A Quantitative Estimate of Vulnerable People and Evaluation of Flood Evacuation Policy

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 887-900 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Vink ◽  
◽  
Kuniyoshi Takeuchi ◽  
Kelly M. Kibler ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Method ◽  
Flood Hazard ◽  
The United States ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Vulnerable People ◽  
Scale Levels ◽  
Laws And Policies

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) laws and policies ideally contain measures to reduce disaster risk to all exposed people equally, even the most vulnerable people. To investigate this, we estimate the number of potentially vulnerable people in areas exposed to flood hazard, and evaluate the laws and policies which aim to reduce vulnerability. We proposed a theoretical framework based on four recognized characteristics of vulnerability (less physically or mentally capable; fewer material and/or financial resources; less access to information, and restricted by commitments) and created indicators for six groups of potentially vulnerable people: children, older adults, minorities, people with disabilities, people living in poverty, and women. We applied the framework to the populations of Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States, and proposed a new DRM policy evaluation method; and found that measures in DRM laws and policies are not in proportion to the number of potentially vulnerable people. The most numerous indicators included children aged 0-14, women with no car, and people with pets. The top ten indicators account for 80% of all potentially vulnerable people. When addressing the needs of vulnerable people from a policy perspective, these top ten indicators may serve as a starting point in order to increase the resilience of the vulnerable population. Seven of these ten are identical across the three case study countries, meaning the countries can learn from each other’s measures and possibly apply them in their own area. Policy evaluation showed that while many laws and policies do recognize various groups of potentially vulnerable people, they lack detailed support measures. Much remains to be amended in policies on all scale levels if the policies are to realize an equal disaster risk for all exposed people.

‘More Product, Less Process’ (MPLP): An early printed book project

2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062110267
Author(s):  
Karen Attar
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Main Research Interest ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century

This article addresses the challenge to make printed hidden collections known quickly without sacrificing ultimate quality. It takes as its starting point the archival mantra ‘More product, less process’ and explores its application to printed books, mindful of projects in the United States to catalogue 19th- and 20th-century printed books quickly and cheaply with the help of OCLC. A problem is lack of time or managerial inclination ever to return to ‘quick and dirty’ imports. This article is a case study concerning a collection of 18th-century English imprints, the Graveley Parish Library, at Senate House Library, University of London. Faced with the need to provide metadata as quickly as possible for digitisation purposes, Senate House Library decided, in contrast to its normal treatment of early printed books, to download records from the English Short Title Catalogue and amend them only very minimally before releasing them for public view, and to do this work from catalogue cards rather than the books themselves. The article describes the Graveley Parish collection, the project method’s rationale, and the advantages and disadvantages of sourcing the English Short Title Catalogue for metadata. It discusses the drawbacks of retrospective conversion (cataloguing from cards, not books): insufficient detail in some cases to identify the relevant book, and ignorance of the copy-specific elements of books which can constitute the main research interest. The method is compared against cataloguing similar books from photocopies of title pages, and retrospective conversion using English Short Title Catalogue is compared against retrospective conversion of early printed Continental books from cards using Library Hub Discover or OCLC. The control groups show our method’s effectiveness. The project succeeded by producing records fast that fulfilled their immediate purpose and simultaneously would obviously require revisiting. The uniform nature of the collection enabled the saving of time through global changes.

John Rawls' Justice as Fairness and the WTO: A Critical Analysis on the Initial Position of the Multilateral Agricultural Negotiation

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Rosa Cedro ◽  
Bruno Furtado Vieira
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
The United States ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Original Analysis ◽  
Fairness Theory ◽  
Agreement On Agriculture

This article provides an original analysis about the unbalance present in the World Trade Organization from its very origin, taking the Agreement on Agriculture as an explicit example of it. The reflection is done through a case study on the distorting domestic subsidies in agriculture allowed by that Organization to the United States and Brazil, using as a reference of justice the toolbox provided by John Rawls' "Justice as Fairness" theory. The article explores alternative criteria for the establishment of multilateral commitments, based on Rawls' concepts. The reflection serves as a parameter or a starting point for thinking the reform of the multilateral trade system and the establishment of possible new commitments within it.

Decolonizing Resilience: The Case of Reconstructing the Coffee Region of Puerto Rico After Hurricanes Irma and Maria

2019 ◽  
Vol 06 (01) ◽  
pp. 1940001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramón Borges-Méndez ◽  
Cynthia Caron
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Disaster Risk Reduction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Post Disaster ◽  
Growing Region

The term resilience has saliency in the scholarship and policy on post-disaster management and disaster-risk reduction. In this paper, we assess the use of resilience as a concept for post-disaster reconstruction in Puerto Rico and offer a critique of the standard definition. This critique focuses on the primacy of Puerto Rico’s colonial relations with the United States meshed with decades of political mismanagement of the island’s economic and natural resources by local authorities and political parties. For resilience to be a useful conceptual device, we argue for decolonizing resilience and show the relevance of such an argument through a case study of the island’s coffee-growing region. Decolonizing resilience exposes power inequities and the individuating nature of post-disaster reconstruction to illustrate how collective action and direct participation of local actors and communities carves out autonomous spaces of engagement. Decolonizing resilience necessitates a contextualized analysis of resilience, taking into account “the politics of resilience” embedded in the island’s colonial history and the policy bottlenecks it creates.

scholarly journals Triggering multi-actor change cascades: Non-representational theory and deep disaster risk management co-production

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1158-1179
Author(s):  
Max Hope ◽  
John McCloskey ◽  
Mairead Nicbhloscaidh ◽  
Dominic Crowley ◽  
Dom Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Disaster Risk Management ◽  
Deep Approach ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
Good Starting Point ◽  
Key Aspects

Deep-rooted socio-ecological and technical systems, values and lifestyles, ‘locked in’ by vested interests and flows of power, underpin the interconnected problems of climate change, hazard vulnerability and poverty. A ‘shallow’ approach to co-production, with its focus on knowledge exchange and shared learning between individuals, struggles to gain the ‘purchase’ needed to transform these material structures. In this paper we demonstrate that non-representational theory is a good starting point for an alternative ‘deep’ approach to disaster risk management co-production. We review key aspects of non-representational theory and their application to disaster risk management and build a novel hybrid conceptual framework. We use this to analyse a case study of disaster risk management co-production (an aftershock forecasting approach used by humanitarian agencies during the Nepal 2015 earthquake), how social change occurred in this instance, and the role disaster risk management co-production played. We emphasise how change was the consequence of unexpected shifts in assemblages of human, non-human, virtual and real actors. These created ‘events’ that were opportunities for change that were realised with fidelity. Using this analysis, we develop an alternative deep approach to co-production, as ‘a practical means of going on’, and finish with five precepts to guide transformative disaster risk management based on the concept of multi-actor change cascades.

Overview of Current Approaches to Aural Rehabilitation for Adults With Cochlear Implants

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 1175-1187
Author(s):  
Rachel Glade ◽  
Erin Taylor ◽  
Deborah S. Culbertson ◽  
Christin Ray
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Practice Patterns ◽  
The United States ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Aural Rehabilitation ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Clinical Models ◽  
Hearing Health

Purpose This clinical focus article provides an overview of clinical models currently being used for the provision of comprehensive aural rehabilitation (AR) for adults with cochlear implants (CIs) in the Unites States. Method Clinical AR models utilized by hearing health care providers from nine clinics across the United States were discussed with regard to interprofessional AR practice patterns in the adult CI population. The clinical models were presented in the context of existing knowledge and gaps in the literature. Future directions were proposed for optimizing the provision of AR for the adult CI patient population. Findings/Conclusions There is a general agreement that AR is an integral part of hearing health care for adults with CIs. While the provision of AR is feasible in different clinical practice settings, service delivery models are variable across hearing health care professionals and settings. AR may include interprofessional collaboration among surgeons, audiologists, and speech-language pathologists with varying roles based on the characteristics of a particular setting. Despite various existing barriers, the clinical practice patterns identified here provide a starting point toward a more standard approach to comprehensive AR for adults with CIs.

Gendered differences in emigration and mobility perspectives among European researchers working abroad

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Highly Skilled

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

Varied Responses to Human-Induced Seismicity in the City of Azle, Texas

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Sarmistha R. Majumdar
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Induced Seismicity ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Prior History ◽  
Small Community ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
The Status

Fracking has helped to usher in an era of energy abundance in the United States. This advanced drilling procedure has helped the nation to attain the status of the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the world, but some of its negative externalities, such as human-induced seismicity, can no longer be ignored. The occurrence of earthquakes in communities located at proximity to disposal wells with no prior history of seismicity has shocked residents and have caused damages to properties. It has evoked individuals’ resentment against the practice of injection of fracking’s wastewater under pressure into underground disposal wells. Though the oil and gas companies have denied the existence of a link between such a practice and earthquakes and the local and state governments have delayed their responses to the unforeseen seismic events, the issue has gained in prominence among researchers, affected community residents, and the media. This case study has offered a glimpse into the varied responses of stakeholders to human-induced seismicity in a small city in the state of Texas. It is evident from this case study that although individuals’ complaints and protests from a small community may not be successful in bringing about statewide changes in regulatory policies on disposal of fracking’s wastewater, they can add to the public pressure on the state government to do something to address the problem in a state that supports fracking.

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