Matching Items (57)
Description
This is the study of Acute Impact of Ujjayi Yogic Pranayama vs Aerobic Exercise on Cognitive Performance and Short Term Memory. The purpose of this research was to compare two forms of exercise and their effects on someone's cognitive performance and short term memory. The research was performed in an acute setting were both exercises was conducted in under 15 minutes of active participation. The research question was; will aerobic exercise or the Pranayama breathing exercise provide better results and demonstrate a more effective way to increase the cognitive performance and short term memory for a college student aged 18-30. This was accomplished by using an aerobic exercise on an elliptical machine and then participating in the breathing exercise for 10 minutes in both scenarios. This study had two scenarios. Each scenario had a preliminary cognitive performance and short-term memory, post-Ujjayi exercise had a cognitive performance and short-term memory and a post-aerobic exercise had a cognitive performance and short-term memory. There was an hour break between Ujjayi exercise and aerobic exercise in both scenarios to prevent any type of bias. Scenario 1 had these three settings but the students were not given a breakfast supplement. In Scenario 2 the students were given a break supplement and followed the same procedures as scenario 1. There were 25 students for scenario 1 and 25 students for scenario 2. The students were allowed to participate in scenario 1 and 2 but it had to be a week after their first participation. All participants were originally signed up for scenario 1 and they could come back to perform scenario 2 a week later. The first scenario was completing the tests in the absence of food. Scenario two was completing the tests after having been given a Clif Bar to consume. The results of both of these scenarios showed that for cognitive performance and short term memory aerobic exercise had a beneficial impact on their performance. However, students who had a breakfast performed better on the preliminary tests and scored better after the yogic Ujjayi Pranayama exercise on their cognitive performance and short term memory tests. There was also a negligible difference between the test results after the preliminary tests and yogic Ujjayi Pranayama. However, in scenario one the overall tests scores for preliminary and yogic Ujjayi Pranayama were less than those in scenario two. Students who recorded that they were more actively engaging in regular physical exercise 3-7 days a week also did worse in scenario 1, but when presented with scenario 2 they scored equal with those who did not perform regular exercise. The overall purpose for this research was to find out how to increase cognitive performance and short term memory ability in college age students 18-30 in a short amount of time. The results of this study will be impactful for the future studies that will be focused on when comparing aerobic exercise and yogic pranayama.
ContributorsKopecky, Zachary (Co-author) / Enright, Roan (Co-author) / McILwraith, Heide (Thesis director) / Lee, Rebecca (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
This study confirms that there is stigma attached to how Somali-Americans perceive mental and emotional impairments compared to the perception of physical disabilities and impairments. More Somali-Americans are willing to seek help regarding their mental and physical health which is a positive step in improving the perceptions of Somali-Americans towards mental or emotional impairments and physical disabilities. Findings can contribute to the knowledge of health care professionals (i.e. nurses) in caring for patients identifying as Somali to promote culturally competent care.
ContributorsAden, Amina (Author) / Hosley, Brenda (Thesis director) / Lee, Rebecca (Committee member) / Lyles, Annmarie (Committee member) / Arizona State University. College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Research supports that music therapy can be used in multiple aspects of care for patients living within different environments. There is a gap in the literature when it comes to the impact of music sessions for older adults who do not have a diagnosed disease, therefore this study analyzes this population specifically. This study examines music therapy and its effects on anxiety and depression in adults aged 65 or older living in independent living homes. The adults participated in a mixed-methods study over the span of one month examining music as an intervention to decrease anxiety and depression. Each subject consented into the study, completed a demographic survey, answered open-ended questions regarding their experience with anxiety/sadness and ways to cope, as well as Profile of Moods Scale (POMS) during the first session. On the last week of the study, the participants were asked to fill out the same POMS scale to evaluate whether music influenced anxiety and depression. There was limited evidence found in this study to support the use of music therapy as an intervention to decrease anxiety and depression in adults over the age of 65.
ContributorsWolfus, Sarah Ilyssa (Author) / Lee, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Larkey, Linda (Committee member) / Arizona State University. College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States announced that there has been roughly a 50% increase in the prevalence of food allergies among people between the years of 1997 - 2011. A food allergy can be described as a medical condition where being exposed to a certain food triggers a harmful immune response in the body, known as an allergic reaction. These reactions can range from mild to fatal, and they are caused mainly by the top 8 major food allergens: dairy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish. Food allergies mainly plague children under the age of 3, as some of them will grow out of their allergy sensitivity over time, and most people develop their allergies at a young age, and not when they are older. The rise in prevalence is becoming a frightening problem around the world, and there are emerging theories that are attempting to ascribe a cause. There are three well-known hypotheses that will be discussed: the Hygiene Hypothesis, the Dual-Allergen Exposure Hypothesis, and the Vitamin-D Deficiency Hypothesis. Beyond that, this report proposes that a new hypothesis be studied, the Food Systems Hypothesis. This hypothesis theorizes that the cause of the rise of food allergies is actually caused by changes in the food itself and particularly the pesticides that are used to cultivate it.
ContributorsCromer, Kelly (Author) / Lee, Rebecca (Thesis director) / MacFadyen, Joshua (Committee member) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a unique but intense procedure used to save the lives of patients with hematopoietic malignancies. However, patients and caregivers undergoing HSCT can experience prolonged psychological distress due to an intense and distinctive transplant process. Types of psychological distress include anxiety, depression, social isolation, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Although this a significant healthcare problem, limited research has been conducted within the HSCT patient and caregiver population to investigate ways to improve their mental health. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an educational video intervention about post-transplant recovery in decreasing emotional distress and promoting emotional well-being in HSCT patients and caregivers. This pilot study utilized a quantitative single-group pretest-posttest design to examine the effect of educational videos on participant's emotional well-being. Four educational videos were developed using information gathered from several reliable bone marrow transplant and cancer websites. A convenience sampling method was used to recruit HSCT patient and caregiver participants. Eleven Caucasian, English-speaking individuals (6 patients, 5 caregivers; 54.5% female; M age= 43.7 years) across the United States were enrolled in the 60-90 minute online intervention. Participant responses were measured using pretest and posttest questionnaires. Results from the study found that the educational videos were effective in decreasing levels of depression and anxiety. Implications for nursing practice include the need to educate HSCT patients and caregivers about transplant recovery to decrease emotional distress. This study demonstrates the impact post-transplant education has on decreasing depression and anxiety in HSCT patients and caregivers.
ContributorsBosselman, Kate Elizabeth (Author) / Kim, Sunny (Thesis director) / Lee, Rebecca (Committee member) / Arizona State University. College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Globally, about two-thirds of the population is latently infected with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). HSV-1 is a large double stranded DNA virus with a genome size of ~150kbp. Small defective genomes, which minimally contain an HSV-1 origin of replication and packaging signal, arise naturally via recombination during viral DNA replication. These small defective genomes can be mimicked by constructing a bacterial plasmid containing the HSV-1 origin of replication and packaging signal, transfecting these recombinant plasmids into mammalian cells, and infecting with a replicating helper virus. The absence of most viral genes in the amplicon vector allows large pieces of foreign DNA (up to 150kbp) to be incorporated. The HSV-1 amplicon is replicated and packaged by the helper virus to form HSV-1 particles containing the amplicon DNA. We constructed a novel HSV-1 amplicon vector system containing lambda phage-derived attR sites to facilitate insertion of transgenes by Invitrogen Gateway recombination. To demonstrate that the amplicon vectors work as expected, we packaged the vector constructs expressing Emerald GFP using the replication-competent helper viruses OK-14 or HSV-mScartlet-I-UL25 in Vero cells and demonstrate that the vector stock can subsequently transduce and express Emerald GFP. In further work, we will insert transgenes into the amplicon vector using Invitrogen Gateway recombination to study their functionality.
ContributorsVelarde, Kimberly (Author) / Hogue, Ian B (Thesis advisor) / Manfredsson, Fredric (Committee member) / Sandoval, Ivette (Committee member) / Varsani, Arvind (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Caracals (Caracal caracal) are a felid species native to regions of southern Africa and western and central Asia. Despite their relatively high prevalence, the majority of research conducted on caracals has been undertaken on captive individuals, which encounter significantly different environments and exhibit different behaviors in comparison to caracals in the wild. Thereby, they likely have a vastly different virome. The goal of this study was to identify known and unknown DNA viruses associated with free-ranging caracals. Caracal fecal and organ samples were obtained from a caracal surveillance study undertaken in the Western Cape region of South Africa. Parasitic ticks found feeding on caracals were also obtained. Using a viral metagenomic informed approach, a novel circovirus (family Circoviridae) was detected and characterized in caracal fecal, kidney, spleen, and liver samples, as well as in ticks feeding on the caracals. To our knowledge, this is the first circovirus identified in caracals. The novel circovirus was determined to be closely related to a canine circovirus. These findings expand the knowledge of viral diversity and caracals and are greatly important to caracal conservation efforts as well as conservation efforts of other animals within their ecosystem.
ContributorsCollins, Courtney (Author) / Varsani, Arvind (Thesis director) / Dolby, Greer (Committee member) / Kraberger, Simona (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Scientists are entrusted with developing novel molecular strategies for effective prophylactic and therapeutic interventions. Antivirals are indispensable tools that can be targeted at viral domains directly or at cellular domains indirectly to obstruct viral infections and reduce pathogenicity. Despite their transformative potential in healthcare, to date, antivirals have been clinically approved to treat only 10 out of the greater than 200 known pathogenic human viruses. Additionally, as obligate intracellular parasites, many virus functions are intimately coupled with host cellular processes. As such, the development of a clinically relevant antiviral is challenged by the limited number of clear targets per virus and necessitates an extensive insight into these molecular processes. Compounding this challenge, many viral pathogens have evolved to evade effective antivirals. Therefore, a means to develop virus- or strain-specific antivirals without detailed insight into each idiosyncratic biochemical mechanism may aid in the development of antivirals against a larger swath of pathogens. Such an approach will tremendously benefit from having the specific molecular recognition of viral species as the lowest barrier. Here, I modify a nanobody (anti-green fluorescent protein) that specifically recognizes non-essential epitopes (glycoprotein M-pHluorin chimera) presented on the extra virion surface of a virus (Pseudorabies virus strain 486). The nanobody switches from having no inhibitory properties (tested up to 50 μM) to ∼3 nM IC50 in in vitro infectivity assays using porcine kidney (PK15) cells. The nanobody modifications use highly reliable bioconjugation to a three-dimensional wireframe deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) origami scaffold. Mechanistic studies suggest that inhibition is mediated by the DNA origami scaffold bound to the virus particle, which obstructs the internalization of the viruses into cells, and that inhibition is enhanced by avidity resulting from multivalent virus and scaffold interactions. The assembled nanostructures demonstrate negligible cytotoxicity (<10 nM) and sufficient stability, further supporting their therapeutic potential. If translatable to other viral species and epitopes, this approach may open a new strategy that leverages existing infrastructures – monoclonal antibody development, phage display, and in vitro evolution - for rapidly developing novel antivirals in vivo.
ContributorsPradhan, Swechchha (Author) / Hariadi, Rizal (Thesis advisor) / Hogue, Ian (Committee member) / Varsani, Arvind (Committee member) / Chen, Qiang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Monkeypox virus (MPXV) is an orthopoxvirus that causes smallpox-like disease and has up to a 10% mortality rate, depending on the infectious strain. The global eradication of the smallpox virus has led to the decrease in smallpox vaccinations, which has led to a drastic increase in the number of human MPXV cases. MPXV has been named the most important orthopoxvirus to infect humans since the eradication of smallpox and has been the causative agent of the 2022 world-wide MPXV outbreak. Despite being highly pathogenic, MPXV contains a natural truncation at the N-terminus of its E3 homologue. Vaccinia virus (VACV) E3 protein has two domains: an N- terminus Z-form nucleic acid binding domain (Z-BD) and a C-terminus double stranded RNA binding domain (dsRBD). Both domains are required for pathogenesis, interferon (IFN) resistance, and protein kinase R (PKR) inhibition. The N-terminus is required for evasion of Z-DNA binding protein 1 (ZBP1)-dependent necroptosis. ZBP1 binding to Z- form deoxyribonucleic acid/ribonucleic acid (Z-DNA/RNA) leads to activation of receptor-interacting protein kinase 3 (RIPK3) leading to mixed lineage kinase domain- like (MLKL) phosphorylation, aggregation and cell death. This study investigated how different cell lines combat MPXV infection and how MPXV has evolved ways to circumvent the host response. MPXV is shown to inhibit necroptosis in L929 cells by degrading RIPK3 through the viral inducer of RIPK3 degradation (vIRD) and by inhibiting MLKL aggregation. Additionally, the data shows that IFN treatment efficiently inhibits MPXV replication in a ZBP1-, RIPK3-, and MLKL- dependent manner, but independent of necroptosis. Also, the data suggests that an IFN inducer with a pancaspase or proteasome inhibitor could potentially be a beneficial treatment against MPXV infections. Furthermore, it reveals a link between PKR and pathogen-induced necroptosis that has not been previously described.
ContributorsWilliams, Jacqueline (Author) / Jacobs, Bertram (Thesis advisor) / Langland, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Lake, Douglas (Committee member) / Varsani, Arvind (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This thesis project is a first-grade curriculum that is tailored for schools with school gardens. The curriculum contains worksheets and activities for the students, making it easier for teachers to take care of the school garden while also playing a part in fighting food injustice. The curriculum has 4 subjects: Math, Language Arts, Science, and Nutrition Education.
ContributorsShah, Hirni (Author) / McGregor, Joan (Thesis director) / Lee, Rebecca (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor)
Created2023-05