As the return to normality in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic enters its early stages, the necessity for accurate, quick, and community-wide surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 has been emphasized. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been used across the world as a tool for monitoring the pandemic, but studies of its efficacy in comparison to the best-known method for surveillance, randomly selected COVID-19 testing, has limited research. This study evaluated the trends and correlations present between SARS-CoV-2 in the effluent wastewater of a large university campus and random COVID-19 testing results published by the university. A moderately strong positive correlation was found between the random testing and WBE surveillance methods (r = 0.63), and this correlation was strengthened when accommodating for lost samples during the experiment (r = 0.74).

Virans is a book comprised of illustrations, hand-written text, and digital elements The book was conceived as an encapsulation of the broad social changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a unique art style utilizing distorted human forms, complex line patterns, pointillism, and flat compositions, each of the book's 15 spreads represent an issue observed during the pandemic. These issues include isolation, political concerns, conspiracy theories, and the overall human toll of the pandemic.

My project focuses on the problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic that impacted the food supply chain in the United States and how they contributed to food insecurity. I identified the three key problems, the shift in demand from the commercial to the retail market, the discarding of raw food and produce, and consumer panic buying. I used the analysis of these problems to then formulate a set of solutions that would work to solve these problems.

The ongoing Global Coronavirus Pandemic has been upheaving social norms for over a<br/>year at this point. For countless people, our lives look very different at this point in time<br/>then they did before the pandemic began. Quarantine, Shelter in Place, Work from<br/>Home, and Online classes have led global populations to become less active leading to<br/>an increase in sedentary lifestyles. The final impact of this consequence is unknown,<br/>but emerging studies have led to concrete evidence of decreased physical and mental<br/>wellbeing, particularly in children. VirusFreeSports was the brainchild of three ASU<br/>Honors students who sought to remedy these devastating consequences by creating<br/>environments where children can participate in sports and exercise safely, free of the<br/>threat COVID-19 or other transmissible illnesses. The ultimate goal for the project team<br/>was to build traction for their idea, which culminated in a video pitch sent to potential<br/>investors. Although largely created as an exercise and we did not create a full<br/>certification course, merely a prototype through a website with sample questions to<br/>gauge interest, the project was a success as a large target market for this product was<br/>identified that showed great promise. Our team believes that early entrance to the<br/>market, as well as the lack of any other competitors would give the team a tremendous<br/>advantage in creating an impactful and influential service.

Especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic and age of social unrest in the United States, there has been an increasing need for comfort, yet the idea of comfort is quite vague and rarely elaborated upon. To simplify the idea of comfort and communicate the ideas around it effectively, I am defining comfort as a subset of escapism in which a person escapes to reduce or alleviate feelings of grief or distress. As companies rush to comfort their customers in this current state of uncertainty, marketers are pressed to identify people’s insecurities and comfort them without coming off as insensitive or trite. Current comfort marketing focuses on inspiring nostalgia in its customers, having them recall previous positive experiences or feelings to comfort them. Nostalgic marketing techniques may ease mild grief in some cases, but using them to alleviate severe distress probably will not be as effective, and has contributed to several seemingly out-of-touch “COVID-19 era” commercials.<br/>When addressing comfort, marketers should understand the type and hierarchy of comfort that they are catering to. Not all comforts are equal, in that some comforts make us feel better than others and some do not comfort us at all. A better understanding of how and why comforts change among different individuals, and possibly being able to predict the comfort preference based on a product or service, will help marketers market their goods and services more effectively. By diversifying and specializing comfort marketing using this hierarchical method, marketers will be able to more significantly reach their customers during “uncertain times.”

Flora Vita is a digital platform that connects families to outdoor excursions, programmed activities and local events, encouraging the familial ecosystem to flourish within Arizona's vast environment. We curate unique opportunities that allow families to cultivate internal relationships with one another and form relationships with local like-minded families in pursuit of a healthy lifestyle.

The ongoing Global Coronavirus Pandemic has been upheving social norms for over a year at this point. For countless people, our lives look very different at this point in time than they did before the pandemic began. Quarantine, Shelter in Place, Work from Home, and Online classes have led global populations to become less active leading to an increase in sedentary lifestyles. The final impact of this consequence is unknown, but emerging studies have led to concrete evidence of decreased physical and mental wellbeing, particularly in children. VirusFreeSports was the brainchild of three ASU Honors students who sought to remedy these devastating consequences by creating environments where children can participate in sports and exercise safely, free of the threat COVID-19 or other transmissible illnesses. The ultimate goal for the project team was to build traction for their idea, which culminated in a video pitch sent to potential investors. Although largely created as an exercise and we did not create a full certification course, merely a prototype through a website with sample questions to gauge interest, the project was a success as a large target market for this product was identified that showed great promise. Our team believes that early entrance to the market, as well as the lack of any other competitors would give the team a tremendous advantage in creating an impactful and influential service.

COVID-19 has proved that our society can be adaptable in the most unexpected situations. Chaos and fear struck the nation causing people to react in a variety of ways in an attempt to protect their own self interests. The retail space has had to adjust in large scales, making the shopping experience safer both for the customer and the employees. I was able to experience this first hand at Target, working there many years previous to and during the pandemic, getting to see the shift in consumer patterns. I noticed customers would purchase more products in one department, then the next month it would shift to another department. This paper will analyze those shifts in sales trends both departmentaly and within shopping methods at Target to help identify the largest changes and the possible reasons behind these.