Maria is a United States citizen whose parents just recently obtained legal status in the US due to Maria having turned 21. Maria has been around the undocumented population her entire life due to a large part of her family being undocumented. She became very involved with the undocumented movement back in 2010 with the passing of SB1070 in Arizona. She states that the reason she became so involved at this time was because she realized how these anti-immigrant laws were affecting her family and her community. She has worked on many campaigns at the local level such as the recall of Russell Pierce, the Adios Arpaio Campaign among other things. She is set to graduate from ASU this May 2015 with a degree in Political Science and Transborder Studies, and hopes to study law one day. She currently works with Unite Here a labor union and continues to be involved with varies campaigns some being DACA/DAPA information sessions among other things

In her interview, Monica discusses her association with the Grassroots Leadership Organization and her involvement with DreamZone. She talks about why DreamZone is important and why she is politically inclined. She talks about DreamZone’s Clinton Global Initiative campaign and her involvement at the White House breakout sessions after DACA was signed. She has been involved in sit-ins and letter writing campaigns

Jonathan was born in a small farming town in Maryland. He talks about racism, segregation and the homophobic climate that prevailed in his hometown, and how that informed his activism and that of his parents. During middle school, he got involved in activism around queer youth of color. In the beginning, he was mostly involved in LGBT issues. Later, he also organized around economic injustice in peasant and working class communities.

Dulce attended school in Mexico up until junior high before coming to the United States on a visa. While in high school she became involved with the robotics team at Carl Hayden and thanks to the encouragement by her two teacher she decided to pursue a STEM education at ASU. She was enrolled at ASU already when the law passed and was unaware of any other undocumented student at the ASU campus at the time. It was through the scholarship(s) that were made available to these undocumented student who were already enrolled at ASU that these undocumented students connected. What originally started off as students discussing various topics through blackboard, then google drive, led to the founding of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition (ADAC). She is co-founder for the ADAC and was the acting president for 2 years, now she just volunteers whenever she can, currently running for a position in the upcoming Executive board. She graduated from ASU with a degree in mechanical engineering, but is currently has her own business as a real estate agent for the past 10 years. She is in the process of applying for citizenship.

In his interview, Seth discusses his hometown as well as his study abroad experiences. He describes how he has come to learn about the undocumented youth movement and his role in the DreamZone workshop. He talks about current political reform and his involvement in political discussion in person and on social media. He describes his experience with AZ Quip and how he feels it is included.

Jesus went to Gadsden High School in Anthony, New Mexico. He studied engineering at Texas A&M University, but ended up changing his major to journalism and mass communication with an emphasis in pubic relations. He worked in housing residential education for about a year in Florida, but later moved to Arizona State University to pursue a PHD in education policy and evaluation. Through his work with students and the community, he became aware of the political and social issues in Arizona. This awareness eventually led him and a friend to create DREAMzone.

Jesus is involved with DREAMzone, the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (Q.U.I.P.), Arcoíris Liberation Team, and Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement (California). He was president of the Latino Graduate Student Alliance and is currently the vice-president of the Graduate & Professional Student Association.

Topsy is an online analytical tool that evaluates millions of archived and real-time tweets based on their relevancy to a specific criterion. This report studies what Topsy considers relevant, how to create a relevant tweet, the accuracy of Topsy’s relevancy score and whether Topsy is an acceptable tool for use in gauging class participation. After thorough investigation, Topsy was determined to be a great analytical tool for monitoring Twitter participation, yet lacks the fundamental ability to distinguish between tweets relevant to coursework and tweets relevant to everything else.

Access to reliable electricity is at least a co-requisite to sufficient human development. In many developing countries, the percentages of the rural population that have electricity access are often below 5%. Specifically in Uganda, only about 2% of the rural population is currently served by the electric grid. To create effective policy and implementation programs, this paper examines the current challenges and implications of the current energy sector of Uganda. Ostrom’s Social-Ecological Systems framework is employed to organize the driving forces, interactions, and key players of the current system, including recent rural electrification programs that have resulted in some success. However, the implications of the current system include multiple barriers to widespread rural electrification, including high costs and little revenue. The push for solar photovoltaic systems in Uganda also has many shortcomings to improving development within the country. I end by discussing an alternative approach to rural electrification called the Empower Ugandans to Power Uganda Project that offers a locally driven effort to electrification and development.

Historically, advances in technology have made it possible for modern consumers to perform daily tasks more rapidly and efficiently. In the present technological age, innovation extends to energy conservation. As a typical consumer may be well aware, such innovation often means higher prices. However, in the case of appliances which run on minimal energy, advertisements claim that higher purchase prices will be justified by long-term monetary savings resulting from lower energy bills. This report investigates the veracity of this claim. Generally, the findings in this report are that it depends.

The ENERGY STAR program pioneered by the United State Environmental Protection Agency is a voluntary green-labeling program that helps consumers identify energy-saving appliances. Nevertheless, ENERGY STAR does not indicate to consumers whether a higher purchase price for the efficient appliance will be justified by subsequent energy savings.

There are several variables which may justify spending more for energy conserving appliances. It seems uncommon practice for a consumer to thoroughly evaluate factors which affect their purchase, making it possible to spend more money despite the mindset of saving money. The goal of this report is to identify and evaluate the variables, or varying scenarios, that potentially sway the smart purchase decision in the case of ENERGY STAR refrigerators. Thus, the decision can be tailored to a specific type of individual or household.
The ideal refrigerator for any given consumer depends on the habits and preferences of that consumer including: time value of money preferences, food storage habits, and energy prices. A cash flow diagram is a tool used to depict the monetary gains and losses involved in an investment and will be a practical means to showcase both the initial costs and long-term maintenance costs for either type of refrigerator as influenced by each of the three criteria introduced.

This report uses cash flow diagrams to investigative the sensitivity of a refrigerator purchase option to these three parameters. Graphs are also included which will take the costs shown in the cash flow diagrams and display how many years it will take for the higher initial purchase price of the ENERGY STAR refrigerator to be justified by its lower maintenance costs, called the break-even point. The analysis also involves calculating the net present value, a term used largely in business, for both an ENERGY STAR appliance and a conventional appliance; and involves calculating this net present value, also, as influenced by the different circumstances mentioned.