Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Community-Centric Approaches To Coastal Hazard Assessment And Management In Southside Norfolk, Virginia, Usa, Dalya Ismael, Nicole Hutton, Mujde Erten-Unal, Carol Considine, Tancy Vandecar-Burdin, Christopher Davis, Yin-Hsuen Chen

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Urban communities in environmentally sensitive areas face escalating challenges due to climate change and inadequate infrastructural support, particularly in underserved regions like southside Norfolk, Virginia. This area, characterized by its vulnerability to flooding and a predominantly low-income population, lacks equitable inclusion in broader urban flood protection plans. This research focuses on the development of community-centered resilience strategies through active engagement and collaboration with local residents. The methodology centered around building trust and understanding within the community through a series of interactions and events. This approach facilitated a two-way exchange of information, enabling the research team to gather crucial insights on …

Evacuation Behavior Of Households Facing Compound Hurricane-Pandemic Threats, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Jennifer L. Whytlaw, Nicole Hutton, Taiwo Olanrewaju-Lasisi, Bridget Giles, Kaleen Lawsure, Joshua Behr, Rafael Diaz, George Mcleod

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

This study examines households' prospective evacuation behavior during a hurricane-pandemic compound threat. Data from a 2020 survey of coastal Virginia households help answer two questions: (1) What factors associated with the threat and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and hurricanes influence prospective evacuation behavior of households during a compound hurricane-pandemic event? (2) What are the equity implications for emergency management policies and practices to support evacuation and sheltering during a compound hurricane-pandemic event? Households in the sample were split between those who stated they would evacuate away from the at-risk region and who would stay. Greater household vulnerability to hurricanes …

Conceptual Metaphor Usage In Glenn Youngkin’S 2021 Gubernatorial Campaign, Sara Rose Hotaling

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

In “Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language,” Lakoff and Johnson suggest that conceptual metaphors pervade everyday language and produce the reality of our world. Conceptual metaphors act similarly within the occupational register of political campaigns in that they both support and construct a set of beliefs that become the reality of politicians, political parties, and constituents. In this language research, the conceptual metaphors employed by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin during his 2021 gubernatorial campaign were identified, analyzed, and categorized. The corpus of this research consists of two gubernatorial debates, three campaign speeches, and one television interview. An example of conceptual metaphor …

S-400s, Disinformation, And Anti-American Sentiment In Turkey, Russell "Alex" Korb, Saltuk Karahan, Gowri Prathap, Ekrem Kaya, Luke Palmieri, Hamdi Kavak, Richard L. Wilson (Ed.), Major Brendan Curran (Ed.)

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

As social and political discourse in most countries becomes more polarized, anti-Americanism has risen not only in the Middle East and Latin America but also among the U.S. allies in Europe. Social media is one platform used to disseminate anti-American views in NATO countries, and its effectiveness can be magnified when mass media, public officials, and popular figures adopt these views. Disinformation, in particular, has gained recognition as a cybersecurity issue from 2016 onward, but disinformation can be manufactured domestically in addition to being part of a foreign influence campaign. In this paper, we analyze Turkish tweets using sentiment analysis …

A Model Of Build Back Better Utilization: Long-Term Recovery Groups And Post-Disaster Housing Recovery, Eduardo Landaeta, Jesse Richman

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Housing recovery, especially for vulnerable populations, can be a challenging process. Questions regarding whether to rebuild damaged housing and whether to restore it to its previous state or to build back better must be answered. In the United States, Long-Term Recovery Groups (LTRGs) play a crucial role in channeling assistance to vulnerable community members as they embark on housing recovery. However, the experiences of LTRGs have been understudied. To address this gap, the study utilizes interviews with a diverse range of LTRG members and develops an agent-based model following the Overview, Design concepts, and Details (ODD) protocol. The results highlight …

Assessment Of Spatio-Temporal Variations In Pm2.5 And Associated Long-Range Air Mass Transport And Mortality In South Asia, Md Sariful Islam, Shimul Roy, Tanmoy Roy Tusher, Mizanur Rahman, Ryley C. Harris

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) is associated with adverse impacts on ambient air quality and human mortality; the situation is especially dire in developing countries experiencing rapid industrialization and urban development. This study assessed the spatio-temporal variations of PM_2.5 and its health impacts in the South Asian region. Both satellite and station-based data were used to monitor the variations in PM_2.5 over time. Additionally, mortality data associated with ambient particulate matter were used to depict the overall impacts of air pollution in this region. We applied the Mann–Kendall and Sen’s slope trend analysis tool to investigate the …

Assessing Spurious Correlations In Big Search Data, Jesse T. Richman, Ryan J. Roberts

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Big search data offers the opportunity to identify new and potentially real-time measures and predictors of important political, geographic, social, cultural, economic, and epidemiological phenomena, measures that might serve an important role as leading indicators in forecasts and nowcasts. However, it also presents vast new risks that scientists or the public will identify meaningless and totally spurious ‘relationships’ between variables. This study is the first to quantify that risk in the context of search data. We find that spurious correlations arise at exceptionally high frequencies among probability distributions examined for random variables based upon gamma (1, 1) and Gaussian random …

The Impact Of Climate Change On Environmental Sustainability And Human Mortality, Xingzhi Mara Chen, Andrew Sharma, Hua Liu

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Climate dictates the critical aspects of human environmental conditions. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather conditions due to human-induced climate change have alarmingly increased. Consequently, climate change directly affects environmental sustainability and human mortality in the short term and creates prolonged and complicated long-term indirect grave risks. This paper examines three-level environmental impact risks associated with climate change on human mortality. It proposes a conceptual framework for developing an empirical event-based human mortality database related to climate change and communication strategies to enhance global environmental adaptation, resilience, and sustainability.

Racialization And International Security, Richard W. Maass

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. Despite the field's consistent interest in power, international security studies in the United States largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates about international conflict and cooperation, nuclear proliferation, power transitions, unipolarity, civil wars, terrorism, international order, grand strategy, and other subjects. A new framework lays conceptual bedrock, links relevant literatures to major research agendas in international security, cultivates interdisciplinary dialogues, and charts promising paths to consider how overt …

Emergence Of A Norm From Resistance: Using Simulation To Explore The Macro Implications Of Social Identity Theory, Khadijeh Salimi, Jesse T. Richman, Regina Karp, George P. Richardson, David Anderson

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

We usually hope that social norms discourage injustice. However, we are all witnesses to harmful norms enforced by governments, such as xenophobia, which need to be contested and changed. Previous studies have concluded that it is possible to change a harmful norm through contestation by powerless actors if suitable structural conditions exist. However, these structural conditions have not been sufficiently studied and, as such, are the focus of this paper. Our paper begins with a review of well-established micro-level theories of social identity theory (SIT), recast as a set of 42 discrete theoretical statements. These statements are then re-expressed in …

Armageddon Revisited: The 1973 Gubernatorial Election In Virginia, James R. Sweeney

History Faculty Publications

Threatening a lawsuit, Howell prepared a memorandum to NBC citing evidence of voters changing their votes to Godwin, because as one put it, "A national network can't be wrong."⁷⁸ Howell's memorandum also mentioned an indirect tie of McGee to Godwin. Godwin constantly demanded that Howell disclose how he would replace the revenue under his tax plan.⁴³ Throughout the campaign, Godwin stressed inconsistencies between positions Howell took on various issues in 1973 and what he had said in the past. Godwin also cited Howell's endorsement of his candidacy for governor in 1965 and his comment in April that Godwin …

‘It All Comes From Me’: Bahu Begam And The Making Of The Awadh Nawabi, Circa 1765–1815, Nicholas J. Abbott

History Faculty Publications

This article examines the durable, yet largely overlooked, claims of Bahu Begam (1727–1815) to dynastic wealth and authority in the Awadh nawabi (1722–1856), a North Indian Mughal ‘successor state’ and an important client of the East India Company. Chief consort (khass mahal) to Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula (r. 1754–75) and mother to his successor Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula (r. 1775–97), Bahu Begam played a well-documented role in the regime’s tumultuous politics, particularly during Warren Hastings’s tenure as the Company’s governor-general (1773–85) and his later parliamentary impeachment. But despite her prominent political influence, little attention has been paid to the substance of her …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #2: Politics And Political Opinions, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

Life in Hampton Roads 2022 - Politics and Political Opinions

The Life in Hampton Roads survey always includes a few questions about political attitudes. In 2022 the questions included party affiliation, political ideology, job approval of President Biden, Gov. Youngkin and local mayors.

The Economic Efficiency Of Aid Targeting, Ariel Benyishay, Matthew Dilorenzo, Carrie Dolan

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

How efficient is the targeting of foreign aid to populations in need? A long literature has focused on the impacts of foreign aid, but much rarer are studies that examine how such aid is allocated within countries. We examine the extent to which donors efficiently respond to exogenous budget shocks by shifting resources toward needier districts within a given country, as predicted by theory. We use recently geocoded data on the World Bank’s aid in 23 countries that crossed the lower-middle income threshold between 1995 and 2010 and thus experienced sharp aid reductions. We measure locations’ need along a number …

A Gamefied Synthetic Environment For Evaluation Of Counter-Disinformation Solutions, Jesse Richman, Lora Pitman, Girish S. Nandakumar

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

This paper presents a simulation-based approach to countering online dis/misinformation. This disruptive technology experiment incorporated a synthetic environment component, based on adapted SIR epidemiological model to evaluate and visualize the effectiveness of suggested solutions to the issue. The participants in the simulation were given a realistic scenario depicting a dis/misinformation threat and were asked to select a number of solutions, described in IoS (Ideas-of-Systems) cards. During the event, the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the IoS cards, were tested in a synthetic environment (SEN), built after a Susceptible-Infected-Resistant (SIR) model. The participants, divided into teams, presented and justified their dis/misinformation …

Keeping It Complex With Philip Hunton, John Locke, And The United States Federal Judiciary: On The Merit Of Murkiness In Separation Of Powers Jurisprudence, Michelle M. Kundmueller

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

This article draws on the resources of a little-known political theorist, Philip Hunton, to explain the function of “murky” jurisprudence in the maintenance of separation of powers over time. In the era immediately before the drafting of the United States Constitution, separation of powers was a touted remedy to tyranny. But if government is thus moderated, a critical question arises: who will judge the precise contours of each institution’s powers? This article addresses this longstanding question by comparing the solutions offered by Philip Hunton, John Locke, and the United States judiciary. I conclude that the judiciary’s decried inability to clarify …

Dynamic Modeling Of Inland Flooding And Storm Surge On Coastal Cities Under Climate Change Scenarios: Transportation Infrastructure Impacts In Norfolk, Virginia Usa As A Case Study, Yawen Shen, Navid Tahvildari, Mohamed M. Morsy, Chris Huxley, T. Donna Chen, Jonathan Lee Goodall

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Low-lying coastal cities across the world are vulnerable to the combined impact of rainfall and storm tide. However, existing approaches lack the ability to model the combined effect of these flood mechanisms, especially under climate change and sea level rise (SLR). Thus, to increase flood resilience of coastal cities, modeling techniques to improve the understanding and prediction of the combined effect of these flood hazards are critical. To address this need, this study presents a modeling system for assessing the combined flood impact on coastal cities under selected future climate scenarios that leverages ocean modeling with land surface modeling capable …

Recent Trends In Heat-Related Mortality In The United States: An Update Through 2018, Scott C. Sheridan, P. Grady Dixon, Adam J. Kalkstein, Michael J. Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Much research has shown a general decrease in the negative health response to extreme heat events in recent decades. With a society that is growing older, and a climate that is warming, whether this trend can continue is an open question. Using eight additional years of mortality data, we extend our previous research to explore trends in heat-related mortality across the United States. For the period 1975–2018, we examined the mortality associated with extreme-heat-event days across the 107 largest metropolitan areas. Mortality response was assessed over a cumulative 10-day lag period following events that were defined using thresholds of the …

A Global Ecological Classification Of Coastal Segment Units To Complement Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Assessments, Roger Sayre, Kevin Butler, Keith Van Graafeiland, Sean Breyer, Dawn Wright, Charlie Frye, Deniz Karagulle, Madeline Martin, Jill Cress, Tom Allen, Rebecca J. Allee, Rost Parsons, Bjorn Nyberg, Mark J. Costello, Peter Harris, Frank E. Muller-Karger

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

A new data layer provides Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) labels for global coastal segments at 1 km or shorter resolution. These characteristics are summarized for six US Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) sites and one MBON Pole to Pole of the Americas site in Argentina. The global coastlines CMECS classifications were produced from a partitioning of a 30 m Landsat-derived shoreline vector that was segmented into 4 million 1 km or shorter segments. Each segment was attributed with values from 10 variables that represent the ecological settings in which the coastline occurs, including properties of the adjacent …

The Relationship Between Neighborhood Characteristics And Homicide In Karachi, Pakistan, Salma Hamza, Imran Khan, Linlin Lu, Hua Liu, Farkhunda Burke, Syed Nawaz-Ul-Huda, Muhammad Fahad Baqa, Aqil Tariq

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The geographical concentration of criminal violence is closely associated with the social, demographic, and economic structural characteristics of neighborhoods. However, few studies have investigated homicide patterns and their relationships with neighborhoods in South Asian cities. In this study, the spatial and temporal patterns of homicide incidences in Karachi from 2009 to 2018 were analyzed using the local indicators of spatial association (LISA) method. Generalized linear modeling (GLM) and geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR) methods were implemented to examine the relationship between influential factors and the number of homicides during the 2009–2018 period. The results demonstrate that the homicide hotspot or …

Nonprofit Capacity To Manage Hurricane-Pandemic Threat: Local And National Perspectives On Resilience During Covid-19, Nicole S. Hutton, Steven W. Mumford, Marina Saitgalina, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Joshua G. Behr, Rafael Diaz, John J. Kiefer

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

This paper examines nonprofits' capacity for responding to simultaneous hurricane-pandemic threat, addressing: (1) strategies nonprofits use to deliver services during the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) how natural hazards may affect nonprofit roles in emergency service delivery during a pandemic. Data come from a survey of New Orleans-based nonprofits demonstrating effects of pandemic on local nonprofit service delivery, and workshops with U.S. coastal community stakeholders exploring expectations for nonprofit roles in emergency operations nationwide. Nonprofits have applied resilient strategies including virtual operations, staff reductions, and funding diversification, but vulnerabilities remain. Findings guide a research agenda for building nonprofit and community resilience.

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #4: Politics & Ethics In Government, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

Life in Hampton Roads 2021 - Politics & Ethics in Government

The Life in Hampton Roads survey typically includes a few questions about political attitudes. In 2021, the questions asked included party affiliation, job approval of President Biden and preferences for the 2021 gubernatorial election. The survey also included a set of questions about ethics in local government that have been asked in previous surveys.

Noise: A Flaw In Human Judgment. [Book Review], Michael Cohen

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Agent-Based Modelling Of Values: The Case Of Value Sensitive Design For Refugee Logistics, Christine Boshuijzen-Van Burken, Ross J. Gore, Frank Dignum, Lamber Royakkers, Phillip Wozny, F. Leron Shults

VMASC Publications

We have used value sensitive design as a method to develop an agent-based model of values in humanitarian logistics for refugees. Schwartz’s theory of universal values is implemented in the model in such a way that agents can make value trade-offs, which are operationalized into a measure of refugee wellbeing and a measure of public opinion about how the refugee logistics is being handled. By trying out different ‘value scenarios’, stakeholders who are responsible for, or involved in refugee logistics can have insights into the effects of various value choices. The model is visualized and made usable as a platform …

A Partnership At Risk, Simon Serfaty

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The article focuses on issues regarding transatlantic partnership with urgency of climate change, sharing the impact of a growing migrant crisis, regulating the cyber anarchy, digging out of massive imbalances, and more. It mentions U.S. President Donald Trump's approach about the world is four-dimensional and improbable promise of a bilateral trade agreement with Great Britain. It also mentions Trump's consensus to re-embrace the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with the expectation of a broader round of multilateral negotiations with Iran; a return to the Paris Treaty on Climate Change, with shared goals of further progress in many of its …

The Morning Meeting: Fostering A Participatory Democracy Begins With Youth In Public Education, Rebecca C. Tilhou

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

There is a faltering sense of democracy in America's current political climate due to polarized opinions about leadership's decisions and antagonistic political parties. John Dewey (1916) proposed that education is the place to foster democracy, as schools can provide a platform to actively engage students in authentic democratic experiences that will empower them to act democratically beyond the walls of the school. The democratic schools that emerged during the Free School Movement of the 1960s and 1970s embody Dewey's philosophy, specifically with the shared governance occurring in their School Meetings. Unfortunately, American public education's present preoccupation with standardization, proficiency scores, …

Victory By The Weakest: Effects Of Negative Advertising In N>2 Candidate Campaigns, Jesse T. Richman

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The truel, or three way duel, has distinct properties from duels: the weakest contestant often has a very good chance to win. This paper explores application of the logic of truels to election campaigns involving negative advertising. We show that negative campaigning that pits the leading candidates against each other can create circumstances in which the third (or worse) place candidate wins in one or more of the Nash equilibria of the game. We then study whether the simulated existence of an opportunity for Nash equilibrium victory by third place candidates predicts such outcomes in U.S. state-wide elections.

Should We Expect Each Year In The Next Decade (2019–28) To Be Ranked Among The Top 10 Warmest Years Globally?, Anthony Arguez, Shannan Hurley, Anand Inamdar, Laurel Mahoney, Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, Lilian Yang

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Annual rankings of global temperature are widely cited by media and the general public, not only to place the most recent year in a historical perspective, but also as a first-order metric of recent climate change that is easily digestible by the general public. Moreover, all annual NOAAGlobalTemp anomalies from 1880 (the earliest reading available) through the mid-1970s are well below anomalies of the top 10 warmest years in Table 1, even when considering the uncertainty of the NOAAGlobalTemp time series values. While we expect the algorithm's performance to be largely independent of any changes made to the way that …

Challenges In Upgrading Emergency Power In Florida Nursing Homes Following Hurricane Irma, Nicole S. Hutton, Michael J. Allen

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Maintaining and restoring electricity after a disaster helps to preserve the health and well-being of the elderly who are at increased risk of heat stress and may be dependent upon life-sustaining medical equipment. Mitigation policies altered in reaction to increased public interest without thorough consideration of industry-specific resources may contribute to delays in implementation and unrealized potential for emergency power coverage within individual facilities. The objectives of this research are twofold: (i) to examine the relationship between preexisting conditions of life-safety systems at facilities and date of implementation of emergency power regulation improvements and (ii) to assess the role of …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #4: Presidential Polling, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

Life in Hampton Roads Survey - Presidential Polling Results

Respondents were asked: “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?” Roughly one-third (34.1%) approved, with 13.9% strongly approving. Nearly two-thirds (65.9%) disapproved, with 43.8% disapproving strongly.