Integrating Operational and Organizational Aspects in Interdependent Infrastructure Network Recovery

Managing risk in infrastructure systems implies dealing with interdependent physical networks and their relationships with the natural and societal contexts. Computational tools are often used to support operational decisions aimed at improving resilience, whereas economics‐related tools tend to be used to address broader societal and policy issues in infrastructure management. We propose an optimization‐based framework for infrastructure resilience analysis that incorporates organizational and socioeconomic aspects into operational problems, allowing to understand relationships between decisions at the policy level (e.g., regulation) and the technical level (e.g., optimal infrastructure restoration). We focus on three issues that arise when integrating such levels. First, optimal restoration strategies driven by financial and operational factors evolve differently compared to those driven by socioeconomic and humanitarian factors. Second, regulatory aspects have a significant impact on recovery dynamics (e.g., effective recovery is most challenging in societies with weak institutions and regulation, where individual interests may compromise societal well‐being). And third, the decision space (i.e., available actions) in postdisaster phases is strongly determined by predisaster decisions (e.g., resource allocation). The proposed optimization framework addresses these issues by using: (1) parametric analyses to test the influence of operational and socioeconomic factors on optimization outcomes, (2) regulatory constraints to model and assess the cost and benefit (for a variety of actors) of enforcing specific policy‐related conditions for the recovery process, and (3) sensitivity analyses to capture the effect of predisaster decisions on recovery. We illustrate our methodology with an example regarding the recovery of interdependent water, power, and gas networks in Shelby County, TN (USA), with exposure to natural hazards.     

Cross‐Sectional Psychological and Demographic Associations of Zika Knowledge and Conspiracy Beliefs Before and After Local Zika Transmission

Perceptions of infectious diseases are important predictors of whether people engage in disease‐specific preventive behaviors. Having accurate beliefs about a given infectious disease has been found to be a necessary condition for engaging in appropriate preventive behaviors during an infectious disease outbreak, while endorsing conspiracy beliefs can inhibit preventive behaviors. Despite their seemingly opposing natures, knowledge and conspiracy beliefs may share some of the same psychological motivations, including a relationship with perceived risk and self‐efficacy (i.e., control). The 2015–2016 Zika epidemic provided an opportunity to explore this. The current research provides some exploratory tests of this topic derived from two studies with similar measures, but different primary outcomes: one study that included knowledge of Zika as a key outcome and one that included conspiracy beliefs about Zika as a key outcome. Both studies involved cross‐sectional data collections that occurred during the same two periods of the Zika outbreak: one data collection prior to the first cases of local Zika transmission in the United States (March–May 2016) and one just after the first cases of local transmission (July–August). Using ordinal logistic and linear regression analyses of data from two time points in both studies, the authors show an increase in relationship strength between greater perceived risk and self‐efficacy with both increased knowledge and increased conspiracy beliefs after local Zika transmission in the United States. Although these results highlight that similar psychological motivations may lead to Zika knowledge and conspiracy beliefs, there was a divergence in demographic association.     

Journey towards independent living: a grounded theory investigation of leaving the care of Girls & Boys Town,South Africa

The journey out of care and towards independent living is a challenge for many care-leavers. There has been little research into the social processes involved in this care-leaving journey. This paper presents the results of a grounded theory investigation into the care-leaving journeys of nine young men who had, several years previously, been in the care of Girls & Boys Town in South Africa. Working from a resilience perspective, with an ecological emphasis, four central social processes emerged that together explain the care-leaving experiences of the participants. These processes are striving for authentic belonging; networking people for goal attainment; contextualised responsiveness and building hopeful and tenacious self-confidence. These four processes are located within contextual boundaries and at the social environmental interface. The paper presents these processes in detail, drawing on selected narratives of the participants and integrated with additional theory. It is hoped that this paper may contribute to theory building concerning care-leaving processes and enhance youth care practices for youth in care and leaving care.     

Cyclical Evolution of the Global Right

An understanding of the current right‐wing national and transnational social movements can benefit from comparing them to the global and national conditions operating during their last appearance in the first half of the twentieth century and by carefully comparing twentieth‐century fascism with the neofascist and right‐wing populist movements that have been emerging in the twenty‐first century. This allows us to assess the similarities and differences, and to gain insights about what could be the consequences of the reemergence of populist nationalism and fascist movements. Our study uses the comparative evolutionary world‐systems perspective to study the Global Right from 1800 to the present. We see fascism as a form of capitalism that emerges when the capitalist project is in crisis. World historical waves of right‐wing populism and fascism are caused by the cycles of globalization and deglobalization, the rise and fall of hegemonic core powers, long business cycles (the Kondratieff wave), and interactions with both Centrist Liberalism and the Global Left. We consider how crises of the global capitalist system have produced right‐wing backlashes in the past, and how a future terminal crisis of capitalism could lead to a reemergence of a new form of authoritarian global governance or a reorganized global democracy in the future.     

Hidden Resources and Barriers in Career Learning Assessment With Adolescents Vulnerable to Discrimination

The authors maintain that the social learning theory of career development and counseling has not been applied to diverse populations. To address this gap in the literature, the authors conducted a qualitative analysis of interviews with 21 middle school students in a low‐income, culturally diverse, inner‐city public school. Four themes emerged, reflecting the influence of discrimination on participants' career learning: contextual barriers and resources for learning, and psychological barriers and resources for learning. The authors provide a conceptual framework for assessing resources and barriers and a rationale for why these aspects often remain hidden or unexamined in career assessment with clients who are vulnerable to discrimination.     

Frustration in Infancy: Implications for Emotion Regulation,Physiological Processes,and Temperament

A study sample of 162 six‐month‐old children was selected from a larger sample of 346 infants on the basis of parents' report of their infants' temperament and a laboratory assessment of temperament. Infants were classified as easily frustrated and less easily frustrated and compared on a number of emotion regulation, physiology, and temperament measures. Results indicated that male and female infants were equally likely to be classified as frustrated and less easily frustrated; however, male infants were less able to regulate physiologically. Easily frustrated infants used different emotion regulation strategies and were observed to be less attentive and more active than less easily frustrated infants when observed in the laboratory. These infants were also characterized by their parents as more active, less attentive, and more distressed to novelty. Infants classified as easily frustrated were more reactive physiologically and less able to regulate physiological reactivity than their less easily frustrated counterparts. It is hypothesized that this cluster of characteristics may constitute a unique temperamental type that may have implications for other types of behavioral functioning. Limitations of the study are that observations are based on a single brief assessment of the infant, modest effect sizes were found, and the study is cross‐sectional.     

Acculturative stress in the adjustment of immigrant families

This study reviews the issue of acculturative stress in immigrant families. Acculturative stress includes behaviors experienced by immigrants that are a direct consequence of the process of acculturation and adaptation to a new society. A number of stressors impacting on the acculturation of immigrant families is discussed. These stressors include lack of English language skills, employment and economic status, educational background, family life, and sociopolitical and immigration status.     

The Abject Embodiment of Cancer Patients: Dignity,Selfhood, and the Grotesque Body

The body is the empirical quintessence of the self. Because selfhood is symbolic, embodiment represents the personification and materialization of otherwise invisible qualities of personhood. The body and experiences of embodiment are central to our sense of being, who we think we are, and what others attribute to us. What happens, then, when one's body is humiliating? How does the self handle the implications of a gruesome body? How do people manage selfhood in light of grotesque physical appearances? This study explores these questions in the experiences of dying cancer patients and seeks to better understand relationships among body, self, and situated social interaction.