ASU Scholarship Showcase

The objective of articulating sustainability visions through modeling is to enhance the outcomes and process of visioning in order to successfully move the system toward a desired state. Models emphasize approaches to develop visions that are viable and resilient and are crafted to adhere to sustainability principles. This approach is largely assembled from visioning processes (resulting in descriptions of desirable future states generated from stakeholder values and preferences) and participatory modeling processes (resulting in systems-based representations of future states co-produced by experts and stakeholders). Vision modeling is distinct from normative scenarios and backcasting processes in that the structure and function of the future desirable state is explicitly articulated as a systems model. Crafting, representing and evaluating the future desirable state as a systems model in participatory settings is intended to support compliance with sustainability visioning quality criteria (visionary, sustainable, systemic, coherent, plausible, tangible, relevant, nuanced, motivational and shared) in order to develop rigorous and operationalizable visions. We provide two empirical examples to demonstrate the incorporation of vision modeling in research practice and education settings. In both settings, vision modeling was used to develop, represent, simulate and evaluate future desirable states. This allowed participants to better identify, explore and scrutinize sustainability solutions.

It has become common for sustainability science and resilience theory to be considered as complementary approaches. Occasionally the terms have been used interchangeably. Although these two approaches share some working principles and objectives, they also are based on some distinct assumptions about the operation of systems and how we can best guide these systems into the future. Each approach would benefit from some scholars keeping sustainability science and resilience theory separate and focusing on further developing their distinctiveness and other scholars continuing to explore them in combination. Three areas of research in which following different procedures might be beneficial are whether to prioritize outcomes or system dynamics, how best to take advantage of community input, and increasing the use of knowledge of the past as a laboratory for potential innovations.

The context in which many self-governed commons systems operate will likely be significantly altered as globalization processes play out over the next few decades. Such dramatic changes will induce some systems to fail and subsequently to be transformed, rather than merely adapt. Despite this possibility, research on globalization-induced transformations of social-ecological systems (SESs) is still underdeveloped. We seek to help fill this gap by exploring some patterns of transformation in SESs and the question of what factors help explain the persistence of cooperation in the use of common-pool resources through transformative change. Through the analysis of 89 forest commons in South Korea that experienced such transformations, we found that there are two broad types of transformation, cooperative and noncooperative. We also found that two system-level properties, transaction costs associated group size and network diversity, may affect the direction of transformation. SESs with smaller group sizes and higher network diversity may better organize cooperative transformations when the existing system becomes untenable.

There are many proteomic applications that require large collections of purified protein, but parallel production of large numbers of different proteins remains a very challenging task. To help meet the needs of the scientific community, we have developed a human protein production pipeline. Using high-throughput (HT) methods, we transferred the genes of 31 full-length proteins into three expression vectors, and expressed the collection as N-terminal HaloTag fusion proteins in Escherichia coli and two commercial cell-free (CF) systems, wheat germ extract (WGE) and HeLa cell extract (HCE). Expression was assessed by labeling the fusion proteins specifically and covalently with a fluorescent HaloTag ligand and detecting its fluorescence on a LabChip[superscript ®] GX microfluidic capillary gel electrophoresis instrument. This automated, HT assay provided both qualitative and quantitative assessment of recombinant protein. E. coli was only capable of expressing 20% of the test collection in the supernatant fraction with ≥20 μg yields, whereas CF systems had ≥83% success rates. We purified expressed proteins using an automated HaloTag purification method. We purified 20, 33, and 42% of the test collection from E. coli, WGE, and HCE, respectively, with yields ≥1 μg and ≥90% purity. Based on these observations, we have developed a triage strategy for producing full-length human proteins in these three expression systems.

Throughout the long history of virus-host co-evolution, viruses have developed delicate strategies to facilitate their invasion and replication of their genome, while silencing the host immune responses through various mechanisms. The systematic characterization of viral protein-host interactions would yield invaluable information in the understanding of viral invasion/evasion, diagnosis and therapeutic treatment of a viral infection, and mechanisms of host biology. With more than 2,000 viral genomes sequenced, only a small percent of them are well investigated. The access of these viral open reading frames (ORFs) in a flexible cloning format would greatly facilitate both in vitro and in vivo virus-host interaction studies. However, the overall progress of viral ORF cloning has been slow. To facilitate viral studies, we are releasing the initiation of our panviral proteome collection of 2,035 ORF clones from 830 viral genes in the Gateway® recombinational cloning system. Here, we demonstrate several uses of our viral collection including highly efficient production of viral proteins using human cell-free expression system in vitro, global identification of host targets for rubella virus using Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Arrays (NAPPA) containing 10,000 unique human proteins, and detection of host serological responses using micro-fluidic multiplexed immunoassays. The studies presented here begin to elucidate host-viral protein interactions with our systemic utilization of viral ORFs, high-throughput cloning, and proteomic technologies. These valuable plasmid resources will be available to the research community to enable continued viral functional studies.

The effects of urbanization on ozone levels have been widely investigated over cities primarily located in temperate and/or humid regions. In this study, nested WRF-Chem simulations with a finest grid resolution of 1 km are conducted to investigate ozone concentrations O₃ due to urbanization within cities in arid/semi-arid environments. First, a method based on a shape preserving Monotonic Cubic Interpolation (MCI) is developed and used to downscale anthropogenic emissions from the 4 km resolution 2005 National Emissions Inventory (NEI05) to the finest model resolution of 1 km. Using the rapidly expanding Phoenix metropolitan region as the area of focus, we demonstrate the proposed MCI method achieves ozone simulation results with appreciably improved correspondence to observations relative to the default interpolation method of the WRF-Chem system. Next, two additional sets of experiments are conducted, with the recommended MCI approach, to examine impacts of urbanization on ozone production: (1) the urban land cover is included (i.e., urbanization experiments) and, (2) the urban land cover is replaced with the region's native shrubland. Impacts due to the presence of the built environment on O₃ are highly heterogeneous across the metropolitan area. Increased near surface O₃ due to urbanization of 10–20 ppb is predominantly a nighttime phenomenon while simulated impacts during daytime are negligible. Urbanization narrows the daily O₃ range (by virtue of increasing nighttime minima), an impact largely due to the region's urban heat island. Our results demonstrate the importance of the MCI method for accurate representation of the diurnal profile of ozone, and highlight its utility for high-resolution air quality simulations for urban areas.

There are growing demands for detailed and accurate land cover maps in land system research and planning. Macro-scale land cover maps normally cannot satisfy the studies that require detailed land cover maps at micro scales. In the meantime, applying conventional pixel-based classification methods in classifying high-resolution aerial imagery is ineffective to develop high accuracy land-cover maps, especially in spectrally heterogeneous and complicated urban areas. Here we present an object-based approach that identifies land-cover types from 1-meter resolution aerial orthophotography and a 5-foot DEM. Our study area is Tippecanoe County in the State of Indiana, USA, which covers about a 1300 km[superscript 2] land area. We used a countywide aerial photo mosaic and normalized digital elevation model as input datasets in this study. We utilized simple algorithms to minimize computation time while maintaining relatively high accuracy in land cover mapping at a county scale. The aerial photograph was pre-processed using principal component transformation to reduce its spectral dimensionality. Vegetation and non-vegetation were separated via masks determined by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. A combination of segmentation algorithms with lower calculation intensity was used to generate image objects that fulfill the characteristics selection requirements. A hierarchical image object network was formed based on the segmentation results and used to assist the image object delineation at different spatial scales. Finally, expert knowledge regarding spectral, contextual, and geometrical aspects was employed in image object identification. The resultant land cover map developed with this object-based image analysis has more information classes and higher accuracy than that derived with pixel-based classification methods.

As part of an international collaboration to compare large-scale commons, we used the Social-Ecological Systems Meta-Analysis Database (SESMAD) to systematically map out attributes of and changes in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) in Australia. We focus on eight design principles from common-pool resource (CPR) theory and other key social-ecological systems governance variables, and explore to what extent they help explain the social and ecological outcomes of park management through time. Our analysis showed that commercial fisheries management and the re-zoning of the GBRMP in 2004 led to improvements in ecological condition of the reef, particularly fisheries. These boundary and rights changes were supported by effective monitoring, sanctioning and conflict resolution. Moderate biophysical connectivity was also important for improved outcomes. However, our analysis also highlighted that continued challenges to improved ecological health in terms of coral cover and biodiversity can be explained by fuzzy boundaries between land and sea, and the significance of external drivers to even large-scale social-ecological systems (SES). While ecological and institutional fit in the marine SES was high, this was not the case when considering the coastal SES. Nested governance arrangements become even more important at this larger scale. To our knowledge, our paper provides the first analysis linking the re-zoning of the GBRMP to CPR and SES theory. We discuss important challenges to coding large-scale systems for meta-analysis.

Three studies examined the symbolic and self-presentational meaning of low-water-use residential landscaping in a desert city in the southwestern United States. We hypothesized that owners' water-intensive or water-conserving landscape choices would be seen to convey very different characteristics. Data indicated that these two types of residential landscapes led to substantially different attributions about homeowners and also that potential homeowners could use landscapes to convey an array of characteristics to a social audience. In general, water-intensive landscapes led to more positive attributions than did water-conserving landscapes. The results support the idea that landscaping choice may be guided by self-presentational considerations, and that such considerations might influence the adoption of high- or low-water-use landscapes.

In this paper, we discuss the theoretical relationships among interacting global change risks, valued livelihood goals, and adaptation limits. We build from research on the impacts of multiple and interacting global change risks in lesser-developed countries and seek to understand household adaptation limits in agrarian communities. We ask: What are valued livelihood goals among smallholder farmers in Northwest Costa Rica? How do socio-economic determinants of adaptive capacities determine their ability to meet these goals in the face of the impacts of interacting global change risks? Our data were based on focus groups, interviews, survey responses from 94 smallholder farmers, government statistics, and published literature. We analyzed our data using qualitative content analysis and quantitative logistic regression models. Our analysis showed that farmers perceived rice production as an identity, and that they were being forced to consider limits to their abilities to adapt to maintain that identity. We found that farm size, cattle ownership, years spent farming, and household income variety were determinants of their abilities to remain in rice production while maintaining sufficient levels of livelihood security. We also showed that for those households most vulnerable to water scarcity, their ability to successfully adapt to meet valued livelihood goals is diminished because adaptation to water scarcity increases vulnerability to decreased rice-market access. In this way, they become trapped by the inability to reduce their vulnerability to risks of the interaction between global changes and therefore abandon valued identities and livelihoods.