ASU Scholarship Showcase

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.

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.

The Dawn Framing Camera (FC) has imaged the northern hemisphere of the Asteroid (4) Vesta at high spatial resolution and coverage. This study represents the first investigation of the overall geology of the northern hemisphere (22–90°N, quadrangles Av-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) using these unique Dawn mission observations. We have compiled a morphologic map and performed crater size–frequency distribution (CSFD) measurements to date the geologic units. The hemisphere is characterized by a heavily cratered surface with a few highly subdued basins up to ∼200 km in diameter. The most widespread unit is a plateau (cratered highland unit), similar to, although of lower elevation than the equatorial Vestalia Terra plateau. Large-scale troughs and ridges have regionally affected the surface. Between ∼180°E and ∼270°E, these tectonic features are well developed and related to the south pole Veneneia impact (Saturnalia Fossae trough unit), elsewhere on the hemisphere they are rare and subdued (Saturnalia Fossae cratered unit). In these pre-Rheasilvia units we observed an unexpectedly high frequency of impact craters up to ∼10 km in diameter, whose formation could in part be related to the Rheasilvia basin-forming event. The Rheasilvia impact has potentially affected the northern hemisphere also with S–N small-scale lineations, but without covering it with an ejecta blanket. Post-Rheasilvia impact craters are small (<60 km in diameter) and show a wide range of degradation states due to impact gardening and mass wasting processes. Where fresh, they display an ejecta blanket, bright rays and slope movements on walls. In places, crater rims have dark material ejecta and some crater floors are covered by ponded material interpreted as impact melt.

Oppia Quadrangle Av-10 (288–360°E, ±22°) is a junction of key geologic features that preserve a rough history of Asteroid (4) Vesta and serves as a case study of using geologic mapping to define a relative geologic timescale. Clear filter images, stereo-derived topography, slope maps, and multispectral color-ratio images from the Framing Camera on NASA’s Dawn spacecraft served as basemaps to create a geologic map and investigate the spatial and temporal relationships of the local stratigraphy. Geologic mapping reveals the oldest map unit within Av-10 is the cratered highlands terrain which possibly represents original crustal material on Vesta that was then excavated by one or more impacts to form the basin Feralia Planitia. Saturnalia Fossae and Divalia Fossae ridge and trough terrains intersect the wall of Feralia Planitia indicating that this impact basin is older than both the Veneneia and Rheasilvia impact structures, representing Pre-Veneneian crustal material. Two of the youngest geologic features in Av-10 are Lepida (∼45 km diameter) and Oppia (∼40 km diameter) impact craters that formed on the northern and southern wall of Feralia Planitia and each cross-cuts a trough terrain. The ejecta blanket of Oppia is mapped as ‘dark mantle’ material because it appears dark orange in the Framing Camera ‘Clementine-type’ color-ratio image and has a diffuse, gradational contact distributed to the south across the rim of Rheasilvia. Mapping of surface material that appears light orange in color in the Framing Camera ‘Clementine-type’ color-ratio image as ‘light mantle material’ supports previous interpretations of an impact ejecta origin. Some light mantle deposits are easily traced to nearby source craters, but other deposits may represent distal ejecta deposits (emplaced >5 crater radii away) in a microgravity environment.

The Quadrangles Av-11 and Av-12 on Vesta are located at the northern rim of the giant Rheasilvia south polar impact basin. The primary geologic units in Av-11 and Av-12 include material from the Rheasilvia impact basin formation, smooth material and different types of impact crater structures (such as bimodal craters, dark and bright crater ray material and dark ejecta material). Av-11 and Av-12 exhibit almost the full range of mass wasting features observed on Vesta, such as slump blocks, spur-and-gully morphologies and landslides within craters. Processes of collapse, slope instability and seismically triggered events force material to slump down crater walls or scarps and produce landslides or rotational slump blocks. The spur-and-gully morphology that is known to form on Mars is also observed on Vesta; however, on Vesta this morphology formed under dry conditions.

A variety of geologic landforms and features are observed within quadrangle Av-13 Tuccia in the southern hemisphere of Vesta. The quadrangle covers parts of the highland Vestalia Terra as well as the floors of the large Rheasilvia and Veneneia impact basins, which results in a substantial elevation difference of more than 40 km between the northern and the southern portions of the quadrangle. Measurements of crater size–frequency distributions within and surrounding the Rheasilvia basin indicate that gravity-driven mass wasting in the interior of the basin has been important, and that the basin has a more ancient formation age than would be expected from the crater density on the basin floor alone. Subsequent to its formation, Rheasilvia was superimposed by several mid-sized impact craters. The most prominent craters are Tuccia, Eusebia, Vibidia, Galeria, and Antonia, whose geology and formation ages are investigated in detail in this work. These impact structures provide a variety of morphologies indicating different sorts of subsequent impact-related or gravity-driven mass wasting processes. Understanding the geologic history of the relatively young craters in the Rheasilvia basin is important in order to understand the even more degraded craters in other regions of Vesta.

As part of systematic global mapping of Vesta using data returned by the Dawn spacecraft, we have produced a geologic map of the north pole quadrangle, Av-1 Albana. Extensive seasonal shadows were present in the north polar region at the time of the Dawn observations, limiting the ability to map morphological features and employ color or spectral data for determination of composition. The major recognizable units present include ancient cratered highlands and younger crater-related units (undivided ejecta, and mass-wasting material on crater floors). The antipode of Vesta’s large southern impact basins, Rheasilvia and Veneneia, lie within or near the Av-1 quadrangle. Therefore it is of particular interest to search for evidence of features of the kind that are found at basin antipodes on other planetary bodies. Albedo markings known as lunar swirls are correlated with basin antipodes and the presence of crustal magnetic anomalies on the Moon, but lighting conditions preclude recognition of such albedo features in images of the antipode of Vesta’s Rheasilvia basin. “Hilly and lineated terrain,” found at the antipodes of large basins on the Moon and Mercury, is not present at the Rheasilvia or Veneneia antipodes. We have identified small-scale linear depressions that may be related to increased fracturing in the Rheasilvia and Veneneia antipodal areas, consistent with impact-induced stresses (Buczkowski, D. et al. [2012b]. Analysis of the large scale troughs on Vesta and correlation to a model of giant impact into a differentiated asteroid. Geol. Soc. of America Annual Meeting. Abstract 152-4; Bowling, T.J. et al. [2013]. J. Geophys. Res. – Planets, 118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jgre.20123). The general high elevation of much of the north polar region could, in part, be a result of uplift caused by the Rheasilvia basin-forming impact, as predicted by numerical modeling (Bowling, T.J. et al. [2013]. J. Geophys. Res. – Planets, 118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jgre.20123). However, stratigraphic and crater size–frequency distribution analysis indicate that the elevated terrain predates the two southern basins and hence is likely a remnant of the ancient vestan crust. The lack of large-scale morphological features at the basin antipodes can be attributed to weakened antipodal constructive interference of seismic waves caused by an oblique impact or by Vesta’s non-spherical shape, or by attenuation of seismic waves because of the physical properties of Vesta’s interior. A first-order analysis of the Dawn global digital elevation model for Vesta indicates that areas of permanent shadow are unlikely to be present in the vicinity of the north pole.