ASU Scholarship Showcase

At the end of the dark ages, anatomy was taught as though everything that could be known was known. Scholars learned about what had been discovered rather than how to make discoveries. This was true even though the body (and the rest of biology) was very poorly understood. The renaissance eventually brought a revolution in how scholars (and graduate students) were trained and worked. This revolution never occurred in K-12 or university education such that we now teach young students in much the way that scholars were taught in the dark ages, we teach them what is already known rather than the process of knowing. Citizen science offers a way to change K-12 and university education and, in doing so, complete the renaissance. Here we offer an example of such an approach and call for change in the way students are taught science, change that is more possible than it has ever been and is, nonetheless, five hundred years delayed.

Background: Modern advances in sequencing technology have enabled the census of microbial members of many natural ecosystems. Recently, attention is increasingly being paid to the microbial residents of human-made, built ecosystems, both private (homes) and public (subways, office buildings, and hospitals). Here, we report results of the characterization of the microbial ecology of a singular built environment, the International Space Station (ISS). This ISS sampling involved the collection and microbial analysis (via 16S rRNA gene PCR) of 15 surfaces sampled by swabs onboard the ISS. This sampling was a component of Project MERCCURI (Microbial Ecology Research Combining Citizen and University Researchers on ISS). Learning more about the microbial inhabitants of the “buildings” in which we travel through space will take on increasing importance, as plans for human exploration continue, with the possibility of colonization of other planets and moons.

Results: Sterile swabs were used to sample 15 surfaces onboard the ISS. The sites sampled were designed to be analogous to samples collected for (1) the Wildlife of Our Homes project and (2) a study of cell phones and shoes that were concurrently being collected for another component of Project MERCCURI. Sequencing of the 16S rRNA genes amplified from DNA extracted from each swab was used to produce a census of the microbes present on each surface sampled. We compared the microbes found on the ISS swabs to those from both homes on Earth and data from the Human Microbiome Project.

Conclusions: While significantly different from homes on Earth and the Human Microbiome Project samples analyzed here, the microbial community composition on the ISS was more similar to home surfaces than to the human microbiome samples. The ISS surfaces are OTU-rich with 1,036–4,294 operational taxonomic units (OTUs per sample). There was no discernible biogeography of microbes on the 15 ISS surfaces, although this may be a reflection of the small sample size we were able to obtain.

Communicating climate risks is crucial when engaging the public to support climate action planning and addressing climate justice. How does evidence-based communication influence local residents’ risk perception and potential behavior change in support of climate planning? Built upon our previous study of Climate Justice maps illustrating high scores of both social and ecological vulnerability in Michigan’s Huron River watershed, USA, a quasi-experiment was conducted to examine the effects of Climate Justice mapping intervention on residents’ perceptions and preparedness for climate change associated hazards in Michigan. Two groups were compared: residents in Climate Justice areas with high social and ecological vulnerability scores in the watershed (n=76) and residents in comparison areas in Michigan (n=69). Measurements for risk perception include perceived exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability to hazards. Results indicate that risk information has a significant effect on perceived sensitivity and level of preparedness for future climate extremes among participants living in Climate Justice areas. Findings highlight the value of integrating scientific risk assessment information in risk communication to align calculated and perceived risks. This study suggests effective risk communication can influence local support of climate action plans and implementation of strategies that address climate justice and achieve social sustainability in local communities.

Successful public transit systems increase the value of locations they serve. Capturing this location value to help fund transit is often sensible, but challenging. This article defines location value capture, and synthesizes lessons learned from six European and North American transit agencies that have experience with location value capture funding. The opportunities for and barriers to implementing location value capture fall into three categories: agency institutional authority, agency organizational mission, and public support for transit. When any of these factors is incompatible with a location value capture strategy, implementation becomes difficult. In four of the cases studied, dramatic institutional change was critical for success. In five cases, acute crisis was a catalyst for institutional change, value capture implementation, or both. Using value capture strategies to fund transit requires practitioners to both understand agency organizational constraints, and to view transit agencies as institutions that can transform in response to changing situations.

Online communities are becoming increasingly important as platforms for large-scale human cooperation. These communities allow users seeking and sharing professional skills to solve problems collaboratively. To investigate how users cooperate to complete a large number of knowledge-producing tasks, we analyze Stack Exchange, one of the largest question and answer systems in the world. We construct attention networks to model the growth of 110 communities in the Stack Exchange system and quantify individual answering strategies using the linking dynamics on attention networks. We identify two answering strategies. Strategy A aims at performing maintenance by doing simple tasks, whereas strategy B aims at investing time in doing challenging tasks. Both strategies are important: empirical evidence shows that strategy A decreases the median waiting time for answers and strategy B increases the acceptance rate of answers. In investigating the strategic persistence of users, we find that users tends to stick on the same strategy over time in a community, but switch from one strategy to the other across communities. This finding reveals the different sets of knowledge and skills between users. A balance between the population of users taking A and B strategies that approximates 2:1, is found to be optimal to the sustainable growth of communities.

What's a profession without a code of ethics? Being a legitimate profession almost requires drafting a code and, at least nominally, making members follow it. Codes of ethics (henceforth “codes”) exist for a number of reasons, many of which can vary widely from profession to profession - but above all they are a form of codified self-regulation. While codes can be beneficial, it argues that when we scratch below the surface, there are many problems at their root. In terms of efficacy, codes can serve as a form of ethical window dressing, rather than effective rules for behavior. But even more that, codes can degrade the meaning behind being a good person who acts ethically for the right reasons.

As part of a larger trend across industrialized nations, European research policy discourse has placed increasing emphasis on socio-technical integration: the explicit incorporation of activities devoted to broader social aspects into scientific activities. In order to compare these high-level integration discourses against patterns at the level of resource allocation, we analyze nearly 2500 research solicitations from the three European Framework Programmes for R&D during the period 1998-2010. We identify four distinct types of integration (socio-ethical, stakeholder, socio-economic and industrial) that occur either as core or parallel components of R&D solicitations. Quantitative analysis reveals an overall trend towards increasing integration, with requests integrating industrial and socio-economic aspects substantially outnumbering those integrating socio-ethical and stakeholder aspects-by a 2 to 1 margin. Meanwhile, calls for socio-technical integration have become slightly more extensive (ranging across a broader range of research areas addressed), significantly more pervasive (shifting from the periphery to the core of R&D practices), and arguably less diverse (involving a wider variety of integration types) over time. The relative lack of attention to socio-ethical aspects and stakeholder participation in European research is particularly notable given that we focus on potentially controversial areas (life sciences, energy, and nanotechnology), which likely overemphasizes the prevalence of integration throughout the Framework Programmes.

The similarity attraction hypothesis posits that humans are drawn toward others who behave and appear similar to themselves. Two experiments examined this hypothesis with middle-school students learning electrical circuit analysis in a computer-based environment with an Animated Pedagogical Agent (APA). Experiment 1 was designed to determine whether matching the gender of the APA to the student has a positive impact on learning outcomes or student perceptions. One hundred ninety-seven middle-school students learned with the computer-based environment using an APA that matched their gender or one which was opposite in gender. Female students reported higher program ratings when the APA matched their gender. Male students, on the other hand, reported higher program ratings than females when the APA did not match their gender. Experiment 2 systematically tested the impact of providing learners the choice among four APAs on learning outcomes and student perceptions. Three hundred thirty-four middle-school students received either a pre-assigned random APA or were free to choose from four APA options: young male agent, older male agent, young female agent, or older female agent. Learners had higher far transfer scores when provided a choice of animated agent, but student perceptions were not impacted by having the ability to make this choice. We suggest that offering students learner control positively impacts student motivation and learning by increasing student perceptions of autonomy, responsibility for the success of the instructional materials, and global satisfaction with the design of materials.

This study reviews scholarly papers and case studies on urban vacant land to gain a stronger understanding of its public value in terms of the ecological and social benefits it can bring. This literature review offers a conceptual overview of the potential benefits of vacant land with the goal of addressing gaps in knowledge about vacant land and to provide suggestions to planners and designers on how vacant properties can be integrated with other green infrastructure in cities. There are many opportunities to redevelop vacant land to enhance its ecological and social value, and many design professionals and scholars are becoming interested in finding new ways to exploit this potential, especially with regard to planning and design. A better appreciation of the public value of urban vacant land is vital for any effort to identify alternative strategies to optimize the way these spaces are utilized for both short-term and long-term uses to support urban regeneration and renewal. This study will help planners and designers to understand and plan for urban vacant land, leading to better utilization of these spaces and opening up alternative creative approaches to envisioning space and landscape design in our urban environments.

Using the City of Roanoke, Virginia as a study site, this paper quantifies the forest structure, ecosystem services and values of vacant and residential land. Single family residential land had more trees (1,683,000) than vacant land (210,000) due largely to the differences in land area (32.44 km² of vacant land vs. 57.94 km² residential). While the percentage of tree coverage was almost identical across land uses (30.6% in vacant to 32.3% in residential), the number of trees per ha is greater on residential land (290.3) than on vacant land (63.4). The average healthy leaf surface area on individual trees growing on vacant land was greater than that of individual trees on residential land. The fact that trees in vacant land were found to provide more ecosystem services per tree than residential trees was attributed to this leaf area difference. Trees on vacant land are growing in more natural conditions and there are more large trees per ha. Assessing the forest structure and ecosystem services of Roanoke’s vacant and residential land provides a picture of the current extent and condition of the vacant and residential land. Understanding these characteristics provides the information needed for improved management and utilization of urban vacant land and estimating green infrastructure value.