Diabetes education has shown to improve diabetes health markers but there is a need for it to be more accessible Diabetes education in the form of Diabetes Self Education and Management (DSMES) could potentially utilize IT technologies, which have shown promise as a more accessible way to access healthcare and manage health. However, both these methods have not been optimized for the diverse population in the US. In particular, Chinese Americans are a growing minority group in America whose health needs such as diabetes type 2 are growing. As a cultural group, Chinese Americans have cultural characteristics that have been identified in the literature, which should be accounted for in the design of a technology-enabled DSMES program. This qualitative study aims to understand what ways Chinese Americans with type 2 diabetes are learning about and managing diabetes, as well as their technology usage. Themes such as cultural food importance, family roles, information acquisition, and attitudes and motivation emerged. Themes motivated the design implications and recommendations such as creating a more specified, culturally tailored Chinese food menu, integrated family features, and trackers with increased feedback. More research should be conducted to test the effectiveness of including these features in a technology-enabled DSMES program.

September 11th, 2001 was a day that affected everyone. The world came to a stop. The aviation industry was affected, and the national airspace system was closed for a few days. The events that occurred on that specific day enacted changes that affect the industry to this day. This paper analyzes some of the changes that were made and discusses some of the changes the industry is going through again, about 20 years after the events on September 11th. The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we all live our daily lives and aviation is not exempt. Changes to aircraft cleaning procedures, boarding processes, and seat design have all been ways the industry has gone through changes. The results of a potential recovery as well as the long-term changes are discussed.

A large section of United States citizens live far away from supermarkets and do not have an easy way to get to one. This portion of the population lives in an area called a food desert. Food deserts are geographic areas in which access to affordable, healthy food, such as fresh produce, is limited or completely nonexistent due to the absence of convenient grocery stores. Individuals living in food deserts are left to rely on convenience store snacks and fast food for their meals because they do not have access to a grocery store with fresh produce in their area. Unhealthy foods also lead to health issues, as people living in food deserts are typically at a higher risk of diet-related conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Harvest, a sustainable farming network, is a smartphone application that teaches and guides people living in small spaces through the process of growing fresh, nutritious produce in their own homes. The app will guide users through the entire process of gardening, from seed to harvest. Harvest would give individuals living in food deserts an opportunity to access fresh produce that they currently can’t access. An overwhelming response based on our user discussion and market analysis revealed that our platform was in demand. Development of a target market, brand guide, and full lifecycle were beneficial during the second semester as Harvest moved forward. Through the development of a website, social media platform, and smartphone application, Harvest grew traction for our platform. Our social media accounts saw a 1700% growth rate, and this wider audience was able to provide helpful feedback.

The majority of drones are extremely simple, their functions include flight and sometimes recording video and audio. While drone technology has continued to improve these functions, particularly flight, additional functions have not been added to mainstream drones. Although these basic functions serve as a good framework for drone designs, it is now time to extend off from this framework. With this Honors Thesis project, we introduce a new function intended to eventually become common to drones. This feature is a grasping mechanism that is capable of perching on branches and carrying loads within the weight limit. This concept stems from the natural behavior of many kinds of insects. It paves the way for drones to further imitate the natural design of flying creatures. Additionally, it serves to advocate for dynamic drone frames, or morphing drone frames, to become more common practice in drone designs.

This paper explores the technological systems used by Arizona State University’s Housing department during the course of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic which struck the state of Arizona. The COVID-19 epidemic is the largest pandemic in recent memory. It has affected all walks of life, from social economic damages, widespread panic and the rise of civil unrest. One of the most profound effects from this generation of students is the impact it has had in all levels of education from kindergarten to graduate school. The American education system has been heavily affected since the pandemic first started. Due to the lockdowns, traditional education practices such as in-person classrooms, class labs, and even the psychological impact of physical distancing has affected students’ educational experiences. This disruption has also greatly affected our college system. In response to problems such as the lockdowns, slow rate of infections per student, many colleges have made extensive use of technological aids, substitutes, and systems to combat the damage done to the education system. This resulted in switching of in-person course work to online based assignments and tests. The colleges response to the pandemic has not only been online, but in-person as well. ASU has adopted a variety of systems to track its students’ and employees’ health statuses. This is done via the use of the Daily Heath Check System (an application used by ASU to track the health of both students and faculty), and the use of randomized testing. This enabled the tracking and monitoring of the rate of infections within the ASU community. ASU has also installed hand sanitizer machines in every building as well as providing a supply of health and safety equipment to necessary staff. These systems, products, and preventative practices have been put into place for the protection of not only the students but employees of ASU. However, one key consideration about the adoption of these measures, is whether or not they are truly effective. One of the areas explored are the problems with the adoption of these systems and how they were implemented. Meaning that these systems adopted resulted in either less then successful outcomes or causing student displeasure towards the systems that were implemented.

Our project is to create a simplified, portable, modular electrocardiogram known as ECG/EKG. Most medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, and skilled nursing facilities, still rely on traditional 12-lead EKG equipment consisting of a large cart with long 10 wires. These wires can be a pain to constantly detangle and rearrange to determine a person’s heart conditions. This creates issues in fast paced scenarios such as when a patient is experiencing a heart attack and needs an EKG stat. Additionally, the current technology can be somewhat unreliable at determining heart conditions, causing providers to request multiple EKG’s for patients. With our improved versatile EKG, we can help solve these issues and implement additional outpatient use with its portable features. This can be done by remotely monitoring heart conditions during activities such as exercise, sleep, or stressful events, without worrying about wire disturbance.

Inspired by "A Work-Centered Approach to System User-Evaluation" by Roth (2021) and UX design principles, this thesis project aims to determine the usability levels of the ASU Class Search System to locate pain points and provide appropriate recommendations. The ASU class search system allows students to complete the necessary tasks, but the user experience is frustrating due to unnecessary scrolling, clicking, and searching. The user evaluation confirms that some improvements could be made to the class search system to improve its utility and usability. The main improvements suggested in this work address filter and navigation inconsistencies, an overwhelming amount of scroll real estate, minor design inconsistencies, minor jargon and content inconsistencies, scroll stoppers, and guide support.