Response Efficacy and Action to Prepare for Disasters With Different Lead Time: Age Differences

This study investigated how disaster types, namely those with short and longer warning lead time, contextualized individuals’ preparatory action, especially as associated with their response efficacy and age. The working sample included 1,467 respondents from the 2017 U.S. National Household Survey. Logistic regressions showed that individuals with higher levels of response efficacy were more likely to prepare after learning information about how to prepare. Respondents in areas prone to short lead-time disasters were less likely to prepare than those in longer lead-time disasters areas. Response efficacy was more important for action taking for short lead-time disasters, which was observed only among older adults when older and younger adults were examined separately. These findings revealed the impacts of disaster types and response efficacy on disaster preparedness and older adults’ unique vulnerability and resilience, which could guide policymaking and interventions to promote national disaster preparedness tailored to regional peculiarities.

Sunspot Maximum of 2025-a Foreboding of the Next Influenza Pandemic?

The majority of the pandemic influenza events of the last 450 years have occurred during periods of sunspot maxima. A review of this record suggests that there is a high probability that would have the next major influenza pandemic involving a new subtype of the virus ocurring during the next sunspot maximum (cycle 25) which is expected to occur during the years 2025 and 2026. We suggest strongly that preparatory action begins now, with a close monitoring of viral ingress into the stratosphere, as well as space weather monitoring using spacecraft resources

Forecasting the impacts of severe weather

National meteorological and hydrological services provide severe weather warning information to inform decision-making by emergency management organisations. Such information also helps communities to take defensive and mitigating actions prior to and during severe weather events. Globally, warning information issued by meteorological and hydrological services varies widely. This can range from solely hazard-based to impact-based forecasting encompassing the exposure and vulnerability of communities to severe weather. The most advanced of these systems explicitly and quantitatively model the impacts of hazards on affected assets or infrastructure such as vehicle traffic or housing. Incorporating impact information into severe weather warnings contextualises and personalises the warning information, increasing the likelihood that individuals and communities will take preparatory action. However, providing useful and detailed impact information remains a challenge. This paper reviews a selection of current severe weather warnings and impact forecasting capabilities globally and highlights uncertainties that limit the forecasting and modelling of multi-hazard events.

Discovereu ako nový nástroj európskej mládežníckej politiky

This paper discusses a new implementation tool for European youth policy called DiscoverEU, which provide 18-year old Europeans their first experience with youth mobility programs. This initiative is new in the “preparatory action” phase and after this “pilot period”, the EU institutions will evaluate the future of the initiative. The paper is based on an analysis of data provided in documents published by the European Commission on the number of participants within the three selection rounds carried out so far. It also analyses and compares the findings from the four selected EU Member States that were provided directly by participants, using the questionnaire method of data collection from 5 400 participants in the first round of the preparatory action. The aim of the paper is to analyse and evaluate the implementation of the preparatory action so far in terms of meeting its stated objectives – firstly, in terms of the quantifiable objective concerning the number of participants and secondly, with regard to the subjective evaluation of acquired skills based on feedback from participants. In addition, the paper focuses on identifying the most common participant profile and discusses how to enhance the initiative's inclusiveness. The most important finding of realized research is that DiscoverEU provides great opportunity for young Europeans but it lacks a link to another EU Youth Policy tools such as European Solidarity Corps.

THE USE BY THE INVESTIGATOR OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FORENSIC CHARACTERIZATION OF “CONTRACT” MURDERS WHEN INSPECTING THE SCENE

The article analyzes the scientific approaches to the conceptual apparatus of forensic characterization of crimes and suggests that the forensic characterization of “contract” murders be considered as a system of significant forensic information about the signs of the preparation of the organizer (“customer”) to commit a murder, the identity of the perpetrator, the identity of the victim, typical murder methods, the circumstances of its commission, typical traces of a crime, the use of which allows the investigator, taking into account the specific situation determine the inspection tasks of the scene, investigative techniques. The main elements of the forensic characterization of the “ordered” murder are considered. An important element of the forensic characterization is the method of murder, which includes a method of preparing for a crime, a method of committing murder, a method of hiding traces of murder. Knowledge by the investigator of typical methods of murder will contribute to promptness in the search for the murder weapon, the identity of the criminal, traces, physical evidence, the solution of the main tasks of inspecting the scene, and solving the crime in hot pursuit. Forensic knowledge of the investigator on the preparatory actions of the organizer, the stages of the preparation of the “customer” and the executor (killer) of the murder are essential for the investigation of the “ordered” murders. In the process of preparing for the murder, the “executor” plans in advance how to conceal traces of the murder. Identifying and fixing the material traces at the scene of the incident will help the investigator to simulate the “trail picture” of the “contract” murder, to put forward versions of the identity of the perpetrator, the person of the victim. Using the investigator, tactical rules, forensic recommendations when inspecting the scene of the incident will quickly reveal and investigate the “ordered” murder. Key words: forensic characteristic, typical method of killing “by order”, the preparatory action of the “customer”, the typical traces of the murder, a crime scene examination.

Kinematic differences on mid-range basketball jump-shot between experienced and less-experienced collegiate player

Jump shot in modern basketball is an effective scoring way to overcome pressure of the defender. Fundamental jump shot technique relies on experience and biomechanical analyses. The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate kinematic profile of basketball players based on their experience level during mid-range jump shot. Four experienced basketball players and four less-experienced basketball players participated in the experiment. Jump shot phase was classified into 3 categories: preparatory, action, and follow-through. Angular displacement and angular velocity were measured using three-dimension (3D) motion capture technology. One-way Anova analysis indicated significant differences on several kinematic parameters between groups. On preparatory phase, experienced subject produced larger magnitude for right-shoulder extension (-10.3±14.7˚) and produced smaller angular velocity for hips flexion (41.0±11.6˚/s). During the action phase, experienced subject produced larger magnitude for right-wrist flexion (-145.9±40.3˚), larger angular velocity for right-wrist flexion (-182.8±35.7˚/s), larger angular velocity for ankle plantar flexion (-159.5±27.3˚/s), and larger angular velocity for right-elbow extension (-149.6±33.3˚/s). The findings of this study indicated that improper mechanics of basketball jump shot existed in less-experienced players. To practice jump shot technique, preparatory phase and action phase should be the main emphasis for every coach when deals with less-experienced player.

The UN System for Environmental-Economic Accounts for Water (SEEA-W) and groundwater management: the experience of the Arno River Basin Authority within the PAWA project

The Pilot Arno Water Accounts (PAWA) project was recently funded under the Call “Preparatory Action on Development of Prevention Activities to Halt Desertification in Europe” of the Directorate- General for the Environment of the European Commission to promote preventive actions to manage water scarcity and drought phenomena and to meet one of the main goals under European environmental legislation: the effective and sustainable management of water resources. The partners involved in the implementation of the PAWA project (ISPRA, Arno River Basin Authority, SEMIDE/EMWIS) will carry out a pilot initiative in the Arno River Basin, an area severely affected by water scarcity and droughts phenomena and characterized by water withdrawals and land use changes. In the area a large experience about water balance application was already performed, for example in the context of the Water Framework Directive Common Implementation Strategy. Moving from this knowledge, the objective of the project is the definition of water accounting processing based on the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounts for Water, with the final goal to optimize a list of effective measures to face water scarcity phenomena. By the end of project (March 2015) the PAWA partnership aims at preparing physical water stock accounts, using the best available data resulting from field measurements or models, on a monthly step for the period 1999–201. The quality of each dataset will be assessed; tables, maps and graphs will be produced as outputs of the projects in cooperation with local stakeholders and players of the water sector. Furthermore, water accounts will be used to assess the potential impact of various measures related to water resource efficient exploitation in the most vulnerable sub-basins; their tolerability will be tested during workshops with stakeholders. Finally, water efficiency targets for potential future integration into Arno River Basin Management Plan will be identified.

Social Networking on Climate Change

This paper reports on the deployment of a multilingual Social Networking Platform in three Regions of Europe (Catalonia, Poitou-Charentes and Tuscany), in the context of an EU-funded Preparatory Action on eParticipation dealing with the issue of climate change and energy policy making at the level of the European Parliament. The US (“Obama”) approach and a novel (“European”) usage of social networks in political online discourses are compared. A recommendation to policy makers is that social networking can be useful whenever the topics under discussion are limited in scope, but also wide in implications, so that they require moving forward from “one-off” and “ad-hoc” participation experiments, towards the permanent coverage of “mission critical” Public Administration functions.