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ABSTRACT Vitamin C plays an important role in fatty acid metabolism because it is required for carnitine synthesis. Vitamin C has been shown to have an inverse relationship with weight and body fat percent in a number of studies. However, there has been limited research exploring the relationship between vitamin C status and fat oxidation. This cross-sectional study investigates the relationship between plasma vitamin C and fat oxidation in 69 participants and between plasma vitamin C and body fatness in 82 participants. Participants were measured for substrate utilization via indirect calorimetry while at rest and measured for body fatness via DEXA scan. Participants provided a single fasting blood draw for analysis of plasma vitamin C. Results did not show a significant association between vitamin C and fat oxidation while at rest, therefore the data do not support the hypothesis that vitamin C status affects fat oxidation in a resting state. However, a significant inverse association was found between vitamin C and both total body fat percent and visceral fat.
ContributorsObermeyer, Lindsay (Author) / Johnston, Carol (Thesis advisor) / Hall, Rick (Committee member) / Swan, Pamela (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Lipids and free fatty acids (FFA) from cyanobacterium Synechocystis can be used for biofuel (e.g. biodiesel or renewable diesel) production. In order to utilize and scale up this technique, downstream processes including culturing and harvest, cell disruption, and extraction were studied. Several solvents/solvent systems were screened for lipid extraction from Synechocystis. Chloroform + methanol-based Folch and Bligh & Dyer methods were proved to be "gold standard" for small-scale analysis due to their highest lipid recoveries that were confirmed by their penetration of the cell membranes, higher polarity, and stronger interaction with hydrogen bonds. Less toxic solvents, such as methanol and MTBE, or direct transesterification of biomass (without pre-extraction step) gave only slightly lower lipid-extraction yields and can be considered for large-scale application. Sustained exposure to high and low temperature extremes severely lowered the biomass and lipid productivity. Temperature stress also triggered changes of lipid quality such as the degree of unsaturation; thus, it affected the productivities and quality of Synechocystis-derived biofuel. Pulsed electric field (PEF) was evaluated for cell disruption prior to lipid extraction. A treatment intensity > 35 kWh/m3 caused significant damage to the plasma membrane, cell wall, and thylakoid membrane, and it even led to complete disruption of some cells into fragments. Treatment by PEF enhanced the potential for the low-toxicity solvent isopropanol to access lipid molecules during subsequent solvent extraction, leading to lower usage of isopropanol for the same extraction efficiency. Other cell-disruption methods also were tested. Distinct disruption effects to the cell envelope, plasma membrane, and thylakoid membranes were observed that were related to extraction efficiency. Microwave and ultrasound had significant enhancement of lipid extraction. Autoclaving, ultrasound, and French press caused significant release of lipid into the medium, which may increase solvent usage and make medium recycling difficult. Production of excreted FFA by mutant Synechocystis has the potential of reducing the complexity of downstream processing. Major problems, such as FFA precipitation and biodegradation by scavengers, account for FFA loss in operation. Even a low concentration of FFA scavengers could consume FFA at a high rate that outpaced FFA production rate. Potential strategies to overcome FFA loss include high pH, adsorptive resin, and sterilization techniques.
ContributorsSheng, Chieh (Author) / Rittmann, Bruce E. (Thesis advisor) / Westerhoff, Paul (Committee member) / Vermaas, Willem (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Trichloroethene (TCE) is a ubiquitous soil and groundwater contaminant. The most common bioremediation approach for TCE relies on the process of reductive dechlorination by Dehalococcoides mccartyi. D. mccartyi use TCE, dichloroethene, and vinyl chloride as electron acceptors and hydrogen as an electron donor. At contaminated sites, reductive dechlorination is typically promoted by adding a fermentable substrate, which is broken down to short chain fatty acids, simple alcohols, and hydrogen. This study explored microbial chain elongation (MCE), instead of fermentation, to promote TCE reductive dechlorination. In MCE, microbes use simple substrates (e.g., acetate, ethanol) to build medium chain fatty acids and also produce hydrogen during this process. Soil microcosm using TCE and acetate and ethanol as MCE substrates were established under anaerobic conditions. In soil microcosms with synthetic groundwater and natural groundwater, ethene was the main product from TCE reductive dechlorination and butyrate and hydrogen were the main products from MCE. Transfer microcosms using TCE and either acetate and ethanol, ethanol, or acetate were also established. The transfers with TCE and ethanol showed the faster rates of reductive dechlorination and produced more elongated products (i.e., hexanoate). The microbial groups enriched in the soil microcosms likely responsible for chain elongation were most similar to Clostridium genus. These investigations showed the potential for synergistic microbial chain elongation and reductive dechlorination of chlorinated ethenes.
ContributorsRobles, Aide (Author) / Delgado, Anca G. (Thesis advisor) / Torres, Cesar I. (Committee member) / van Paassen, Leon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Obesity impairs skeletal muscle maintenance and regeneration, a condition that can progressively lead to muscle loss, but the mechanisms behind it are unknown. Muscle is primarily composed of multinucleated cells called myotubes which are derived by the fusion of mononucleated myocytes. A key mediator in this process is the cellular fusion protein syncytin-1. This led to the hypothesis that syncytin-1 could be decreased in the muscle of obese/insulin resistant individuals. In contrast, it was found that obese/insulin resistant subjects had higher syncytin-1 expression in the muscle compared to that of the lean subjects. Across the subjects, syncytin-1 correlated significantly with body mass index, percent body fat, blood glucose and HbA1c levels, insulin sensitivity and muscle protein fractional synthesis rate. The concentrations of specific plasma fatty acids, such as the saturated fatty acid (palmitate) and monounsaturated fatty acid (oleate) are known to be altered in obese/insulin resistant humans, and also to influence the protein synthesis in muscle. Therefore, it was evaluated that the effects of palmitate and oleate on syncytin-1 expression, as well as 4E-BP1 phosphorylation, a key mechanism regulating muscle protein synthesis in insulin stimulated C2C12 myotubes. The results showed that treatment with 20 nM insulin, 300 µM oleate, 300 µM oleate +20 nM insulin and 300 µM palmitate + 300 µM oleate elevated 4E-BP1 phosphorylation. At the same time, 20 nM insulin, 300 µM palmitate, 300 µM oleate + 20 nM insulin and 300 µM palmitate + 300 µM oleate elevated syncytin-1 expression. Insulin stimulated muscle syncytin-1 expression and 4E-BP1 phosphorylation, and this effect was comparable to that observed in the presence of oleate alone. However, the presence of palmitate + oleate diminished the stimulatory effect of insulin on muscle syncytin-1 expression and 4E-BP1 phosphorylation. These findings indicate oleate but not palmitate increased total 4E-BP1 phosphorylation regardless of insulin and the presence of palmitate in insulin mediated C2C12 cells. The presence of palmitate inhibited the upregulation of total 4EB-P1 phosphorylation. Palmitate but not oleate increased syncytin-1 expression in insulin mediated C2C12 myotubes. It is possible that chronic hyperinsulinemia in obesity and/or elevated levels of fatty acids such as palmitate in plasma could have contributed to syncytin-1 overexpression and decreased muscle protein fractional synthesis rate in obese/insulin resistant human muscle.
ContributorsRavichandran, Jayachandran (Author) / Katsanos, Christos (Thesis advisor) / Coletta, Dawn (Committee member) / Dickinson, Jared (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
How do you convey what’s interesting and important to you as an artist in a digital world of constantly shifting attentions? For many young creatives, the answer is original characters, or OCs. An OC is a character that an artist creates for personal enjoyment, whether based on an already existing story or world, or completely from their own imagination.
As creations made for purely personal interests, OCs are an excellent elevator pitch to talk one creative to another, opening up opportunities for connection in a world where communication is at our fingertips but personal connection is increasingly harder to make. OCs encourage meaningful interaction by offering themselves as muses, avatars, and story pieces, and so much more, where artists can have their characters interact with other creatives through many different avenues such as art-making, table top games, or word of mouth.
In this thesis, I explore the worlds and aesthetics of many creators and their original characters through qualitative research and collaborative art-making. I begin with a short survey of my creative peers, asking general questions about their characters and thoughts on OCs, then move to sketching characters from various creators. I focus my research to a group of seven core creators and their characters, whom I interview and work closely with in order to create a series of seven final paintings of their original characters.
As creations made for purely personal interests, OCs are an excellent elevator pitch to talk one creative to another, opening up opportunities for connection in a world where communication is at our fingertips but personal connection is increasingly harder to make. OCs encourage meaningful interaction by offering themselves as muses, avatars, and story pieces, and so much more, where artists can have their characters interact with other creatives through many different avenues such as art-making, table top games, or word of mouth.
In this thesis, I explore the worlds and aesthetics of many creators and their original characters through qualitative research and collaborative art-making. I begin with a short survey of my creative peers, asking general questions about their characters and thoughts on OCs, then move to sketching characters from various creators. I focus my research to a group of seven core creators and their characters, whom I interview and work closely with in order to create a series of seven final paintings of their original characters.
ContributorsCote, Jacqueline (Author) / Button, Melissa M (Thesis director) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
In the past ten years, the United States’ sound recording industries have experienced significant decreases in employment opportunities for aspiring audio engineers from economic imbalances in the music industry’s digital streaming era and reductions in government funding for career and technical education (CTE). The Recording Industry Association of America reports promises of music industry sustainability based on increasing annual revenues in paid streaming services and artists’ high creative demand. The rate of new audio engineer entries in the sound recording subsection of the music industry is not viable to support streaming artists’ high demand to engineer new music recordings. Offering CTE programs in secondary education is rare for aspiring engineers with insufficient accessibility to pursue a post-secondary or vocational education because of financial and academic limitations. These aspiring engineers seek alternatives for receiving an informal education in audio engineering on the Internet using video sharing services like YouTube to search for tutorials and improve their engineering skills. The shortage of accessible educational materials on the Internet restricts engineers from advancing their own audio engineering education, reducing opportunities to enter a desperate job market in need of independent, home studio-based engineers. Content creators on YouTube take advantage of this situation and commercialize their own video tutorial series for free and selling paid subscriptions to exclusive content. This is misleading for newer engineers because these tutorials omit important understandings of fundamental engineering concepts. Instead, content creators teach inflexible engineering methodologies that are mostly beneficial to their own way of thinking. Content creators do not often assess the incompatibility of teaching their own methodologies to potential entrants in a profession that demands critical thinking skills requiring applied fundamental audio engineering concepts and techniques. This project analyzes potential solutions to resolve the deficiencies in online audio engineering education and experiments with structuring simple, deliverable, accessible educational content and materials to new entries in audio engineering. Designing clear, easy to follow material to these new entries in audio engineering is essential for developing a strong understanding for the application of fundamental concepts in future engineers’ careers. Approaches to creating and designing educational content requires translating complex engineering concepts through simplified mediums that reduce limitations in learning for future audio engineers.
ContributorsBurns, Triston Connor (Author) / Tobias, Evan (Thesis director) / Libman, Jeff (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
There has been a recent push for queer fiction, especially in the young adult genre, whose focus is gay and lesbian relationships. This growth is much needed in terms of visibility and the furthering of acceptance, but there are still subjects within the LGBTQ+ community that need to be addressed, including bisexual, asexual, and non-binary erasure. There are many people who claim that these identities do not exist, are labels used as a stepping stone on one's journey to discovering that they are homosexual, or are invented excuses for overtly promiscuous or prudish behavior. The existence of negative stereotypes, particularly those of non-binary individuals, is largely due to a lack of visibility and respectful representation within media and popular culture. However, there is still a dearth of non-binary content in popular literature outside of young adult fiction. Can You See Me? aims to fill the gap in bisexual, asexual, and non-binary representation in adult literature. Each of the four stories that make up this collection deals with an aspect of gender and/or sexuality that has been erased, ignored, or denied visibility in American popular culture. The first story, "We'll Grow Lemon Trees," examines bisexual erasure through the lens of sociolinguistics. A bisexual Romanian woman emigrates to Los Angeles in 1989 and must navigate a new culture, learn new languages, and try to move on from her past life under a dictatorship where speaking up could mean imprisonment or death. The second story "Up, Down, All Around," is about a young genderqueer child and their parents dealing with microaggressions, examining gender norms, and exploring personal identity through imaginary scenarios, each involving an encounter with an unknown entity and a colander. The third story, "Aces High," follows two asexual characters from the day they're born to when they are 28 years old, as they find themselves in pop culture. The two endure identity crises, gender discrimination, erasure, individual obsessions, and prejudice as they learn to accept themselves and embrace who they are. In the fourth and final story, "Mile Marker 72," a gay Mexican man must hide in plain sight as he deals with the death of his partner and coming out to his best friend, whose brother is his partner's murderer.
ContributorsOchser, Jordyn M. (Author) / Bell, Matt (Thesis director) / Free, Melissa (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Pandora is a play exploring our relationship with gendered technology through the lens of artificial intelligence. Can women be subjective under patriarchy? Do robots who look like women have subjectivity? Hoping to create a better version of ourselves, The Engineer must navigate the loss of her creation, and Pandora must navigate their new world. The original premiere run was March 27-28, 2018, original cast: Caitlin Andelora, Rikki Tremblay, and Michael Tristano Jr.
ContributorsToye, Abigail Elizabeth (Author) / Linde, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Abele, Kelsey (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
After freelancing on my own for the past year and a half, I have realized that one of the biggest obstacles to college entrepreneurs is a fear or apprehension to sales. As a computer science major trying to sell my services, I discovered very quickly that I had not been prepared for the difficulty of learning sales. Sales get a bad rap and very often is the last thing that young entrepreneurs want to try, but the reality is that sales is oxygen to a company and a required skill for an entrepreneur. Due to this, I compiled all of my knowledge into an e-book for young entrepreneurs starting out to learn how to open up a conversation with a prospect all the way to closing them on the phone. Instead of starting from scratch like I did, college entrepreneurs can learn the bare basics of selling their own services, even if they are terrified of sales and what it entails. In this e-book, there are tips that I have learned to deal with my anxiety about sales such as taking the pressure off of yourself and prioritizing listening more than pitching. Instead of trying to teach sales expecting people to be natural sales people, this e-book takes the approach of helping entrepreneurs that are terrified of sales and show them how they can cope with this fear and still close a client. In the future, I hope young entrepreneurs will have access to more resources that handle this fear and make it much easier for them to learn it by themselves. This e-book is the first step.
ContributorsMead, Kevin Tyler (Author) / Sebold, Brent (Thesis director) / Kruse, Gabriel (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
South Korea possesses the only culture to successfully create a transnationality and hybridity formula that is not replicable. So why Korea and why now? The goal of this thesis creative project is to demonstrate the marketing and communications strategies used in the arts and culture industry to drive global awareness and interest in K-Pop. In order to achieve that goal, I created HellotoHallyu.com, a website designed for an audience of Millennials and Generation Z English speakers to increase their awareness of the growth and impact of the Korean Wave in a fun and engaging way. So those who may hear a song by K-Pop idol group BTS on a music awards show in the U.S. can get themselves up-to-speed before diving into the fast-paced world of K-culture gossip sites and forums. Hello to Hallyu delivers consumer-friendly, educational content easily understood by English speakers with no prior knowledge of Korean culture, while still piquing the interest of K-pop connoisseurs. It provides the background necessary for even the most dedicated fans to glean new knowledge of Korea's cultural industry and a new perspective on the content they consume. Hello to Hallyu is based on a combination of secondary and primary research conducted over four semesters beginning Spring 2017 and continuing through Spring 2018. This project is set up as an ever-expanding resource freely available to anyone with internet access. The research required to maintain the site will continue with the Wave. However, the content currently on the site is evergreen, a documentation of the history of the Wave as explained in peer-reviewed articles and by Dr. Ingyu Oh as well as a documentation of my personal experience with Hallyu while in Korea and as a Westerner living in the U.S. The site's goal is to demonstrate the marketing and communications strategies used in the industry to drive global awareness and interest. Through this means, Hello to Hallyu aims to provide fully developed multimedia content intended to increase English speakers' awareness of the growth and impact of the Korean Wave as shown through site visits, content views, and audience engagement.
ContributorsTravis, Lisa Anne (Author) / Hass, Mark (Thesis director) / Shewell, Justin (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05