Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- Creators: School of Life Sciences
Description
Social-emotional learning (SEL) methods are beginning to receive global attention in primary school education, yet the dominant emphasis on implementing these curricula is in high-income, urbanized areas. Consequently, the unique features of developing and integrating such methods in middle- or low-income rural areas are unclear. Past studies suggest that students exposed to SEL programs show an increase in academic performance, improved ability to cope with stress, and better attitudes about themselves, others, and school, but these curricula are designed with an urban focus. The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs-based analysis to investigate components specific to a SEL curriculum contextualized to rural primary schools. A promising organization committed to rural educational development is Barefoot College, located in Tilonia, Rajasthan, India. In partnership with Barefoot, we designed an ethnographic study to identify and describe what teachers and school leaders consider the highest needs related to their students' social and emotional education. To do so, we interviewed 14 teachers and school leaders individually or in a focus group to explore their present understanding of “social-emotional learning” and the perception of their students’ social and emotional intelligence. Analysis of this data uncovered common themes among classroom behaviors and prevalent opportunities to address social and emotional well-being among students. These themes translated into the three overarching topics and eight sub-topics explored throughout the curriculum, and these opportunities guided the creation of the 21 modules within it. Through a design-based research methodology, we developed a 40-hour curriculum by implementing its various modules within seven Barefoot classrooms alongside continuous reiteration based on teacher feedback and participant observation. Through this process, we found that student engagement increased during contextualized SEL lessons as opposed to traditional methods. In addition, we found that teachers and students preferred and performed better with an activities-based approach. These findings suggest that rural educators must employ particular teaching strategies when addressing SEL, including localized content and an experiential-learning approach. Teachers reported that as their approach to SEL shifted, they began to unlock the potential to build self-aware, globally-minded students. This study concludes that social and emotional education cannot be treated in a generalized manner, as curriculum development is central to the teaching-learning process.
ContributorsBucker, Delaney Sue (Author) / Carrese, Susan (Thesis director) / Barab, Sasha (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
As of 2019, 30 US states have adopted abortion-specific informed consent laws that require state health departments to develop and disseminate written informational materials to patients seeking an abortion. Abortion is the only medical procedure for which states dictate the content of informed consent counseling. State abortion counseling materials have been criticized for containing inaccurate and misleading information, but overall, informed consent laws for abortion do not often receive national attention. The objective of this project was to determine the importance of informed consent laws to achieving the larger goal of dismantling the right to abortion. I found that informed consent counseling materials in most states contain a full timeline of fetal development, along with information about the risks of abortion, the risks of childbirth, and alternatives to abortion. In addition, informed consent laws for abortion are based on model legislation called the “Women’s Right to Know Act” developed by Americans United for Life (AUL). AUL calls itself the legal architect of the pro-life movement and works to pass laws at the state level that incrementally restrict abortion access so that it gradually becomes more difficult to exercise the right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade. The “Women’s Right to Know Act” is part of a larger package of model legislation called the “Women’s Protection Project,” a cluster of laws that place restrictions on abortion providers, purportedly to protect women, but actually to decrease abortion access. “Women’s Right to Know” counseling laws do not directly deny access to abortion, but they do reinforce key ideas important to the anti-abortion movement, like the concept of fetal personhood, distrust in medical professionals, the belief that pregnant people cannot be fully autonomous individuals, and the belief that abortion is not an ordinary medical procedure and requires special government oversight. “Women’s Right to Know” laws use the language of informed consent and the purported goal of protecting women to legitimize those ideas, and in doing so, they significantly undermine the right to abortion. The threat to abortion rights posed by laws like the “Women’s Right to Know” laws indicates the need to reevaluate and strengthen our ethical defense of the right to abortion.
ContributorsVenkatraman, Richa (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis director) / Brian, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Abboud, Carolina (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Turbidity is a known problem for UV water treatment systems as suspended particles can shield contaminants from the UV radiation. UV systems that utilize a reflective radiation chamber may be able to decrease the impact of turbidity on the efficacy of the system. The purpose of this study was to determine how kaolin clay and gram flour turbidity affects inactivation of Escherichia coli (E. coli) when using a UV system with a reflective chamber. Both sources of turbidity were shown to reduce the inactivation of E. coli with increasing concentrations. Overall, it was shown that increasing kaolin clay turbidity had a consistent effect on reducing UV inactivation across UV doses. Log inactivation was reduced by 1.48 log for the low UV dose and it was reduced by at least 1.31 log for the low UV dose. Gram flour had a similar effect to the clay at the lower UV dose, reducing log inactivation by 1.58 log. At the high UV dose, there was no change in UV inactivation with an increase in turbidity. In conclusion, turbidity has a significant impact on the efficacy of UV disinfection. Therefore, removing turbidity from water is an essential process to enhance UV efficiency for the disinfection of microbial pathogens.
ContributorsMalladi, Rohith (Author) / Abbaszadegan, Morteza (Thesis director) / Alum, Absar (Committee member) / Fox, Peter (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Aquatic macroinvertebrates are important for many ecological processes within river ecosystems and, as a result, their abundance and diversity are considered indicators of water quality and ecosystem health. Macroinvertebrates can be classified into functional feeding groups (FFG) based on morphological-behavioral adaptations. FFG ratios can shift due to changes in normal disturbance patterns, such as changes in precipitation, and from human impact. Due to their increased sensitivity to environmental changes, it has become more important to protect and monitor aquatic and riparian communities in arid regions as climate change continues to intensify. Therefore, the diversity and richness of macroinvertebrate FFGs before and after monsoon and winter storm seasons were analyzed to determine the effect of flow-related disturbances. Ecosystem size was also considered, as watershed area has been shown to affect macroinvertebrate diversity. There was no strong support for flow-related disturbance or ecosystem size on macroinvertebrate diversity and richness. This may indicate a need to explore other parameters of macroinvertebrate community assembly. Establishing how disturbance affects aquatic macroinvertebrate communities will provide a key understanding as to what the stream communities will look like in the future, as anthropogenic impacts continue to affect more vulnerable ecosystems.
ContributorsSainz, Ruby (Author) / Sabo, John (Thesis director) / Grimm, Nancy (Committee member) / Lupoli, Christina (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This study evaluates medical pluralism among 1.5 generation Indian American immigrants. 1.5 generation Indian Americans (N=16) were surveyed regarding their engagement in complementary and alternative medical systems (CAM), how immigration affected that, and reasons for and for not continuing the use of CAM. Results indicated most 1.5 Indian immigrants currently engage in CAM, given that their parents also engage in CAM. The top reasons respondents indicated continued engagement in CAM was that it has no side effects and is preventative. Reasons for not practicing CAM included feeling out of place, not living with parents or not believing in CAM. After immigration, most participants decreased or stopped their engagement in CAM. More women than men continued to practice CAM after immigration. From the results, it was concluded that CAM is still important to 1.5 generation Indian immigrants.
ContributorsMurugesh, Subhiksha (Author) / Stotts, Rhian (Thesis director) / Mubayi, Anuj (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Many factors are at play within the genome of an organism, contributing to much of the diversity and variation across the tree of life. While the genome is generally encoded by four nucleotides, A, C, T, and G, this code can be expanded. One particular mechanism that we examine in this thesis is modification of bases—more specifically, methylation of Adenine (m6A) within the GATC motif of Escherichia coli. These methylated adenines are especially important in a process called methyl-directed mismatch repair (MMR), a pathway responsible for repairing errors in the DNA sequence produced by replication. In this pathway, methylated adenines identify the parent strand and direct the repair proteins to correct the erroneous base in the daughter strand. While the primary role of methylated adenines at GATC sites is to direct the MMR pathway, this methylation has also been found to affect other processes, such as gene expression, the activity of transposable elements, and the timing of DNA replication. However, in the absence of MMR, the ability of these other processes to maintain adenine methylation and its targets is unknown.
To determine if the disruption of the MMR pathway results in the reduced conservation of methylated adenines as well as an increased tolerance for mutations that result in the loss or gain of new GATC sites, we surveyed individual clones isolated from experimentally evolving wild-type and MMR-deficient (mutL- ;conferring an 150x increase in mutation rate) populations of E. coli with whole-genome sequencing. Initial analysis revealed a lack of mutations affecting methylation sites (GATC tetranucleotides) in wild-type clones. However, the inherent low mutation rates conferred by the wild-type background render this result inconclusive, due to a lack of statistical power, and reveal a need for a more direct measure of changes in methylation status. Thus as a first step to comparative methylomics, we benchmarked four different methylation-calling pipelines on three biological replicates of the wildtype progenitor strain for our evolved populations.
While it is understood that these methylated sites play a role in the MMR pathway, it is not fully understood the full extent of their effect on the genome. Thus the goal of this thesis was to better understand the forces which maintain the genome, specifically concerning m6A within the GATC motif.
To determine if the disruption of the MMR pathway results in the reduced conservation of methylated adenines as well as an increased tolerance for mutations that result in the loss or gain of new GATC sites, we surveyed individual clones isolated from experimentally evolving wild-type and MMR-deficient (mutL- ;conferring an 150x increase in mutation rate) populations of E. coli with whole-genome sequencing. Initial analysis revealed a lack of mutations affecting methylation sites (GATC tetranucleotides) in wild-type clones. However, the inherent low mutation rates conferred by the wild-type background render this result inconclusive, due to a lack of statistical power, and reveal a need for a more direct measure of changes in methylation status. Thus as a first step to comparative methylomics, we benchmarked four different methylation-calling pipelines on three biological replicates of the wildtype progenitor strain for our evolved populations.
While it is understood that these methylated sites play a role in the MMR pathway, it is not fully understood the full extent of their effect on the genome. Thus the goal of this thesis was to better understand the forces which maintain the genome, specifically concerning m6A within the GATC motif.
ContributorsBoyer, Gwyneth (Author) / Lynch, Michael (Thesis director) / Behringer, Megan (Committee member) / Geiler-Samerotte, Kerry (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Strong Mothers Strong Teeth is an initiative to educate mothers and pregnant women about the importance of maintaining their own and their child(ren)’s oral health. This project presents evidence that shows a lack of oral health education among mothers about how to care for their oral health while pregnant and their child’s oral health post birth. The recognition and identification of these disparities led to the content deemed necessary to be included in the education of mothers and pregnant women. By collecting and analyzing pamphlets and information gathered from health clinics and homeless shelters in Arizona and California, we created our own pamphlets based on analysis of the effectiveness of the information using content analysis and Flesch-Kincaid readability scores. This led to the creation of two pamphlets to educate mothers on oral health care, the first focused on preventing tooth decay in women during their pregnancy and for their baby, post-birth, and the second provided a timeline guide on oral health for the mother and child.
ContributorsBlair, Grace (Co-author) / Patel, Toral (Co-author) / Loebenberg, Abby (Thesis director) / Magee, Mitch (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that can metastasize in advanced stages to other organs such as the brain, lymph nodes, lungs and liver. Current standard treatment options include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy. More recently, oncolytic virotherapy is being studied as a new strategy to fight cancer. Specifically, for melanoma, a herpes virus (T-VEC) was approved by the U.S Food and Drug Administration in 2015 to treat advanced disease. Oncolytic viruses have the capacity to replicate mostly in cancer cells while leaving healthy somatic cells free from infection. Additionally, most of these viruses have the ability to induce an immune response against the cancer as well. Myxoma virus (MYXV) causes myxomatosis in European rabbits but not in any other mammal. In humans, MYXV can infect and kill cancer cells acting as an oncolytic virus. However, the mechanisms behind how myxoma kills cancerous cells are not completely known. To investigate this, we treated melanoma murine cancer cells (B16F10) in vitro with different genetically modified myxoma virus mutants, as well as with a novel second mitochondria-derived activator of caspase mimicking drug SMAC-LCL161, to understand the mechanisms by which MYXV induces cell death. In parallel, B16F10 lacZ cells were subcutaneously injected into mice to engraft melanoma tumors. These tumors were treated with intratumoral injections of different viral mutants or armed viruses derived from MYXV along with SMAC-L61. After a period of treatment, the tumors were isolated. Cell death pathways in both cell culture and in tumors obtained from subcutaneous pathways were identified using different techniques. The study showed an increase in activated caspase 3 and cleaved PARP-1 activity in B16F10 lacZ cells from cell culture when compared to cells in vivo however the two apoptosis markers did not track with each other consistently.
ContributorsKien, Cassandra T (Author) / McFadden, Grant (Thesis director) / Franco Achury, Lina (Committee member) / Bertram, Jacobs (Committee member) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
As the 7th leading cause of death in the world, with over 1.6 millions deaths attributed to it in 2016 alone, diabetes mellitus has been a rising global health concern. Type 1 diabetes is caused by lack of insulin production whereas type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance. Both types of diabetes lead to increased glucose levels in the body if left untreated. This, in turn, leads to the development of a host of complications, one of which is ischemic heart disease. Accounting for the death of 16% of the world’s population, ischemic heart disease has been the leading cause of death since 2000. As of 2019, deaths from this disease have risen from 2 million to over 8.9 million globally. While medicine exists to counter the negative outcomes of diabetes mellitus, lower income nations suffer from the lack of availability and high costs of these medications. Therefore, this systematic review was performed to determine whether a non-medicinal treatment could provide similar therapeutic benefits for individuals with diabetes. Genistein is a phytoestrogen found in soy-based products, which has been potentially linked with preventing diabetes and improving diabetes-related symptoms such as hyperglycemia and abnormal insulin levels. We searched PubMed and SCOPUS using the terms ‘genistein’, ‘diabetes’, and ‘glucose’ and identified 32 peer-reviewed articles. In general, preclinical studies demonstrate that genistein decreases body weight as well as circulating glucose and triglycerides concentrations while increasing insulin levels and insulin sensitivity. It also delayed the onset of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In contrast, clinical studies of genistein in general reported no significant relationship between genistein and body mass, circulating glucose, serum insulin, A1C concentrations, or onset of type 1 diabetes. However, genistein was found to improve insulin sensitivity, delay type 2 diabetes onset and improve serum triglyceride levels. In summary, preclinical and clinical studies suggest that genistein may help delay onset of type 2 diabetes and improve several symptoms associated with the disease. By translating these findings into clinical settings, genistein may offer a cost effective natural approach at mitigating complications associated with diabetes, although additional research is required to confirm these findings.
ContributorsJain, Rijul (Author) / Sweazea, Karen (Thesis director) / Al-Nakkash, Layla (Committee member) / Bolch, Charlotte (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-04-16
Description
Background: In the United States, approximately 50,000 teens with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) age into adulthood every year (Shattuck et al., 2012). A hallmark symptom of ASD includes pronounced difficulties in social interactions and verbal and nonverbal communication (Lai, Lombardo, & Baron-Cohen, 2014). These social cognition difficulties consist of difficulties interpreting social cues, employing appropriate adaptive behavioral responses in various social contexts, as well as the ability to interpret emotions and mental states of others, known as theory of mind (TOM; Premack & Woodruff, 1978). In neurotypical (NT) adults, women perform better on social cognition tasks and difficulties become more prevalent with age, however little is known how sex differences and aging may impact social cognition in adults with ASD (Carstensen, Fung, & Charles 2003).
Objective: This research intended to characterize the influence of sex and age on social cognition in adults with ASD using an adult sample. We hypothesized Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) scores would be lower in adults with ASD, with a stronger relationship between decreasing performance aging effects compared to NTs. Additionally, we hypothesized deficits would be more severe in in males with ASD compared to females with ASD.
Methods: The RME task was administered to 181 adults to quantify ToM abilities. The participants consisted of 100 adults with ASD (69 males, 32 females; age range: 18-71, mean=39.45±1.613) and matched 81 NT adults (47 males, 34 females; age range: 18-70, mean=41.51±1.883). Multiple regression analyses examined interactions between diagnosis and age, diagnosis and sex, and diagnosis by age by sex. Exploratory within group analyses assessed 1) sex differences using ANCOVA, and 2) associations with age using Pearson correlation in SPSS.
Results: We found that NT adults performed better on the RME task than adults with ASD. Worse performance on the RME task correlated with greater age for the NT, but not ASD. Additionally, no influence of sex on RME scores was identified.
Discussion: These results are consistent with other studies indicate social cognition deficits in adults with ASD compared to NT adults. Additionally, we replicated findings that suggest ToM performance declines with age in NT adults. Fewer social relationships, smaller social networks, and reduced social engagement have been associated with aging in both NTs and individuals with ASD (Pratt & Norris, 1994). However, our cross-sectional sample suggests ToM abilities may not decline with age in adults with ASD as hypothesized. Longitudinal studies are needed to corroborate these findings. Further developments in this line of research may inform novel interventions tailored toward the growing population of adults with ASD. Ultimately, our research aims to improve quality of life across the lifespan for an already vulnerable population.
Objective: This research intended to characterize the influence of sex and age on social cognition in adults with ASD using an adult sample. We hypothesized Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) scores would be lower in adults with ASD, with a stronger relationship between decreasing performance aging effects compared to NTs. Additionally, we hypothesized deficits would be more severe in in males with ASD compared to females with ASD.
Methods: The RME task was administered to 181 adults to quantify ToM abilities. The participants consisted of 100 adults with ASD (69 males, 32 females; age range: 18-71, mean=39.45±1.613) and matched 81 NT adults (47 males, 34 females; age range: 18-70, mean=41.51±1.883). Multiple regression analyses examined interactions between diagnosis and age, diagnosis and sex, and diagnosis by age by sex. Exploratory within group analyses assessed 1) sex differences using ANCOVA, and 2) associations with age using Pearson correlation in SPSS.
Results: We found that NT adults performed better on the RME task than adults with ASD. Worse performance on the RME task correlated with greater age for the NT, but not ASD. Additionally, no influence of sex on RME scores was identified.
Discussion: These results are consistent with other studies indicate social cognition deficits in adults with ASD compared to NT adults. Additionally, we replicated findings that suggest ToM performance declines with age in NT adults. Fewer social relationships, smaller social networks, and reduced social engagement have been associated with aging in both NTs and individuals with ASD (Pratt & Norris, 1994). However, our cross-sectional sample suggests ToM abilities may not decline with age in adults with ASD as hypothesized. Longitudinal studies are needed to corroborate these findings. Further developments in this line of research may inform novel interventions tailored toward the growing population of adults with ASD. Ultimately, our research aims to improve quality of life across the lifespan for an already vulnerable population.
ContributorsRogers, Carly (Author) / Braden, Blair (Thesis director) / Roberts, Nicole (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05