Matching Items (74)
Description
G3Box's 2013 Marketing Plan outlines a strategic plan and short term operational strategies for the company. The document includes a discussion of the company's decision to enter the market for healthcare facilities in developing counties, and a situation assessment of the market conditions. G3Box is targeting small and large NGOs that currently provide healthcare facilities in developing countries. The market size for healthcare aid in developing countries is estimated to be $1.7 billion. The plan also analyses the customer's value chain and buying cycle by using voice of the customer data. The strategic position analysis profiles G3Box's competition and discusses the company's differential advantage versus other options for healthcare facilities in developing countries. Next the document discusses G3Box's market strategy and implementation, along with outlining a value proposition for the company. G3Box has two objectives for 2013: 1) Increase sales revenue to $1.3 million and 2) increase market presence to 25%. In order to reach these objectives, G3Box has developed a primary and secondary strategic focus for each objective. The primary strategies are relationship selling and online marketing. The secondary strategies are developing additional value-added activities and public relations.
ContributorsWalters, John (Author) / Denning, Michael (Thesis director) / Ostrom, Lonnie (Committee member) / Carroll, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
The majority of the 52 photovoltaic installations at ASU are governed by power purchase agreements (PPA) that set a fixed per kilowatt-hour rate at which ASU buys power from the system owner over the period of 15-20 years. PPAs require accurate predictions of the system output to determine the financial viability of the system installations as well as the purchase price. The research was conducted using PPAs and historical solar power production data from the ASU's Energy Information System (EIS). The results indicate that most PPAs slightly underestimate the annual energy yield. However, the modeled power output from PVsyst indicates that higher energy outputs are possible with better system monitoring.
ContributorsVulic, Natasa (Author) / Bowden, Stuart (Thesis director) / Bryan, Harvey (Committee member) / Sharma, Vivek (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
The 21st century engineer will face a diverse set of challenges spread out along a broad spectrum of disciplines. Among others, the fields of energy, healthcare, cyberspace, virtual reality, and neuroscience require monumental efforts by the new generation of engineers to meet the demands of a growing society. However the most important, and likely the most under recognized, challenge lies in developing advanced personalized learning. It is the core foundation from which the rest of the challenges can be accomplished. Without an effective method of teaching engineering students how to realize these grand challenges, the knowledge pool from which to draw new innovations and discoveries will be greatly diminished. This paper introduces the Inventors Workshop (IW), a hands-on, passion-based approach to personalized learning. It is intended to serve as a manual that will inform the next generation of student leaders and inventioneers about the core concepts the Inventors Workshop was built upon, and how to continue improvement into the future. Due to the inherent complexities in the grand challenge of personalized learning, the IW has developed a multifaceted solution that is difficult to explain in a single phrase. To enable comprehension of the IW's full vision, the process undergone to date of establishing and expanding the IW is described. In addition, research has been conducted to determine a variety of paths the Inventors Workshop may utilize in future expansion. Each of these options is explored and related to the core foundations of the IW to assist future leaders and partners in effectively improving personalized learning at ASU and beyond.
ContributorsEngelhoven, V. Logan (Author) / Burleson, Winslow (Thesis director) / Peck, Sidnee (Committee member) / Fortun, A. L. Cecil (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (Contributor)
Created2012-12
ContributorsShah, Beejal (Author) / Nakamura, Mutsumi (Thesis director) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Committee member) / Wilkerson, Kelly (Committee member) / Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
The Phoenix-Metro area currently has problems with its transportation systems. Over-crowded and congested freeways have slowed travel times within the area. Express bus transportation and the existence of "High Occupancy" lanes have failed to solve the congestion problem. The light rail system is limited to those within a certain distance from the line, and even the light rail is either too slow or too infrequent for a commuter to utilize it effectively. To add to the issue, Phoenix is continuing to expand outward instead of increasing population density within the city, therefore increasing the time it takes to travel to downtown Phoenix, which is the center of economic activity. The people of Phoenix and its surrounding areas are finding that driving themselves to work is just as cost-effective and less time consuming than taking public transportation. Phoenix needs a cost-effective solution to work in co- existence with improvements in local public transportation that will allow citizens to travel to their destination in just as much time, or less time, than travelling by personal vehicle.
ContributorsSerfilippi, Jon (Author) / Ariaratnam, Samuel (Thesis director) / Pendyala, Ram (Committee member) / Pembroke, Jim (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Electrospun nanofibers can be prepared from various kinds of inorganic substances by electro-spinning techniques. They have great potential in many applications including super capacitors, lithium ion batteries, filtration, catalyst and enzyme carriers, and sensors [1]. The traditional way to produce electrospun nanofibers is needle based electro-spinning [1]. However, electrospun nanofibers have not been widely used in practice because of low nanofiber production rates. One way to largely increase the electro-spinning productivity is needleless electro-spinning. In 2005, Jirsak et al. patented a rotating roller fiber generator for the mass production of nanofibers [2]. Elmarco Corporation commercialized this technique to manufacture nanofiber equipment for the production of all sorts of organic and inorganic nanofibers, and named it "NanospiderTM". For this project, my goal is to build a needleless electro-spinner to produce nanofibers as the separator of lithium ion batteries. The model of this project is based on the design of rotating roller fiber generator, and is adapted from a project at North Dakota State University in 2011 [3].
ContributorsQiao, Guanhao (Author) / Yu, Hongyu (Thesis director) / Jiang, Hanqing (Committee member) / Goryll, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Fruit flies show a strong attraction to fruit odors. Most fruit odors, including strawberry scent, are complex multimolecular mixtures comprised of many chemically distinct constituents. How animals are able to process these mixtures and derive behaviorally relevant information is largely unknown. A new procedure was created to test odor preference for Heisenberg canton-s strain of Drosophila melanogaster. 30 flies were cold anesthetized at 4.2°C for 30 minutes and then placed in a testing arena. After acclimating for 45 minutes, the flies were exposed to two sources of air, one with ripe strawberry odor and one with only humidified air. Images were captured every minute for an hour and a preference index was calculated for every 10th image. The Drosophila had a positive average preference for the strawberry odor. Five out of six trials showed a general increase in odor preference over the course of the trial. While there was a generally positive trend for average preference over time, there was not a significant increase in average odor preference from time 1 to time 60. The data indicates that Drosophila show a preference for strawberry odor over humidified air, and we propose to extend this test to investigate how Drosophila process and react to complex odors and their chemical constituents.
ContributorsSteinmetz, Kyle J (Author) / Smith, Brian (Thesis director) / Jernigan, Chris (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Recent data suggests that olfactory input is important for antennal lobe development in honey bees. Chronic association of a single odor to food resources during crucial stages of development results in delayed antennal lobe development for mature foraging bees. The antennal lobes of these bees instead closely resemble an immature network observed in young, newly emerged bees. Using an odor stimuli variance assay, learning and memory tests can be used to explore how well honey bees discriminate single odors within complex odor mixtures. Here we are validating two different odor mixtures, a Brassica rapa floral blend and a second replicate mixture composed of common molecularly dissimilar odors. Odors in each mixture are either held constant or varied in concentration over 16 conditioning trials. Subsequent memory tests are performed two hours later to observe the ability of bees to distinguish and recognize specific odor components in each mixture. So far in our assay we find high rates of generalization for both odor mixtures. In general, more bees responded to all odors in the replicate treatment group over the Brassica treatment group. Additionally, bees in the Brassica treatment group did not respond to the target odor. More data is being collected to validate this assay. In future studies, I propose to apply this behavioral assay to bees with an altered olfactory developmental in order to see the functional impacts of this chronic odor association treatment.
ContributorsHalby, Rachael (Author) / Smith, Brian (Thesis director) / Jernigan, Christopher (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Asperger's syndrome is a high-functioning subset of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Diagnosed patients often lack refined social skills but possess a normal level of cognitive skills without delay in language development. These deficient social skills can impact the ability to find and maintain a job, which can be burdensome for all individuals involved in the patient's life. Although the causes of this condition are largely unknown, a wide variety of social and cognitive therapies have been used to reduce symptom severity, one of which is Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Mindfulness is the act of being aware on purpose to whatever is being experienced in the present moment with non-judgment and receptivity. MBSR has been used to bring greater awareness to sensations, thoughts and emotions with the result being reduced reactivity and increased purposeful responsiveness. It is therefore the aim of this study to address the use of an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in adolescents with clinical Asperger's Syndrome to reduce reactive tendencies. This study will utilize a randomized control group of waitlisted participants given MBSR informational material and a practicing MBSR group. Post-MBSR Parent Global Impressions-III (PGI-III) and Social Responsiveness Scale scores are hypothesized to be improved in MBSR group and unaffected in the control for behavioral markers with no change in core autistic symptoms. Daily average cortisol response is also expected to decrease in the experimental group with unaffected levels in the control.
ContributorsBrzezinski, Molly Alexandra (Author) / Smith, Brian (Thesis director) / Sebren, Ann (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
The mammalian olfactory system is commonly studied by using the mouse as a model system. Odor habituation is used to investigate odor perception and learning processes. Most previous experimental preparations have been tedious, requiring a researcher to manually change odorants, record investigation time and duration at each odorant, or physical alteration on the mice to enable video tracking. These limitations were overcame by creating an odorized hole-board to allow for systematic and automatic recording of olfactory behavior in mice. A cohort of five male mice were utilized in these experiments and the responses to the odor of strawberries, a diet staple of wile mice, were examined. Experiment 1 showed that free-feeding mice exhibit a preference to locations with strawberry (over control locations), even when these locations can only be identified using olfaction. This preference habituates within a trial but not across days. Experiment 2 showed that strawberry odor without reward causes habituation or extinction to the odor both within trials and across days. From these experiments, it can be concluded that mice innately explore strawberry odor and this can be exploited to the study odor habituation using an odorized hole-board.
ContributorsMa, Jason (Author) / Smith, Brian (Thesis director) / Gerkin, Richard (Committee member) / Oddo, Salvatore (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12