All Faculty Deposits

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/70873

The "All Faculty Deposits" collection contains works deposited by faculty and appointed delegates from the Elements (EFARs) system. For help with Elements, see Frequently Asked Questions on the Provost's website. In general, items can only be deposited if the item is a scholarly article that is covered by Virginia Tech's open access policy, or the item is openly licensed or in the public domain, or the item is permitted to be posted online under the journal/publisher policy, or the depositor owns the copyright. See Right to Deposit on the VTechWorks Help page. If you have questions email us at vtechworks@vt.edu.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 5792

How the Climate Change Threat is Shifting Australia's National Counter-Terrorism Strategy
Mortazavigazar, Amir (2023-03-08)
In this paper, we analyse how extremism and acts of terror will manifest themselves in Australia over the upcoming decades. Australia maintains a robust counter-terrorism strategy along with a comprehensive security apparatus to support that strategy. However, it is becoming apparent to the Australian intelligence community and the Australian government that the national security challenges that Australia will be facing due to climate change have been neglected over the past few years. COVID-19 restrictions demonstrated that issue-motivated extremism can fuel acts of terror and assist violent extremist organisations in their recruitment and radicalisations. In this paper, we demonstrate how climate change mitigation policies can result in issue-motivated extremism and empower violent extremist organisations which can result in acts of terror that would jeopardise Australia’s national security, therefore, we recommend that Australia’s National Intelligence apparatus broaden the issue-motivated extremism purview of terrorism by including climate change related grievances. Furthermore, we recommend amending Australia’s social cohesion and value statements to alleviate climate change related grievances and raise awareness about the threats of climate change related extremism.
Canadian hydroelectricity imports to the U.S.; Modeling of hourly carbon emissions reduction in New England
Mortazavigazar, Amir; Calder, Ryan S. D.; Howarth, Rich B.; Jackson, Chloe A.; Mavrommati, Georgia (2024-04-05)
United States’ hydroelectricity imports from Canada have increased by > 1 TWh per year between 2007 and 2021. This occurs as policymakers in the U.S. try to ramp up the deployment of new carbon free electricity generation and transmission infrastructure. Furthermore, recent modeling in the northeast U.S. demonstrates that Canadian hydroelectricity will play a significant role in New England’s least-cost decarbonization scenario. Additionally, decarbonization targets are well- defined in all states within the New England region, making it a priority. Consequently, it is anticipated that more hydroelectricity will flow from Canada into New England, resulting in the expansion of transborder electricity interconnections. To characterize the costs and benefits of such projects as compared to alternatives, a high-resolution simulation (i.e., hourly) of the electric grid is needed. In this study, we utilize the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's dataset on hourly electricity generation and carbon emissions. Using pre-established decarbonization scenarios, we can calculate the precise reduction in greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions for each scenario. Our preliminary results demonstrate that the scenario projection for 2026–2027 by New England ISO, which involves a combination of Canadian hydroelectric imports (2100 MW summer, 826 MW winter), new wind (308 MW summer and 682 MW), and solar (92 MW summer, 28 MW winter) generation commitments, can effectively offset carbon emissions in New England. These results further support the current decarbonization policy, which relies on a diversified mix of carbon free electricity sources.
Integrating health, economic, and environmental trade-offs into decarbonization decision-making in New England
Mortazavigazar, Amir (2024-05-15)
Emerging nuclear energy technologies: An alternative path to Australia's energy security
Mortazavigazar, Amir (Menzies Research Centre, 2023-12-18)
10 Ways to Make an Accessible Collaborative Environment for People with Disabilities
Mortazavigazar, Amir (Virginia Tech Global Change Center, 2022-10-07)
A Tale of Two States: Comparing Implementation of NEPA in Virginia and California
Mortazavigazar, Amir (Virginia Tech Global Change Center, 2023-03-20)
Secret sharing in online communities: A comparative analysis of offender and non-offender password creation strategies
Bergeron, Andréanne; Dearden, Thomas E. (Elsevier, 2024-11-05)
Even though several authentication methods exist, passwords remain the most common type of authentication. Researchers have demonstrated the influence of a person’s environment and exposure to the Internet on their online security behavior (Bosnjak & Brumen, 2016; He et al., 2021; Juozapavičius et al., 2022). Those studies suggest that social identity seems to play a role in password choice. The objective of this study was to determine if the criminal nature of a network influences password-creation strategies. To achieve this, we utilized two databases with a substantial number of actual passwords (1,485,095) that had been leaked to the Internet. One database was sourced from a non-delinquent social network, while the other was from a hacker forum. We employed logistic regression to reveal the characteristics associated with each group, ensuring a comprehensive analysis of different types of password strategies and the similarity between actors of the same network. Results show that users of the same network have passwords with characteristics that are similar to each other. Individuals with the same social interests seem more likely to use the same password-creation strategies. From a network analysis perspective, the results show that similar individuals (sharing the same interests) are similar in other aspects (password creation strategies). These findings offer valuable insights into the diverse landscape of password varieties and user behaviors, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of internet user networks.
Community-Owned-and-Operated: Amplifying Cultural Heritage through Inter-Institutional Collaboration
Kinnaman, Alex; Palazzo, Ashley (2024-11-15)
The Greater Southwest Virginia Digital Collective (GSDC) is a community-owned collective steered by a volunteer community advisory board composed of community members from the region and Virginia Tech University Library (VTUL) faculty members that reviews, approves, and champions community collections to be added to the Virginia Tech Digital Library. The challenge GSDC aims to address is the gap between well-resourced institutions and smaller cultural heritage organizations by providing community-tailored assistance in processing and describing collections, digitization and consultation, and depositing material into an access and preservation repository. This roundtable will consist of two GSDC members representing both a community organization and VTUL to discuss the relationship-building process, successes and challenges, and sharing the community-driven model of GSDC.
Dancing with Donors: Trust-Building Across Gaps of Curation Priorities
Munshower, Alan; Kinnaman, Alex (PubPub, 2024-09-16)
Virginia Tech University Libraries (VTUL) serves a range of cultural heritage, academic, and local communities aligned in the goal to “get stuff online and accessible.” Despite the same overarching goal, the specific requirements from each party to reach that goal do not always overlap. The initial dance of negotiation between library and donor collaborations sets the tone for the ongoing relationship between the two. Across the departments in VTUL that manage such relationships with donors and curate digital collections, there are common trends emerging in barriers and observations with building relationships, and also with the concessions, compromises, and adjustments made to meet the curation needs of both parties. There are noted gaps in priorities and knowledge of curation processes, expectations around the understanding of digital collections, communication and roles and responsibilities, and resource understandability and availability. This paper specifically addresses relationships with donors and that impact on the subsequent work resulting from agreement with both parties. Continuing the iPRES conversation around community archiving and successful collaborations, the authors of this paper look critically at their partnerships with donors of digital material. This paper aligns with the conference theme “Start 2 preserve” in that it both addresses the barriers to entering the digital preservation landscape for the non-librarian community, and the barriers of digital preservation practitioners in aligning collaborator needs with digital curation needs. The authors focus on spotlighting the learning curve present on both sides of the work of community archiving. In recognizing recurrent gaps in understanding, this paper aims to be a part of a larger conversation on how community partnerships can blossom with built trust and understanding, coupled with robust planning and technical capability.
Stochastic spatial Lotka-Volterra predator-prey models
Täuber, Uwe C. (World Scientific, 2024-10-15)
Dynamical models of interacting populations are of fundamental interest for spontaneous pattern formation and other noise-induced phenomena in nonequilibrium statistical physics. Theoretical physics in turn provides a quantitative toolbox for paradigmatic models employed in (bio-)chemistry, biology, ecology, epidemiology, and even sociology. Stochastic, spatially extended models for predator-prey interaction display spatio-temporal structures that are not captured by the Lotka– Volterra mean-field rate equations. These spreading activity fronts reflect persistent correlations between predators and prey that can be analyzed through field-theoretic methods. Introducing local restrictions on the prey population induces a predator extinction threshold, with the critical dynamics at this continuous active-to-absorbing state transition governed by the scaling exponents of directed percolation. Novel features in biologically motivated model variants include the stabilizing effect of a periodically varying carrying capacity that describes seasonally oscillating resource availability; enhanced mean species densities and local fluctuations caused by spatially varying reaction rates; and intriguing evolutionary dynamics emerging when variable interaction rates are affixed to individuals combined with trait inheritance to their offspring. The basic susceptible-infected-susceptible and susceptible-infected-recovered models for infectious disease spreading near their epidemic thresholds are respectively captured by the directed and dynamic isotropic percolation universality classes. Systems with three cyclically competing species akin to spatial rock-paper-scissors games may display striking spiral patterns, yet conservation laws can prevent such noise-induced structure formation. In diffusively coupled inhomogeneous settings, one may observe the stabilization of vulnerable ecologies prone to finite-size extinction or fixation due to immigration waves emanating from the interfaces.
Computing macroscopic reaction rates in reaction-diffusion systems using Monte Carlo simulations
Swailem, Mohamed; Täuber, Uwe C. (2024-07-17)
Stochastic reaction-diffusion models are employed to represent many complex physical, biological, societal, and ecological systems. The macroscopic reaction rates describing the large-scale, longtime kinetics in such systems are effective, scale-dependent renormalized parameters that need to be either measured experimentally or computed by means of a microscopic model. In a Monte Carlo simulation of stochastic reaction-diffusion systems, microscopic probabilities for specific events to happen serve as the input control parameters. To match the results of any computer simulation to observations or experiments carried out on the macroscale, a mapping is required between the microscopic probabilities that define the Monte Carlo algorithm and the macroscopic reaction rates that are experimentally measured. Finding the functional dependence of emergent macroscopic rates on the microscopic probabilities (subject to specific rules of interaction) is a very difficult problem, and there is currently no systematic, accurate analytical way to achieve this goal. Therefore, we introduce a straightforward numerical method of using lattice Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the macroscopic reaction rates by directly obtaining the count statistics of how many events occur per simulation time step. Our technique is first tested on well-understood fundamental examples, namely restricted birth processes, diffusion-limited two-particle coagulation, and two-species pair annihilation kinetics. Next we utilize the thus gained experience to investigate how the microscopic algorithmic probabilities become coarse-grained into effective macroscopic rates in more complex model systems such as the Lotka–Volterra model for predator-prey competition and coexistence, as well as the rock-paper-scissors or cyclic Lotka–Volterra model as well as its May–Leonard variant that capture population dynamics with cyclic dominance motifs. Thereby we achieve a more thorough and deeper understanding of coarse-graining in spatially extended stochastic reaction-diffusion systems and the nontrivial relationships between the associated microscopic and macroscopic model parameters, with a focus on ecological systems. The proposed technique should generally provide a useful means to better fit Monte Carlo simulation results to experimental or observational data.
Integrating health, economic, and environmental trade-offs into decarbonization decision-making in New England using enhanced capacity expansion modeling
Mortazavigazar, Amir; Calder, Ryan S. D.; Howarth, Richard B.; Jackson, Chloe A.; Mavrommati, Georgia (2024-07-15)
Followership in Focus: Exploring Relationships, Impact, and Adaptive Strategies
Kaufman, Eric K.; Korbal, Edward; Oyedare, Israel; Read, Basil; Rossi, Stephanie; Shufutinsky, Anton (International Leadership Association, 2024-11-08)
This session brings together three critical explorations of followership, a field often overshadowed by leadership studies. We will examine emerging themes from international followership discussions, the intricate dynamics of the Leader-Follower-Fellow (LFF) relationship and its impact on organizational culture, and the importance of adaptive followership in ensuring the success of new leaders. Attendees will engage with cutting-edge research and frameworks that challenge traditional notions of followership and underscore its significance in shaping effective leadership.
ALCE Strategy for Peer Review of Teaching
Kaufman, Eric K. (2024-11-13)
Facilitated workshop for Virginia Tech's Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education.
Hate and hate crimes in society
Hawdon, James E.; Costello, Matthew (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024-10-17)
The state's role in hate: Understanding hate crime throughout U.S. history
Hawdon, James E. (2024-10-17)
The Off-Table Technique Increases Operating Room Efficiency in Direct Anterior Hip Replacement
Owen, Trevor M.; Hornberg, John V.; Corton, Kristoff; Moskal, Joseph T. (Elsevier, 2022-05-18)
Background: When performing a total hip arthroplasty via the direct anterior approach (DAA), many orthopedic surgeons utilize an orthopedic traction table. This technique requires an expensive table, time for positioning, staff to operate the table, and time-consuming transitions when preparing the femur. Some surgeons advocate for an “off-table” technique to avoid these difficulties. In this paper, we compare operating room efficiency between on-table and off-table techniques. Material and methods: We retrospectively reviewed patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty by a single surgeon across the transition from on-table to off-table DAA technique. Three cohorts were defined; the last 40 on-table hips, the first 40 off-table hips, followed by the second 40 hips. Timestamps from the operative record were recorded to calculate setup, surgical, takedown, and total room time. Implant fixation, patient demographic data, comorbidities, and complications were recorded. Results: From cohort 1 to 2, there was a 7-minute (14.44%, P = .0002) improvement in setup time but no change in total room time. From cohort 2 to 3, there was an additional 7-minute (15.47%, P < .0001) improvement in setup time, 32-minute (25.88%, P < .0001) improvement in surgical time, and 40-minute (21.96%, P < .0001) improvement in total room time yielding cumulative changes from cohort 1 to 3 of 15 minutes (27.68%, P < .0001), 28 minutes (23.11%, P < .0001), and 43 minutes (23.37%, P < .0001), respectively. There was no correlation between height, weight, or body mass index and time at any interval. Conclusion: Conversion to an off-table DAA technique offers an improvement in operating room efficiency. This is seen in setup, operative, and total room time. Implementation could allow for an additional case each day.
An evaluation of a new rapid qPCR test for the detection of 2019-novel coronavirus nucleocapsid (N1) gene in wastewater in Roanoke and Salem VA sewersheds
Lehrer, Lia W.; Lewis, Anna; Tolliver, Susan A.; Degen, Marcia; Singh, Rekha; Houser, Sara R.; Rao, Jayasimha (IWA Publishing, 2024-08)
The COVID-19 pandemic initiated public interest in wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). Public and private entities responded to the need to produce timely and accurate data. LuminUltra and Hach partnered to provide a rapid, field-based quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) test for detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in wastewater. This study evaluates the Hach GeneCount SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater RT-qPCR Assay Kit and LuminUltra GeneCount® Q-16 RT-PCR instrument. The Hach LuminUltra methods were compared to the Promega Wizard® Enviro Total Nucleic Acid kit and Bio-Rad CFX Opus 96 Real-time PCR Detection System. Over a 12-week period, wastewater samples were collected weekly from seven locations in the Roanoke/Salem, VA sewersheds. Concentration and extraction of the viral RNA were followed by qPCR analysis. The target gene for detection was the nucleocapsid gene (N1) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Costs, ease of use, time to produce results, sample preparation, and data comparisons were considered. The comparison determined that the Hach LuminUltra method and instrument were more affordable, consumed less time, and required less technical expertise. While the new method was specific, it had low sensitivity. This evaluation suggests the Hach LuminUltra method should be reserved for limited situations requiring onsite field analysis where data accuracy is not essential.
The absence of nosemosis in eastern bumblebees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) from regions of Roanoke and New River Valley
Samarasinghe, Binuk; Ausburne, Thomas; Blankenship, Christopher; Lin, Kaung; Linsenman, Kathleen; Rao, Jayasimha; Bhatta, Chet (2023-12-01)
In a study of 220 eastern bumblebee specimens collected from the Roanoke and New River Valley areas, PCR analysis of the gut lumen revealed the absence of Nosema spp. infections, challenging prevailing assumptions about their prevalence in bumblebee populations. The outcome underscores the need for further research to determine the factors contributing to this absence, including the unique ecological context of the study area. These findings highlight the significance of host susceptibility and survivability, emphasizing the complexity associated with parasite-host interactions within bumblebees.
Prompting Best Practices: How Are Libraries or Their Home Institutions Creating, Sharing, Applying, and Adapting GenAI Policies?
Pannabecker, Virginia (2024-06-11)
Join me for this 45-minute discussion-based review of institutional policies created by libraries or their larger institutions on the use of Gen AI in teaching, learning, and research. During the first 15 minutes, I will share a selection of policies from 5-10 institutions, highlighting examples of commonalities and key differences, including how each policy addresses ethical aspects of using AI in the institution's context. The second 15 minutes will be breakout small group discussions of the example policies, policies participants are aware of or use at their own institutions or at institutions they’re curious about; and each group will have an online space to jot down notes and add links to policies or resources they discuss. The last 15 minutes will include a 1-2 minute report back from each group about useful aspects they found in the example policies or other policies discussed in their group, questions or concerns about policies discussed, examples of applying such policies at their institutions, examples of how to stay up to date with changes in Gen AI usage and make nimble adjustments to policies, or recommendations and comments for Gen AI policies going forward. We’ll conclude with a wrap up and links to the shared discussion documents for reference.

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