Wireless Emergency Alerts: Trust Model Simulations

Trust is a key factor in the effectiveness of the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) service. Alert originators must trust WEA to deliver alerts to the public in an accurate and timely manner. Members of the public must also trust the WEA service before they will act on the alerts that they receive. This research aimed to develop a trust model to enable the Federal Emergency Management Agency to maximize the effectiveness of WEA and provide guidance for alert originators that would support them in using WEA in a manner that maximizes public safety. This report overviews the public trust model and the alert originator trust model. The research method included Bayesian belief networks (BBNs) to model trust in WEA because they enable reasoning about and modeling of uncertainty. The report details the procedures used to run simulations on the trust models. For each trust model, single-factor, multifactor, random-input, and special-case simulations were run on each factor and group of factors investigated. The analysis of the simulations had two goals: to identify those simulations that predicted the highest levels of trust and those simulations that predicted the lowest levels of trust. This report includes the results for each trust Model

Gerrymandering in Redlands, California

In April 2016, the City of Redlands, California, began the process of creating council electoral districts to comply with voting rights acts and avoid litigation. Several maps prepared by a consultant were being considered when, in May 2017, a group of graduate students from the University of Redlands produced this map. The Council agreed that this map was as good as or better than the consultant’s maps, but it was too late to consider a new map giving the legislative requirements. It will be considered after the 2018 elections

Report of the Committee on Craig Colony

The Craig Colony for Epileptics opened in Sonyea, NY, in January 1896 as “a new form of charity, recently adopted by this State, and is based upon the idea of being, as fully as possible, self-supporting.” Indeed, it was only the second such institution in the United States. This brief report, written in November 1896 by Committee members Dr. Enoch V. Stoddard, William P. Letchworth, and Peter Walrath, is an assessment of the Colony’s first year in operation. Their conclusion that “this experiment on the part of the State has proved, during its first and most difficult year of trial, to be not only justifiable, but such as to meet the further expectations of those who have been most interested in it origin and development” was quite prescient, as the Colony (which was eventually renamed Craig Developmental Center) continued to operate until 1988. In their report, the Committee describes the progress made on renovating the existing buildings of the former Shaker site where the Colony is located and makes a case for construction of a new administration building new dormitories for patients (alternately referred to as inmates), a house and office for the Superintendent, and living quarters for employees, most of whom have had to find lodging in Mount Morris, a village some four miles distant. Much praise is given to the doctors at Craig, who have established meticulous record-keeping based on careful and scientific observation and have made advances in classifying, and thus treating, epileptic patients. Treatment includes occupation (patients engage in real agricultural work, earning $14,230.20 for the Colony in its first year, and other household and technical work), diet (very little meat, lots of fruit and vegetables), and “a common school education” (a school was opened in September 1896 to provide “moral and mental treatment” for the patients.) As medical science progressed and treatments for epilepsy evolved, Craig Colony’s useful life came to an end in the late 20th century, but it became the foundation for the Finger Lakes Developmental Disabilities Services Office based in Rochester, NY. (summary written by Liz Argentieri)https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/historical-reprints/1024/thumbnail.jp

Wireless Emergency Alerts: Trust Model Technical Report

Trust is a key factor in the effectiveness of the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) service. Alert originators (AOs) must trust WEA to deliver alerts to the public in an accurate and timely manner. Members of the public must also trust the WEA service before they will act on the alerts that they receive. This research aimed to develop a trust model to enable the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to maximize the effectiveness of WEA and provide guidance for AOs that would support them in using WEA in a manner that maximizes public safety. The research method included Bayesian belief networks to model trust in WEA because they enable reasoning about and modeling of uncertainty. The research approach was to build models that could predict the levels of AO trust and public trust in specific scenarios, validate these models using data collected from AOs and the public, and execute simulations on these models for numerous scenarios to identify recommendations to AOs and FEMA for actions to take that increase trust and actions to avoid that decrease trust. This report describes the process used to develop and validate the trust models and the resulting structure and functionality of the models

Innovative recruitment using online networks: Lessons learned from an online study of alcohol and other drug use utilizing a web-based Respondent Driven Sampling (webRDS) strategy

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106623/1/Innovative recruitment using online networks Lessons learned from an online study of alcohol and other drug use utilizing a web-based Respondent Driven Sampling webRDS strategy.pd

Incidence of human brucellosis in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania in the periods 2007-2008 and 2012-2014

Background: Brucellosis causes substantial morbidity among humans and their livestock. There are few robust estimates of the incidence of brucellosis in sub-Saharan Africa. Using cases identified through sentinel hospital surveillance and health care utilization data, we estimated the incidence of brucellosis in Moshi Urban and Moshi Rural Districts, Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania, for the periods 2007–2008 and 2012–2014. Methods: Cases were identified among febrile patients at two sentinel hospitals and were defined as having either a 4-fold increase in Brucella microscopic agglutination test titres between acute and convalescent serum or a blood culture positive for Brucella spp. Findings from a health care utilization survey were used to estimate multipliers to account for cases not seen at sentinel hospitals. Results: Of 585 patients enrolled in the period 2007–2008, 13 (2.2%) had brucellosis. Among 1095 patients enrolled in the period 2012–2014, 32 (2.9%) had brucellosis. We estimated an incidence (range based on sensitivity analysis) of brucellosis of 35 (range 32–93) cases per 100 000 persons annually in the period 2007–2008 and 33 (range 30–89) cases per 100 000 persons annually in the period 2012–2014. Conclusions: We found a moderate incidence of brucellosis in northern Tanzania, suggesting that the disease is endemic and an important human health problem in this area