Matching Items (66)
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- All Subjects: Genetics
- Creators: School of Life Sciences
- Creators: Department of Finance
- Creators: Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
The sports universe has been around for over a century and yet the at home sports viewing experience has seen little change. Even though our society has seen monumental innovative, technological advances, watching sports at home has not undergone any changes and may soon find itself a thing of the past unless something changes. When the COVID-19 pandemic arose, a problem surfaced of revenue loss and decreasing fan retention leaving teams and leagues stumbling for solutions. RYZE offers a never before seen product that can revolutionize how sports fans watch and engage in sporting events. By taking the lucrative concept of “battle passes” from the video game industry and placing it in the sports industry, RYZE hopes to increase overall fan revenue, retention, and engagement. A clear market size and wide range of potential customers, RYZE looks to help fans stay engaged while also earning prizes. With competition ranging from fantasy sports to virtual reality, RYZE has competitive advantages that give it potential to become a sports fan’s go to product when thinking about their favorite team. RYZE has gone from a propelling question to a bright idea and then to a prototype along with a full pitch deck and hopes to engrain itself in college athletics, MLB, and other professional sports leagues.
ContributorsTimmermann, Justin Michael (Co-author) / Diaz, Daniel (Co-author) / Meyer, Sarah (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Lee, Christopher (Committee member) / Kunowski, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
When I was unsure of what my thesis project would be, the professor of my thesis prep class, Jill Johnson, recommended that I choose a topic that I am passionate about. Immediately, my mind went to basketball and the NBA, the business and operations side of things to be specific. Initially, this research paper was going to look into market size and how those teams in a smaller market made their money and ran their teams. It was to focus on some of the more successful franchises that come from smaller markets, as well as those franchises that have been historically unsuccessful. However, the kind of data that I was looking for on market sizes was not very available. So I ended up focusing almost exclusively on the operations side of things. I wanted to see if there was one strategy for building a team that had proven to be more successful than others. I was not sure what sort of answers I would find, but I knew that there had to be some useful data that had yet to be discovered. I settled on researching the success of teams that build primarily using players they drafted versus teams that were built primarily through trades and free agent signings. I also wanted to illuminate the difficulties that front offices, particularly those in smaller markets, face when building a franchise. I chose to focus on things such as the luxury tax and betting on the wrong players. This paper went a lot of different directions before it became what it did. I want to thank all of those who helped me, particularly my director Tim McGuire, my second reader Peter Bhatia and Jill Johnson for helping me get started on the most intimidating, yet rewarding, project that I have ever been a part of.
ContributorsJohnson, Connor David (Author) / McGuire, Tim (Thesis director) / Bhatia, Peter (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The Dorrance Center for Rare Childhood Disorders is a unique research division at TGen (The Translational Genomics Research Institute) that provides personalized care to children and young adults facing rare, undiagnosed diseases. TGen scientists believe that the answers to these enigmatic disorders can often be found in a person's genetic code. They aim to solve these genetic mysteries using whole exome sequencing, a method that prioritizes the protein-coding portion of the genome in the search for disease-causing variants. Unfortunately, a communication gap sometimes exists between the TGen scientists and the patients they serve. I have seen, first hand, the kind of confusion that this study elicits in the families of its participants. Therefore, for my thesis, I decided to create a booklet that is meant to provide some clarity as to what exactly The Dorrance Center for Rare Childhood Disorders does to help diagnose children with rare disorders. The purpose of the booklet is to dispel any confusion regarding the study by providing a general review of genetics and an application of these lessons to the relevant sequencing technology as well as a discussion of the causes and effects of genetic mutations that often times are linked to rare childhood disorders.
ContributorsCambron, Julia Claire (Author) / LaBelle, Jeffrey (Thesis director) / Huentelman, Matt (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
We were driven by the question: what is happening to the popularity of Major League Baseball? In order to answer this question we compared the league structure of Major League Baseball with that of the National Football League. We were able to speak with five former or current members of the respective leagues in order to gain some insight into how the two leagues operate. The main focus of our research was around the payroll structures of the two leagues as well as their revenue sharing policies. In the end, we discovered that Major League Baseball is becoming highly regionalized. The sport is still growing in popularity in terms of revenue and fan involvement, but it is becoming less popular on a national stage. The league is benefitting greatly from factors like the increasing importance of "TiVo proof programming" and a lack of competition. Each league is very different in its own right. While the NFL promotes a perception of competitive balance, Major League Baseball can be plagued by the negative perception it creates surrounding some of its smaller market teams.
ContributorsHeath, Cameron (Co-author) / Linamen, John (Co-author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / Mokwa, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked recessive disease characterized by progressive muscle loss and weakness. This disease arises from a mutation that occurs on a gene that encodes for dystrophin, which results in observable muscle death and inflammation; however, the genetic changes that result from dystrophin's dysfunctionality remain unknown. Current DMD research uses mdx mice as a model, and while very useful, does not allow the study of cell-autonomous transcriptome changes during the progression of DMD due to the strong inflammatory response, perhaps hiding important therapeutic targets. C. elegans, which has a very weak inflammatory response compared to mdx mice and humans, has been used in the past to study DMD with some success. The worm ortholog of the dystrophin gene has been identified as dys-1 since its mutation phenocopies the progression of the disease and a portion of the human dystrophin gene alleviates symptoms. Importantly, the extracted RNA transcriptome from dys-1 worms showed significant change in gene expression, which needs to be further investigated with the development of a more robust model. Our lab previously published a method to isolate high-quality muscle-specific RNA from worms, which could be used to study such changes at higher resolution. We crossed the dys-1 worms with our muscle-specific strain and demonstrated that the chimeric strain exhibits similar behavioral symptoms as DMD patients as characterized by a shortened lifespan, difficulty in movement, and a decrease in speed. The presence of dys-1 and other members of the dystrophin complex in the body muscle were supported by the development of a resulting phenotype due to RNAi knockdown of each component in the body muscle; however, further experimentation is needed to reinforce this conclusion. Thus, the constructed chimeric C. elegans strain possesses unique characteristics that will allow the study of genetic changes, such as transcriptome rearrangements and dysregulation of miRNA, and how they affect the progression of DMD.
ContributorsNguyen, Thuy-Duyen Cao (Author) / Mangone, Marco (Thesis director) / Newbern, Jason (Committee member) / Duchaine, Thomas (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The research and work that allowed my thesis creative project to come to fruition were tokens of a truly enlightening experience. My thesis is entitled, ASU Olympians: Dissecting their Psyche, and delves into three main topics that blanket all eight of the subjects that I interviewed. The first topic encompasses the idea that Athletic Director Ray Anderson is constantly trying to expand the Olympic culture within ASU Athletics. The second topic is the fact that competing in the Olympics changes an athlete's trajectory whether they medal or not. The third topic focuses on the physical and mental toll the Games take on these athletes. I designed an interactive website to showcase these topics. In it, there are interactive features from up-and-coming applications such as a 360-degree photo from Bubbli, an infographic from Venngage and a timeline from Timeglider. I have written four long-form stories on marathoner Amy Hastings Cragg, swimmer Richard Bohus, high-jumper Bryan McBride and water polo defender Gao Ao. To enhance these ideas further, I created four videos: One about future ASU volunteer coach Michael Phelps, another on current ASU Swim & Dive Coach Bob Bowman, another on Ao to go along with her story and finally a one-on-one with Ray Anderson as the centerpiece to my project. Every piece of this website fits together to communicate one overarching message: The Olympics leave a massive impact on the ASU athletes that compete in them and an impact that each of these athlete's find an interesting story to tell in its wake.
ContributorsVicario, Kristina Louise (Author) / Lodato, Mark (Thesis director) / Hawken-Collins, Denise (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Sports teams are an integral part of a city. They attract revenue to the area around the stadium and they also give a city a sense of pride. The aim of this study was to determine what makes a team successful in the area of attendance using four factors (Bernthal & Graham; Jensen; Kim, Trail & Magnusen; Edensor & Millington; Clowes & Tapp; Greenhalgh & Greenwell; Denaux & Yalcin; Paul & Weinbach & Robbins; Levin & McDonald; Lee & Kang; Drayer; L'Etang; McDonald & Rascher; Armstrong; Ross): the history of the team, the location and population of the city where the team plays, the social media following of the team and the promotional giveaways the team uses to attract fans. Using these four factors, a comparison was made among the Arizona teams and the top performing team in attendance in the respective leagues during the 2013 season. The Arizona Diamondbacks are compared with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Diamondbacks were not as equipped as the Dodgers in any of the categories. There is a more storied history for the Dodgers, the Dodgers play in Los Angeles - a significantly larger city that Phoenix, where the Arizona Diamondbacks play, they use social media more frequently and more effectively, and they offer more promotional giveaways than the Diamondbacks. The Phoenix Suns are compared to the Chicago Bulls. The Suns history competes with the Bulls, but they lack in the other three categories. The Bulls have a better location in Chicago, their stadium is located in the downtown area; they have a massive social media following and their promotional giveaways are more substantial. The Phoenix Coyotes are compared to the Chicago Blackhawks. The Blackhawks exceeded in all of the categories, while the Coyotes were poor performers in each of the four factors. The Blackhawks have a storied history, they share a stadium with the Bulls, they have a great social media following and they give promotional items away 30 of the 41 home games. The overall recommendations for the teams are to win, in order to help build their locations and make it fun to be near the downtown area, to use social media effectively and engage with their audience, and finally to provide more promotional giveaways to attract people to the games.
ContributorsDugan, Abby Leigh (Author) / Wu, Xu (Thesis director) / Matera, Fran (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2014-05
ContributorsSavarese, Erica (Author) / Robert, Jason (Thesis director) / Hurlbut, Ben (Committee member) / Verrelli, Brian (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Sports is a business. Basketball is no different. Every rule change that has been enacted in the history of the game has been to make the game more exciting because that makes people buy tickets and helps the franchise's bottom line. I delve into the history of the rule changes and submit my own rule changes to make the game more exciting.
ContributorsSaar, Eric James (Author) / Tomasch, Kenn (Thesis director) / Edsall, Larry (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
It is important to consider factors that contribute to successful fertilization and the development of viable offspring. Better understanding the factors that contribute to infertility can be used to assist in the development of viable offspring, especially for human beings looking to successfully reproduce. Identifying paternal effect genes, genes that come from the father, introduces more targets that can be manipulated to produce specific reproductive effects. Use of Drosophila melanogaster as a model to study reproduction has increased, in part, due to the use of the GAL4 system. In this system, the GAL4 gene encodes an 881 amino acid protein that binds to the 4-site Upstream Activating Sequence (UAS) to induce transcription of the gene of interest. These sequences constitute the two components of the system: the driver (GAL4) and the responder (gene of interest) \u2014 each of which is maintained as a separate parental line. Effects of the GAL4 driver line "driving" transcription of the responder can be assessed by examining the offspring. One of the more common uses of the GAL4 system involves analyzing phenotypic effects of reducing or eliminating expression of a target gene through the induction of RNAi transcription, which often results in toxicity, lethality, or reduced viability. Utilizing these principles, we strove to demonstrate the effect of knocking down the expression of testis-specific sperm-leucyl-aminopeptidases gene CG13340 on progeny by inducing expression of RNAi with two distinct GAL4 driver lines - one with a nonspecific actin-binding activation sequence and the other with a testis-specific activation sequence. Comparison of both GAL4 driver lines to crosses using N01 wild type ("wt") flies verify that inducing RNAi transcription using the GAL4 system results in reduction of proper offspring development. Further studies using D. melanogaster and the GAL4 system can improve knowledge of factors contributing to male fertility and also be applied to better understand mammalian, specifically human, fertility.
ContributorsEvans, Donna Marie (Author) / Karr, Timothy L. (Thesis director) / Roland, Kenneth (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-05