Matching Items (12)
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- All Subjects: Sustainability
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Description
The craft of improvisation at the organ has survived a long period of dormancy and is experiencing a strong resurgence in the twenty-first century. This project seeks to establish a precedence for the value of notated music as a resource in learning improvisation, and then, through music analysis, provide examples of how that process can develop. The result of the ideas presented here is a pathway whereby any disciplined organist can learn to imitate composed music, assimilate the musical ideas, and innovate through the act of spontaneous improvisation.
ContributorsHoward, Devon (Author) / Marshall, Kimberly (Thesis advisor) / Ryan, Russell (Committee member) / Kocour, Michael (Committee member) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Rockmaker, Jody (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Is nuclear power sustainable when compared to other energy sources? A truly sustainable energy source provides an environmental benefit, minimizes costs to consumers both socially and economically, and continues to do so in both the short and the long term. Taking the zero-carbon nature of nuclear generation as its net environmental benefit, this paper the evaluates the economic and social costs of nuclear power to determine if nuclear power's reputation as "unsustainable" is warranted. The sustainability of nuclear power is evaluated in two main categories. The first part focuses on the economics of nuclear power. There are many preconceived notions regarding nuclear power and its associated industry. This section addresses those notions to determine their validity given recent data. The prevalent types of nuclear plants across the U.S., the economics of the stages of nuclear energy production, and its competitiveness relative to other energy sources are addressed, culminating in an evaluation of its modern economic attractiveness as well as its future economic viability. A sustainability assessment would not be complete without addressing the social costs of an energy source, as a sustainable source must be both economically and socially viable. If it can be established that nuclear power can provide energy at lower rates and at a lower cost in terms of externalities, then it would be considered truly sustainable. To investigate those externalities, the second part of the analysis focuses on the human costs associated with the various stages of nuclear energy production. Those costs are then compared to those of alternatives sources of power, and selected case studies are examined to illustrate the ultimate risks associated with nuclear power operations. By quantifying these aspects and comparing the results to alternatives in the field, a better understanding of nuclear energy technology and its potential is achieved. The reader can then ascertain whether nuclear power's reputation as being "unsustainable" is, or is not, a reputation it deserves.
ContributorsRudolph, Alexander James (Author) / Miller, Clark (Thesis director) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This paper offers a radical critique of consumer capitalism and consumer activism through advertisements from Industrial Food Systems. I examine advertisements from Monsanto, Industrial Beef Farmers, and Waste Management in order to critique the rhetoric that these companies use and reveal the environmental destruction they are attempting to obscure through the strategic use of language and symbols. I argue that a deeper anti-capitalist analysis of Industrial Food Systems is necessary to subvert consumer activism and greenwashing tactics and to curb environmental destruction.
ContributorsSnarr, Madeline M. (Author) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Fingerboard study is an essential component of the college guitar curriculum. A Course on Guitar Fingerboard Melody and Harmony is a method to acquire and integrate fundamental music vocabulary for the guitar performer, interpreter, improvisor, and composer, the end goal being mastery of musical vocabulary to enable artistic freedom and creative depth. This class design facilitates a solid foundation of fundamental components and provides a framework for further study and integration. It offers a concise yet intense course that consolidates, codifies, explores, and applies scale, interval, and chord vocabulary through interpretive, compositional, and improvisational engagement. This project aspires to contribute to the discipline of guitar, its canon, and its pedagogy. This programmed curriculum offers a comprehensive one-year, two-semester, college-level course on fundamental music vocabulary on the guitar fretboard. Its design facilitates a solid foundation for fundamental musical components, equips the student with a working scale and chord vocabulary, reveals how vocabulary is generated on any fretted instrument, and provides a framework for further study and integration. Semester one facilitates in-depth scale and interval study, while semester two investigates triads and seventh chords, reflecting one, two, three, and four voices textures. Each unit contains lessons, assignments, and integration activities. This document provides both teacher edition, units one through four, and student workbook, units five through eight.
Students of A Course on Guitar Fingerboard Melody and Harmony can expect dramatic strides in their understanding of musical vocabulary, its applications, and their abilities to associate and engage in real-time interpretative, compositional, and improvisational contexts. Fingerboard knowledge greatly enhances sight reading skills and enables the interpreter to find fingerings that express the rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic character of any particular musical gesture, and consequently, an entire composition. Guitar composers will be most effective when they know the possibilities and parameters of musical vocabulary on the instrument. Often, the study of vocabulary can inform and expand a composer's sonic palette and conception. For improvisers, fingerboard comprehension allows access to any interval, scale, arpeggio, or voicing the ear desires, regardless of where they happen to find themselves on the instrument in that unique moment.
ContributorsZweig, Phillip (Author) / Kim, Ji Leon (Thesis advisor) / Swartz, Jonathan (Committee member) / Rockmaker, Jody (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This research interconnects three case studies to examine survivability as a framework through which to explore historic, current, and future collaborations in the face of existential threats, social-ecological-technical uncertainty, and indeterminate futures. Leveraging archival research, document analysis, and ethnographic field work, this study focuses on artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s mid-20th-century construction of a nuclear fallout shelter, the COVID Tracking Project’s response work in the first year of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and three decades of future-facing scientific research performed at Biosphere 2. These cases demonstrate multidisciplinary collaborations across individual, organizational, and institutional configurations at local, national, and international scales in threat contexts spanning nuclear weapons, pandemics, and increasing climate catastrophe. Within each of the three cases, I examine protagonists’ collaborations within knowledge systems, their navigation of scientific disciplinary boundaries, their acknowledgement and negotiation of credibility and expertise, and how their engagements with these systems impact individual and collective survivability. By combining complex adaptive systems (CAS) framings with Science and Technology Studies concepts, I explore ways in which transformations of hierarchy and epistemological boundaries impact, and particularly increase, social-ecological-technical systems (SETS) survivability. Including notions of who and what systems deem worthy of protection, credibility, expertise and agency, imaginations, and how concepts of systems survivability operate, this work builds a conceptual scaffolding to better understand the dynamic workings of quests for survival in the 21st century.
ContributorsWasserman, Sherri (Author) / Selin, Cynthia (Thesis advisor) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Jalbert, Kirk (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This dissertation seeks to identify an ecology of knowledge to serve as a theoretical lens for understanding the state of the electronic waste management industry in the United States. Semi-structured interviews of stakeholder groups such as e-waste recyclers, manufacturers, government agencies, refurbishers, and other interested organizations were used to determine the current status of used electronics management in the US. The focus is on how the electronics reuse and recycling industry is being affected by the rapid changes in consumer electronic device technology as well as the lack of recycling infrastructure, insufficient consumer engagement with electronics reuse and repair, and inconsistent regulation. The stakeholders which are being impacted by the changing industry are also participating in shaping it either in terms of initiating the changes, or in how they are reacting and adapting to them. Furthermore, electronics reuse
and recycling have been widely considered two aspects of the same industry despite increasing evidence of bifurcation and competition for material flows. Based on stakeholder response, the ecology of knowledge that exists within this industry suggests that recyclers should shift their business to incorporate more repair and resale in addition to recycling to remain profitable. Case studies involving participant observation, additional semi-structured interviews, and policy comparisons were utilized to serve as representations for the three primary stakeholder groups: electronics recyclers, electronics refurbishers, and government agencies regulating electronics recycling and e-waste disposal. These three
stakeholder groups and their ability to capture electronics at the end of their useful life drive the percentage of discarded electronics which are recycled or reused. The used electronics infrastructure, institutions, and stakeholder networks along with the knowledge generated within make-up an ecology of knowledge which explains how changes in newer consumer electronic devices are antagonistic to recycling systems couched in a slow-to-change scrap industry. Intellectual property laws prevent the repair and reuse of used electronic devices. Finally, inconsistent, patchwork e-waste recycling
laws do not sufficiently capture used electronics at the end of their useful life. These factors have had a significant impact on the larger socio-technical system of end-of-life consumer electronic device management in the United States.
ContributorsNafe, Christopher Micheal (Author) / Wetmore, Jameson (Thesis advisor) / Dooley, Kevin (Thesis advisor) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Lower representation of women in the engineering and computer science workforce is a global problem. In the United States, women in engineering drop out at a rate higher than their male counterparts. The male/female ratio in the engineering workforce has remained stagnant despite growing percentages of graduates. Women dropout due to familial responsibilities and they leave to take positions in other industries. In India, women are also employed at a lower rate than men. Many studies address the reasons why women leave, but few studies address why they stay. Those that do, address the personal and organizational characteristics that enable women to persist. Little research was found regarding the social supports that further women's ability to persist in the male-dominated field of engineering. This study surveyed 173 men and women engineers in the United States and India as well as collected qualitative data. The research focused on the social supports of family, friends, a special person, supervisors, coworkers, and professional networking, to determine how they support engineering persistence in the four demographics. The participants were scored on their level of persistence and the impact of social supports was evaluated against it. All supports were significant, although not for all demographics. Social supports of family, friends and a special person were more important to the sample of engineers from India, a collectivist culture. The importance of the supervisor relationship to women in the United States was reaffirmed. Professional networking, informal or formal, was the only support significantly related to persistence across all demographics. In the qualitative data there was a strong theme; coworkers are their friends and they support them in their engineering life. As companies re-think their organizational environment and attempt to change engineering culture and long-standing attitudes, women can engage in creating strong social supports and assist in building quality professional networking opportunities. A strong web of support strengthens a woman engineer’s ability to persist during difficult times and provides them opportunities for personal and career growth. It can also be a vehicle for furthering diversity and inclusion in their organizations.
ContributorsFerrell, Joan Leslie (Author) / Parmentier, Mary Jane C. (Thesis advisor) / Frow, Emma Khamis (Committee member) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Mexico City has an ongoing air pollution issue that negatively affects its citizens and surroundings with current structural disconnections preventing the city from improving its overall air quality. Thematic methodological analysis reveals current obstacles and barriers, as well as variables contributing to this persistent problem. A historical background reveals current programs and policies implemented to improve Mexico’s City air quality. Mexico City’s current systems, infrastructure, and policies are inadequate and ineffective. There is a lack of appropriate regulation on other modes of transportation, and the current government system fails to identify how the class disparity in the city and lack of adequate education are contributing to this ongoing problem. Education and adequate public awareness can potentially aid the fight against air pollution in the Metropolitan City.
ContributorsGarcia, Lucero (Author) / Duarte, Marisa E. (Thesis advisor) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Committee member) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This document examines the many ways in which the arts can benefit rural areas. It aims to illuminate potential opportunities found in rural areas for all types of artists, and discusses important points on building arts programs, organizations, and events in these areas. Having a strong arts presence can positively impact the economy, education system, community and well-being in rural areas. The arts help to strengthen community identity, provide exposure to new artistic experiences while preserving local culture, create a more resilient economy, strengthen the education system, and provide a creative outlet for community members. Musicians visiting a rural community have access to a unique and fulfilling opportunity to create, advocate, share and learn. Creating short and long term arts programs and organizations within these communities is an important way of guaranteeing a more sustainable presence of the arts. This document outlines rural areas and their typical characteristics, discusses the impact the arts can have on the rural economy, education system, and well being of the community and its individuals, and explores the many opportunities and experiences available to visiting artists and musicians in rural areas. It also discusses key issues and approaches when creating arts programs, events, and organizations in rural areas. Interviews with rural residents, artists and musicians, and arts advocates, along with the author’s personal experiences and observations provide unique insight into arts advocacy in rural areas, and why it is important.
ContributorsOff, Sarah Nicole (Author) / Jiang, Danwen (Thesis advisor) / Schmidt, Margaret (Thesis advisor) / Rockmaker, Jody (Committee member) / Campbell, Andrew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Universities and colleges in the United States (U.S.) are in a period of rapid transformation. Driven by the need for an educated workforce, higher education institutions are responding to rapid innovation, globalization, economic realities, and sociodemographic shifts. Simultaneously, extensive educational online networks connect millions of people worldwide enable learning and knowledge sharing beyond what society has experienced to date. In light of technological advancements, the preservation and presentation of certain ideals that undergird academia and the communication and application of knowledge are undergoing dramatic change. Within higher education, this is both a challenge and an opportunity to re-envision the commitment to educate the public. This research discusses potential forms of this redesign and how it can build upon and depart from previous iterations of higher education. How colleges and universities will adapt to become more relevant, engaging, and accessible is a pressing question that must be addressed.
Using case studies focused on creating sustainability education materials, this dissertation develops knowledge related to three interconnected areas of study that will contribute to redesigning higher education through participatory action research methodology. First, higher education has a civic responsibility to provide new ways of thinking, being, and doing globally and providing more access to education to broader society, especially through public research institutions. Second, with a vast array of available learning materials, higher education should invest in elegantly-designed experiences consisting of well-reasoned, meticulously-curated, and high-quality content that is aesthetically appealing, engaging, and accessible to a broad audience. Third, as universities transition from the gatekeepers of knowledge to the connectors of knowledge, they also need to ensure that a coherent mission is articulated and invested in by stakeholders to create an intentionally beneficial transformational effort. The transformation of higher education toward a more inclusive learning environment through new ways of thinking and elegantly-designed learning experiences will serve to improve our learning institutions. As part of the necessary core for an educated democracy, higher education institutions must strive to create a more equitable, inclusive, and diverse society.
Using case studies focused on creating sustainability education materials, this dissertation develops knowledge related to three interconnected areas of study that will contribute to redesigning higher education through participatory action research methodology. First, higher education has a civic responsibility to provide new ways of thinking, being, and doing globally and providing more access to education to broader society, especially through public research institutions. Second, with a vast array of available learning materials, higher education should invest in elegantly-designed experiences consisting of well-reasoned, meticulously-curated, and high-quality content that is aesthetically appealing, engaging, and accessible to a broad audience. Third, as universities transition from the gatekeepers of knowledge to the connectors of knowledge, they also need to ensure that a coherent mission is articulated and invested in by stakeholders to create an intentionally beneficial transformational effort. The transformation of higher education toward a more inclusive learning environment through new ways of thinking and elegantly-designed learning experiences will serve to improve our learning institutions. As part of the necessary core for an educated democracy, higher education institutions must strive to create a more equitable, inclusive, and diverse society.
ContributorsHale, Anne Elizabeth (Author) / Archambault, Leanna (Thesis advisor) / Johnston, Erik W., 1977- (Thesis advisor) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020