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.

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.

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.

In this experiment, a haptic glove with vibratory motors on the fingertips was tested against the standard HTC Vive controller to see if the additional vibrations provided by the glove increased immersion in common gaming scenarios where haptic feedback is provided. Specifically, two scenarios were developed: an explosion scene containing a small and large explosion and a box interaction scene that allowed the participants to touch the box virtually with their hand. At the start of this project, it was hypothesized that the haptic glove would have a significant positive impact in at least one of these scenarios. Nine participants took place in the study and immersion was measured through a post-experiment questionnaire. Statistical analysis on the results showed that the haptic glove did have a significant impact on immersion in the box interaction scene, but not in the explosion scene. In the end, I conclude that since this haptic glove does not significantly increase immersion across all scenarios when compared to the standard Vive controller, it should not be used at a replacement in its current state.

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.

The intent of this project was to design, build, and test a female-intended vibrator that incorporates elements of haptic feedback, biomimicry, and/or micro robotics. Device development was based on human-centered user design elements and the study of physiological arousal, as sexuality and sexual functioning are a part of a human’s overall assessment of health and well-being. The thesis sought to fill the gap that prevents data collection of a female entire sexual response from initial arousal to final orgasm.

The process of learning a new skill can be time consuming and difficult for both the teacher and the student, especially when it comes to computer modeling. With so many terms and functionalities to familiarize oneself with, this task can be overwhelming to even the most knowledgeable student. The purpose of this paper is to describe the methodology used in the creation of a new set of curricula for those attempting to learn how to use the Dynamic Traffic Simulation Package with Multi-Resolution Modeling. The current DLSim curriculum currently relates information via high-concept terms and complicated graphics. The information in this paper aims to provide a streamlined set of curricula for new users of DLSim, including lesson plans and improved infographics.

Online learning has been more prevalent since the rapid increase of the technology field, this paper examines if the interactivity of an online learning website can affect learning, usability, and time spent interacting. Participants were collected from Amazon Mechanical Turk, and they were compensated $1.00 for their time. 39 participants received one of three online learning conditions on the ideal gas law with varying levels of interactivity (video, simulation, quiz). The participants took a pretest, interacted with their condition for a set time, then completed a posttest and a usability survey. An ANOVA was conducted on time, usability, and posttest transfer scores. A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted on pretest and posttest recall scores. There was no significance found for learning, usability, or time spent interacting with the online learning platform. Further studies should consider exposing participants to learning materials for longer periods of time.

Patient identification is becoming more crucially important, particularly as healthcare is becoming more data based and automated. Patient misidentification can cause a series of issues that affect patient safety and the quality of care, including increased time and money from the medical institution. Additionally, with the lack of standardization for identifying patients, interoperability is limited and Health Information Exchange cannot be optimized, One partial solution to the problem would be the implementation of a Unique Patient Identifier system; however, the United States has had some controversy over the implementation of such as system in the past as Congress prohibited any funding from going towards a UPI system in 1998 after HIPAA introduced a Unique Patient Identifier mandate in 1996. However, with more than 2 decades passing since the Congressional ban, the general American perception of Unique Patient Identifiers is not well known. This study attempts to answer the question of the current American perception of the implementation of a UPI system through an informational survey that induces critical thinking when answering qualitative questions with supportive quantitative questions. Participants were generally in favor of the implementation of a UPI system, and through a Chi-square analysis, it was shown that there was an association between knowledge learned about Unique Patient Identifiers in relation to the current identification system and developing a positive perception towards UPI implementation; however, this study cannot be generalized to the public as the sample size was not large enough and was not representative of the entire population. Still, future research should be conducted in relation to this subject as UPIs are a potential solution to our current “identity crisis”.