Revisiting the Most Destructive Earthquake Sequence in the Recent History of Greece: Environmental Effects Induced by the 9, 11 and 12 August 1953 Ionian Sea Earthquakes

The August 1953 seismic sequence comprised the most destructive events in the recent history of Greece. The mainshock on 12 August, and its foreshocks on 9 and 11 August, devastated the southern Ionian Islands. The existing literature emphasized the destructive effects of the earthquakes on buildings, as well as to the emergency response and recovery actions. This resulted in a large gap in capturing the full picture of the earthquake’s environmental effects. The present study aims to fill this gap by reconstructing the most complete picture possible of the primary and secondary effects on the environment of the southern Ionian Islands by the August 1953 earthquakes. This reconstruction is based on all available sources, comprising not only the existing scientific literature, but especially sources that have not been considered to date, including newspapers of local and national circulation. In total, 120 cases of the earthquake’s environmental effects were identified, comprised of 33 cases of primary and 87 cases of secondary effects. In descending order of occurrence, slope failures, co-seismic uplift, hydrological anomalies, ground cracks, tsunami, liquefaction, dust clouds, hydrocarbon-related phenomena, jumping stones and vegetation effects were distributed mainly in Cephalonia Island and secondarily in the Ithaki and Zakythos Islands. The primary effects were mainly detected in eastern Cephalonia, which presented uplift of up to 70 cm, while the majority of the secondary effects were triggered in specific zones with characteristics that made them susceptible to the occurrence of earthquake-related hazards.

Entrenched Inequalities? Class, Gender and Ethnic Differences in Educational and Occupational Attainment in England

Research in social stratification tends to focus on class differences in educational and occupational attainment, with particular attention to primary and secondary effects in the former, and class reproduction in the latter, domain. Research in ethnic studies tends to focus, however, on ethnic penalty or premium. Many studies have been conducted in each tradition on specific issues but little research is available that examines class, gender and ethnic effects simultaneously or in tandem with contextual effects, let alone on the whole trajectory from compulsory schooling, through further and higher education, to labor market position. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, this paper shows pronounced class differences but remarkable gender progress in each of the educational domains. With regard to ethnicity, people from minority ethnic heritages had lower GCSE scores due to poorer family conditions but achieved higher transition rates to A-Level study, higher university enrollment and, for some groups, greater attendance at elite universities, resulting in an overall higher rate of degree-level attainment than did whites. One might expect members of ethnic minority backgrounds to fare equally well in their earlier careers in the labor market, but only to find them more vulnerable to unemployment, less likely to have earnings, and more disadvantaged in terms of disposable incomes.

Evaluation of Air Transport Benefits for the Czech Republic

The article's main purpose is to describe the proposed Methodology, which aims to present an approach to expressing the value of the air transport industry in the Czech Republic. This approach methodically divides the primary and secondary effects and finds metrics based on which the value of the air transport can be quantified. The proposed approach is based on equivalent methodological materials by ICAO, FAA, and other organizations describing and analyzing the value of air transports. The calculations are based on open data sources as well as data that are available by request. The methodology also proposes collecting new data to complete the picture of the value of air transport.

ANALYSIS OF MATHEMATICAL RELATIONS FOR CALCULATION OF EXPLOSION WAVE OVERPRESSURE

The explosion of an explosive system causes primary and secondary effects on people and objects near its site. The most devastating is the pressure effect of the explosion, especially the overpressure. Individual parameters of pressure wave (overpressure size, duration impulse) can be determined by mathematical or virtual modeling or can also be measured under real conditions. The authors focused on the parameters of the positive phase of the shock wave propagating from the source of the explosion towards the object. The article covers the description and analysis of selected mathematical relations, which are used to determine the magnitude of the explosion overpressure. The results are based on selected formulas. The source of the explosion referred in the study is an explosive system containing a reference explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT). TNT is a military explosive that is used as a reference explosive in technical standards dedicated to the certification of explosion-proof elements, and at the same time, a TNT equivalent is known to allow the mass of an explosive charge to be recalculated. The results obtained by mathematical modeling according to individual approaches have been compared and the possibilities of using computational models in the area of security management and education of security managers have been identified. The results of the study confirm that prediction of pressure wave parameters at different distances and weights can assist security managers in creating attack scenarios and designing a suitable object protection system.

Air Transport and its Socio-Economic Impacts

The initial motivation for studying and researching air transport socio-economic impacts is quantifying the value that air transport brings to the Czech Republic. The main challenge is to explore a methodology that would describe the macroeconomic and microeconomic relations within the Air transport industry. These relations will define the directions of the market forces flow and thus the Czech Republic’s value. The authors of the paper use an approach that follows methods and standards for collecting and processing economic and statistical data introduced by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Eurostat, and the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO). The authors incorporate economic definitions and standards published by the United Nations under the World Trade Organization (UNWTO) and other accounting and statistical entities, which results in creating a methodical description of chosen relations. The methodical description leads to the quantification of the value. In a practical sense, it is a matter of determining the origin of the data sets according to which the selected relations will be defined. The paper focuses on the expression of Air transport’s primary and secondary effects and the description of the proposals, which will be part of the methodology.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EFFECTS OF SOCIAL ORIGINS ON EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT: NEW FINDINGS FOR ENGLAND

We aim to bring together two strands of existing research into inequalities in individuals’ educational attainment associated with their social origins: that into the relative importance of the primary and secondary effects of social origins; and that into the relative importance of different components of social origins, indicative of different kinds of parental resources. Our main findings are the following. The secondary effects of social origins – their effects via the educational choices that young people make given their prior academic performance – are clearly operative across five key educational transitions within the English educational system. More specifically, we estimate that 35% of the total effect of social origins is secondary in the earliest transition we consider, and from 15-20% in the subsequent four. Further, mediation analyses reveal that secondary effects are most strongly associated with parental education and then to a lesser degree with parental status, while little association exists with parental class and none at all with parental income. Primary effects are also at all transitions most strongly associated with parental education and status but in this case both parental class and parental income do retain some importance. Finally, secondary effects on educational transitions appear to be top-driven. There is a clear tendency for their importance to be greater in the case of young people with highly educated, professional parents as compared with those of all other social backgrounds. We suggest an explanation for our empirical findings as resulting largely from the concern of such parents and their children to avoid the occurrence of downward intergenerational mobility, especially in terms of education and status.