Jake Hernandez grew up in Houston, Texas where his frequent visits to the Museum of Fine Arts introduced him to the works of Mark Rothko and Piet Mondrian. Inspired by these artist’s use of color, Hernandez has leveraged his own understanding of color theory and mathematics to explore the complexity of this element for his honors thesis. In Colored Squares I and II, Hernandez created a process of random color generation from a set of blue, red, and yellow pigments to explore color in the absence of human bias. Since artists' personal biases and inclinations towards color affect our exploration of this element, Hernandez wanted to eliminate these obstructions to investigate color to a much greater extent. In Colored Landscapes I, II, and III, Hernandez used the primaries again in a more expressive style. Drawing inspiration from his travels across Europe and North America, Hernandez created new landscapes all his own. These studies offer a substantiated argument for the limits of art itself, showing artists have only explored a very small fraction of art's possibilities and that more exploration can be done in color and the other elements of art.

As the COVID-19 pandemic took the world by storm, the hotel industry struggled to remain afloat. Many resorted to innovative solutions to maintain their business and jobs. As the hotel industry grappled with ideas that could keep their business afloat, an idea called EasyHub was born. EasyHub is a hypothetical mobile device application that bridges the user and a paired SMART device or an entire ecosystem of SMART devices. While the design for EasyHub was initially intended to help hotels increase their accessibility, it soon became apparent that EasyHub could potentially be a product of much greater market value. As the idea of EasyHub became more developed, the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to subdue, and the hotel industry was on the mend. Assuming that EasyHub is found useful, it could theoretically boost demand to businesses that use them. Many hotels already utilize SMART devices to some degree making them prime targets for EasyHub. This research paper seeks to determine if EasyHub can aid hotels’ recovery from the pandemic-induced recession by increasing revenue. Surveys were conducted among hoteliers and a general audience to determine the impact of EasyHub on guests’ decisions to stay at a hotel. The results indicate that EasyHub would not be a significant factor in guests’ decision-making of hotels; however, this may be due to a lack of clarity about the product, as many respondents expressed a desire for more information. Further development and testing of EasyHub is necessary before a market analysis and its full potential can be assessed.

Warehouse workers are critical to the success of any business and supply chain. It is important to understand different factors that can influence an employee's performance and satisfaction at work. In order to determine some best practices, 173 students at Arizona State University participated in an online warehousing simulation in a controlled laboratory setting. Participants were subject to different combinations of time pressure and put-away errors (i.e. when items that need to be picked by a warehouse worker are not located where they are supposed to be). A preliminary analysis shows that the largest impact is that of time pressure on worker productivity. As time pressure increases, the time required to complete a task decreases. The trade-offs of using time pressure as a management option are discussed.