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1. Preparedness and Response in the Century of Disasters: Overview of Information Systems Research Frontiers

   https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2024.intro.v35.n2  

   Abbasi, Ahmed; Dillon, Robin; Rao, H Raghav; Liu_Sheng, Olivia R (June 2024, Information Systems Research)

   Sarker, S (Ed.)

   “The Century of Disasters” refers to the increased frequency, complexity, and magnitude of natural and man-made disasters witnessed in the 21st century: the impact of such disasters is exacerbated by infrastructure vulnerabilities, population growth/urbanization, and a challenging policy landscape. Technology-enabled disaster management (TDM) has an important role to play in the Century of Disasters. We highlight four important trends related to TDM, smart technologies and resilience, digital humanitarianism, integrated decision-support and agility, and artificial intelligence–enabled early warning systems, and how the confluence of these trends lead to four research frontiers for information systems researchers. We describe these frontiers, namely the technology-preparedness paradox, socio-technical crisis communication, predicting and prescribing under uncertainty, and fair pipelines, and discuss how the eight articles in the special section are helping us learn about these frontiers. History: Senior editor, Suprateek Sarker. Funding: This study was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) [Grants 2240347 and IIS-2039915]. H. R. Rao is also supported in part by the NSF [Grant 2020252]. The usual disclaimer applies. 

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2. Compound natural and human disasters: Managing drought and COVID-19 to sustain global agriculture and food sectors

   https://doi.org/142210  

   Mishra, Ashok; Bruno, Ellen; Zilberman, David (February 2021, Ingenio libre)

   Individually, both droughts and pandemics cause disruptions to global food supply chains. The 21st century has seen the frequent occurrence of both natural and human disasters, including droughts and pandemics. Together their impacts can be compounded, leading to severe economic stress and malnutrition, particularly in developing countries. Understanding how droughts and pandemics interact, and identifying appropriate policies to address them together and separately, is important for maintaining a robust global food supply. Hereinwe assess the impacts of each of these disasters in the context of food and agriculture, and then discuss their compounded effect. 

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3. Critical Lines of Action for Vulnerability and Resilience Research and Practice: Lessons from the 2017 Hurricane Season

   https://doi.org/10.1142/S234573761850015X  

   Eakin, Hallie; Muñoz-Erickson, Tischa A.; Lemos, Maria Carmen (September 2018, Journal of Extreme Events)

   The unprecedented number of devastating disasters recently experienced in the United States is a clarion call to revisit how we understand our vulnerability in the face of global change, and what we are prepared to do about it. We focus on the case of Hurricane María’s impact in Puerto Rico to underscore five critical concerns in addressing vulnerability and adaptation planning: (i) vulnerability as a product of flows; (ii) how our beliefs about the capacities of ourselves and others affect local vulnerability; (iii) the role uncertainty, politics, and information access play in amplifying vulnerability and complicating adaptation; (iv) the need for a better distribution of risk and responsibility in adaptation; (v) and the challenge of seizing the opportunity of disasters for transformative change. These five issues of concern were particularly evident in the case of Puerto Rico where Hurricane María’s 155 mph winds exposed existing infrastructural vulnerabilities, institutional incapacities, and socio-economic disparities. We argue that addressing these issues requires fundamental shifts in how we prepare for environmental change and disasters in the 21st century. We discuss promising approaches that may assist researchers and practitioners in addressing some of the underlying drivers of vulnerability, stemming from cross-scalar dynamics, systemic interdependencies, and the politics and social relations associated with knowledge, decision-making and action. We argue that society needs to broach the difficult topic of the equity in the distribution of risk in society and the burden of adaptation. Addressing these challenges and response imperatives is a central task of this century; the time to act is now. 

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4. Spatial and temporal non‐stationarity in long‐term population dynamics of over‐wintering birds of North America

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9781  

   Murphy, Stephen J.; Jarzyna, Marta A. (March 2023, Ecology and Evolution)

   Abstract Understanding population changes across long time scales and at fine spatiotemporal resolutions is important for confronting a broad suite of conservation challenges. However, this task is hampered by a lack of quality long‐term census data for multiple species collected across large geographic regions. Here, we used century‐long (1919–2018) data from the Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) survey to assess population changes in over 300 avian species in North America and evaluate their temporal non‐stationarity. To estimate population sizes across the entire century, we employed a Bayesian hierarchical model that accounts for species detection probabilities, variable sampling effort, and missing data. We evaluated population trends using generalized additive models (GAMs) and assessed temporal non‐stationarity in the rate of population change by extracting the first derivatives from the fitted GAM functions. We then summarized the population dynamics across species, space, and time using a non‐parametric clustering algorithm that categorized individual population trends into four distinct trend clusters. We found that species varied widely in their population trajectories, with over 90% of species showing a considerable degree of spatial and/or temporal non‐stationarity, and many showing strong shifts in the direction and magnitude of population trends throughout the past century. Species were roughly equally distributed across the four clusters of population trajectories, although grassland, forest, and desert specialists more commonly showed declining trends. Interestingly, for many species, region‐wide population trends often differed from those observed at individual sites, suggesting that conservation decisions need to be tailored to fine spatial scales. Together, our results highlight the importance of considering spatial and temporal non‐stationarity when assessing long‐term population changes. More generally, we demonstrate the promise of novel statistical techniques for improving the utility and extending the temporal scope of existing citizen science datasets. 

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5. Multi-objective design optimization for flexible hybrid electronics

   https://doi.org/10.1145/2966986.2967057  

   Bhat, Ganapati; Gupta, Ujjwal; Tran, Nicholas; Park, Jaehyun; Ozev, Sule; Ogras, Umit Y. (November 2016, 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD))

   Flexible systems that can conform to any shape are desirable for wearable applications. Over the past decade, there have been tremendous advances in the domain of flexible electronics which enabled printing of devices, such as sensors on a flexible substrate. Despite these advances, pure flexible electronics systems are limited by poor performance and large feature sizes. Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) is an emerging technology which addresses these issues by integrating high performance rigid integrated circuits and flexible devices. Yet, there are no system-level design flows and algorithms for the design of FHE systems. To this end, this paper presents a multi-objective design algorithm to implement a target application optimally using a library of rigid and flexible components. Our algorithm produces a set of Pareto frontiers that optimize the physical flexibility, energy per operation and area metrics. Simulation studies show a 32× range in area and 4× range in flexibility across the set of Pareto-optimal design points. 

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