New pilot study enhances understanding of situational fear

Policy paper from City, University of London reveals lived experiences of students and methodology for measuring triggers of fear.

Reports and Proceedings

CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON

 

IMAGE: WELCOME MESSAGE FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE CITY LIFE CHATBOT EXPERIMENT. view more 

CREDIT: DR MICHAEL SAKER, CITY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Research from experts at City, University of London’s Department of Sociology and Criminology suggests that although women students feel largely safe while on campus,universities have a responsibility that extends beyond campus and encompasses surrounding areas and commuter routes into and out of study areas.

The research, captured the lived experiences of 24 women students at City across a two-week period using a chatbot app, City Life, which was developed for the purposes of the study. The project concluded with a series of semi-structured interviews.

City Life recorded lived experiences both during and outside of university contact hours with the aim of gaining a more situated understanding of fear. Students were given the opportunity to chart their emotions while travelling in and out of university, moving around campus and socialising.

Key findings from the study include:

• For women students, the experience of fear is closely associated with mobility on campus (in effect, moving between buildings). This fear was more pronounced at darker times of day and when there was little company.
• Women students experienced more fear while moving through the wider environment outside of campus. Accordingly, non-campus universities are significant here, as students have greater distances to travel between buildings and locations, as well as more complex public transport routes. Public transport and the sharing of enclosed spaces was also a major factor in students’ encountering of fear.
• Students frequently carry expensive equipment, including laptops, phones and tablets on their person. This generally exacerbated the fear felt by some participants of the study when travelling to and from university.
• City Life made participants more cognisant of their surroundings and how they experienced these surroundings – a sense one participant described as “safety in knowledge”.

The study was led by Dr Michael Saker, Senior Lecturer in Digital Sociology and Societal Change with Dan Mercea, Professor of Digital and Social Change and Dr Carrie-Anne Myers, Reader in Criminology at City.

Having successfully gathered data and established the feasibility of the chatbot app, the researchers now plan to build a more sophisticated, upscaled system with the aim of rolling out to other institutions and a far wider pool of students.

Dr Saker said he hoped the feasibility of the study would help upscale the operation and further develop City Life to better comprehend fear of crime, and that this comprehension could be parlayed into more suitable policy.  

“High-profile incidents in the news have highlighted the fear many women and women students encounter in their everyday lives,” he said.

“Previous research indeed tells us that it prompts them to avoid certain areas and activities which directly and indirectly evoking emotions of fear – such as forgoing evening classes and social activities in favour of travelling home during sociable or lighter hours.

“Our study shows the feasibility of exploring situations of fear using technology such as an app. The next step is to develop our system further and grow it into a more enhanced tool for wider engagement and awareness.”

Professor Mercea commented that the report could help universities understand and mitigate the triggers of fear to improve overall student experience.

“Students generally carry expensive possessions – laptops, tablets, phones – on their person, while being focused within an area of space. Carrying such items around can evoke a level of fear in itself.

“Although our pilot shows that City’s campus is widely regarded as a safe place, universities must recognise the external triggers in their institutional designs and safeguarding initiatives. Doing so will help them provide a more inclusive experience where students can take part in extracurricular activities without the fear of experiencing crime.”

Dr Myers said a study of this kind was highly topical to current trends in higher education.

“The post-Covid environment means students are returning to campus, while a cost of living crisis is forcing many to commute longer distances to their university.

“This increases the likelihood of encountering ‘off-campus’ fear, such as on train journeys and walking to and from terminals.

“Providing students with the means to report feelings of fear – as our chatbot app did – creates the opportunity for institutions and local authorities to form a situated understanding of what students see as safer environments.”

About the study

City Life is a chatbot app developed by the research team using the FlowXO chatbot software, and distributed using Telegram.

Twenty-four participants used the app over a two-week period, completing eight tasks that pertained to university life and their relationships with the emotion of fear. Participants were women aged between 18 and 40, with a mean age of 25.

ENDS

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Locating Fear: A pilot study examining the use of a chatbot app to surface embodied experiences of fear in situ.

Improving the mapping, predictability of landslides

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

 

IMAGE: PHOTO OF A LANDSLIDE-PRONE AREA IN THE OUACHITA MOUNTAINS. view more 

CREDIT: PROVIDED BY THE OKLAHOMA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

Netra Regmi, Ph.D., hazards geologist for the Oklahoma Geological Survey at the University of Oklahoma, is leading a study funded by NASA using remote sensing data and machine learning to improve scientists’ understanding and predictability of landslides. Remote sensing data helps scientists detect and monitor changes on the Earth’s surface over time.

According to NASA's Earth Science Division, landslides are one of the major geohazards that cause thousands of fatalities and billions of dollars in damages each year across the world. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that landslides cause more than $1 billion in damages and about 25 to 50 deaths each year in the United States. Landslides occur in every state and U.S. territory and pose significant hazards in eastern Oklahoma’s Ouachita and Ozark mountains.

Regmi, with Oklahoma Geological Survey researchers Nicholas Hayman and Jacob Walter, and School of Geosciences assistant professor Junle Jiang, are building on previous research that mapped a large number of landslides in eastern Oklahoma. Using expanded data sets, the research team is now looking to better understand the causes, mechanics and associated hazards of these landslides.

“Using Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar data and LiDAR topographic data, we are looking at patterns of hillslope deformation over time – all the different types of landslides going from slow-moving landslides (soil creep) to rapid landslides that can be catastrophic,” Regmi said. “We’re trying to understand the distribution, causes, triggers and mechanics of these landslides.”

Many factors can contribute to landslides, from atmospheric conditions like severe weather, precipitation and humidity to seismic activity, human activities that modify slopes such as mining and construction, and more.

Using machine learning techniques and relating what is known about landslide occurrences with additional data related to the potential contributing factors, the research team plans to develop a high-resolution landslides susceptibility map to attempt to forecast future landslides in eastern Oklahoma. The map and information resulting from this study could be used to help local emergency managers and others improve safety and hazard communication for those most at risk in landslide-prone areas.

“It is advanced science because looking at the soil creep and their progression into rapid landslides, not too much work has been done worldwide,” Regmi said.

Learn more about the Oklahoma Geological Survey at https://www.ou.edu/ogs and about the project at https://netraregmi.oucreate.com/recent-projects/.

Photo of a landslide-prone area in the Ouachita Mountains.

CREDIT

Photo provided by the Oklahoma Geological Survey, University of Oklahoma.

About the Project
The project, “Monitoring Hillslope Dynamics Using SAR Time Series and Machine Learning,” is funded by NASA, award no. 80NSSC22K1723.

About the University of Oklahoma Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships 

The University of Oklahoma is a leading research university classified by the Carnegie Foundation in the highest tier of research universities in the nation. Faculty, staff and students at OU are tackling global challenges and accelerating the delivery of practical solutions that impact society in direct and tangible ways through research and creative activities. OU researchers expand foundational knowledge while moving beyond traditional academic boundaries, collaborating across disciplines and globally with other research institutions as well as decision makers and practitioners from industry, government and civil society to create and apply solutions for a better world. Find out more at ou.edu/research

About the University of Oklahoma

Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information visit www.ou.edu.

Light-based computing scheme reduces power needed to mine cryptocurrencies

New photonic blockchain could make cryptocurrencies more accessible and enable low-energy optical computing

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OPTICA

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A NEW LIGHT-BASED COMPUTING SCHEME CALLED LIGHTHASH THAT REDUCES THE ENERGY NECESSARY FOR CRYPTOCURRENCY AND BLOCKCHAIN APPLICATIONS. FIRST AUTHOR SUNIL PAI IS PICTURED WITH THE OPTICAL SETUP USED FOR THE NEW RESEARCH. view more 

CREDIT: STANFORD UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new light-based computing scheme that uses a photonic integrated circuit to reduce the energy necessary for cryptocurrency and blockchain applications. Mining cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin—a process of verifying transactions and adding new cryptocurrency to the blockchain—consumes up to 1% of the world’s energy. This energy expenditure is expected to grow as cryptocurrency and blockchain applications become increasingly mainstream.

Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies created using encryption algorithms. These alternative currencies require a blockchain—a type of digital ledger that records information such as transactions in a way that is difficult or impossible to change or hack.

“Currently, cryptocurrency mining is only accessible to those that have access to highly discounted energy—below $0.05/kWh,” said first author Sunil Pai, who performed the research at Stanford and is now at the quantum computing company PsiQuantum. “Our low-energy chips will make it possible for individuals all over the world to participate in mining profitably.”

In Optica, Optica Publishing Group’s journal for high-impact research, the researchers detail their new scheme called LightHash, which uses a photonic integrated circuit to create a photonic blockchain. With further development, the researchers predict that this approach, if implemented on a large scale, could produce a roughly ten-fold improvement in energy use compared to the best modern digital electronic processors. David A.B. Miller co-led the Stanford University research team with Shanhui Fan and Olav Solgaard.

“Our approach to photonic blockchain could also be used for applications beyond cryptocurrency such as securely transferring data for medical records, smart contracts and voting,” said Pai. “This work paves the way for low-energy optical computing, which, ultimately, can reduce data centers’ energy consumption.”

Greener mining with silicon photonics

Growing concerns about the large amount of energy required to mine cryptocurrencies have caused some popular ones such as Ethereum to shift to unproven and potentially insecure schemes to minimize their carbon footprint.

To find a more eco-friendly approach while maintaining a high level of security, Pai and colleagues use silicon photonics to reduce the energy requirements of cryptocurrency networks. LightHash improves upon a scheme the team previously developed called HeavyHash that is currently used in cryptocurrency networks such as Optical Bitcoin and Kaspa.

“The major motivation for LightHash was HeavyHash’s high sensitivity to hardware error,” said Pai. “Since analog computers, including photonic ones, struggle to achieve low error rates, we designed LightHash to maintain all the security properties of HeavyHash, while improving its robustness to error.”

Securely creating Bitcoin or operating its computing network requires computing a hash function like SHA256 or Heavyhash to transform input data into a single output number in a way that is too complex to be undone, which accounts for the bulk of Bitcoin’s energy use. In the new work, the researchers modified Heavyhash to work with a co-designed silicon photonic chip carrying a 6x6 network of programmable interferometers. This enabled low-energy optical processing of matrix multiplications, which forms the bulk of the computation in Lighthash.

To evaluate the feasibility of using LightHash for matrix multiplication, the researchers built an optical rig to control and track the propagation of light by tuning heating elements and imaging grating spots onto an infrared camera. They also implemented an error mitigation algorithm and established feasibility criteria for scaling the technology.

The new scheme creates a photonic blockchain using a photonic integrated circuit, the small metallic rectangle.

CREDIT

Stanford University

Precise, lower-power computation

The experimental results achieved with the silicon photonic chip matched those obtained using simulated error predictions. “Our results suggest that LightHash can be feasibly computed at scale using current silicon photonic chip technology,” said Pai. “Essentially, we have devised a way to use analog optical circuits to perform multiplications at near zero power dissipation yet precisely enough for use in a digital encryption scheme.”

For LightHash to demonstrate considerable advantages over digital equivalents, it must be scaled up to 64 inputs and outputs. The researchers are also working to further reduce energy consumption by designing low-power electromechanical tuning elements and energy-efficient converters to turn the optical signals into electrical signals.

They say that because the new chip accelerates matrix multiplication, the most computationally intensive operation for AI applications, it could also help make training and application of photonic neural networks more energy efficient compared to conventional digital implementations.

“It will be interesting to see how cryptocurrency technology evolves and to what extent photonics can contribute to the increasingly mainstream role of decentralized ledgers in society today,” said Pai.

Paper: S. Pai, T. Park, M. Ball, B. Penkovsky, M. Dubrovsky, N. Arebe, M. Milanizadeh, F. Morichetti, A. Melloni, S. Fan, O. Solgaard, D. A. B. Miller, “Experimental evaluation of digitally-verifiable photonic computing for blockchain and cryptocurrency,” 10, 4 (2023).

DOI: 10.1364/OPTICA.476173

About Optica

Optica is an open-access journal dedicated to the rapid dissemination of high-impact peer-reviewed research across the entire spectrum of optics and photonics. Published monthly by Optica Publishing Group, the Journal provides a forum for pioneering research to be swiftly accessed by the international community, whether that research is theoretical or experimental, fundamental or applied. Optica maintains a distinguished editorial board of more than 60 associate editors from around the world and is overseen by Editor-in-Chief Prem Kumar, Northwestern University, USA. For more information, visit Optica.

About Optica Publishing Group (formerly OSA)

Optica Publishing Group is a division of the society Optica (formerly OSA), Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide. It publishes the largest collection of peer-reviewed content in optics and photonics, including 18 prestigious journals, the society’s flagship member magazine, and papers from more than 835 conferences, including 6,500+ associated videos. With over 400,000 journal articles, conference papers and videos to search, discover and access, Optica Publishing Group represents the full range of research in the field from around the globe.

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JOURNAL

Optica

DOI

10.1364/OPTICA.476173 

ARTICLE TITLE

Experimental evaluation of digitally-verifiable photonic computing for blockchain and cryptocurrency

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Apr-202

School of Science researchers use AI to innovate insect discovery

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INDIANA UNIVERSITY-PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS SCHOOL OF SCIENCE

INDIANAPOLIS — A team of researchers at the IUPUI School of Science have developed an innovative use of Artificial Intelligence to discover new species of insects.

The group, led by Dr. Christine Picard, a professor of Biology, and Dr. Murat Dundar, a professor of Computer Science aims to reduce the amount of time it takes to discover species. The process of insect discovery is currently time consuming because of how few experts there are in the field, and with factors such as climate change and habitat destruction, scientists are running out of time.

“Only about 20% of insect species have been described, as in people know they exist,” Picard said. “There are 80% of insect species that remain unknown. That’s a big problem. We’re losing species before we can identify them, and we don’t know what their impacts are in the ecosystem.”

Picard and Dundar’s team found the solution in AI by successfully leveraging a combination of state-of-the-art computer vision and machine learning techniques, along with a vast amount of insect image and DNA data, to distinguish between known and unknown insect species.

Dundar says their approach was designed to tackle the real-world challenges of insect identification whereas current traditional methods are limited to recognizing only known species. The AI was trained to not only identify known species but then also distinguish them from unknown ones.

"In the past, such AI mechanisms would have classified any unknown specimen as an outlier, indicating that it doesn't belong to anything that exists. Our method can now accurately categorize these specimens, providing insight into where they fit within the existing taxonomy," said Dr. Sarkhan Badirli, the lead author of the study conducted during his time as a graduate student at IUPUI.

Other members of the team include IUPUI graduate student Frannie Richert, Dr. George Mohler, a professor of Computer Sciences at IUPUI, and Dr. Zeynep Akata, a professor of Computer Science at University of Tübingen.

The research, titled “Classifying the unknown: Insect identification with deep hierarchical Bayesian learning,” was recently featured in the peer reviewed journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

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JOURNAL

Methods in Ecology and Evolution

DOI

10.1111/2041-210X.14104 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Classifying the unknown: Insect identification with deep hierarchical Bayesian learning

Early-nesting ducks at increased risk due to changes in climate, land use

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PENN STATE

 

IMAGE: THE RESEARCHERS FOCUSED ON NINE DUCK SPECIES THAT HAVE TRADITIONALLY USED THE PRAIRIE POTHOLE REGION AS THEIR BREEDING GROUNDS: AMERICAN WIGEON, BLUE-WINGED TEAL (SHOWN HERE), CANVASBACK, GADWALL, MALLARD, NORTHERN PINTAIL, NORTHERN SHOVELER, REDHEAD AND RUDDY DUCK. view more 

CREDIT: DELTA WATERFOWL

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Each year approximately 10 million waterfowl fly north to their breeding grounds in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America, but the landscape that greets them has changed. Weather patterns and agricultural practices have significantly transformed the pothole-dotted native grasslands that waterfowl have used for thousands of years.

These changes have resulted in some waterfowl proliferating while others decline. According to a new study by a Penn State-led research team, nesting date is an important factor in determining winners and losers in the Prairie Pothole Region.

Waterfowl nest in a variety of habitats in the region, including idle grassland, cropland and over water, according to team leader Frances Buderman, assistant professor of quantitative wildlife ecology.

“But when early nesting ducks arrive in the Prairie Pothole Region, many fields are covered in debris left from the previous fall’s harvest, mainly stubble from cereal grains,” she said. “Although this habitat looks inviting, the eventual replanting of these fields, as opposed to leaving them fallow, makes the ducks more vulnerable to predators and often results in their nests being destroyed by agricultural activities such as tilling and planting.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service have monitored spring population abundances for North American waterfowl using the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey since 1955 — producing one of the largest datasets on vertebrate populations in the world.

These ducks are adapted to nest in mixed-grass prairie, and as that wild habitat has largely been replaced by agriculture in the Prairie Pothole Region, the birds are confused, Buderman explained.

“Last year’s stubble looks good to them from the air, but in reality, it does not offer the same advantages and protections that the grass does,” she said. “Over time, on a large scale, this association with cropland can lead to lower reproductive success and declining population numbers for early nesting ducks that breed in the region.”

In earlier research, Buderman’s research group in the College of Agricultural Sciences focused on northern pintail ducks, a species that has been in decline since the 1980s. They identified the proclivity of northern pintails to nest in agricultural fields as an “ecological trap” because the number of pintail the following year — a product of demographic processes, such as reproduction and survival — declined with increasing use of cropland.

However, the researchers were left wondering if the response of northern pintail was unique, possibly providing an explanation for the diverging trends in abundance among waterfowl in the region.

In findings published on April 24 in the Journal of Animal Ecology, Buderman and colleagues report that the timing of nesting is a key factor in determining the effect of nesting in cropland on demographic processes. Early nesting ducks had the strongest negative demographic responses to agricultural fields.

“This isn’t to say that all early nesting waterfowl are going to struggle,” Buderman said. “Early nesting ducks that don’t nest in cropland, and diving ducks such as canvasbacks, nest over water and are not likely to be impacted by this trap. Climate change, which may allow farmers to till and plant earlier in the spring, could make matters worse. An earlier spring warm-up could also lead to a mismatch between nesting activities and food availability.”

To reach their conclusions, the researchers analyzed data from the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey from 1958 to 2011 and focused on nine duck species that have traditionally used the Prairie Pothole Region as their breeding grounds: American wigeon, blue-winged teal, canvasback, gadwall, mallard, northern pintail, northern shoveler, redhead and ruddy duck.

The researchers estimated species-specific responses to climate and land-use variables in the region, which has changed from mixed-grass prairie to fields of cereal grain, oil crops, corn, wheat, sunflower and soybean.

They first estimated the effects of changes in climate and land-use variables on habitat-selection and population dynamics for the nine species, evaluating species-specific responses to environmental change. This allowed the researchers to see patterns in species-level responses and identify where species selected for variables that were detrimental to their population dynamics (such as northern pintail and cropland).

They found that northern pintail, American wigeon and blue-winged teal often had extreme responses to changes in habitat, although not always in the same way, Buderman pointed out.

 “Each of the species we studied reacted a bit differently to changes in climate and land-use,” she said. “We observed species-level differences in the demographic and habitat-selection responses to climate and land-use change, which would complicate community-level habitat management. Our work highlights the importance of multi-species monitoring and community-level analysis, even among closely related species.”

Contributing to this research were James Devries, Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research, Ducks Unlimited Canada, and David Koons, Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology and Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University.

This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Delta Waterfowl, California Department of Water Resources and the James C. Kennedy Endowment for Wetland and Waterfowl Conservation at Colorado State University.

\\

Researchers say not all early nesting waterfowl are struggling. Early nesting ducks that don’t nest in cropland, diving ducks such as canvasbacks (shown), nest over water and are not likely to be impacted by what could be a growing problem.

CREDIT

Delta Waterfowl

The Prairie Pothole Region, which spans the northern Great Plains of the United States and Canada, is the most important breeding area for many duck species on the continent.

CREDIT

Penn State

JOURNAL

Journal of Animal Ecology

DOI

10.1111/1365-2656.13919 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

A life-history spectrum of population responses to simultaneous change in climate and land use

Study: Sinking ground in parts of Chesapeake Bay area will worsen flooding from rising sea levels and storm surges

Peer-Reviewed Publication

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: PROJECTED INUNDATION AREA FROM BOTH SUBSIDENCE AND SEA LEVEL RISES UNDER VERY LOW GREENHOUSE GASES EMISSION SCENARIO AT YEAR 2030, 2050, AND 2100 (TOP PANELS, PANELS (A), (B), (C), RESPECTIVELY). THE BOTTOM PANELS (D), (E), (F) HIGHLIGHT ZOOMED-IN INUNDATION FROM SEA LEVEL AND SUBSIDENCE AT 2100. view more 

CREDIT: IMAGES BY SONAM FUTI SHERPA FOR VIRGINIA TECH.

New research by Virginia Tech scientists shows that sections of the Chesapeake Bay are sinking at rates of nearly a quarter an inch — or 7 millimeters — a year. Further, up-to-date knowledge of where the ground in the Chesapeake Bay area is sinking and by how much is not included in the official planning maps that authorities use to assess the local flooding risk from rising sea levels, the researchers said.

This poses a significant challenge to present and future management efforts as it could under or overestimate flooding risk to coastal communities along the stretch of Virginia shoreline, said Manoochehr Shirzaei, an associate professor of radar remote sensing engineering and environmental security in the Department of Geoscieces, part of the Virginia Tech College of Science, and a member of the Virginia Tech National Security Institute.

The new findings from the Virginia Tech Earth Observation and Innovation Lab appear in the Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth, with scientists having measured how much the land along the Chesapeake Bay's shoreline has sunk using interferometric imaging with synthetic aperture radar from Earth orbit to detect elevation. The latter technique can measure year-to-year changes in local ground elevation as small as a millimeter, said Sonam Futi Sherpa, a doctoral student in the Department of Geosciences and lead author of the study.

The study uses data from 2007-20. The researchers further estimated potential inundation through the 21st century coming from land elevation changes, sea level rise, and storm surge.

"Although we found that most of the bay is sinking by less than 2 millimeters a year, in several areas, we discovered subsidence rates of 4 to 5 millimeters per year and more,” Sherpa said.

In addition to Sherpa and Shirzaei, Chandrakantha Ojha of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research contributed to the study.

The region, of course, hosts the largest naval base in the world, Naval Station Norfolk, and has a dense population of more than 1.7 million people alongside wildlife, Shirzaei said. Its attraction as a tourist destination is also among the highest in the state.

Sherpa further points to Chesapeake Bay's Hampton Roads, which includes Norfolk, Newport News, and Virginia Beach, as hot spots of land subsidence occurring at a relatively high rate, exacerbating the effects of sea level rise and storm surge. Located in the bay midway between Montross and Reedville near the Potomac River, the area is subsiding because of groundwater pumping and erosion, the study found.

The researchers said such activity is typical of most areas of land subsidence. Many hot spots are sites of anthropogenic activities such as groundwater pumping causing compaction of aquifer systems, while others are places where land is lost to erosion.

Projected Inundation area from both subsidence and sea level rises under very low greenhouse gases emission scenario at year 2030, 2050, and 2100 (top panels, panels (a), (b), (c), respectively). The bottom panels (d), (e), (f) highlight zoomed-in inundation from sea level and subsidence at 2100. Images by Sonam Futi Sherpa for Virginia Tech.

The researchers said state, county, and municipal administrations along the Chesapeake currently use maps prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make plans for dealing with possible flooding. These maps show areas at risk based on rising sea level projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

When scientists examined different sea-level rise scenarios compounded with effect of land subsidence, they found that, for the Chesapeake Bay, by the year 2100, 454 to 600 square kilometers (282 to 373 square miles) face a risk of flooding for very low to very high greenhouse gases emission scenarios. Storm surges similar to 2003’s Hurricane Isabel's can increase the inundated area from 849 to 1,117 square kilometers (527 to 694 square miles) from 2030-2100 while considering a very high greenhouse gas emission scenario.

"There are many estimates and models for sea-level rise, but they all fall short because they don't take into account land elevation changes," said Shirzaei, who is also an affiliated member of the Global Change Center, part of Virginia Tech’s Fralin Life Sciences Institute. “When formerly dry land becomes flooded, it causes saltwater contamination of surface and underground water, and it accelerates coastal erosion and wetland losses.”

He added, “The flooding hazards maps of the Chesapeake Bay area need to be updated with the measurements of land elevation changes and updated projections of sea level rise.” Tom Allen, a professor of political science and geography at Old Dominion University, will do exactly that with the data provided by Sherpa and Shirzaei. Allen said the updated maps can be used by authorities to create effective adaptation strategies.

Sherpa added that sinking ground along the shoreline greatly magnifies the effects of sea level rise because both processes work together to worsen the situation. "The ground goes down, sea level comes up, and flood waters go much farther inland than either change would produce by itself," she said.

What is the long-term solution? The answers vary, Shirzaei said. “The growing risks in coastal cities pose a major challenge, and adaptation is to be expected. However, the solution varies from place to place and must be tailored to the individual situation,” he said. 

“Adaptation to relative sea level rises comprises three main categories of defense: protection, accommodation, and retreat. And coastal communities can choose and pick from a long list of options, such as upgrading protection facilities, such as dams, raising lands, maintaining and restoring wetlands protection, controlling subsidence, improving flood resiliency, selective relocation of important infrastructure, and installing flood warning systems.”

Related story

Critical observations of sinking coasts

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JOURNAL

Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth

ARTICLE TITLE

Open Access Disruptive Role of Vertical Land Motion in Future Assessments of Climate Change-Driven Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Flooding Hazards in the Chesapeake Bay

Study explores ways to increase diversity in medical residency programs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: STUDENTS FROM ACHIEVABLE DREAM VISIT THE LIFE-GUARD HELIPAD ATOP CARILION ROANOKE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. ACHIEVABLE DREAM GIVES STUDENTS WHO ARE AT RISK OF FAILURE IN SCHOOL BECAUSE OF SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS A CHANCE TO SUCCEED. EXPOSING STUDENTS TO HEALTH CARE CAREERS EARLY ON CAN FOSTER A DESIRE TO PURSUE A PATH TO MEDICAL SCHOOL, RESIDENCY, AND BEYOND. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY RYAN ANDERSON FOR VIRGINIA TECH.

Leading national organizations focused on graduate medical education assert that losing the diversity gap is critical to ensure equity in medical education and health care quality. Nevertheless, evidence-based strategies and best practices to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the biomedical workforce remain poorly understood and underused. 

“We need to meet the needs of the people,” said Jed Gonzalo, senior associate dean for medical education at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (VTCSOM). “Diverse patient populations need diverse health care to help them meet their best outcomes.”

Gonzalo was one of eight medical professionals who recently took a deep dive into what 29 graduate medical education programs, also known as residency programs, are doing to increase their diversity. The group did a qualitative analysis of applications for the Barbara Ross-Lee, D.O., Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award over a two-year period. The award, supported by GME’s governing body, recognizes exceptional DEI efforts in U.S. residency programs.

Based on a content analysis of these exemplary programs, the researchers identified 33 themes and placed them in broad categories such as recruitment, intentionally integrating DEI into the residency interview process, retaining residents who are underrepresented in medicine as faculty, using affinity groups as mentors.

“We have studies that show that minoritized individuals do better when they’re being taken care of by clinicians who look like them, have similar experiences, or even an understanding of what life is like for them,” said Azziza Bankole, professor of psychiatry and behavioral health, and chief diversity officer at VTCSOM. “Diverse learning environments help our trainees, our residents, our medical students, and students in other health professions as well.”

“The importance of diversity has to do with the quality of the learning environment,” said Arthur Ollendorff, associate dean of VTCSOM’s graduate medical education and professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “I believe that medical education is part of a social contract. It is our duty to train physicians who can meet the needs of their communities.”

As a physician for Carilion Clinic, Ollendorff is familiar with the health system’s educational mission that includes training of residents. Being immersed in intense clinical learning, residents are following the examples of their attendings who are doctors who have completed their training and often play an active role in the education of interns, residents, and medical students.

“The hope is that training in a setting that values diversity will make all trainees more in tune to the needs and best approaches to all the patients we serve,” Ollendorff said.

Recognizing the importance of DEI, VTCSOM has initiated numerous diversity programs in recent years, including MedDOCS, an after-school mentoring program for Roanoke high school students, Health Professions Enrichment Program, an educational outreach series for high-potential ninth and 10th grade students, the Diversity and Belonging series for students, faculty, and staff, and Mentoring Communities for faculty and students. In addition, the school partners with the Achievable Dream Academy, which gives students who are at risk of failure in school becuase of socioeconomic factors, a chance to succeed.  The diversity, equity, and inclusion website has a complete listing.

“A lot of great work is being done here at VTCSOM,” Gonzalo said. “We hope programs and sponsoring institutions will look at the list of strategies in our study and say, ‘We could do this or that,’ which is great. We hope the study will spark ideas. What I think is critical is that implementing strategies should be done with a systematic and thoughtful approach so that they are deep-rooted and enduring.”

The strategies and best practices identified by the research group are intended to give graduate medical education programs ideas and starting points for developing their own DEI initiatives. Their report appears in JAMA Network Open.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

The Lundquist Institute receives $100,000 from the Parsons Foundation to support the medical-financial partnership

Gift will directly fund the Benefits Explorer Tool (BET) to improve access to anti-poverty resources for low-income families

Grant and Award Announcement

THE LUNDQUIST INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: MFP INCORPORATES A NEW WEB- AND PHONE-BASED TOOL, THE BENEFITS EXPLORER TOOL view more 

CREDIT: THE LUNDQUIST INSTITUTE

The Lundquist Institute announced today that it has received a $100,000 gift from the Parsons Foundation to support the Medical-Financial Partnership (MFP). The MFP addresses the health issues of poverty by investing in the financial capability and security of children and families from economically and socially marginalized communities. These are the same communities afflicted by the intertwined threats of racial economic exploitation and historical intergenerational trauma that drive deep inequities in long-term health outcomes. Funded through grants and private philanthropy, the MFP is at its core a health care innovation tailored to the needs of low-income families and focused on treating poverty as the pervasive health risk it is. 
The MFP incorporates a new web- and phone-based tool, the Benefits Explorer Tool (BET). The user-friendly BET is an outgrowth of the MFP’s four-year success of investing in the financial capability and security of children and families from economically and socially marginalized communities. The innovative approach of BET is designed to improve access more efficiently to public benefits and other anti-poverty resources for under-enrolled families.

"The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation is dedicated to improving the well-being of Los Angeles County residents. We are thrilled to support the Lundquist Institute's direct services offering personalized assistance that links underserved families to important financial resources and other public benefits that promote healthy lives," said Jennifer Price-Letscher, Parsons Foundation Interim President and CEO.

“We thank the Parsons Foundation for its generosity and vision in funding MFP’s BET tool,” said Lynne M. Smith, MD, Investigator at The Lundquist Institute and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. “This grant will help make it possible for our clinic to increase awareness and directly connect families whose children receive primary care to key public benefits during well child visits. This is a testament to the thoughtful care and planning that MFP placed into developing BET to ensure that it was both patient-centered and clinically transformative.”