Matching Items (246)
Description
Memory as whole is impacted by changes associated with aging and menopause. Different memory types are often tested preclinically utilizing rats in different task paradigms. Most studies have focused on understanding social recognition or working memory, however these memory types have yet to be studied together. This thesis focuses on the process of creating and testing a new social recognition task that incorporates a working memory load. We tested different types of previously used social recognition paradigms with an increasing load and through qualitative and quantitative observations the task was modified until a final task was developed for a social working memory study. Young female rats were tested in this task in progressive, meaning a chronologically increasing load and nonprogressive, meaning non-chronological increase in load cognitions. It was found that young female rats had the ability to distinguish between the familiar and novel conspecifics before memory load exceeded four familiar and one novel conspecifics. Once validated through future studies, this task may be utilized to understand the impact of different types of menopause on social working memory.
ContributorsAsadifar, Sadaf (Author) / Bimonte-Nelson, Heather (Thesis director) / Corbin, William (Committee member) / Verpeut, Jessica (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Glioblastoma Multiforme is a prevalent and aggressive brain tumor. It has an average 5-year survival rate of 6% and average survival time of 14 months. Using patient-specific MRI data from the Barrow Neurological Institute, this thesis investigates the impact of parameter manipulation on reaction-diffusion models for predicting and simulating glioblastoma growth. The study aims to explore key factors influencing tumor morphology and to contribute to enhancing prediction techniques for treatment.
ContributorsShayegan, Tara (Author) / Kostelich, Eric (Thesis director) / Kuang, Yang (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Waggle Ballet explores the possibility of increasing access to ballet for blind audience members by using a combination of live music, accessible choreography, a sensory based workshop, and wearable sonification technology. Waggle Ballet is a classical ballet excerpt that addresses the limitations presented by audio descriptions. Where audio descriptions serve to describe exactly what can be seen on stage for audience members with blindness or vision impairments, Waggle Ballet uses other sensory elements to trigger the imagination and create a sound environment that is generated through ballet movements with the help of motion capturing sensors and thematic sound outputs. The piece was performed in front of a live audience of varying sight abilities with the live musical accompaniment of the bass clarinet. A mini workshop was given that incorporated storytelling and touch to help audience members become familiar with the environment created in the piece. With all the elements coming together, Waggle Ballet hopes to evoke a unique experience that draws from the aspects of ballet performance beyond purely visual aesthetics.
ContributorsFelder, Kiara (Author) / Cechanowicz, Laura (Thesis director) / Puruhito, Krista (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Healthy relationships are a key contributor toward life satisfaction. Thus, it is important to understand correlates of relationship functioning. Partners high in empathy have been found to experience higher levels of relationship satisfaction. However, it is unclear which facet of empathy matters more in determining satisfaction, an individual’s own empathy or their perception of their partner’s empathy. The present study surveyed both members of 54 heterosexual couples (Mage = 38.57, SD = 14.44) on relationship satisfaction and two measures of empathy: self-reported empathy and perceptions of one’s partner’s empathy. Bivariate correlation analyses showed that both higher self-reported empathy scores and higher perceived empathy scores from the female partner were associated with higher relationship satisfaction among men. In women, the same pattern occurred: higher self-reported empathy in women and higher perceived empathy from the male partner were associated with higher relationship satisfaction among women. Moreover, higher empathic discrepancies – defined as the absolute difference between an individual’s self-reported empathy and their partner’s rating of the individual’s empathy – were associated with lower levels of relationship satisfaction among partners. These results lend support for empathy-focused efforts in developing and maintaining satisfying relationships.
ContributorsHarris, Nathan (Author) / Hammett, Julia (Thesis director) / Davis, Kelly (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
The microorganisms that form the gut microbiome begin colonizing the gut at birth. The microorganisms will establish a symbiotic relationship with the host when in a state of eubiosis. However, when there is an imbalance or lack of diversity in the microorganisms present in the gut microbiome, it will shift to a state of dysbiosis, which increases the risk of inflammatory bowel and neurodegenerative diseases. There are known factors that affect the infant intestinal microbiome: mode of delivery, gestational age, and exposures, such as the use of antibiotics and feeding methods. Studies have shown that maternal lifestyle, particularly stress levels and diet, has an association with the infant microbiome diversity. However, there is limited literature that examines how postpartum maternal sleep influences the intestinal microbiome diversity in infants. We hypothesized that sleep efficiency below 85%, total sleep time and nocturnal sleep time below 7 hours, and later nocturnal sleep onset would be associated with decreased gut microbiome diversity within the sample and between samples. 27 Mother-infant pairings were used for this sub-analysis. Postpartum maternal sleep data was obtained via actigraphs and sleep diaries while infant intestinal microbiome data was obtained through fecal samples swabbed from soiled diapers. Actigraphs recorded time, movement, temperature, and light for five 24-hour periods, and sleep diaries were used to supplement the actigraphy and ease the scoring of sleep. DNA samples were extracted and sequenced using next-generation sequences, and QIIME2 was used to analyze these sequences. Alpha- and beta-diversity results following sequencing revealed good postpartum maternal sleep efficiency is associated with increased infant gut microbiome diversity within and between samples. There was a trend for nocturnal sleep onset being associated with beta-diversity measurements which were driven by phylogenetic differences and abundance of bacteria. Nocturnal total sleep time and 24-hour total sleep time were not associated with alpha- and beta-diversity. Our findings as well as the scarcity of the literature illustrate the need for further investigations on the mechanics of maternal sleep efficiency association with infant gut microbiome. Future research is needed to further evaluate the trending nocturnal sleep onset influences on the infant gut microbiome beta-diversity with a larger and more diverse sample.
ContributorsMacias, Janet (Author) / Petrov, Megan (Thesis director) / Whisner, Corrie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
In this paper, we conduct a review of the existing literature on maternal care trade-offs. From our research, we found that allomaternal care arose as the main strategy used by mothers to combat these trade-offs. In industrialized societies, the increased prevalence of women in the work force has given rise to systemic maternal support in the form of maternity leave. We used the 2022 American Time Use Survey Data to simulate the effects of such policies, as well as marital status on women’s time allocation. We created dependent variables to measure the agents’ career advancement, wellbeing, and child wellbeing. Across all of our models, those who had an unmarried partner had better career advancement and child wellbeing, whereas those who were single had the highest maternal wellbeing. We used an agent-based model and ultimately concluded that, over the span of 10 years, 12 weeks of paid maternity leave was not enough to impact the agents’ long-term time allocation behavior.
ContributorsSantos, Mia (Author) / Magdalena Hurtado, Ana (Thesis director) / Trinh, Mai (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor)
Created2024-05
ContributorsMedina Rios, Kimberly (Author) / Ruiz Xicale, Wendy (Co-author) / Elizalde, Manuel (Co-author) / Reed, Lauren (Thesis director) / Mullady, Allison (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
This paper analyzes the factors that contribute to suicide using current literature, statistics, and research towards what affects suicidal tendencies. It was found that there are 5 main factors that contribute towards these tendencies: economics, social factors, geography, politics, and biology. Additionally, some of these factors included subcategories of factors and/or were connected to the other factors mentioned. It was concluded that there is not just one factor that may contribute to someone taking their own life, however a combination of different factors that may influence suicidal tendencies.
ContributorsGeorge, Rhys (Author) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Thesis director) / Hurtado, Ana (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
It happened in 1824. Again, it happened in 1876. And 1888. And then again in 2000. Most recently, in 2016. Five times the president has been elected through the Electoral College without attaining the popular vote. Is this a feature, bug, or necessary evil of the electoral system? While the support for the national popular vote movement has grown significantly in the past decade, there are many fervent opponents. Many of the adversaries to a popular vote system argue that under a national popular vote system, candidates would visit only the most densely populated areas in the country and then simply work to get all votes possible, gaining enough support to win the election without gaining much support from the rest of the country. To analyze these key arguments, this paper tests two hypotheses, the first of which is that under a popular vote system, densely populated areas are given more attention from presidential candidates than would be proportionately expected based on population. The second hypothesis is that candidates will spend more money on advertising per person in larger cities than in smaller cities. This paper will outline research from both a social media analysis and from a statistical analysis of specific state Senate elections and their media markets before concluding by refuting the two hypotheses and suggesting that a national popular vote system would not cause vast populations of Americans to be ignored any more than they currently are.
ContributorsJackman, Julia Mcallister (Author) / German, Zachary (Thesis director) / Bowie, Sean (Committee member) / School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
In recent months, the current administration has proposed a series of recent federal policy changes, namely the Public Charge Rule, intended to limit immigrants into the U.S. on the basis of financial grounds. In essence, the Public Charge Rule redefines the term “public charge”. Under this policy, most applicants for permanent residency who use any number of public benefits—including Medicaid, government housing, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—count toward being flagged as a public charge, or an individual likely to become dependent on the government for subsistence; this will count against them in residency status applications. Even in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling and early implementation of the policy, the Public Charge Rule has shown increasing disenrollment from public benefits along with a growing climate of fear, mistrust, and misinformation in relation to connecting with the healthcare system. This policy particularly threatens low-income children, the majority of which are U.S.-born legal citizens, who are incredibly vulnerable to poor health outcomes without longitudinal, preventive health services. Recent studies show that two million children legally eligible for Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) could be disenrolled from the program due to this climate of uncertainty. This policy brief investigates the role of health systems and providers in bracing for the expected impacts and develops a set of policy recommendations that providers and health administrators may use as a tool for protecting patient health and ensuring patient-centered care. To achieve this, a literature review was performed with a compilation of current population health trends and a historical case study. This compilation of data was analyzed to better understand the current political, social, and economic landscape in the United States. From this, three potential policy recommendations were outlined for health providers. Based on current research and the analysis conducted, community engagement and policy advocacy was identified as the most effective policy option for health providers to best provide patient-centered care. However, a more holistic solution should be considered for states that serve populations that are deemed high-need, namely Arizona. Education within clinic walls for providers and patients will bridge the misinformation gap and build shared understanding between provider and patient. Beyond clinic walls, community engagement and policy advocacy mends community mistrust of health systems. Further pilot investigation is warranted at high-utilization medical centers.
ContributorsPatel, Nina (Author) / Reddy, Swapna (Thesis director) / Wilson, Natalia (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05