Digital Commons Network^™

Geographic Trends Of Terrorist Attacks And Active Shooter Scenarios Perpetrated Inside U.S. Military Installations And Facilities, 1970-2019, Aaron James Ebbenga

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

In recent years, a variety of devastating terrorist attacks have been perpetrated against American military installations, spurring not only national outrage but also global public upheaval. Our public preconception of considering military bases as impenetrable to the dangers of active shooter scenarios and bomb threats has since become widely scrutinized by worldwide media sources. For this reason, the people of the U.S. have expressed concerns about the safety of the nation’s military personnel. The diverse nature of the attacks, committed both by domestic and foreign terrorist organizations, illustrates vulnerabilities of American military installations and support facilities. These types of attacks …

Opportunities And Challenges For Deploying Connected And Automated Vehicles To Address Transportation Disparities In Urban Areas, Erika Shepard, Kimberly Napoline, Frank Douma, Adeel Lari

Journal of Law and Mobility

As the development and testing of connected and automated vehicles (CAV) accelerates, it is important for government stakeholders, planners, and policymakers to have a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities CAVs will bring to infrastructure, communities, and lifestyles. There is general consensus among scholars and transportation practitioners that CAV will “disrupt” transportation systems, land use patterns, and socioeconomic power structures as they exist today.The implications of CAV on transportation infrastructure have been the subject of numerous academic and professional studies, suggesting both positive and negative effects may occur. Furthermore, in an American context, transportation planning has historically contributed to …

An Index Of Community Priorities To Inform Local Governance In New Haven, Max E. Teirstein

Library Map Prize

Environmental justice screening and mapping tools visually depict the distribution of environmental justice burden across a geographic area. How that burden is measured varies according to location—different communities face different challenges, and a mapping tool that represents the landscape of environmental justice in one community may not adequately capture the distribution of EJ burden in another area. Who decides what “burden” means for each community? In this study of environmental justice in New Haven, CT, I argue that it is residents and local community leaders whose perspectives are most critical to how environmental justice is defined. I create a census …

Integrating Carbon Pricing Approaches, Amay Shah

CMC Senior Theses

Concerns about global climate change and its effects have been steadily growing around the world in recent years. The Paris Agreement has laid out ambitious targets for countries to cut their emissions in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Carbon pricing mechanisms are an inventive instrument that can help achieve these emissions reductions by placing a price on greenhouse gas emissions, creating incentives for organizations to reduce their emissions. These mechanisms can also help enable the transfers from wealthy nations to developing nations that will be essential for ensuring a …

Identifying Patterns In The Structural Drivers Of Intrastate Conflict, Jonathan D. Moyer, Austin S. Matthews, Mickey Rafa, Yutang Xiong

Global and Public Affairs: Faculty Scholarship

Quantitative methods have been used to: (1) better predict civil conflict onset; and (2) understand causal mechanisms to inform policy intervention and theory. However, an exploration of individual conflict onset cases illustrates great variation in the characteristics describing the outbreak of civil war, suggesting that there is not one single set of factors that lead to intrastate war. In this article, we use descriptive statistics to explore persistent clusters in the drivers of civil war onset, finding evidence that some arrangements of structural drivers cluster robustly across multiple model specifications (such as young, poorly developed states with anocratic regimes). Additionally, …

A Simulation-Based Disaster Management Framework To Analyze Housing Recovery: The Case Of Hampton Roads, Usa, Rafael Diaz, Joshua Behr, Beatriz Acero, Bridget D. Giles, Juita-Elena Wie Yusuf

VMASC Publications

In the aftermath of a catastrophic weather event, housing recovery and reconstruction activities are highly complex. Coordinating housing recovery activities is generally challenging because complex supply chains converge simultaneously in a highly uncertain environment. In this environment, anticipating and quantifying the extent of potential damage and determining the actions that must be taken to rebuild the housing stock may assist regions in allocating resources for reconstruction. This paper presents the development of a comprehensive disaster management framework to assist decision-makers in predicting the impact of projected natural disasters on housing. This framework uses a simulation-based approach to quantify likely regional …

Kentucky’S K-12 Public School Spending And Its Relationship To Enrollment Percentages Of Students With Limited English Proficiency And Students Eligible For The Free And Reduced-Price Lunch Program, Christine Tarne

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Public school funding formulas vary broadly between states in both the levels of funding and the mechanisms through which funding is distributed. Most states provide targeted funding for student populations that need supplemental resources, including low-income and limited English proficiency student populations, as does the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In the past, a lack of school level enrollment and financial data made it difficult to determine whether funding provided to local education agencies has been equitably distributed to the schools with whom they are affiliated. The 2015 Federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires that school-level enrollment and …

States' Public Health Funding And Population Health Outcomes: An Examination Through A Socio-Ecological Lens, Maureen K. Akubu-Odero

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The US public health system has been underfunded for decades, despite its significant mandate of improving overall population health outcomes. This ecological study evaluates the association between state public health funding and population health outcomes and the role of state public health funding in reducing state-level health disparities. The findings show that the relationships between public health investments and improvements in health outcomes and health disparity in states are moderated by socioeconomic contextual factors. The findings suggest a need for continued and increased public health investments, tailored to community needs and context

A Contentious Crop: Exploring The Regulatory Debate Of Solar Power Production Facilities In Kittitas County, Washington, Daphne Condon

All Master's Theses

Between 2010 and 2018, Kittitas County, Washington faced an influx of Solar Power Production Facility (SPPF) proposals that challenged its traditional rural land management governance. Despite state support of decarbonized energy, variegated interpretations of project permitting procedures induced heated contentions amongst stakeholders. To explore this, this research constructs a multijurisdictional legal framework for SPPF advancement. It uses these laws to divulge the permitting processes of three case study projects founded in Kittitas County’s renewable energy history: The Wild Horse Wind Facility, the Iron Horse Solar Project, and the Columbia Solar Projects. Through a mixed methodology of project archival analysis and …

Exploring The Spatially Heterogeneous Effects Of The Built Environment On Bike-Sharing Usage During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Hongtai Yang, Zishuo Guo, Guocong Zhai, Linchuan Yang, Jinghai Huo

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Bike-sharing holds promise for available and healthy mobility services during COVID-19 where bike sharing users can make trips with lower health concerns due to social distancing compared to the restricted transportation modes such as public transit and ridesharing services. Leveraging the trip data of the Divvy bike-sharing system in Chicago, this study explores spatially heterogeneous effects of built environment on bike-sharing usage under the pandemic. Results show that the average weekly ridership declined by 52.04%. To account for the spatially heterogeneous relationship between the built environment and the ridership, the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model and the semiparametric GWR (S-GWR) …

Disparate Financial Assistance Support For Small Business Owners, Sophia Fox-Dichter, Daniel Auguste, Mathieu Despard, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Social Policy Institute Research

Small business owners experienced a drastic economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Government pandemic assistance failed to reach many small business owners, especially those historically underserved by financial institutions. Drawing on a 2021 survey of 246 small business owners, the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis descriptively examined the extent to which small business owners sought and received business assistance, and whether applications and approval of government assistance varied by race and ethnicity. We find that though Hispanic and Black business owners applied for government assistance at a higher rate than white business owners, Black business …

Service Contracting As A Policy Response For Public Transport Recovery During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Preliminary Evaluation, Varsolo Sunio, Wilhansen Joseph Li, Joemier Pontawe, Albert Dizon, Joel Bienne Valderrama, Agnes Robang

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

We examine and assess the service contracting (SC) program implemented for the first time in Metro Manila, Philippines as a response to the impact of the pandemic on road-based public transport sector. We develop an evaluation framework, consisting of three indicators: social amelioration, increase in transport supply and performance improvement. These indicators are the purported objectives of SC. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, our evaluation suggests that although SC has brought positive impact in terms of the first two indicators, there is no robust evidence so far that may suggest that SC has improved the performance of …

Impact And Coping Strategies Among Vulnerable Groups: An Urban-Rural Resilience Trajectory Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rizki Fillali, Ana Rosidha Tamyis, Sulton Mawardi, Hening Wikan Sawiji

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound effects on the livelihoods of vulnerable groups. Previous studies have indicated that vulnerable groups in urban areas suffer more economic impacts than their counterparts in rural areas, largely due to mobility restrictions, social and physical distancing measures, and pre-pandemic vulnerabilities, exacerbating the challenges that urban groups face to survive. This article examines variations in the impacts and coping strategies of vulnerable groups in selected urban and rural areas in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic, and determines how these impacts and coping strategies have shaped the trajectory of community resilience. The article argues that although …

Social And Virtual Segregation: A Study Of Gated Communities In Yogyakarta, Kuskridho Ambardi, Odam Asdi Artosa, Novi Paramita Dewi, Kurniawan Yanto Yuliarso

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

The problem of social segregation gains new relevance as digital technology has now become the core of people’s lives and work. Unfortunately, this factor is often neglected in studies of social segregation. Previous studies have only taken note of social and spatial segregation. This study aims to fill a conceptual gap by raising the virtual dimension within socio-spatial segregation. This research finds that virtual segregation has strengthened segregationist tendencies that follow the growth of luxurious housing complexes and gated communities. Furthermore, this study also asserts that deregulation policies in housing and the commercial development of telecommunication infrastructure are factors that …

Invited Perspective - Engaging Aspirations To Nurture Communities, Kentaro Toyama

Subsistence Marketplaces

For subsistence communities, the question is whether aspirations can be applied to motivate behavior that is, on the one hand consistent with people’s aspirations, but which might otherwise be difficult to elicit. Could poorer households be encouraged to save, to spend more on their children’s education, or to act against unhealthy social norms? A couple of examples suggest this is not only possible, but highly successful in contexts where other appeals fail.

'Indirect Pathways Into Practice': Philippine Internationally Educated Nurses And Their Entry Into Ontario's Nursing Profession, Lualhati Marcelino

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

While there are several studies that highlight the quantitative and statistical profiles of internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the Philippines who migrate to countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Canada, there is little research that delves deeply into the qualitative review and analysis of their experiences in their own words. This study addresses that gap by applying the transnational feminist concept of “global care chains” in a single case study design that explores the experience of nurses who migrated to Ontario through permanent and temporary immigration streams and were interviewed in 2011 to 2012 to …

From A “Cheli” In Nepal To A “Khadama” In The Arabian Gulf Countries: The Local-Global Entanglements And Gendered Labour Migration Governance, Hari Kc

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation explores: In what ways does gender operate as a governing code in Nepal’s labour migration governance? This question is answered in three specific ways. First, it explores how the gender codes in the Nepali society conjoin global forces to create structural conditions for women’s transnational labour migration. Second, it examines how the Nepali state – within the regional/global geopolitics – embraces the gendered labour migration policy to produce, reproduce, and perpetuate the gender codes. Third, it explicates the ways in which women migrating for domestic work in the Arabian Gulf countries resist and subvert the gender codes while …

City Of Milpitas Trash Capture Device Program: An Evaluation Of System Performance And Compliance With The Municipal Regional Permit, Joseph Aguilera

Master's Projects

Water pollution negatively impacts the environment and human population. The problem persists despite various mitigation efforts, strategies, and the implementation of regulatory requirements. It is estimated that Californians dispose of approximately 40 million tons of consumer items and waste materials annually (California Department of Resource Recycling and Recovery, 2019). As the population increases, it is expected that negative impacts of trash on the environment will be exacerbated. To address this, municipalities in California apply various methods to reduce trash before it enters ocean waters.

The primary vehicle for urban trash pollutants to reach ocean waters is through storm water conveyance …

In The Shadow Of The Megadrought: Opportunities And Challenges For Addressing Loss And Damage From Climate Change In Chile And Eastern Montana, Usa, Elizabeth Grace Tobey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As the impacts of anthropogenic climate change mount, climate- related harms, both economic and non-economic, occur across every inhabited continent and disproportionately affect the world’s most vulnerable people. In response, the Loss and Damage agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has emerged to address those climate-related harms that exceed human capacities for mitigation and adaptation. Significant questions remain regarding how losses and damages emerge across the globe and how Loss and Damage policy will be implemented to address those impacts. This thesis explores two specific questions: (1) national-level Loss and Damage policy mechanisms; and (2) perceptions …

Covid-19 Vaccination In Palestine/Israel: Citizenship, Capitalism, And The Logic Of Elimination, Nicolas Howard, Emily Schneider

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Despite Israel’s responsibility under international law to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics in its occupied territories, Israeli officials have refused to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through a critical discourse analysis of Israeli officials’ statements regarding Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, this paper explores how Israel evades this responsibility while presenting itself as committed to public health and human rights. We find that Israeli officials strategically present Palestinians as an autonomous nation when discussing COVID-19 vaccinations, despite Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Relatedly, Israel justifies …

Book Review: Teacher Diversity And Student Success: Why Racial Representation Matters In The Classroom, Aubrey Scheopner Torres

Journal of Catholic Education

No abstract is published with book reviews

The Two-Echelon Vehicle Routing Problem With Transshipment Nodes And Occasional Drivers: Formulation And Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search Heuristic, Vincent F. Yu, Minh P. K. Nguyen, Kuza Putra, Aldy Gunawan, I. Gusti Bagus Budi Dharma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research introduces a new variant of the two-echelon vehicle routing problem (2EVRP) called the two-echelon vehicle routing problem with transshipment nodes and occasional drivers (2EVRP-TN-OD). In addition to city freighters in the second-echelon network, a set of occasional drivers (ODs) is available to serve customers. ODs are the basis of a crowd-shipping system in which crowds with planned trips are willing to take detours to deliver packages in exchange for some compensation. To serve customers, ODs collect the assigned packages at either satellite served by first-echelon trucks or transshipment nodes served by city freighters. We formulate this problem as …

A Harbour In The Country, A City In The Sea: Infrastructural Conduits, Territorial Inversions And The Slippages Of Sovereignty In Sino-Sri Lankan Development Narratives, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper adopts infrastructure as a lens through which new understandings of the inter-relationships between territory and sovereignty can be advanced. It argues that inverting the terrestrial assumption of territory can lead to “slippages” of sovereignty in which territorial sovereignty is indirectly claimed through the assertion of governance rights. For the purposes of this paper, I explore these inversions through the reclaiming of land from the ocean, and the removal of land by the ocean. Drawing on ethnographic research exploring the effects of China-backed infrastructure megaprojects in Sri Lanka, these territorial inversions are explored, respectively, through the Port City Colombo …

What We Do In The Shadows: Dual Industrial Policy During The Thatcher Governments, 1979–1990, Richard Woodward, James Silverwood

Articles

Selective industrial policy in the United Kingdom is conventionally believed to have vanished prior to the global financial crisis. This article, in contrast, argues that industrial policy remained an intrinsic, if seldom acknowledged, element of neoliberal statecraft. The basis of this is a subterfuge, conceptualised here as a ‘dual industrial policy’, which we explore via an empirical focus on the Thatcher governments. Throughout this time, actions explicitly endorsed by governments as industrial policy generally corresponded with neoliberalism’s hostility to intervention. These conveniently distracted attention from a second set of policies which, although never codified by government as industrial policy, were …

Sustainable Strategies For Mass Rapid Transit Ppps, Sock Yong Phang, Bin Chye Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Mass rapid transit (MRT) PPPs have proliferated in the past two decades. This chapter provides a framework to categorise and understand alternative PPP designs. As MRT systems are inherently large, unprofitable and risky projects, PPP design is critical to project success and sustainability. We study the experiences of MRT PPPs in London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing to understand factors underlying success and failure and to arrive at policy recommendations for PPPs. Policymakers need to have additional governance improvement and risk mitigation measures in place when tied supply chains are utilised. Hong Kong’s experience illustrates that ‘Rail plus Property’ strategy …

Can Californian Households Save Money On Transportation Costs By Living In Transit-Oriented Developments (Tods)?, Hongwei Dong

Mineta Transportation Institute

Many residents in large Californian metropolitan areas are heavily burdened by housing costs. Advocates, researchers, and elected officials in California are debating whether transit-oriented development (TOD) could be an effective tool to mitigate the housing affordability problem by increasing housing supply and reducing transportation costs in transit-rich neighborhoods. This study contributes to this debate by estimating how much Californian families can save on transportation costs by living in transit-oriented developments (TODs). By utilizing the confidential version of the 2010–2012 California Household Travel Survey, this study evaluates the impact of TOD on household transportation expenditures by comparing TOD households with two …

The Westminster Model And The Destabilizing Of Democracy In The Caribbean, Peter L. René

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem with the Westminster model is the model’s lack of governance, oversight and colonial mindset which has led to a crisis that includes severe government corruption, deepening poverty, upticks in crime, debt and decreasing trade opportunities. This makes life harder for the citizens and threatens to destabilize the democracies with no one nation situated to cope with these existential challenges. National independence for the region was designed to maintain the status quo of colonial times while providing the illusion of autonomy and individual sovereignty. The purpose of the study was to analyze the Westminster model enacted in the Caribbean …

Factors Associated With Mask Use In New York City Neighborhood Parks During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Field Audit Study, Lisa Hitch, Marie A. Sillice, Hanish Kodali, Katarzyna E. Wyka, Javier Otero Peña, Terry Tk Huang

Publications and Research

Background: Mask use is a cost-effective measure to decrease COVID-19 transmission. Mask mandates intend to increase mask compliance but are often ambiguous when it comes to public outdoor spaces.

Methods: We used a field audit study to examine mask use in New York City neighborhood parks during COVID-19. 1453 park visitors were observed in 13 parks during July–August 2020 using a modified and validated park use audit tool (System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities) that included items on general and proper mask use (i.e., mask covering both nose and mouth). Generalized estimating equation regression was used to determine …

Integration Of Cape Verde In The Ecowas Subregion: Challenges And Viability, Silvestre De Pina Rosa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was created on May 28th, 1975, with the intent of fostering the economic growth of its 15 member-states. In the process of implementing its policies and institutions, the ECOWAS faced decisive challenges, including internal conflicts, asymmetries, migrations and mobility. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact these factors have on the integration of the Republic of Cape Verde, which is the smallest member-state, and formulate conclusions and recommendations that would help the organization to find a path to success. Through the lenses of the dependency theory, this research involved …

Improving Racial Diversity In The Americorps Saint Louis Emergency Response Team (Ert), Michael Mclemore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is currently a significant lack of racial diversity in the fields of environmental conservation and emergency management. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify sustainable recommendations to address the lack of racial diversity amongst members of the AmeriCorps Saint Louis Emergency Response Team (ERT). Trend analysis of the racial makeup of past ERT memberships identified a far less diverse ERT in its earlier cohorts, while illustrating improved racial diversity over the past 10 years. As a result of interviews with ERT administrators, alumni, team leaders, and current members recommendations were identified that aim to sustainably increase African …