Matching Items (200)
Description
The rising national maternal mortality rate has brought international attention to the United State's maternal healthcare crisis. This literature review consolidates and compares academic research on the best practices for lowering maternal mortality rates and reducing racial disparities in healthcare.
ContributorsDavey, Skylar Lauren (Author) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Thesis director) / Lynch, Jacquie (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
This thesis develops a low-investment marketing strategy that allows low-to-mid level farmers extend their commercialization reach by strategically sending containers of fresh produce items to secondary markets that present temporary arbitrage opportunities. The methodology aims at identifying time windows of opportunity in which the price differential between two markets create an arbitrage opportunity for a transaction; a transaction involves buying a fresh produce item at a base market, and then shipping and selling it at secondary market price. A decision-making tool is developed that gauges the individual arbitrage opportunities and determines the specific price differential (or threshold level) that is most beneficial to the farmer under particular market conditions. For this purpose, two approaches are developed; a pragmatic approach that uses historic price information of the products in order to find the optimal price differential that maximizes earnings, and a theoretical one, which optimizes an expected profit model of the shipments to identify this optimal threshold. This thesis also develops risk management strategies that further reduce profit variability during a particular two-market transaction. In this case, financial engineering concepts are used to determine a shipment configuration strategy that minimizes the overall variability of the profits. For this, a Markowitz model is developed to determine the weight assignation of each component for a particular shipment. Based on the results of the analysis, it is deemed possible to formulate a shipment policy that not only increases the farmer's commercialization reach, but also produces profitable operations. In general, the observed rates of return under a pragmatic and theoretical approach hovered between 0.072 and 0.616 within important two-market structures. Secondly, it is demonstrated that the level of return and risk can be manipulated by varying the strictness of the shipping policy to meet the overall objectives of the decision-maker. Finally, it was found that one can minimize the risk of a particular two-market transaction by strategically grouping the product shipments.
ContributorsFlores, Hector M (Author) / Villalobos, Rene (Thesis advisor) / Runger, George C. (Committee member) / Maltz, Arnold (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Ascend is the premier non-profit professional association that enables its members, corporate partners and the community to realize the leadership potential of Pan-Asians in global corporations. Ascend at Arizona State University (ASU) was founded in March 2011 as a student affiliate of the national Ascend organization. There are four ultimate goals for this thesis: 1) to create an operations and transition guide for Ascend's future leadership; 2) to develop strategies and tactics to improve Ascend's operations; 3) to better establish and integrate Ascend within the W. P. Carey School of Business; and 4) to better understand and provide for the unique needs of international students within the W. P. Carey School of Business. An analysis of external trends at the W. P. Carey School of Business and ASU reveals that international students represent a rapidly growing demographic. Ascend, although successful during its first year of operations, must adapt in order to best provide for the unique needs of this demographic. At the same time, it must continue to service the needs of its overall target markets: 1) Asian students (both American-born and international) and 2) students seeking to work in Asia. In order to set the platform for the continued success of the organization moving forward, specific and measurable objectives, strategies, and tactics were developed. The organization's financial condition, executive board, committees, membership, student recruitment, events, support network, and mentor program were identified as the crucial elements that must be developed in order to ensure improvement in the organization moving forward. Finally, in order to ensure the continued integration of Ascend within the W. P. Carey School of Business, the business school can pursue strategies to better serve the unique needs of international students.
ContributorsAsztalos, Matthew J. (Co-author) / Chang, Haipei (Co-author) / Lam, Yu Hin "Jeffrey" (Co-author) / Ostrom, Amy (Thesis director) / Vinze, Ajay (Committee member) / Pino, Rudy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
This honors thesis utilizes smart home components and concepts from Dr. Burleson's Game as Life, Life as Game (GaLLaG) systems. The thesis focuses on an automated lifestyle, where individuals utilize technology, such as door sensors, appliance and lamp modules, and system notifications, to assist in daily activities. The findings from our efforts to date indicate that after weeks of observations, there is no evidence that automated lifestyles create more productive and healthy lifestyles and lead to overall satisfaction in life; however, there are certain design principles that would assist future home automation applications.
ContributorsRosales, Justin Bart (Author) / Burleson, Winslow (Thesis director) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Hekler, Eric (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Social shopping has emerged as a popular online retailing segment. Social shopping revolves around online communities that bring consumers together to shop for deals. Online retailers have been making significant investments to encourage consumers to join online communities linked to their websites in the hope that social interactions among consumers will increase consumption rates. However, the assumption that social interactions increase consumption rates in social shopping remains largely untested in empirical settings. Also, the mechanisms of such an effect remain unclear. Moreover, extant literature has overlooked the role played by elements of the marketing mix, including product characteristics and the commercial context, in defining the effect that social interaction mechanisms have on consumption rates in this focused context. Furthermore, common knowledge in the operations management discipline challenges the largely held assumption, in the social interactions literature, that increasing consumption rates will always be beneficial to online retailers. Higher consumption rates may lead to stockouts, leading to lower service levels. This dissertation develops and empirically tests a theoretical framework that addresses these managerially relevant issues. Specifically, the investigation centers on the effects of social interaction mechanisms on consumption rates in social shopping. In turn, it assesses the nature of the relationship between consumption rates and service levels, after controlling for inventory provision. Finally, it assesses the role played by elements of the marketing mix in defining the relationship between social interaction mechanisms and consumption rates in this focused context. The research methodology uses experiments as the primary source of data collection, and employs econometrics techniques to statistically assess the conceptual framework. The results from the empirical analysis provide interesting insights. First, they unveil influential consumers in social shopping according to relational and structural elements of the social network of consumers and time of purchase. Second, the influence of early buyers' purchases on consumption rates becomes weaker when the quality of the products being offered as part of a deal increases, but it becomes stronger when the price of those products increases. Finally, as deals' consumption rates increase, their service levels decrease at a faster pace.
ContributorsSodero, Annibal (Author) / Rabinovich, Elliot (Thesis advisor) / Sinha, Rajiv (Committee member) / Maltz, Arnold (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Every year, more than 11 million maritime containers and 11 million commercial trucks arrive to the United States, carrying all types of imported goods. As it would be costly to inspect every container, only a fraction of them are inspected before being allowed to proceed into the United States. This dissertation proposes a decision support system that aims to allocate the scarce inspection resources at a land POE (L-POE), to minimize the different costs associated with the inspection process, including those associated with delaying the entry of legitimate imports. Given the ubiquity of sensors in all aspects of the supply chain, it is necessary to have automated decision systems that incorporate the information provided by these sensors and other possible channels into the inspection planning process. The inspection planning system proposed in this dissertation decomposes the inspection effort allocation process into two phases: Primary and detailed inspection planning. The former helps decide what to inspect, and the latter how to conduct the inspections. A multi-objective optimization (MOO) model is developed for primary inspection planning. This model tries to balance the costs of conducting inspections, direct and expected, and the waiting time of the trucks. The resulting model is exploited in two different ways: One is to construct a complete or a partial efficient frontier for the MOO model with diversity of Pareto-optimal solutions maximized; the other is to evaluate a given inspection plan and provide possible suggestions for improvement. The methodologies are described in detail and case studies provided. The case studies show that this MOO based primary planning model can effectively pick out the non-conforming trucks to inspect, while balancing the costs and waiting time.
ContributorsXue, Liangjie (Author) / Villalobos, Jesus René (Thesis advisor) / Gel, Esma (Committee member) / Runger, George C. (Committee member) / Maltz, Arnold (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
With the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the health system in the United States is now being further challenged. There is bipartisan debate on how it can be reconstructed: one party states that the government plays too big of a role, while the other believes it plays too little. Regardless, Americans want change. Reconstruction is not a new topic by any means, and other countries have been forced to do so due to political violence. This paper explores the history and current healthcare organizations of Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These countries have all encountered major political turmoil, which has led to the rebuilding of their respective healthcare systems. Though the United States is not facing political violence that will necessitate reorganization, the examination of nations that have been forced to do so offers lessons applicable to the healthcare system in the US.
ContributorsSipes, Rachel Elizabeth (Author) / Sturgess, Jessica (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Violence in schools occurs throughout America, prevalent to the point of daily happenstance. The epidemic of violence in our society is in sore need of healing efforts. Ending Bullying with Multiple Architectures focuses on the violence of bullying in young children and adolescents, in an effort to mitigate bullying at a critical age, before it transcends into their adult behavior. Bullying begins in elementary schools, a time when our minds are extremely impressionable and our behavioral habits take birth. Bullying may happen for a certain segment of a person's life, but the effects transcend a person's entire life. People who bully may follow a familial cycle of bullying and people who are bullied may become bullies and start a new cycle. With bullying and aggressive behavior increasing exponentially in schools, our society is growing up in a place where it is acceptable to react aggressively to stressful or undesirable situations. Today, violence in our society infiltrates every aspect of our lives, from road rage, to grocery store quarrels, to family ties breaking, to gun violence in school and public spaces. Unplanned acts of violence occur in "spur of the moments". Is our society so impatient, aggressive, antagonistic, individualistic, and isolated because we have been conditioned as human beings to behave this way? Did we miss our chance to work cordially as a community, peacefully and patiently, because we put progress and productivity in front of community and collaboration? How can architecture slow you down, keep you aware of your surroundings and facilitate collaboration and getting along? Why do we accept abrupt anger and violence, and how can architecture create, improve or encourage positive behavioral habits in our impressionable young minds? Ending Bullying with Multiple Architectures translates existing bullying strategies (social architecture) into physical architectural intervention, in an effort to mitigate bullying at the critical age when behavioral habits take birth. This project challenges efficiency based design in order to complement the human experience. By creating healthier spaces that foster wholeness, we can heal violence at this critical age, and thus hopefully reduce future societal violence as a whole.
ContributorsRaghani, Divya Nikita (Author) / Shraiky, James (Thesis director) / Hejduk, Renata (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / The Design School (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Engineering education has long sought to incorporate greater diversity into engineering programs to prepare the profession to meet the engineering challenges of society. Increasing or retaining the conative diversity of engineering programs may help extend other kinds of diversity in the profession as well (Marburger, 2004). One measure of conation is the Kolbe ATM index.
Kolbe ATM is an index developed by Kathy Kolbe to measure the conative traits on an individual. The index assigns each individual a value in four categories, or Action Modes, that indicates their level of insistence on a scale of 1 to 10 in that Action Mode (Kolbe, 2004). The four Action Modes are:
• Fact Finder – handling of information or facts
• Follow Thru – need to pattern or organize
• Quick Start – management of risk or uncertainty
• Implementor – interaction with space or tangibles
The Kolbe A (TM) index assigns each individual a value that indicates their level of insistence with 1-3 representing resistant, preventing problems in a particular Action Mode; 4-6 indicating accommodation, flexibility in a particular Action Mode; and 7-10 indicating insistence in an Action Mode, initiating solutions in that Action Mode (Kolbe, 2004).
To promote retention of conative diversity, this study examines conative diversity in two engineering student populations, a predominately freshmen population at Chandler Gilbert Community College and a predominately junior population at Arizona State University. Students in both population took a survey that asked them to self-report their GPA, satisfaction with required courses in their major, Kolbe ATM conative index, and how much their conative traits help them in each of the classes on the survey. The classes in the survey included two junior level classes at ASU, Engineering Business Practices and Structural Analysis; as well as four freshmen engineering classes, Physics Lecture, Physics Lab, English Composition, and Calculus I.
This study finds that student satisfaction has no meaningful correlation with student GPA.
The study also finds that engineering programs have a dearth of resistant Fact Finders from the freshmen level on and losses resistant Follow Thrus and insistent Quick Starts as time progresses. Students whose conative indices align well with the structure of the engineering program tend to consider their conative traits helpful to them in their engineering studies. Students whose conative indices misalign with the structure of the program report that they consider their strengths less helpful to them in their engineering studies.
This study recommends further research into the relationship between satisfaction with major and conation and into perceived helpfulness of conative traits by students. Educators should continue to use Kolbe A (TM) in the classroom and perform further research on the impacts of conation on diversity in engineering programs.
Kolbe ATM is an index developed by Kathy Kolbe to measure the conative traits on an individual. The index assigns each individual a value in four categories, or Action Modes, that indicates their level of insistence on a scale of 1 to 10 in that Action Mode (Kolbe, 2004). The four Action Modes are:
• Fact Finder – handling of information or facts
• Follow Thru – need to pattern or organize
• Quick Start – management of risk or uncertainty
• Implementor – interaction with space or tangibles
The Kolbe A (TM) index assigns each individual a value that indicates their level of insistence with 1-3 representing resistant, preventing problems in a particular Action Mode; 4-6 indicating accommodation, flexibility in a particular Action Mode; and 7-10 indicating insistence in an Action Mode, initiating solutions in that Action Mode (Kolbe, 2004).
To promote retention of conative diversity, this study examines conative diversity in two engineering student populations, a predominately freshmen population at Chandler Gilbert Community College and a predominately junior population at Arizona State University. Students in both population took a survey that asked them to self-report their GPA, satisfaction with required courses in their major, Kolbe ATM conative index, and how much their conative traits help them in each of the classes on the survey. The classes in the survey included two junior level classes at ASU, Engineering Business Practices and Structural Analysis; as well as four freshmen engineering classes, Physics Lecture, Physics Lab, English Composition, and Calculus I.
This study finds that student satisfaction has no meaningful correlation with student GPA.
The study also finds that engineering programs have a dearth of resistant Fact Finders from the freshmen level on and losses resistant Follow Thrus and insistent Quick Starts as time progresses. Students whose conative indices align well with the structure of the engineering program tend to consider their conative traits helpful to them in their engineering studies. Students whose conative indices misalign with the structure of the program report that they consider their strengths less helpful to them in their engineering studies.
This study recommends further research into the relationship between satisfaction with major and conation and into perceived helpfulness of conative traits by students. Educators should continue to use Kolbe A (TM) in the classroom and perform further research on the impacts of conation on diversity in engineering programs.
ContributorsSmith, Logan Farren (Author) / Seager, Thomas P. (Thesis director) / Adams, Elizabeth A. (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Over a twelve-month period I completed industry research on women working in the financial industry. I then compiled a set of 17 qualitative questions with a focus on career development, leadership, compensation, and best practices for women working in the financial industry in order to complete my own study. I focused my time and energy on ten women working in the finance in Arizona. I completed one hour interviews with each woman in order to gain an understanding of the challenges women face in the workforce today. I have learned that gender bias is still very prevalent in the financial industry. Seven out of the ten women I spoke to labeled it as an obstacle during their career. The wage gap in finance continues to exist and I believe this is due to a culture of secrecy in the workforce and the discouragement of negotiation. The women I interviewed focused on communal leadership skills such as encouragement, empathy, and team success. This is a benefit today as the workplace culture changes these leadership strategies are extremely affective. Although gender discrimination is still prevalent, there are many promising signs for women entering the financial industry. Women as a whole are very satisfied with their careers and recommend the field to other young women starting off. Ten out of ten of the women I interviewed believe that being female in a male dominated workforce can be a benefit. If you work hard and demonstrate successful leadership abilities it can be easier to stand out. It is definitely possible to have a fulfilling career in the financial industry, but you have to define success in your own terms and make time for the activities and people you enjoy. I hope that my research will impact other young women to continue to pave the way of success for women in the financial industry.
ContributorsRuttledge, Florence Rose (Author) / Kalika, Dale (Thesis director) / Ostrom, Amy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor)
Created2015-05