Improved Transferability of Data‐Driven Damage Models Through Sample Selection Bias Correction

Damage models for natural hazards are used for decision making on reducing and transferring risk. The damage estimates from these models depend on many variables and their complex sometimes nonlinear relationships with the damage. In recent years, data‐driven modeling techniques have been used to capture those relationships. The available data to build such models are often limited. Therefore, in practice it is usually necessary to transfer models to a different context. In this article, we show that this implies the samples used to build the model are often not fully representative for the situation where they need to be applied on, which leads to a “sample selection bias.” In this article, we enhance data‐driven damage models by applying methods, not previously applied to damage modeling, to correct for this bias before the machine learning (ML) models are trained. We demonstrate this with case studies on flooding in Europe, and typhoon wind damage in the Philippines. Two sample selection bias correction methods from the ML literature are applied and one of these methods is also adjusted to our problem. These three methods are combined with stochastic generation of synthetic damage data. We demonstrate that for both case studies, the sample selection bias correction techniques reduce model errors, especially for the mean bias error this reduction can be larger than 30%. The novel combination with stochastic data generation seems to enhance these techniques. This shows that sample selection bias correction methods are beneficial for damage model transfer.     

People with disability and new disaster communications: access and the social media mash-up

This article explores how a lack of access to increasingly complex and overlapping digital communications platforms in times of disaster for people with disabilities has the potential to make already life-threatening situations considerably more dangerous. As we are increasingly coming to rely on a social media mash-up of digital platforms to assist in communications during disaster situations, the issue of accessibility for people with disabilities is as dire as if it was high ground during a tsunami or transport during a typhoon. The contemporary social media environment is characterised by a complex and overlapping network of complementary platforms, populated by user-generated content, where people communicate and exchange ideas. In this environment, YouTube videos are posted to Facebook and embedded in blogs, and Twitter is used to link to these other sites and is itself embedded in other platforms. These networks are increasingly supplementing and supplanting more traditional communication platforms, such as the television and radio, particularly in times of disaster. The concern of this paper is that the elements from which this mash-up of communications channels is made are not always accessible to people with disabilities. This evolving network of social media-based communication exposes the limits of existing Internet-based universal design.     

For better,for worse? Public support for the capitalist model of the economy

A capitalist market economy is based on several institutional elements, such as private ownership and competition. Does public support for this economic model rise if the economy prospers, and fall during a downturn? Or is public support largely independent of the ups and downs of economic cycles? We hypothesize that positive economic performance increases support and that persons profiting personally are more supportive of the economic system's constitutive institutional elements. Using multilevel regression we study the determinants of individual-level support for the economic system. We also test for differences in the perception of economic performance due to political attitudes and personal properties. The findings partly support the hypotheses, indicating that macro-economic factors matter for individual-level attitudes towards the economy. Attitudes towards different institutional elements of the economic system also differ in the degree to which they are political or economic, and influenced by economic performance. Individual features – education and personal economic stakes – affect attitudes towards the economy, but a substantial share of the individual-level variation in economic attitudes remains unexplained.     

Toward a sociology of global comparative placemaking

I call for a globally informed sociology of comparative placemaking that integrates historical and contemporary processes and includes the ephemeral, institutional, and personal. By placemaking, I am referring to the explicit or tacit cooperation among people to create, maintain, and give meaning to places in space through bodily occupation given differential resources and constraints. I review select place, space, and community-based literature about urban, Black, migrant, LGBTQ, and international populations to think about how we can build upon and integrate multiple theoretical, methodological, and epistemological insights to form an explicit placemaking research agenda. A US focus on neighborhoods contrasts with a comparative examination of global urban networks, social polarization, and transformation of the built environment in the interdisciplinary field of global urban studies (Ren, 2018). I argue for a placemaking research agenda that bridges insight from US Urban Sociology with Global Urban Studies to consider how various structures and actors constrain and facilitate place projects. With a globally reaching and comparatively informed sociology of placemaking, we can illuminate our multi-structured story of place and agency in context. We can answer questions about how and why we co-create and are simultaneously disciplined by the process of creation.     

Humor and satire in politics: Introducing cultural sociology to the field

The landscape of political humor and satire is changing rapidly, and it is becoming an increasingly relevant aspect of our culture. Although scholars have been actively trying to capture this change, majority of the existing frameworks for understanding humor and satire in politics still reduce these phenomena to mere genres or rhetoric tools. In addition, they provide insufficient accounts concerning the reception of humor and satire, and neglect to interpret and explain what they communicate. In the article, a general understanding of humor and satire outside of a political context, followed by an overview of studies discussing humor and satire in politics through their applications in social movements, as leadership tools, and through their manifestations in mass media has been presented. Lastly, a cultural sociological perspective to the field has been introduced. It has been argued that approaching humor and satire in politics through a structural hermeneutic method of the Strong Program will enable us to recognize and treat political humor and satire as autonomous and complex cultural systems which carry an internal power to move people.     

Bi-objective multi-resource scheduling problem for emergency relief operations

Abstract

Resource scheduling for emergency relief operations is complex as it has many constraints. However, an effective allocation and sequencing of resources are crucial for the minimization of the completion times in emergency relief operations. Despite the importance of such decisions, only a few mathematical models of emergency relief operations have been studied. This article presents a bi-objective mixed integer programming (MIP) that helps to minimize both the total weighted time of completion of the demand points and the makespan of the total emergency relief operation. A two-phase method is developed to solve the bi-objective MIP problem. Additionally, a case study of hospital network in the Melbourne metropolitan area is used to evaluate the model. The results indicate that the model can successfully support the decisions required in the optimal resource scheduling of emergency relief operations.     

汉代救荒对策论略

汉代荒政已初步形成一个较为完备的体系。汉政府在救荒实践中 ,往往能从战略高度出发 ,在灾前、灾时和灾后采取了一系列形式多样、内容丰富的备荒、救荒的策略措施。本文从文献资料出发 ,对汉代的救荒对策作了较为细致的总结和分析。这些措施在抗灾、救灾中发挥了积极作用 ,同时它对于今天预防灾害也有一定的参考价值。     

20世纪30年代初胡秋原的庸俗社会学批判

庸俗社会学的木质，在于无视艺术规律，取消中间环节，把文艺这一精神现象与人类社会的基础性结构直接关联，从而对文艺的性质、功能作出简单性规定和强制性要求。胡秋原是中国文论界从学理的层面．对庸俗社会学作出深入剖析的第一人。其理论资源，来自于普列汉诺夫的“中介论”。他对弗里契《艺术社会学》“图式化”弊端之批评，亦发时人所未见。其地球“自转”与“公转”之喻，表明了他对文学“自律”与“他律”关系的洞见与把握，并给后人以启发。＋     

构建立足“3R”的矿难治理预防管理体系

对劳动力载体的保护是劳动和社会保障的指向之一。面对矿难对劳动者生存权的侵蚀,加强矿难治理的准备工作,就成了生命对社会的合理诉求。这其中对劳动者生存权的尊重,也是构建和谐社会的应有之义。     

南宋理学极盛的过程与原因试析

宋代理学到南宋孝宗、宁宗时期达到极盛 ,但无论从理学道统承传方面还是从社会政治条件方面看 ,孝宗之前的高宗朝实为理学发展的关键时期。理学由北宋时的民间之学发展到南宋时占主导地位的学派 ,活跃于高宗朝的程门弟子对二程学说的极力推展是一重要因素。同时 ,面对激烈的民族矛盾 ,高宗集团选择了主和派的妥协主张 ,并有意识地寻找与这一政策相适应的学术思想作为其理论根据 ,程系理学正是在这一现实政治需要中得到高宗集团的接纳、支持而逐渐繁荣兴盛起来。到孝宗朝 ,朱熹使理学形成庞大的思想体系 ,标志着中国古典哲学进入了一个新阶段。