Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Patterns Of Population Displacement During Mega-Fires In California Detected Using Facebook Disaster Maps, Shenyue Jia, Seung Hee Kim, Son V. Nghiem, Paul Doherty, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The Facebook Disaster Maps (FBDM) work presented here is the first time this platform has been used to provide analysis-ready population change products derived from crowdsourced data targeting disaster relief practices. We evaluate the representativeness of FBDM data using the Mann-Kendall test and emerging hot and cold spots in an anomaly analysis to reveal the trend, magnitude, and agglommeration of population displacement during the Mendocino Complex and Woolsey fires in California, USA. Our results show that the distribution of FBDM pre-crisis users fits well with the total population from different sources. Due to usage habits, the elder population is underrepresented …

Analysis Of Flickr, Snapchat, And Twitter Use For The Modeling Of Visitor Activity In Florida State Parks, Hartwig H. Hochmair, Levente Juhasz

GIS Center

Spatio-temporal information attached to social media posts allows analysts to study human activity and travel behavior. This study analyzes contribution patterns to the Flickr, Snapchat, and Twitter platforms in over 100 state parks in Central and Northern Florida. The first part of the study correlates monthly visitor count data with the number of Flickr images, snaps, or tweets, contributed within the park areas. It provides insight into the suitability of these different social media platforms to be used as a proxy for the prediction of visitor numbers in state parks. The second part of the study analyzes the spatial distribution …

Improving The Efficacy Of Web-Based Educational Outreach In Ecology, Gregory R. Goldsmith, Andrew D. Fulton, Colin D. Witherill, Javier F. Espeleta

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Scientists are increasingly engaging the web to provide formal and informal science education opportunities. Despite the prolific growth of web-based resources, systematic evaluation and assessment of their efficacy remains limited. We used clickstream analytics, a widely available method for tracking website visitors and their behavior, to evaluate 60,000 visits over three years to an educational website focused on ecology. Visits originating from search engine queries were a small proportion of the traffic, suggesting the need to actively promote websites to drive visitation. However, the number of visits referred to the website per social media post varied depending on the social …

Determining The Effects Of Technology On Children, Kristina E. Hatch

Senior Honors Projects

Determining the Effects of Technology on Children

Kristina Hatch

Faculty Sponser: Timothy Henry, Computer Science and Statistics

Technology has become an essential part of Americans’ daily lives, affecting our communications, mail, relationships, the management of our bills and finances. As we have become more immersed in the benefits and capabilities of these constantly developing technologies, children as well as adults have become avid users. Laptops and cell phones are specially developed for preteens. Software and game companies have been targeting children in their game development. Video games have become common entertainment for children as young as four. Children today can …