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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- Creators: Department of Physics
- Creators: Simonson, Mark
Description
This research compares shifts in a SuperSpec titanium nitride (TiN) kinetic inductance detector's (KID's) resonant frequency with accepted models for other KIDs. SuperSpec, which is being developed at the University of Colorado Boulder, is an on-chip spectrometer designed with a multiplexed readout with multiple KIDs that is set up for a broadband transmission of these measurements. It is useful for detecting radiation in the mm and sub mm wavelengths which is significant since absorption and reemission of photons by dust causes radiation from distant objects to reach us in infrared and far-infrared bands. In preparation for testing, our team installed stages designed previously by Paul Abers and his group into our cryostat and designed and installed other parts necessary for the cryostat to be able to test devices on the 250 mK stage. This work included the design and construction of additional parts, a new setup for the wiring in the cryostat, the assembly, testing, and installation of several stainless steel coaxial cables for the measurements through the devices, and other cryogenic and low pressure considerations. The SuperSpec KID was successfully tested on this 250 mK stage thus confirming that the new setup is functional. Our results are in agreement with existing models which suggest that the breaking of cooper pairs in the detector's superconductor which occurs in response to temperature, optical load, and readout power will decrease the resonant frequencies. A negative linear relationship in our results appears, as expected, since the parameters are varied only slightly so that a linear approximation is appropriate. We compared the rate at which the resonant frequency responded to temperature and found it to be close to the expected value.
ContributorsDiaz, Heriberto Chacon (Author) / Mauskopf, Philip (Thesis director) / McCartney, Martha (Committee member) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Supernovae are vital to supplying necessary elements to forming bodies in our solar systems. This project studies the creation of a subset of these necessary elements, called short-lived radionuclides (SLRs). SLRs are isotopes with relatively short half-lives and can serve as heat sources for forming planetary bodies, and their traces can be used to date stellar events. Computational models of asymmetric supernovae provide opportunities to study the effect of explosion geometry on the SLR yields. We are most interested in the production of \iso{Al}{26}, \iso{Fe}{60}, and \iso{Ca}{41}, whose decayed products are found in our own solar system. To study the effect of explosion asymmetries in supernovae, we use TYCHO stellar evolution code, SNSHP smooth particle hydrodynamics code for 3D explosion simulations, Burn code for nucleosythesis post-processing, and Python code written to analyze the output of the post-processing code.
ContributorsJohnson, Charlotte (Author) / Young, Patrick (Thesis director) / Lunardini, Cecilia (Committee member) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This paper will focus on the changes in China's OFDI while also explaining its growth. However, another primary focus will be comparing the relationships between China, Hong Kong, and Africa. This paper will show the correlating changes between the three regions and explain the distribution of China's investments. One argument is that Hong Kong may play a large role in facilitating Chinese investment into Africa, which if not disaggregated, could lead to inaccurate numbers of China's FDI into Africa. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of China's relationship with Hong Kong and Africa. In 2012, Garth Shelton argued that Hong Kong was an important gateway in South Africa's trade with China. Since then, many others have made similar claims in support of Hong Kong's bigger role. However, due to the difficulty of finding specific data for each region, these analyses are incomplete and fail to clearly substantiate their theory. I will try to find a correlation by gathering my own data, tables, and through different interviews.
ContributorsSon, James (Author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Iheduru, Okechukwu (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This thesis examines the impact of price changes of select microprocessors on the market share and 5-year gross profit net present values of Company X in the networking market through a multi-step analysis. The networking market includes segments including media processing, cloud services, security, routers & switches, and access points. For this thesis our team focused on the routers & switches, as well as the security segments. Company X wants to capitalize on the expected growth of the networking market as it transitions to its fifth generation (henceforth referred to as 5G) by positioning itself favorably in its customers eyes through high quality products offered at competitive prices. Our team performed a quantitative analysis of benchmark data to measure the performances of Company X's products against those of its competitors. We collected this data from third party computer reviewers, as well as the published reports of Company X and its competitors. Through the use of a preference matrix, we then normalized this performance data to adjust for different scales. In order to provide a well-rounded analysis, we adjusted these normalized performances for power consumption (using thermal design power as a proxy) as well as price. We believe these adjusted performances are more valuable than raw benchmark data, as they appeal to the demands of price-sensitive customers. Based on these comparisons, our team was able to assess price changes for their market and discounted financial impact on Company X. Our findings challenge the current pricing of one of the two products being analyzed and suggests a 9% decrease in the price of said product. This recommendation most effectively positions Company X for the development of 5G by offering the best balance of market share and NPV.
ContributorsArias, Stephen (Co-author) / Masson, Taylor (Co-author) / McCall, Kyle (Co-author) / Dimitroff, Alex (Co-author) / Hardy, Sebastian (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Haller, Marcie (Committee member) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The purpose of our research was to develop recommendations and/or strategies for Company A's data center group in the context of the server CPU chip industry. We used data collected from the International Data Corporation (IDC) that was provided by our team coaches, and data that is accessible on the internet. As the server CPU industry expands and transitions to cloud computing, Company A's Data Center Group will need to expand their server CPU chip product mix to meet new demands of the cloud industry and to maintain high market share. Company A boasts leading performance with their x86 server chips and 95% market segment share. The cloud industry is dominated by seven companies Company A calls "The Super 7." These seven companies include: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu. In the long run, the growing market share of the Super 7 could give them substantial buying power over Company A, which could lead to discounts and margin compression for Company A's main growth engine. Additionally, in the long-run, the substantial growth of the Super 7 could fuel the development of their own design teams and work towards making their own server chips internally, which would be detrimental to Company A's data center revenue. We first researched the server industry and key terminology relevant to our project. We narrowed our scope by focusing most on the cloud computing aspect of the server industry. We then researched what Company A has already been doing in the context of cloud computing and what they are currently doing to address the problem. Next, using our market analysis, we identified key areas we think Company A's data center group should focus on. Using the information available to us, we developed our strategies and recommendations that we think will help Company A's Data Center Group position themselves well in an extremely fast growing cloud computing industry.
ContributorsJurgenson, Alex (Co-author) / Nguyen, Duy (Co-author) / Kolder, Sean (Co-author) / Wang, Chenxi (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Hertzel, Michael (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Management (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
We hypothesized that recurrent exposure to a temporal discounting task would habitize participants, so that they become insensitive to framing effects. Temporal discounting is a behavioral trend which describes how people discount the value of a reward dependent on the time until receipt. Participants completed a temporal discounting task weekly for five weeks, to promote formation of a habitual decision strategy. Concomitant with this, we expected that people would shift their decision process from a deliberate, goal-oriented approach that is sensitive to changes in reward outcomes and environmental context, to a simplified, automatic approach that minimizes cognitive effort. We expected that this shift in decision strategy would be evident in a reduced influence of contextual effects on choice outcomes. We tested this hypothesis by leveraging two framing effects \u2014 the date/delay effect and the decimal effect. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that the date/delay effect is significant on week 1, shows significant changes in week 1 to week 5, and is no longer significant on week 5. The results for the decimal effects were not significant. We discuss these results with respect to the cognitive processes that underlie temporal discounting and self-control.
ContributorsSt Amand, Jesse Dean (Author) / McClure, Samuel (Thesis director) / Sanabria, Federico (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
In January 2016, Chinese regulators announced the use of circuit breakers to stabilize the stock market but suspended this mechanism after two weeks. Researchers want to further understand the unique characteristics of Chinese stock market and measure the feasibility of implementing a circuit breaker in China once again. The thesis provides an overview of China's attempted implementation and its related consequences, followed by possible problems and tentative recommendations. It outlines key characteristics among different nations that are implementing circuit breakers and price limit systems. Circuit breaker policies in the United States and Japan are explained in detail, while policies in other nations are presented as an overall trend.
ContributorsLiu, Luyao (Co-author) / Zhang, Zihan (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Aragon, George (Committee member) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
A problem of interest in theoretical physics is the issue of the evaporation of black holes via Hawking radiation subject to a fixed background. We approach this problem by considering an electromagnetic analogue, where we have substituted Hawking radiation with the Schwinger effect. We treat the case of massless QED in 1+1 dimensions with the path integral approach to quantum field theory, and discuss the resulting Feynman diagrams from our analysis. The results from this thesis may be useful to find a version of the Schwinger effect that can be solved exactly and perturbatively, as this version may provide insights to the gravitational problem of Hawking radiation.
ContributorsDhumuntarao, Aditya (Author) / Parikh, Maulik (Thesis director) / Davies, Paul C. W. (Committee member) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Observations of four times ionized iron and nickel (Fe V & Ni V) in the G191-B2B white dwarf spectrum have been used to test for variations in the fine structure constant, α, in the presence of strong gravitational fields. The laboratory wavelengths for these ions were thought to be the cause of inconsistent conclusions regarding the
variation of α as observed through the white dwarf spectrum. This thesis presents 129 revised Fe V wavelengths (1200 Å to 1600 Å) and 161 revised Ni V wavelengths (1200 Å to 1400 Å) with uncertainties of approximately 3 mÅ. A systematic calibration error
is identified in the previous Ni V wavelengths and is corrected in this work. The evaluation of the fine structure variation is significantly improved with the results
found in this thesis.
variation of α as observed through the white dwarf spectrum. This thesis presents 129 revised Fe V wavelengths (1200 Å to 1600 Å) and 161 revised Ni V wavelengths (1200 Å to 1400 Å) with uncertainties of approximately 3 mÅ. A systematic calibration error
is identified in the previous Ni V wavelengths and is corrected in this work. The evaluation of the fine structure variation is significantly improved with the results
found in this thesis.
ContributorsWard, Jacob Wolfgang (Author) / Treacy, Michael (Thesis director) / Alarcon, Ricardo (Committee member) / Nave, Gillian (Committee member) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This thesis looks into the current method a particular company uses to value its inventory carrying costs (ICC). By identifying costs incurred during all stages of production, along with incorporating industry standards and academic research while avoiding the shortcomings of the company's current method, this thesis was able to derive a more comprehensive and manageable tool for measuring ICC. Our findings led to concrete recommendations, which will provide real value to company managers by improving the accuracy of project finance calculations, supply chain optimization modeling, and numerous other decisions relying on accurate inventory data inputs.
ContributorsDougherty, Mitch (Co-author) / Marshall, Jeffrey (Co-author) / Zieler, Jason (Co-author) / Gilmore, Eric (Co-author) / Hertzel, Michael (Thesis director) / Simonson, Mark (Committee member) / Yarn, James (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-05