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: Economics Program in CLAS
- Creators: O'Flaherty, Katherine
Description
The NFL is one of largest and most influential industries in the world. In America there are few companies that have a stronger hold on the American culture and create such a phenomena from year to year. In this project aimed to develop a strategy that helps an NFL team be as successful as possible by defining which positions are most important to a team's success. Data from fifteen years of NFL games was collected and information on every player in the league was analyzed. First there needed to be a benchmark which describes a team as being average and then every player in the NFL must be compared to that average. Based on properties of linear regression using ordinary least squares this project aims to define such a model that shows each position's importance. Finally, once such a model had been established then the focus turned to the NFL draft in which the goal was to find a strategy of where each position needs to be drafted so that it is most likely to give the best payoff based on the results of the regression in part one.
ContributorsBalzer, Kevin Ryan (Author) / Goegan, Brian (Thesis director) / Dassanayake, Maduranga (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Robotic rehabilitation for upper limb post-stroke recovery is a developing technology. However, there are major issues in the implementation of this type of rehabilitation, issues which decrease efficacy. Two of the major solutions currently being explored to the upper limb post-stroke rehabilitation problem are the use of socially assistive rehabilitative robots, robots which directly interact with patients, and the use of exoskeleton-based systems of rehabilitation. While there is great promise in both of these techniques, they currently lack sufficient efficacy to objectively justify their costs. The overall efficacy to both of these techniques is about the same as conventional therapy, yet each has higher overhead costs that conventional therapy does. However there are associated long-term cost savings in each case, meaning that the actual current viability of either of these techniques is somewhat nebulous. In both cases, the problems which decrease technique viability are largely related to joint action, the interaction between robot and human in completing specific tasks, and issues in robot adaptability that make joint action difficult. As such, the largest part of current research into rehabilitative robotics aims to make robots behave in more "human-like" manners or to bypass the joint action problem entirely.
ContributorsRamakrishna, Vijay Kambhampati (Author) / Helms Tillery, Stephen (Thesis director) / Buneo, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Deconvolution of noisy data is an ill-posed problem, and requires some form of regularization to stabilize its solution. Tikhonov regularization is the most common method used, but it depends on the choice of a regularization parameter λ which must generally be estimated using one of several common methods. These methods can be computationally intensive, so I consider their behavior when only a portion of the sampled data is used. I show that the results of these methods converge as the sampling resolution increases, and use this to suggest a method of downsampling to estimate λ. I then present numerical results showing that this method can be feasible, and propose future avenues of inquiry.
ContributorsHansen, Jakob Kristian (Author) / Renaut, Rosemary (Thesis director) / Cochran, Douglas (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The concentration factor edge detection method was developed to compute the locations and values of jump discontinuities in a piecewise-analytic function from its first few Fourier series coecients. The method approximates the singular support of a piecewise smooth function using an altered Fourier conjugate partial sum. The accuracy and characteristic features of the resulting jump function approximation depends on these lters, known as concentration factors. Recent research showed that that these concentration factors could be designed using aexible iterative framework, improving upon the overall accuracy and robustness of the method, especially in the case where some Fourier data are untrustworthy or altogether missing. Hypothesis testing methods were used to determine how well the original concentration factor method could locate edges using noisy Fourier data. This thesis combines the iterative design aspect of concentration factor design and hypothesis testing by presenting a new algorithm that incorporates multiple concentration factors into one statistical test, which proves more ective at determining jump discontinuities than the previous HT methods. This thesis also examines how the quantity and location of Fourier data act the accuracy of HT methods. Numerical examples are provided.
ContributorsLubold, Shane Michael (Author) / Gelb, Anne (Thesis director) / Cochran, Doug (Committee member) / Viswanathan, Aditya (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
In order to discover if Company X's current system of local trucking is the most efficient and cost-effective way to move freight between sites in the Western U.S., we will compare the current system to varying alternatives to see if there are potential avenues for Company X to create or implement an improved cost saving freight movement system.
ContributorsPicone, David (Co-author) / Krueger, Brandon (Co-author) / Harrison, Sarah (Co-author) / Way, Noah (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Hertzel, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The following study is an attempt to analyze the idea of the abject through the grotesque representation of the female body in contemporary visual art. The focus of the paper will remain within the scheme of the modern Western ideology of physical female beauty, social affirmations, and restraints. My hypothesis is that the grotesque imagery of the female body in modern art redefines beauty and liberates the female subject by turning the gaze upon itself. The proposition of this study emerges from Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject as it applies to the viewer and the viewed. There is a distinct relationship between grotesque ideas and the female body as it is viewed in the late 20th and 21st centuries. Visual imagery has become increasingly bold in its presentation for good or for bad. I chose the selected artists because they present dark, often socially ‘ugly’ depictions of the female body in honest, straightforward ways. I question why the grotesque is not popularly recognized on the ‘beauty scale’, yet our society craves this kind of imagery. The purpose of this study is to identify and explain abjection within depictions of the grotesque. This exploration of the female figure and its portrayal through the eyes of modern sculptors, painters, and designers aims to highlight that 20th and 21st century aesthetics have moved towards themes of grotesqueness in beauty, amidst cultural objectification and materialization. These themes perhaps present Western culture’s underlying physical insecurities and self-loathing.
ContributorsWillson, Ariane Lolita (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Miller, April (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
We study an idealized model of a wind-driven ocean, namely a 2-D lid-driven cavity with a linear temperature gradient along the side walls and constant hot and cold temperatures on the top and bottom boundaries respectively. In particular, we determine numerically the response on flow field and temperature stratification associated with the velocity of the lid driven by harmonic forcing using the Navier-Stokes equations with Boussinesq approximation in an attempt to gain an understanding of how variations of external forces (such as the wind over the ocean) transfer energy to a system by exciting internal modes through resonances. The time variation of the forcing, accounting for turbulence at the boundary is critical for allowing penetration of energy waves through the stratified medium in which the angles of the internal waves depend on these perturbation frequencies. Determining the results of the interaction of two 45 degree angle wave beams at the center of the cavity is of particular interest.
ContributorsTaylor, Stephanie Lynn (Author) / Welfert, Bruno (Thesis director) / Lopez, Juan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This thesis studies the world governing body of soccer, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), by investigating its recent controversial past as a world-leading international non-profit organization. Through examining the organization's beginnings as well as its growth into a nonprofit goliath, this thesis assesses FIFA's actions compared to both the relatively relaxed legal standards in its home country of Switzerland as well as an established set of moral guidelines to analyze the organization's validity in today's complicated global environment. Topics include concerns surrounding FIFA's vast financial reserves, the organization's development programs, its treatment of minorities, and its efforts to prevent organizational transparency that may lead to legitimacy questions in the near future. In the end, assessments of FIFA's validity conclude that the organization falls somewhere between being completely credible and definitively fraudulent, as its actions seemingly are satisfactory legally according to Swiss laws and regulations on paper but questionable morally.
ContributorsJacobe, Joseph John (Author) / Thomas, George (Thesis director) / Kittilson, Miki (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This paper uses network theory to simulate Nash equilibria for selfish travel within a traffic network. Specifically, it examines the phenomenon of Braess's Paradox, the counterintuitive occurrence in which adding capacity to a traffic network increases the social costs paid by travelers in a new Nash equilibrium. It also employs the measure of the price of anarchy, a ratio between the social cost of the Nash equilibrium flow through a network and the socially optimal cost of travel. These concepts are the basis of the theory behind undesirable selfish routing to identify problematic links and roads in existing metropolitan traffic networks (Youn et al., 2008), suggesting applicative potential behind the theoretical questions this paper attempts to answer. New topologies of networks which generate Braess's Paradox are found. In addition, the relationship between the number of nodes in a network and the number of occurrences of Braess's Paradox, and the relationship between the number of nodes in a network and a network's price of anarchy distribution are studied.
ContributorsChotras, Peter Louis (Author) / Armbruster, Dieter (Thesis director) / Lanchier, Nicolas (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Lipid membranes are a key structure for many classes of viruses. Lipid membranes can be analyzed using the fluid mosaic model, which states that the phospholipid membrane has variable amounts of fluidity and key membrane proteins are presented in areas stabilized by cholesterol-enriched platforms called lipid rafts. This project aims to further the understanding of the importance of lipid rafts in measles virus (MV) infection and replication, which has not been extensively studied. In order to do this, an MV-susceptible cell line was treated with an anti-cholesterol compound before and after measles virus infection. I found that pre-infection treatments had a marginal effect upon measles cytopathic effect (syncytia formation) or replication. Twenty-four hours post-infection treatment had a deleterious effect on cell viability, but the replication/assembly of infectious units per cell decreased importantly and in dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, by measuring the susceptibility to neutralization of infectious particles obtained from MBCD treated cells, I determined the importance of lipid microdomain environment on the stability of infectious particles. Increased anti-cholesterol treatment enhanced the susceptibility of MV to neutralization. Future studies are proposed to assess the properties of cholesterol depleted viral infectious units.
ContributorsYkema, Matthew Ryan (Author) / Mor, Tsafrir (Thesis director) / Jacobs, Bertram (Committee member) / Julik, Emily (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05