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DescriptionBuck-It is a budgeting application designed to meet the unique needs of college students. As financial literacy is crucial for developing good long-term financial habits, Buck-It aims to promote budgeting among college students through an appealing user interface, robust customization, and effective categorization.
ContributorsDoyle, Michael (Author) / Davitt, Ryan (Co-author) / Walle, Andrew (Co-author) / Vemuri, Rajeev (Co-author) / Baptista, Asher (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Lee, Peggy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Background: Currently, we do not know the direct cause of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A correlation between the gut microbiome and ASD may play a key role in normalizing ASD symptoms that plague many around the world. Furthermore, microbiota transfer therapy (MTT) may be the next step toward reducing GI symptoms in people impacted with ASD. The Medical Histories of ASD and NT (Neurotypical) adults may help find further information that could help find causes that contribute to the development of ASD.
Objective: To identify key questions in the Medical History Questionnaire and evaluate differences between the ASD and NT participants.
Results: There are 53 ASD participants and 43 NT participants with mean ages of 23.3 and 25.6 respectively. The mean birth weights of each group remain relatively similar (122.3 vs. 117). A greater number of NT participants were delivered vaginally than ASD participants (72.5% vs. 66%). More ASD participants were born before 40 weeks than NT participants (26.4% vs. 7.5%). NT participants, on average, were breastfed almost two times longer than ASD participants (11.2 months vs. 6.4). ASD participants required more time to be toilet trained for both urine and stool output (3.3 years vs. 2.4 years for urine and 4.3 years vs. 2.7 years for stool output). ASD participants have more food allergies with a higher severity and an equal likelihood of seasonal allergies but with a higher severity. ASD participants mainly reported a major regression at an average age of 19.6 months or an abnormal development from early infancy. Maternal and Paternal Histories are more severe in GI problems, ASD, Delayed Speech, Learning Disabilities, Asthma, Eczema, Seasonal and Food Allergies for ASD participants than NT participants. The most significant finding was the ASD participants’ average age of GI symptoms starting was 3.1 compared to 17.9 for NT participants.
Conclusions and Relevance: There are many factors that may contribute to the development of ASD in early childhood. Further research in a larger sample size may demonstrate more significant differences in ASD and NT populations.
ContributorsKazanchi, Alexander (Author) / Adams, James (Thesis director) / Kirby, Jasmine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Cortisol, the primary end product of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, has been
closely linked with health and health behaviors in daily life. Not only physical health, but also
familial stressors (i.e. perceived anxiety/stress, economic hardship, parenting styles) have been found to relate to cortisol levels. The present study investigated the complex relation between family level stress and cortisol levels longitudinally, and the extent to which physical activity plays a role in such relations. Specifically, I examined: 1) direct associations between physical activity (sedentary, moderate-to-vigorous activity) and diurnal cortisol slopes a year later, 2) whether physical activity levels mediated established links between family stress and diurnal cortisol slopes, and 3) whether family stress moderated associations between physical activity and diurnal cortisol slopes. Data were from the Arizona Twin Project, a racially and
socioeconomically diverse sample of twins in middle childhood in Arizona (N=710;
Mageatbaseline=8.44 years, SD=.69; 51.4% female; 58.5% non-Hispanic White, 23.7% Hispanic). Twins and their caregivers participated in a 7-day study (age 8) during which they wore an actigraphy watch to capture physical activity measurements. Primary caregivers also provided self-reports on stressors and mental health. Results revealed a non-significant main effect of physical activity on AM cortisol slopes, as well as non-significant interactions and main effects in the moderating pathways. Mediation analyses were not pursued due to lack of correlation between physical activity and family stress.
ContributorsBrunell, Maxwell (Author) / Doane, Leah (Thesis director) / Corbin, William (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
This paper investigates different factors influencing access to healthcare insurance in the
US. It discusses the role of insurance companies, regulations, competition, and federal policy
impacts. Drawing on research from journal articles, as well as comparisons to examples of
European healthcare, the study emphasizes differences in structure as well as financing.
Economic concepts like adverse selection and moral hazard are explained to describe challenges within the insurance market, along with strategies to mitigate them. By the end, the synthesis section proposes recommendations for improving the U.S. healthcare system, including enhancing affordability, strengthening insurance regulation, promoting preventive care, and expanding Medicaid coverage. Through this analysis, the paper discusses opportunities for
healthcare reform.
ContributorsHurmez, Sarah (Author) / Kostol, Andreas (Thesis director) / Wong, Kelvin (Committee member) / Kuminoff, Nicolai (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
The purpose of this research is to investigate a new drug that is currently facing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process to treat the symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This new drug is Microbiota Transfer Therapy (MTT) that targets the gut microbiome, which is the ecosystem of bacteria inhabiting our bodies gastrointestinal system. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurological and developmental condition that’s prevalence is increasing in the modern-day population, however, no treatments outside of interventions and therapies exist to treat the symptoms of this disorder. Within the past decade, researchers have begun to examine the role that the gastrointestinal system plays in the presence of Autism, in which many studies have shown that the disbalance of gut microbiomes could be linked to some of the behavioral symptoms of ASD. There is an ongoing Adult MTT study that has shown that replacing the participants gut microbiota with healthy donor microbiota, not only do their gastrointestinal symptoms improve, but so do their ASD symptoms. Preliminary results of this study have shown that this treatment is safe, with virtually no serious, lasting adverse effects, while also being effective. This study is in Phase 2 of the FDA approval process and holds promising evidence of a new treatment that would improve the lives of many.
ContributorsLaBrosse, Alexandra (Author) / Adams, James (Thesis director) / Kirby, Jasmine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Convergent Case Management (CCM) is a mandatory reentry program offered in Arizona state-run prison units. This study evaluates the success of this program through semi-structured interviews with correctional officers and incarcerated men and women at two Arizona prison units. These results are contextualized within the history of rehabilitative program evaluation from the "nothing works" paradigm of the 1970s through contemporary Good Lives Model and desistance thinking.
ContributorsBranaman, Benjamin (Author) / Wright, Kevin (Thesis director) / Young, Jacob (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
The Women’s Power and Influence Index uses publicly available information to rank companies based on their gender policies, with the thought that public rankings trigger the behavioral and policy changes that move us in the direction of gender equity and pay parity. This project employs survey analysis to take a closer look at four of the criteria the WPI uses to score companies - maternity leave, childcare, harassment and discrimination training, and professional development. Our work evaluates survey responses to determine optimal policies for each of the four criteria with the hope that in future iterations of the Index, these policies can be incorporated into the scoring methods as a standard against which respective company policies can be compared.
ContributorsBlessington, Katherine (Author) / Saraswat, Tushar (Co-author) / Zaffar, Ehsan (Thesis director) / Gel, Esma (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Building an ESG Metrics Database for US Law Firms: ESG Intelligence Group's Data Management Solution
Description
I built a database for ESG Intelligence (ESGi) Group, a consulting firm that advises law firms on implementing good environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices internally as well as how law firms can better serve their clients with respect to ESG. This paper explores my decision-making process for the design of the database and the challenges I ran into while creating and populating the database. I turned a list of things that ESGi Group wanted to track into an entity relationship diagram (ERD), which I eventually turned into a relational database in MySQL. I further defined the contents of the database by mapping the ERD into a relational model, normalizing the relational model, and creating an attribute domain table. I coded the database in SQL, collected data in an excel spreadsheet (downloaded from AMLAW 200 and NLJ 500 purchased data, manually searching individual firm websites, and scraping law.com in R), and then inserted the data into the database. I ran into issues with data completeness due to the lacking regulation of firm transparency about ESG reporting, but this project succeeded in proof of concept rather than implementation. I also discuss security and privacy considerations, and ESGi Group’s possible options for further development of this project in the future.
ContributorsSell, Lily (Author) / Sopha, Matthew (Thesis director) / Cone, Pamela (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
By assembling the countless work put in by past and current AAPASC community members, this guidebook aims to serve as a foundation for future AAPASC executive boards and organizations. The goal for this project is to be a living document, maintained and changed by future generations of AAPI student leadership to adapt to the needs and goals of their
university experience, but also to provide a connection to the learned experience of the
past.
ContributorsLiu, Sabrina (Author) / Kuo, Karen (Thesis director) / Yellow Horse, Aggie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2024-05