Date of Award

2015-01-01

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Physics

Advisor(s)

Rosa M. Fitzgerald

Abstract

Valley Fever, also known as Coccidioidomycosis, is endemic of the US Southwest. In 2012 this disease was the second most-reported disease in Arizona, according to the New Yorker January 2014 edition. The Paso Del Norte Region (PdN) is a semi-arid region with significant agricultural acreage and Valley Fever is known to be a threat in this region. It is our goal in this Thesis work to apply an existing PBL Height Program (e.g., Liu, et.al.) to the Paso Del Norte Region (PdN) to study the effect it has in the transmission of Valley Fever. Obtaining the PBLH as it evolves and changes throughout a day will enable us to pursue analysis of the transmission of fungi in the PdN region. Depending on the height at which the fungi are released (e.g. released from the soil on top of a mountain) it is then transported close to PBL heights and may constitute a severe health threat. In addition, an analysis of the meteorological conditions which can have an effect on respiratory diseases in general is presented and a correlation with respiratory diseases is established.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

106 pages

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Rosette Maria Gonzalez

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Physics Commons

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