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- Language: English
- Language: Creoles and Pidgins, English-based (Other)
- Creators: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Description
Meteorology is an uncommon term rarely resonating through elementary classrooms. However, it is a concept found in both fourth and sixth grade Arizona science standards. As issues involving the environment are becoming more pertinent, it is important to study and understand atmospheric processes along with fulfilling the standards for each grade level. This thesis project teaches the practical skills of weather map reading and weather forecasting through the creation and execution of an after school lesson with the aide of seven teen assistants.
ContributorsChoulet, Shayna (Author) / Walters, Debra (Thesis director) / Oliver, Jill (Committee member) / Balling, Robert (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Plants are essential to human life. They release oxygen into the atmosphere for us to breathe. They also provide shelter, medicine, clothing, tools, and food. For many people, the food that is on their tables and in their supermarkets isn't given much thought. Where did it come from? What part of the plant is it? How does it relate to others in the plant kingdom? How do other cultures use this plant? The most many of us know about them is that they are at the supermarket when we need them for dinner (Nabhan, 2009) (Vileisis, 2008).
ContributorsBarron, Kara (Author) / Landrum, Leslie (Thesis director) / Swanson, Tod (Committee member) / Pigg, Kathleen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
DescriptionBased on previous research and findings it is proven that a non-profit class to create awareness will be beneficial in the prevention of eating disorders. This analysis will provide significant research to defend the proposed class.
ContributorsAllen, Brittany (Author) / Chung, Deborah (Author) / Fey, Richard (Thesis director) / Peck, Sidnee (Committee member) / Mazurkiewicz, Milena (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Restraint stress is the most commonly used laboratory stressor. It is difficult to characterize as psychological or physical, because past studies show psychological features, but the nature of confinement adds a physical dimension. This was the first study to investigate how experience with restraint stress affects brain response to the next stress without a physical burden. Pair-housed adult male rats were transported to a novel context and restrained or left undisturbed (6hr). The next day, rats were returned to the same context and were either restrained or left undisturbed in the context (n=8/group). After 90min, rats were euthanized to determine functional activation in limbic structures using Fos immunohistochemistry and to measure HPA axis reactivity through blood serum corticosterone levels. Regardless of day 1 experience, context exposure on day 2 enhanced Fos expression in CA1 and CA3 of the hippocampus, basolateral amygdala, and central amygdala. Conversely, other regions and corticosterone levels demonstrated modulation from the previous day's experience. Specifically, rats that were placed back into the restraint context but not restrained on day 2 showed enhanced Fos expression in the dentate gyrus suprapyramidal blade (DGSup), and infralimbic cortex (IL). Also Fos expression was attenuated in rats that received two restraint exposures in the IL and medial amygdala (MEA), suggesting habituation. Only the DG infrapyramidal blade (DGInf) showed enhanced Fos expression to restraint on day 2 without influence of the previous day. While context predominately directed Fos activation, prior experience with restraint influenced Fos expression in the DGSup, IL, MEA and corticosterone levels to support restraint having psychological components.
ContributorsAnouti, P. Danya (Author) / Conrad, D. Cheryl (Thesis director) / Hammer, Ronald (Committee member) / Hoffman, N. Ann (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Rabies disease remains enzootic among raccoons, skunks, foxes and bats in the United States. It is of primary concern for public-health agencies to control spatial spread of rabies in wildlife and its potential spillover infection of domestic animals and humans. Rabies is invariably fatal in wildlife if untreated, with a non-negligible incubation period. Understanding how this latency affects spatial spread of rabies in wildlife is the concern of chapter 2 and 3. Chapter 1 deals with the background of mathematical models for rabies and lists main objectives. In chapter 2, a reaction-diffusion susceptible-exposed-infected (SEI) model and a delayed diffusive susceptible-infected (SI) model are constructed to describe the same epidemic process -- rabies spread in foxes. For the delayed diffusive model a non-local infection term with delay is resulted from modeling the dispersal during incubation stage. Comparison is made regarding minimum traveling wave speeds of the two models, which are verified using numerical experiments. In chapter 3, starting with two Kermack and McKendrick's models where infectivity, death rate and diffusion rate of infected individuals can depend on the age of infection, the asymptotic speed of spread $c^\ast$ for the cumulated force of infection can be analyzed. For the special case of fixed incubation period, the asymptotic speed of spread is governed by the same integral equation for both models. Although explicit solutions for $c^\ast$ are difficult to obtain, assuming that diffusion coefficient of incubating animals is small, $c^\ast$ can be estimated in terms of model parameter values. Chapter 4 considers the implementation of realistic landscape in simulation of rabies spread in skunks and bats in northeast Texas. The Finite Element Method (FEM) is adopted because the irregular shapes of realistic landscape naturally lead to unstructured grids in the spatial domain. This implementation leads to a more accurate description of skunk rabies cases distributions.
ContributorsLiu, Hao (Author) / Kuang, Yang (Thesis advisor) / Jackiewicz, Zdzislaw (Committee member) / Lanchier, Nicolas (Committee member) / Smith, Hal (Committee member) / Thieme, Horst (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Bacteriophage (phage) are viruses that infect bacteria. Typical laboratory experiments show that in a chemostat containing phage and susceptible bacteria species, a mutant bacteria species will evolve. This mutant species is usually resistant to the phage infection and less competitive compared to the susceptible bacteria species. In some experiments, both susceptible and resistant bacteria species, as well as phage, can coexist at an equilibrium for hundreds of hours. The current research is inspired by these observations, and the goal is to establish a mathematical model and explore sufficient and necessary conditions for the coexistence. In this dissertation a model with infinite distributed delay terms based on some existing work is established. A rigorous analysis of the well-posedness of this model is provided, and it is proved that the susceptible bacteria persist. To study the persistence of phage species, a "Phage Reproduction Number" (PRN) is defined. The mathematical analysis shows phage persist if PRN > 1 and vanish if PRN < 1. A sufficient condition and a necessary condition for persistence of resistant bacteria are given. The persistence of the phage is essential for the persistence of resistant bacteria. Also, the resistant bacteria persist if its fitness is the same as the susceptible bacteria and if PRN > 1. A special case of the general model leads to a system of ordinary differential equations, for which numerical simulation results are presented.
ContributorsHan, Zhun (Author) / Smith, Hal (Thesis advisor) / Armbruster, Dieter (Committee member) / Kawski, Matthias (Committee member) / Kuang, Yang (Committee member) / Thieme, Horst (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
In vertebrate outer retina, changes in the membrane potential of horizontal cells affect the calcium influx and glutamate release of cone photoreceptors via a negative feedback. This feedback has a number of important physiological consequences. One is called background-induced flicker enhancement (BIFE) in which the onset of dim background enhances the center flicker response of horizontal cells. The underlying mechanism for the feedback is still unclear but competing hypotheses have been proposed. One is the GABA hypothesis, which states that the feedback is mediated by gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an inhibitory neurotransmitter released from horizontal cells. Another is the ephaptic hypothesis, which contends that the feedback is non-GABAergic and is achieved through the modulation of electrical potential in the intersynaptic cleft between cones and horizontal cells. In this study, a continuum spine model of the cone-horizontal cell synaptic circuitry is formulated. This model, a partial differential equation system, incorporates both the GABA and ephaptic feedback mechanisms. Simulation results, in comparison with experiments, indicate that the ephaptic mechanism is necessary in order for the model to capture the major spatial and temporal dynamics of the BIFE effect. In addition, simulations indicate that the GABA mechanism may play some minor modulation role.
ContributorsChang, Shaojie (Author) / Baer, Steven M. (Thesis advisor) / Gardner, Carl L (Thesis advisor) / Crook, Sharon M (Committee member) / Kuang, Yang (Committee member) / Ringhofer, Christian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Through this creative project, I executed a Distracted Driving Awareness Campaign at Arizona State University to raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving, specifically texting while driving. As an Undergraduate Student Government Senator, my priority is the safety and success of students, both in and out of the classroom. By partnering with State Farm and AT&T, we were able to raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving and collected over 200 pledges from students to never text and drive.
ContributorsHibbs, Jordan Ashley (Author) / Miller, Clark (Thesis director) / Parmentier, Mary Jane (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Graduate College (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Background: Latinos represent 40.8% of the population in Phoenix (U.S. Census Bureau Population Division, 2010). South Phoenix, also known as the South Mountain Village, defined in geographical terms as area zip codes 85040 and 85042; is a predominantly Latino community comprised of mixed citizenship status households. During the 2010 United States Census 60.3% of the population in South Phoenix identified as Latino, 25.75% of the total population was foreign born. Of the foreign born population, 88.95% were of Latin American origin (United States Census Bureau, 2007-2011 American Community Survey). Understanding how Latino immigrants perceive differences in health between their communities in country of origin and communities in the United States is largely unknown. Irrespective of political positions, understanding how Latino immigrants perceive personal health and the health of their communities is of interest to inform public policy and implement needed interventions in the
public health sphere.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were collected from 55 adults from the South Phoenix community between November 2009 and September 2010. Interviews were digitally recorded with participant permission and transcribed. Of those collected, 48 transcribed interviews were analyzed using a codebook designed by the researcher. Percent agreement evaluated inter-rater reliability.Results: Latino immigrants in South Phoenix largely agree that health quality is heavily dependent on personal responsibility and not an intrinsic attribute of a given place. Emotional contentedness and distress, both factors of mental health, are impacted by cross-cultural differences between Latino and U.S. culture systems.
Conclusions: As people’s personal perceptions of differences in health are complex concepts influenced by personal backgrounds, culture, and beliefs, attempting to demark a side of the border as ‘healthier’ than the other using personal perceptions is overly simplified and misses central concepts. Instead, exploration of individual variables impacting health allowed this study to gain a more nuanced understanding in how people determine quality of both personal and environmental health. While Latino migrants in South Phoenix largely agree that health is based on personal responsibility and choices, many nonetheless experience higher levels of contentedness and emotional health in their country of origin.
public health sphere.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were collected from 55 adults from the South Phoenix community between November 2009 and September 2010. Interviews were digitally recorded with participant permission and transcribed. Of those collected, 48 transcribed interviews were analyzed using a codebook designed by the researcher. Percent agreement evaluated inter-rater reliability.Results: Latino immigrants in South Phoenix largely agree that health quality is heavily dependent on personal responsibility and not an intrinsic attribute of a given place. Emotional contentedness and distress, both factors of mental health, are impacted by cross-cultural differences between Latino and U.S. culture systems.
Conclusions: As people’s personal perceptions of differences in health are complex concepts influenced by personal backgrounds, culture, and beliefs, attempting to demark a side of the border as ‘healthier’ than the other using personal perceptions is overly simplified and misses central concepts. Instead, exploration of individual variables impacting health allowed this study to gain a more nuanced understanding in how people determine quality of both personal and environmental health. While Latino migrants in South Phoenix largely agree that health is based on personal responsibility and choices, many nonetheless experience higher levels of contentedness and emotional health in their country of origin.
ContributorsGray, Laurel (Author) / Wutich, Amber (Thesis director) / Quiroga, S. Seline (Committee member) / Nelson, Margaret (Committee member) / Slade, B. Alexandra (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Identifying disease biomarkers may aid in the early detection of breast cancer and improve patient outcomes. Recent evidence suggests that tumors are immunogenic and therefore patients may launch an autoantibody response to tumor associated antigens. Single-chain variable fragments of autoantibodies derived from regional lymph node B cells of breast cancer patients were used to discover these tumor associated biomarkers on protein microarrays. Six candidate biomarkers were discovered from 22 heavy chain-only variable region antibody fragments screened. Validation tests are necessary to confirm the tumorgenicity of these antigens. However, the use of single-chain variable autoantibody fragments presents a novel platform for diagnostics and cancer therapeutics.
ContributorsSharman, M. Camila (Author) / Magee, Dewey (Mitch) (Thesis director) / Wallstrom, Garrick (Committee member) / Petritis, Brianne (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor) / Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics (Contributor) / Biodesign Institute (Contributor)
Created2012-12