Relatedness and the Symbolic Substance of Kinship Among the K’iche’

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Stephen Brady and Dr. Janis Nuckolls, visiting professor of Anthropology Kinship studies was a central concern of socio-cultural anthropology for decades. The centrality of kinship within the discipline was due to the traditional anthropological practice of studying social structure among small-scale societies. Social anthropologists found that kinship provides people with an effective form of organization […]

The Resurgence of Tuberculosis: Its Alliance with HIV/AIDS and the Challenges Faced by Health Care Practitioners and Governments as they Strive to Combat the Effects of this Deadly Duo

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Sheila Bibb and Dr. William C. Olsen, Anthropology Tuberculosis has long been a scourge throughout the world but in the 1950’s medical developments enabled most countries to bring this insidious air-borne disease under control and it was firmly believed that by the end of the century tuberculosis would be eliminated worldwide. The reality is that […]

Discharge Activity of Ventral Tegmental Area GABA Neurons during Alcohol Self-administration

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Adam Bevan and Dr. Scott Steffensen, Psychology In today’s world addiction is pandemic. So many people are slaves to these controlling chemicals, from alcohol and street drugs to the more mild substances of coffee or over-thecounter medications. All these substances tend to influence brain chemistry, and the aim of our ongoing project is to uncover […]

A Climate Reconstruction and Drought Assessment of the Wasatch Front

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Daniel F. Bently and Dr. Matthew F. Bekker, Geography The purpose of this study was to extend the climate record of the Wasatch Front Area in order to assess drought along the Wasatch Front. In order to accomplish this, tree-ring analysis was done using Limber Pine (Pinus flexilus) trees from the rocky, north face of […]

White Matter Hyperintensities in the Normal Population

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Callie Beck and Dr. Ramona O. Hopkins, Psychology White-matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are unidentified bright objects in the white matter regions of the brain and have been observed on magnetic resonance (MR) brain images since the mid-1980s. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine the relationship between WMHs and various pathologic conditions such as hypertension, stroke, […]

Risk Aversion in CEO Compensation

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Brandon Bates and Dr. Richard Butler, Department of Economics Chief executive compensation is a topic of great interest for the general public. Such widespread fascination with the topic likely stems from a predilection for subjects involving extravagance and luxury. Of course, CEO compensation holds an additional dimension of interest for economists. That the CEO does […]

Verbal History of the 1999 Floods in Teziutlan, Mexico from the LDS Perspective

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Amanda Barden and Professor Lynn England, Sociology The time I spent in Teziutlan researching and learning about the 1999 floods there was uplifting but also scientifically frustrating. The goal of this project was to learn about what kind of impact the floods had on the members of the church there, what kind of influence the church […]

Streamlining Research Planning, Data Collection and Archiving Using New Web-enabled Tools

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Andrew Arnott and Dr. Joseph Olsen, FHSS Dean’s Office Collecting research data on human subjects can be time consuming and costly. The Internet provides a new channel to survey people so that collected data is automatically added to a dataset without any possibility of human error by a data entry person. The Internet also allows […]

Provenance of Mortuary Hematite Artifacts at Petra, Jordan

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Alvin D. Anderson and Dr. David Johnson, Family, Home and social Sciences During a BYU archaeological excavation of Nabatean tombs at Petra, Jordan, Dr. David Johnson discovered hematite nodules that, he claims, contain the carved images or figures of several deities. These effigies were possibly ceremonial objects that served to protect the dead. I arrived […]