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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
Description
Despite the reactionary Habsburg regime under Emperor Franz Joseph, forces within the government and leading intelligentsia proposed various reforms to solve the issue of ethnic discrimination across the Austro-Hungarian Empire, attempting to resolve the tensions that the Ausgleich of 1867 had further aggravated by the inclusion of Hungarians as a privileged class to the detriment of the remaining minorities. This paper will look at the Austro-Marxist and Federalist reformers and the ways in which their concepts, if implemented, could have saved the Empire from its downfall in 1918. Ultimately, neither the Austro-Marxist concept of a centralized system of universal rights across the borders of all nations within the existing empire nor the Federalist idea of a national territorial sovereignty allowing for a certain degree of individual autonomy managed to be adopted by the Allied victors of World War I. The myopic focus of the ‘Big Four’ on the German Empire blinded them to the intricate economic and political balance needed for peace in the Balkans. While France, Britain, and Italy exhibited a general lack of concern to the outcome in the Balkans, Wilson’s ‘self-determination’ doctrine is most responsible for creating the unsustainable, irredentist-driven states that the reform-minded intellectuals—Austro-Marxist or Federalist—most had sought to avoid. In addition to a discussion of the reform movements in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this paper will explore the reforms’ strong similarities to the present struggles within the European Union, particularly the divide between Euro-federalists and Euro-sceptics. The crisis situation and reform efforts of the Austrian Empire from 1867 to 1914 reveal significant policy lessons applicable to the European Union as it navigates the current crossroads between further federal integration or a return to medieval disintegration.
ContributorsAppel, Michael Edwin (Author) / Niebuhr, Robert (Thesis director) / Carrese, Paul (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor, Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Two large sectors of water consumption within cities are: city owned irrigated landscape (such as parks) and household consumption. A related, third sector of consumption that has very little research behind it is shared landscapes in residential communities. Neighborhood communities, including those with formal Homeowner’s Associations and informal Neighborhood Associations, have common landscapes they are responsible for up-keeping and irrigating. 208 neighborhood communities exist within the City of Tempe. Each year the city provides $30,000 in grant funding to these 208 neighborhoods to implement water conservation projects. This thesis focuses on ten neighborhoods who had applied and were granted funding to implement a conservation project between the years 2011 and 2016. My findings showed that this program has not been effective in reducing water consumption, wither due to the lack of implementation or the small-scale of the projects. From my research and synthesis, I suggest a layer of accountability be added to the program to ensure projects are effective and participants are implementing their projects and that the program is effective overall. This study provides the City of Tempe with relevant and viable information to aid management of water consumption and conservation within neighborhoods.
ContributorsApillanes, Sierra Caitlyn (Author) / Larson, Kelli (Thesis director) / Bomar, Melissa (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Diana Holladay was a mother, sister, daughter, wife, grandmother, friend, and artist. She played many roles and impacted many lives. She sought out beauty and brought it into the world through her art. When she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease her family watched her fade away. The Diana they knew and loved was no longer there. They could not mourn the loss of her being. This creative project served the purpose of exploring Diana’s past and art in order to help her family mourn and celebrate the woman she once was. The goal was to create a final art show and living memorial for Diana. The final art show would foster a sense of family, appreciation, and love. She had hundreds, if not thousands of sketches and pictures. She had a huge collection of painting left behind. During this project they were collected and organized for the show. Diana died exactly one month before the show. Her death brought her family together and helped them mourn. The art show was held in the Sedona Art Center where Diana once held art classes and her husband, Jim, layed the sandstone on the outside of the building. After her death, the attendance of her show nearly tripled. Hundreds of Diana’s family and friends celebrated this amazing woman. This creative project helped honor an incredible woman who truly changed lives and lead her life with love. This thesis helped us remember the woman and artist Diana Holladay was before her diagnosis and death. The final creation of this project was a website dedicated to Diana and her art and an essay describing the journey of this thesis.
www.dianaholladay.com
www.dianaholladay.com
ContributorsTiedeman, Talon Xalee (Author) / Meloy, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Epperson, Tasili (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Purpose: The purpose of this project was to map the process by which Division I sports are added at universities and to create a blueprint for any passionate and driven individual who would like to see their sport of choice added at any college.
Methods: Information for this study was gathered through qualitative interviews with sports administrators at eleven of the twelve universities in the PAC-12 conference. This primary research was supplemented with secondary research of media sources and
PAC-12 and NCAA documents.
Results: Four key factors are involved in adding a new Division I sports program at any university. These factors are: funding, Title IX status, conference and sport status, and administrative mindset.
Conclusion: The four factors stated above are critical in the addition of any new sports program, though there will be significant variations from sport to sport and from university to university. In the case of men’s wrestling at USC, the group of advocates needs to demonstrate the significant value adding wrestling will bring to the athletic department and school. They should also follow this up with a clear plan of how they will navigate the funding, Title IX requirements and conference status.
Methods: Information for this study was gathered through qualitative interviews with sports administrators at eleven of the twelve universities in the PAC-12 conference. This primary research was supplemented with secondary research of media sources and
PAC-12 and NCAA documents.
Results: Four key factors are involved in adding a new Division I sports program at any university. These factors are: funding, Title IX status, conference and sport status, and administrative mindset.
Conclusion: The four factors stated above are critical in the addition of any new sports program, though there will be significant variations from sport to sport and from university to university. In the case of men’s wrestling at USC, the group of advocates needs to demonstrate the significant value adding wrestling will bring to the athletic department and school. They should also follow this up with a clear plan of how they will navigate the funding, Title IX requirements and conference status.
ContributorsSmall, Conner (Author) / Nelson, Kelly (Thesis director) / Jones, Zeke (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Substance abuse has become a major problem in the USA in the past decade, with immense public health and societal consequences. Methamphetamine (meth) use has grown due to an increased number of meth production and distribution markets. Border states such as Arizona and California are especially concerned with Mexico’s production and distribution of meth to their residents. A mathematical model for meth use and markets was developed and then analyzed to track multiple types of drug markets and drug-related arrests for possession or distribution. The importance of social influences as a major causal factor in the onset of illicit drug use is explicitly incorporated. The model parameters are then estimated using meth-related data from California and Arizona. A parameter sensitivity analysis on the model output was carried out. The results suggest that law enforcement policy aimed at marketers will be significantly more effective than targeting current users. Moreover, local unorganized markets have a greater role in maintaining the endemic level of meth users. Whereas, global organized markets play a role in initiating meth use outbreaks. Some implications for interventions and health promotion for the two states are also discussed.
ContributorsChavez, Brianna (Author) / Mubayi, Anuj (Thesis director) / Shafer, Michael (Committee member) / Amol Thakur, Mugdha (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
The purpose of this public space toolkit is to provide the knowledge people need to transform public spaces within their community. Public spaces are a major part of cities that people use everyday. The problem is that many open public spaces, like vacant lots, are not effectively used. Meanwhile, communities face issues including social isolation, food scarcity, etc. Therefore, transforming public spaces using community gardens will help address these matters. Methods used for this toolkit include using research databases, examining scholarly journals, and using primary experiences to navigate topics. Results show that there are numerous social benefits obtained when public space management strategies and best practices are properly implemented. This toolkit outlines the strategies and guidelines to consider when starting a garden and what has been proven to be effective for other gardens.
These gardens facilitate community development, build social capital, and address food insecurity. Local Phoenix community gardens, Phoenix Renews and The TigerMountain Foundation, are analyzed. The TigerMountain Foundation was able to demonstrate the power of Asset Based Community Development and how community gardens provided a way for people to invest in their community and gain skills. The Phoenix Renews garden showed the importance of selecting the right space for a garden, and the downsides when certain considerations are not made. Conclusively, community garden can be a catalyst for people to transform their communities. This tool kit provides a starting point, with the knowledge and background information, for people to improve their communities through transforming public space using community gardens.
These gardens facilitate community development, build social capital, and address food insecurity. Local Phoenix community gardens, Phoenix Renews and The TigerMountain Foundation, are analyzed. The TigerMountain Foundation was able to demonstrate the power of Asset Based Community Development and how community gardens provided a way for people to invest in their community and gain skills. The Phoenix Renews garden showed the importance of selecting the right space for a garden, and the downsides when certain considerations are not made. Conclusively, community garden can be a catalyst for people to transform their communities. This tool kit provides a starting point, with the knowledge and background information, for people to improve their communities through transforming public space using community gardens.
ContributorsLe, Anita (Author) / Shockley, Gordon (Thesis director) / Goodman, Rebekka (Committee member) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Community Resources and Development (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Between 1941 and 1953, thousands of Lithuanians were deported by the Soviet Union as far from their homeland as the northern reaches of Siberia. While many perished as they contended with hunger, thirst, illness, harsh weather, ill-suited clothing, and poor housing, several survived, returned, and recounted their experiences. Returned adult deportees often recall solidarity among Lithuanians, interactions with locals and authorities, and efforts to maintain agency and continue cultural traditions. Children remember going to school, relying on their parents, and returning to Lithuania. Deportees and others involved in recording their memoirs wrote them in Lithuanian or translated them into English for different purposes and with different intended audiences. The ways in which deportees describe their experiences and what they omit from their stories have shaped Lithuania’s national identity when it reemerged as the Soviet Union fell following Stalin’s death in 1953 and Lithuania redeclared its independence in 1990. The years in which memoirs were published also likely influence their contents. Despite the horrors of deportation, returnees describe positive aspects of the experience. Many deportees portray themselves as struggling for survival, but not as helpless victims. Relatively rare mention of conflict among Lithuanian deportees and identification of non-Lithuanian deportees’ ethnicities suggest the importance of Lithuanians striving together for a common goal: survival and return to Lithuania. The creation of museums focused on deportation, incorporation of memoirs in school curricula, observation of a Day of Mourning and Hope, and portrayal of deportations in works of literature and film demonstrate their lasting impact and significance.
ContributorsDaulys, Gintare K. (Author) / Manchester, Laurie (Thesis director) / Cichopek-Gajraj, Anna (Committee member) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Background: Pulmonary embolism is a deadly condition that is often diagnosed using a technique known as computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA). CTPA reports are free-text, narrative-style forms of documentation conferring radiologist findings—both primary (regarding pulmonary embolism) and incidental. This project seeks to combine simple natural language processing (NLP) techniques, such as regular expressions and rules, to build upon and
further process output from a machine learning based named entity recognition (NER) tool for the purposes of (1) linking references to radiological images with the corresponding clinical findings and (2) extracting primary and incidental findings.
Methods: The project’s system utilized a regular expression to extract image references. All CTPA reports were first processed with NER software to obtain the text and spans of clinical findings. A heuristic was used to determine the appropriate clinical finding that should be linked with a particular image reference. Another regular expression was used to extract primary findings from NER output; the remaining findings were considered incidental. Performance was
assessed against a gold standard, which was based upon a manually annotated version of the CTPA reports used in this project.
Results: Extraction of image references achieved a 100% accuracy. Linkages between these references and exact gold standard spans of the clinical findings achieved a precision of 0.24, a recall of 0.22, and an F1 score of 0.23. Linkages with partial spans of clinical findings as determined by the gold standard achieved a precision of 0.71, a recall of 0.67, and an F1 score of 0.69. Primary and incidental finding extraction achieved a precision of 0.67, a recall of 0.80, and
an F1 score of 0.73.
Discussion: Various elements reduced system performance such as the difficulty of exactly matching the spans of clinical findings from NER output with those found in the gold standard. The heuristic linking clinical findings and image references was especially sensitive to NER false positives and false negatives due to its assumption that the appropriate clinical finding was that which was immediately prior to the image reference. Although the system did not perform as well as hoped, lessons were learned such as the need for clear research methodology and proper gold standard creation; without a proper gold standard, problem scope and system performance cannot be properly assessed. Improvements to the system include creating a more robust heuristic, sifting NER false positives, and training the NER tool used on a dataset of CTPA reports.
further process output from a machine learning based named entity recognition (NER) tool for the purposes of (1) linking references to radiological images with the corresponding clinical findings and (2) extracting primary and incidental findings.
Methods: The project’s system utilized a regular expression to extract image references. All CTPA reports were first processed with NER software to obtain the text and spans of clinical findings. A heuristic was used to determine the appropriate clinical finding that should be linked with a particular image reference. Another regular expression was used to extract primary findings from NER output; the remaining findings were considered incidental. Performance was
assessed against a gold standard, which was based upon a manually annotated version of the CTPA reports used in this project.
Results: Extraction of image references achieved a 100% accuracy. Linkages between these references and exact gold standard spans of the clinical findings achieved a precision of 0.24, a recall of 0.22, and an F1 score of 0.23. Linkages with partial spans of clinical findings as determined by the gold standard achieved a precision of 0.71, a recall of 0.67, and an F1 score of 0.69. Primary and incidental finding extraction achieved a precision of 0.67, a recall of 0.80, and
an F1 score of 0.73.
Discussion: Various elements reduced system performance such as the difficulty of exactly matching the spans of clinical findings from NER output with those found in the gold standard. The heuristic linking clinical findings and image references was especially sensitive to NER false positives and false negatives due to its assumption that the appropriate clinical finding was that which was immediately prior to the image reference. Although the system did not perform as well as hoped, lessons were learned such as the need for clear research methodology and proper gold standard creation; without a proper gold standard, problem scope and system performance cannot be properly assessed. Improvements to the system include creating a more robust heuristic, sifting NER false positives, and training the NER tool used on a dataset of CTPA reports.
ContributorsBorlongan, Matthew Bilog (Author) / Devarakonda, Murthy (Thesis director) / Murcko, Anita (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Through the personal experience of volunteering at ASU Project Humanities, an organization that provides resources such as clothing and toiletries to the homeless population in Downtown Phoenix, I noticed efficiently serving the needs of the homeless population is an important endeavor, but the current processes for Phoenix nonprofits to collect data are manual, ad-hoc, and inefficient. This leads to the research question: is it possible to improve this process of collecting statistics on client needs, tracking donations, and managing resources using technology? Background research includes an interview with ASU Project Humanities, articles by analysts, and related work including case studies of current technologies in the nonprofit community. Major findings include i) a lack of centralized communication in nonprofits collecting needs, tracking surplus donations, and sharing resources, ii) privacy assurance is important to homeless individuals, and iii) pre-existing databases and technological solutions have demonstrated that technology has the ability to make an impact in the nonprofit community. To improve the process, standardization, efficiency, and automation need to increase. As a result of my analysis, the thesis proposes a prototype solution which includes two parts: an inventory database and a web application with forms for user input and tables for the user to view. This solution addresses standardization by showing a consistent way of collecting data on need requests and surplus donations while guaranteeing privacy of homeless individuals. This centralized solution also increases efficiency by connecting different agencies that cater to these clients. Lastly, the solution demonstrates the ability for resources to be made available to each organization which can increase automation. In conclusion, this database and web application has the potential to improve nonprofit organizations’ networking capabilities, resource management, and resource distribution. The percentile of homeless individuals connected to these resources is expected to increase substantially with future live testing and large-scale implementation.
ContributorsKhurana, Baani Kaur (Author) / Bazzi, Rida (Thesis director) / Sankar, Lalitha (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
“Tell It to the Frogs: Fukushima’s nuclear disaster and its impact on the Japanese Tree Frog” is a representation of the work from Giraudeau et. al’s “Carotenoid distribution in wild Japanese tree frogs (Hyla japonica) exposed to ionizing radiation in Fukushima.” This paper looked to see if carotenoid levels in the tree frog’s vocal sac, liver, and blood were affected by radiation from Fukushima’s power plant explosion. Without carotenoids, the pigment that gives the frogs their orange color on their necks, their courtship practices would be impacted and would not be as able to show off their fitness to potential mates. The artwork inspired by this research displayed the tree frog’s degradation over time due to radiation, starting with normal life and ending with their death and open on the table. The sculptures also pinpoint where the carotenoids were being measured with a brilliant orange glaze. Through ceramic hand building, the artist created larger than life frogs in hopes to elicit curiosity about them and their plight. While the paper did not conclude any changes in the frog’s physiology after 18 months of exposure, there are still questions that are left unanswered. Why did these frogs not have any reaction? Could there be any effects after more time has passed? Is radiation leakage as big of a problem as previously thought? The only way to get the answers to these questions is to be aware of these amphibians, the circumstances that led them to be involved, and continued research on them and radiation.
ContributorsWesterfield, Savannah (Author) / Beiner, Susan (Thesis director) / McGraw, Kevin (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05