uc davis thesis database

Publications

The research findings and reports written by ITS-Davis faculty, professional researchers and graduate students are disseminated through a wide variety of scientific and general-audience publications. All are archived in this searchable database.

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Transportation Studies

• Dissertations and Theses

University of California Dissertations

Resources for finding previous dissertations and theses from UC Davis and other UC campuses.

• See  Locating UC Davis Theses and Dissertations  for more information on locating and accessing UC Davis titles.
• Dissertations & Theses @ University of California This ProQuest database provides access to the full-text of all dissertations from all University of California dissertationssince the late 1990s.
• eScholarship Repository Powered by the California Digital Library, this UC platform hosts open access theses and other scholarship deposited by the university’s researchers.

Other Dissertations and Theses

Resources listed in order of breadth and centrality to dissertation searching.

• Open Access Theses and Dissertations This link opens in a new window OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1000 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes 2,311,795 theses and dissertations.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) This link opens in a new window The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic analogues to the traditional paper-based theses and dissertations. This website contains information about the initiative, how to set up Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) programmes, how to create and locate ETDs, and current research in digital libraries related to NDLTD and ETDs.
• China Doctoral Dissertation & Masters’ Theses This link opens in a new window This database offers an unparalleled look into the academic research of China’s most prestigious institutions. CDMD is the most comprehensive, highest quality database of dissertations and theses from China, representing nearly 500 PhD-granting institutions and over 775 masters-granting institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Agriculture, among others. The theses and dissertations are available in Chinese, with an interface in English.
• EThOS Beta Electronic Theses Online Service Open Access to UK theses This link opens in a new window The British Library is experiencing a major technology outage as a result of a cyber-attack. Access may be limited or unavailable at this time. Register for a free account to download theses. Almost-complete index of all doctoral level theses awarded by UK universities. You can uncover the latest cutting edge research inside the pages of UK PhD theses, immediately download over 300,000 theses or order many more through the unique EThOS digitisation on demand service. Among other services, EThOS allows one to search, select and in some/many cases download the full-text of items of interest free of charge.
• Cybertesis : tesis electrónicas en línea This link opens in a new window Cybertesis.Net is a cooperative project between the Université de Montréal, the Université de Lyon2, the University of Chile and 32 universities in Europe, Africa and Chile that allows access to more than 27,000 full text theses and dissertations. Some institutions have opted to digitize theses dating back to the 1700s. [Coverage: 1700s-present]
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• Last Updated: Jun 5, 2024 9:31 AM
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UC Davis Agricultural and Resource Economics

Selected databases.

The California Digital Library maintains a list of all the databases available to University of California users . Library Reference departments maintain individual lists which are broken down into more subject specific groupings .

Learn about using UC eLinks .

If you want to access these journals from off campus, please before clicking any of the links below. If you do not know whether you have valid UC Davis credentials please go to and follow the instructions.

After connecting to the VPN you can access all licensed databases below.

Only U.S. literature of agricultural and allied disciplines is covered. Covers only 900 journals including experiment stations. For comprehensive coverage in agriculture, search CAB abstracts and Current Contents in addition to AGRICOLA. 1970- . Silverplatter has upgraded to a new version (WebSpirs version 5) of its interface.

Business Source Complete [via Ebsco]

Indexing and abstracts for the most important scholarly business journals back as far as 1886 are included. In addition to the searchable cited references provided for more than 1,200 journals, Business Source Complete contains detailed author profiles for the 25,000 most-cited authors in the database.

CAB Abstracts

Provides citations and abstracts to the world agriculture literature. Covers over 11,000 journals and conference proceedings and selected books. 1972- . Silverplatter has upgraded to a new version (WebSpirs version 5) of its interface.

Conference Papers Index:

Major areas of coverage include agriculture, biochemistry, chemistry, chemical engineering, forestry, biology, environmental science, soil science, biotechnology, and clinical medicine. Coverage: 1982 - present.

Dissertation Abstracts International/Dissertations & Theses [via ProQuest]

Online access to citations and abstracts for every title in the UMI Dissertation Abstracts database; since 1997, provides full-text access to dissertations. Access is free to UC Campus dissertations.

A comprehensive, indexed bibliography with selected abstracts of the world's economic literature compiled from the American Economic Association's Journal of economic literature and the Index of economic articles in journals and collective volumes. Topics include economic theory and history, monetary theory and financial institutions; labor economics; international, regional, urban economics; and other related subjects. Coverage: 1969-present.

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)

Country profiles and reports objective and timely analysis and forecasts of the political, economic and business environment in more than 180 countries. Annual profiles are updated by quarterly reports.

FAO statistical databases are accessed through the public site. This limits the number of records displayed per query to 4,000.

"JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization established with the assistance of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It is dedicated to helping the scholarly community take advantage of advances in information technologies." JSTOR provides access to back files rather than recent issues of important scholarly journals and includes among its goals, building a comprehensive archive that fills missing-issue gaps in the print collections of its subscribers.

LexisNexis Academic

LexisNexis full-text and abstracts of comprehensive news, business, and legal information.

National Technical Reports Library indexes the more than 2 million technical reports produced from government-sponsored research and provides full text access to the reports that have been digitized. The collection will grow as more current and older reports are digitized.

OECD Library

Access to the full text of all publications of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including the ability to view and download OECD statistical data. Multidisciplinary in subject coverage, includes monographs, periodicals, statistics and databases.

Oxford English Dictionary

Periodicals index online.

Periodicals Index Online is an electronic index to millions of articles published in the arts, humanities and social sciences, across more than 300 years.

Penn World Table

The Penn World Table provides purchasing power parity and national income accounts converted to international prices for 188 countries for some or all of the years 1950-2004. The data in PWT displays a set of national accounts economic time series for the countries covered. Penn World Table is a project of the Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sacramento Bee

Search and retrieve full text of the Sacramento Bee from 1985 through the previous day. Excludes advertisements and graphics.

Sociological Abstracts

Sociological Abstracts Database is a primary resource for accessing the latest research sponsored in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database draws information from an international selection of over 2,600 journals and other serial publications, plus conference papers, books, and dissertations. Records added after 1974 contain in-depth and nonevaluative abstracts of journal articles.

Statistical Universe

Indexes and abstracts federal government statistical publications, links to selected government statistics on the web.

STAT-USA/Internet

STAT-USA was a paid subscription service that collected and disseminated economic, demographic and other statistical information from hundreds of government agencies. The service was discontinued on September 30, 2010. Today, the information previously provided by STAT-USA is compiled by individual agencies and offered on the agency's website free of charge. The U.S. government also offers a website that hosts links to each individual agency's statistics.

Water Resources Abstracts

Includes abstracts of current and earlier journal articles, monographs, reports, and other publication formats covering the development, management and research of water resources. Coverage: 1967 - present.

Web of Science (Social Science Citation Index/Sciences Citation Index)

The Social Sciences Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the social sciences. It indexes 1,700 journals spanning 50 disciplines, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific technical journals.

WorldCat (via FirstSearch/OCLC)

OCLC catalog of millions of records for books, journal titles and materials in other formats from approximately 12,000 libraries worldwide. Coverage: 1000 A.D. - present.

World Bank Open Data

The World Bank's Open Data initiative is intended to provide all users with access to World Bank data. The data catalog is a listing of available World Bank data sources. This listing will continue to be updated as additional data resources are added. These resources include databases, pre-formatted tables and reports. Each of the listings includes a description of the data source and a direct link to that source. Where possible, the databases are linked directly to a selection screen to allow users to select the countries, indicators, and years they would like to search. Those search results can be exported in different formats. Users can also choose to download the entire database directly from the catalog.

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Publishing Your Thesis or Dissertation

ITS-Davis doctoral dissertations and master’s theses are valuable sources of knowledge, and dissemination of that knowledge can benefit you and many others.

We post all PhD dissertations to our ITS-Davis publications website, plus any MS thesis that is endorsed by the major professor as being suitable for posting. Please submit your document as a PDF to our Publications database manager, Katie Rustad, [email protected]. Be sure to check the PDF version of the file before you submit, as formatting “adventures” can happen during the translation from the Word file to PDF.

Book format

Modern information and communication technologies are making it very easy and inexpensive to publish your work as a book, and we would like to encourage you to do so.

As just one example among several, Lulu.com enables you to publish your work yourself, while you retain complete control over content and copyright. You simply upload your manuscript, and use Lulu’s formatting tools to customize the appearance to your liking. You can choose a hard-back or paper-back binding.

Nic Lutsey, a recent ITS-Davis PhD graduate, published his dissertation using Lulu and he commented, “Overall, it is super easy. The most time-consuming thing is simply making all of the figures/tables from the dissertation into a size that fits within the 6-by-9 sizing (this could mean scaling down figures, changing some font sizes, and perhaps eliminating less necessary table columns). Maybe that took me a few hours. Submitting to Lulu is as easy as uploading, waiting for them to convert to a PDF format, inspecting the PDF, and approving. The whole thing could easily take less than a day’s work.”

Note that Lulu does allow publication in a letter-size (8.5” x 11”) format, so you could, in principle, simply upload your manuscript as-is (however, we agree that the 6”x9” format looks more professional, as well as requiring less paper…).

We have The Bookshelf in the ITS-Davis large conference room to hold copies of our students’ theses and dissertations published in this way. You can find Nic’s dissertation there, in case you’d like to inspect a sample. If you let us know that you are doing this, ITS-Davis will purchase a copy of your book to display on our shelf along with those of your fellow alumni.

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Home » For Authors & Researchers » Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

1. Does UC require me to make my thesis/dissertation open access? 2. Can I delay open access to my thesis? 3. I’m working on my thesis/dissertation and I have copyright questions. Where can I find answers? 4. Where can I find UC Theses and Dissertations online?

1. Does UC require me to make my thesis/dissertation open access?

Several UC campuses have established policies requiring open access to the electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) written by their graduate students. As of March 25, 2020, there is now a systemwide Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations , indicating that UC “requires theses or dissertations prepared at the University to be (1) deposited into an open access repository, and (2) freely and openly available to the public, subject to a requested delay of access (’embargo’) obtained by the student.”

In accordance with these policies, campuses must ensure that student ETDs are available open access via eScholarship (UC’s open access repository and publishing platform), at no cost to students. By contrast, ProQuest, the world’s largest commercial publisher of ETDs, charges a $95 fee to make an ETD open access. Institutions worldwide have moved toward open access ETD publication because it dramatically increases the visibility and reach of their graduate research.

Policies and procedures for ETD filing, including how to delay public release of an ETD and how long such a delay can last, vary by campus. Learn more :

• UC Berkeley: Dissertation Filing Guidelines (for Doctoral Students) and Thesis Filing Guidelines (for Master’s Students)
• UC Davis: Preparing and Filing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• UC Irvine: Thesis/Dissertation Electronic Submission
• UCLA: File Your Thesis or Dissertation
• UC Merced: Dissertation/Thesis Submission
• UC Riverside: Dissertation and Thesis Submission
• UC San Diego:  Preparing to Graduate
• UCSF: Dissertation and Thesis Guidelines
• UC Santa Barbara:  Filing Your Thesis, Dissertation, or DMA Supporting Document
• UC Santa Cruz: Dissertation and Thesis Guidelines (PDF) from the Graduate Division’s Accessing Forms Online page

2. Can I delay open access to my thesis/dissertation?

Some campuses allow students to elect an embargo period before the public release of their thesis/dissertation; others require approval from graduate advisors or administrators. Visit your local graduate division’s website (linked above) for more information.

In 2013, the American Historical Association released a statement calling for graduate programs to adopt policies for up to a six year embargo for history dissertations. Many scholars found this extreme, and a variety of commentators weighed in (see, e.g., discussions in The Atlantic , The Chronicle of Higher Education , and Inside Higher Ed ).  In addition, a memo from Rosemary Joyce, the Associate Dean of the Graduate Division of UC Berkeley, listed several advantages of releasing a dissertation immediately and added that “the potential disadvantages… remain anecdotal.” In the years since the flurry of writing responding to the AHA statement, the discussion of dissertation embargoes has continued, but the issues have remained largely the same. Thus, this memo from the UC Berkeley graduate dean (2013) remains an excellent summary.

3. I’m working on my thesis/dissertation and I have copyright questions. Where can I find answers?

Students writing theses/dissertations most commonly have questions about their own copyright ownership or the use of other people’s copyrighted materials in their own work.

You automatically own the copyright in your thesis/dissertation   as soon as you create it , regardless of whether you register it or include a copyright page or copyright notice. Most students choose not to register their copyrights, though some choose to do so because they value having their copyright ownership officially and publicly recorded. Getting a copyright registered is required before you can sue someone for infringement.

If you decide to register your copyright, you can do so

• directly, through the Copyright Office website , for $35
• by having ProQuest/UMI contact the Copyright Office on your behalf, for $65.

It is common to incorporate 1) writing you have done for journal articles as part of your dissertation, and 2) parts of your dissertation into articles or books . See, for example, these articles from Wiley and Taylor & Francis giving authors tips on how to successfully turn dissertations into articles, or these pages at Sage , Springer , and Elsevier listing reuse in a thesis or dissertation as a common right of authors. Because this is a well-known practice, and often explicitly allowed in publishers’ contracts with authors, it rarely raises copyright concerns. eScholarship , which hosts over 55,000 UC ETDs, has never received a takedown notice from a publisher based on a complaint that the author’s ETD was too similar to the author’s published work.

Incorporating the works of others in your thesis/dissertation – such as quotations or illustrative images – is often allowed by copyright law. This is the case when the original work isn’t protected by copyright, or if the way you’re using the work would be considered fair use. In some circumstances, however, you will need permission from the copyright holder.  For more information, please consult the Berkeley Library’s guide to Copyright and Publishing Your Dissertation .

For more in depth information about copyright generally, visit the UC Copyright site.

4. Where can I find UC Dissertations and Theses online?

All ten UC campuses make their electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) openly accessible to readers around the world. You can view over 55,000 UC ETDs in eScholarship , UC’s open access repository. View ETDs from each campus:

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M.S. Degree - Plan I (Thesis)

This master’s program in electrical and computer engineering gives the student an opportunity to perform in-depth research and thesis writing.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering prepares graduate students to do meaningful research and acquire skills and insights vital to solving some of the world’s most complex technological problems. Many of our graduates go on to leadership and technology management roles in industry.

Graduate program highlights include:

• A challenging and stimulating environment
• Depth of resources
• Highly interdisciplinary culture
• Generous financial support.

Degree Requirements

• General Reminders and Information

Students should note that ECE program requirements are more stringent than those stated by Graduate Studies. The ECE program requirements, therefore, take precedence. Plan I requires a minimum of 36 units of graduate and upper division courses (the 100 and 200 series only), at least 15 units of which must be graduate engineering courses (200 series), with 12 out of the 15 units of graduate work in the major field, excluding seminar and research units. No more than 3 graduate seminar units and 9 research units may be used to satisfy the 36-unit requirement. In addition, a thesis is required. The thesis serves as the capstone requirement. All courses listed on the Program of Study must be passed with a “B-“ or higher. A course in which a student receives a “C+” or lower cannot be used to satisfy the unit requirement for the M.S. degree, but will count in determining the grade point average. 

• Course Requirements

Thirty-six (36) units of upper-division and graduate course work, a thesis, and a minimum of three quarters of academic residence are required.

At least 16 units must be in graduate Electrical and Computer Engineering courses (excluding EEC200, EEC29X seminar series, and EEC299). The balance of the 36-unit requirement may be met with a combination of upper division technical elective courses and 29X and 299 in ECE or other approved program by the ECE Graduate Program Chair. No more than 3 seminar (290-297, excluding 290C) units can be counted. A student should register for the number of 299 research and independent study units that reflects the actual effort and time devoted to thesis work, although no more than 9 units can be counted.

Courses required for the ECE undergraduate degree, or the following courses: EEC100, EEC110A/B, EEC130A/B, EEC140A/B, EEC150, EEC151, EEC161, EEC170, EEC172, and EEC180A/B, may not be used to satisfy the requirements of the ECE M.S. degree.

Full-time students must enroll for 12 units per quarter including research, academic and seminar units. Courses may not be taken with the S/U option to fulfill course requirements, unless the course is normally graded as S/U. Once course requirements are completed, students can take additional classes as needed, although the 12 units per quarter are generally fulfilled with a research course (299) and perhaps seminars. Per UC regulations students cannot enroll in more than 12 units of graduate level courses (200) or more than 16 units of combined undergraduate and graduate level (100, 200, 300) courses per quarter.       

• Special Requirements

All graduate students are required to take EEC290, Seminar in Electrical and Computer Engineering, each quarter that it is offered. An S grade in EEC390, the Teaching of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is required to be eligible to hold a teaching assistantship in ECE, but may not be used to satisfy graduate coursework requirements. International students may need to take LIN25, LIN26, LIN391 or a combination thereof, to meet university language proficiency requirements.

♦    Admission Committee Once the completed application, all supporting materials, and the application fee have been received, the application will be submitted to the admissions committee. The admissions committee consists of the faculty members of ECE’s Graduate Study Committee (GSC) and the GSC admissions chair. Applicants who apply by the space available deadline (but after the general deadline) are not guaranteed to have their application reviewed by the graduate program. Their application will be reviewed only if the graduate program determines that they have additional space available. Based on a review of the entire application, a recommendation is made to accept or decline an applicant’s request for admission. The recommendation to accept or decline an applicant’s request for admission is forwarded to the Dean of Graduate Studies for final approval of admission. Notification of admissions decisions will be sent by Graduate Studies. Applications are accepted from the date the admission system opens (typically in September) through the space available deadline for the next fall-entering class

♦    Course Guidance or Advising Committee The major professor and the ECE Graduate Advisor will assist the student in developing a Program of Study. See the section below on “Advising and Mentoring.” By the third quarter of enrollment the student must file a Program of Study that must be routed through the ECE Graduate Program Coordinator for the ECE Graduate Advisor’s approval.

♦    Thesis Committee for M.S. Plan I When the student advances to candidacy, they will declare an M.S. thesis committee. The ECE Graduate Advisor will nominate the committee based on consultations with the student and the major professor. This committee is chaired by the major professor and made up of at least two other members. The majority of this committee must be members of the ECE graduate program. The responsibility of this committee is to assist in the guidance of the student and to read and approve the thesis. The thesis must be prepared in accordance with Graduate Studies guidelines.

• Advising and Mentoring

The  major professor  is the primary mentor during the student’s career at UC Davis and will assist with developing the student’s Program of Study. The major professor serves as the chair of the Thesis Committee (for Plan I) or Comprehensive Exam Committee (for Plan II). The student must select a major professor from the members of the ECE Graduate Program as soon as possible, but no later than the beginning of the third quarter of enrollment. Changing a major professor, requires the signatures of the previous and new major professor, acknowledging the change. The ECE Vice Chair for Graduate Studies, also referred to as the Graduate Program Chair, will serve as the interim advisor to new students during the process of selecting a major professor.

The  Graduate Advisor,  who is nominated by the department chair and appointed by the Dean of Graduate Studies, is a resource for information on academic requirements, policies and procedures and registration information until a major professor is selected. The ECE Graduate Advisor is responsible for reviewing programs of study for each student and acting on student petitions.

The  Graduate Program Coordinator  should be the first person consulted on all actions regarding graduate affairs. The Graduate Program Coordinator may advise the student to contact the ECE Graduate Advisor or the Office of Graduate Studies to address particular issues.

• Advancement to Candidacy

Every student must file an official application for candidacy for the Master of Science degree and pay the candidacy fee after completing half of their course requirements and at least one quarter before completing all degree requirements. This is typically the third quarter. The candidacy for the Master of Science degree form can be found online at:  http://www.gradstudies.ucdavis.edu/forms/ . A completed form includes a list of courses the student will take to complete degree requirements. If changes must be made to the student’s course plan after they have advanced to candidacy, the Graduate Advisor must recommend these changes to Graduate Studies. Students must have the ECE Graduate Advisor and committee chair, if applicable, sign the candidacy form before it can be submitted to Graduate Studies. If the candidacy is approved, the Office of Graduate Studies will send a copy to the appropriate graduate program coordinator and the student. The thesis committee chair will also receive a copy, if applicable. If the Office of Graduate Studies determines that a student is not eligible for advancement, the program and the student will be told the reasons for the application’s deferral. Some reasons for deferring an application include grade point average below 3.0, outstanding “I” grades in required courses or insufficient units.

• Thesis Requirements

The M.S. thesis must demonstrate the student’s proficiency in research methods and scientific analysis, as well as a thorough knowledge of the state-of-the-art of the student’s chosen field. Original contributions to knowledge are encouraged, but not expected, at the M.S. degree level. Thus, an M.S. thesis may consist of:

♦   An original technical or research contribution of limited scope ♦   A critical evaluation of the state-of-the-art of a current research area ♦   An advanced design project, either analytical or experimental.

Research for the master’s thesis is to be carried out under the supervision of a faculty member of the program. The thesis research must be conducted while the student is enrolled in the program. The thesis is submitted to the thesis committee at least one month before the student plans to make requested revisions. All committee members must approve the thesis and sign the title page before the thesis is submitted to Graduate Studies for final approval. Should the committee determine that the thesis is unacceptable, even with substantial revisions, the program may recommend to the Dean of Graduate Studies that the student be disqualified from the program.

The thesis must be filed in a quarter in which the student is registered or on filing fee. Instructions on preparation of the thesis and a schedule of dates for filing the thesis in final form are available from Graduate Studies ; the dates are also printed in the UC Davis General Catalog and in the Class Schedule and Registration Guide issued each quarter. A student must have a GPA of 3.0 for the M.S. degree to be awarded.

• Normative Timeline

• Sources of Funding

Please see more information on  helpful funding resources .

• PELP, In Absentia and Filing Fee Status

Information about PELP (Planned Educational Leave), In Absentia (reduced fees when researching out of state) and filing fee status can be found in the graduate student guide:   https://grad.ucdavis.edu/resources/graduate-student-resources . M.S. students are eligible for filing fee status after completing their coursework (Program of Study) and a working draft of their thesis or comprehensive examination report. In order to be approved for filing fee status, a student must submit the filing fee request along with signatures of all three members of the Thesis Committee or Comprehensive Examination Committee stating they have received an acceptable working draft of the thesis or comprehensive examination report. This application must be routed through the ECE Graduate Program Coordinator for the ECE Graduate Advisor’s approval and then must be filed with Graduate Studies. Filing fee is available for one quarter only, but extensions may be approved on a case-by-case basis. In the event that filing fee status expires, the student must file a readmission application.

Projects Offered 

• Area of Research: Computer Engineering

Project:   FPGA Security

Sponsors: Professor Houman Homayoun

Description: : FPGA security is a rapidly evolving field, especially as more FPGAs are found in critical cloud infrastructures. Recently, malicious sensors have been proposed that can be discretely integrated within an FPGA fabric, and can expose data to an attacker. For this project the student will evaluate and develop defensive strategies which re-purpose these malicious circuits into security primitives that can be used to hide sensitive data. Requirements: Basic circuit knowledge; experience with any hardware description language; experience programming and debugging FPGAs

Project:   Cloud Security

Description: Machine learning-based algorithms have been proved to be able to improve the scheduling quality of cluster schedulers. For this project, students will learn to interact with cluster schedulers and construct performance datasets, develop machine learning-based algorithms to perform performance prediction and optimize behaviors of cluster schedulers. Students will gain experience in machine learning as well as cluster computing. Requirements: Knowledge in basic machine learning, basic Python and C++ programming.

Project:   Detection of firmware vulnerabilities that can lead to fault injection attacks

Description: Hardware attack like fault injection is one of the major threats on embedded devices. Though they are hardware based attacks, sometimes the attack exploitation succeeds because of the implementation vulnerabilities in the hardware. This project aims to identify the scenarios and patterns of flaws in the firmware that can lead to such exploitations and design a framework to auto identify them during assessment. Requirements: Understanding of Embedded systems, firmware development, C/C++, Python, IoT, Experience using hardware tools like oscilloscope, multimeters, etc.; basic circuit understanding

Project:   Secure firmware update for resource constrained embedded systems

Description: Embedded systems are the core of the IoT (Internet of things) ecosystem. Resource constrained embedded devices encounter a plethora of challenges when it comes to secure design. Firmware is the brain of these devices, for some vendors it’s their IP. There are several scenarios and ongoing research to find firmware vulnerabilities whose exploitation could significantly affect both the system performance and financial impact on vendors.  This project aims to go in-depth of current methods for secure firmware updates in IoT devices, the vulnerabilities associated with them and corresponding solutions. Requirements: Understanding of Embedded systems, firmware development, C/C++, Python, IoT

Project:   Machine learning security and privacy on FPGAs

Description: Inference results from machine learning models are critical and sensitive. In this project, students will work on extracting power traces to deduce the labels from users' machine learning models. To achieve this attack, the machine learning models will be implemented in FPGA platforms, mostly sequence related and time-series related machine learning models. Requirements: Basic machine learning knowledge; knowledge in FPGA

Project:   ASIC implementation of Compute-In-memory circuits with emerging Non-volatile memories

Description: Recent trends show an increasing interest in research of non-volatile memories for various applications. As Von Neuman architectures gives rise to memory bottleneck, new compute-in-memory architectures have shown potential. In this project, we will explore emerging non-volatile memories and work on implementing a compute-in-memory module for an ASIC. A modified ASIC flow will be developed through the course of this project to integrate NVMs onto the ASIC design flow.    Requirements: Basic knowledge of ASIC design CMOS and emerging memories. Familiarity with Python, C/C++, Verilog/VHDL, HSPICE would help. 

Project:  GPU Solvers for Flow Computation

Sponsors: Professor John Owens and Postdoc Serban Porumbescu

Description: We are working with the US Army Corps of Engineers to develop a GPU implementation of their "HEC-RAS" river analysis system, the leading system for flow computation. The current implementation of this package is on CPUs and we would like to bring it to GPUs. The core computation is modeling hydraulic flow on unstructured grids, and the research problems are both algorithmic and systems ones. The ideal student will be interested in writing high-quality open-source software in collaboration with fellow graduate students as well as domain experts from government, in the context of a large and active group that is interested in problems across many domains of parallel computing. It is likely that this position will be funded. It is expected that an interested student will pursue a thesis that will result in publication in a high-quality venue. This position should be equally interesting for new PhD students.

Requirements: Desirable: Expertise in numerical computation and/or parallel computing. Highly desirable: C++ expertise, and even more desirable, CUDA experience. Good communicator and collaborator.

Project:  "Gunrock" GPU Graph Analytics Framework 

Description: : John Owens’ research group focuses on GPU computing and has a large open-source project on parallel graph analytics called Gunrock. We have a large number of small projects within Gunrock and believe it would be straightforward to assemble a MS thesis or MS project within Gunrock depending on the interests of the student. We have projects within the core of Gunrock (mostly CUDA/C++-oriented), in writing and improving Gunrock applications (primarily C++), and in interfacing and tuning Gunrock (more likely Python).

Requirements: Gunrock is written in C++ and we have Python-related projects as well. Experience with (in order) CUDA C, C++, and/or Python is highly desirable. Strong (text) writing skills. Experience with parallel computing would be terrific but is not required. We need talented students who can learn quickly, communicate well, and work well both in a group and independently.

Project:   Trusted Execution Environments for High-Performance Computing

Sponsors: Professor Venkatesh Akella, Professor Jason Lowe-Power, and Professor Sean Peisert

Description: : In partnership with the Computational Research Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), we are developing trusted execution environments (TEEs) for high-performance computing (HPC) systems such as those operated by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, including the National Energy Research Supercomputing Center (NERSC) at Berkeley Lab.  Current commercial TEEs such as Intel SGX and AMD’s SEV are inadequate for HPC a variety of reasons.  Our solution involves a RISC-V based approach, along with development and modifications to the security monitor and operating system elements, as well as implementation and experimentation in gem5 simulations or in FPGA clusters.  Potential work could be on multiple levels of the stack from programming FPGAs to developing hardware modifications to kernel elements. Research problems include both security and performance elements, as well as tradeoffs between the two.  The ideal student will be interested in writing high-quality open-source software in collaboration with fellow graduate students, as well as researchers and HPC operators from the Berkeley Lab. This position may be funded. It is expected that interested students will pursue a thesis that will result in publication in a high-quality venue. This position should be equally interesting for PhD students.

Requirements:  Expertise in OS/kernel function, computer architecture, and modification, and/or FGPA programming. Expertise in programming C/C++ and Python, and software-engineering methodologies.  Excellent written and verbal English communication skills.  Looking for motivated and pro-active students who are great collaborators. Link:   https://dst.lbl.gov/security/project/ascr-hpc-cybersecurity-codesign/

Project:   Optimizing Compiler Instruction Scheduling Using GPU-Accelerated Intelligent Search

Sponsors: Prof. John Owens (UC Davis),  Ghassan Shobaki (California State University) Financial support provided by : National Science Foundation (NSF)

Description:   Master’s students are needed to work as Research Assistants (RAs) on an NSF-funded project at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS). Selected Master’s students will not have to transfer to CSUS to work on this project. They can work on the project as UC Davis students, and their theses will be based on their work on this project. Master’s students will be co-advised by UC Davis Professor John Owens. All the work for this project may be done remotely whether the campus is closed or open.  In this project, we use a combination of intelligent search techniques (specifically, Branch-and-Bound and Ant Colony Optimization) to solve a long-standing problem in compiler optimization, and thus generate more efficient code for a wide range of programs running on CPUs and GPUs. The official project abstract may be found at: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1911235  

Our most recent publications may be found here:   https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3368826.3377918   and  https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3301489  

  A Research Assistant on this project will develop parallel versions of existing intelligent-search algorithms and/or enhance the sequential versions. The algorithms will be first implemented in the LLVM compiler and later in the GCC compiler. The project will involve collaboration with open-source compiler engineers from Apple, IBM, Google, Redhat, as well as the GPU compiler team at AMD. We are looking for students who can understand complex compiler optimization algorithms and successfully implement them in a production compiler.   

Requirements:  The ideal candidate for this position is a junior, senior or Master’s student who is interested in conducting serious research in this area and producing quality publications that will help him/her build a strong career either in academia or in the industry. Undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing a Master’s degree right after graduation are also encouraged to apply. They can do their Master’s at UC Davis, and their theses will be based on their work on this project. Productive students may continue to work on the project after their graduation if they are interested.  Requirements include: Strong analytical and problem solving skills. Strong background in algorithms, especially graph algorithms (see the list of topics below). Strong programming skills in C/C++. Self-motivated and able to work independently with minimum supervision. Having some background in one or more of the following areas is desirable but not required: Code generation and optimization. GPU computing. Artificial intelligence, with emphasis on Branch-and-Bound search and Ant Colony Optimization.  Link:   https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1911235    

Project:  A  hypothetical RISC-V based game console

Sponsors: Professor Christopher Nitta

Description: : Christopher Nitta has developed a simulator for a hypothetical RISC-V based game console (available at https://github.com/UCDClassNitta/riscv-console/ ). The simulator is designed as an educational tool to be used in courses such as Operating Systems or Machine Dependent Programming. We are looking to expand the simulator to support auto grading, add new hardware components, and to improve the portability of the project.  

Requirements:  You should have taken EEC 270 or equivalent (graduate course in computer architecture), and have strong C/C++ programming skills. Ideally, we are looking for a single student to continue the project. Link:   https://github.com/UCDClassNitta/riscv-console/

• Area of Research: Photonic and Electronic Devices

Project: Advanced computational imaging for healthcare and climate-resilient agriculture enabled by nanophotonics and AI

Sponsor: Professor Saif Islam. Description:  This MS thesis project will focus on an innovative imaging technology based on nanotechnology-enabled ultra-fast CMOS imaging sensors that operate by slowing down photons, deep learning, AI, and computational imaging. The sensors can make real-time in-situ tissue diagnoses during surgery and identify molecular activity in plant cells for autonomous nutrient monitoring. Requirements:   Understanding of solid-state devices - PN junction, MOS Capacitor, MOSFETs, transistors, sensors, etc. Understanding of electromagnetic theory. Familiarity with TCAD tools and Matlab. 

Lab and simulation:  Both lab work and computer simulation will be necessary. The thesis will involve working closely with other Ph.D. students and postdocs. Link:  https://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/~saif/

Project: Ar-Ion Plasma Surface Treatment of Reticulated Vitreous Carbon (RVC) for Field-Emission Cathodes

Sponsor: Professor Charles Hunt. Description:  Experimental Project assembling a RF Ar plasma system in the Vacuum Microelectronics Lab.  Verification on RVC samples. Requirements:   Comfort working with Vacuum equipment, power supplies and electronic materials.  Requires hands-on use of shop tools. References:  C. E. Hunt and Y. Wang, "Application of vitreous and graphitic large-area carbon surfaces as field-emission cathodes", Applied Surface Science , (2005). Funding for MS students available! Please contact Prof. Hunt.

Project: Advanced Magneto Optic Device Development  

Sponsor: Professor J. Sebastian Gomez-Diaz and II-VI Inc . Description:  The goal of this project is to develop a proof of concept prototype optical device capable of sensing micro-Tesla magnetic fields.      Phase (1) review literature for advantages and disadvantages of existing approaches.  Wavelength range is telecommunications C-band (1.5um), material is II-VI proprietary Thick Film Planar Faraday Rotator Crystals, preferred implementation is a waveguide/fiber optic device.  Preferred (but not required) substrate is Silicon Carbide.     Phase (2) Develop theoretical designs, simulate with numerical software, optimize parameters, converge on the most promising design.    Phase (3) Generate plan to build prototype(s) including resources (materials, chambers, fab time and location, testing, etc.); cost; and approximate timeline.       Phase (4) Build prototype(s), test and determine sensitivity.    Phase (5) Write summary and recommendations for next phase (if promising). The project will be developed in coordination with the Advanced Coating Group of II-VI Inc. located in Santa Rosa, Ca.  Requirements:   Knowledge of electromagnetic waves, waveguides, and optics. Experience with simulation software (Lumerical FDTD), metasurfaces, 2D materials, optical thin films and magneto-optical thick films would be useful but it is not required.   Link:  https://sites.google.com/site/jsebastiangomezdiaz/  

Project: MS projects in the Integrated Nanodevices & Nanosystems Laboratory 

Sponsor: Professor Saif Islam  Description: Project opportunities include: 1.- Silicon photodiodes for 100gigabit/sec and beyond data communication. 2.- Computational imaging with photon-trapping photdiodes. 3.- Photon detectors for quantum internet. 4.- Transparent solar cells for window based on UV and IR light absorption. 5.- High resolution time-of-flight (TOF) sensing with ultra-fast photodiodes. 6.- LIDAR: technological challenges and recent developments. 7.- Ionizing air and gases to trap COVID-19 virus and prevent airborne transmission. Financial support available for strong candidates! 8.-Ultra-fast silicon photodiodes for real-time visualization of tumor boundaries during surgery enabled by fluorescent lifetime imaging (FLIm). 9.-Semiconductor transistors/memory for extreme temperature and harsh environment.  10.- Memory and logic based on memristors: Simulations and design.    Link:  https://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/~saif/

Project: MS projects in the Woodall Research Laboratory 

Sponsor:  Professor Jerry Woodall  Description: Project opportunities include: 1.- Compound semiconductor materials and epilayer projects     a. Materials: AlGaAs, GaP, ZnSe/GaAs, HJ alloys     b. Epi tools - LPE for GaP, AlGaAs; MBE for III-V and II-VIxIII-V1-x devices 2.- LPE Devices: AlGaAs "true red" 610nm for high efficiency LEDs for pixelated displays. 3.- MBE Devices based on ZnSe/GaAs     a. ZnSe/GaAs for RGB LEDs, BG 1.4-2.7 eV.     b. ZnSe/GaAS THz HBTs. 4.- Latent heat storage of intermittent solar and wind power     a. Convert intermittent solar/wind power to 24/7 power via latent heat energy storage: 577 C Al-Si eutectit and Si phase change batteries. 5.- Hydrogen Generation via Stored Energy in Aluminum and Water     a. Split water using Al-Ga alloys to make UHP H2 and UHP Al2O3.  Link:  https://woodall.ece.ucdavis.edu/

Project:  Tailored NMEMS-plasmonic platform for gas/cancer detection 

Sponsors: Professor J. Sebastian Gomez-Diaz and Texas Instruments    Description: This project deals with the development of a platform that combines NMEMS at RF with tailored metasurfaces at IR to detect specific spectral fingerprints of gases and cancer cells. The project will include (i) development of plasmonic metasurface and characterization with a Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer with microscope; (ii) update an existing RF and laser testing set-up; and (iii) development of a testing chamber printed in 3D. The project requires knowledge of electromagnetics and the use of numerical software (Matlab and CST/COMSOL). Once the system is ready, it will be applied to the analysis of gases and biological samples. The project will be developed in coordination with Texas Instruments.    Requirements: Knowledge of electromagnetic waves, RF, and optics. Experience with instrumentation software (Labview/Matlab), metasurfaces and MEMS design would be useful but it is not required.   Link:  https://sites.google.com/site/jsebastiangomezdiaz/  

Project:   Reconfigurable Computing with Photonic Interconnects and AI

Sponsors: Professor S. J. Ben Yoo.   Description: This project seeks innovations in scalable high-performance cloud computing systems through a combination of new generation of optical interconnect technologies as well as existing electronic switching architectures. The current project team is planning to conduct computing and networking experiments through a combination of off-the-shelf computing and networking equipment and research-grade optical interconnect and switching devices. The MS student is expected to assist the NGNS researchers with FPGA programming, Ethernet network switches configurations and automation, Linux servers’ configuration, and software-defined networking programming. This project can accommodate two students.   Requirements:   Proficiency in one or more script languages (e.g. Python, Matlab), C/C++, etc. Good knowledge of Linux operating system (e.g. Ubuntu). Familiar with distributed programming and MPI protocol. Familiar with HDL language and FPGA programming platforms (e.g. Xilinx Vivado). Familiar with Ethernet and TCP/IP networks, LAN configuration, and Ethernet switches configuration and routing protocols.   Link:  https://sierra.ece.ucdavis.edu/index.php/2020/03/21/computing-architecture-algorithm-and-testbed-studies-for-reconfigurable-computing-with-photonic-interconnects-and-ai/

Project:   AI-Assisted Self-Driving Autonomic Optical Networking

Sponsors: Professor S. J. Ben Yoo.   Description: This position seeks innovations in next-generation autonomous and self-driving optical networking systems leveraging existing and emerging machine learning and AI tools. The current project team is planning to build novel prototype network control plane algorithms and experiments. The MS student will assist the NGNS researchers with conducting computing and networking systems integration, and software-defined networking programming to implement novel and scalable control and management plane architectures and algorithms. In particular, we are looking for someone helping implementing AI-driven resource calculation modules, application interfaces, communication protocol extensions, and network telemetry functions. This project can accommodate two students.   Requirements:   Proficiency in one or more script languages (e.g. Python, Matlab),  Java, C/C++, etc. Familiar with machine learning algorithms (e.g. deep reinforcement learning) and tools (e.g. Tensor Flow or PyTorch).  Familiar with Ethernet and TCP/IP networks, LAN configuration, Ethernet switches configuration and routing protocols, network monitoring tools (e.g., Wireshark). Familiar with software defined networking (SDN) and Open Network Operating System (ONOS®). Link:  https://sierra.ece.ucdavis.edu/index.php/2020/03/20/service-provisioning-in-multi-domain-sd-eon-with-machine-learning-and-game-theory-approaches/

Project:   3D Ultrafast Laser Inscription

Sponsors: Professor S. J. Ben Yoo.   Description: This project seeks to design, inscribe, and test arbitrary 3D waveguides for future computing, networking, and imaging applications.  Utilizing the unique ultrafast laser inscription facility, the project team has realized 3D waveguides of arbitrary shapes and forms.  More descriptions are available in this publication: S. J. Ben Yoo, Binbin Guan and Ryan P. Scott, “ Heterogeneous 2D/3D photonic integrated microsystems “,   Microsyst Nanoeng  2,  16030 (2016). Requirements:   Proficiency in one or more script languages (e.g. Python, Matlab),  Java, C/C++, etc. Good knowledge of optics and waves. Overall good skills in laboratory experiments. Familiarity with computer controlled instrumentation is desired but not necessary. Familiarity with computer aided design is desired but not necessary. Link:  https://sierra.ece.ucdavis.edu/

• Area of Research: Information Systems

Project:  V ideo-based quantification of dexterous finger movement kinematics using computer vision and deep learning techniques

Sponsors: Professors  Wilsaan Joiner and Karen Moxon   Description:  This project will apply computer vision and deep learning techniques to analyze the dexterous finger movements of nonhuman primates ( rhesus macaque monkeys). The subjects are recorded while performing a task which involves retrieving food rewards from variously-oriented shallow wells (i.e., the Brinkman Board task). The MS student is expected to assist in streamlining the analysis of the videos and applying DeepLabCut, a deep learning toolset that allows for the markerless tracking of various locations across multiple video frames. The information obtained from movement tracking will then be used to quantify several features of finger movements (separation, extension and preshaping) in order to provide behavioral measures that are sensitive to injury (e.g., spinal cord contusion) and treatments. Importantly, this will provide critical information to evaluate the effectiveness of novel interventions for clinical conditions that affect the motor system.

Requirements:  Applicants should have expertise in machine learning, deep learning and computer vision concepts, and ample experience with common programming languages such as C++, Python and Matlab. How to: To apply, please email your CV and interest statement to: [email protected]

Project:   Security of Deep Reinforcement Learning-based Traffic Signal Controllers (TSC)

Sponsors: Professor  Chen-Nee Chuah .   Description:  Next generation of TSCs expected to communicate with traffic environment and learn how to behave in different traffic conditions. For this purpose, we have shown that the traffic signals controlled with deep reinforcement learning (DRL) are effective in terms of traffic flow and air quality. However, adversarial attacks may target such edge controllers. The impact of adversarial attacks to the learning-based TSCs could have serios consequences beyond traffic congestion, such as life threatening traffic accidents. Initial results of this project show that learning based TSCs are vulnerable to adversarial attacks. This project further extends the study to a different level and seeks novel solutions for DRL- TSCs on city level San Francisco downtown network and different learning configurations such as different state, action, and reward definitions.

Requirements:  Expertise in Python programming and machine learning libraries (Numpy, Tensorflow, Matplotlib, Pandas), ability to research on intelligent systems, knowledge about deep reinforcement learning concept and security of machine learning. If interested, please email your resume/CV to [email protected] with [DRL-TSC with AV] in the subject title.

Project:   Optimal Traffic Control with Deep Reinforcement Learning-based Traffic Signal Controllers and Autonomous Vehicles

Sponsors: Professor  Chen-Nee Chuah .   Description:  Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is a promising machine learning tool that combines artificial neural networks with reinforcement learning algorithms. DRL models have been applied to different control domains including intelligent transportation systems. We have seen very promising results for DRL-based traffic signal controllers (TSC) on city level traffic flow in terms of travel delay and air pollution. In the context of autonomous vehicles (AV), DRL can be applied to control optimization, path planning and navigation. However, it remains an open question as to how these DRL-TSCs and DRL-AVs can co-exist and collaborate effectively. Since AVs are great tools for traffic platooning, it will be interesting to quantify the performance of DRL-TSCs in mixed traffic (with a combination of autonomous and human-driven vehicles).

Requirements:  Expertise in Python programming and machine learning libraries (Numpy, Tensorflow, Matplotlib, Pandas), ability to research on intelligent systems, knowledge about deep reinforcement learning concept. If interested, please email your resume/CV to [email protected] with [DRL-TSC with AV] in the subject title.

Project:   Deep Camera Calibration – Deep Learning for Accurate Camera Calibration in Assembly Automation

Sponsors: Professor  Iman Soltani .   Description:  This project is going to be conducted at LARA (Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation). The overall goal of the project is to develop a deep learning scheme for accurate and streamlined camera calibration that is suitable for precision assembly automation.

Camera calibration is the first and foremost step in any robotics application involving vision. Currently the models used for this purpose are simplified and the calibration process is cumbersome. These simplifications lead to rather inaccurate calibration results that are acceptable for only a subset of applications relying on vision such as mobile robotics in which obstacle avoidance is the main objective. However, applications requiring high precision positioning such as assembly automation cannot rely on vision alone solely due to low accuracy of the vision-based object positioning methods.

This project aims to rely on deep learning to form more complex models of camera 3D to 2D mapping and develop streamlined calibration schemes that can be easily implemented.  Link:  https://soltanilab.engineering.ucdavis.edu/

Project:   Learning from Simulation in Assembly Automation and Quality Control

Sponsors: Professor  Iman Soltani .   Description: This project will be conducted at LARA (Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation). The focus of this project is on generalization performance of deep networks trained on simulated training data. The main application under consideration is quality control and assembly automation. As part of this project we aim to train deep networks to detect certain keypoints on an image of a given mechanical component or assembly. The detection of these keypoints will help us estimate the absolute or relative position of the parts in 3D space. This information can be used for assembly quality control or for assembly automation.

However, training deep networks for keypoint detection requires large volumes of training data. Such training data include thousands of images of mechanical parts in which the keypoints of interest are annotated manually by human operators. This process is cumbersome, requiring capture of thousands of images from various perspectives and annotating the corresponding keypoints. This has to be repeated upon product design updates or sometimes after a significant change in the assembly environment e.g. lighting.

To avoid the complications and cost associated with training data generation, we plan to develop a training scheme solely reliant on synthetic training data generation. In this approach component CAD information is used to synthesize realistic images. In this form the keypoints can be annotated automatically. As such, thousands of training images can be generated very quickly.

However, the deep learning schemes develop should benefit from a robust generalization  performance such that their ability do not deteriorate when test samples come from real images of same components.  

The ideal outcome of this project is a deep learning architecture that performs reliably on real images of parts of interest. This network will be trained fully on simulated (synthetic) images of the same parts e.g. generated through a CAD software. Link:  https://soltanilab.engineering.ucdavis.edu/

• Area of Research: RF-to-THz Electronics and Waves

Project: Nonreciprocal phased array antennas

Sponsors: Professor J. Sebastian Gomez-Diaz    Description: This project deals with the analysis, design, fabrication and characterization of nonreciprocal phased-array antennas able to transmit and receive RF signals with different patterns at the same operation frequency with polarization control. The project entails the design of antenna in simulation software (HFSS or CST), the use of nonlinear circuit analysis (ADS), fabrication, and measurement in an anechoic chamber.     Requirements: Knowledge of electromagnetic waves and electronic circuits. Experience with full-wave simulation software (such as HFSS/CST and ADS) would be great but it is not required. It is a project for 1~2 students. Link:  https://sites.google.com/site/jsebastiangomezdiaz/  

Project:  THz imaging 

Sponsors: Professor J. Sebastian Gomez-Diaz    Description: This project deals with the development of a imaging system based on time-domain terahertz spectroscopy. The goal is to automatize the system with a 2D positioner, aiming to implement imaging of biological samples from 0.1 to 4.5 THz. The project requires the analysis of THz waves, the implementation of signal processing algorithms, and the development of instrumentation code. Once the system is ready, it will be applied to the analysis of biological healthy/cancer biological samples.    Requirements: Knowledge of electromagnetic waves and Matlab. Experience with instrumentation software (Labview/Matlab) would be useful but it is not required.  Link:  https://sites.google.com/site/jsebastiangomezdiaz/  

Project: UC Davis Dark E-field Radio experiment

Sponsor: Professor Tony Taylor 

Description:   The UC Davis Dark E-field Radio experiment is a search for the electromagnetic signature from a low mass dark matter candidate called a dark photon. It involves massively averaging the EM noise inside an RF shielded environment to look for high Q candidate signals 80 dB below the Johnson noise threshold. For the first phase of this project, we are building a 64-million channel real-time FFT over the 30-300 MHz region. However, this will produce terabytes of data that need to be efficiently packaged, compressed, stored, and analyzed on a remote data server. We are looking for someone to design this data analysis tool chain and implement it on experimental data. Requirements: Proficiency with common programming languages such as C++ and Python. Courses in Signals and Systems. Link:  https://tyson.ucdavis.edu    

• Area of Research: Integrated Circuits and Systems

Project: CMOS Analog IC design

Sponsor: Professor Stephen Lewis

Description: Continue the class project in EEC 210 or do another project related to analog CMOS integrated-circuit design.

Requirements: Receiving a B or higher in EEC 210.

Link:  https://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/~lewis/

• Area of Research: Bio Ag and Health Technologies

Project: Development of novel, full-implantable blood pressure monitoring sensor

Sponsor: Professor  Karen Moxon

Description:  The Moxon Neurorobotics Lab is looking for an ECE Master’s student interested in working on a neuroengineering project to support the testing of a novel, full-implantable blood pressure monitoring sensor. The sensor is being developed as part of an on-going DARPA project to design a closed-loop hemodynamics control system for patients with neurological injury who are unable to control their own blood pressure. 

Prototypes are currently being tested in an animal model and the successful candidate will develop computer code to process the data and interpret results, suggest additional experimental testing and aid in report of results to funding agencies. The MS student is expected to assist in streamlining the analysis of the data and help to develop an algorithm as part of the closed-loop control system.

Requirements: Applicants should have ample experience with common programming languages such as C++, Python and Matlab and an interest in neural engineering and computer control system. Applicants should have excellent data analytic skills include data management, process documentation and detailed reporting. Applicants are also expected to be able to create figures to explain results and present results to other members of the team. Funding:  may be available.  How to : To apply, please email your CV and interest statement to: [email protected]

Project: Tactile navigation for individuals with visual impairment 

Sponsor: Prof. Iman Soltani 

Description: This project involves development of hardware and software platforms to guide individuals with visual impairment in dynamic environments through tactile feedback. The hardware aspect includes development of micro actuators and mechanisms that change the topography of a tactile surface. By changing the topography of the surface we aim to provide a map of the surrounding obstacles to the user. This approach is inspired by Braille and  will work very similar to how Braille is used by the blind individuals to read texts, but here instead of a book the users will read their surrounding environment. Through tactile feedback our technology will provide an image of the environment to the blind, helping them navigate their surroundings safely. The software aspect includes sensor fusion and receives all the sensory information available on a smart phone including camera, Lidar, IMU and GPS. 

Requirements: We are currently seeking a masters student with hands-on experience and a passion for designing and building electromechanical systems. Experience with sensor fusion is a plus but is not necessary. Partial financial support in the form of an hourly appointment is available. How to : To apply, please email your CV and interest statement to: [email protected]

Project: Portable Sensor System to Assess the Health Conditions of Individuals working Under Harsh Environments

Sponsor: Professor  Cristina Davis,  Associate Dean for Research, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Description: This project aims to design, prototype, and test an integrated sensor platform that will record physiological data (e.g., heart rate, oxygen saturation, physical activity levels, skin temperature, and galvanic skin response) of athletes and individuals who work in harsh environments. The envisioned lightweight device will consist of several commercially available sensors and a microcontroller for physiological data acquisition and integration. A standalone, portable, and small single-board computer (e.g., Raspberry Pi, or alternative) will complement the device for analyzing the extracted data based on prebuilt machine learning models. The system will report data by bluetooth to a WiFi connection hub.

Requirements: Applicants from computer engineering background should have a solid knowledge in data structures and algorithms. Applicants from an electrical engineering background should have experience on microcontroller coding and circuit designs. Willingness to adapt to several programming languages. Team work may be required. How to : To apply, please email your CV and interest statement to: [email protected]

Project: Thermo-electro-mechanical Testing Platform Development

Sponsor: Professor  Erkin Şeker

Description: Thermal, electrical, and mechanical fields dictate the evolution of nanostructure in thin metal coatings that are used as battery electrodes, catalysts, and biomedical device coatings. The goal of this project is to develop a testing platform that impose time-varying temperature fields, mechanical stresses, and electrical currents to nanoporous gold thin films and in real-time acquiring mechanical stress and electrical resistance changes in the thin films. The student(s) will collaborate with other graduate students working on the materials science aspects of this project.

Requirements: Basic microfabrication and manufacturing process experience, and MATLAB and LabView-based programming and interfacing with sensors/actuators are required.

Project: Electrochemical Biosensor Engineering

Description: Electrochemical sensors are used for detecting environmental contaminants, biomarkers for health monitoring, and pathogens. In such sensor the electrode where the detection event takes place plays a critical role. This project builds upon our group’s experience in engineering nanoporous gold electrodes for nucleic acid detection and aims to continue the development of such sensors with interactions with collaborators at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Requirements: Basic microfabrication experience, biology, biochemistry, and/or electrochemistry knowledge are desirable.

Project: Microfluidic Device Laboratory Course Development

Description: Microfluidic devices are composed of small channels and flexible membranes that guide fluid flow for studying physical/chemical/biological phenomena as well as creating miniaturized analysis tools on chips. These devices vary much behave like analog electrical circuits. This project aims to create similar course to the existing EEC 146A (Integrated Circuit Fabrication Laboratory) but with a focus on fabricating and characterizing microfluidic devices, with the ultimate goal of it being offered as an upper-level undergrad or grad-level laboratory course.

Requirements: Basic microfabrication (soft lithography) experience and basic fluidic dynamics knowledge are desirable.

Project: CeDP:  Computational Efficiency of Deep Learning in Digital Pathology

Sponsor: Professor  Chen-Nee Chuah

Description: While supervised learning (SL) techniques such as convolutional neural networks achieve promising results in pathology images, the computational complexity is still significantly heavy due to the gigapixel resolution of pathology images. To make deep learning more practical in digital pathology, it is necessary to comprehensively study the tradeoff between performance and complexity. In this project, we will study how to deploy efficient deep learning models on edge devices for pathology image analysis and how to remove unnecessary computation in the recent state-of-the-art deep learning networks. We will also benchmark the complexity of different models on our pathology datasets.

Requirements: Expertise in machine learning concepts, Docker, and Python programming inclusive of scikit-learn, Pandas, PyTorch/Tensorflow.

Project: SSL-Pathology: Semi-supervised Learning in Pathology Detection of Alzheimer's Disease

Description: While supervised learning (SL) techniques such as convolutional neural networks achieve promising results in medical images, procuring a sufficiently large dataset with annotations is labor-intensive, especially in gigapixel pathology images. To circumvent the need for large labeled datasets, semi-supervised learning (SSL) can be a potential approach. Amyloid-beta plaques are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. A supervised detection model has been established to classify three types of plaques. However, it relies on more than 50,000 annotated images for training the model. In this project, we will adopt SSL to this problem and explore the upper bound of SSL to relieve the reliance on a large labeled dataset.

Project: Computer-Vision Assisted Autism Disorder Spectrum (ADS) Behavior Detection using Videos

Sponsor: Professors Chen-Nee Chuah and Samson Cheung

Description: Early intensive intervention has been shown to be highly promising for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and hence a measure that could identify ASD risk during this period of onset offers the opportunity for intervention before the full set of symptoms is present. In collaboration with the MIND Institute, our team have developed computer vision (CV) and deep learning (DL) based video-based screening tool that utilizes a large library of video clips. The videos are collected under the Video-referenced Infant Rating System for Autism (VIRSA) project and depict a wide range of social-communication ability and relies solely on video in the ratings, with no written descriptions of behavior. We hypothesized that the semantic clarity afforded by video would provide improved early discrimination of infants at highest risk for ASD. In this project, we will expand on our previous efforts to explore (a) optimized models for mobile screening platform, (b) mitigation for bias in AI models, and (c) security and privacy issues associated our CV/DL-based pipeline.

Requirements: Expertise in machine learning and computer vision concepts, Python programming inclusive of scikit-learn, Pandas, PyTorch/Tensorflow

Project: Time-resolved near-infrared spectroscopy for blood oxygenation measurement

Sponsor: Professors Weijian Yang and Soheil Ghiasi 

Description: Blood oxygenation is the fraction of oxygen-saturated hemoglobin relative to total hemoglobin (unsaturated + saturated) in the blood. A healthy individual regulates a very precise and specific balance of oxygen in the blood and there is medical significance to monitor oxygen saturation in patients. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy provides a noninvasive approach to conveniently measure the blood oxygenation. In this project, we will study the various approaches of NIR spectroscopy for such measurements. In particularly, we will investigate and develop a time-resolved NIR spectroscopy system, which could not only provide the measurement results from the typical continuous-wave (CW) systems, but also rich information of the tissues under the measurement probe. We will develop the model, perform simulation, explore the components, build and characterize the prototype and perform in-vitro (and in-vivo) measurements.

Requirements: Electronic circuits, Basic optics, Matlab. It is a project for 2 students.

Project: Target brain stimulation using surface electrodes

Sponsor: Professor Weijian Yang

Description: Delivering electrical field into the brain for stimulation has been shown to be effective to treat depression, stroke, dementia and several other medical conditions. The existing brain electrical stimulation paradigms either rely on electrodes implanted deep into the brain or surface electrodes on the skull. The former approach is highly invasive whereas the latter one lacks a spatial specificity. Recently, a new technology utilizes temporal interference of fields from multiple surface electrode pairs to noninvasively stimulate specific brain regions. In this project, we will optimize the design parameters of such temporal interference system to further increase the spatial specificity of the stimulation region, through finite element method simulation. We will also build a prototype of this electrical stimulation system and test it on rodents.

Requirements: Electronic circuits, Electromagnetic waves, Matlab. It is a project for 1~2 students.

UC Davis Electronic Theses and Dissertations

• UC Davis Previously Published Works

Assessing the Performance of Vadose Zone Monitoring Systems using Bromide as a Tracer

• Lennon, William
• Advisor(s): Kisekka, Isaya

Understanding the fate and transport of nitrogen through the vadose zone is vital to reduce nitrate leaching, protecting groundwater quality, and enhancing resource use efficiency. Currently, there is limited data on the continuous monitoring of nitrate transport through the deep vadose zone. The lack of high-quality data makes it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation practices aimed at reducing nitrate leaching. The vadose-zone monitoring system (VMS) serves as an innovative technology for near real-time monitoring of nitrate and other contaminants as they travel through the shallow and deep vadose zone to groundwater. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of the VMS technology at three sites using bromide (Br-) as a tracer and the unsaturated flow model HYDRUS 1D to understand underlying vadose zone water flow and solute transport processes. Site 1 was a field crop site near Esparto, CA, with a heavy Capay-clay soil and a groundwater depth of approximately 10 m. Site 2 was an almond orchard near Modesto, CA, with a moderately homogenous sandy loam in the top 2 m and a sandy clay loam down to 6 m and a water table at approximately 8 m. Site 3 was a citrus orchard near Orange Cove, CA, with a sandy loam soil at the shallow depths (0-2 meters) followed by sandy clay loam down to 7 m and a groundwater depth of approximately 25 m. The VMS was installed at all sites to collect soil pore water samples at approximately 1 m intervals to about 7 m depth. To test the system performance, approximately 380 L of a 500 ppm Br- solution was applied as a conservative tracer at the three sites. The applied tracer was either percolated by rain, irrigation, or a combination of the two. The site HYDRUS models demonstrated a complete breakthrough of Br- at each vadose sampling port depth. Measured pore-water from the VMS exhibited similar solute breakthroughs with varying time and concentrations. The bromide tracer results confirm that the VMS is capable of monitoring flow and transport processes in the deep vadose zone.

Porcine Sperm-Oocyte Interaction

• Zimara, Maria Carolina
• Advisor(s): Berger, Trish

Little is known about the proteins involved in gamete plasma membrane interaction during mammalian fertilization, and even less is known about the molecules involved in livestock species, such as the pig. Affinity chromatography of porcine sperm and oocyte plasma membrane proteins followed by mass spectrometry to identify eluted proteins detected apolipoprotein E (APOE) and a 167 amino acid Jacalin-type lectin domain-containing protein (A0A287AVU8) as potential proteins involved in this interaction (Vazquez Morales, 2023). To further explore the potential involvement of porcine APOE and A0A287AVU8 in fertilization, this study utilized an antibody inhibition technique. APOE antibodies were incubated with oocytes and A0A287AVU8 antibody were incubated with sperm for 10 minutes each prior to gamete co-incubation with the final dilution of antibody during sperm-oocyte interaction being 5 ng/µl. Each of the three replicates contained approximately 50 oocytes per treatment. A reduced ratio of fertilization (P < 0.05) was observed following the inclusion of the first APOE antibody (amino acid peptide residues 101-200) compared to the control (no antibodies). A trend toward reduced fertilization (P = 0.10) was observed with a second APOE antibody (amino acid peptide residues 151-250). Isotype control rabbit IgG did not alter fertilization. No effect on fertilization ratio was observed following incubation with rabbit anti-A0A287AVU8 IgG (P > 0.05), compared to the control (rabbit IgG), or sodium azide-containing rabbit IgG. These results suggest that APOE on the oocyte surface may contribute to effective sperm-oocyte interaction during porcine fertilization. This might be a specific receptor-ligand interaction or a more general “sticky” interaction involving APOE. Alexa Fluor 594-conjugated secondary antibody successfully localized APOE on the plasma membrane of the oocyte, and A0A287AVU8 on the sperm’s acrosome and tail, intensively staining the extremity of the latter. These findings contribute to the overall understanding of porcine fertilization.

Essays in Economics of Education, Wildfires, and Land Protection

• Orlova, Natalia
• Advisor(s): Carrell, Scott E.

In the first chapter, I contribute to the literature that studies academic impacts of disruptions due to weather or natural disasters. Such studies so far have mostly focused on younger children and evidence for older students is still limited. Furthermore, the wildfire landscape in California is characterized by frequent fires that burn close to the state's residential areas and their schools. I combine locations of the entire population of in-state wildfires with administrative school-level data to document the detrimental effects of wildfire exposure for older student academic achievement on standardized exams in public schools in California. I provide novel results for older students and I estimate implications of the physical presence of local wildfires, rather than smoke attributable to all wildfires in the U.S. as wildfire literature has done in the past. I find that local presence of large wildfires reduced mean test scores of boys by 0.05 standard deviations across all schools and by up to 0.15 standard deviations in rural socio-economically disadvantaged schools.

In the second chapter, we provide evidence to the discussion about the effect out-of-state university students have on potential in-state students. Despite paying a premium to attend state universities, researchers argue that out-of-state students may come at a cost to in-state students by negatively affecting academic quality or by crowding out in-state students. To study this relationship, we examine the effect of a 2016 policy at a highly ranked state flagship university that removed the limit on how many out-of-state students it could enroll. We find the policy caused an increase in out-of-state enrollment by around 29 percent and increased tuition revenue collected by the university by 47 percent. We argue that this revenue was used to fund increases in financial aid disbursed at the university, particularly to students from low-income households, indicating that out-of-state students cross-subsidize lower income students. We also fail to find evidence that this increase in out-of-state students had any effect on several measures of academic quality.

In the final chapter, we consider the early-1990s land protections covering tens of millions of acres of old-growth forest in the Northern Spotted Owl habitat in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Northern California. In the intervening period, wildfire regimes in this region have become significantly more frequent, larger, and more severe. We find that these restrictions on timber harvesting lead to two outcomes. First, they caused an increase in the share of low-intensity wildfire ignitions by enhancing the natural shady and cool conditions of old-growth forests and their extensive tree canopies. At the same time, they ultimately greatly increased areas of wildfire perimeters that burned at high-severity in the protected forests---almost certainly because the logging restrictions encouraged accumulation of vegetation fuels. Severe wildfires often greatly harm affected ecosystems, and impose substantial economic costs on humans. We argue that qualified logging operations could serve a beneficial, complementary role to prescribed burns in forest management plans that aim to reduce wildfire severity.

The Role of Doping in YSZ Properties via Flame Spray Pyrolysis

• Ayres Brandao, Vinicius
• Advisor(s): Castro, Ricardo

This research investigates the potential of Flame Spray Pyrolysis (FSP) as a technique for synthesizing Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) coatings on metal substrates with modified processing and thermal properties through doping. The aim is to explore how doping with Lanthanum (La) and Manganese (Mn) influences the microstructure and thermal conductivity of YSZ, a ceramic known for its high thermal stability and low thermal conductivity. This work is motivated by the need for low-cost and efficient thermal barrier coatings exploiting YSZ properties, which can be hypothetically enhanced through strategic doping.The study involves the preparation of 10YSZ structures doped with La and Mn and the application of those as coatings on aluminum disks using a custom-built FSP apparatus. This process includes optimizing parameters such as spraying distance and oxygen flow rate. The coatings’ crystalline structure and phase composition are analyzed using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) is used to assess the morphology of the nanostructures. Thermal conductivity is measured through Laser Flash Analysis (LFA). The results indicate that doping affects the deposition dynamics of YSZ. La doping results in better initial layer formation and deposition efficiency, while Mn doping influences the coating's adherence and increases the deposition rate over time. Both dopants alter the grain structure, impacting the physical and thermal properties of the coatings. The research hypothesizes that the ionic radii differences of La and Mn induce lattice distortions in YSZ, affecting its density and thermal conductivity.

Leading & navigating: a qualitative inquiry on women leaders, gender equity, and sexuality center work

• ambrosio, cici
• Advisor(s): Montaño, Elizabeth

This qualitative study explores the decision-making and navigation strategies of seven current women* leaders of campus-based Women, Gender, and Sexuality Centers (WGSCs) at large public research universities across the United States. With a feminist research design and an intersectional feminist lens, leaders illuminated their own personal transformational journeys as a driving force behind their commitment to equity and inclusion work. Recognizing foundational values and early experiences informs the ways they navigate their environments.

As pivotal hubs for gender equity initiatives, WGSCs also serve as platforms for fostering connections and facilitating collaboration, collective strategies, and partnerships. Drawing on a proposed Applied Critical and Intersectional Feminist Leadership framework, the analysis of findings revealed the innovative and unique insights for negotiating power and positionality within higher education institutions. Given the changing landscape within higher education, women’s center leaders draw upon their own survival strategies to harness solutions to our most complex problems today.

*women - all who experience life through the lens of woman in body, spirit, identity - past, present, future, and fluid (Gender Equity Resource Center, 2019)

From Inhibition to Benefit: Exploring the Relationship Between Zika Virus NS4A and ANKLE2

• Fishburn, Adam
• Advisor(s): Shah, Priya S

Flaviviruses are arthropod-transmitted positive-sense single stranded RNA viruses, capable of causing significant human disease. Their RNA genomes are translated by host machinery and produce a viral polypeptide of 10 viral proteins, 3 structural and 7 non-structural. The non-structural proteins are essential for mediating virus genome replication, host defense silencing, and cell remodeling. Much of this is accomplished through physical interactions between viral protein and host proteins, which interrupts or otherwise impacts their cellular function for virus benefit. Inhibition of host protein function during these interactions can be connected to viral pathogenesis and disease. In the case of Zika virus (ZIKV) the primary disease outcome of concern is birth defects or fetal demise that occur in fetuses that are infected in utero via vertical transmission from the infected mother. Birth defects arising from ZIKV infection are broad and collectively termed congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). Most infamous of these is microcephaly, a condition where brain and head are not fully grown at birth. Microcephaly is associated with a wide range of debilitating development problems that last throughout life. The molecular mechanisms that contribute to microcephaly observed in CZS cases are not fully understood and likely multifactorial. To understand if ZIKV-host protein-protein interactions are contributing to neurodevelopmental defect, global proteomics was previously performed on ZIKV proteins to identify host interactors. This revealed the interaction between ZIKV non-structural 4A (NS4A) and the host protein ankyrin repeat and LEM domain containing 2 (ANKLE2). ANKLE2 is involved in nuclear envelope dynamics during mitosis and asymmetric cell division during neurogenesis, a key step in brain development. Mutations in ANKLE2 are associated with primary congenital microcephaly in humans. Expression of ZIKV NS4A in vivo results in abnormal brain development in fruit flies. This phenotype is rescued by overexpression of human ANKLE2. Together this data supports the hypothesis that NS4A physically interacts with ANKLE2, inhibiting its function during neurodevelopment to cause microcephaly. However, the basis for the physical interaction and the specific ways NS4A inhibits ANKLE2 function through it are still mysterious. Beyond this is the question of why NS4A interacts with ANKLE2 to begin with? Is the interaction, and the pathogenesis that follows, purely coincidental, or does NS4A interact with ANKLE2 to serve in some aspect of ZIKV replication? This work serves to explore the questions revolving the NS4A-ANKLE2 interaction. First, we establish that ANKLE2 has the opportunity to impact ZIKV replication by showing colocalization of ANKLE2 with ZIKV factors during virus replication. To explore if ANKLE2 is actively participating in some aspect of virus replication we then genetically deplete ANKLE2 using CRISPRi knockdown or CRISPR mutagenesis. Cells with diminished or depleted ANKLE2 were infected with ZIKV and had reduced replication across multiple conditions and cell lines. This work provides substantial evidence that ANKLE2 supports ZIKV replication in human cells. During a flavivirus transmission cycle the virus must efficiently replicate in both human and mosquito cells. In collaboration with another group, we show that depletion of the Ankle2 ortholog in mosquito Aag2 cells also leads to reduced ZIKV replication, supporting that Ankle2 is beneficial to virus replication across hosts. Further, we show that physical interaction between ANKLE2 and NS4A is conserved across four other mosquito-borne flaviviruses and that ANKLE2 plays a role in the replication of some of these viruses. In order to investigate the physical determinants of the ANKLE2-NS4A interaction we developed a series of truncation mutants that serially express fewer domains of each protein. To test physical interaction between the proteins, we performed co-transfection and co-immunoprecipitation experiments. This revealed the N-terminal region of ANKLE2 interacts with the C-terminal region of NS4A. Further, we show that this non-interacting ANKLE2 mutant does not colocalize with ZIKV NS4A during infection. However, the data suggest that there are multiple contact sites between ANKLE2 and NS4A, across separate domains. ANKLE2 is a scaffolding protein that modulates the cell cycle through physical protein interactions. To explore how these interactions may be perturbed during infection and how new interactions may be driven to benefit virus replication, we performed affinity-purification and mass spectrometry on ANKLE2 with and without ZIKV infection. These revealed hundreds of candidate protein interactions which enlighten both how ZIKV inhibits normal ANKLE2 function and also potential pathways through which ANKLE2 promotes virus replication. Altogether, this work vastly expands on our understanding of the ZIKV NS4A-ANKLE2 interaction and supplies avenues for future exploration.

Control-Enabled Approaches for Active Detection of Cyberattacks on Process Control Systems

• Narasimhan, Shilpa
• Advisor(s): Ellis, Matthew J

Increasing reliance on wireless communication and complexity of cyberattacks have rendered industrial control systems (ICSs) such as process control systems (PCSs) (which are ICSs that operate chemical manufacturing processes) vulnerable to cyberattacks by malicious agents. In the past decade, several highly sophisticated cyberattacks (e.g., Stuxnet virus (2010), German steel mill attack (2014), Ukrainian power grid attack (2015), TRITON (2017)) have demonstrated that information technology (IT) infrastructure-based solutions to handling cyberattacks on control systems are insufficient on their own. An increasing body of research has focused on developing operational technology (OT)-based approaches to enhance the cyberattack resilience of PCSs. Cyberattack resilience here is defined as the ability of a PCS to minimize the impact of a cyberattack and recover from it. Research on cyberattack resilience of PCSs involves approaches that range from designing PCSs that are inherently attack-resilient to developing cyberattack detection, identification and mitigation schemes. Cyberattack detection schemes are OT-based anomaly detection schemes that reveal the presence of a cyberattack on a PCS by monitoring the process operational data for anomalies and are an important component of a cyberattack resilient PCS.

The motivating realization behind the work presented in this dissertation is that the influence of PCS design parameters may be exploited to reveal the presence of an ongoing cyberattack on a PCS. In the chapters that follow, several approaches for cyberattack detection are presented. First, a control screening approach that may be used to incorporate attack detectability within the conventional PCS design considerations is presented. The screening algorithm is based on a characterization of the interdependence between the PCS design parameters, and the ability of the detection scheme to detect the attack (attack detectability). Next, for a certain class of detection schemes monitoring a process, the relationship between the PCS design parameters, the closed-loop stability of the attacked process, and the detectability of certain attacks is rigorously characterized. Based on the characterization, for attack detection, it may be preferred to operate the process under performance degrading ``attack-sensitive'' parameters. To manage a potential tradeoff between attack detection and closed-loop performance, an active detection method utilizing switching between two control modes is developed. Under the active detection method, extended process operation is under a first (nominal) mode, the control parameters (called nominal parameters) for which are selected to meet traditional control design criteria. Under the second (attack-sensitive) mode, the process is operated with attack-sensitive parameters. The process is operated under the attack-sensitive mode intermittently to probe the process for an ongoing attack. Control parameter switching on a process under steady-state operation may induce transient behavior, which may trigger false alarms in the class of detection schemes. For processes with an invertible output matrix, a switching condition is imposed to select control parameter switching instances such that false alarms in the system are minimized.

To eliminate false alarms due to control switching on processes with a non-invertible output matrix, a reachable set-based detection scheme is developed. The reachable set-based cyberattack detection scheme guarantees a zero false alarm rate during transient attack-free process operation by tracking the evolution of the monitoring variable values with respect to their reachable sets of the attack-free process at each time step. Following this, a switching-enabled active detection method that utilizes the reachable set-based detection scheme to enable attack detection with a zero false alarm rate is presented. Furthermore, the control parameter switching instances between the nominal to attack-sensitive modes are randomized, thereby preserving the confidentiality of the detection method. Destabilization of a process for attack detection (as with operation under attack-sensitive mode) may not always be preferred. Two different alternate control modes that may be used to induce perturbations for active attack detection without destabilizing the attacked process are presented. To guarantee attack detection, the alternate control mode selected must induce ``attack-revealing'' perturbations in the process. Reachability analysis is used to present a set-based condition that if satisfied means that the control mode selected induces attack-revealing perturbations. Different models of false data injection attacks are considered. A screening algorithm that may be used to select an attack-revealing control mode for the active detection of attacks is presented. The application of all methods are applied to simulations of different illustrative processes to demonstrate their attack detection capabilities.

Development Method For an Astronaut-Powered Laundry Machine

• Arends, Andrew
• Advisor(s): Robinson, Stephen K

Without a precedent to laundering clothes off-Earth, a preliminary solution is required to develop a spaceflight laundry machine capable of operating in various gravity fields. With this thesis’ proposed solution, human exercise to power an agitating bladder, a closed-loop hydraulic system, and a wastewater sensor suite provide a desirable environment for quantifying waste-mass transfer away from textiles while minimizing textile damage. Bond Graph Theory is used to model the proposed solution and to evaluate how human-power and valve configurations affect the system’s cleaning performance. Bond Graph simulation results reveal preliminary performance metrics and hardware significantly impacting the machine’s performance. A human-powered laundry machine prototype and model are essential for maturing the technology to spaceflight readiness.

Computing Numerical Functions on Many-Core Processor Arrays

• Huo, Yuxuan
• Advisor(s): Baas, Bevan

Numerical algorithm is a fundamental part of a chip and it plays a crucial rolein a chip. The efficient manipulation of numerical data is essential for achieving optimal performance and desired functionality of a chip. The algorithms are designed on the chip to solve complex mathematical problems in different fields. Therefore, an efficient and accurate numerical algorithm can improve the practicality of a chip. This paper presents some basic numerical algorithms that can apply to the target chip, and the target platform is Asynchronous Array of Simple Processors 3(AsAP3). The paper uses shift division as the basic dividing function throughout the algorithms to replace the traditional divisions. This paper implements Trigonometric functions, Exponential function, Natural Logarithm function, and LRN function on the AsAP3 platform. This paper applies Taylor series, CORDIC, and binary search algorithms to the implemented functions. Furthermore, this paper records the numerical results of these functions generated by AsAP3 and compares them with the reference values calculated by the MATLAB program. It analyzes the difference, SNR value, and throughput of simulated results to examine the accuracy of the calculation. The paper also displays difference and ratio graphs to visually present the magnitude of the difference. The results and comparisons show that the numerical algorithms offer a satisfactory performance in the target platform. The applications are programmed with C in Visual Studio and transferred to the AsAP3 platform. The comparison between the generated value and reference value is completed on MATLAB.

Constrained Control of a Process Network using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

• Korimerla, Krishna Teja
• Advisor(s): El-Farra, Nael

This thesis examines the application of model-free multi-agent reinforcement learning for autonomous model-free control and constrained optimization of process networks comprised of multiple interconnected processes. Initially, different types of multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithms are outlined, and the challenges faced in their implementation for process control are identified. Reinforcement learning is then combined with optimal control, where the reward function is designed based on quadratic penalty functions to improve computational time and achieve improved performance compared to sparse rewards proposed in previous research studies. Several multi-agent reinforcement learning strategies, including centralized, decentralized, and mixed-type (centralized action and decentralized execution) are considered and compared. An assessment of the benefits and drawbacks of each control strategy is presented. Finally, an evaluation of the robustness of the control system against parametric uncertainties and sensor noise which are of practical significance is given. Throughout the thesis, a model system comprising of two interconnected non-isothermal chemical reactors with a recycle stream and multiple reactions is used to illustrate the design and implementation of the reinforcement learning agents. The control objective is to regulate the reactors' temperatures and concentrations at desired set-points. The proposed framework can be applied to more general process networks.

Quick Links +

Undergraduate research.

Undergraduate Research is an great opportunity to get more involved in the Math Department while working directly with faculty to expand the bounds of existing knowledge. There are many benefits to conducting undergraduate research, including the opportunity to:

• Explore an area of interest more deeply
• Learn first-hand about research to determine if you would like to pursue advanced study after your bachelor's degree
• Gain experience that is often highly valued by graduate school admissions committees
• Present your findings at the UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference or other symposia, and possibly co-author a published paper
• Build relationships with faculty, which can lead to personalized letters of recommendation

MAT 099/199: Research Credit

Students completing undergraduate research (MAT 99/199) will receive lower/upper division credit toward graduation requirements (180 unit requirement) but will not receive credit toward their major. Every 1 unit of credit corresponds to 3 hours of work a week, or 30 hours of work per quarter.

MAT 099 : Undergraduates students who have 83 units or less completed (lower division credit)

MAT 199 : Undergraduate students who have 84 units or more completed (upper division credit)

Academic Year Research Projects

Each quarter, a list of advertised research projects (along with a link to apply to these projects) can be found on the Quarterly Research Projects webpage .

Undergrad Research Conference 2021

The following are presentations held during the annual conference: 

Research in Ramsey Theory and Automatic Theorem Proving

One-Dimensional range restrcited C^2 Interpolation Algorithm

Approximating K-Means using an ADMM Approach

Recovering Individual Based Model Outcomes on Spatiotemporally Coarsened Data

Summer Research Projects

We have research projects happening each summer. For a list of summer projects (and to apply, if they are taking new students), see the Summer Research webpage .

Undergraduate Research Advisor

The undergraduate research advisor is a faculty member who has agreed to help students with all details related to a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). Primary responsibilities include helping students on finding a mentor, selecting students for available fellowships, and advertising other REU programs and fellowships outside of UC Davis.

Contact him for help!

Prof. Bob Guy! [email protected]

Undergraduate Senior Thesis in Mathematics

The Department of Mathematics at UC Davis offers undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in original mathematical research that will culminate in a senior undergraduate thesis. A student taking advantage of this opportunity would work under the guidance of a faculty mentor, pursuing original research.

Eligibility

To be eligible to write a senior thesis, advanced undergraduate students must

• Have a GPA of 3.5 or above in upper level courses in Mathematics OR be in the Honors Program .
• Find an appropriate research mentor willing to supervise their research project. Research supervisors can be faculty from the Mathematics Department or faculty from the Graduate Group in Applied Mathematics (GGAM) .
• Students that do not meet the GPA requirement may also be permitted to write a senior thesis. However, they must be nominated by a faculty member who is willing and able to supervise them in a research project, and the nomination must be approved by Undergraduate Research Committee.

Requirements for completion of an undergraduate thesis

• Students must complete two full quarters of research prior to graduation.
• While pursuing their research, students must complete MAT 199 (Special Studies for Advanced Undergraduates) and/or MAT 194 (Undergraduate Thesis) for a total of at least 6 units of credit over two quarters.
• Students must complete a thesis of sufficient quality and substance. Both the research supervisor and the Undergraduate Program Committee Chair (UPC) will evaluate a student's thesis.
• The UPC must receive a draft of the thesis no later than the beginning of the eighth week of the quarter in which the student plans to graduate. The UPC must also receive the supervisor's evaluation of the thesis at this time. The final copy of the thesis must be submitted to the department by the end of finals week.

Students who have a cumulative GPA that exceeds a College of Letters & Science requirement, complete at least 6 units of credits of MAT 199 and/or 194 over two quarters, and complete theses may be considered for graduation with High Honors or Highest Honors. All students completing theses will be recognized at the June Graduation Reception and in the Fall Department Newsletter.

Undergraduate Senior Thesis - Archived Submissions

Research programs at uc davis.

UC LEADS is a comprehensive two-year program designed to prepare economically or educationally disadvantaged students for success in doctoral degree programs in science, engineering, technology, or mathematics. Students are assigned individual faculty mentors, who guide them in academic year and summer research experiences. Scholars receive stipends and housing for their summer research and participate in extensive academic enrichment activities, including presenting their research at the annual UC LEADS Symposium.

MURPPS is a UC Davis undergraduate mentoring program designed to increase the number of disadvantaged students who pursue graduate studies in the physical and mathematical sciences by offering students the chance to work with professors on research projects relevant to their major. The goal of MURPPS is to help create a diverse post-graduate population in the Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Students are paid a quarterly stipend. MURPPS also runs seminars which introduce students to faculty and research projects, offers academic guidance, and access to the tutoring at the Academic Assistance and Tutoring Centers .

The Mentorships for Undergraduate Research in Agriculture, Letters, and Science (MURALS) is a two-quarter program that encourages students to further their education beyond the baccalaureate degree by providing opportunities to participate in academic research with a faculty mentor. MURALS welcomes students from all academic disciplines. For application information, please go to their "How to Apply" webpage.

Online Research Search Engines

The following are just a few suggested links that may prove helpful when you begin your research endeavors at UC Davis. Each site — or search engine — offers a wide variety of research aides including published articles and reviews, mathematical documents for specific phrases, or membership listings.

• Undergraduate Research Opportunities at UC Davis A comprehensive site relative to undergraduate research related to UC Davis, both on and off campus. Includes a link to the Undergraduate Research Center.
• eScholarship The publication listings for the entire University of California. This includes all research topics, but also mathematics.
• Front for the Mathematics ArXiv A front end to assist in searching the mathematics articles archive maintained by Cornell University.
• MathSciNet American Mathematical Society's listing of math reviews on the web.
• American Mathematical Society
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• Combined Membership List A searchable database of the combined membership listings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC), and the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM).

  The William Van O'Connor Library

English Department

Master's Thesis Collection

T he Master's Thesis Collection, around 200 volumes in all, ranges from theses written in 1975 to those produced by the most recent graduates of the English Department's M.A. program in Creative Writing.  In addition, the collection includes the Master's theses of students who opt to earn the M.A. degree in English and American Literature from UC Davis on the way to earning a Ph.D.  All works are normally bound in red. Some older analytical works are bound in blue.  The entire collection is organized alphabetically by author's last name.

Browse through the online catalogue alphabetically by author's last name or chronologically by year of graduation by clicking on the links below.  Note that here Master's theses on topics of English literature are displayed separately from the creative writing Master's theses.  In the creative writing section, if a letter is not highlighted, the department owns no Master's theses  written by people whose last names begin with that letter.

Creative Writing Theses

A     B     C     D     E     F     G      H     I     J     K     L     M     N     O     P     Q     R     S     T     U     V     W     X     Y     Z

1975-1979     1980-1984     1985-1989

1990     1991     1992     1993     1994     1995     1996     1997     1998     1999

2000     2001     2002     2003     2004      2005     2006      2007     2008    2009

2010     2011     2012    2013    2014    2015   2016   2017   2018

English Literature Theses: 1993-present

    Dissertations & Master's Theses    

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Theses & Dissertation Databases

Use these databases to find dissertations and theses.

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College of Biological Sciences

Biochemistry and molecular biology major gemma le wins second place in this year’s lang prize.

Prize recognizes students who make exceptional use of library resources and service

• by Kristin Burns
• June 04, 2024

The 2024 winners of the library’s Lang Prize were announced on Thursday, May 30. Now in its eighth year, the Norma J. Lang Prize for Undergraduate Information Research recognizes students who make exceptional use of library resources and services — such as primary source materials and special collections, online databases and journal articles, interlibrary loan services, or consulting with a librarian.

The Lang Prize is supported by a bequest from the late Professor Emerita of Botany Norma J. Lang, who taught at UC Davis for nearly 30 years. The prize honors Professor Lang’s devotion to her students and love of the research process.

This year, the College of Biological Sciences was pleased to see Gemma Le, a biochemistry and molecular biology major, received second place in the category of science, engineering and mathematics. 

"My priority was to identify and compare findings across different studies, while also pointing out strengths, limitations and potential risk of biases,” said Le. Her project was entitled, Efficacy of Non-Invasive Neuromodulation in the Treatment of Drug-Resistant Epilepsy. It explored the efficacy and safety of non-invasive alternatives to surgery in treating patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. She also investigates potential improvements in quality of life resulting from this treatment. With guidance from librarian Erik Fausak, Le consulted library databases and reviewed clinical trial results.

Media Resources

• Read Gemma Le’s Paper (pdf)
• Read  Gemma Le’s reflective essay  from their Lang Prize application
• Learn more about Professor Lang’s legacy
• Celebrating our 2024 Lang Prize Winners – UC Davis Library

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Researchers at UC Davis and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Develop New Tool for Neuron Experiments 

• by College of Engineering Communications
• June 04, 2024

A collaboration between Adam Moulé , the Joe and Essie Smith Endowed Chair of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Davis, former UC Davis Ph.D. student Daniel Vong, and Luke Daemen, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, or ORNL, has resulted in rotating sample holder that enables new types of neuron experiments.   

The sample holder tumbles powdered photochemical materials within a neutron beamline. The rotating holder exposes more of the material to light for increased photoactivation and better photochemistry data capture. Conventional sample holders were unable to rotate, or tumble, powdered samples, which meant light could only reach and activate molecules on the sample’s surface, reducing the amount and quality of data that could be captured.   

The new sample holder has already enabled the first neutron scattering observations of an optically excited photon splitting into two particles  —  a process that could lead to increased solar energy conversion efficiency in photovoltaic devices, such as solar cells or solar panels, and industrial processes.   

Vong, the first author of the paper for this research , was a researcher in Moulé’s Renewable Energy Electronics Lab while pursuing his doctorate in materials science and engineering at UC Davis. He spent a year at ORNL collaborating with Daemon on developing the new sample environment based on Moulé’s ideas.   

Vong is now at Intel in Portland, Oregon, and Moulé and his lab group continue to collaborate with Daemon. They plan to do more experiments this year.   

“The collaboration was a win-win, demonstrating how the university and ORNL scientists can work together successfully,” said Moulé. “It was a great opportunity for one of our researchers to intern at ORNL, learning from an expert instrument scientist and having access to the resources needed to build such an innovative sample holder.”   

Read about the collaborative research at ORNL

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Kyrie Foster receives Molière French Grad Student Award

Join us in congratulating PhD candidate Kyrie Foster, who has been selected as the third annual recipient of the Molière French Graduate Student Award. Kyrie was chosen by the French and Francophone Studies program on the basis of her excellent work on the PhD dissertation, as well as outstanding teaching and contributions to the department. The working title of the dissertation is: "Transgression, Transformation, and Transcendence: Queer Spatial Subversions in Nineteenth Century French Literature.”

This cash award was made possible by a donation from UCD French Department alumnus Zachary Polsky, PhD, who completed a dissertation on Molière under the direction of Professor Georges Van den Abbeele and was awarded the degree in 2002. French and Francophone Studies is very grateful for Dr. Polsky’s generous contribution to the graduate program.