This study examines factors that influence the intent to use and actual use of decision support software (DSS) technology by emergency management officials to facilitate disaster response management. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology popularized by scholars from the field of information sciences (IS) for the private sector is adapted and extended to examine technology use in the public sector, specifically by emergency managers. An e-survey was sent to 1, 452 city and county emergency management officials from FEMA region VI and complete responses obtained from 194 were analyzed. Findings suggest that social influence is the strongest predictor of intent to use DSS technology by emergency managers, unlike private sector studies where performance expectancy was the strongest predictor. Additionally, effort expectancy, collaboration, social vulnerability, professionalism, performance expectancy, and gender explained 40 percent of their intent to use DSS technology. Factors explaining actual use of technology were intent to use technology, having an in house GIS specialist, and age of the emergency manager. This research successfully closes the gap in IS and disaster literature by being the first to focus on factors influencing technology use by emergency managers for decision making in disaster response. It underscores the importance of collaboration not only for post-disaster activities but also as a precursor to better disaster preparedness planning that calls for information sharing and technology acceptance and adoption across partnering jurisdictions.

Perfectionism is a transdiagnostic process implicated in several disorders, and is defined in the literature as having standards of performance that are excessively high and often unrealistic, rigidly pursuing these standards, and subsequently measuring one’s own self-worth on their ability to meet these self-set standards (Egan et al., 2011). Perfectionism is related to many negative outcomes for physical and mental health, warranting the need to identify effective treatments that are accessible to individuals experiencing clinical perfectionism. There is a growing need for discrete, single session therapeutic interventions, and research has found that patients who were provided with a brief intervention exhibited accelerated rates of change, compared to patients whose treatment was longer (Baldwin et al., 2009; Kroska, 2018). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a 90-minute, single-session ACT intervention targeting psychological flexibility for perfectionistic beliefs and behaviors on perfectionism, psychological distress, and well-being utilizing a multiple baseline across participants experimental design. Four individuals completed the following self-report measures at each time point: the Personalized Psychological Flexibility Inventory (PPFI), the Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI), the Frost Multi-Dimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS), the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 item (DASS-21), and the Flourishing Scale (FS). These measures were completed once per week for the five-week baseline period. After baseline, participant engaged in a 90-minute single-session ACT intervention targeting the development of psychological flexibility. For follow-up, participants completed the same measures twice a week for four weeks. Researchers hypothesized that the intervention would increase psychological flexibility, flourishing, self-compassion, and progress towards an idiographic goal, and decrease perfectionism, psychological inflexibility, and psychological distress post-intervention compared to the baseline assessment. A TAR trend analysis was conducted, and Bayes Factors were computed for each individual for each outcome variable to examine within-participant results. A between-case standardized mean difference effect size for SCED was calculated for each outcome variable to examine the results across participants, resulting in a d-statistic. Within participants, while two individuals completed the study with perfectionistic concerns scores below cut offs, this outcome did not change significantly from baseline, with greater evidence for a null effect on this outcome variable for most participants. However, there was evidence for treatment effects for decreasing perfectionistic strivings, psychological distress, and psychological inflexibility and increasing psychological flexibility and flourishing. Across participants, the intervention demonstrated small to large effect sizes. There were small effects on perfectionistic concerns, perfectionistic strivings, psychological distress, and psychological flexibility towards an individual goal. There were medium effects for psychological flexibility and flourishing. Large effects were demonstrated for psychological inflexibility and self-compassion. Overall, the results demonstrate promising evidence for increasing well-being within the context of clinical perfectionism using a single session intervention.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are known for their persistence as well as their hydrophobic and lipophobic nature. Widespread use has led to increasing prevalence of PFAS in the environment. Due to PFAS:s extensive spread and adverse health effects, remediation of PFAS-contaminated areas has increased in recent years, resulting in an increased demand for disposal of contaminated soil. To dispose waste at landfills in Sweden, certain criteria need to be met. However, for PFAS there are no specific guidelines and landfills therefore decide their own acceptance criteria. This can lead to varying requirements, potentially causing environmentally hazardous practices. The aim of this study was to survey the requirements applied by landfills, as well as investigate how different assessment bases affect the evaluation of PFAS-contaminated soil. The study was conducted both as a questionnaire sent to 80 landfills in Sweden, and as an analysis of test results from samples of PFAS- contaminated soil. The findings reveal varying information requirements, with common criteria including soil origin, presence of contaminants and analysis of PFAS when soil is suspected of contamination. Landfills also typically required documentation about the contaminated site, sampling plan and leachate tests when accepting PFAS-contaminated soil. Additionally, this study demonstrates that the evaluation of PFAS-contaminated soil can depend on the assessment basis used. The assessment based on toxic equivalents, may alter the risk valuation in comparison to those based on measured concentrations. To include commonly occurring PFAS, the analysis should include a minimum of PFAS11.

Advances in communication technology have led to the growth of what is called Ambient Intelligence (AmI). AmI refers to an environment which is intelligent and has advanced computing, networking technology and specific interfaces. It is aware of the specific characteristics of human presence and personalities, takes care of what people need and is capable of responding intelligently according to different activities, and even can engage in intelligent dialogue with the user. Variability of location and system behavior is a central issue in AmI, where behavior of software has to change and re-adapt to the different location settings. AmI refers to an environment that acts on behalf of humans. It is sensitive, contextualized, responsive, interconnected, transparent, and intelligent. This environment is coupled with ubiquity of computing devices that enables it to react differently according to different actions, and even to take the initiative towards fulfilling human needs. Security, privacy, and trust challenges are amplified with AmI computing model and need to be carefully engineered. From software engineering perspective, the shift towards AmI can be seen abstractly similar to the shift from object paradigm towards agent one. Objects provide functionality to be exploited, while agents possess functionality and know how and when to use and offer it autonomously. Agent paradigm is suitable for implementing AmI considering AmI as an open complex system. Moreover, developers argue that agent paradigm is useful for engineering all aspects of such intelligent systems. These days, the large diversity of needs in a home-based patient population requires complex technology. Meeting those needs technically requires the use of a distributed approach and the combination of many hardware and software techniques. Furthermore, this service should be accepted in all scales and should be sufficient enough to meet all the requirements. In this thesis, I study the factors which can affect the acceptance of AmI especially when it is used to support elderly people and people with dementia, and I give suggestions which can improve the acceptance of this technology. / <p>Validerat; 20101217 (root)</p>

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Feral hog distribution (Sus scrofa) has increased to 38 states due to high fecundity rates, an omnivorous diet, and translocation by humans; affecting various stakeholders. To assess stakeholder attitudes and feral hog distribution in the United States and within Mississippi, selfministered mail questionnaires were sent to district level state wildlife biologists nationwide (n = 614) and to Mississippi Farm Bureau county presidents (FBCP; n = 79). I used the Wildlife Stakeholder Acceptance Capacity theory to assess what factors (e.g., species presence, perceived density, stakeholder land usage, risk belief, attitudes toward the species) influenced stakeholder preferences for a specific future population trend (i.e., increase or decrease). Wildlife biologists were influenced by attitudes and occupational risk beliefs. Influential factors of FBCP attitudes could not be assessed because no producers wanted an increase in future hog populations.

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