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Description
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has emerged as an excellent molecular building block for nanoconstruction in addition to its biological role of preserving genetic information. Its unique features such as predictable conformation and programmable intra- and inter-molecular Watson-Crick base pairing interactions make it a remarkable engineering material. A variety of convenient design

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has emerged as an excellent molecular building block for nanoconstruction in addition to its biological role of preserving genetic information. Its unique features such as predictable conformation and programmable intra- and inter-molecular Watson-Crick base pairing interactions make it a remarkable engineering material. A variety of convenient design rules and reliable assembly methods have been developed to engineer DNA nanostructures. The ability to create designer DNA architectures with accurate spatial control has allowed researchers to explore novel applications in directed material assembly, structural biology, biocatalysis, DNA

computing, nano-robotics, disease diagnosis, and drug delivery.

This dissertation focuses on developing the structural design rules for "static" DNA nano-architectures with increasing complexity. By using a modular self-assembly method, Archimedean tilings were achieved by association of different DNA motifs with designed arm lengths and inter-tile sticky end interactions. By employing DNA origami method, a new set of design rules was created to allow the scaffolds to travel in arbitrary directions in a designed geometry without local symmetry restrictions. Sophisticated wireframe structures of higher-order complexity were designed and constructed successfully. This dissertation also presents the use of "dynamic" DNA nanotechnology to construct DNA origami nanostructures with programmed reconfigurations.
ContributorsZhang, Fei (Author) / Yan, Hao (Thesis advisor) / Liu, Yan (Thesis advisor) / Gould, Ian (Committee member) / Zhang, Peiming (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
Even in the largest public university in the country, computer related degrees such as Computer Science, Computer Systems Engineering and Software Engineering have low enrollment rates and high dropout rates. This is interesting because the careers that require these degrees are marketed as the highest paying and most powerful. The

Even in the largest public university in the country, computer related degrees such as Computer Science, Computer Systems Engineering and Software Engineering have low enrollment rates and high dropout rates. This is interesting because the careers that require these degrees are marketed as the highest paying and most powerful. The goal of this project was to find out what the students of Arizona State University (ASU) thought about these majors and why they did or did not pick them. A total of 206 students were surveyed from a variety of sources including upper level classes, lower level classes and Barrett, the Honors College. Survey questions asked why the students picked their current major, if they had a previous major and why did they switch, and if the students had considered one of the three computer related degrees. Almost all questions were open ended, meaning the students did not have multiple choice answers and instead could write as short or as long of a response as needed. Responses were grouped based on a set of initial hypotheses and any emerging trends. These groups were displayed in several different bar graphs broken down by gender, grade level and category of student (stayed in a computer related degree, left one, joined one or picked a non-computer related degree). Trends included students of all grade levels picking their major because they were passionate or interested in the subject. This may suggest that college students are set in their path and will not switch majors easily. Students also reported seeing computer related degrees as too difficult and intimidating. However, given the low (when compared to all of ASU) number of students surveyed, the conclusions and trends given cannot be representative of ASU as a whole. Rather, they are just representative of this sample population. Further work on this study, if time permitted, would be to try to survey more students and question some of the trends established to find more specific answers.
ContributorsMeza, Edward L (Author) / Meuth, Ryan (Thesis director) / Miller, Phillip (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
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Description
The spread of fake news (rumors) has been a growing problem on the internet in the past few years due to the increase of social media services. People share fake news articles on social media sometimes without knowing that those articles contain false information. Not knowing whether an article is

The spread of fake news (rumors) has been a growing problem on the internet in the past few years due to the increase of social media services. People share fake news articles on social media sometimes without knowing that those articles contain false information. Not knowing whether an article is fake or real is a problem because it causes social media news to lose credibility. Prior research on fake news has focused on how to detect fake news, but efforts towards controlling fake news articles on the internet are still facing challenges. Some of these challenges include; it is hard to collect large sets of fake news data, it is hard to collect locations of people who are spreading fake news, and it is difficult to study the geographic distribution of fake news. To address these challenges, I am examining how fake news spreads in the United States (US) by developing a geographic visualization system for misinformation. I am collecting a set of fake news articles from a website called snopes.com. After collecting these articles I am extracting the keywords from each article and storing them in a file. I then use the stored keywords to search on Twitter in order to find out the locations of users who spread the rumors. Finally, I mark those locations on a map in order to show the geographic distribution of fake news. Having access to large sets of fake news data, knowing the locations of people who are spreading fake news, and being able to understand the geographic distribution of fake news will help in the efforts towards addressing the fake news problem on the internet by providing target areas.
ContributorsNgweta, Lilian Mathias (Author) / Liu, Huan (Thesis director) / Wu, Liang (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description
Imagining Climate (www.imaginingclimate.com) is a social media project that gauges how the public thinks about climate change in their community. Users will view climate data from 2017, view projected data for 2050, and then be given a prompt to imagine what the future looks like to them and write a

Imagining Climate (www.imaginingclimate.com) is a social media project that gauges how the public thinks about climate change in their community. Users will view climate data from 2017, view projected data for 2050, and then be given a prompt to imagine what the future looks like to them and write a short narrative story about their vision. Imagining Climate hopes to provide a public source of data for all and use imaginative writing to help users understand how other members of their communities think about climate change.
ContributorsLeung, Ellery Hermes (Author) / Popova, Laura (Thesis director) / Tarrant, Philip (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description
The areas of cloud computing and web services have grown rapidly in recent years, resulting in software that is more interconnected and and widely used than ever before. As a result of this proliferation, there needs to be a way to assess the quality of these web services in order

The areas of cloud computing and web services have grown rapidly in recent years, resulting in software that is more interconnected and and widely used than ever before. As a result of this proliferation, there needs to be a way to assess the quality of these web services in order to ensure their reliability and accuracy. This project explores different ways in which services can be tested and evaluated through the design of various testing techniques and their implementations in a web application, which can be used by students or developers to test their web services.
ContributorsHilliker, Mark Paul (Author) / Chen, Yinong (Thesis director) / Nakamura, Mutsumi (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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Description
Engineering an object means engineering the process that creates the object. Today, software can make the task of tracking these processes robust and straightforward. When engineering requirements are strict and strenuous, software custom-built for such processes can prove essential. The work for this project was developing ICDB, an inventory control

Engineering an object means engineering the process that creates the object. Today, software can make the task of tracking these processes robust and straightforward. When engineering requirements are strict and strenuous, software custom-built for such processes can prove essential. The work for this project was developing ICDB, an inventory control and build management system created for spacecraft engineers at ASU to record each step of their engineering processes. In-house development means ICDB is more precisely designed around its users' functionality and cost requirements than most off-the-shelf commercial offerings. By placing a complex relational database behind an intuitive web application, ICDB enables organizations and their users to create and store parts libraries, assembly designs, purchasing and location records for inventory items, and more.
ContributorsNoss, Karl Friederich (Author) / Davulcu, Hasan (Thesis director) / Rios, Ken (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description
For those interested in the field of robotics, there are not many options to get your hands on a physical robot without paying a steep price. This is why the folks at BCN3D Technologies decided to design a fully open-source 3D-printable robotic arm. Their goal was to reduce the barrier

For those interested in the field of robotics, there are not many options to get your hands on a physical robot without paying a steep price. This is why the folks at BCN3D Technologies decided to design a fully open-source 3D-printable robotic arm. Their goal was to reduce the barrier to entry for the field of robotics and make it exponentially more accessible for people around the world. For our honors thesis, we chose to take the design from BCN3D and attempt to build their robot, to see how accessible the design truly is. Although their designs were not perfect and we were forced to make some adjustments to the 3D files, overall the work put forth by the people at BCN3D was extremely useful in successfully building a robotic arm that is programmed with ease.
ContributorsCohn, Riley (Co-author) / Petty, Charles (Co-author) / Ben Amor, Hani (Thesis director) / Yong, Sze Zheng (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
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Description
With the progression of different industries moving away from employing secretaries for business professionals and professors, there exists a void in the area of personal assistance. This problem has existing solutions readily available to replace this service, i.e. secretary or personal assistant, tend to range from expensive and useful to

With the progression of different industries moving away from employing secretaries for business professionals and professors, there exists a void in the area of personal assistance. This problem has existing solutions readily available to replace this service, i.e. secretary or personal assistant, tend to range from expensive and useful to inexpensive and not efficient. This leaves a low cost niche into the market of a virtual office assistant or manager to display messages and to help direct people in obtaining contact information. The development of a low cost solution revolves around the software needed to solve the various problems an accessible and user friendly Virtual Interface in which the owner of the Virtual Office Manager/Assistant can communicate to colleagues who are at standby outside of the owner's office and vice versa. This interface will be allowing the owner to describe the status pertaining to their absence or any other message sent to the interface. For example, the status of the owner's work commute can be described with a simple "Running Late" phrase or a message like "Busy come back in 10 minutes". In addition, any individual with an interest to these entries will have the opportunity to respond back because the device will provide contact information. When idle, the device will show supplemental information such as the owner's calendar and name. The scope of this will be the development and testing of solutions to achieve these goals.
ContributorsOffenberger, Spencer Eliot (Author) / Kozicki, Michael (Thesis director) / Goryll, Michael (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
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Description
Due to its difficult nature, organic chemistry is receiving much research attention across the nation to develop more efficient and effective means to teach it. As part of that, Dr. Ian Gould at ASU is developing an online organic chemistry educational website that provides help to students, adapts to their

Due to its difficult nature, organic chemistry is receiving much research attention across the nation to develop more efficient and effective means to teach it. As part of that, Dr. Ian Gould at ASU is developing an online organic chemistry educational website that provides help to students, adapts to their responses, and collects data about their performance. This thesis creative project addresses the design and implementation of an input parser for organic chemistry reagent questions, to appear on his website. After students used the form to submit questions throughout the Spring 2013 semester in Dr. Gould's organic chemistry class, the data gathered from their usage was analyzed, and feedback was collected. The feedback obtained from students was positive, and suggested that the input parser accomplished the educational goals that it sought to meet.
ContributorsBeerman, Eric Christopher (Author) / Gould, Ian (Thesis director) / Wilkerson, Kelly (Committee member) / Mosca, Vince (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
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Description
Despite efforts to recruit and retain female engineering students, only about 21.3% of bachelor’s degrees each year in engineering and computer science are awarded to women. The purpose of this synthesis is to understand the ways in which current research has explored how self-identity, engineering identity, and sense of belonging

Despite efforts to recruit and retain female engineering students, only about 21.3% of bachelor’s degrees each year in engineering and computer science are awarded to women. The purpose of this synthesis is to understand the ways in which current research has explored how self-identity, engineering identity, and sense of belonging influence undergraduate women’s persistence. Analysis is focused around 4 themes that emerged: (1) Sense of Self: Self-Efficacy, Expectancy Value Theory; (2) Culture of Engineering: Engineering Identity; (3) Stereotype Threat; (4) Interdisciplinary Studies to Expand the Culture of Engineering. Conclusions of this synthesis may be used as opportunities for future engagement with these topics.
ContributorsTapia, Kayla (Author) / Ganesh, Tirupalavanam (Thesis director) / Velez, Jennifer (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05