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Understanding limited food access in Mohave County, Arizona: influencing factors, current realities, and potential solutions
No full textFood insecurity is prevalent across the United States, but it occurs at a particularly high level within Mohave County, Arizona. Mohave County is mostly rural; prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, about 20% of the population was food insecure. Anecdotal reports from food bank staff indicate that food insecurity has likely increased with the current state of the economy and the aftermath of the pandemic. The number of people receiving food boxes has certainly increased in recent years. However, little is known about how food box recipients perceive the assistance they receive, or how they think food access could be improved. This study represents an effort to understand these attitudes among an understudied population, namely rural food box recipients of geographically dispersed communities in Arizona. I interviewed fifteen food box recipients across the county in 2022-23, and conducted a mini-focus group, to understand their perspectives of food insecurity, thoughts on the causes of food insecurity, realities of being food insecure while living in a rural food desert, and what potential solutions recipients think could change those causes and realities. To get a more well-rounded understanding of how people are navigating food access in this county, I also interviewed food system professionals from government agencies and advocacy organizations. I then analyzed the interviews using a political ecology framework and separated my results by research question
Habitat characteristics, distribution, and pollinator habitat of the rare, endemic Pediocactus paradinei
No full textThe Southwestern United States is predicted to face some of the most rapid effects of anthropogenically-driven climate change. The Colorado Plateau is known for its high rates of endemism of rare, threatened, and endangered plants. Being characterized by large expanses of semi-arid landscapes and decades of megadrought, the Plateau is expected to experience increased temperatures and aridity with changing climate, threatening these already vulnerable species. Prioritizing the conservation of endemic cacti is critical in maintaining biodiversity as their populations are particularly vulnerable from their slow recovery rates and high habitat specificity in contrast to non-endemic native and introduced species. Our study focuses on the habitat of a rare, endemic cactus, Pediocactus paradinei, a species of concern with an active conservation agreement. We utilized a multi-faceted approach for this study which included field surveys and species distribution modeling to understand current habitat and pollinator habitat characteristics, identify changes in the species’s range utilizing data from a previous assessment conducted in 2005, and examine projections for the future distribution of the species under the impending effects of climate change. Since the previous assessment, our findings include a stark decrease in species richness of plants that share flowering phenology with P. paradinei, possibly signaling a change in forage opportunities for pollinators. This study offers a limited examination of the cactus's associated pollinator habitat; further research is needed to supplement. Additional pollinator observations and sampling are a vital next step toward insights into the area's active visitors and the broader community. Weighted ensemble species distribution models identified elevation, isothermality, precipitation seasonality, and precipitation of the wettest month as the most important limiting factors to the cactus' distribution. We developed the models for progressing time frames using three distinct shared socioeconomic pathways, which illustrated significant contracting and shifting of suitable habitat in contrast to the current distribution. These results may act as a proxy for the closely related and highly rare and endangered Pediocactus peeblesianus var. fickeiseniae, whose limited populations pose a challenge for a comprehensive habitat assessment. It is critical for land managers to prioritize additional research to continue to identify constraints for both Pediocactus species, considering the possible severity of habitat loss indicated by our results. Continued monitoring of known P. paradinei sites is crucial to identify the progression of habitat changes
The greatest of wrongs ever done: an archaeological examination of a "just" Apache resistance
Full text linkWithout question, the Apache Wars remain an essential topic for understanding the evolution of conflict in the American Southwest (Hass 1990; Kintigh 2014; LeBlanc 1999; McGuire and Villalpando 2015; Vandkilde 2015). However, the examination of the Apache Wars by archaeologists has been, for the most part, marginalized in the American Southwest. The epic tales of Geronimo’s resistance against the U.S. Army make up most of what is known to the public. Yet, this war was not fought by one man; instead, a people fought it to maintain cultural identity and way of life. Thus, I propose that the Apache Wars fought against the U.S. from 1862 to 1882 were fought justifiably using asymmetric warfare. Moreover, they occurred to protect the existence of the Apache people. The intended outcome of this research is to answer three questions. First, how did the colonial entanglement with the Spanish and Mexicans lay the groundwork for the Apache Wars? Second, how did the Apache war shape Apachería, and was it justifiable? Finally, how does the Battle of Big Dry Wash represent Apache resistance? Historical and cultural analysis, oral traditions, and modern Military Intelligence methodologies applied in an archaeological context answered these questions. First, the colonial entanglements with the Spanish and Mexican empires created a collective memory of oppression and warfare among the Apache people that lasted three hundred years. This memory created a need for them to evolve forms of resistance that included a more asymmetric style of warfare to protract the United States into a long war, to escape policies of scalp hunting, extermination, and confinement to reservations lands, providing the Apache ample justification for warfare under European ideals of “Just War” theory. Lastly, the Intelligence Preparation of an Archaeological Battlefield (IPAB) at the Battle of Big Dry wash depicts this resistance and the complexities of warfare that occurred as part of a revitalization movement that exhausted the Apaches will to fight
Experiencing and witnessing microaggressions by Hispanic middle school students
Full text linkRacial microaggressions are brief intentional or unintentional verbal and non-nonverbal behavioral actions that are hostile, derogatory, or negative racial putdowns toward people of color. The purpose of this study was to understand if middle school students have experienced or witnessed microaggressions at school and in the classroom. In this study, six middle school students, three in 7th grade and three in 8th grade, who may have experienced or witnessed microaggressions were interviewed by the researcher. The students answered six interview questions regarding experiencing and witnessing microaggressions at school. The data was analyzed thoroughly using qualitative data analysis in order to determine if students had witnessed or experienced the following microaggressions: microassaults (discrimination), microinsults (insensitivity), and microinvalidations (nullification of experience). The data from the study determined that the study participants have not experienced or witnessed all three types of microaggressions. While the data revealed that students reported instances of experiencing and witnessing microaggressions, some types of microaggressions are more prevalent with students than others, such as microassaults and microinvalidations . While not a focus of the study, it is important to note that student participants reported witnessing microassault microaggression incidents outside of the school
Wastewater: a surveillance sentinel for bacterial pathogens and antimicrobial resistance dissemination
Full text linkAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as one of the most significant global public health concerns, threatening the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria no longer susceptible to the common therapeutics used to treat them. The wide range of resistant infections, with decreasing treatment options, is leading to increased morbidity and mortality. Antimicrobial resistant bacteria can easily spread through the environment, and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are recognized as a reservoir for AMR pathogens and genes. Although water reclamation is vital to the sustainability of water supplies, the highly diverse microbial environment in wastewater creates favorable conditions for the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance genes as well as the proliferation of resistant bacteria. Current wastewater testing methods fail to take into consideration AMR bacteria and AMR genes when evaluating the overall safety aspects of water reuse. In this study, AMR bacteria isolated from Southwestern United States (U.S.) wastewater were interrogated through meropenem antimicrobial susceptibility testing, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, multiplex species identification amplicon sequencing, and whole genome sequencing to identify the human pathogens present in the wastewater and determine if viable meropenem resistant bacteria persist in wastewater after treatment. Molecular assays, such as those developed in this study, represent a comprehensive and minimally invasive approach to provide community level surveillance of AMR pathogens as well as identify viable resistant bacteria present in wastewater. The application of AMR wastewater surveillance allows for better understanding of the risk of transmission of harmful bacteria to humans as well as inform decisions on safe reclaimed effluent water reuse
Exploring the “edge”: re-imagining the potential of permaculture’s third ethic
Full text linkPermaculture with its guiding ethics and principles is a social and ecological grassroots movement that has the potential to transform how people design and engage with the world around them. Permaculture, despite its many social applications, has been widely understood as an ecological-based movement. Using a resilience and cultural change theory lens consisting of nine interviews and a focus group, this research aims to broaden the social implications of permaculture as a transformative movement towards positive change. To expand this discussion this research asked: How are permaculture practitioners interpreting the third ethic of permaculture and putting it into practice? And how are these interpretations impacting how people engage in their communities? Diving into the third ethic and its applications demonstrates a potential “edge” by exploring the varying ways that the ethic and permaculture can be understood and utilized. Some major themes found in this study include: the concept of giving back, discussions of consumption, future-care and legacy, importance of building strong relationships, discussions around reparations, transformative justice and equity, and varying opinions around the concept of fair-share. Additional findings in this study have revealed concerns within the movement, insight surrounding the current role and future of permaculture as a movement, and permaculture ideologies’ potential to shift people's beliefs, mindset, and capability of contributing to an increase in community resilience and alternative way of existing in the world
The power is in the tale: Integrating digital stories in medical training on patient-relationship-centered care
Full text linkThe paradigm shift in healthcare from “sick care” to a disease prevention model is driven by the need to address health inequities. The new paradigm requires a change from the current “distant yet concerned” attitude to patient-relationship-centered approaches. Two questions drive this study: (a) How we can prepare physicians during residency to practice under
the new model, and (b) What role can digital stories play in the process? The results of this hermeneutic phenomenological study offer a view into the lived experiences of eight medical residents (family medicine, psychiatry, pediatrics, and emergency medicine), each participating in three interviews. The content of the conversations leads to an appreciation and understanding of their perspectives on patient centeredness, factors influencing patient encounters, and their emerging professional identities. The substance of these conversations result in an unanticipated switch in the role of digital stories from an “experience” to a tool or catalyst encouraging the residents to reflect on their path to medicine, clinical practice, and professional identities. The digital stories, coupled with the study design, provide the residents with an opportunity to assess their sources of inspiration, capacity, and resilience to be empathetic and engage in advocacy. The study results have implications for the use of digital stories in health education professional training, as well as integrating hermeneutic phenomenology to promote reflection and self-assessment at critical junctures in medical residency
Adverb placement in learner writing: the effect of linguistic features, cross-linguistic transfer, and register
Full text linkDue to their syntactic mobility, adverbs lend themselves well to first-language (L1)-related syntactic transfer studies (Hasselgård, 2015); however, there is a limited body of research looking into what other factors may influence adverb placement. Moreover, very few studies go beyond the realm of well-known Germanic and Romance languages. The present study is a partial replication of Larsson et al.’s (2020) work and revisits the question of whether adverb placement can help us detect L1 transfer; it also looks at the possible effect of linguistic variables (e.g., presence/absence of an auxiliary), extralinguistic variables (e.g., native-speaker (NS) status, L1 background), and register. The study looks at L1 German, L1 Turkish, and NS data with the aim of seeing whether the findings from Larsson et al. (2020) can be replicated with German and native-speaking students from a different register; it also extends our knowledge by looking at L1 Turkish use, a language that is very different from English typologically.The data were obtained from two different corpora; the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE), the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS) and were coded manually based on the coding scheme from Larsson et al. (2020). The study looks at the following 15 epistemic adverbs (Granath, 2005): maybe, probably, possibly, really, simply, actually, apparently, certainly, clearly, definitely, evidently, obviously, perhaps, surely, and of course.
The results show that German learners behaved more native-like compared to their Turkish counterparts who overused the clause initial position (e.g., probably she is here) and underused the clause-medial positions. Similar to Larsson et al.’s (2020) findings, the main predictors of adverb placement are linguistic rather than extralinguistic; although some traces of L1 transfer were detected with the Turkish data. Moreover, register seems to have a moderate effect when the German and NS use are compared with those of the original study
Electrospun scaffolds with rhamnolipids to treat depleted-uranium contaminated wounds
Full text linkDepleted uranium (DU) is a metal by-product produced after the enrichment of natural uranium (U) to lower its radioactivity for military use. Although most radioactive isotopes have decayed, DU remains toxic and a radioactive health hazard when ingested or inhaled into the body. Currently, there are over 500 abandoned uranium mines located in the American Southwest that pose a threat to the surrounding environment and to the population’s health through the ingestion of contaminated water. Previous publications from our lab demonstrate that exposure to DU has negative effects on the natural wound healing process through a variety of cytotoxic mechanisms; however, current literature lacks a healing therapeutic to counteract this issue. Therapeutics, such as novel wound coverings, have been developed to promote the wound-healing process by treating wounds with three-dimensional biomaterials made to mimic the extracellular matrix. These biomaterials are often applied to effectively promote cellular migration and proliferation. In the current study, we propose that these novel electrospun wound healing scaffolds can be impregnated with unique chemical agents to facilitate delivery into the wound bed in an effort to neutralize or de-contaminate the tissue from DU exposure. First, an in vitro wound model was prepared using human dermal neonatal fibroblasts (hDFn) in combination with rhamnolipids, a ‘green’ biosurfactant with known environmental contaminant binding properties. Using this in vitro wound model, cells exposed to DU and treated with rhamnolipids had an increased percent closure rate over cells only exposed to DU. These preliminary findings provide proof of concept for the continued exploration of using rhamnolipids as a treatment for DU-contaminated wounds. Subsequently, this work focused on incorporating rhamnolipids into novel electrospun wound healing scaffolds cellularized with fibroblast cells to assess biocompatibility utilizing the scanning electron microscope (SEM). Cytocompatibility assays were also conducted to measure the effects on hDFn cells' metabolism and viability when inoculated with rhamnolipids in growth media. These rhamnolipids are of particular interest due to their non-toxic nature, antimicrobial properties, and affinity to bind to metals of environmental concern, like uranium. This study is among the first to explore the effects of rhamnolipids as a treatment against internal DU exposure by using electrospun scaffolds as a healing therapeutic to treat those individuals affected by chronic exposure to U-contaminated water throughout the American Southwest
Impact of Covid-19 related changes in employment status, depression, and alcohol use in a sample of unionized leisure & hospitality industry workers
Full text linkCOVID-19 devastated the US economy in March and April of 2020, decimating the workforce in the leisure and hospitality industries. Change in employment status, such as loss of employment, has previously been found to be associated with negative outcomes such as depression and hazardous alcohol use. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between current employment status (e.g., currently employed, or unemployed), current depression, and current hazardous alcohol use in a sample of employees from the leisure and hospitality industries. Participants included 1,106 individuals (58.8% female, Mage 49.58, SD = 10.96) with complete data on depression, binge drinking, heavy drinking, employment status, and gender. The prevalence of current major depression (29.2%) and binge drinking (26%) were substantial. As hypothesized, a significantly greater proportion of individuals who were currently unemployed (51.7%) were currently depressed compared to their employed counterparts (28%), z = 3.87, p < 0.001, (95% CI: [0.12, 0.36]). However, there were no differences between unemployed and employed participants on heavy drinking (p = 0.62) or binge drinking, z = 1.57, p = 0.74, (95% CI: [-0.21, 0.02]). Results are discussed, including limitations of the employment cell size for hazardous drinking analyses, which appears to be a function of the high rate of employment in the sample at the time of data collection in 2022. Ongoing survey research on mental health outcomes in hospitality industry employees, especially given high proportion of underrepresented and unempowered individuals, appears warranted. Keywords: Leisure, hospitality, COVID-19, labor union, depression, alcohol, duration of unemploymen