MARS
MARS is a repository service of Mason Publishing and the Digital Scholarship Center (DiSC) at the George Mason University Libraries. MARS provides enduring, stable, well-indexed access to a wide range of scholarship from the Mason community, such as Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs), articles, presentations, reports, and creative work. Learn more about publishing, sharing, and preserving research data with the George Mason University Institutional Dataverse, and our other repository services.
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Recent Submissions
One Health Approach to Zoonotic Disease Surveillance Utilizing Watering Hole Samples in Laikipia County, Kenya
(2023-07-26) Lilak, Abigail; von Fricken, Michael
Emerging and re-emerging pathogens and more specifically, water-borne pathogens continue to be a burden globally. In East Africa, water-borne infectious diseases include cholera, cryptosporidiosis, giardia, hepatitis A and E, leptospirosis, schistosomiasis, and typhoid. Watering holes are an understudied environment for surveillance, in Laikipia County, Kenya. These locations provide a unique perspective as it is a shared environment between animals, livestock, and humans and allow the ability to conduct pathogen surveillance under a One Health framework. Throughout Laikipia County, 10 watering holes were sampled. Within Kenya, there have been outbreaks of cholera, schistosomiasis is considered endemic, and leptospirosis has a high global burden (Chadeka et al., 2019). To our knowledge, there has not been a study in Laikipia County studying water samples from watering holes for zoonotic infectious diseases. Of increasing concern, due to climate change, there has been a scarcity of resources, and certain watering holes are now almost or completely empty during portions of the year. In addition, there has been an ongoing drought which has led to an increase in the shared usage of watering holes and made water a valuable resource amongst humans and animals. From May 2020 until March 2022, 122 pooled water samples were collected from 10 watering holes within Laikipia County. The samples were processed and sequenced using a Mk1C MinION, with output sequences analyzed through a data pipeline. Partial reads from the following microorganisms were detected: Acanthamoeba castellanii, Aeromonas veronii, Brevibacillus brevis, Gardnerella vaginalis, Legionella pneumophila, Orientia tsutsugamushi, Plesiomonas shigelloides, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus capitis, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Staphylococcus haemolyticus and Vibrio cholerae. Samples were further examined for potential contigs, many of the samples had limited mapping to the reference genome, often with no coverage overlapping. These findings highlight the potential uses of metagenomics for environmental surveillance and the need for more studies conducting work with environmental DNA and metagenomics. Additionally, this thesis starts to contribute towards a larger conversation within science about the reliability and confidence or working with and analyzing genetic data.
Analyzing Accessibility to Essential Facilities During Hurricane Ian: Lee County in Florida
(2023-08-01) Alsayed Ebrahim, Ruqayah; Ji, Wenying
Disasters such as hurricanes cause serious damage to the community lifeline infrastructure systems especially the transportation infrastructure system which is vital to the well-being of the community and requires a good restoration planning to maintain the community lifeline without any interruption. During restoration and recovery phase, residents of affected areas must have access to essential facilities to meet their daily needs, otherwise it will be a chaos and the death toll will increase. To ensure accessibility to essential facilities, alternative routes that serve as substitutes for damaged routes must be identified by local authorities for the residents. As well as identifying vulnerable roads for future restoration prioritization in terms of scheduling to have a disaster resilient road network which is the ability to adapt to changing infrastructure conditions and decrease the impacts on the accessibility. However, it is not always the case, the communication between the local government and the designated agencies such as FDOT is quite challenging as they both have different priorities and different time schedules. In addition, road network disruptions and road closures change rapidly in the post disaster phase, in which it will increase the inspection time of roads and bridges status.
Different data of pre/post disasters became available because of the advanced communication technologies such as traffic data, geographical data, physical data and sociodemographic data. These data must be transformed to a suitable form and integrated into an analysis framework to help in identifying alternative routes to access essential facilities, and to identify vulnerabilities in the road network. Maintaining access to essential facilities is crucial as not all communities have the same level of preparedness for disasters. To achieve this, a strong communication between the local government and designated agencies is required for communities’ awareness of alternative routes and critical roads. Therefore, this research aims (1) to integrate modeling techniques to assess and visualize spatial data of facilities, road network, sociodemographic and road closures; (2) to improve the overall network accessibility to essential facilities by alternative routes identification; and (3) to quantify the impacts of transportation damage on the network accessibility for future restoration optimization.
This research contributes to build disaster resilient transportation infrastructure systems by (1) evaluating accessibility to essential facilities during disasters using highway network modeling; and (2) identifying vulnerabilities in the road network for future restoration prioritization and resource (facilities) allocation taking into consideration real-world capacity, facilities connectivity and travel distances. The findings of this research can be a strategic guide for emergency management teams and governmental authorities to
improve the county’s resilience and preparedness in the case of future disasters, and protecting the community’s lifeline. This can be achieved by (1) mitigating the post disaster impacts on the transportation infrastructure in terms of accessibility to essential facilities; (2) providing invaluable insights to design disaster resilient road network or improve the existing network; (3) improve local authorities’ response to disasters; (4) help policy makers initiate plans for future roadway constructions and facilities construction; and (5) generate ranking criteria for restoration prioritization in terms of scheduling by highlighting critical road.
Finite Element Modeling of Reinforced Concrete Columns Subjected to Air and Underwater Explosions
(2023-08-01) Abyu, Getu Zewdie; Urgessa, Girum
Ever since the tragic events of the 9/11 attacks in New York, global infrastructures
have suffered significant damage caused by acts of terrorism, military strikes, and
accidental explosions. Coastal regions and critical infrastructure, including bridges, face a
significant threat from maritime terrorism. Furthermore, intentional car bomb explosions
in acts of terrorism and military assaults also pose substantial risks to the structural integrity
of bridges. Among the various components comprising a bridge structure, bridge piers play
a crucial role in providing vertical support. Hence, it is crucial to study the structural
response of reinforced concrete (RC) columns under blast loading.
This study involved the development of two comprehensive numerical models,
using LS-DYNA software, to analyze the air blast and underwater explosion (UNDEX)
responses of RC columns. The validation process entailed comparing the simulation results
with experimental data obtained from previous studies by Yuan et al. (2017), Yang et al.
(2019), and Zhuang et al. (2020). Both numerical models exhibited reasonably good
agreement with the experimental findings, demonstrating their reliability in replicating
real-world air blast and UNDEX scenarios. With the numerically calibrated and verified
UNDEX model, a parametric study was conducted to examine the effects of blast loads
from TNT explosive charges on RC columns. The study considered various parameters,
including stand-off distance, charge weight, and water depth. Nonlinear finite element
analysis using LS-DYNA was performed, investigating a total of 60 cases. The simulation
results provided valuable insights and findings regarding the behavior of RC columns
under different air blast and UNDEX loading scenarios. This study is particularly
pioneering in its investigation of RC columns subjected to partially submerged explosions.
Additionally, the response of RC columns for both contact and non-contact air and
UNDEX explosions were investigated.
Chinese Danmei Webnovels: Translation Lockdowns, Masculinity, and Community-Building
(2023-07-05) Ellard, Amanda; Zhang, Lijun
Danmei (“indulging beauty”) is a Chinese term for male/male gay romance
fiction, influenced by Japanese BL (Boys Love, Japanese term for the male/male gay
fiction genre) stories and aesthetics imported to China through way of Taiwan. This
thesis examines some of the anxieties of fan translators who translate serialized danmei
webnovels (novels that are published online) into English, the way in which danmei as a
genre becomes a ‘safe space’ for exploring gender and sexuality, and the communitybuilding
practices within online danmei fandom spaces. This work argues that the danmei
fiction genre and its online fandom communities are valued by danmei writers and
readers as ways to form strong bonds and as relatively ‘safe spaces’ where women
explore alternatives to the social realities they face in day-to-day real life.
Re-greening Opportunities in Northern Virginia Based on Land Cover Patterns and Social Vulnerability Criteria
(2023-05-19) Jankowski, Rachel; Burtch, Nathan
This research reviews a number of socio-demographic and environmental criteria in the interest of identifying suitable areas for re-greening in Northern Virginia. The study area encompasses nine county and county equivalents in Northern Virginia whose sprawling development, demographic characteristics, and historical evolution towards an urban fringe landscape places it at potential risk for adverse effects related to the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Various methods and techniques have been explored to help combat the implications of the UHI, which can result in higher-than-average heat indices, place both the natural and built environment at risk, as well as increase health impacts in local populations with known risk factors. One of the most effective and affordable mitigation techniques is the use of vegetation in the form of grasses, trees, and shrubs that help to cool urban surfaces and reduce ambient temperatures.
This premise is the basis of the research question, which asks based on a series of input criteria, where are the most vulnerable, and therefore the best suited areas within the study area for re-greening efforts? This study utilizes an adapted multi-criteria analysis technique and GIS to overlay land surface temperature, land cover change, and socio-demographic characteristics to try and identify such areas. These layers from publicly available sources such as USGS, DOE, and NLCD were pre-processed, scaled and reclassified, weighted, and added together to determine suitability scores per pixel area.
Overall, the research found a number of case study areas that scored as high candidates for re-greening, and whose spatial range aligned with expected trends related to the UHI and areas that tend to be hotter such as those that have shifted from forested to development over the course of 18 years (2001 to 2019). The research showed that these areas often exist alongside vulnerable communities as well. Pockets of re-greening suitability include areas in southeastern Prince William, Loudoun County, Manassas and Manassas Park, Alexandria, and parts of eastern Fairfax County. Some areas have major focus on economic development thus resulting in urban and suburban sprawl, while more established neighborhoods that have been developed for quite some time but whose infrastructure tends to leave communities more at risk for heat related issues. The results were highly dependent on the unique status of the region, but this research found that there are many hectares worth of suitable areas that would certainly benefit from additional green space in light of climate change and UHI trends.