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Vaccines are modern medicine’s best way of combating the majority of viral and bacterial illnesses and contagions to date. Thanks to the introduction of vaccines since the first uses of them in 1796 (Jenner’s smallpox vaccine), they have drastically reduced figures of disease worldwide, turning once lethal and life changing

Vaccines are modern medicine’s best way of combating the majority of viral and bacterial illnesses and contagions to date. Thanks to the introduction of vaccines since the first uses of them in 1796 (Jenner’s smallpox vaccine), they have drastically reduced figures of disease worldwide, turning once lethal and life changing conditions into minor annoyances; Some of these afflictions have even become nonexistent or even extinct in certain parts of the world outside of a controlled laboratory setting. With many advancements and overwhelming evidence proving their efficiency, it is clear that vaccines have become nothing less than a necessity for everyday healthcare in today’s world. <br/>The greatest contributor to the creation and evolution of vaccines throughout the years is by far the progress and work done in the field of molecular and cellular biology. These advancements have become the bedrock of modern vaccination, as shown by the differing types of vaccines and their methodology. The most common varieties of vaccines are include ‘dead’ or inactivated vaccines, one such example being the pertussis strain of vaccines, which have either dead or torn apart cells for the body to easily fight off, allowing the immune system to easily and quickly counter the illness; Additionally, there are also live attenuated vaccines (LAVs) in which a weaker version of the pathogen is introduced to the body to stimulate an immune response, or a recombinant mRNA vaccine where mRNA containing the coding for an antigen is presented for immunological response, the latter being what the current COVID-19 vaccines are based on. This is in part aided by the presence of immunological adjuvants, antigens and substances that the immune system can recognize, target, and remember for future infections. However, for more serious illnesses the body needs a bigger threat to analyze, which leads to live vaccines- instead of dead or individual components of a potential pathogen, a weakened version is created in the lab to allow the body to combat it. The idea behind this is the same, but to a larger degree so a more serious illness such as measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) do not infect us.<br/>However, for the past couple of decades the public’s views on vaccination has greatly varied, with the rise of fear and disinformation leading those to believe that modern medicine is a threat in disguise. The largest of these arguments began in the late 90’s, when Dr. Andrew Wakefield published an article under the Lancet with false information connecting vaccinations to the occurrence of autism in younger children- a theory which has since then been proven incorrect numerous times over. Unfortunately, the rise of hysteria and paranoia in people, along with more misinformation from misleading sources, have strengthened the anti-vaccination cause and has made it into a serious threat to the health of those world-wide.<br/>The aim of this thesis is to provide an accurate and thorough analysis on these three themes- the history of vaccines, their inner workings and machinations in providing immune defenses for the body, and the current controversy of the anti-vaccination movement. Additionally, there will be two other sections going in-depth on two specific areas where vaccination is highly important; The spread and fear of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has been around for nearly four decades, so it begs the question: what makes this such a difficult virus, and how can a vaccine be created to combat it? Additionally, in the last year the world has encountered a new virus that has evolved into a global pandemic, SARS-COV 2. This new strain of coronavirus has shown itself to be highly contagious and rapidly mutating, and the race to quickly develop a vaccine to counteract it has been on-going since its first major infections in Wuhan, China. Overall, this thesis will go in-depth in providing the most accurate, up-to-date, and critical information regarding vaccinations today.

ContributorsKolb Celaya, Connor Emilio (Author) / Topal, Emel (Thesis director) / Huffman, Holly (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description

The COVID-19 pandemic began in March of 2020 and drastically affected the global human population. Millions of people died due to a SARS-CoV-2 infection while many who survived developed devastating sequelae of the disease. In addition, the closure of schools and businesses led to international economic struggle in the year

The COVID-19 pandemic began in March of 2020 and drastically affected the global human population. Millions of people died due to a SARS-CoV-2 infection while many who survived developed devastating sequelae of the disease. In addition, the closure of schools and businesses led to international economic struggle in the year 2020 as global economies declined. Since the beginning of the pandemic, over 200,000 scientific articles have been published and compiled into a database that grows daily— a rare occurrence within the scientific community. This thesis uses natural language processing tools via Python and VOSviewer software to perform a bibliometric analysis on 205,712 papers published between January of 2020 and February of 2021 pertaining to COVID-19. We first investigate how to analyze these publications most effectively in terms of title versus abstract keyword searches, we further obtain the focus of the current scientific literature via co-occurrence analysis and clustering, and we at last discuss the time evolution of these topics over the course of 14 months.

ContributorsLovell, Madison Ray (Author) / Zheng, Wenwei (Thesis director) / Melkozernov, Alexander (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU

The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU students. Stress levels were measured with the use of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). We find that the stress of ASU students from before the pandemic to during rises from 15 to 22 points, a 50% increase (n = 228). We discovered that women are more stressed than men before and during the pandemic. We also discovered that there is no difference between stresses among different races. We notice that there is a parabolic relationship between enrollment time and stress levels with the peak occurring during semesters 2-6. We also conclude that students who attended more than 5 events during the pandemic had lower stress scores, and those who had their videos on for at least 3 events had lower stress scores. Furthermore, students who utilized campus resources to manage their stress had higher stress levels than those who did not.

ContributorsRana, Mannat (Co-author) / Levine, Benjamin (Co-author) / Martin, Thomas (Thesis director) / Rendell, Dawn (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Engineering Programs (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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Description

The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU

The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU students. Stress levels were measured with the use of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). We find that the stress of ASU students from before the pandemic to during rises from 15 to 22 points, a 50% increase (n = 228). We discovered that women are more stressed than men before and during the pandemic. We also discovered that there is no difference between stresses among different races. We notice that there is a parabolic relationship between enrollment time and stress levels with the peak occurring during semesters 2-6. We also conclude that students who attended more than 5 events during the pandemic had lower stress scores, and those who had their videos on for at least 3 events had lower stress scores. Furthermore, students who utilized campus resources to manage their stress had higher stress levels than those who did not.

ContributorsRana, Mannat (Co-author) / Levine, Benjamin (Co-author) / Martin, Thomas (Thesis director) / Rendell, Dawn (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Engineering Programs (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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Description

The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU

The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU students. Stress levels were measured with the use of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). We find that the stress of ASU students from before the pandemic to during rises from 15 to 22 points, a 50% increase (n = 228). We discovered that women are more stressed than men before and during the pandemic. We also discovered that there is no difference between stresses among different races. We notice that there is a parabolic relationship between enrollment time and stress levels with the peak occurring during semesters 2-6. We also conclude that students who attended more than 5 events during the pandemic had lower stress scores, and those who had their videos on for at least 3 events had lower stress scores. Furthermore, students who utilized campus resources to manage their stress had higher stress levels than those who did not.

ContributorsLevine, Benjamin (Co-author) / Rana, Mannat (Co-author) / Martin, Thomas (Thesis director) / Rendell, Dawn (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Engineering Programs (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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Description

Analyzing Incident Rates of COVID-19 Before and After Stay-At-Home Orders Throughout the Southwestern U.S. with Respect to Limited Mobility Models

ContributorsTilleman, Karl Benson (Author) / Albuquerque, Fabio Suzart de (Thesis director) / Powers, Brian (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description

This thesis investigates the transmission of Covid-19 from humans to animals. Within the article, one will learn the inner workings of the background, history, and transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 infection seen worldwide. In addition, the research proposal/study focuses on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 observed from humans to minks.

ContributorsRobinson, Samirah (Author) / Hartwell, Leland (Thesis director) / Murphree, Julie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor)
Created2023-05
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Our thesis project is a 5-person group thesis that was created over the span of two years. In the summer of 2020, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, our group first met and discussed our shared interests in mask-wearing and individual factors that we each

Our thesis project is a 5-person group thesis that was created over the span of two years. In the summer of 2020, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, our group first met and discussed our shared interests in mask-wearing and individual factors that we each thought had significant impacts on mask-wearing among Barrett students. We each decided on factors that we wanted to investigate and subsequently split into three main groups based on our interests: culture and geography, medical humanities, and medical and psychological conditions. Despite these different interests, we continued to treat our thesis as a five-person project rather than three different projects. We then constructed a survey, followed by several focus group sessions and interview questions to ask Honors students. In January 2021, we received approval from the IRB for our project, and we quickly finalized our survey, focus group and interview questions. In February 2021, we sent out our survey via the Barrett Digest, which we kept open for approximately one month. We also sent out advertisements for our survey via social media platforms such as Twitter and Discord. Following completion of the survey, we contacted all of the respondents who stated that they were interested in participating in focus groups and interviews. Focus groups and interviews were conducted in March and April 2021, and results were analyzed and correlated to our individual subtopics. Each of the focus group and interview participants received $50 each, and three randomly-selected students who completed the survey received $25 each. From April 2021 until April 2022, we analyzed our results, came to conclusions based on our initial topics of interest, and constructed our paper.

ContributorsHarmanian, Tiffany (Author) / Battista-Palmer, Madison (Co-author) / Chen, Brianna (Co-author) / Siefert, Talia (Co-author) / Weinstock, Benjamin (Co-author) / Helitzer, Deborah (Thesis director) / Davis, Olga (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2022-05
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Description
The purpose of this study is to describe Community Health Workers’ (CHWs) efforts in meeting unmet needs in underserved populations, especially with added COVID-19 pressures. Five focus groups were conducted with 28 CHWs across three counties. It was found that CHW’s served as puentes/bridges, in which the extent of their

The purpose of this study is to describe Community Health Workers’ (CHWs) efforts in meeting unmet needs in underserved populations, especially with added COVID-19 pressures. Five focus groups were conducted with 28 CHWs across three counties. It was found that CHW’s served as puentes/bridges, in which the extent of their reach and foundational strength provides a connection between the Latino/a/x population across Arizona and social services, resources, and the healthcare system.
Created2022-05
Description

Cosplay, or the act of dressing up as a character, is a hobby that has become increasingly popular over the last several decades. Since its conception in 1939, the practice of cosplaying has always been heavily tied to that of conventions. Until 2019 these conventions were utilized by cosplayers to

Cosplay, or the act of dressing up as a character, is a hobby that has become increasingly popular over the last several decades. Since its conception in 1939, the practice of cosplaying has always been heavily tied to that of conventions. Until 2019 these conventions were utilized by cosplayers to showcase their outfits and creations – in a phenomenon called “masking” – but with the widespread emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, conventions were put on hold for over a year. This paper questions how convention culture has changed in a world where cosplay can no longer rely on it due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through analysis, personal narrative, and a critical reflection, the authors compare Saboten Con 2019 and 2021 to discuss that despite the numerous changes to the physical culture of conventions, the social essence of conventions has remained the same.

ContributorsLauer, Annika (Author) / Kim, Melissa (Co-author) / Fette, Donald (Thesis director) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor)
Created2021-12