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.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4
Description
The purpose of this study is to understand if there is a demographic variable that predicts science literacy, and if science literacy makes one less likely to believe in pseudoscience. The demographic variables that were tested were age, gender, religion, political affiliation, highest degree completed, field aforementioned degree is in, and industry in which one is employed. Participants were given 40 statements in total and asked to select whether they strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, and strongly disagree with that given statement. Statements ranged from scientific facts to historical conspiracies, superstitions and myths. All the data was examined as a whole, followed by comparisons between demographic data and statements. Overall, men were more likely to answer science related questions correctly, while women believed more in conspiracies and myths. Although some trends were identified in the other demographic data sets, the beliefs were either too inconsistent or lacked enough data points to be considered significant. Thus, gender was the only demographic that could be used to predict one’s beliefs.
ContributorsMiller, Dana (Co-author) / Shrum, Madelyn (Co-author) / Sukharev, Maxim (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
A phenomenon of intense transmission of light has been observed from optical response to subwavelength structures in metal film. Using numerical simulation, an incident plane wave propagates toward a thin film of silver with a subwavelength slit and groove. This thesis explores parameters, such as slit-groove distance, location of placed molecules, and molecule resonance, which affect the transmission of light through the slit. It is shown how the eigenenergies of the system vary with slit-groove distance. Two scenarios were investigated; a) molecules placed inside groove and b) molecules placed inside slit. It is found that the most dramatic effect on transmission by molecules is with molecules inside slit.
ContributorsGilbert, Alia (Author) / Sukharev, Maxim (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / Engineering Programs (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This policy proposal paper is designed to address concerns about the protection of data
concerning citizens of the United States. The first step is to explore the need for federal
legislation because of the problems of cyberattacks, data loss and leakage, and big data. The
proposal then analyses how other countries had already addressed these concerns for their
citizens through legislation by looking at their regulation and the results of implementation. The
paper adjacently discusses the importance of American values of privacy as a fundamental right,
the free market, and protection from the private sector within a cybersecurity paradigm. From
this combined research, the paper yields a proposal of how the U.S. government should address
the situation through federal policy. The policy outlines cybersecurity measures to protect
information from cyberattacks and data loss and leakage, rights of American citizens that
organizations need to uphold, and the creation of a commission that provides resources and
education to domestic and foreign organizations.
concerning citizens of the United States. The first step is to explore the need for federal
legislation because of the problems of cyberattacks, data loss and leakage, and big data. The
proposal then analyses how other countries had already addressed these concerns for their
citizens through legislation by looking at their regulation and the results of implementation. The
paper adjacently discusses the importance of American values of privacy as a fundamental right,
the free market, and protection from the private sector within a cybersecurity paradigm. From
this combined research, the paper yields a proposal of how the U.S. government should address
the situation through federal policy. The policy outlines cybersecurity measures to protect
information from cyberattacks and data loss and leakage, rights of American citizens that
organizations need to uphold, and the creation of a commission that provides resources and
education to domestic and foreign organizations.
ContributorsBrockman, Emily M. (Author) / Hollinger, Keith (Thesis director) / Walsh, Tatiana (Committee member) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Information Technology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
All freshman honors students are required to take a two-semester course during their freshman year at ASU called Human Event. This course focuses on developing a student’s ability to break down the concepts in important historical texts and then write essay’s that explore these concepts. One of the unique qualities of the honors college at ASU Polytechnic is the Thesis Fest, which is an opportunity for students to share their progress when writing each essay before the due date. During Thesis Fest, students discuss the texts they are writing about with tutors and they get helpful pointers regarding how to clearly understand the concepts they want to explore. These tutors are previous Human Event students who are all enrolled in another course called the Honors Colloquium. The polytechnic campus is also unique because it allows a student’s paper to be evaluated in a conference – Paper Mini-Conference (PMC) – between the student, a tutor, and the professor. The inspiration for this project is derived from personal experiences in the Honors Colloquium. During each Thesis Fest, students and tutors are required to fill out tutor receipts, verifying that the student attended Thesis Fest as well as the texts discussed. In addition, a receipt is also used to verify that the tutor is fulfilling his/her tutoring obligations. Therein lies a pain point for both tutors and students, which is the fact that all receipts are hand-written on small pieces of paper and both the tutor and student must have separate duplicate copies. In addition, the head tutor of the Colloquium is then required to analyze the cards and verify that individual tutors have enough receipts for the semester. Lastly, the student must verify that they attended Thesis Fest by bringing a receipt to the PMC. There have been many occasions when a student has forgotten their receipt, which results in them having to email the receipt to the professor or bring it in at a later time. This project aims to solve this problem by building a mobile application that digitizes the data collection for receipts.
ContributorsAlimov, Alexander (Author) / Oberle, Eric (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05