Yvette Yi-Chi Wu
While languages like English use grammatical markers to signal plurality (like the -s in cat-s), languages like Chinese use separate words called classifiers. A classifier is a unit of measurement that allows the noun it describes to be countable, similar to saying three pieces of furniture instead of three furniture-s in English. Although Chinese has long been researched as a classifier language, most existing work has focused on Mandarin, overlooking the variations that exist among Chinese languages. By conducting research on variations in plurality among southern Chinese languages (including Cantonese, […]
Adrian Overly
Critical photoperiod, the threshold day length that accelerates or is required for flowering, allows plants to flower in response to seasonal cues that indicate environmental conditions should be favorable for seed development. Twenty-first century climate change, however, has led to changing precipitation and temperature patterns, and because day length will remain constant, the same photoperiod may not necessarily predict the best time of year to flower on a local scale. Species unable to evolve their flowering responses to photoperiod are at high risk for extinction. Understanding the genetic basis of […]
Mason Cummings
The visual field of the human eye is not limited to external objects, but instead includes visible effects which arise from within the optical system itself, otherwise known as entoptics. One may be familiar with entoptics in the form of floaters or migraine auras, as well as the field of changing colors and shapes borne of gentle pressure applied to the back of shut eyelids. Through research on the human optical system, the basic morphological components of these visual phenomena have been classified into a set of primarily geometric forms. […]
Greg Pommier
Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible vision loss around the world. Primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), the most common form of glaucoma, arises from functional and morphological pathologies in the trabecular meshwork (TM), a band of tissue in the anterior segment of the eye that regulates intraocular pressure (IOP) by controlling outflow of the aqueous humor. In this project, I will construct a novel three-dimensional (3D) bioscaffold structure for TM cell culture that will be used to construct a TM tissue model and mimic in vivo conditions. This bioengineering […]
Zisu Dong
Reconstructing dense models of real-world 3D scenes is important for autonomous driving tasks. However, motion estimation for an agile single camera moving through general, unknown scenes has proved to be a challenging problem. The task becomes much more challenging in autonomous driving when real-time performance is required under disturbance of transient change of moving objects (e.g. vehicles, pedestrians) and surrounding environments (e.g. lighting conditions). The goal of this project is to build a pipeline for processing driving videos gathered by on-dash car camera on top of existing Structure from Motion […]
Yu Ma
Matrix multiplication is one of the most foundational mathematical operations. Understanding this operation is a sophisticated mathematical question, which has been the subject of extensive research over the years. There is huge incentive to improve the speed of matrix multiplication as well as understand the inherent bounds on its complexity. The rich theory of algebraic computational complexity aims to study the complexity of objects with an intrinsic mathematical structure. In particular, for each n, matrix multiplication of two nxn matrices can be expressed as a bilinear map, which corresponds to […]
Emma Paulina Bianco
No area is perhaps more synonymous with conservatism than Orange County, California. This region fell victim to Cold War paranoia of imposing Soviet threats and possible communist subversion. From the end of World War II to the late 1960s, Orange County residents engaged in local battles to protect their most precious individuals from socialist leanings: children. In an effort to reinforce American superiority, citizen organizations, parents, and school boards waged textbook wars to censure particular materials they believed subscribed to Soviet leanings. However, my study seeks to understand the viability […]
Sabrina Berger
The Very Large Array (VLA) radio interferometer in New Mexico is an excellent instrument to look for radio transients such as fast radio bursts (FRBs). FRBs are intense radio signals lasting milliseconds that do not yet have a confirmed origin. An interferometer employs an array of radio telescopes to observe radio frequencies. FRBs are a new major interest in radio astronomy because of their mysterious nature and increasing number of observations. Many radio telescopes are beginning to design and construct FRB pipelines that search incoming data in real time. Besides […]
Alexander Frenkel
Symmetry is a very important and beautiful tool in physics. From every symmetry in a physical system, one can derive a conserved quantity. However, when one attempts to study various quantum systems with interesting and useful symmetries compatible with Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, one finds that some of them fall apart and create divergences at high energies. One method of resolving this problem is to work in a hypothetical space-time where Lorentz symmetry doesn’t have to hold at high energies. This gives us more freedom in building the theory, […]
Zachery Valdez
As paradoxical as it may sounds, the deportation of American Veterans is a phenomenon that continues to affect our non-Citizen Veterans. My research will analyze and document the deportation and United States Veterans, in order to understand why these Americans are getting deported.