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- Creators: Computer Science and Engineering Program
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
The Colorado River is the lifeblood for seven Basin States including Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. This water source aided westward expansion and allowed the arid Southwest to grow. Today, the river is over-allocated resulting in reduced flows. This could lead to water challenges in Arizona and the other Basin states. This river is the single largest entity from which Arizona receives water. Despite this, Arizona is still better situated for water cutbacks than other states like California. Arizona has more than nine million acre-feet of banked underground water and access to other water sources including the Salt and Verde rivers. Government officials are making decisions now that will affect water usage in Arizona for decades and generations to come. Digital media, such as iPad magazines are a good way to reach this technologically savvy generation and engage them concerning important issues. Designing for digital platforms presents unique opportunities. This platform requires solid content and visually appealing design to attract a Millennial audience born between the years 1981 and 1996, according to Pew Research Center. Digital magazines currently present a small segment of the media market, however this segment is growing exponentially. A study by Pew Research Center reports that this slice of the population is interested in consuming the news and emerging technologies such as digital magazines. These are good ways to reach and interest a digitally engaged readership. Reaching this age group is important because the Millennial generation will need to determine the future of the Colorado River and water use in Arizona. To ensure the future of water in the West, this generation needs to "learn about the reality of our water supply, what our real water challenges are and then get engaged and have a voice in what we do about our water planning for the future" (Porter, 2015). DISCLAIMER: The digital magazine was created in InDesign with interactive PDFs, which are best viewed on tablets. Screenshots of the magazine are included to demonstrate the magazine.
ContributorsPrice, Mallory Jeanne (Author) / Matera, Fran (Thesis director) / Hill, Retha (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
My thesis is an experiment in the power of social media and networking. The compelling question is: How can we as journalists motivate people to connect with Facebook/blog postings enough to share them with their own networks? This is a huge issue with journalism because it is a challenge to move people and to get them to share information.
My thesis project took the form of a networking blog for adoptable animals at the local pound. I created unique photos of the dogs and wrote up bios for them so that they became more accessible to people who could not physically visit the shelter very often. I brought the dogs to life by sharing a part of their story and encouraging people to care about what happened to them. This issue is especially close to my heart because I have loved animals all my life and started fostering dogs a few years ago.
The project was a huge success. I profiled 37 dogs and they amassed hundreds of thousands of views both on my Wordpress site and on the project Facebook page. Five of my dogs were euthanized, about a 13% euthanasia rate. Compared to the owner surrender euthanasia rate of previous years, this rate is remarkably low. In 2012, about 43.86% of owner surrenders were euthanized. In 2013, about 39.19% of owner surrenders were euthanized. In 2014, about 33.27% of owner surrenders were euthanized. My euthanasia rate was essentially less than half of the last year’s owner surrender euthanasia rate.
I think I absolutely proved my point. The power of networking in unique ways and leveraging the influence of social media cannot be underestimated. Less dogs were killed because of my project. If that’s not success, then I don’t know what is.
My thesis project took the form of a networking blog for adoptable animals at the local pound. I created unique photos of the dogs and wrote up bios for them so that they became more accessible to people who could not physically visit the shelter very often. I brought the dogs to life by sharing a part of their story and encouraging people to care about what happened to them. This issue is especially close to my heart because I have loved animals all my life and started fostering dogs a few years ago.
The project was a huge success. I profiled 37 dogs and they amassed hundreds of thousands of views both on my Wordpress site and on the project Facebook page. Five of my dogs were euthanized, about a 13% euthanasia rate. Compared to the owner surrender euthanasia rate of previous years, this rate is remarkably low. In 2012, about 43.86% of owner surrenders were euthanized. In 2013, about 39.19% of owner surrenders were euthanized. In 2014, about 33.27% of owner surrenders were euthanized. My euthanasia rate was essentially less than half of the last year’s owner surrender euthanasia rate.
I think I absolutely proved my point. The power of networking in unique ways and leveraging the influence of social media cannot be underestimated. Less dogs were killed because of my project. If that’s not success, then I don’t know what is.
ContributorsTotten, Emma Kathleen (Author) / Jean-Thornton, Leslie (Thesis director) / Roschke, Kristy (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
In Spring 2015, I decided to study abroad in Granada, Spain. After scouring the Internet, I realized there was a lack of resources and information for study abroad students coming to the city. I decided to use my thesis project as an opportunity to create a multimedia, interactive e-book to help prospective study abroad students. This book walks them through what steps they need to take to prepare themselves and functions as a guide for when they arrive. It is a culmination of my own research, interviews with locals and surveys amongst other study abroad students.
ContributorsLongbons, Chandler Tenell (Author) / Thornton, Leslie (Thesis director) / Roschke, Kristy (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
DescriptionPanic at the Elbow: High School Baseball's Tommy John Surgery Epidemic reflects on the history of Tommy John surgery, examines the scale of the current epidemic, explores its underlying causes and ultimately recommends steps that parents and players can take to avoid such overuse injuries. Link to documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31xvOCN_tqk
ContributorsMargiott, Benjamin James (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Byck, Peter (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This project's goal was to design a Central Processing Unit (CPU) incorporating a fairly large instruction set and a multistage pipeline design with the potential to be used in a multi-core system. The CPU was coded and synthesized with Verilog. This was accomplished by building on the CPU design from fundamentals learned in CSE320 and increasing the instruction set to resemble a proper Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) CPU system. A multistage pipeline was incorporated to the CPU to increase instruction throughput, or instructions per second. A major area of focus was on creating a multi-core design. The design used is master-slave in nature. The master core instructs the sub-cores where they should begin execution, the idea being that the operating system or kernel will be executing on the master core and the "user space" programs will be run on the sub-cores. The rationale behind this is that the system would specialize in running several small functions on all of its many supported cores. The system supports around 45 instructions, which include several types of jumps and branches (for changing the program counter based on conditions), arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, or, and, etc.), and system calls (for controlling the core execution). The system has a very low Clocks per Instruction ratio (CPI), but to achieve this the second stage contains several modules and would most likely be a bottleneck for performance if implemented. The CPU is not perfect and contains a few errors and oversights, but the system as a whole functions as intended.
ContributorsKolden, Brian Andrew (Author) / Burger, Kevin (Thesis director) / Meuth, Ryan (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
My thesis project is a 26 minute 46 second film that documents the Arizona State hockey team's first season as an NCAA Division I program. ASU hockey was formerly a club team that competed in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA), but that all changed in the fall of 2014 after the program received a donation. The documentary explores the significance of the team, the emotion of the players and staff, and the results of the season.
ContributorsCasillas, Mauricio (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Reed, Sada (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Each year, a select few minor league baseball players are chosen to attend the Arizona Fall League, a development league within Major League Baseball that hones the next generation of players, coaches, managers, and even umpires. These players make up the top talent currently in the minor leagues from each of Major League Baseball's 30 organizations. Of the thousands in the minors, just seven players from each organization can go to this extra six-week season, and learn to play alongside the best future talent the sport has to offer. On Deck: Inside the Arizona Fall League is a short documentary that looks at some of these players, as they continue their baseball journey that they hope leads them one day to the Majors. The documentary can be viewed online at https://youtu.be/jkggYiDtn14 or nicolesheraefox.com
ContributorsFox, Nicole Sherae (Author) / Lodato, Mark (Thesis director) / Kurland, Brett (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Observations of four times ionized iron and nickel (Fe V & Ni V) in the G191-B2B white dwarf spectrum have been used to test for variations in the fine structure constant, α, in the presence of strong gravitational fields. The laboratory wavelengths for these ions were thought to be the cause of inconsistent conclusions regarding the
variation of α as observed through the white dwarf spectrum. This thesis presents 129 revised Fe V wavelengths (1200 Å to 1600 Å) and 161 revised Ni V wavelengths (1200 Å to 1400 Å) with uncertainties of approximately 3 mÅ. A systematic calibration error
is identified in the previous Ni V wavelengths and is corrected in this work. The evaluation of the fine structure variation is significantly improved with the results
found in this thesis.
variation of α as observed through the white dwarf spectrum. This thesis presents 129 revised Fe V wavelengths (1200 Å to 1600 Å) and 161 revised Ni V wavelengths (1200 Å to 1400 Å) with uncertainties of approximately 3 mÅ. A systematic calibration error
is identified in the previous Ni V wavelengths and is corrected in this work. The evaluation of the fine structure variation is significantly improved with the results
found in this thesis.
ContributorsWard, Jacob Wolfgang (Author) / Treacy, Michael (Thesis director) / Alarcon, Ricardo (Committee member) / Nave, Gillian (Committee member) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Preventive maintenance is a practice that has become popular in recent years, largely due to the increased dependency on electronics and other mechanical systems in modern technologies. The main idea of preventive maintenance is to take care of maintenance-type issues before they fully appear or cause disruption of processes and daily operations. One of the most important parts is being able to predict and foreshadow failures in the system, in order to make sure that those are fixed before they turn into large issues. One specific area where preventive maintenance is a very big part of daily activity is the automotive industry. Automobile owners are encouraged to take their cars in for maintenance on a routine schedule (based on mileage or time), or when their car signals that there is an issue (low oil levels for example). Although this level of maintenance is enough when people are in charge of cars, the rise of autonomous vehicles, specifically self-driving cars, changes that. Now instead of a human being able to look at a car and diagnose any issues, the car needs to be able to do this itself. The objective of this project was to create such a system. The Electronics Preventive Maintenance System is an internal system that is designed to meet all these criteria and more. The EPMS system is comprised of a central computer which monitors all major electronic components in an autonomous vehicle through the use of standard off-the-shelf sensors. The central computer compiles the sensor data, and is able to sort and analyze the readings. The filtered data is run through several mathematical models, each of which diagnoses issues in different parts of the vehicle. The data for each component in the vehicle is compared to pre-set operating conditions. These operating conditions are set in order to encompass all normal ranges of output. If the sensor data is outside the margins, the warning and deviation are recorded and a severity level is calculated. In addition to the individual focus, there's also a vehicle-wide model, which predicts how necessary maintenance is for the vehicle. All of these results are analyzed by a simple heuristic algorithm and a decision is made for the vehicle's health status, which is sent out to the Fleet Management System. This system allows for accurate, effortless monitoring of all parts of an autonomous vehicle as well as predictive modeling that allows the system to determine maintenance needs. With this system, human inspectors are no longer necessary for a fleet of autonomous vehicles. Instead, the Fleet Management System is able to oversee inspections, and the system operator is able to set parameters to decide when to send cars for maintenance. All the models used for the sensor and component analysis are tailored specifically to the vehicle. The models and operating margins are created using empirical data collected during normal testing operations. The system is modular and can be used in a variety of different vehicle platforms, including underwater autonomous vehicles and aerial vehicles.
ContributorsMian, Sami T. (Author) / Collofello, James (Thesis director) / Chen, Yinong (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
History shows that baseball and media have a very close relationship, but the advantages of social media are proving to come at a cost to traditional media (The Business Insider). Baseball was invented around the same time the the penny press brought newspapers to a larger audience in the 1830s (Brazeal 405), followed by radio entering its discovery years as it carried games to people who lived far away from ballparks. Radio also brought games to life to women and children, as well as those who owned cars (Walker, 7). In 1939, baseball was aired on television for the first time (Koppett). By 1991 when the World Wide Web was brought to the public, baseball was ready to take on digital media. Take it to Twitter, Baseball studies the relationship between baseball and social media, focusing specifically on Twitter. Working with social media presents unique opportunities to reach, interact and engage with younger demographics. Using 2,683 Tweets collected through a history provided by 4 MLB teams, insights like Tweet interactions, Tweet success, media type, and categorized Tweet types are used to understand what it means to use social media well, and why it would come at a cost to traditional media. Content containing promotional material, specifically with giveaways, was found to be more successful in comparison to player and team focused Tweets. Levels of activity were determined and factored into how it relates to Tweet Success. Average Retweets per Retweet were also calculated to determine what results an average Tweet of a specific type should expect to receive. Overall, baseball will continue using any form of media that benefits their conglomerate looking for profits. With so many sponsors to satisfy, baseball will want to keep every tool at their disposal. However, with social media providing deeper analytics and insights into who their fanbase is, as well as allowing them to reach who they want their fanbase to be, it could come at a cost to traditional media.
ContributorsRex, Stevi Danielle (Author) / Doig, Steve (Thesis director) / Dawson, Clifton (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05