Marathon Bombing Research Articles

Perceived risk of terrorism, indirect victimization, and individual-level determinants of fear of terrorism

This paper tests the pertinence of individual-level theoretical framework of fear of crime to explain fear of terrorism and underscores the significance of the nexus between fear of terrorism and perceived risk of terrorism. It reviews the literature on conceptualization of terrorism and crime, focusing on individual-level determinants of fear of crime and terrorism through victimization and vulnerability perspectives. The study explores the impact of individual-level predictors and of perceived risk of terrorism on fear of terrorism through three complimentary multiple linear regression models on the basis of results of a web-based survey conducted in Spring semester of 2013 among 504 undergraduate and graduate students from Kent State University between the ages of 19–36, directly following the Boston Marathon Bombings. The study concludes that perceived risk of terrorism on future attacks is a robust indicator of fear of terrorism and the influence of individual-level predictors of fear of crime literature, media exposure, and indirect victimization should not be underestimated.

Exposure to prior negative life events and responses to the Boston marathon bombings.

The objective of the study was to explore how type and timing of prior negative life experiences (NLEs) may be linked to responses to subsequent collective trauma, such as a terrorist attack. Using a longitudinal design, we examined relationships between prior NLEs and responses to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings (BMB). Shortly after the BMB, a representative sample, compiled from metropolitan Boston (n = 846), New York (n = 941), and the rest of the United States (n = 2,888), reported BMB exposure and acute stress symptomatology. Six months later, we assessed prior NLEs, BMB-related posttraumatic stress symptoms, ongoing fear about future terrorism, and functioning. NLEs were classified by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, criteria for traumatic events and other stressful experiences and by occurrence in childhood, adulthood (pre-BMB), and recent (past 6 months). Cumulative exposure to events, delineated by type and timing of occurrence, were contrasted; analyses adjusted for demographics, BMB-related exposure, and residential region. Post-BMB acute stress was associated with childhood (b = 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI: 0.14, 1.61]) and adulthood (b = 0.83, 95% CI [0.21, 1.45]) trauma exposure. Exposure to childhood, adulthood, and recent traumatic events, as well as recent stressful events, was associated with higher BMB-related posttraumatic stress (ps < .05). Greater exposure to adulthood (b = 0.06, 95% CI [0.01, 0.11]) and recent (b = 0.30, 95% CI [0.01, 0.58]) trauma was associated with higher fear about future terrorism. Exposure to childhood (b = 0.17, 95% CI [0.07, 0.27]) and adulthood (b = 0.15, 95% CI [0.05, 0.25]) trauma and recent stressful events (b = 0.45, 95% CI [0.24, 0.66]) was associated with poorer functioning. Prior trauma may sensitize negative responses to collective trauma; recent stressors may exacerbate effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Disaster-related media exposure and its impact on mental health.

Disaster-related media exposure and its impact on mental health.

An intervention analysis of fatal far-right extremist violence within a vector-autoregressive framework

ABSTRACT This research examines the efficacy of 15 policy interventions and high-profile events on fatal violence committed by far-right extremists in the United States through the theoretical frameworks of deterrence, situational crime prevention, backlash, and political encouragement. We use a multivariate structural vector autoregressive process to analyse monthly time-series data to investigate the impact of these interventions on fatal far-right violence over a 25-year period. Controlling for variation in the national homicide rate, there was a decrease in far-right ideologically motivated homicide events after 9/11 and the passing of the Patriot Act. We also found an increase in non-ideological homicides after 9/11 and the Patriot Act, and a decrease after the Hate Crimes Act, Fort Hood Shooting and the Boston Bombing. Overall, it appears that most federal legislation, civil lawsuits, and changes to federal investigative guidelines, have no significant impact on far-right ideological violence and a limited impact on non-ideological violence.

A Review of Content-Based Video Retrieval Techniques for Person Identification

The rise of technology spurs the advancement in the surveillance field. Many commercial spaces reduced the patrol guard in favor of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) installation and even some countries already used surveillance drone which has greater mobility. In recent years, the CCTV Footage have also been used for crime investigation by law enforcement such as in Boston Bombing 2013 incident. However, this led us into producing huge unmanageable footage collection, the common issue of Big Data era. While there is more information to identify a potential suspect, the massive size of data needed to go over manually is a very laborious task. Therefore, some researchers proposed using Content-Based Video Retrieval (CBVR) method to enable to query a specific feature of an object or a human. Due to the limitations like visibility and quality of video footage, only certain features are selected for recognition based on Chicago Police Department guidelines. This paper presents the comprehensive reviews on CBVR techniques used for clothing, gender and ethnic recognition of the person of interest and how can it be applied in crime investigation. From the findings, the three recognition types can be combined to create a Content-Based Video Retrieval system for person identification.

Older adults recruit dorsomedial prefrontal cortex to decrease negativity during retrieval of emotionally complex real-world events

Recent research from our lab has highlighted a prefrontally-mediated control mechanism that decreases the subjective richness of negative episodic events during older adults' episodic memory retrieval. The current study examined whether such a mechanism was also engaged during retrieval of real-world negative events. In a scanned autobiographical memory task, 56 participants (ages 18–83) were presented with images associated with the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings. Images fell into three categories: primarily positive, primarily negative, and mixed-valence. Participants retrieved a personal memory associated with each image, elaborated on that memory in as much detail as possible, and rated memory positivity and memory negativity. Unlike in recent episodic memory studies, young and older adults did not differ in how prefrontal regions contributed to retrieval of autobiographical memories associated with primarily negative images. However, there was an age-related reversal in the role of dorsomedial prefrontal recruitment during retrieval of autobiographical memories associated with mixed-valence images: Activity was associated with increased negativity ratings in young adults and decreased negativity in older adults. These findings are the first evidence that older adults engage a prefrontally-mediated mechanism at the time of retrieval to reduce the negativity of memories for real-world emotional events, and further suggest that they may only do so in the case of emotional ambiguity. Such a mechanism could have important implications for understanding how older adults may respond to and evaluate negative events in their daily lives.

Media Exposure to Collective Trauma, Mental Health, and Functioning: Does It Matter What You See?

Media exposure to collective trauma is associated with acute stress (AS) and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Qualities of media exposure (e.g., amount, graphic features) contributing to this distress are poorly understood. A representative national sample (with New York and Boston oversamples; N = 4,675) completed anonymous, online surveys 2 to 4 weeks after the Boston Marathon bombings (BMB; Wave 1, or W1) and again 6 months later (Wave 2, or W2; N = 3,598). W1 assessed BMB-related AS and media exposure (i.e., hours of media consumption, graphic image content) 1 week post-BMB; W2 assessed PTSS, fear of future terrorism, and functional impairment. Greater exposure to graphic (bloody) images was associated with higher W1 AS and increased PTSS, fear of future terrorism, and functional impairment at W2. W1 AS, W2 PTSS, and fear of future terrorism mediated the association between media and functional impairment. Graphic image exposure is associated with mental-health symptoms linked to impaired functioning.

Changes in Psychiatric Emergency Room Visits Following the Boston Marathon Bombing.

This study reviews patient encounters at a Boston-area community hospital Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) following the Boston Marathon bombings, with the goal of describing the impact of terrorist attacks on PES encounters. All PES encounters for 2 months preceding and 2 months following the bombing were identified in the electronic medical record. Demographics, current and past psychiatric problems, and trauma history were assessed for all records. Encounters seen post-bombing were compared with those before the bombing. Demographics, current and past psychiatric problems, and trauma history were not significantly different before versus after the bombing; 36 of 440 (8.2%) post-bombing encounters directly mentioned the bombings. New-onset posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms caused by the bombing occurred in only 4 encounters (0.9%). PES encounters after a terrorist event are likely to mirror those seen before a terrorist event, with only a minority of encounters presenting for new PTSD or acute stress disorder.

Constellation of Grace

Research Article| August 01 2019 Constellation of Grace K. Mikey Borgard K. Mikey Borgard K. Mikey Borgard is a graduate student enrolled in Colorado State University’s MFA program. He holds a BA from the University of Illinois and is the recipient of the Crow-Tremblay Fellowship and the Mani Iyer Scholarship for Disabled Writers. In 2013, while working at Fenway Park, Mikey sustained injuries in the second explosion of the Boston Marathon bombing. He is currently writing a docu-novel based on this experience. When he is not goofing off with his golden retriever, Mikey enjoys practicing macro photography, re-watching Harry Potter films, and adding to his tattoo collection. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction (2019) 21 (2): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.14321/fourthgenre.21.2.0001 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation K. Mikey Borgard; Constellation of Grace. Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction 1 August 2019; 21 (2): 1–12. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/fourthgenre.21.2.0001 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressFourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © Michigan State University Board of Trustees Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Securing the Emergency Department During Terrorism Incidents: Lessons Learned From the Boston Marathon Bombings - Erratum

Terrorist incidents that target hospitals magnify morbidity and mortality. Before a real or perceived terrorist mass casualty incident threatens a hospital and its providers, it is essential to have protocols in place to minimize damage to the infrastructure, morbidity, and mortality. In the years following the Boston Marathon bombings, much has been written about the heroic efforts of survivors and responders. Far less has been published about near misses due to lack of experience responding to a mass casualty incident resulting from terrorism. After an extensive review of the medical literature and published media in English, Spanish, and Hebrew, we were unable to identify a similar event. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported experience of a bomb threat caused evacuation of an emergency department in the United States while actively responding to multiple casualty terrorist incidents. We summarized the chronology of the events that led to a bomb threat being identified and the subsequent evacuation of the emergency department. We then reviewed the problematic nature of our response and described evidence-based policy changes based on data from health care, law enforcement, and counterterrorism. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:791-798).

Hospital Information Technology Considerations for No Notice Disasters

Introduction:Modern hospital systems are highly dependent on computerized information technology (IT) systems. The integration of laboratory and radiology ordering and resulting cannot be easily replicated with a “paper” processes. This poses challenges for no-notice events, where the rapid registration of patients is a must for effective clinical care. This weakness in hospital response has been demonstrated in events such as the Boston Marathon bombing, the Aurora Theater (to be discussed), and Las Vegas shootings.Aim:To discuss lessons learned in configuring IT systems for disasters.Results:A integrated system of IT system preparation was implemented at the University of Colorado Hospital. This system has been demonstrated to be effective in multiple real-world events.Discussion:Four areas of IT preparedness are needed for hospital IT response to disasters. First is rapid disaster registration with prepared disaster medical record numbers and packets. The medical records must be active in the hospital IT environment, and a visit or case number must be preassigned or rapidly generated. The medical record number alone in the IT environment will allow the initiation of test ordering. The packet should include preprinted labels, a demographic data sheet, and downtime charting and ordering forms. The second item for response is templated order sets to allow rapid ordering of multiple studies such as laboratory, and especially radiology, without having to reenter clinical information. The third is a method of patient care charting scalable, from paper to electronic, depending on the patient volume, acuity, and workstation access. The fourth is a method for patient care in the IT downtime in a disaster setting. Simple inexpensive measures will allow rapid placement of patients in the IT environment and therefore allow rapid and accurate test ordering and resulting.

ContextAiDe

Mobile crowd-sensing (MCS) enables development of context-aware applications by mining relevant information from a large set of devices selected in an ad hoc manner. For example, MCS has been used for real-time monitoring such as Vehicle ad hoc Networks-based traffic updates as well as offline data mining and tagging for future use in applications with location-based services. However, MCS could be potentially used for much more demanding applications such as real-time perpetrator tracking by online mining of images from nearby mobile users. A recent example is tracking the miscreant responsible for the Boston bombing. We present a new design approach for tracking using MCS for such complex processing in real time. Since MCS applications assume an unreliable underlying computational platform, most typically sample size for recruited devices is guided by concerns such as fault tolerance and reliability of information. As the real-time requirements get stricter coupled with increasing complexity of data-mining approaches, the communication and computation overheads can impose a very tight constraint on the sample size of devices needed for realizing real-time operation. This results in trade-off in acquiring context-relevant data and resource usage incurred while the real-time operation requirements get updated dynamically. Such effects have not been properly studied and optimized to enable real-time MCS applications such as perpetrator tracking. In this article, we propose ContextAiDe architecture, a combination of API, middleware, and optimization engine. The key innovation in ContextAiDe is context-optimized recruitment for execution of computation- and communication-heavy MCS applications in edge environment. ContextAiDe uses a notion of two types of contexts, exact (hard constraints), which have to be satisfied, and preferred (soft constraints), which may be satisfied to a certain degree. By adjusting the preferred contexts, ContextAiDe can optimize the operational overheads to enable real-time operation. ContextAiDe provides an API to specify contexts requirements and the code of MCS app, offload execution environment, a middleware that enables context-optimized and a fault-tolerant distributed execution. ContextAiDe evaluation using a real-time perpetrator tracking application shows reduced energy consumption of 37.8%, decrease in data transfer of 24.8%, and 43% less time compared to existing strategy. In spite of a small increase in the minimum distance from the perpetrator, iterations of optimization tracks the perpetrator successfully. Pro-actively learning the context and using stochastic optimization strategy minimizes the performance degradation caused due to uncertainty (&lt;20%) in usage-dependent contexts.

Abstract 14: Large Gap Peripheral Nerve Repair in a Non-Human Primate Model: Improving Outcomes Utilizing Photochemical Tissue Bonding (PTB) with Acellular Nerve Allograft (ANA)

PURPOSE: Segmental peripheral nerve deficits are challenging injuries associated with poor outcomes. While these injuries afflict civilians (e.g. Boston Marathon Bombing), they have become increasingly prevalent in combat trauma since the advent of improvised explosive devices. Standard of care large-gap (>3cm) reconstruction requires nerve autograft. Alternatives are sought in clinical scenarios where donor limb is not available (e.g. multiple extremity trauma) or donor site morbidity (e.g. painful neuroma formation, loss of function) makes autograft use suboptimal. A variety of alternatives have been proposed including allografts and conduits. Photochemical tissue bonding (PTB) as an alternative to traditional suture neurorrhaphy has been extensively studied in the rodent sciatic nerve model. PTB carries several advantages: reduction of needle trauma, prevention of axonal escape, and a water-tight seal to contain neuroregenerative factors and exclude inflammatory invasion. We report a non-human primate study which recapitulates human anatomy, allows for objective quantitative functional outcomes testing, electrophysiology and histomorphometry. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether PTB can elevate the performance of acellular nerve allograft (ANA) to that of standard of care autograft/suture. METHODS: Nineteen rhesus macaques underwent 4cm proximal radial nerve defect creation in the right upper extremity, the radial nerve transected proximally at the humeral spiral groove, distally prior to the branch to brachioradialis. The radial nerve was selected as it is responsible for an isolated function with no input from other nerves. Three repair techniques were evaluated: n=6 autograft/suture, n=6 ANA/suture, n=7 ANA photosealed in place with light-activated human amnion wraps (PTB). An objective functional outcome test was conceived using an apparatus that accurately measured the degree of wrist extension as a function of time after surgery. Electromyography (EMG) was performed at 0, 120, 240, and 365 days (euthanasia). Histomorphometry and muscle mass retention were analyzed at euthanasia. RESULTS: Average loss of wrist extension was 88.3 ± 8.2° after radial nerve defect creation. Autograft group animals recovered 82.0° of extension by 7 months. Wrist extension recovery was modestly slower, as expected, in the ANA groups, however, by 8 months the ANA/PTB group recovered 63.0° of extension with no difference in recovery of baseline EMG amplitude as compared to controls (Avance/PTB=75.81% vs. autograft/suture=65.06%). If recovery follows current trajectory, we expect ANA/PTB to demonstrate equivalent outcomes to the autograft/suture group at one year. CONCLUSION: This radial nerve defect model improves upon existing animal models by allowing for large nerve gap testing in a primate model more analogous to the clinical large nerve gap injury in humans. ANA/PTB group functional recovery lagged modestly behind autograft/suture (by as long as 8 weeks) but is approaching equivalence at 8 months. EMG recovery is similar at 8 months. This preliminary data confirms PTB as a promising technique to improve outcomes of large nerve gap reconstruction in combination with autograft (previously demonstrated) and with acellular nerve allograft.

The Boston Marathon Bombings: The Early Plastic Surgery Experience of One Boston Hospital: Correction.

The Boston Marathon Bombings: The Early Plastic Surgery Experience of One Boston Hospital: Correction.

Psychological impact of mass violence depends on affective tone of media content.

Exposure to media coverage of mass violence has been shown to predict poorer mental health symptomology. However, it is unknown whether such media coverage can have ubiquitous effects on average community members, extending to biological and perceptual processes that underlie everyday decision making and behavior. Here, we used a repeated-measures design over the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings to track participants’ self-reported distress, their eye blink startle reactivity while viewing images of the bombings, and their ability to perceptually distinguish armed from unarmed individuals in a behavioral shooting task. We leveraged a computational linguistics method in which we sampled news content from the sources our participants most commonly self-reported reading, and then quantified both the extent of news coverage about the marathon and the affective tone of that news coverage. Results revealed that participants experienced greater current distress, greater physiological reactivity to threats, and poorer perceptual sensitivity when recent news coverage of the marathon contained more affectively negative words. This is the first empirical work to examine relationships between the media’s affective tone in its coverage of mass violence and individuals’ threat perception and physiological threat reactivity.

Community-Based Event Detection in Temporal Networks

We propose a method for detecting large events based on the structure of temporal communication networks. Our method is motivated by findings that viral information spreading has distinct diffusion patterns with respect to community structure. Namely, we hypothesize that global events trigger viral information cascades that easily cross community boundaries and can thus be detected by monitoring intra- and inter-community communications. By comparing the amount of communication within and across communities, we show that it is possible to detect events, even when they do not trigger a significantly larger communication volume. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method using two examples—the email communication network of Enron and the Twitter communication network during the Boston Marathon bombing.

Securing the Emergency Department During Terrorism Incidents: Lessons Learned From the Boston Marathon Bombings.

Terrorist incidents that target hospitals magnify morbidity and mortality. Before a real or perceived terrorist mass casualty incident threatens a hospital and its providers, it is essential to have protocols in place to minimize damage to the infrastructure, morbidity, and mortality. In the years following the Boston Marathon bombings, much has been written about the heroic efforts of survivors and responders. Far less has been published about near misses due to lack of experience responding to a mass casualty incident resulting from terrorism. After an extensive review of the medical literature and published media in English, Spanish, and Hebrew, we were unable to identify a similar event. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported experience of a bomb threat caused evacuation of an emergency department in the United States while actively responding to multiple casualty terrorist incidents. We summarized the chronology of the events that led to a bomb threat being identified and the subsequent evacuation of the emergency department. We then reviewed the problematic nature of our response and described evidence-based policy changes based on data from health care, law enforcement, and counterterrorism. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:791-798).

Hope Endures: Reading the Boston Marathon Bombing Through the Lens of Christian Hope

Moral tradition teaches that there are particular clarifying events which aid the renewal of moral freedom, the pursuit of the good, and the promotion of justice. The Boston Marathon bombing is one of those events, inviting theologians to consider what a sacramentally-oriented systematic theology offers society via faith and culture’s engagement. Viewing the Boston Marathon bombings through Moltmann’s lens of Christian hope shows seeds of it in the community’s response: it was forward-looking and called people to action; it anticipated a justice connected to the reign of God; and it called people into communities of hope, like those of the disciples. Engaging the community’s response and individual stories from the bombing which embody these three aspects of Christian hope offer a sacramental vision of hope with the potential to give life to a largely secularized culture.

The Diffusion of False Ideas Through Social Media

This research studies the diffusion of false ideas through social media, while under competition from other ideas. Using mined social media data surrounding the hunt for the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon Bombings, the paper seeks to understand why and how false ideas spread. Results indicate that while social media provides for an engaging and rapid dissemination of information and novel theories, its dynamics may risk the veracity of information and promote the widespread adoption of false ideas. Empirical analysis suggests that a traditional contagion driver—the quality of the messenger—does not matter while the dynamics of a discussion stream (polarization and momentum) plays an important role.

Clustering for Real-Time Response to Water Distribution System Contamination Event Intrusions

AbstractThe 2013 Boston Marathon attack demonstrated the complexity of real-time response to such occurrences. The procedures used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the Boston event t...