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Two large sectors of water consumption within cities are: city owned irrigated landscape (such as parks) and household consumption. A related, third sector of consumption that has very little research behind it is shared landscapes in residential communities. Neighborhood communities, including those with formal Homeowner’s Associations and informal Neighborhood Associations,

Two large sectors of water consumption within cities are: city owned irrigated landscape (such as parks) and household consumption. A related, third sector of consumption that has very little research behind it is shared landscapes in residential communities. Neighborhood communities, including those with formal Homeowner’s Associations and informal Neighborhood Associations, have common landscapes they are responsible for up-keeping and irrigating. 208 neighborhood communities exist within the City of Tempe. Each year the city provides $30,000 in grant funding to these 208 neighborhoods to implement water conservation projects. This thesis focuses on ten neighborhoods who had applied and were granted funding to implement a conservation project between the years 2011 and 2016. My findings showed that this program has not been effective in reducing water consumption, wither due to the lack of implementation or the small-scale of the projects. From my research and synthesis, I suggest a layer of accountability be added to the program to ensure projects are effective and participants are implementing their projects and that the program is effective overall. This study provides the City of Tempe with relevant and viable information to aid management of water consumption and conservation within neighborhoods.
ContributorsApillanes, Sierra Caitlyn (Author) / Larson, Kelli (Thesis director) / Bomar, Melissa (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Lactase persistence is the ability of adults to digest lactose in milk (Segurel & Bon, 2017). Mammals are generally distinguished by their mammary glands which gives females the ability to produce milk and feed their newborn children. The new born therefore requires the ability to breakdown the lactose in the

Lactase persistence is the ability of adults to digest lactose in milk (Segurel & Bon, 2017). Mammals are generally distinguished by their mammary glands which gives females the ability to produce milk and feed their newborn children. The new born therefore requires the ability to breakdown the lactose in the milk to ensure its proper digestion (Segurel & Bon, 2017). Generally, humans lose the expression of lactase after weaning, which prevents them being able to breakdown lactose from dairy (Flatz, 1987).
My research is focused on the people of Turkana, a human pastoral population inhabiting Northwest Kenya. The people of Turkana are Nilotic people that are native to the Turkana district. There are currently no conclusive studies done on evidence for genetic lactase persistence in Turkana. Therefore, my research will be on the evolution of lactase persistence in the people of Turkana. The goal of this project is to investigate the evolutionary history of two genes with known involvement in lactase persistence, LCT and MCM6, in the Turkana. Variants in these genes have previously been identified to result in the ability to digest lactose post-weaning age. Furthermore, an additional study found that a closely related population to the Turkana, the Massai, showed stronger signals of recent selection for lactase persistence than Europeans in these genes. My goal is to characterize known variants associated with lactase persistence by calculating their allele frequencies in the Turkana and conduct selection scans to determine if LCT/MCM6 show signatures of positive selection. In doing this, we conducted a pilot study consisting of 10 female Turkana individuals and 10 females from four different populations from the 1000 genomes project namely: the Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria (YRI); Luhya in Webuye, Kenya; Utah Residents with Northern and Western European Ancestry (CEU); and the Southern Han Chinese. The allele frequency calculation suggested that the CEU (Utah Residents with Northern and Western European Ancestry) population had a higher lactase persistence associated allele frequency than all the other populations analyzed here, including the Turkana population. Our Tajima’s D calculations and analysis suggested that both the Turkana population and the four haplotype map populations shows signatures of positive selection in the same region. The iHS selection scans we conducted to detect signatures of positive selection on all five populations showed that the Southern Han Chinese (CHS), the LWK (Luhya in Webuye, Kenya) and the YRI (Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria) populations had stronger signatures of positive selection than the Turkana population. The LWK (Luhya in Webuye, Kenya) and the YRI (Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria) populations showed the strongest signatures of positive selection in this region. This project serves as a first step in the investigation of lactase persistence in the Turkana population and its evolution over time.
ContributorsJobe, Ndey Bassin (Author) / Wilson Sayres, Melissa (Thesis director) / Paaijmans, Krijn (Committee member) / Taravella, Angela (Committee member) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
Galaxies in the universe are surrounded by a hot medium called the Circum-Galactic Medium (CGM). Present the CGM is gas that forms up clouds which travel within the CGM at speeds that approximately range between 100 km/s and 300 km/s. These gas clouds are very interesting because they play a

Galaxies in the universe are surrounded by a hot medium called the Circum-Galactic Medium (CGM). Present the CGM is gas that forms up clouds which travel within the CGM at speeds that approximately range between 100 km/s and 300 km/s. These gas clouds are very interesting because they play a crucial in the formation of stars within the galaxies and also in the overall evolution of galaxies. The clouds could in fact be thought of as mobile "gas stations" whose sole purpose is facilitate the ionization of elements and ultimately supply gas to galaxies. My thesis project is a follow-up study on CGM gas cloud observations that were made by Borthakur et. al. (2016). Using Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Borthakur et. al. (2016) observed the presence of both Carbon IV (C IV) and Oxygen VI (O IV) but did not observe any Nitrogen V (N V) in the gas cloud when expected to be observable. Therefore, the ultimate goal of my research was to determine whether indeed CGM gas clouds have an actual shortage of the N V ion. My research involves the generation of cosmological simulations of a cold gas cloud that has a radius of 98 parsecs, relative velocity of 200 km/s, density range of 10-3 to -5 and a temperature in the range of ~104 to 5 K, and also a hot CGM that has density in the range of 10-4.5 to -6 particles/cm3 and temperature of approximately 106 K. Traces of N v are observed in my simulations.
ContributorsSaboi, Kezman (Author) / Scannapieco, Evan (Thesis director) / Borthakur, Sanchayeeta (Committee member) / Cottle, JNeil (Committee member) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description
The balance between relative numbers, lifetime, and habitable zone (HZ) size of K stars (0.6 – 0.9 M⊙) in comparison with M (0.08 – 0.6 M⊙) and G (0.9 – 1.1 M⊙) stars makes them candidates to host “super-habitable” planets. Understanding the high- energy radiation environment of planets around these

The balance between relative numbers, lifetime, and habitable zone (HZ) size of K stars (0.6 – 0.9 M⊙) in comparison with M (0.08 – 0.6 M⊙) and G (0.9 – 1.1 M⊙) stars makes them candidates to host “super-habitable” planets. Understanding the high- energy radiation environment of planets around these stars is crucial, since ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray radiation may cause severe photodissociation and ionization of the atmosphere, with the potential for complete erosion. In this thesis, I present the first broad study of the UV and X-ray evolution of K stars. I first focused on Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and Ro ̈ntgen Satellit (ROSAT) photometric UV and X-ray evolutions of K stars and compared this with the age evolution of both early- (0.35 – 0.6 M⊙) and late-M (0.08 – 0.35 M⊙) stars. I found that the fractional UV and X-ray flux from M and K stars is similar; however, the wider and farther HZs of K stars mean that there is less incident UV radiation on HZ planets. Next, I led a spectroscopic study of 41 K stars using Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (HST/COS) data to show that the UV line and continua emission show no decrease in flux beyond 650 Myr whereas early-M star flux declines by 150 Myr; therefore, the K star intrinsic UV flux is greater than early-M stars after this time. I suggest that this phenomenon is related to K star rotational spin-down stalling. Lastly, I revisited the GALEX and ROSAT data with newly-available distances from the Gaia mission for both K and M stars. I find that the UV flux for K stars is an order of magnitude higher for M stars at all ages and the flux in their respective HZs is similar. However, K star X-ray flux is an order of magnitude less in the HZ than for M stars. The age of decline shows a dependency on wavelength, a phenomenon which is not seen in either the early- or late-M star data. These results suggest thatK stars may not exhibit quite the advantage as HZ planet host stars as the scientific community originally thought.
ContributorsRichey-Yowell, Tyler (Author) / Shkolnik, Evgenya (Thesis advisor) / Patience, Jennifer (Committee member) / Jacobs, Daniel (Committee member) / Bowman, Judd (Committee member) / Young, Patrick (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
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Description

This project was an exploratory take on outreach in the life sciences - looking into the existing literature and practices and formulating a proof of concept for future outreach with synthesizes my findings. The research culminated in the creation of an insect guide for the novice observer, which reads as

This project was an exploratory take on outreach in the life sciences - looking into the existing literature and practices and formulating a proof of concept for future outreach with synthesizes my findings. The research culminated in the creation of an insect guide for the novice observer, which reads as a modern take on the dichotomous key and allows amateur insect observers to develop some skills of identification with relatively little entomological knowledge.

ContributorsHaddad, Mary (Author) / Polidoro, Beth (Thesis director) / Yule, Kelsey (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Sea turtles are threatened globally. Their conservation requires, not just scientists and governments, but communities as well. Conservationists have been developing ways to reduce tensions between governments, biologists, and local communities. While community-based conservation has been implemented successfully in certain cases, work must be done to acknowledge the spiritual values of nature to garner

Sea turtles are threatened globally. Their conservation requires, not just scientists and governments, but communities as well. Conservationists have been developing ways to reduce tensions between governments, biologists, and local communities. While community-based conservation has been implemented successfully in certain cases, work must be done to acknowledge the spiritual values of nature to garner more support for conservation from local communities. For this reason, we chose to analyze how sea turtles have been viewed spiritually in Latin America and globally throughout history by performing a literature review. Many coastal communities have centuries old spiritual beliefs regarding sea turtles. Furthermore, we conducted a case study in Ostional, Costa Rica, a village known for its sea turtle conservation, as well as its controversial sea turtle egg harvesting. From this study, which utilized surveys and interviews, we learned that spirituality is a motivator for conservation for the people of Ostional. Thus, we suggest that spirituality should be utilized as an appeal for local communities to support local conservation efforts. Governments and scientists should include spirituality in community-based conservation discourse. Further studies should assess how best to apply spiritual appeals in this discourse and its effectiveness overall, as well as among different age demographics.
ContributorsDeFazio, Victoria (Author) / Britton, Michael (Thesis director) / Burgher, Kayla (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description

The Arizona Board of Education decides the science curricula for students K-6. The standards lack an in depth knowledge of marine life, marine science, ocean conservation, and more related topics. Through interviews with teachers, faculty, and research on ocean literacy and coral reefs, My Coral Reef Booklet assembles various learning

The Arizona Board of Education decides the science curricula for students K-6. The standards lack an in depth knowledge of marine life, marine science, ocean conservation, and more related topics. Through interviews with teachers, faculty, and research on ocean literacy and coral reefs, My Coral Reef Booklet assembles various learning activities to cater to students from a variety of education, financial and impairment backgrounds. My Coral Reef Booklet addresses coral reef basics and how students can play their part in coral reef conservation despite their location.

ContributorsHynds, Janna (Author) / Hedges, Craig (Thesis director) / Senko, Jesse (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2023-05