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The objective of this paper is to provide an educational diagnostic into the technology of blockchain and its application for the supply chain. Education on the topic is important to prevent misinformation on the capabilities of blockchain. Blockchain as a new technology can be confusing to grasp given the wide

The objective of this paper is to provide an educational diagnostic into the technology of blockchain and its application for the supply chain. Education on the topic is important to prevent misinformation on the capabilities of blockchain. Blockchain as a new technology can be confusing to grasp given the wide possibilities it can provide. This can convolute the topic by being too broad when defined. Instead, the focus will be maintained on explaining the technical details about how and why this technology works in improving the supply chain. The scope of explanation will not be limited to the solutions, but will also detail current problems. Both public and private blockchain networks will be explained and solutions they provide in supply chains. In addition, other non-blockchain systems will be described that provide important pieces in supply chain operations that blockchain cannot provide. Blockchain when applied to the supply chain provides improved consumer transparency, management of resources, logistics, trade finance, and liquidity.
ContributorsKrukar, Joel Michael (Author) / Oke, Adegoke (Thesis director) / Duarte, Brett (Committee member) / Hahn, Richard (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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The passage of 2007's Legal Arizona Workers Act, which required all new hires to be tested for legal employment status through the federal E-Verify database, drastically changed the employment prospects for undocumented workers in the state. Using data from the 2007-2010 American Community Survey, this paper seeks to identify the

The passage of 2007's Legal Arizona Workers Act, which required all new hires to be tested for legal employment status through the federal E-Verify database, drastically changed the employment prospects for undocumented workers in the state. Using data from the 2007-2010 American Community Survey, this paper seeks to identify the impact of this law on the labor force in Arizona, specifically regarding undocumented workers and less educated native workers. Overall, the data shows that the wage bias against undocumented immigrants doubled in the four years studied, and the wages of native workers without a high school degree saw a temporary, positive increase compared to comparable workers in other states. The law did not have an effect on the wages of native workers with a high school degree.
ContributorsSantiago, Maria Christina (Author) / Pereira, Claudiney (Thesis director) / Mendez, Jose (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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The January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake, which hit Port-au-Prince in the late afternoon, was the cause of over 220,000 deaths and $8 billion in damages \u2014 roughly 120% of national GDP at the time. A Mw 7.5 earthquake struck rural Guatemala in the early morning in 1976 and caused 23,000-25,000

The January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake, which hit Port-au-Prince in the late afternoon, was the cause of over 220,000 deaths and $8 billion in damages \u2014 roughly 120% of national GDP at the time. A Mw 7.5 earthquake struck rural Guatemala in the early morning in 1976 and caused 23,000-25,000 deaths, three times as many injuries, and roughly $1.1 billion in damages, which accounted for approximately 30% of Guatemala's GDP. The earthquake which hit just outside of Christchurch, New Zealand early in the morning on September 4, 2010 had a magnitude of 7.1 and caused just two injuries, no deaths, and roughly 7.2 billion USD in damages (5% of GDP). These three earthquakes, all with magnitudes over 7 on the Richter scale, caused extremely varied amounts of economic damage for these three countries. This thesis aims to identify a possible explanation as to why this was the case and suggest ways in which to improve disaster risk management going forward.
ContributorsHeuermann, Jamie Lynne (Author) / Schoellman, Todd (Thesis director) / Mendez, Jose (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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Radiometric dating estimates the age of rocks by comparing the concentration of a decaying radioactive isotope to the concentrations of the decay byproducts. Radiometric dating has been instrumental in the calculation of the Earth's age, the Moon's age, and the age of our solar system. Geochronologists in the School of

Radiometric dating estimates the age of rocks by comparing the concentration of a decaying radioactive isotope to the concentrations of the decay byproducts. Radiometric dating has been instrumental in the calculation of the Earth's age, the Moon's age, and the age of our solar system. Geochronologists in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at ASU use radiometric dating extensively in their research, and have very specific procedures, hardware, and software to perform the dating calculations. Researchers use lasers to drill small holes, or ablations, in rock faces, collect the masses of various isotopes using a mass spectrometer, and scan the pit with an interferometer, which records the z heights of the pit on an x-y grid. This scan is then processed by custom-made software to determine the volume of the pit, which then is used along with the isotope masses and known decay rates to determine the age of the rock. My research has been focused on improving this volume calculation through computational geometry methods of surface reconstruction. During the process, I created an web application that reads interferometer scans, reconstructs a surface from those scans with Poisson reconstruction, renders the surface in the browser, and calculates the volume of the pit based on parameters provided by the researcher. The scans are stored in a central cloud datastore for future analysis, allowing the researchers in the geochronology community to collaborate together on scans from various rocks in their individual labs. The result of the project has been a complete and functioning application that is accessible to any researcher and reproducible from any computer. The 3D representation of the scan data allows researchers to easily understand the topology of the pit ablation and determine early on whether the measurements of the interferometer are trustworthy for the particular ablation. The volume calculation by the new software also reduces the variability in the volume calculation, which hopefully indicates the process is removing noise from the scan data and performing volume calculations on a more realistic representation of the actual ablation. In the future, this research will be used as the groundwork for more robust testing and closer approximations through implementation of different reconstruction algorithms. As the project grows and becomes more usable, hopefully there will be adoption in the community and it will become a reproducible standard for geochronologists performing radiometric dating.
ContributorsPruitt, Jacob Richard (Author) / Hodges, Kip (Thesis director) / Mercer, Cameron (Committee member) / van Soest, Matthijs (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
I built a short-term West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil price-forecasting model for two periods to understand how various drivers of crude oil behaved before and after the Great Recession. According to the Federal Reserve the Great Recession "...began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009" (Rich 1). The

I built a short-term West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil price-forecasting model for two periods to understand how various drivers of crude oil behaved before and after the Great Recession. According to the Federal Reserve the Great Recession "...began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009" (Rich 1). The research involves two models spanning two periods. The first period encompasses 2000 to late 2007 and the second period encompasses early 2010 to 2016. The dependent variable for this model is monthly average WTI crude oil prices. The independent variables are based on what the academic community believes are drivers of crude oil prices. While the studies may be scattered across different time periods, they provide valuable insight on what the academic community believes drives oil prices. The model includes variables that address two different data groups including: 1. Market fundamentals/expectations of market fundamentals 2. Speculation One of the biggest challenges I faced was defining and quantifying "speculation". I ended up using a previous study's definition of "speculation", which it defined as the activity of certain market participants in the Commitment of Traders report released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. My research shows that the West Texas Intermediate crude oil market exhibited a structural change after the Great Recession. Furthermore, my research also presents interesting findings that warrant further research. For example, I find that 3-month T-bills and 10yr Treasury notes lose their predictive edge starting in the second period (2010-2016). Furthermore, the positive correlation between oil and the U.S. dollar in the period 2000-2007 warrants further investigation. Lastly, it might be interesting to see why T-bills are positively correlated to WTI prices and 10yr Treasury notes are negatively correlated to WTI prices.
ContributorsMirza, Hisham Tariq (Author) / McDaniel, Cara (Thesis director) / Budolfson, Arthur (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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Description
The ability to draft and develop productive Major League players is vital to the success of any MLB organization. A core of cost-controlled, productive players is as important as ever with free agent salaries continuing to rise dramatically. In a sport where mere percentage points separate winners from losers at

The ability to draft and develop productive Major League players is vital to the success of any MLB organization. A core of cost-controlled, productive players is as important as ever with free agent salaries continuing to rise dramatically. In a sport where mere percentage points separate winners from losers at the end of a long season, any slight advantage in identifying talent is valuable. This study examines the 2004-2008 MLB Amateur Drafts in order to analyze whether certain types of prospects are more valuable selections than others. If organizations can better identify which draft prospects will more likely contribute at the Major League level in the future, they can more optimally spend their allotted signing bonus pool in order to acquire as much potential production as possible through the draft. Based on the data examined, during these five drafts high school prospects provided higher value than college prospects. While college players reached the Majors at a higher rate, high school players produced greater value in their first six seasons of service time. In the all-important first round of the draft, where signing bonuses are at their largest, college players proved the more valuable selection. When players were separated by position, position players held greater expected value than pitchers, with corner infielders leading the way as the position group with the highest expected value. College players were found to provide better value than high school players at defensively demanding positions such as catcher and middle infield, while high school players were more valuable among outfielders and pitchers.
ContributorsGildea, Adam Joseph (Author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / McIntosh, Daniel (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05