Consider Steven Cryos’ words, “When disaster strikes, the time to prepare has passed.” Witnessing domestic water insecurity in events such as Hurricane Katrina, the instability in Flint, Michigan, and most recently the winter storms affecting millions across Texas, we decided to take action. The period between a water supply’s disruption and restoration is filled with anxiety, uncertainty, and distress -- particularly since there is no clear indication of when, exactly, restoration comes. It is for this reason that Water Works now exists. As a team of students from diverse backgrounds, what started as an honors project with the Founders Lab at Arizona State University became the seed that will continue to mature into an economically sustainable business model supporting the optimistic visions and tenants of humanitarianism. By having conversations with community members, conducting market research, competing for funding and fostering progress amid the COVID-19 pandemic, our team’s problem-solving traverses the disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to educate our readers about a unique solution to emerging issues of water insecurity that are nested across and within systems who could benefit from the introduction of a personal water reclamation system, showcase our team’s entrepreneurial journey, and propose future directions that will this once pedagogical exercise to continue fulfilling its mission: To heal, to hydrate and to help bring safe water to everyone.

Something Like Human explores corporate social responsibility through a triple lens, providing a content analysis using previous literature and history as the standards for evaluation. Section I reviews the history of corporate social responsibility and how it is currently understood and employed today. Section II turns its focus to a specific socially conscious corporation, Lush Cosmetics, examining its practices considering the concepts provided in Section I and performing a close analysis of its promotional materials. Section III consists of a mock marketing campaign designed for Lush in light of their social commitments. By the end of this thesis, the goal for the reader is to ask: Can major corporations be something like human?

The Constitution is a document that was made over 200 years ago by a population that could have never imagined the type of technology or social advances made in the 21st century. This creates a natural rift between governing ideals between then and now, that needs to be addressed. Rather than holding the values of the nation to a time when people were not considered citizens because of the color of their skin, there need to be updates made to the Constitution itself. The need for change and the mechanisms were both established by the Framers while creating and advancing the Constitution. The ideal process to go about these changes is split between the formal Article V amendment process and judicial activism. The amendment process has infinite scope for changes that can be done, but due to the challenge involved in trying to pass any form of the amendment through both State and Federal Congresses, that process should be reserved for only fundamental or structural changes. Judicial activism, by way of Supreme Court decisions, is a method best applied to the protection of people’s rights.

Since the inception of what is now known as the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1970s, criminal profiling has become an increasingly prevalent entity in both forensic science and the popular imagination. The fundamental idea of which profiling is premised – behavior as a reflection of personality – has been the subject of a great deal of misunderstanding, with professionals and nonprofessionals alike questioning whether profiling represents an art or a science and what its function in forensic science should be. To provide a more thorough understanding of criminal profiling’s capabilities and its efficacy as a law enforcement tool, this thesis will examine the application of criminal profiling to investigations, various court rulings concerning profiling’s admissibility, and the role that popular media plays in the perception and function of the practice. It will also discuss how future research and regulatory advancements may strengthen criminal profiling’s scientific merit and legitimacy.

Automated vehicles are becoming more prevalent in the modern world. Using platoons of automated vehicles can have numerous benefits including increasing the safety of drivers as well as streamlining roadway operations. How individual automated vehicles within a platoon react to each other is essential to creating an efficient method of travel. This paper looks at two individual vehicles forming a platoon and tracks the time headway between the two. Several speed profiles are explored for the following vehicle including a triangular and trapezoidal speed profile. It is discovered that a safety violation occurs during platoon formation where the desired time headway between the vehicles is violated. The aim of this research is to explore if this violation can be eliminated or reduced through utilization of different speed profiles.

The thesis analyzes the apathetic youth turnout myth and researches to see if voter suppression can explain the reason behind low youth turnout. This thesis is a study done with Arizona State University students to assess their level of voter turnout, their levels of political engagement, and if they have experienced voter suppression. Respondents were also asked about the support given by ASU in terms of helping with the voting process. Results indicate that Arizona State students have high levels of political engagement, and that 1 in 5 ASU students have experienced voter suppression. Furthermore, ASU students on a whole are uncertain about the role ASU should play in supporting students with the voting process.

As political campaigning becomes increasingly digital and data-driven, data privacy has become a question of democratic governance. Yet, Congress has yet to pass a comprehensive federal data privacy law and even the strongest subnational data privacy laws exempt political campaigns from regulation. <br/><br/>This thesis examines how data privacy laws impact data-driven and digital political campaigning. Specifically, it investigates what information is incorporated into the political data ecosystem, how data privacy laws regulate the collection of this data, and how actors in the political data ecosystem respond to these laws. It examines both sector-specific federal law and subnational data protection regulation through a case study of California. This research suggests that although the California Consumer Privacy Act and California Privacy Rights Act are landmark steps in American data protection, subnational data privacy law remains inhibited by the federal market-based approach.

Disinformation has long been a tactic used by the Russian government to achieve its goals. Today, Vladimir Putin aims to achieve several things: weaken the United States’ strength on the world stage, relieve Western sanctions on himself and his inner circle, and reassert dominant influence over Russia’s near abroad (the Baltics, Ukraine, etc.). This research analyzed disinformation in English, Spanish, and Russian; noting the dominant narratives and geopolitical goals Russia hoped to achieve by destabilizing democracy in each country/region.

Enzyme-induced carbonate precipitation (EICP) is a biocementation technique that produces comparatively fewer carbon dioxide emissions than traditional cementation. However, the use of synthetic reagents for EICP is costly, and the process produces an ammonium byproduct which is a harmful pollutant. This study utilizes fresh urine as a source of urea and calcium-rich zeolites as an ammonium adsorbent and a source of calcium ions for the EICP cementation technique. Batch hydrolysis and adsorption experiments were conducted to determine the effects of zeolite type, zeolite form, and solution composition on ammonium adsorption and calcium release. Cementation experiments were then conducted to determine the effects of different hydrolysis and adsorption times on ammonium adsorption and calcium carbonate precipitation. The results showed that calcium-rich chabazite could be used as a source of calcium ions and as an effective adsorbent of ammonium for EICP. Additionally, synthetic, fresh urine and real, fresh urine had comparable ammonium adsorption and calcium release trends. Finally, inclusion of a pre-hydrolysis step reduced the ammonium adsorption and calcium release, but longer adsorption times lead to calcium carbonate precipitation outside of the sand column, which is an undesirable outcome for soil biocementation; even with this limitation, the calcium carbonate content of sand columns ranged from 0.48% to 0.92%, which signifies the potential of the proposed process for cementation, given a higher initial concentration of urea.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made a significant impact on both the stock market and the<br/>global economy. The resulting volatility in stock prices has provided an opportunity to examine<br/>the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This study aims to gain insights into the efficiency of markets<br/>based on stock price performance in the Covid era. Specifically, it investigates the market’s<br/>ability to anticipate significant events during the Covid-19 timeline beginning November 1, 2019<br/><br/>and ending March 31, 2021. To examine the efficiency of markets, our team created a Stay-at-<br/>Home Portfolio, experiencing economic tailwinds from the Covid lockdowns, and a Pandemic<br/><br/>Loser Portfolio, experiencing economic headwinds from the Covid lockdowns. Cumulative<br/>returns of each portfolio are benchmarked to the cumulative returns of the S&P 500. The results<br/>showed that the Efficient Market Hypothesis is likely to be valid, although a definitive<br/>conclusion cannot be made based on the scope of the analysis. There are recommendations for<br/>further research surrounding key events that may be able to draw a more direct conclusion.