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Description
Since 800 CE— long before the creation of the National Park Service (NPS) in 1905 — the Havasupai Tribe has depended on the natural resources and diverse ecosystem of the Grand Canyon. A deeper examination of how the national park came to fruition however demonstrates an often negated and harrowing history of land theft, forced assimilation via reservation systems, and genocide. Political ecology is a way of considering how power dynamics, resource management, and society intersect. In the United States, this approach exposes the ways that anti-Indigenous legislation originating in the Department of the Interior has functioned both as a driver of ecosystem degradation and structural barricades to Native American self-determination. In order to achieve a just and sustainable future for all, it is necessary to dismantle hegemonic discourses regarding Indigenous communities.
ContributorsRuiz, Marissa (Author) / Jakubczak, Laura (Thesis director) / Ostling, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
In urban planning and design, creating emotional bonds, known as place identity, between people and their surroundings is paramount to improving the well-being of those who reside there. However, determining how to alter the built environment in order to increase place identity is a difficult task to achieve. Walkability is a good mechanistic link between the built environment and place identity. Walkability is comprised of a suite of factors that take into consideration both the natural and built environment. This thesis aims to determine if walkability is positively correlated with place identity in an extreme climate such as Phoenix. To test this, ecosystem services and disservices are used as factors to measure overall walkability. We found that access to recreational opportunities, aesthetic features of the pathway, and safety were all significant predictors of place identity. This has positive implications for walkable infrastructure to be strengthened in desert cities.
ContributorsSiefert, Janelle (Author) / Larson, Kelli (Thesis director) / Kelley, Jason (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) poses a significant global health concern with substantial health and economic consequences. Patients often face significant consequences after injury, notably persistent cognitive changes and an increased risk of developing neurodegenerative disease later in life. Apart from the immediate insult, the resulting inflammatory response can lead to neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, tissue death, and long-term neurodegeneration. Microglia and astrocytes play critical roles in these inflammatory processes, emphasizing the unmet need for targeted therapies. Vaccine formulations consisting of poly (a-ketoglutarate) (paKG) microparticles (MPs) encapsulating PFK15 (1-(4-pyridinyl)-3-(2-quinolinyl)-2-propen-1-one) and myelin proteolipid protein (PLP) were developed for prior studies and have demonstrated the production of antigen-specific adaptive T-cell responses in the brain, spleen, and lymph nodes of mice, suggesting that these formulations may be able to prevent neuronal inflammation in mice after TBI. The vaccine efficacy was further evaluated through the image analysis of immunohistochemically stained brain tissue sections from naive, saline, and paKG(PFK15+PLP) MPs or paKG(PFK15) MPs treated mice. Though microglia (Iba1), astrocytes (GFAP) and CD86 were visualized in this method, only Iba1 was found to be significantly reduced in the contralateral hemisphere for paKG(PFK15+PLP) MPs and paKG(PFK15) MPs groups when compared to naive (p=0.0373 and p=0.0186, respectively). However, the naive group also showed an unexpectedly high level of CD86 after thresholding (compared to the TBI groups), indicating flaws were present in the analysis pipeline. Challenges of the image analysis process included thresholding setting optimization, folded tissues, bubbles, and saturated punctate signal. These issues may have impacted data accuracy, underscoring the need for rigorous optimization of experimental techniques and imaging methodologies when evaluating the therapeutic potential of the vaccines in mitigating TBI-induced neuroinflammation. Thus, future analyses should consider microglial morphology and employ more accurate thresholding in FIJI/ImageJ to better measure cellular activation and the overall positive signal.
ContributorsSundem, Andrea (Author) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Thesis director) / Willingham, Crystal (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
A reliable method for real-time blood flow monitoring in vivo is critical for several medical applications, including monitoring cardiovascular diseases, evaluating interventional procedures and surgeries, and increasing the safety and efficacy of neuromodulation procedures. High-speed methods are particularly necessary for neural monitoring, due to the brain's
heightened sensitivity to hypoxic and ischemic conditions. High-speed CBF monitoring methods may also provide a useful biomarker for the development of a closed-loop deep brain stimulation (DBS) system. Current methods such as laser Doppler, bold fMRI, and positron emission tomography (PET) often involve cumbersome instrumentation and are therefore not well-
suited for chronic microvasculature monitoring. The purpose of this study is to develop a method for real-time measurement of blood flow changes using electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS). Utilizing EIS to measure CBF has the potential to be included in a chronic, closed-loop DBS system that is modulated by fluctuations in CBF, using minimal additional instrumentation. Five experiments in rodents were conducted, with the objective of 1) determining whether electrochemical impedance spectra showed impedance changes correlated with changes in blood flow, assessing the sensitivity, specificity, and limitations of detection of this method, and 2) determining whether cyclic voltammetry-based method could be used to produce EIS more rapidly than current methods. The experimental set-up included electrodes in the femoral artery with the administration of endothelin (ET-1) to induce blood flow changes (N=1), electrodes in the motor cortex using isoflurane variation to induce blood flow changes (N=3), and electrodes in the femoral artery with the administration of nitroglycerin (NTG) to induce blood flow changes (N=1). Preliminary results suggest that impedance changes in the higher frequencies (over 160 Hz) demonstrated higher sensitivity to blood flow changes in the femoral artery model compared to <100 Hz frequencies, with inconclusive results in the motor cortex model. Future in vivo experiments will be conducted using endothelin-1 to further establish the relationship between impedance and cerebral blood flow in the brain.
ContributorsJitendran, Elizabeth (Author) / Greger, Bradley (Thesis director) / Kodibagkar, Vikram (Committee member) / Muthuswamy, Jitendran (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms are revolutionizing the field of healthcare by offering new opportunities for improved diagnosis and treatment planning. These technologies have the potential to transform the way medical professionals approach patient care by analyzing vast amounts of data, identifying patterns, and making predictions. This overview highlights the current state of research and development in the field of AI and ML for diagnosis and treatment planning, as well as explore the ethical benefits and challenges associated with their implementation.
ContributorsShankar, Kruthy (Author) / Arquiza, Jose (Thesis director) / Sobrado, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2024-05
ContributorsShankar, Kruthy (Author) / Arquiza, Jose (Thesis director) / Sobrado, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2024-05
ContributorsShankar, Kruthy (Author) / Arquiza, Jose (Thesis director) / Sobrado, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
The creation of this study was driven by my belief in the importance of transforming and reimagining human-nature relationships for sustainable futures and my interest in understanding the implementation of nature-based learning in schools. Through observations of children in an outdoor education setting, I sought to answer the following research questions: “How do children that have engaged in nature-based learning view themselves in relation to nature?” and “What can be observed about children’s personal understandings of nature and their personal relationships with nature in their writing and drawings?” This study was implemented with participants in third grade outdoor education classes at a local charter school in South Phoenix using multiple participatory research methods. My findings add to an existing body of knowledge and research focused on understanding children’s relationships with nature and the impacts of nature-based learning. In the conclusion of this paper, I pose additional questions about conceptualizing children’s relationships with nature and exploring their nature connectedness through research, share reflections on my personal relationship with nature, and discuss how my observations support benefits of nature-based learning as argued by existing scholarship.
ContributorsSetka, Emma (Author) / Goebel, Janna (Thesis director) / Vanos, Jennifer (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has the potential to have devastating effects on ecosystems on both a local and global scale, making it one of the most environmentally threatening phenomena occurring today. In order to minimize deforestation in the Amazon and its consequences, it is helpful to analyze its occurrence using machine learning architectures such as the U-Net. The U-Net is a type of Fully Convolutional Network that has shown significant capability in performing semantic segmentation. It is built upon a symmetric series of downsampling and upsampling layers that propagate feature information into higher spatial resolutions, allowing for the precise identification of features on the pixel scale. Such an architecture is well-suited for identifying features in satellite imagery. In this thesis, we construct and train a U-Net to identify deforested areas in satellite imagery of the Amazon through semantic segmentation.
ContributorsGiel, Joshua (Author) / Douglas, Liam (Co-author) / Espanol, Malena (Thesis director) / Cochran, Douglas (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Marine fisheries are a globally significant source of economic and food security, however high bycatch rates can threaten marine biodiversity putting both ecosystems and fisheries at risk for degradation. Although bycatch reduction technologies exist that can reduce the uptake of bycatch without significantly impacting target catch, bycatch rates remain high. To understand the factors that affect fishers’ change readiness we reviewed 15 interview-based studies assessing fishers perspectives on bycatch and bycatch reduction strategies. In sum, the perspectives of 1,991 fishers were assessed in these studies across 10 different countries from 2006-2023. One key finding that arose was the potential importance of agency. This factor closely relates to change readiness and was identified as an essential component for effective bycatch reduction. Additionally, it was discovered that the kind of proposed strategy is important. Bycatch reduction methods that are equally effective in capturing target catch while reducing non-target catch and are accessible are more likely to have favorable responses from fishers. Agency and change readiness are interconnected and may be influenced by a variety of factors such as income, education, experience, and beliefs/values. Incentives and education/engagement programs may be useful in fostering fishers’ willingness for change and improving the efficacy of bycatch reduction strategies.
ContributorsHendrix, Gabrialla (Author) / Senko, Jesse (Thesis director) / Vargas, Cindy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2024-05