Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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Description
Since Dylan Roof, a white supremacist, shot and killed nine members of a black church in Charleston on June 17, 2015, Confederate symbols have stood at the center of much controversy across the United States. Although the Confederate battle flag remains the most obvious example, the debate took a particular form in Tennessee, centering on the image of General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Born in 1822 to a poor family, he left school early to work. Although his work in the slave trade made him a millionaire, his later participation in the massacre of over 300 black soldiers at Fort Pillow in 1864 during the Civil War and association with the Ku Klux Klan cemented his reputation as a violent racist. Yet, many white Tennesseans praised him as a hero and memorialized him. This thesis examines Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park in Benton County and Forrest Park, now Health Sciences Park, in Memphis to examine what characteristics denote a controversial memorial. Specifically, I focus on the physical form, the location, and the demographics of the area, investigating how these components work together to give rise to controversy or acceptance of the memorial's image. Physical representations greatly impact the ideas associated with the memorial while racial demographics affect whether or not Forrest's representation as a hero speaks true to modern interpretations and opinions.
ContributorsFish, Caroline Rose (Author) / Longley, Rodney (Thesis director) / Suk, Mina (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Dressler Makes Things (DMT), as a thesis project, explores the viability of DMT as a monetized blog. DMT is a life improvement blog with a focus on cooking. Its blog niche sits between nostalgic, sensory food blogs and professional, actionable life improvement blogs. Because blogs that bridge this gap are rare, DMT aims to fill this need by making cooking easy, affordable, and attainable for anyone, but particularly females in their early twenties. This thesis explores marketing topics like brand, blog niche, unique value proposition, current viewers, and user personas, as well as information about the current blogging environment and an analysis of relevant competitors. It also develops marketing objectives for DMT, as well as positioning, conversion, referral, content promotion, and partnership strategies to reach these goals. Finally, it discusses distribution, pricing, and promotional tactics, as well as an operational plan and financial projections.
ContributorsParsons, Dressler Eileen (Author) / Gray, Nancy (Thesis director) / Bitter, Gary (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Women are now living longer than ever before, yet the age of spontaneous menopause has remained stable. This results in an increasing realization of the need for an effective treatment of cognitive and physiological menopausal and post-menopausal symptoms. The most common estrogen component of hormone therapy, conjugated equine estrogens (CEE; Premarin) contains many estrogens that are not endogenous to the human body, and that may or may not be detrimental to cognition (Campbell and Whitehead, 1977; Engler-Chiurazzi et al., 2011; Acosta et al., 2010). We propose the use of a novel treatment option in the form of a naturally-circulating (bioidentical) estrogen called estriol. Due to estriol’s observed positive effects on synaptic functioning and neuroprotective effects in the hippocampus (Ziehn et al., 2012; Goodman et al., 1996), a brain structure important for spatial learning and memory, estriol is promising as a hormone therapy option that may attenuate menopausal- and age- related memory decline. In the current study, we administered one of the three bioidentical estrogens (17β-Estradiol, 4.0 µg/day; Estrone, 8.0 µg/day; Estriol, 8.0 µg/day) or the vehicle polyethylene glycol by subcutaneous osmotic pump to ovariectomized Fisher-344 rats. We compared these groups to each other using a battery of spatial learning tasks, including the water radial-arm maze (WRAM), Morris water maze (MM), and delayed-match-to-sample maze (DMS). We found that all estrogens impaired performance on the WRAM compared to vehicle, while 17β-estradiol administration improved overnight forgetting performance for the MM. The estriol group showed no cognitive enhancements relative to vehicle; however, there were several factors indicating that both our estriol and estradiol doses were too high, so future studies should investigate whether lower doses of estriol may be beneficial to cognition.
ContributorsStonebarger, Gail Ashley (Author) / Bimonte-Nelson, Heather (Thesis director) / Knight, George (Committee member) / Engler-Chiurrazzi, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
In this paper, it is determined that learning retention decreases with age and there is a linear rate of decrease. In this study, four male Long-Evans Rats were used. The rats were each trained in 4 different tasks throughout their lifetime, using a food reward as motivation to work. Rats were said to have learned a task at the age when they received the highest accuracy during a task. A regression of learning retention was created for the set of studied rats: Learning Retention = 112.9 \u2014 0.085919 x (Age at End of Task), indicating that learning retention decreases at a linear rate, although rats have different rates of decrease of learning retention. The presence of behavioral training was determined not to have a positive impact on this rate. In behavioral studies, there were statistically significant differences between timid/outgoing and large ball ability between W12 and Z12. Rat W12 had overall better learning retention and also was more compliant, did not resist being picked up and traveled more frequently at high speeds (in the large ball) than Z12. Further potential studies include implanting an electrode into the frontal cortex in order to compare neuro feedback with learning retention, and using human subjects to find the rate of decrease in learning retention. The implication of this study, if also true for human subjects, is that older persons may need enhanced training or additional refresher training in order to retain information that is learned at a later age.
ContributorsSpinrad, Amelia (Author) / Si, Jennie (Thesis director) / Thompson, Patrick (Committee member) / Ma, Weichao (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to create an informational book on gluten-free living. It is our hope that by the end of the book readers will have a better understanding that living with a gluten intolerance or auto-immune disorder does not control one's life. Someone just needs to put in a bit more planning and time in order to travel or eat out. The book goes into detail on every condition on the gluten-sensitivity spectrum. It also goes in-depth on medicines, recipes, and travel.
ContributorsSnodgrass, Allison (Co-author) / Snodgrass, Amanda (Co-author) / Johnston, Carol (Thesis director) / Jacobs, Mark (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Statistics are rising for adults who are overweight and/or obese, putting them at higher risk of developing serious health problems. Eating fewer portions of vegetable than the daily-recommended amounts contributes to this increase with. College students, being more susceptible to weight gain as they are transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Previous studies demonstrated that children ate more vegetables when repeatedly paired with a low-fat dip compared to when served plain. The current study examined whether this effect was also successful in college-aged subjects. A total of 148 (55 males, 91 females) college-aged students from an introductory psychology class at Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ) participated in the study. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive cauliflower or broccoli (raw) either served plain or with low-fat ranch dressing. Subjects showed a greater preference for and consumption of the vegetable plain that was previously given with dip than without dip. These findings suggest that serving vegetables with low-fat ranch dip two times can increase the liking and consumption of vegetables in college students.
ContributorsKim, Sophia L. (Author) / Phillips, Elizabeth Capaldi (Thesis director) / Bajaj, Devina (Committee member) / Cohen, Adam (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
‘why we bend' a Bachelor of Fine Arts honors thesis exhibition by Ximenna Hofsetz and Tiernan Warner brings together installation, digital, sculptural, and printed artwork. The main focus concerns memory; and its vague, formless, and hazy nature. The work also examines what would happen if cognitive space could be physically mapped? What would it look like in sculptural form? Memory erodes and distorts with time. We influence our memories as much as they affect us. Thus, just as relationships are ever-changing, and our memories of those we interact with constantly shifting, our relationships with our own memories are malleable and evolve through time. This transient nature of memory is depicted in the various stylistic means of this exhibition by referencing time and space as well as personal memories and ephemera in both concrete and abstract ways. ‘why we bend’ implements a variety of multimedia techniques to examine recollection and its hold on us.
ContributorsHofsetz, Ximenna Cedella (Author) / Gutierrez, Rogelio (Thesis director) / Hood, Mary (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
How are perceptions of morality and disgust regarding meat consumption related to each other? Which factor is more salient in determining one's willingness to eat the meat of a specific animal? How do these answers vary across religious groups? This study investigates the ways that concepts like morality and disgust are related to food preferences and hopes to shed light on the mechanisms that enforce culturally sanctioned food taboos. The study compares 4 groups of people in the U.S.: Christians (n = 39), Hindus (n = 29), Jews (n = 23), and non-religious people (n = 63). A total of 154 participants were given surveys in which they rated their feelings about eating various animals. Data from Christian and non-religious groups exhibited similar patterns such as a high likelihood of eating a given animal when starving, while results from Jews and Hindus were consistent with their religion's respective food taboos. Despite these differences, morality and disgust are strongly correlated with one another in almost all instances. Moreover, morality and disgust are almost equally important considerations when determining willingness to eat when starving.
ContributorsParekh, Shaili Rajul (Author) / Hruschka, Daniel (Thesis director) / Jacobs, Mark (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
This thesis will examine market research relating to consumer food trends and the business environment of Austin, Texas in order to evaluate the initial feasibility of establishing a small hydroponic produce farm. A main concern of this report is to provide a general overview of hydroponics and its potential advantages over traditional farming methods as a technique for producing food products for consumers in a local setting. To explore the potential of establishing such a venture, this report will also include a partial business plan focusing on the marketing strategy of initiating a hydroponic produce farm in Austin.
ContributorsShriver, John Andrew (Author) / Schmitz, Troy (Thesis director) / Manfredo, Mark (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
In Arizona, people flock the streets of Tombstone in droves, chatting in period costume while gunshots ring down the street. Others in Bisbee walk in the Queen Mine, listening to the tour guide discuss how the miners extracted ore. Still others drive up the precarious road to Jerome, passing through the famed Grand Hotel. As former Arizona mining towns, Tombstone, Jerome and Bisbee have a shared identity as former mining boomtowns, all of which experienced subsequent economic and population decline. Left with the need to reinvent themselves in order to survive, the past takes on a different role in each city. In Jerome, visitors seem content to "kill a day" against the backdrop of the historic town. In Bisbee, time seems stuck in the 1970s, the focus having shifted from the mining to the "hippies" who are considered to have resuscitated the town from near-extinction. Tombstone seem to inspire devotion, rooted in the influence of the 1993 film titled after the town. By memorializing portions of their past, these three towns have carved out new lives for themselves in the twenty-first century. As visitors are informed by the narrative of the "Old West," as shaped by the Western movie and television genre, they in turn impact how the towns present themselves in order to attract tourists. In all these sites, the past is present and like a kaleidoscope, continually recreated into new formations. While the designation of Jerome, Bisbee and Tombstone as "ghost towns" is disputed by individuals in each site, these stories of visitors and residents reveal the intricate ways in which these towns have acquired new life.
ContributorsLemme, Nicole Lee (Author) / de la Garza, Amira (Thesis director) / Paulesc, Marie Louise (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05