Can Lebanon Survive Future Earthquake Disasters by Relying on a Military Response Strategy?

Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off of their foundations. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can snarl traffic for months. However, when one examines the collective responses of developed societies to major earthquake disasters in recent historic times, a somewhat surprising theme emerges: not only determination, but resilience; not only resilience, but acceptance; not only acceptance, but astonishingly, humor. Elastic rebound is one of the most basic tenets of modern earthquake science, the term that scientists use to describe the build-up and release of energy along faults. It is also the best metaphor for societal responses to major earthquakes in recent historic times. After The Earth Quakes focuses on this theme, using a number of pivotal and intriguing historic earthquakes as illustration. The book concludes with a consideration of projected future losses on an increasingly urbanized planet, including the near-certainty that a future earthquake will someday claim over a million lives. This grim prediction impels us to take steps to mitigate earthquake risk, the innately human capacity for rebound notwithstanding.

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An Improved Randomized Response Strategy

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B (Methodological) ◽

10.1111/j.2517-6161.1994.tb01962.x ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 56 (1) ◽

pp. 93-95 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

N. S. Mangat

Keyword(s):

Response Strategy ◽

Randomized Response

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EXPRESS: Complaint Publicization in Social Media

Journal of Marketing ◽

10.1177/00222429211002183 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002224292110021

Author(s):

Alireza Golmohammadi ◽

Taha Havakhor ◽

Dinesh K. Gauri ◽

Johann Joseph Comprix

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Firm Value ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Past Research ◽

Response Strategy ◽

Specific Response ◽

Customer Care ◽

Complaint Handling ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Firm Responses

Firms are increasingly turning to social media platforms for complaint handling. Past research and practitioners’ reports highlight the benefits of complaint handling on social media, urging firms to provide prompt and detailed responses to complaints. However, little research has explored the possible drawbacks of such practices, especially when responses inadvertently further publicize complaints. Utilizing two unique data sets in a series of observational and quasi-experimental analyses, this research provides the first evidence of complaint publicization in social media, a phenomenon in which firm responses to complaints on popular social media platforms increase the potential public exposure of complaints. This negative effect can outweigh any positive customer care-signaling impact from firm responses. The authors show that a response strategy that engenders a high level of complaint publicization – e.g., providing detailed responses through multiple communication exchanges with a complainant – could negatively impact perceived quality and firm value, diminish the positive impact of a firm’s own posts, and increase the volume of future complaints. Additional analyses reveal that these adverse impacts are stronger for firms that are targeted by retail investors. The authors also uncover specific response strategies and styles that could mitigate these effects.

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Next-Generation Smart Response Web (NG-SRW): An Operational Spatial Decision Support System for Maritime Oil Spill Emergency Response in the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea)

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13126585 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (12) ◽

pp. 6585

Author(s):

Mihhail Fetissov ◽

Robert Aps ◽

Floris Goerlandt ◽

Holger Jänes ◽

Jonne Kotta ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Baltic Sea ◽

Oil Spill ◽

Situational Awareness ◽

Oil Spills ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Response Strategy ◽

Spatial Decision Support System ◽

Next Generation ◽

Oil Spill Response ◽

The Baltic

The Baltic Sea is a unique and sensitive brackish-water ecosystem vulnerable to damage from shipping activities. Despite high levels of maritime safety in the area, there is a continued risk of oil spills and associated harmful environmental impacts. Achieving common situational awareness between oil spill response decision makers and other actors, such as merchant vessel and Vessel Traffic Service center operators, is an important step to minimizing detrimental effects. This paper presents the Next-Generation Smart Response Web (NG-SRW), a web-based application to aid decision making concerning oil spill response. This tool aims to provide, dynamically and interactively, relevant information on oil spills. By integrating the analysis and visualization of dynamic spill features with the sensitivity of environmental elements and value of human uses, the benefits of potential response actions can be compared, helping to develop an appropriate response strategy. The oil spill process simulation enables the response authorities to judge better the complexity and dynamic behavior of the systems and processes behind the potential environmental impact assessment and thereby better control the oil combat action.

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How Can Floor Covering Influence Buildings’ Demand Flexibility?

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14123658 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (12) ◽

pp. 3658

Author(s):

Hyeunguk Ahn ◽

Jingjing Liu ◽

Donghun Kim ◽

Rongxin Yin ◽

Tianzhen Hong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Demand Response ◽

Radiant Heat ◽

Response Strategy ◽

Sensitivity Analyses ◽

Thermal Mass ◽

Cooling Load ◽

Floor Covering ◽

Load Shifting ◽

Concrete Floor ◽

Floor Surface

Although the thermal mass of floors in buildings has been demonstrated to help shift cooling load, there is still a lack of information about how floor covering can influence the floor’s load shifting capability and buildings’ demand flexibility. To fill this gap, we estimated demand flexibility based on the daily peak cooling load reduction for different floor configurations and regions, using EnergyPlus simulations. As a demand response strategy, we used precooling and global temperature adjustment. The result demonstrated an adverse impact of floor covering on the building’s demand flexibility. Specifically, under the same demand response strategy, the daily peak cooling load reductions were up to 20–34% for a concrete floor whereas they were only 17–29% for a carpet-covered concrete floor. This is because floor covering hinders convective coupling between the concrete floor surface and the zone air and reduces radiative heat transfer between the concrete floor surface and the surrounding environment. In hot climates such as Phoenix, floor covering almost negated the concrete floor’s load shifting capability and yielded low demand flexibility as a wood floor, representing low thermal mass. Sensitivity analyses showed that floor covering’s effects can be more profound with a larger carpet-covered area, a greater temperature adjustment depth, or a higher radiant heat gain. With this effect ignored for a given building, its demand flexibility would be overestimated, which could prevent grid operators from obtaining sufficient demand flexibility to maintain a grid. Our findings also imply that for more efficient grid-interactive buildings, a traditional standard for floor design could be modified with increasing renewable penetration.

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