Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

To understand the role communication and effective management play in the project management field, virtual work was analyzed in two phases. Phase one consisted of gaining familiarity within the field of project management by interviewing three project managers who discussed their field of work, how it has changed due to Covid-19, approaches to communication and virtual team management, and strategies that allow for effective project management. Phase two comprised a simulation in which 8 ASU student volunteers were put into scenarios that required completing and executing a given project. Students gained project experience through the simulation and had an opportunity to reflect on their project experience.

Workplace managers have adapted to many new trends and activities over the years. There has been the invention of the laptop, mobile phone devices, telecommuting, etc. These managers, people who lead and handle the different workstyles of the workplace, need to be individuals that are ready for new changes that will occur in the workplace. This includes new trends that comprise technological advances and new applications of current technology. However, Generation Z is continually impacted by current technology. Generation Z is defined as anyone born from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s (Strauss and Howe, 1991). These are the first true ‘smart’ technology natives to our world, as originally noted by Marc Prensky (2010). He describes Generation Z as “Digital natives are today’s young people who were born into the digital era and are growing up exposed to the continuous flow of digital information. Digital natives are a generation or population growing up in the environment surrounded by digital technologies and for whom computers and the Internet are natural components of their lives. They do not need to familiarize themselves with the technology by comparing it to something else” (Prensky 2010). The way they communicate amongst themselves, each other, and the entire world has become faster, more accessible, and has made the world a smaller place. This has impacted the manner of how they communicate and the standards of what they expect when they are communicating with each other. There is a concern in the workplace: How will this heightened use of communication tools in Generation Z affect their workplace habits? This is what I have explored and will be discussing in this paper. An in depth look at how technology has impacted Generation Z’s communication habits and skills, whether this will help or hurt them in the workplace, and what managers of the workplace can do to help themselves and their peers interact with this new generation.

Communication skills are vital for the world we inhabit. Both oral and written communication are some of the most sought-after skills in the job market today; this holds true in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Despite the high demand for communication skills, communication classes are not required for some STEM majors (Missingham, 2006). STEM major maps are often so packed with core classes that they nearly exclude the possibility of taking communication courses. Students and job seekers are told they need to be able to communicate to succeed but are not given any information or support in developing their skills. Scientific inquiry and discovery cannot be limited to only those that understand high-level jargon and have a Ph.D. in a subject. STEM majors and graduates must be able to translate information to communities beyond other experts. If they cannot communicate the impact of their research and discoveries, who is going to listen to them?<br/>Overall, the literature around communication in STEM fields demonstrate the need for and value of specific, teachable communication skills. This paper will examine the impact of a communication training module that teaches specific communication skills to BIO 182: General Biology II students. The communication training module is an online module that teaches students the basics of oral communication. The impact of the module will be examined through the observation of students’ presentations.

The way in which we communicate has forever changed. In person interactions are slowly being replaced by digital experiences that we share with other users. Even after the Covid-19 crisis, some companies will continue to have employees work remotely. This will further push our worlds in being shaped by the actions that occur online. As this continues, it will become increasingly important that we pay attention to the online communities that we create. Communities that reside on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and more will continue to grow in prevalence in our day to day lives. We have seen how communities can organize and have real world impacts through their interactions with each other. R/Wallstreetbets is an online community on Reddit that caused the price of multiple stocks to skyrocket by all agreeing to buy as a collective group. This gained national attention and it was focused on how an online community was able to manipulate the market, but what was even more intriguing is how it represents the future of communication. It is easy to forget that the interactions we have online are with real people on the other side of their username and profile photo. We are consistently conversing with strangers as we leave comments on posts and reply to certain users. It is incredible that we are able to network with just about any user that is on a social platform. Despite this incredible ability to connect, we live in a world that is also divided and polarized. This is a result of using platforms that create filter bubbles and work to gain your attention to sell advertisements. These sites are largely unfocused and play host to both viral videos and social justice awareness. This thesis is focused on proving the concept of a new platform’s ability to resolve these issues. In this paper I will describe to you the problems that have arisen due to large social media companies, my proposal for a platform dedicated to resolving these problems, and the validity and testing of this proposed platform.

COVID-19 has been challenging for nearly everyone in different ways. Healthcare organizations have had to quickly change policy, modify operations, reorganize facilities, hire, and train staff to overcome COVID-19 related challenges to be able to still provide care for patients, all while being mindful of the protection of their staff. Some healthcare organizations have responded particularly well, perhaps due to preparedness, planning, or exceptional leadership in times of crisis. To explore this, we invited seven healthcare system leaders from three different organizations in Arizona to talk about how they overcame challenges at the beginning of this pandemic with effective strategies and any leadership tips they had for the future. After the interviews were conducted, the interviews were transcribed, coded qualitatively, and separated into themes and categories to analyze their answers to the questions asked. The results and conclusions included strategies such as having open and honest communication, teamwork, rapidly developing communicating policies, and widely adopting new work practices like Telemedicine, Zoom, and working at home as crucial. This report is designed to assist in aiding and inspiring future or other leaders to be better prepared for solving various challenges with other emergencies that arise in the future.

Every communication system has a receiver and a transmitter. Irrespective if it is wired or wireless.The future of wireless communication consists of a massive number of transmitters and receivers. The question arises, can we use computer vision to help wireless communication? To satisfy the high data requirement, a large number of antennas are required. The devices that employ large-antenna arrays have other sensors such as RGB camera, depth camera, or LiDAR sensors.These vision sensors help us overcome the non-trivial wireless communication challenges, such as beam blockage prediction and hand-over prediction.This is further motivated by the recent advances in deep learning and computer vision that can extract high-level semantics from complex visual scenes, and the increasing interest of leveraging machine/deep learning tools in wireless communication problems.[1] <br/><br/>The research was focused solely based on technology like 3D cameras,object detection and object tracking using Computer vision and compression techniques. The main objective of using computer vision was to make Milli-meter Wave communication more robust, and to collect more data for the machine learning algorithms. Pre-build lossless and lossy compression algorithms, such as FFMPEG, were used in the research. An algorithm was developed that could use 3D cameras and machine learning models such as YOLOV3, to track moving objects using servo motors and low powered computers like the raspberry pi or the Jetson Nano. In other words, the receiver could track the highly mobile transmitter in 1 dimension using a 3D camera. Not only that, during the research, the transmitter was loaded on a DJI M600 pro drone, and then machine learning and object tracking was used to track the highly mobile drone. In order to build this machine learning model and object tracker, collecting data like depth, RGB images and position coordinates were the first yet the most important step. GPS coordinates from the DJI M600 were also pulled and were successfully plotted on google earth. This proved to be very useful during data collection using a drone and for the future applications of position estimation for a drone using machine learning. <br/><br/>Initially, images were taken from transmitter camera every second,and those frames were then converted to a text file containing hex-decimal values. Each text file was then transmitted from the transmitter to receiver, and on the receiver side, a python code converted the hex-decimal to JPG. This would give an efect of real time video transmission. However, towards the end of the research, an industry standard, real time video was streamed using pre-built FFMPEG modules, GNU radio and Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP). The transmitter camera was a PI-camera. More details will be discussed as we further dive deep into this research report.

The ASU BioDesign Clinical Testing Laboratory (ABCTL) was created to offer an accurate, less invasive, less labor intensive, and less resource draining public COVID-19 testing location in Arizona. The goal of this thesis project was to document the intra-organizational communication channels related to changing testing practices as the ABCTL evolved. This was done through a review of internal and external media, pressers, and an interview with Joshua LaBaer. By documenting internal communication channels, specifically those related to changes in testing, similar communication channels and results could be replicable in the future if an outside organization wished to transform an academic research lab into a viral testing facility.