The main objective of the research was to gather as much information and arguments about why we need to end the war on drugs and put them into one piece of work that was compelling and thorough, but also concise. This goal was achieved through first explaining how addiction is strongly related to the environment around the addict and whether they have adequate tools to bond with those around them. After coming to the conclusion that the war on drugs has been a failure and is misunderstood by most people, the strategy for legalization of recreational drugs was outlined as well as the economic, social, and health benefits of pursuing that strategy. The conclusion is that while the war on drugs has good intentions, it has been largely ineffective and imposed cruel punishments on addicts that end up causing more harm than they prevent, it is time to move forward and legalize all recreational drug use with licensed sales, harm reduction programs, and proper education to create a more effective strategy of preventing drug use and the harm it brings.

As firms increase the number of channels that they operate and distribute their products and services on, they run into new challenges with branding. One sub-industry where many firms have used multi-channel branding is the specialty apparel segment of retail. Many firms of this kind are using a four-channel approach with physical stores, brand websites, social media pages, and direct mail catalogs to market their products. Yet, there are few specialty apparel retailers that do this well across all four channels. A particular technique used to market products in this way is visual merchandising. Visual merchandising for apparel products pieces together full outfits with multiple clothing items and shows them, in some way, being worn. Beyond just marketing products, however, visual merchandising can provide firms with benefits of branding such as brand expertise, positive consumer attitudes, and increased consumer purchase intent. To do this, firms must develop quality brands using traditional branding practices. To use as guides, J. Crew and Anthropologie's branding and visual merchandising practices were analyzed in case studies. Testing consumer perceptions of these brands and their success, primary research about consumers' behavior relative to specialty apparel retail brands and their visual merchandising displays was an outcome. From this research, it was found that consumers best respond to in-store visual merchandising displays. In showing products, a variety product combination strategy is preferred as it enhances the value consumers perceive in brands and builds brand character. Consumers also feel that visual merchandising impacts their knowledge of the brand and its products as well as personal styling. If brands successfully use visual merchandising to brand themselves, brand consistency, brand expertise, and positive consumer attitudes are an outcome. Recommendations for specialty apparel retail brands have been developed using these findings, and the potential such firms are able to realize in using these will greatly benefit them.

This honors project was born out of a desire to understand individuals who abandoned political glory in favor of serving other leaders. I wanted to study and know who can go head-to-head with \u2014 and command the respect of \u2014 the U.S. President on a daily basis. I limited my search to friends of the presidents who held powerful positions: I identified Harry Hopkins, Robert McNamara, and Condoleezza Rice. This thesis is broken into the following sections. To begin, we follow each official in their rise to prominence and discover how they captured the attention of their respective presidents. Next, we delve into their relationships with the Oval Office -- what is similar or different about each of their connections with the presidents. The bulk of the work focuses on pivotal moments in our country's history \u2014 events that shaped the United States of today. Specifically, we look at the New Deal, World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Middle East, and nuclear weapons proliferation. Then, we dissect similarities and differences between their relationships with their presidents, and wrap up with some takeaways about how one could go about becoming a presidential advisor. Their distinctive styles can be grouped into doers or planners. Hopkins and McNamara were proud and self-proclaimed doers. Rice stands alone as a fantastic planner. If one seeks to emulate any of these three, there are three things to commit to. First, skills both matter and don't matter. Second, there are two paths to getting presidential attention and becoming close enough for them to seek one out for advice. The first is to understand which wheels need greasing, and grease them. The other is to have a potential solution to an unsolved problem -- that is powerful. Be great, a maverick, and public, or look to create your own role from scratch and hope that you are an expert when a time of great need comes. Third, once you are friends with and have the political ear of the president, know that loyalty is the only thing that truly matters. This thesis is an attempt to better understand leadership through the lens of powerful followers. This project strives to inform the reader of the context within which these actors played, the actions that they took, and the consequences that were incurred, all while being personally close to the most powerful position on the planet. I have tried to give context and understanding for pivotal moments in American history while shining a spotlight on a few underappreciated historical actors.

Currently experiencing a demographic shift in the student population, the public school system has seen an influx of ELLs (English Language Learners) within the student population with the vast majority being speakers of Spanish, and the issue has arisen of how best to educate these students to acquire English as an additional language. Amongst the states with higher concentrations of ELLs, the state of Arizona once gave relatively free reign on the education of ELLs which subsequently resulted in wide disparities in qualities due to both lack of teacher preparation and funding, and this resulted in the 2000 case of Flores vs. Arizona which validated the claims that the state failed to provide adequate funding and resources to the education of ELLs. In accordance with the ruling, Arizona passed Proposition 203 which mandated that ELLs be taught solely in English, and this is reflective of restrictive language policy. Though implemented for a short time, this review discussed how restrictive language programs can be detrimental to student achievement, and proposed bilingual education as an alternative to spur student literacy and achievement. Evidenced by the case studies of France, Spain, and other states with the latter two shifting towards bilingual education, the review discussed the implications of France's apprehension to bilingual education and the others implementing it. Finding that bilingual education proved to be more the better choice of the two language programs with consideration of two-way immersion rather than one-way, the review also proposes a sample model that could be used in Arizona, and this is based upon models utilized in Spain and other states with evident benefits which are juxtaposed to France's prolonged use of language restriction.

Despite the initial emergence of the infectious disease in the 1950's, Zika virus did not gain notoriety as an epidemic until 2015. It's rapid dissemination and potentially lethal and expensive consequences have afforded Zika the title of Public Health Emergency of International Concern. While the flu-like symptoms of the mosquito-borne illness are a mere mild nuisance, the links between Zika and Guillian-Barre Syndrome as well as a birth defect known as microcephaly are alarming to say the least. Guillian-Barre Syndrome causes temporary or permanent paralysis, which can sometimes lead to fatality. Microcephaly is a fetal anomaly that causes physical and mental defects and disabilities for a lifetime. Though most countries in Latin America are solely pursuing mosquito-prevention tactics including aerial sprays, bug kits, and door-to-door educational efforts, this is not enough to solve the problem at large. Antiquated laws restricting abortions must be jettisoned, and contraceptives must be accessible to all women in order to mitigate these disastrous effects. With Brazil at the epicenter of this crisis, policy makers in Latin America have no choice but to address this impending disaster. Without a firm grasp on a solution and potential vaccination, the near-isolated cases in Latin America are going to gain a wider global spread. Mosquito season is looming overhead, and there have already been confirmed cases in the United States. Due to constraints in the political, cultural, and religious environments of Latin America, any and all solutions to mitigate the effects of Zika are going to include major changes to the laws and social norms.

Walking ability is a complex process that is essential to humans, critical for performing a range of everyday tasks and enables a healthy, independent lifestyle. Human gait has evolved to be robust, adapting to a wide range of external stimuli, including variable walking surface compliance. Unfortunately, many people suffer from impaired gait as a result of conditions such as stroke. For these individuals, recovering their gait is a priority and a challenge. The ASU Variable Stiffness Treadmill (VST) is a device that is able to the change its surface compliance through its unique variable stiffness mechanism. By doing this, the VST can be used to investigate gait and has potential as a rehabilitation tool. The objective of this research is to design a variable damping mechanism for the VST, which addresses the need to control effective surface damping, the only form of mechanical impedance that the VST does not currently control. Thus, this project will contribute toward the development of the Variable Impedance Treadmill (VIT), which will encompass a wider range of variable surface compliance and enable all forms of impedance to be con- trolled for the first time. To achieve this, the final design of the mechanism will employ eddy current damping using several permanent magnets mounted to the treadmill and a large copper plate stationed on the ground. Variable damping is obtained by using lead screw mechanisms to remove magnets from acting on the copper plate, which effectively eliminates their effect on damping and changes the overall treadmill surface damping. Results from experimentation validate the mechanism's ability to provide variable damping to the VST. A model for effective surface damping is generated based on open-loop characterization experiments and is generalized for future experimental setups. Overall, this project progresses to the development of the VIT and has potential applications in walking surface simulation, gait investigation, and robot-assisted rehabilitation technology.

Rotary equipment has been used widely in the processing of particulates for the last century, but low thermal efficiency and poor effluent uniformity continue to plague its performance. Consequently, these technologies contribute largely to modern energy waste, environmental pollution, and price inflation of products dependent on particulates in their manufacture. Large industries like pharmaceuticals and oil are impacted, yet minimal research has been conducted into optimizing the equipment because of costs associated with process shut-downs necessary to enable study. Recent works bypassed this constraint with simulations and scaled-down replicates to observe impact of common design parameters, fill level and rotation speed, on heating. This thesis supplanted these studies by investigating particle diameter as a control parameter to optimize heating. The thesis investigated methodologies to study a stainless-steel rotary drum model facilitating the conductive heating of a silica bed by external heat guns. Diameter was varied 2-4 mm at controlled fill levels and rotation speeds, and radial temperature profiles were measured with thermocouples. Heating performance was evaluated for efficiency and uniformity; the former by analyzing thermal time constants and average temperature progression across 70 minutes of operation, and the latter with corresponding radial temperature variances. It was theorized that the direct influence of size on transport properties would implicate an inverse correlation between diameter and performance, but results demonstrated no significance. The apparatus and methodology were still under development, so results were preliminary. From results, the study proposed setup modifications to refine results and future directions to guide follow-up research.

This paper proposes a new socket design to complement Project Fishbone, a design project focused on creating a lightweight transradial prosthetic device. The socket has a simple concept of introducing perforations on the surface of the socket using cost effective, and rapid manufacturing methods such as vacuum thermoforming and drilling. The perforations on the socket allows for greater air ventilation to the prosthetic user's residual skin thus reducing the temperature within the socket. There were nine primary design iterations that were tested: 0.125, 0,187, 0.25-inch-thick designs, and 3/16, 15/64, 17/64-inch perforation sizes, and 12, 18 and 24 count of perforations. Initial test was done using the sockets of different thickness without any perforations to check for uniformity in design and manufacturing method using a regression test. It was found that an increase in thickness directly related to an increase in temperature cooling time. The temperature cooling test was run using a three-factor DOE method and no clear interaction between the factors was observed, thus the Kruskal-Wallis statistical test along with the post hoc Mann-Whitney test to check for significance among the factors as well as significance of groups within the factors. Statistical significance (p<0.05) was found in the socket thickness and size of perforations. Additionally, significance (p<0.02) was found in the 0.125 and 0.187-inch thickness and the 3/16-inch size perforations. Based on the significance between each group, the best combination for increased cooling time reduction was thus found to be with the 0.125-inch thick HDPE sheet and 3/16-inch sized perforation while the number of perforations did not make much difference. These results proved the concept of this new socket design that could be implemented into existing upper limb prosthetic systems.

The emergence of the space industry facilitated new technologies which completely changed how humans live. However, the industry itself has also acted as a constant source of conflict between its participants. As a result, the industry has encountered issues regarding the role of private industry in space development, the militarization of space, how to address the gap in space technology between developed and underdeveloped nations, and the overall economic climate of space. With these numerous challenges facing the space industry, this investigation hopes to present potential solutions to said issues while providing a baseline for future research. In order to accomplish this, the international relations ideologies of neorealism, neoliberalism and constructivism were applied in conjunction with opinions from multiple industry scholars to synthesize potential solutions and provide a knowledge baseline and methodology for future investigations. This resulted in the conclusion that, in the scope of this investigation, a constructivist solution focusing on human nature's role in international relations is the best means of avoiding global conflict while promoting prosperity. The proposed constructivist solution proposes the development of multi-actor groups which defend, maintain and develop space assets collectively. These groups formed around ideological similarities would effectively limit conflict and increase the viability of space. However, this constructivist approach is not satisfactory due to its complexity which could result in the breakdown of peace and prosperity if interdependence between actors cannot be maintained. As a result, more research is necessary to develop an appropriate solution but, the methodology, information and understanding of different international relations principles used in this thesis can be used in future investigations to develop more comprehensive solutions.