. A challenge faced with all of these...
The agricultural industry in the Western United States continues to possess issues of overwatering, accounting for over 80% of consumed water per year in the country. While technologies such as satellite imaging and sensor networks have slowly improved irrigation Best Management Practices to reduce superfluous water consumption, limitations associated with...
The purpose of this project was to provide a tool for the Aerial Team of the Robotics Club with an application to control a UAV for automated missions - the Aerial Team's focus is automation of UAVs. This application lays out the foundations to allow future members of the Aerial...
This thesis examines the dielectric properties of two systems based on the perovskite materials
barium titanate and strontium titanate. A solid solution was created starting with these base
materials and then adding varying amounts of bismuth-zinc titanate and sodium niobate. These
compositions were calcined and sintered at temperatures determined to...
Electroanalytical techniques allow scientists and engineers to characterize bulk solutions as well as interfaces. Potentiostats are commonly used by researchers in a variety of disciplines to analyze the chemistry which occurs at a working electrode surface. Advancements in microelectronics and the proliferation of open-source designs have allowed researchers to construct...