Matching Items (14)
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- All Subjects: history
- Creators: Maienschein, Jane
Description
Once perceived as an unimportant occurrence in living organisms, cell degeneration was reconfigured as an important biological phenomenon in development, aging, health, and diseases in the twentieth century. This dissertation tells a twentieth-century history of scientific investigations on cell degeneration, including cell death and aging. By describing four central developments in cell degeneration research with the four major chapters, I trace the emergence of the degenerating cell as a scientific object, describe the generations of a variety of concepts, interpretations and usages associated with cell death and aging, and analyze the transforming influences of the rising cell degeneration research. Particularly, the four chapters show how the changing scientific practices about cellular life in embryology, cell culture, aging research, and molecular biology of Caenorhabditis elegans shaped the interpretations about cell degeneration in the twentieth-century as life-shaping, limit-setting, complex, yet regulated. These events created and consolidated important concepts in life sciences such as programmed cell death, the Hayflick limit, apoptosis, and death genes. These cases also transformed the material and epistemic practices about the end of cellular life subsequently and led to the formations of new research communities. The four cases together show the ways cell degeneration became a shared subject between molecular cell biology, developmental biology, gerontology, oncology, and pathology of degenerative diseases. These practices and perspectives created a special kind of interconnectivity between different fields and led to a level of interdisciplinarity within cell degeneration research by the early 1990s.
ContributorsJiang, Lijing (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Laubichler, Manfred (Thesis advisor) / Hurlbut, James (Committee member) / Creath, Richard (Committee member) / White, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Planned Parenthood, one of the United States' largest providers of reproductive health services, has campaigned for decades to secure women's reproductive rights in the political sphere. However, few scholars have written on the social and political history that preceded the general religious and Republican hostility toward the organization in the twenty-first century. Through Planned Parenthood's growth in the mid-twentieth century, both political parties and many religious organizations pushed for family planning and access to contraception as solutions to population growth and poverty. Arizona was used as a case study to examine the broader context of the shift in the ideas of political parties and religious organizations surrounding the reproductive rights movement from the start of the twentieth century until the 1980s. The historical trajectory of the shifting religious and political support for Planned Parenthood Arizona was demonstrated using both a literature review and archival research. Throughout the early 1900s, Republicans advocated for limited governmental intrusion into citizens' lives, which extended to women's reproduction, where contraception was seen as a private decision between a woman and her doctor. That changed in the late twentieth century when religious concerns exacerbated the political discussion following the legalization of abortion in 1973 and the appointment of Ronald Regan in 1981, one of the first outspoken pro-life presidents. Planned Parenthood faced increasing criticism from religious organizations and the Republican Party. The social and political history surrounding Planned Parenthood Arizona illustrates the interplay between politics and the reproductive rights movement throughout the twentieth century. The contextualization of major historical events during the development of Planned Parenthood Arizona gives insight into the current political and religious beliefs regarding the reproductive rights movement.
ContributorsNunez-Eddy, Claudia Margarita (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis director) / O'Neil, Erica (Committee member) / Abboud, Alexis (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The Dynamic Landscape of Abortion Law in the United States explores the ways abortion laws have changed in the United States over the course of US history. Abortion laws in the US have historically been fluid, changing in ways both big and small. Those changes can occur after advances in science, changes in understanding, or changes in public opinion. And there have been various periods in the history of the US where tolerance abortion waxed or waned, and common law reflected those attitudes. Roe v. Wade was a pivotal moment in the history of abortion law that accomplished much in the way of broadening women's access to abortions. But Roe v. Wade was not the beginning or the end of the fight for abortion rights in the US. There were legal abortions prior to Roe v. Wade and illegal abortions after. Roe v. Wade granted that women had a constitutional right to have an abortion but the ruling left the boundaries of that right somewhat undefined and most courtroom battles over abortion laws are fought over where a woman's right to an abortion ends and a States right to regulate and protect fetal life begin. Much change has occurred in abortion laws over the past 50 years, this thesis tracks those changes principally through Supreme Court Cases, such as United States v. Milan Vuitch, Roe v. Wade, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood among others. The landscape of abortion law in the US continues to shift today, as recently as 2017 with Plowman v. FMCH cases were being heard in courts that wrought subtle yet important changes in abortion law.
ContributorsHigginbotham, Victoria Ashliegh (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis director) / Abboud, Alexis (Committee member) / Abboud, Carolina (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In the late nineteenth century, the Comstock Act of 1873 made the distribution of contraception illegal and classified contraception as an obscenity. Reflecting the predominant attitude towards contraception at the time, the Comstock Act was the first federal anti-obscenity law that targeted contraception. However, social acceptance of birth control changed at the turn of the twentieth century. In this thesis, I analyzed legislation, advocates, and literature pertinent to that social change to report on the events leading up to the decriminalization of contraception. Because of the complexity of social history, I used legislation and court cases to track pivotal movements that reflected a change in the accessibility and acceptability of birth control. I focused on the efforts of two prominent birth control advocates, Margaret Sanger and Mary Dennett, and analyzed the impact of their efforts in that social movement. I learned that they incited court cases that questioned the validity of the Comstock Act and helped influence societal acceptance of birth control. Through my research, I discovered that the medicalization of contraception influenced its decriminalization and acceptance by society.
ContributorsMalladi, Lakshmeeramya (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis director) / O'Neil, Erica (Committee member) / Abboud, Alexis (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Jane Marion Oppenheimer, embryologist and historian of science and medicine, was born on 19 September 1911 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Sylvia Stern and James H. Oppenheimer. After studying zoology at Bryn Mawr College, Oppenheimer received her AB degree in 1932. Oppenheimer received her PhD in embryology at Yale University in 1935 and worked as a research fellow from 1935-1936. While at Yale she was influenced by the work of Ross Granville Harrison and John Spangler Nicholas, the latter of whom was Oppenheimer's PhD advisor. While working with Nicholas, she studied the embryology of killifish (Fundulus hereoclitus) using Nicholas s method for dechorionating the embryo, which made it possible to perform precise experimental manipulations on teleost embryos. Oppenheimer became interested in teleosts after studying the history of biology as a graduate student and published a part of her dissertation, "Historical Introduction to the Study of Teleostean Development," in the History of Science Society journal Osiris. From 1934-1937 she published numerous noteworthy papers discussing Fundulus embryology. Oppenheimer performed fate mapping experiments and developed a staging series for Fundulus embryos. When the United States and the USSR developed Apollo-Soyuz as a joint space venture, Oppenheimer used Fundulus embryos to design an experiment that tested the effects of a zero-gravity environment on embryonic development.
ContributorsBuettner, Kimberly A. (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Editor) / Arizona State University. School of Life Sciences. Center for Biology and Society. Embryo Project Encyclopedia. (Publisher) / Arizona Board of Regents (Publisher)
Created2007-11-01
Description
How is knowledge created at the intersections between basic science, biotechnology, and industry? Gene drives are an interesting example, as they combine a long-standing interest with a recent technological breakthrough and a new set of commercial applications. Gene drives are genes engineered such that they are preferentially inherited at a frequency greater than the typical Mendelian fifty percent ratio. During the historical and conceptual evolution of gene drives beginning in the 1960s, there have been many innovations and publications. Along with that, gene drive science developed considerable public attention, explosion of new scientists, and variation in the way the topic is discussed. It is now time to look at this new organization of science using a systematic approach to characterize the system that has enabled knowledge to grow in this scientific field. This project breaks new ground in how knowledge advances in genetic engineering science, and how scientists understand what a “gene drive” is through analysis of language, communities, and other social factors. In effect, this research will advance multiple fields and enable a deeper understanding of knowledge and complexity. This project documents patterns of publication, collaborative relationships, linguistic variation, innovation, and knowledge expansion. The results of computational analysis provide an in-depth and complete characterization of the structure, dynamics, and evolution of scientific knowledge found in the gene drive technology. Further, time series analysis of the multiple layers of discourse enabled a diachronic connective mapping of collaborative relationships and tracked linguistic variation and change, highlighting where ambiguous language may appear, improving and creating more cohesive scientific language.
Overall, depicting the structure, dynamics, and evolution of scientific knowledge during a novel eruption of scientific complexity can shed light on the factors that can lead to: (1) improved scientific communication, (2) reduction of scientific progress, (3) new knowledge, and (4) novel collaborative relationships. Therefore, characterizing the current technological, methodological, and social contexts that can influence scientific knowledge.
ContributorsOToole, Cody Lane (Author) / Laubichler, Manfred (Thesis advisor) / Collins, James P (Committee member) / Simeone, Michael (Committee member) / Evans, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Scientific researchers have studied microorganisms since the emergence of the single lens microscope in the 17th century. Since then, researchers designed and published many thousands of images to record and share their observations, including hand-drawn diagrams, photomicrographs, and photographs. Images shaped how researchers conceived of microorganisms, their concepts of microorganisms shaped their images, and their images and concepts were shaped by the contexts in which they were working. Over time, the interplay of images and concepts in various research contexts participated in the development of new concepts related to microorganisms, like the “biofilm” concept, or the idea that bacteria exist in nature as complex aggregates attached to surfaces via extracellular polymeric matrices. Many histories of microbiology locate the origin of the biofilm concept in the 1970s, but that date obscures the rich history of research about attached microbial aggregates that occurred throughout the history of microbiology. I discovered how the interplay of images and concepts related to bacteria participated in the development of the biofilm concept by documenting when and why researchers used different visual features to represent changing concepts related to microorganisms. I specifically examined how and why scientists represented evolving concepts related to bacteria during the 17th century (Chapter 1), from the late 17th century to the early 20th century (Chapter 2), and during the first seventy-four years of the 20th century (Chapter 3). I discovered the biofilm concept developed in at least three unique research contexts during the 20th century, and how images reflected and shaped the concept’s development in each case. The narrative and collection of images generated from this work serve as a visual history of the development of scientists’ ideas about the nature of bacteria over 300 years.
ContributorsGuerrero, Anna Clemencia (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Laubichler, Manfred (Committee member) / Sterner, Beckett (Committee member) / Matlin, Karl (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This dissertation focuses on creating a pluralistic approach to understanding and measuring interdisciplinarity at various scales to further the study of the evolution of knowledge and innovation. Interdisciplinarity is considered an important research component and is closely linked to higher rates of innovation. If the goal is to create more innovative research, we must understand how interdisciplinarity operates.
I begin by examining interdisciplinarity with a small scope, the research university. This study uses metadata to create co-authorship networks and examine how a change in university policies to increase interdisciplinarity can be successful. The New American University Initiative (NAUI) at Arizona State University (ASU) set forth the goal of making ASU a world hub for interdisciplinary research. This kind of interdisciplinarity is produced from a deliberate, engineered, reorganization of the individuals within the university and the knowledge they contain. By using a set of social network analysis measurements, I created an algorithm to measure the changes to the co-authorship networks that resulted from increased university support for interdisciplinary research.
The second case study increases the scope of interdisciplinarity from individual universities to a single scientific discourse, the Anthropocene. The idea of the Anthropocene began as an idea about the need for a new geological epoch and underwent unsupervised interdisciplinary expansion due to climate change integrating itself into the core of the discourse. In contrast to the NAUI which was specifically engineered to increase interdisciplinarity, the I use keyword co-occurrence networks to measure how the Anthropocene discourse increases its interdisciplinarity through unsupervised expansion after climate change becomes a core keyword within the network and behaves as an anchor point for new disciplines to connect and join the discourse.
The scope of interdisciplinarity increases again with the final case study about the field of evolutionary medicine. Evolutionary medicine is a case of engineered interdisciplinary integration between evolutionary biology and medicine. The primary goal of evolutionary medicine is to better understand "why we get sick" through the lens of evolutionary biology. This makes it an excellent candidate to understand large-scale interdisciplinarity. I show through multiple type of networks and metadata analyses that evolutionary medicine successfully integrates the concepts of evolutionary biology into medicine.
By increasing our knowledge of interdisciplinarity at various scales and how it behaves in different initial conditions, we are better able to understand the elusive nature of innovation. Interdisciplinary can mean different things depending on how its defined. I show that a pluralistic approach to defining and measuring interdisciplinarity is not only appropriate but necessary if our goal is to increase interdisciplinarity, the frequency of innovations, and our understanding of the evolution of knowledge.
I begin by examining interdisciplinarity with a small scope, the research university. This study uses metadata to create co-authorship networks and examine how a change in university policies to increase interdisciplinarity can be successful. The New American University Initiative (NAUI) at Arizona State University (ASU) set forth the goal of making ASU a world hub for interdisciplinary research. This kind of interdisciplinarity is produced from a deliberate, engineered, reorganization of the individuals within the university and the knowledge they contain. By using a set of social network analysis measurements, I created an algorithm to measure the changes to the co-authorship networks that resulted from increased university support for interdisciplinary research.
The second case study increases the scope of interdisciplinarity from individual universities to a single scientific discourse, the Anthropocene. The idea of the Anthropocene began as an idea about the need for a new geological epoch and underwent unsupervised interdisciplinary expansion due to climate change integrating itself into the core of the discourse. In contrast to the NAUI which was specifically engineered to increase interdisciplinarity, the I use keyword co-occurrence networks to measure how the Anthropocene discourse increases its interdisciplinarity through unsupervised expansion after climate change becomes a core keyword within the network and behaves as an anchor point for new disciplines to connect and join the discourse.
The scope of interdisciplinarity increases again with the final case study about the field of evolutionary medicine. Evolutionary medicine is a case of engineered interdisciplinary integration between evolutionary biology and medicine. The primary goal of evolutionary medicine is to better understand "why we get sick" through the lens of evolutionary biology. This makes it an excellent candidate to understand large-scale interdisciplinarity. I show through multiple type of networks and metadata analyses that evolutionary medicine successfully integrates the concepts of evolutionary biology into medicine.
By increasing our knowledge of interdisciplinarity at various scales and how it behaves in different initial conditions, we are better able to understand the elusive nature of innovation. Interdisciplinary can mean different things depending on how its defined. I show that a pluralistic approach to defining and measuring interdisciplinarity is not only appropriate but necessary if our goal is to increase interdisciplinarity, the frequency of innovations, and our understanding of the evolution of knowledge.
ContributorsPainter, Deryc T (Author) / Laubichler, Manfred D (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Committee member) / Bliss, Nadya T (Committee member) / Simeone, Michael P (Committee member) / Nesse, Randolph M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Emergency Medical Services (EMS) first response personnel treat urgent and immediate
illnesses and injuries in prehospital settings, and transport patients to definitive care if needed. EMS originated during warfare. The practice of rescuing wounded soldiers started during the Byzantine Empire, and developed along with other medical advances to the present day. Civilian EMS in the United States grew rapidly starting in the 1960s. Following the landmark National Research Council white paper of “Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society”, the nation addressed the key issues and problems faced in delivering emergency medical services. Today, colleges and universities often sponsor EMS organizations to serve populations concentrated in complex campuses. These are collectively known as Collegiate-Based Emergency Medical Services (CBEMS). By September 2018, there were 252 registered CBEMS organizations in the United States. Most are affiliated with the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation (NCEMSF), which advocates, encourages, and provides support for CBEMS organizations. A survey repeating prior work (1996 and 2005) was sent to all NCEMSF registered CBEMS organizations, and 24 responded. The survey included questions on demographics, response capacities, coverage, organization, and logistics information. Locally, Arizona State University Student Emergency Medical Services (SEMS at ASU) began as an all-student-run volunteer organization in 2008. In 2018, SEMS at ASU became ASU EMS, as an official subdivision of the ASU Environmental Health Safety (EH&S) Department. This study summarizes the history of EMS, investigates the current status of CBEMS organizations and traces the history of ASU EMS from a volunteer group to an official department.
illnesses and injuries in prehospital settings, and transport patients to definitive care if needed. EMS originated during warfare. The practice of rescuing wounded soldiers started during the Byzantine Empire, and developed along with other medical advances to the present day. Civilian EMS in the United States grew rapidly starting in the 1960s. Following the landmark National Research Council white paper of “Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society”, the nation addressed the key issues and problems faced in delivering emergency medical services. Today, colleges and universities often sponsor EMS organizations to serve populations concentrated in complex campuses. These are collectively known as Collegiate-Based Emergency Medical Services (CBEMS). By September 2018, there were 252 registered CBEMS organizations in the United States. Most are affiliated with the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation (NCEMSF), which advocates, encourages, and provides support for CBEMS organizations. A survey repeating prior work (1996 and 2005) was sent to all NCEMSF registered CBEMS organizations, and 24 responded. The survey included questions on demographics, response capacities, coverage, organization, and logistics information. Locally, Arizona State University Student Emergency Medical Services (SEMS at ASU) began as an all-student-run volunteer organization in 2008. In 2018, SEMS at ASU became ASU EMS, as an official subdivision of the ASU Environmental Health Safety (EH&S) Department. This study summarizes the history of EMS, investigates the current status of CBEMS organizations and traces the history of ASU EMS from a volunteer group to an official department.
ContributorsWang, Jada (Author) / Chew, Matt (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Ellison, Karin (Committee member) / Essary, Alison (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This dissertation examines the efforts of the Carnegie Image Tube Committee (CITC), a group created by Vannevar Bush and composed of astronomers and physicists, who sought to develop a photoelectric imaging device, generally called an image tube, to aid astronomical observations. The Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism coordinated the CITC, but the committee included members from observatories and laboratories across the United States. The CITC, which operated from 1954 to 1976, sought to replace direct photography as the primary means of astronomical imaging.
Physicists, who gained training in electronics during World War II, led the early push for the development of image tubes in astronomy. Vannevar Bush’s concern for scientific prestige led him to form a committee to investigate image tube technology, and postwar federal funding for the sciences helped the CITC sustain development efforts for a decade. During those development years, the CITC acted as a mediator between the astronomical community and the image tube producers but failed to engage astronomers concerning various development paths, resulting in a user group without real buy-in on the final product.
After a decade of development efforts, the CITC designed an image tube, which Radio Corporation of American manufactured, and, with additional funding from the National Science Foundation, the committee distributed to observatories around the world. While excited about the potential of electronic imaging, few astronomers used the Carnegie-developed device regularly. Although the CITC’s efforts did not result in an overwhelming adoption of image tubes by the astronomical community, examining the design, funding, production, and marketing of the Carnegie image tube shows the many and varied processes through which astronomers have acquired new tools. Astronomers’ use of the Carnegie image tube to acquire useful scientific data illustrates factors that contribute to astronomers’ adoption or non-adoption of those new tools.
Physicists, who gained training in electronics during World War II, led the early push for the development of image tubes in astronomy. Vannevar Bush’s concern for scientific prestige led him to form a committee to investigate image tube technology, and postwar federal funding for the sciences helped the CITC sustain development efforts for a decade. During those development years, the CITC acted as a mediator between the astronomical community and the image tube producers but failed to engage astronomers concerning various development paths, resulting in a user group without real buy-in on the final product.
After a decade of development efforts, the CITC designed an image tube, which Radio Corporation of American manufactured, and, with additional funding from the National Science Foundation, the committee distributed to observatories around the world. While excited about the potential of electronic imaging, few astronomers used the Carnegie-developed device regularly. Although the CITC’s efforts did not result in an overwhelming adoption of image tubes by the astronomical community, examining the design, funding, production, and marketing of the Carnegie image tube shows the many and varied processes through which astronomers have acquired new tools. Astronomers’ use of the Carnegie image tube to acquire useful scientific data illustrates factors that contribute to astronomers’ adoption or non-adoption of those new tools.
ContributorsThompson, Samantha Michelle (Author) / Ellison, Karin (Thesis advisor) / Wetmore, Jameson (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Committee member) / Creath, Richard (Committee member) / DeVorkin, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019