The Electoral College, the current electoral system in the U.S., operates on a Winner-Take-All or First Past the Post (FPTP) principle, where the candidate with the most votes wins. Despite the Electoral College being the current system, it is problematic. According to Lani Guinier in Tyranny of the Majority, “the winner-take-all principle invariably wastes some votes” (121). This means that the majority group gets all of the power in an election while the votes of the minority groups are completely wasted and hold little to no significance. Additionally, FPTP systems reinforce a two-party system in which neither candidate could satisfy the majority of the electorate’s needs and issues, yet forces them to choose between the two dominant parties. Moreover, voting for a third party candidate only hurts the voter since it takes votes away from the party they might otherwise support and gives the victory to the party they prefer the least, ensuring that the two party system is inescapable. Therefore, a winner-take-all system does not provide the electorate with fair or proportional representation and creates voter disenfranchisement: it offers them very few choices that appeal to their needs and forces them to choose a candidate they dislike. There are, however, alternative voting systems that remedy these issues, such as a Ranked voting system, in which voters can rank their candidate choices in the order they prefer them, or a Proportional voting system, in which a political party acquires a number of seats based on the proportion of votes they receive from the voter base. Given these alternatives, we will implement a software simulation of one of these systems to demonstrate how they work in contrast to FPTP systems, and therefore provide evidence of how these alternative systems could work in practice and in place of the current electoral system.

System and software verification is a vital component in the development and reliability of cyber-physical systems - especially in critical domains where the margin of error is minimal. In the case of autonomous driving systems (ADS), the vision perception subsystem is a necessity to ensure correct maneuvering of the environment and identification of objects. The challenge posed in perception systems involves verifying the accuracy and rigidity of detections. The use of Spatio-Temporal Perception Logic (STPL) enables the user to express requirements for the perception system to verify, validate, and ensure its behavior; however, a drawback to STPL involves its accessibility. It is limited to individuals with an expert or higher-level knowledge of temporal and spatial logics, and the formal-written requirements become quite verbose with more restrictions imposed. In this thesis, I propose a domain-specific language (DSL) catered to Spatio-Temporal Perception Logic to enable non-expert users the ability to capture requirements for perception subsystems while reducing the necessity to have an experienced background in said logic. The domain-specific language for the Spatio-Temporal Perception Logic is built upon the formal language with two abstractions. The main abstraction captures simple programming statements that are translated to a lower-level STPL expression accepted by the testing monitor. The STPL DSL provides a seamless interface to writing formal expressions while maintaining the power and expressiveness of STPL. These translated equivalent expressions are capable of directing a standard for perception systems to ensure the safety and reduce the risks involved in ill-formed detections.

The market for searching for food online is exploding. According to one expert at Google, “there are over 1 billion restaurant searches on Google every month” (Kelso, 2020). To capture this market and ride the general digital trend of internet personalization (as evidenced by Google search results, ads, YouTube and social media algorithms, etc), we created Munch to be an algorithm meant to help people find food they’ll love. <br/><br/>Munch offers the ability to search for food by restaurant or even as specific as a menu item (ex: search for the best Pad Thai). The best part? It is customized to your preferences based on a quiz you take when you open the app and from that point continuously learns from your behavior.<br/><br/>This thesis documents the journey of the team who founded Munch, what progress we made and the reasoning behind our decisions, where this idea fits in a competitive marketplace, how much it could be worth, branding, and our recommendations for a successful app in the future.

Coverage of Black soccer players by Italian media outlets perpetuate narratives rooted in anti-Black racism. These narratives reflect the country’s changing attitude toward immigration. Historically a country from which citizens emigrated, it is now a recipient of immigrants from Africa. These changing demographics have also caused a shift in the focus of racism in Italy, from discrimination against southern Italians to anti-Black racism. As the country has explored what defines a unified Italian identity, Afro-Italians have been excluded. This study evaluates how these perceptions of Afro-Italian soccer players manifest according to various racial frames, and the frequency with which they do so in three Italian sports dailies: La Gazzetta dello Sport, Corriere dello Sport – Stadio, and Tuttosport. In this context, Afro-Italian refers to an Italian citizen of African descent, and anti-Black racism denotes any form of discrimination, stereotyping, or racism that specifically impacts those of African descent. For this study, a representative sample was collected consisting of website coverage published by the three sports dailies: articles devoted to Mario Balotelli that appeared between 2007 and 2014, and articles devoted to Moise Kean between 2016 and 2019. Three coders recorded the content of the sample articles on a spreadsheet organized by the type of racial frame applied to Black athletes. The analysis reveals that the players were frequently portrayed as being incapable of self-determination and of having an innate, natural athletic capability, rather than one honed through practice. The coders noted that in addition to explicit racial framing, there were also instances of implicit and subtle ways these racial frames manifest. In future research, the coding procedure will need to be adapted to account for these more layered and nuanced manifestations of anti-Black racism.

When examining the average college campus, it becomes obvious that students feel rushed from one place to another as they try to participate in class, clubs, and extracurricular activities. One way that students can feel more comfortable and relaxed around campus is to introduce the aspect of gaming. Studies show that “Moderate videogame play has been found to contribute to emotional stability” (Jones, 2014). This demonstrates that the stress of college can be mitigated by introducing the ability to interact with video games. This same concept has been applied in the workplace, where studies have shown that “Gaming principles such as challenges, competition, rewards and personalization keep employees engaged and learning” (Clark, 2020). This means that if we manage to gamify the college experience, students will be more engaged which will increase and stabilize the retention rate of colleges which utilize this type of experience. Gaming allows students to connect with their peers in a casual environment while also allowing them to find resources around campus and find new places to eat and relax. We plan to gamify the college experience by introducing augmented reality in the form of an app. Augmented reality is “. . . a technology that combines virtual information with the real world” (Chen, 2019). College students will be able to utilize the resources and amenities available to them on campus while completing quests that help them within the application. This demonstrates the ability for video games to engage students using artificial tasks but real actions and experiences which help them feel more connected to campus. Our Founders Lab team has developed and tested an AR application that can be used to connect students with their campus and the resources available to them.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a great need for United States’ restaurants to “go green” due to consumers’ habits of frequently eating out. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has caused this initiative to lose traction. While the amount of customers ordering takeout has increased, there is less emphasis on sustainability.<br/>Plastic is known for its harmful effects on the environment and the extreme length of time it takes to decompose. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), almost 8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans at an annual rate, threatening not only the safety of marine species but also human health. Modern food packaging materials have included a blend of synthetic ingredients, trickling into our daily lives and polluting the air, water, and land. Single-use plastic items slowly degrade into microplastics and can take up to hundreds of years to biodegrade.<br/>Due to COVID-19, restaurants have switched to takeout and delivery options to adapt to the new business environment and guidelines enforced by the Center of Disease Control (CDC) mandated guidelines. Some of these guidelines include: notices encouraging social distancing and mask-wearing, mandated masks for employees, and easy access to sanitary supplies. This cultural shift is motivating restaurants to search for a quick, cheap, and easy fix to adapt to the increased demand of take-out and delivery methods. This increases their plastic consumption of items such as plastic bags/paper bags, styrofoam containers, and beverage cups. Plastic is the most popular takeout material because of its price and durability as well as allowing for limited contamination and easy disposability.<br/>Almost all food products come in packaging and this, more often than not, is single-use. Food is the largest market out of all the packaging industry, maintaining roughly two-thirds of material going to food. The US Environmental Protection Agency reports that almost half of all municipal solid waste is made up of food and food packaging materials. In 2014, over 162 million tons of packaging material waste was generated in the states. This typically contains toxic inks and dyes that leach into groundwater and soil. When degrading, pieces of plastic absorb toxins like PCBs and pesticides, and then each piece will, in turn, release toxic chemicals like Bisphenol-A. Even before being thrown away, it causes negative effects for the environment. The creation of packaging materials uses many resources such as petroleum and chemicals and then releases toxic byproducts. Such byproducts include sludge containing contaminants, greenhouse gases, and heavy metal and particulate matter emissions. Unlike many other industries, plastic manufacturing has actually increased production. Demand has increased and especially in the food industry to keep things sanitary. This increase in production is reflective of the increase in waste. <br/>Although restaurants have implemented their own sustainable initiatives to combat their carbon footprint, the pandemic has unfortunately forced restaurants to digress. For example, Just Salad, a fast-food restaurant chain, incentivized customers with discounted meals to use reusable bowls which saved over 75,000 pounds of plastic per year. However, when the pandemic hit, the company halted the program to pivot towards takeout and delivery. This effect is apparent on an international scale. Singapore was in lock-down for eight weeks and during that time, 1,470 tons of takeout and food delivery plastic waste was thrown out. In addition, the Hong Kong environmental group Greeners Action surveyed 2,000 people in April and the results showed that people are ordering out twice as much as last year, doubling the use of plastic.<br/>However, is this surge of plastic usage necessary in the food industry or are there methods that can be used to reduce the amount of waste production? The COVID-19 pandemic caused a fracture in the food system’s supply chain, involving food, factory, and farm. This thesis will strive to tackle such topics by analyzing the supply chains of the food industry and identify areas for sustainable opportunities. These recommendations will help to identify areas for green improvement.

CubeSats can encounter a myriad of difficulties in space like cosmic rays, temperature<br/>issues, and loss of control. By creating better, more reliable software, these problems can be<br/>mitigated and increase the chance of success for the mission. This research sets out to answer the<br/>question: how do we create reliable flight software for CubeSats? by providing a concentrated<br/>list of the best flight software development practices. The CubeSat used in this research is the<br/>Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) CubeSat, which is a 3U CubeSat that seeks to<br/>demonstrate optical communication data rates of 1 Gbps over long distances. We present an<br/>analysis over many of the flight software development practices currently in use in the industry,<br/>from industry leads NASA, and identify three key flight software development areas of focus:<br/>memory, concurrency, and error handling. Within each of these areas, the best practices were<br/>defined for how to approach the area. These practices were also developed using experience<br/>from the creation of flight software for the DORA CubeSat in order to drive the design and<br/>testing of the system. We analyze DORA’s effectiveness in the three areas of focus, as well as<br/>discuss how following the best practices identified helped to create a more reliable flight<br/>software system for the DORA CubeSat.

What is being done to promote cultural sensitivity in healthcare settings? To find answers and solutions to the widespread deficit of cultural competence in the health care industry, this case study interviews a varied sample of five physicians consisting of three men and two women in clinical, academic, and administrative positions. The hypothesis was physicians do not receive cultural sensitivity training in medical school and as a result, they have to find other ways to learn about the cultures of their patients. None of the participants had received formal cultural competency training in medical school and all of them found methods to improve their cultural literacy. The study uncovered the cultural training physicians do receive is sporadic and inconsistent, which can cause some disconnect between education and real-life clinical practice. Many solutions to improve cultural competency in health care delivery are presented. The results of this exploratory research should be used to inspire future conversations about cultural competency in health care as well as the creation of support and educational services and materials to medical students and health care workers on improving cultural sensitivity in clinical practice.

"No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth." These were the words of former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya who publicly expressed his regret in a 2017 interview over his role in co-creating Facebook. Palihapitiya shared that social media is ripping apart the social fabric of society and he also sounded the alarm regarding social media’s unavoidable global impact. He is only one of social media’s countless critics. The more disturbing issue resides in the empirical evidence supporting such notions. At least 95% of adolescents own a smartphone and spend an average time of two to four hours a day on social media. Moreover, 91% of 16-24-year-olds use social media, yet youth rate Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as the worst social media platforms. However, the social, clinical, and neurodevelopment ramifications of using social media regularly are only beginning to emerge in research. Early research findings show that social media platforms trigger anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and other negative mental health effects. These negative mental health symptoms are commonly reported by individuals from of 18-25-years old, a unique period of human development known as emerging adulthood. Although emerging adulthood is characterized by identity exploration, unbounded optimism, and freedom from most responsibilities, it also serves as a high-risk period for the onset of most psychological disorders. Despite social media’s adverse impacts, it retains its utility as it facilitates identity exploration and virtual socialization for emerging adults. Investigating the “user-centered” design and neuroscience underlying social media platforms can help reveal, and potentially mitigate, the onset of negative mental health consequences among emerging adults. Effectively deconstructing the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (i.e., hereafter referred to as “The Big Three”) will require an extensive analysis into common features across platforms. A few examples of these design features include: like and reaction counters, perpetual news feeds, and omnipresent banners and notifications surrounding the user’s viewport. Such social media features are inherently designed to stimulate specific neurotransmitters and hormones such as dopamine, serotonin, and cortisol. Identifying such predacious social media features that unknowingly manipulate and highjack emerging adults’ brain chemistry will serve as a first step in mitigating the negative mental health effects of today’s social media platforms. A second concrete step will involve altering or eliminating said features by creating a social media platform that supports and even enhances mental well-being.

Over the years, advances in research have continued to decrease the size of computers from the size of<br/>a room to a small device that could fit in one’s palm. However, if an application does not require extensive<br/>computation power nor accessories such as a screen, the corresponding machine could be microscopic,<br/>only a few nanometers big. Researchers at MIT have successfully created Syncells, which are micro-<br/>scale robots with limited computation power and memory that can communicate locally to achieve<br/>complex collective tasks. In order to control these Syncells for a desired outcome, they must each run a<br/>simple distributed algorithm. As they are only capable of local communication, Syncells cannot receive<br/>commands from a control center, so their algorithms cannot be centralized. In this work, we created a<br/>distributed algorithm that each Syncell can execute so that the system of Syncells is able to find and<br/>converge to a specific target within the environment. The most direct applications of this problem are in<br/>medicine. Such a system could be used as a safer alternative to invasive surgery or could be used to treat<br/>internal bleeding or tumors. We tested and analyzed our algorithm through simulation and visualization<br/>in Python. Overall, our algorithm successfully caused the system of particles to converge on a specific<br/>target present within the environment.