ASU Scholarship Showcase

Attitudes and habits are extremely resistant to change, but a disruption of the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to bring long-term, massive societal changes. During the pandemic, people are being compelled to experience new ways of interacting, working, learning, shopping, traveling, and eating meals. Going forward, a critical question is whether these experiences will result in changed behaviors and preferences in the long term. This paper presents initial findings on the likelihood of long-term changes in telework, daily travel, restaurant patronage, and air travel based on survey data collected from adults in the United States in Spring 2020. These data suggest that a sizable fraction of the increase in telework and decreases in both business air travel and restaurant patronage are likely here to stay. As for daily travel modes, public transit may not fully recover its pre-pandemic ridership levels, but many of our respondents are planning to bike and walk more than they used to. These data reflect the responses of a sample that is higher income and more highly educated than the US population. The response of these particular groups to the COVID-19 pandemic is perhaps especially important to understand, however, because their consumption patterns give them a large influence on many sectors of the economy.

Cities in the Global South face rapid urbanization challenges and often suffer an acute lack of infrastructure and governance capacities. Smart Cities Mission, in India, launched in 2015, aims to offer a novel approach for urban renewal of 100 cities following an area‐based development approach, where the use of ICT and digital technologies is particularly emphasized. This article presents a critical review of the design and implementation framework of this new urban renewal program across selected case‐study cities. The article examines the claims of the so‐called “smart cities” against actual urban transformation on‐ground and evaluates how “inclusive” and “sustainable” these developments are. We quantify the scale and coverage of the smart city urban renewal projects in the cities to highlight who the program includes and excludes. The article also presents a statistical analysis of the sectoral focus and budgetary allocations of the projects under the Smart Cities Mission to find an inherent bias in these smart city initiatives in terms of which types of development they promote and the ones it ignores. The findings indicate that a predominant emphasis on digital urban renewal of selected precincts and enclaves, branded as “smart cities,” leads to deepening social polarization and gentrification. The article offers crucial urban planning lessons for designing ICT‐driven urban renewal projects, while addressing critical questions around inclusion and sustainability in smart city ventures.`

Many municipal governments have adopted affordable housing policies to benefit people whose socio-economic status is not commensurate with the price of housing. However, the effects and the functions of these policies in the city on sustainable development and living remains limited. Using a comparative case study, this study explores the characteristics and effects of affordable housing policies in three metropolitan cities in China: Beijing, Tianjin, and Guangshou. This study finds that these cities have their unique affordable housing policies and have experienced various challenges in implementing those policies. Conclusions and implications for other cities in China are addressed.

Background: Despite improvements in maternity healthcare services over the last few decades, more than 2.7 million babies worldwide are stillborn each year. The global health agenda is silent about stillbirth, perhaps, in part, because its wider impact has not been systematically analysed or understood before now across the world. Our study aimed to systematically review, evaluate and summarise the current evidence regarding the psychosocial impact of stillbirth to parents and their families, with the aim of improving guidance in bereavement care worldwide.

Methods: Systematic review and meta-summary (quantitative aggregation of qualitative findings) of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies. All languages and countries were included.

Results: Two thousand, six hundred and nineteen abstracts were identified; 144 studies were included. Frequency effect sizes (FES %) were calculated for each theme, as a measure of their prevalence in the literature. Themes ranged from negative psychological symptoms post bereavement (77 · 1) and in subsequent pregnancies (27 · 1), to disenfranchised grief (31 · 2), and incongruent grief (28 · 5), There was also impact on siblings (23 · 6) and on the wider family (2 · 8). They included mixed-feelings about decisions made when the baby died (12 · 5), avoidance of memories (13 · 2), anxiety over other children (7 · 6), chronic pain and fatigue (6 · 9), and a different approach to the use of healthcare services (6 · 9). Some themes were particularly prominent in studies of fathers; grief suppression (avoidance)(18 · 1), employment difficulties, financial debt (5 · 6), and increased substance use (4 · 2). Others found in studies specific to mothers included altered body image (3 · 5) and impact on quality of life (2 · 1). Counter-intuitively, Some themes had mixed connotations. These included parental pride in the baby (5 · 6), motivation for engagement in healthcare improvement (4 · 2) and changed approaches to life and death, self-esteem, and own identity (25 · 7). In studies from low/middle income countries, stigmatisation (13 · 2) and pressure to prioritise or delay conception (9) were especially prevalent.

Conclusion: Experiencing the birth of a stillborn child is a life-changing event. The focus of the consequences may vary with parent gender and country. Stillbirth can have devastating psychological, physical and social costs, with ongoing effects on interpersonal relationships and subsequently born children. However, parents who experience the tragedy of stillbirth can develop resilience and new life-skills and capacities. Future research should focus on developing interventions that may reduce the psychosocial cost of stillbirth.

Large urban emissions of greenhouse gases result in large atmospheric enhancements relative to background that are easily measured. Using CO₂ mole fractions and Δ¹⁴C and δ¹³C values of CO₂ in the Los Angeles megacity observed in inland Pasadena (2006–2013) and coastal Palos Verdes peninsula (autumn 2009–2013), we have determined time series for CO₂ contributions from fossil fuel combustion (C_ff) for both sites and broken those down into contributions from petroleum and/or gasoline and natural gas burning for Pasadena. We find a 10 % reduction in Pasadena C_ff during the Great Recession of 2008–2010, which is consistent with the bottom-up inventory determined by the California Air Resources Board. The isotopic variations and total atmospheric CO₂ from our observations are used to infer seasonality of natural gas and petroleum combustion. The trend of CO₂ contributions to the atmosphere from natural gas combustion is out of phase with the seasonal cycle of total natural gas combustion seasonal patterns in bottom-up inventories but is consistent with the seasonality of natural gas usage by the area's electricity generating power plants. For petroleum, the inferred seasonality of CO₂ contributions from burning petroleum is delayed by several months relative to usage indicated by statewide gasoline taxes. Using the high-resolution Hestia-LA data product to compare C_ff from parts of the basin sampled by winds at different times of year, we find that variations in observed fossil fuel CO₂ reflect seasonal variations in wind direction. The seasonality of the local CO₂ excess from fossil fuel combustion along the coast, on Palos Verdes peninsula, is higher in autumn and winter than spring and summer, almost completely out of phase with that from Pasadena, also because of the annual variations of winds in the region. Variations in fossil fuel CO₂ signals are consistent with sampling the bottom-up Hestia-LA fossil CO₂ emissions product for sub-city source regions in the LA megacity domain when wind directions are considered.

Atmospheric CO₂ inversions estimate surface carbon fluxes from an optimal fit to atmospheric CO₂ measurements, usually including prior constraints on the flux estimates. Eleven sets of carbon flux estimates are compared, generated by different inversions systems that vary in their inversions methods, choice of atmospheric data, transport model and prior information. The inversions were run for at least 5 yr in the period between 1990 and 2010. Mean fluxes for 2001–2004, seasonal cycles, interannual variability and trends are compared for the tropics and northern and southern extra-tropics, and separately for land and ocean. Some continental/basin-scale subdivisions are also considered where the atmospheric network is denser. Four-year mean fluxes are reasonably consistent across inversions at global/latitudinal scale, with a large total (land plus ocean) carbon uptake in the north (−3.4 Pg C yr^-1 (±0.5 Pg C yr^-1 standard deviation), with slightly more uptake over land than over ocean), a significant although more variable source over the tropics (1.6 ± 0.9 Pg C yr^-1) and a compensatory sink of similar magnitude in the south (−1.4 ± 0.5 Pg C yr^-1) corresponding mainly to an ocean sink. Largest differences across inversions occur in the balance between tropical land sources and southern land sinks. Interannual variability (IAV) in carbon fluxes is larger for land than ocean regions (standard deviation around 1.06 versus 0.33 Pg C yr[superscript −1] for the 1996–2007 period), with much higher consistency among the inversions for the land. While the tropical land explains most of the IAV (standard deviation ~ 0.65 Pg C yr^-1), the northern and southern land also contribute (standard deviation ~ 0.39 Pg C yr^-1). Most inversions tend to indicate an increase of the northern land carbon uptake from late 1990s to 2008 (around 0.1 Pg C yr^-1, predominantly in North Asia. The mean seasonal cycle appears to be well constrained by the atmospheric data over the northern land (at the continental scale), but still highly dependent on the prior flux seasonality over the ocean. Finally we provide recommendations to interpret the regional fluxes, along with the uncertainty estimates.

This paper presents an analysis of methane emissions from the Los Angeles Basin at monthly timescales across a 4-year time period – from September 2011 to August 2015. Using observations acquired by a ground-based near-infrared remote sensing instrument on Mount Wilson, California, combined with atmospheric CH₄–CO₂ tracer–tracer correlations, we observed −18 to +22 % monthly variability in CH₄ : CO₂ from the annual mean in the Los Angeles Basin. Top-down estimates of methane emissions for the basin also exhibit significant monthly variability (−19 to +31 % from annual mean and a maximum month-to-month change of 47 %). During this period, methane emissions consistently peaked in the late summer/early fall and winter. The estimated annual methane emissions did not show a statistically significant trend over the 2011 to 2015 time period.

Public health messaging about antimicrobial resistance (AMR) sometimes conveys the problem as an epidemic. We outline why AMR is a serious endemic problem manifested in hospital and community-acquired infections.

AMR is not an epidemic condition, but may complicate epidemics, which are characterized by sudden societal impact due to rapid rise in cases over a short timescale. Influenza, which causes direct viral effects, or secondary bacterial complications is the most likely cause of an epidemic or pandemic where AMR may be a problem. We discuss other possible causes of a pandemic with AMR, and present a risk assessment formula to estimate the impact of AMR during a pandemic. Finally, we flag the potential impact of genetic engineering of pathogens on global risk and how this could radically change the epidemiology of AMR as we know it.

Understanding the epidemiology of AMR is key to successfully addressing the problem. AMR is an endemic condition but can play a role in epidemics or pandemics, and we present a risk analysis method for assessing the impact of AMR in a pandemic.

Epidemics and emerging infectious diseases are becoming an increasing threat to global populations - challenging public health practitioners, decision makers and researchers to plan, prepare, identify and respond to outbreaks in near real-timeframes. The aim of this research is to evaluate the range of public domain and freely available software epidemic modelling tools. Twenty freely utilizable software tools underwent assessment of software usability, utility and key functionalities. Stochastic and agent based tools were found to be highly flexible, adaptable, had high utility and many features, but low usability. Deterministic tools were highly usable with average to good levels of utility.

Understanding the food-energy-water nexus is necessary to identify risks and inform strategies for nexus governance to support resilient, secure, and sustainable societies. To manage risks and realize efficiencies, we must understand not only how these systems are physically connected but also how they are institutionally linked. It is important to understand how actors who make planning, management, and policy decisions understand the relationships among components of the systems. Our question is: How do stakeholders involved in food, energy, and water governance in Phoenix, Arizona understand the nexus and what are the implications for integrated nexus governance? We employ a case study design, generate qualitative data through focus groups and interviews, and conduct a content analysis. While stakeholders in the Phoenix area who are actively engaged in food, energy, and water systems governance appreciate the rationale for nexus thinking, they recognize practical limitations to implementing these concepts. Concept maps of nexus interactions provide one view of system interconnections that be used to complement other ways of knowing the nexus, such as physical infrastructure system diagrams or actor-networks. Stakeholders believe nexus governance could be improved through awareness and education, consensus and collaboration, transparency, economic incentives, working across scales, and incremental reforms.