scholarly journals Predicting social and health vulnerability to floods in Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1807-1823
Author(s):  
Donghoon Lee ◽  
Hassan Ahmadul ◽  
Jonathan Patz ◽  
Paul Block
Keyword(s):  
Disaster Management ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Equal Weight ◽  
Coping Capacity ◽  
Health Vulnerability ◽  
And Coping ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Floods are the most common and damaging natural disaster in Bangladesh, and the effects of floods on public health have increased significantly in recent decades, particularly among lower socioeconomic populations. Assessments of social vulnerability on flood-induced health outcomes typically focus on local to regional scales; a notable gap remains in comprehensive, large-scale assessments that may foster disaster management practices. In this study, socioeconomic, health, and coping capacity vulnerability and composite social-health vulnerability are assessed using both equal-weight and principal-component approaches using 26 indicators across Bangladesh. Results indicate that vulnerable zones exist in the northwest riverine areas, northeast floodplains, and southwest region, potentially affecting 42 million people (26 % of the total population). Subsequently, the vulnerability measures are linked to flood forecast and satellite inundation information to evaluate their potential for predicting actual flood impact indices (distress, damage, disruption, and health) based on the immense August 2017 flood event. Overall, the forecast-based equally weighted vulnerability measures perform best. Specifically, socioeconomic and coping capacity vulnerability measures strongly align with the distress, disruption, and health impact records observed. Additionally, the forecast-based composite social-health vulnerability index also correlates well with the impact indices, illustrating its utility in identifying predominantly vulnerable regions. These findings suggest the benefits and practicality of this approach to assess both thematic and comprehensive spatial vulnerabilities, with the potential to support targeted and coordinated public disaster management and health practices.

scholarly journals Predicting social and health vulnerability to floods in Bangladesh

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donghoon Lee ◽  
Hassan Ahmadul ◽  
Jonathan Patz ◽  
Paul Block
Keyword(s):  
Disaster Management ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Social Health ◽  
Equal Weight ◽  
Coping Capacity ◽  
Health Vulnerability ◽  
And Coping ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Floods are the most common and damaging natural disaster in Bangladesh, and the effects of floods on public health have increased significantly in recent decades, particularly among lower socio-economic populations. Assessments of social vulnerability on flood-induced health outcomes typically focus on local to regional scales; a notable gap remains in comprehensive, large-scale assessments that may foster disaster management practices. In this study, socio-economic, health, and coping capacity vulnerability and composite social-health vulnerability are assessed using both equal-weight and principal component approaches using 26 indicators across Bangladesh. Results indicate that vulnerable zones exist in the northwest riverine areas, northeast floodplains, and southwest region, potentially affecting 42 million people (26 % of total population). Subsequently, the vulnerability measures are linked to flood forecast and satellite inundation information to evaluate their potential for predicting actual flood impact indices (distress, damage, disruption, and health) based on the immense August 2017 flood event. Overall, the forecast-based equally weighted vulnerability measures perform best. Specifically, socio-economic and coping capacity vulnerability measures strongly align with the distress, disruption, and health impacts records observed. Additionally, the forecast-based composite social-health vulnerability index also correlates well with the impact indices, illustrating its utility in identifying predominantly vulnerable regions. These findings suggest the benefits and practicality of this approach to assess both thematic and comprehensive spatial vulnerabilities, with the potential to support targeted and coordinated public disaster management and health practices.

The Impact of Shariah Governance and Corporate Governance on the Risk Management Practices: Evidence from Local and Foreign Islamic Banks in Malaysia

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Sabri Embi ◽  
Zurina Shafii
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
T Test ◽  
The Body ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Islamic Banks ◽  
Shariah Governance ◽  
The Impact

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of Shariah governance and corporate governance (CG) on the risk management practices (RMPs) of local Islamic banks and foreign Islamic banks operating in Malaysia. The Shariah governance comprises the Shariah review (SR) and Shariah audit (SA) variables. The study also evaluates the level of RMPs, CG, SR, and SA between these two type of banks. With the aid of SPSS version 20, the items for RMPs, CG, SR, and SA were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA). From the PCA, one component or factor was extracted each for the CG, SR, and RMPs while another two factors were extracted for the SA. Primary data was collected using a self-administered survey questionnaire. The questionnaire covers four aspects ; CG, SR, SA, and RMPs. The data received from the 300 usable questionnaires were subjected to correlation and regression analyses as well as an independent t-test. The result of correlation analysis shows that all the four variables have large positive correlations with each other indicating a strong and significant relationship between them. From the regression analysis undertaken, CG, SR, and SA together explained 52.3 percent of the RMPs and CG emerged as the most influential variable that impacts the RMPs. The independent t-test carried out shows that there were significant differences in the CG and SA between the local and foreign Islamic banks. However, there were no significant differences between the two types of the bank in relation to SR and RMPs. The study has contributed to the body of knowledge and is beneficial to academicians, industry players, regulators, and other stakeholders.

scholarly journals Farmers’ Perceptions of Commercial Insect-Based Feed for Sustainable Livestock Production in Kenya

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5359
Author(s):  
Afrika Onguko Okello ◽  
Jonathan Makau Nzuma ◽  
David Jakinda Otieno ◽  
Michael Kidoido ◽  
Chrysantus Mbi Tanga
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Farm Income ◽  
Purchase Decisions ◽  
Wealth Status ◽  
Feed Formulation ◽  
Alternative Protein ◽  
Livestock Products ◽  
The Impact

The utilization of insect-based feeds (IBF) as an alternative protein source is increasingly gaining momentum worldwide owing to recent concerns over the impact of food systems on the environment. However, its large-scale adoption will depend on farmers’ acceptance of its key qualities. This study evaluates farmer’s perceptions of commercial IBF products and assesses the factors that would influence its adoption. It employs principal component analysis (PCA) to develop perception indices that are subsequently used in multiple regression analysis of survey data collected from a sample of 310 farmers. Over 90% of the farmers were ready and willing to use IBF. The PCA identified feed performance, social acceptability of the use of insects in feed formulation, feed versatility and marketability of livestock products reared on IBF as the key attributes that would inform farmers’ purchase decisions. Awareness of IBF attributes, group membership, off-farm income, wealth status and education significantly influenced farmers’ perceptions of IBF. Interventions such as experimental demonstrations that increase farmers’ technical knowledge on the productivity of livestock fed on IBF are crucial to reducing farmers’ uncertainties towards acceptability of IBF. Public partnerships with resource-endowed farmers and farmer groups are recommended to improve knowledge sharing on IBF.

Covid-19 Crisis Management Responses of Small Tourism Firms in South Africa

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irma Booyens ◽  
Christian M. Rogerson ◽  
Jayne M. Rogerson ◽  
Tom Baum
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Interview Survey ◽  
Tourism Enterprises ◽  
And Coping ◽  
The Impact

Although the literature on COVID-19 is expanding, particularly in relation to crisis management responses pursued by large tourism enterprises, currently few studies exist on the responses of small tourism firms and more specifically of the crisis management practices of small and microaccom modation establishments. The aim in this study is to investigate the business management responses of small tourism firms to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and restrictions in South Africa. Themes of concern are whether enterprises have been able to sustain operations and adopt certain coping mechanisms or management strategies to mitigate the pandemic’s impact. The article reports on an interview survey of small and microenterprises engaged in accommodation services (N = 75) in South Africa under lockdown restrictions as a means of assessing the responses and coping strategies during an unprecedented crisis of this core component of the country’s tourism industry. Among key findings are that small and microlodging firms that have suffered severe financial losses because of the COVID-19 shock have few viable mechanisms to cope with the impact of the crisis and that government support to aid recovery has been insufficient in South Africa. This research contributes to the limited body of international scholarship that examines how small and microaccommodation firms, a major group and contributor of many economies, are navigating the unprecedented COVID-19 environment.

scholarly journals Devastating Monsoon: Water Induced Disaster Management Practices in Nepal

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 57-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishna Raj Tiwari ◽  
Santosh Rayamajhi
Keyword(s):  
Disaster Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Institutional Arrangement ◽  
Initial Response ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Civic Involvement ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Related Line ◽  
The Impact

Nepal is prone to a variety of recurring natural disasters such as floods, landslides, snow avalanches, thunderstorms, drought, earth quake and epidemics. In particular, floods, landslides, hailstorms and drought are almost regular phenomena. This paper has focused mainly on water induced disaster (Monsoon) prepared through review of documents, consultation with related line agencies and field level interaction with affected communities. The paper also seeks to explore and document the major disasters and their impacts in Nepal. It discusses policy and program, institutional arrangement and activities related to the disaster management as well as identification of gaps in the policy and program. Nepal has attempted to manage the prevalence of these hazards and their associated disasters through both informal civic involvement and formal government instruments. A legal and policy environment to deal with disasters has existed in one or the other form in Nepal since 1982, and these have been reviewed. Study showed that disaster management activities only found initial response rather post disaster program. However, findings of the previous and present programs and activities on disaster management have not addressed effectively to the vulnerable people and to reduce the impact from disasters at the local level. It is suggested that disaster management policy and program should be integrated and mainstreamed in development agenda.

Communicating Public Health Advice After a Chemical Spill: Results From National Surveys in the United Kingdom and Poland

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia M. Pearce ◽  
G. James Rubin ◽  
Richard Amlôt ◽  
Simon Wessely ◽  
M. Brooke Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Hazardous Substance ◽  
Crisis Communications ◽  
Public Health Preparedness ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Cost ◽  
And Coping ◽  
The Impact

AbstractObjectiveThe aim of this study was to enhance public health preparedness for incidents that involve the large-scale release of a hazardous substance by examining factors likely to influence public responses to official guidance on how to limit their exposure.MethodsAn online demographically representative survey was conducted in the United Kingdom (n = 601) and Poland (n = 602) to test the strength of association of trust in authorities, anxiety, threat, and coping appraisals with the intention to comply with advice to shelter in place following a hypothetical chemical spill. The impact of ease of compliance and style of message presentation were also examined.ResultsParticipants were more likely to comply if at home when the incident happened, but message presentation had little impact. Coping appraisals and trust were key predictors of compliance, but threat appraisals were associated with noncompliance. Anxiety was seen to promote behavioral change. UK participants were more likely to comply than Polish participants.ConclusionsSuccessful crisis communications during an emergency should aim to influence perceptions regarding the efficacy of recommended behaviors, the difficulties people may have in following advice, and perceptions about the cost of following recommended behaviors. Generic principles of crisis communication may need adaptation for national contexts. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2013;7:65-74)

scholarly journals Disentangling network topology and pathogen spread

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Perez-Ortiz ◽  
Petru Manescu ◽  
Fabio Caccioli ◽  
Delmiro Fernandez-Reyes ◽  
Parashkev Nachev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Network Topology ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Contact ◽  
Small World ◽  
Pathogen Transmission ◽  
Stochastic Simulations ◽  
Equal Weight ◽  
Topological Features ◽  
Network Metrics ◽  
The Impact

How do we best constrain social interactions to prevent the transmission of communicable respiratory diseases? Indiscriminate suppression, the currently accepted answer, is both unsustainable long term and implausibly presupposes all interactions to carry equal weight. Transmission within a social network is determined by the topology of its graphical structure, of which the number of interactions is only one aspect. Here we deploy large-scale numerical simulations to quantify the impact on pathogen transmission of a set of topological features covering the parameter space of realistic possibility. We first test through a series of stochastic simulations the differences in the spread of disease on several classes of network geometry (including highly skewed networks and small world). We then aim to characterise the spread based on the characteristics of the network topology using regression analysis, highlighting some of the network metrics that influence the spread the most. For this, we build a dataset composed of more than 9000 social networks and 30 topological network metrics. We find that pathogen spread is optimally reduced by limiting specific kinds of social contact -- unfamiliar and long range -- rather than their global number. Our results compel a revaluation of social interventions in communicable diseases, and the optimal approach to crafting them.

scholarly journals Large scale similarity search across digital reconstructions of neural morphology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bengt Ljungquist ◽  
Masood A Akram ◽  
Giorgio A Ascoli
Keyword(s):  
Similarity Search ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Morphological Comparison ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Qualitative Performance ◽  
The Impact

Most functions of the nervous system depend on neuronal and glial morphology. Continuous advances in microscopic imaging and tracing software have provided an increasingly abundant availability of 3D reconstructions of arborizing dendrites, axons, and processes, allowing their detailed study. However, efficient, large-scale methods to rank neural morphologies by similarity to an archetype are still lacking. Using the NeuroMorpho.Org database, we present a similarity search software enabling fast morphological comparison of hundreds of thousands of neural reconstructions from any species, brain regions, cell types, and preparation protocols. We compared the performance of different morphological measurements: 1) summary morphometrics calculated by L-Measure, 2) persistence vectors, a vectorized descriptor of branching structure, 3) the combination of the two. In all cases, we also investigated the impact of applying dimensionality reduction using principal component analysis (PCA). We assessed qualitative performance by gauging the ability to rank neurons in order of visual similarity. Moreover, we quantified information content by examining explained variance and benchmarked the ability to identify occasional duplicate reconstructions of the same specimen. The results indicate that combining summary morphometrics and persistence vectors with applied PCA provides an information rich characterization that enables efficient and precise comparison of neural morphology. The execution time scaled linearly with data set size, allowing seamless live searching through the entire NeuroMorpho.Org content in fractions of a second. We have deployed the similarity search function as an open-source online software tool both through a user-friendly graphical interface and as an API for programmatic access.

A Methodological Approach to Assess the Co-Behavior of Climate Processes over Southern Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (9) ◽  
pp. 2483-2495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwesi A. Quagraine ◽  
Bruce Hewitson ◽  
Christopher Jack ◽  
Izidine Pinto ◽  
Christopher Lennard
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Self Organizing Maps ◽  
Circulation Patterns ◽  
Climate Forcings ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Precipitation And Temperature

Abstract The study develops an approach to assess co-behavior of climate processes. The regional response of precipitation and temperature patterns over southern Africa to the combined roles (co-behavior) of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Antarctic Oscillation (AAO), and intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is evaluated. Self-organizing maps (SOMs) classify circulation patterns over the subcontinent, and principal component analysis (PCA) is used to identify related patterns across the data. The tropical rain belt index (TRBI), a measure of the ITCZ, is generally in phase with the AAO but mostly out of phase with ENSO. The phases of AAO may enhance or suppress ENSO impact on the location and distribution of regional precipitation and temperature over the region. This understanding of the co-behavior of large-scale processes is important to assess the impact these processes collectively have on precipitation and temperature, especially under future climate forcings.

scholarly journals The Impact of Late Holocene Flood Management on the Central Po Plain (Northern Italy)

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3968 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo Brandolini ◽  
Mauro Cremaschi
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Land Reclamation ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Flood Management ◽  
Po Plain ◽  
The Impact

Fluvial environments have always played a crucial role in human history. The necessity of fertile land and fresh water for agriculture has led populations to settle in floodplains more frequently than in other environments. Floodplains are complex human–water systems in which the mutual interaction between anthropogenic activities and environment affected the landscape development. In this paper, we analyzed the evolution of the Central Po Plain (Italy) during the Medieval period through a multi-proxy record of geomorphological, archaeological and historical data. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire (5th century AD) coincided with a progressive waterlogging of large floodplain areas. The results obtained by this research shed new light on the consequences that Post-Roman land and water management activities had on landscape evolution. In particular, the exploitation of fluvial sediments through flood management practices had the effect of reclaiming the swamps, but also altered the natural geomorphological development of the area. Even so, the Medieval human activities were more in equilibrium with the natural system than with the later Renaissance large-scale land reclamation works that profoundly modified the landscape turning the wetland environment into the arable land visible today. The analysis of fluvial palaeoenvironments and their relation with past human activities can provide valuable indications for planning more sustainable urbanized alluvial landscapes in future.

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