Matching Items (91)
Description
Solomon A. Berson helped develop the radioimmunoassay (RIA) technique in the US during the twentieth century. Berson made many scientific contributions while working with research partner Rosalyn Yalow at the Bronx Veterans Administration (VA) hospital, in New York City, New York. In the more than twenty years that Berson and Yalow collaborated, they refined the procedures for tracing diagnostic biological compounds using isotope labels. In the late 1950s they developed the RIA based on the ability to trace the competition between and ligands, or small molecules that bind to specific sites of other biomolecules, and proteins for the same molecular binding site, a process called competitive binding. Scientists widely used Berson and Yalow's RIA, as these methods permit the use of a minimal sample of blood for accurate measurements of biological molecules such as hormones that cause the production of antibodies. Berson and Yalow's research has advanced the study of physiology, including that of the reproductive system, with particular applications to the diagnosis and treatment of infertility.
ContributorsCraer, Jennifer R. (Author) / Moeller, Karla T. (Editor) / Arizona State University. School of Life Sciences. Center for Biology and Society. Embryo Project Encyclopedia. (Publisher) / Arizona Board of Regents (Publisher)
Created2013-11-01
Description
Latino youth are disproportionately impacted by obesity, prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Pediatric obesity is characterized by abnormal increases in pro-inflammatory markers, including interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and reductions in anti-inflammatory markers, high molecular weight adiponectin (HMW Adpn) and interleukin-10 (IL-10). Interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) is an anti-inflammatory that is positively associated with obesity. IL-6, TNF-α, MCP-1 and IL-1ra have been associated with reduced insulin sensitivity and β-cell dysfunction, two central pathophysiologic mediators of glucose intolerance, while HMW Adpn and IL-10 have been associated with increased insulin sensitivity and β-cell function. The United States Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) supported lifestyle intervention as the cornerstone approach for preventing T2D among adults with prediabetes, yet no studies to date have assessed the efficacy of an adapted DPP among Latino youth with prediabetes. In this dissertation, three studies were conducted. The first cross-sectional study among Latino youth with prediabetes and obesity (n=65) demonstrated that MCP-1 (β=-0.001, p=0.027; β=0.03, p=0.033), HMW Adpn (β=0.2, p<0.001; β=-2.2, p=0.018), and IL-1ra (β=-0.03, p=0.006; β=0.09, p=0.009) significantly predicted insulin sensitivity (measured by whole body insulin sensitivity index, WBISI) and glucose tolerance (measured by 2-hr glucose concentrations from an oral glucose tolerance test), respectively. Only HMW Adpn significantly predicted β-cell function, measured by oral disposition index, or oDI (β=0.6, p<0.001). The second study was a randomized control trial that demonstrated the efficacy of lifestyle intervention (INT, n=79) for improving oDI among Latino youth with prediabetes and obesity, compared to a usual care control (UCC, n=38) group. No differences were found for changes in WBISI (Δ0.1, p=0.899) or 2-hr glucose (Δ-7.2, p=0.260) between groups. The third study was a secondary analysis (INT n=46, UCC n=29) that demonstrated no significant effects on IL-6, TNF-α, MCP-1, HMW Adpn, IL-10, or IL-1ra (all interactions, p>0.05).
ContributorsPena, Armando (Author) / Shaibi, Gabriel Q. (Thesis advisor) / Vega-Lopez, Sonia (Committee member) / Sears, Dorothy D (Committee member) / Ayers, Stephanie L (Committee member) / Olson, Micah L (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The alarming decline of insect pollinators is due in part to agrochemical exposure and climate warming. This thesis focuses on understanding how exposure to a commonly used fungicide and high air temperature affect the flight behavior and physiology of the very important commercial pollinator, Apis mellifera. I found that honey bees reared on pollen contaminated with field-realistic levels of a fungicide (Pristine®) commonly applied to almond blossoms before pollination had smaller thoraxes, possibly due to inhibition of protein digestion, plausibly reducing flight capability. By flying unloaded bees in low density air to elicit maximal performance, I found that consumption of high doses of fungicide during development inhibited maximal flight performance, but consumption of field-realistic doses did not.
To understand climatic-warming effects on honey bees, I flew unloaded foragers at various air densities and temperatures to assess the effects of flight muscle temperature (29 to 44°C) on maximal aerobic metabolism. Flight metabolic rate peaked at a muscle temperature of 39°C and decreased by ~2% per degree below and ~5% per degree above this optimum. Carrying nectar loads increased flight muscle temperatures and flight metabolism of foragers flying at air temperatures of 20 or 30°C. Yet, remarkably, bees flying at 40°C were able to carry loads without heating up or increasing metabolic rate. Bees flying at 40°C increased evaporative cooling and decreased metabolic heat production to thermoregulate. High speed video revealed that bees flying at 40°C air temperature lowered their wing beat frequency while increasing stroke amplitude, increasing flight efficiency. My data also suggests that cooler bees use wing kinematic strategies that increase flight stability and maneuverability while generating excess heat that warms their flight muscle toward optimum. High water loss rates during flight likely limit foraging in dry air temperatures above 46°C, suggesting that CTmax measures of resting honey bees significantly overestimate when high air temperature will negatively impact flight and foraging.
ContributorsGlass, Jordan Robert (Author) / Harrison, Jon F. (Thesis advisor) / Denardo, Dale F. (Committee member) / Dudley, Robert (Committee member) / Fewell, Jennifer H. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Environmental variation impacts physiological performance in animals. As a result, many animals thermoregulate to buffer unfavorable thermal variation in their environments. Animals are only expected to thermoregulate when the benefits outweigh the costs, although both are difficult to quantify. I examined how habitats and organismal factors shape thermoregulation and physiological performance in lizards. I found that habitat structure shapes opportunities for thermoregulation in two species of Anolis lizards. In dense tropical rainforests where there is low habitat heterogeneity, the range of available microclimates is narrow. Consequently, lizards in the tropics tend to be thermal specialists – performing best over a narrow range of temperatures. This phenotype should lead to decreased performance under climate warming. I then investigated the relationship between body condition, feeding, and thermoregulation in Yarrow’s spiny lizards (Sceloporus jarrovii) using lab- and field-based experiments. In the lab experiment, when lizards were observed in an artificial thermal gradient, neither body condition nor feeding status influenced the mean body temperature. When simulated costs of thermoregulation were higher, all lizards reduced thermoregulation similarly. However, when lizards were observed in an outdoor thermal arena, individuals with lower body condition decreased thermoregulatory performance, resulting in a lower mean body temperature. Animals with poor body condition may face greater risk of predation when thermoregulating. Finally, I conducted a comparative analysis to quantify relationships between the potential for thermoregulatory performance and empirical measures of productivity (i.e., growth rates and reproductive output) in lizard populations. A model that assumes lizards are active whenever preferred temperatures were available overestimated the duration that a lizard could maintain a preferred body temperature. As such, studies equating predicted thermoregulatory performance with fitness in the context of climate change should be interpreted cautiously. Overall, environmental factors and organismal traits shape the thermoregulatory behavior of animals, ultimately affecting their physiological performance and fitness. Biologists should consider these relationships when modeling the impacts of climate change on future performance.
ContributorsNeel, Lauren (Author) / Angilletta, Michael J (Thesis advisor) / Bateman, Heather L (Committee member) / DeNardo, Dale F (Committee member) / Sears, Michael W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Urban search and rescue (USAR) teams may use Artificial Social Intelligence (ASI) agents to aid teams in adapting to dynamic environments, minimize risk, and increase mission assurance and task performance. This thesis underlines the relationship between vocal pitch, stress, and team performance from a recent experiment conducted in a simulated USAR synthetic task environment (STE). The simulated USAR-STE is a platform to use ASI as an advisor to intervene in the human team members’ cognitive processes, which aims to reduce risk to task execution and to maintain team performance. Three heterogeneous and interdependent roles interact via voice communication to search and rescue the victims: (1) medic -rescues victims and identifies the severity of injuries; (2) transporter -moves victims to their designated zone based on injury severity; (3) engineer -removes hazardous material such as rubble from a room or hallway that is blocking passage. Different speeds are associated with each role, such as medic, transporter, and engineer. Medic has a default speed; the transporter has times two over the default speed; the engineer has the slowest speed. In a total of 45 teams, three ASI conditions, manipulated based on ASI intervention communication length and frequency, were analyzed. Each team participated in two 15-min missions. The results indicate a U-shaped relationship between the transporter’s pitch and a change in team performance. A possible explanation for this significance is the task and role design. The transporter may have the most central role in voice communication because when the transporter is under varying levels of workload and stress, and thus voice pitch has a complex relationship with performance for that role.
ContributorsCLARK, JESKA (Author) / Cooke, Nancy J (Thesis advisor) / Gutzwiller, Robert (Committee member) / Gray, Rob (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This thesis is an exploration into somatic movement methods to help ease chronic pain. The study follows my personal experience as a researcher and a dancer with fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions. I carry forward a body-centered autoethnographic frame, as the prevailing ethos of this work revolves around considering bodily experience as an authority in personal well-being. My research follows the spirit of the Intuitive Inquiry research methodology developed by Dr. Rosemarie Anderson and evolved as I progressed through my own research and organizing processes. This thesis document is organized according to eight physical cycles of intuitive inquiry that emerged from my movement and research processes. The cycles address my conditions of chronic pain and disability, my history with dance competition in the United States, my experience with conceptualizations of the body, and the successes I experience with somatic practices, particularly Tensegrity as it applies to the body. My intuitive physical cycles conclude with a proposal for methods of movement and inner-body communication that promote ease in the body and sustainable movement.
ContributorsSmith, Holly (Author) / Roses-Thema, Cynthia (Thesis advisor) / Olarte, David (Committee member) / Anand, Julie (Committee member) / Tang, Yi-Yuan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Background: Understanding an athlete’s workload is one way to determine the likelihood of receiving a sports injury. Workload variables are categorized as either internal load (IL) such as heart rate, or external load (EL) which include speed, distance or volume. Objective: This study investigated the correlation between IL and EL measured by micro-technology in female college soccer players. In addition, the utility of IL and EL to predict risk of soft tissue injury on lower limbs was examined. Method: 23 NCAA Division One women soccer players 19.2 ± 1.2 years old, 168.2 ± 7.3 cm, and 141.0 ± 17.9 kg were recruited. Only field players with no prior lower limb injuries were included. IL measurements collected were ratings of perceived exertion (S-RPE), average heart rate (Avg-HR), training impulse (TRIMP i.e., HR x time) and estimated maximum heart rate (Max HR). Total distance (TD), average speed (Avg-Spd), high speed running distance (HSR), estimated maximum speed (Max speed) and intensity volume index (VI index) were identified as EL. The workload data were categorized as being either acute or chronic. Acute was defined as the measured average workload the seven days immediately prior to the injury, while chronic workload meant the average workload 21 days before the athletes were hurt. Spearman correlation was used to examine the relationships between IL and EL and one-way ANOVA and Kruskal Wallis tests were conducted to investigate the mean differences between injury groups. Results: There were significant positive correlations between S-RPE and TD (r = .82, p < .001), TRIMP and TD (r =.75, p < .001), Avg-HR and Avg-Spd (r = .80, p < .001), and H-HR zone and HSR (r = .60, p < .001). The results indicated that the acute Avg-HR, the A/C ratio of Avg-Spd and VI index were significantly (p = .001) higher in the injured compared to the non-injured group. Conclusion: The study indicated that internal and external load were significantly correlated in this group of female soccer players. Also, acute Avg-HR and A/C of speed and volume index may predict the risk of soft-tissue injury in female athletes.
ContributorsIshida, Ai (Author) / Swan, Pamela (Thesis advisor) / Beaumont, Joshua (Committee member) / Vezina, Jesse (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Background: Down syndrome is the leading genetic cause of intellectual disabilities. Executive function is an area that people with Down syndrome have a diminished capacity compared to those in the general population. In recent years it has been determined that acute and chronic exercise has a small but positive effect on measures of executive function in typically developed individuals. The effect has been recorded separately in both aerobic, high-rate passive and resistance exercises in adolescents with DS but has not been compared between exercise types in adults with DS. Methods: A randomized crossover study was utilized to determine the effect of resistance exercise, assisted cycling therapy, and no exercise on executive function and enjoyment in adults with Down syndrome. Resistance Training (RT)- participants completed a total of 16- repetitions of approximately 75% of a 1-RM in the leg press, chest press, seated row, and latissimus pulldown. ACT- participants completed 30-minutes of cycling at 35% above voluntary (e.g., self-selected pace) rate. No-Training (NT)- participants spent 35-minutes playing board games. Cognitive assessments were recorded pre- and post- intervention. The Physical Activity Enjoyment Survey was collected post-intervention. Statistics: The cognitive measures and Physical Activity Self-efficacy scale were analyzed using the delta scores (pre-post) in a Linear mixed models analyais. The main effect of sequence (A, B, C) and intervention (RT, ACT, NT), and visit were assessed. Significance level was set with α=0.05. If any differences were detected, the Bonferroni post-hoc test was used to determine differences. Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale post scores were compared using a General Linear Model. Alpha was set at 0.05 with a Bonferroni post-hoc test to determine differences. A secondary analysis was conducted investigating the effect of participants that completed testing individually compared to those that completed the testing in a group setting. Results: There were no significant difference in the delta score of any of the measures. The secondary analysis also found no significant difference but showed a trend that those tested individually had opposite results than those tested in a group.
ContributorsArnold, Nathaniel (Author) / Ringenbach, Shannon (Thesis advisor) / Lee, Chong (Committee member) / Der Ananian, Cheryl (Committee member) / Holzapfel, Simon (Committee member) / Bosch, Pamela (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Deserts are natural laboratories in which to study the acute effects of extreme heat and aridity on animal physiology, as well as the physiological adaptations that these animals develop to survive. For small, endothermic fliers in the desert, heat balance and water balance are challenging due to high surface area to volume ratios and the additional heat load imposed as a result of endothermy. Much of the previous fifty years of thermo- and hydroregulation research has focused on larger, charismatic megafauna; extremophiles; or only part of the heat or water balance story. Here, I calculate the first heat budget for an important desert bee, Centris caesalpiniae. As is common in many mammals, avians, and other flying insects, I find that C. caesalpiniae males use an appendage – in this case the abdomen – as a convective radiator to dispel excess heat produced by the thoracic flight muscles at high air temperatures. The few heat budgets measured for flying endotherms are conducted in the shade so as to eliminate the effects of solar radiation. To further refine the accuracy of my heat budget model, I consider how heat gain from solar radiation affects the thermal balance of flying desert endotherms. To this effect, I find that solar radiation contributes 43 to 54% of the total heat gain of a desert Centris pallida bee. I additionally show that large morph male, small morph male, and female C. pallida, use different thermoregulatory tactics while flying in shaded versus sunny conditions; large males and females rely on the abdominal convector in the sun while small morph males increase convective conductance in the sun, but do not use an abdominal convector. Given that evaporative cooling was not a significant part of the heat budget for neither C. caesalpiniae nor C. pallida, I investigated the effects of water loss rates and critical thermal maxima during flight on duration of activity period. I found that male C. caesalpiniae limited their activity period due to high water loss rates rather than overheating, and that Centris critical water contents ranged from 48 to 54%, limiting flight activity to about 3 hours.
ContributorsJohnson, Meredith Grace (Author) / Harrison, Jon F. (Thesis advisor) / Buchmann, Stephen (Committee member) / DeNardo, Dale (Committee member) / Dillon, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Cardiovascular disease has long been one of the leading causes of morbidity in the world and places a large burden on the health care system. Exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and the risk factors associated with it. Much of the focus of research has been on aerobic exercise modalities and their effect on these risk factors, and less is known in regard to the effect of resistance training. One novel risk factor for cardiovascular disease is arterial stiffness, specifically aortic stiffness. Aortic stiffness can be measured by carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) and central pressure characteristics such as central blood pressures and augmentation index. The objective of this study was to assess the effect that two different 12-week long resistance training interventions would have on these measurements in sedentary, overweight and obese men and women (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2). Twenty-one subjects completed the study and were randomized into one of the following groups: control, a low repetition/high load (LRHL) group which performed 3 sets of 5 repetitions for all exercises, and a high repetition/low load (HRLL) group which performed 3 sets of 15 repetitions for all exercises. Those in the resistance training groups performed full-body exercise routines on 3 nonconsecutive days of the week. Changes in arterial stiffness, central blood pressures, and brachial blood pressures were measured before and after the 12-week intervention period. PWV showed significant group by time interaction (p= 0.024) but upon post hoc testing no significant differences were observed due to the control group confounding (control: 7.6 ± 0.8 vs. 7.1 ± 0.8, LRHL: 6.7 ± 0.5 vs. 6.9 ± 0.5, HRLL: 7.03 ± 0.67 vs. 6.59). No other significant interactions or differences were observed for any of the variables tested. Based on the results of this study a 12-week long resistance intervention training, neither high nor moderate-intensity resistance training, resulted in improvements in indices of vascular stiffness or central and peripheral blood pressures.
ContributorsWeeldreyer, Nathan (Author) / Angadi, Siddhartha (Thesis advisor) / Gaesser, Glenn (Committee member) / Lee, Chong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020