Calamitous Events Research Articles

Event, Process and Pulse: Resituating Floods in Environmental Histories of South Asia

Abstract The notion of the flood in South Asia is no longer solely characterised as the archetypal natural disaster. This perceptual shift, as this article will point out, draws from a conceptual shift within the field of environmental histories of South Asia. In the course of exploring and debating ideas about environmental change, environmental historians have drastically reconsidered the role and impacts of flooding in South Asia through three distinct narrative frameworks: (i) extreme hydraulic events; (ii) geomorphological process; and (iii) biological pulses. Environmental history as a field has thus helped to flesh out and radically revise our understanding of flooding, which has changed from previously being seen as an ahistorical calamitous event to instead providing contexts for revealing complex relationships between geomorphological processes, biological pulses and livelihood strategies. The notion of the flood in South Asia, consequently, is now acknowledged as an ecological force that is mediated by social, cultural and political interventions rather than exclusively borne out as an effect of nature.

Near Real-time Crowd Counting using Deep Learning Approach

Abstract In the current digital era, at many places crowd counting mechanisms still rely on old-fashioned methods such as maintaining registers, making use of people counters and sensors based counting at entrance. These methods fail in the places where the movement of people is completely random, highly variable and dynamic. These methods are time consuming and tedious. The proposed system is developed for situations where emergency evacuations are required such as fire outbreaks, calamitous events, etc. and making informed decisions on the basis of the number of people such as food, water, detecting congestion, etc. A deep convolution neural network (DCNN) based system can be used for near real-time crowd counting. The system uses NVIDIA GPU processor to exploit the parallel computing framework to achieve swift and agile processing of the video feed taken through a camera. This work contributes towards constructing a model to detect heads captured by CCTV camera. The model is trained extensively by providing several scenarios such as overlapping heads, partial visibility of heads etc. This system provides significant accuracy in estimating the head count in dense population in reasonably less amount of time.

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) in road construction: Twenty years of Italian experiences

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a thermoplastic material, derived from pre-expanded polystyrene beads, that combines an extreme lightweight with versatile strength and thermal insulation. These characteristics made EPS an excellent alternative to natural materials for the feasibility of building and construction projects that would otherwise destined, for time and implementation costs, to be postponed or alienated. Specifically, this technology has been successfully used in road infrastructure sector in the last twenty years in the construction of roads, bridge abutments, lightweight embankments and backfills, above all for the rapid restoration of compromised roads following landslide or calamitous events, representing an interesting and resilient solution in areas exposed to seismic risk or persistent vibratory actions. Thus, the authors want to offer a critical analysis of different EPS road applications in Italy, considering benefits and drawbacks, proposing technical and economic considerations for ideal conditions of use and suggesting failure analysis methods and tools.

Hydrogeological Risk Management in Smart Cities: A New Approach to Rainfall Classification Based on LTE Cell Selection Parameters

The sudden climate change, that has taken place in recent years, has generated calamitous phenomena linked to hydrogeological instability in many areas of the world. An accurate estimate of rainfall levels is fundamental in smart city application scenarios: it becomes essential to be able to warn of the imminent occurrence of a calamitous event and reduce the risk to human beings. Unfortunately, to date, traditional techniques for rainfall level estimation present numerous critical issues. This paper proposes a new approach to rainfall classification based on the LTE radio channel parameters adopted for the cell selection mechanism. In particular, this study highlights the correlation between the set of radio channel quality monitoring parameters and the relative rainfall intensity levels. Through a pattern recognition approach based on neural networks with Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), the proposed algorithm identifies five classes of rainfall levels with an average accuracy of 96 % and a F1 score of 93.6 %.

Natural disaster and informality (re)production in Chile

Abstract This paper addresses the crucial need to gather more in-depth knowledge on the social construction of hazard by exploring risk exposition in informal settlements. The confluence of certain hazard conditions and inherent or contextual vulnerability configurations increases exponentially the risk of damages in the case of calamitous events. This suggests that the eradication of urban informality may contribute to reduce the vulnerability to natural hazards as well. This study proposes the use of the Geography of Opportunity and the Basic Liveability approach to understand the processes triggering the (re)production of informality and, more specifically, the factors driving settlements localisation into hazard-exposed areas. Two Chilean cities have been taken as case studies, as they constitute a paradigmatic example of social construction of hazard in Latin-America. The proposed case studies allow us to analyse the residential deficit and informality eradication policies in Chile. As a result, we observed that informal settlements are strategically located in relation to the structure of metropolitan opportunities, but the trade-off for this is the occupation of marginal and hazard-exposed areas. The conclusions give some recommendations in order to support policymakers to provide more comprehensive urban planning and risk management strategies to face future challenges, involving issues as urban poverty, social inequality and housing policy in addition to aspects related to pure hazard exposition.

HBIM FOR THE SEISMIC VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT OF TRADITIONAL BELL TOWERS

Abstract. The research proposes a novel and expeditious approach starting from direct and SfM (Structure from Motion) surveying up to H-BIM to provide a supporting tool to the knowledge of traditional bell towers, also useful for the seismic vulnerability assessment. The research draws on the possibility to enrich the H-BIM model with a semantic layer that takes into account the vulnerability indicators as defined in 2011 Italian Guidelines for the assessment and reduction of seismic risk of cultural heritage. Starting from 3D data survey, passing through the historical and constructive analysis, and the semantic classification of parts, the workflow foresaw the setting up of a semantic layer creating parameters to be assigned to each architectural component of the building and according an expeditious check-list which focuses on empirical knowledge of bell towers. This kind of information stored in the model could be very useful in situations that require particularly timely decision-making, such as in the case of calamitous events.

A Citizen-Sensing-Based Digital Service for the Analysis of On-Site Post-Earthquake Messages

The effectiveness of disaster response depends on the correctness and timeliness of data regarding the location and the impact of the event. These two issues are critical when the data come from citizens’ tweets, since the automatic classification of disaster-related tweets suffers from many shortcomings. In this paper, we explore an approach based on participatory sensing (i.e., a subset of mobile crowdsourcing that emphasizes the active and intentional participation of citizens to collect data from the place where they live or work). We operate with the hypothesis of a “friendly world”, that is by assuming that after a calamitous event, in the survivors prevails the feeling of helping those who suffer. The extraction, from the Twitter repository, of the few tweets relevant to the event of interest has a long processing time. With the aggravating circumstance in the phase that follows a severe earthquake, the elaboration of tweets clashes with the need to act promptly. Our proposal allows a huge reduction of the processing time. This goal is reached by introducing a service and a mobile app, the latter is an intermediate tool between Twitter and the citizens, suitable to assist them to write structured messages that act as surrogates of tweets. The article describes the architecture of the software service and the steps involved in the retrieval, from the Twitter server, of the messages coming from citizens living in the places hit by the earthquake; moreover, it details the storage of those messages into a geographical database and their processing using SQL.

Unified Theory for Flexural Strengthening of Masonry with Composites.

Recent calamitous events have shown the fragility of the existing masonry buildings. Many of them are heritage structures, such as churches and monumental buildings. Therefore, optimized strengthening strategies are necessary. Experimental studies performed on masonry elements strengthened with composite systems have shown the performance of these materials. However, further development is necessary to optimize the intervention strategies. In fact, due to the lack of general validity models, the design is usually based on prescriptive approaches according to manufacturers’ broad instructions, often producing systems with low efficiency and overestimations of the amount of reinforcement. In this paper a generalized approach is proposed to assess the flexural behavior of masonry sections strengthened with composites. The proposed theory has allowed performance of a sensitivity analysis assessing the impact both of the mechanical parameters of masonry and of the strengthening system. In particular, the impact of several constitutive relationships of composites (linear, bilinear, or trilinear) have been evaluated in terms of ultimate behavior of the strengthened masonry. For strengthening systems more compatible with the masonry substrate, the form of the stress–strain relationship becomes a key aspect. For such cases, the modeling of the reinforcement plays a fundamental role and the form of the relationship is strongly correlated to the type of reinforcement selected, e.g., organic versus inorganic matrix.

Geomorphological effects of the 1840 Ahora Gorge catastrophe on Mount Ararat (Eastern Turkey)

Ahora Gorge is a 400 m deep canyon located along the North Eastern flank of Mt. Ararat (Turkey), a compound volcanic complex covered by an ice cap. In the past, several diarists and scientific authors reported a calamitous event on July 2, 1840, when a landslide triggered by a volcanic eruption and/or an earthquake obliterated several villages located at the foot of the volcano. The reasons and effects of this Ahora Gorge Catastrophe (AGC) event have been obscure and ambiguous. To reappraise the 1840 catastrophe and the geomorphic evolution of the Ahora Gorge, we used high-resolution satellite images, remote sensing thermal data supplemented by observations collected during two field surveys. According to our interpretation, an earthquake in 1840 triggered an abrupt volcanic eruption, which caused the consequent rapid melting of glacial ice and mountain snow. This event produced significant mud and ice flow along the Ahora Gorge that inundated the villages downslope. The flooding, which we interpret as a lahar, deposited a wide alluvial fan at the foot of the volcano. Today, an elongated landform present within the Ahora Gorge has alternately been interpreted as a landslide deposit. Our multi-data integrated analysis and ground-based observations demonstrate that this feature is an unmapped glacier. The shape of the landform coupled with ASTER thermal satellite data and ground-based observations reveal that a debris-covered glacier (DCG) formed soon after the catastrophic lahar. Our discovery of the Ahora Gorge Glacier in context of a reappraisal of the Ahora Gorge Catastrophe demonstrates the contribution of glaciers in shaping the landscape near ice-capped volcanoes. Moreover, our data underscore the importance of being more aware of the potential future geo-hazards posed by Mount Ararat, particularly where glaciers are still present along several valleys and seismically-induced lahar events might occur.

Cannot intubate and cannot ventilate scenario in an infant for airway assessment.

Sir, Cannot intubate and cannot ventilate scenario, in general, is rare, especially in infant age group, but results in calamitous events if it occurs. Here, we report the management of a case of cannot intubate and cannot ventilate in an infant with a history of stridor. Case A 6-month-old girl was brought by an ambulance to our tertiary care hospital with difficulty in breathing and severe stridor. It was decided to perform airway assessment by ENT surgeon to determine the possible causes of stridor due to failure of improvement despite maximum medications given by pediatrician. Preoperative assessment showed an infant with mixed stridor requiring about 4 L of oxygen to maintain oxygen saturation above 90%. Suprasternal and intercostal recessions with conducted sounds could be heard on the chest. Chest X-ray was normal. No premedication was given and she was shifted to the operation theatre. Supraglottic airway assessment was done awake with topical anesthesia using flexible fiberoptic endoscope which was normal. Subglottic endoscopic examination was decided under general anesthesia. She was induced with sevoflurane to maintain spontaneous ventilation for dynamic airway assessment. The spontaneous ventilation was assisted with great difficulty after loss of consciousness. The ENT surgeon used pediatric rigid endoscope. It revealed subglottic mass occluding 90% of the area, and it was not possible to bypass the mass with the smallest endoscope available (size 2.7 mm) [Figure 1]. The infant started to desaturate after endoscopic manipulations with difficulty to ventilate. Intubation failed with the smallest tube size 2. Ventilation was tried but was not effective. The saturation and heart rate started to drop with the scenario of cannot intubate and cannot ventilate. Atropine was given and external cardiac massage started as saturation dropped to less than 50% and heart rate fell to less than 60 beats per minute. Emergency tracheostomy was done successfully in 7 min and saturation improved to 99%. Infant regained consciousness and spontaneous breathing. Computed tomography was done which revealed a small hypodense area measuring 0.5 cm in diameter in the region of glottis. LASER marsupialization of the subglottic cyst was done successfully after 2 days from emergency tracheostomy.Figure 1: Subglottic mass obstructing 90% of the airwayUnfortunately, there is no definitive algorithm to follow for difficult airway in case of patients aged less than 1 year of age. Difficult airway society (DAS) published algorithm of cannot intubate and cannot ventilate in a paralyzed anesthetized child aged 1–8 years in 2015.[1] In the present case, we skipped insertion of supraglottic devices, percutaneous transtracheal jet ventilation (PTJV), rigid bronchoscopy ventilation, and percutaneous cannula cricothyroidotomy (PCC) for different reasons. Supraglottic devices cannot be used due to distal mechanical obstruction. PTJV is relatively contraindicated due to near total airway obstruction below vocal cord.[2] In addition to risk of serious complications such as air embolism, extensive cervical emphysema, pneumothorax, and damage to the esophagus occur if jet ventilation is tried with misplaced cannula.[3] Rigid bronchoscopy ventilation was impossible as the smallest endoscope of size 2.7 mm could not bypass the mass. PCC is not easy in infants. Moreover, it is challenging to obtain a proper angle to insert PCC without the risk of perforation of posterior tracheal wall.[4] Emergent tracheostomy should be considered as the first step if an ENT surgeon is available.[5] The management of cannot intubate, cannot ventilate scenario needs vast experience in airway assessment, unshaken confidence, with extreme cooperation between anesthetists and ENT surgeons. Declaration of patient consent The authors certify that they have obtained all appropriate patient consent forms. In the form the patient(s) has/have given his/her/their consent for his/her/their images and other clinical information to be reported in the journal. The patients understand that their names and initials will not be published and due efforts will be made to conceal their identity, but anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.

Do Size, Debt, Liquidity, Capital Structure, and Capacity Affect Performance in the Airline Industry? -Legacy Versus Low-Cost Carriers

Ever since airline deregulation in the late seventies, airlines have been operating in a tough environment perpetuated by exogenous forces faced by no other industry. Oil price volatility, calamitous events, such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, bird flu, consumer preference, disposable income, the financial crises of 2008-2009, airline consolidations, and the emergence of new carriers have all played their part in creating a very challenging landscape through which airlines have to navigate on a day-to-day basis. This article addresses whether there exists a relationship between an airline’s size, debt, liquidity, asset structure, and capacity utilization with its performance. Using associational inferential statistics together with an independent t-test, the results show that while, all these variables contribute to a usable model, only liquidity and capacity utilization are statistically significant. Furthermore, the results of this study show that there is no significant difference in performance between legacy and low-cost carriers.

The Erasure of Hasidic Yiddish from Twentieth Century Yiddish Linguistics

Abstract Unlike other Yiddish dialects that were diminished to the point of virtual obsolescence in the decades following World War II, Hasidic Yiddish remains the dominant language for several hundred thousand Hasidic Jews across the globe. And yet, a survey of the research on Yiddish linguistics published during the second half of the 20th century does not reflect this reality. In this article, I review how the ideological underpinnings of Yiddish linguistics created and perpetuated a disciplinary preoccupation with a hypothetical standard at the expense of theoretically informative empirical studies of an evolving Yiddish dialect. Specifically, I show how linguistic chauvinism, a series of calamitous events, and historical anti-religiosity complicated by new resentments, led to the erasure of Hasidic dialects from Yiddish scholarship. Finally, I highlight significant contributions that recent empirical studies of Hasidic Yiddish are making to the field of linguistics.

RESPONSIVE URBAN MODELS BY PROCESSING SETS OF HETEROGENEOUS DATA

Abstract. This paper presents some steps in experimentation aimed at describing urban spaces made following the series of earthquakes that affected a vast area of central Italy starting on 24 August 2016. More specifically, these spaces pertain to historical centres of limited size and case studies that can be called “problematic” (due to complex morphological and settlement conditions, because they are difficult to access, or because they have been affected by calamitous events, etc.). The main objectives were to verify the use of sets of heterogeneous data that are already largely available to define a workflow and develop procedures that would allow some of the steps to be automated as much as possible. The most general goal was to use the experimentation to define a methodology to approach the problem aimed at developing descriptive responsive models of the urban space, that is, morphological and computer-based models capable of being modified in relation to the constantly updated flow of input data.

A flood decrease strategy based on flow network coupled with a hydraulic simulation software

Flood is a natural phenomenon, usually sudden and a calamitous event with devastating consequences and serious effects on the society, the environment and the economy. Thus, more and more research efforts have been carried out and many solutions have been implemented in the aim to control their impact. In order to divert or block the excess water due to flooding, hydraulic structures such as retaining walls, retention ponds, dams, etc. are necessary and require the use of operation strategies to manage the complex water system. In this paper, a flood decrease strategy based on the graph theory is proposed in order to manage the control of the water storage and release from reservoirs along the river. This river-Tanks system is modeled by a dynamic network and the management problem is formulated as a minimum cost dynamic flow problem with some additional constraints. Then, this main problem is reduced into a set of low dimensional dynamic sub-problems, for which the dynamic network is extended into a static network solved using a heuristic method. Thereby this single commodity flow problem with additional constraints is modeled as a mixed integer linear program. Finally, the program is combined with a specialized hydraulic simulator to simulate the water transfer and the exchange between the reservoirs and the river. The proposed approach was applied on the Bastillac area and results obtained for a 100-year flood case are given, illustrating that the strategy ensures a weak downstream flow peak and a reduced impact.

Sex, gender, and disasters: Experimental evidence on the decision to invest in resilience

Increasing sensitivity to terrorism, economic volatility, frequent and severe natural disasters, and infrastructure disruptions has intensified interest in resilience, the ability to withstand or recover from catastrophe. The growing research on disaster preparedness and recovery policies have been aggregate-level analyses focusing on communities, organizations, or the physical environments. Absent from this literature is an exploration of the role of individual decision-makers in determining the resilience strategies of firms, even though the hardiness of business is crucial to maintaining robust local, regional, and global economies. To address this, our research uses a randomized controlled experimental design to examine whether biological sex or gender diversity might lead to decision-making that improves investments in resilience to calamitous events. We study decisions related to a core resilience strategy, investment in inventories, across professional manager and student subject pools. We find that although females perceive a higher probability of a catastrophic event, male and female subjects do not make different investment decisions when faced with uncertainty and risk. Importantly, a gender construct capturing congruence with feminine personality attributes does correspond with increased resilience investment and is driven by differences between managers and students. Increased gender diversity in decision-making bodies may serve to improve economic resilience of firms and other organizations.

Reverse Flow: The Role of Built Environments in Shaping Disaster.

In contrast to approaches that examine the impacts of human-built efforts to ameliorate calamitous natural events, this essay argues that a wide array of large structures shape the outcomes of these events. Further, significant human artifacts can succeed in their function vis-à-vis one set of natural events, but can have unanticipated, even reverse effects when natural forces exceed planned expectations. Risk assessments do not normally consider such side effects, suffering from an agnotological narrowing of focus. The historian's emphasis on temporal contextualization and contingency has important implications for policy and assessment of risk.

Spanish Validation of the Separation Anxiety Assessment Scale.

The aim of this study was to investigate the factorial structure and psychometric properties of the Separation Anxiety Assessment Scale (SAAS) with Spanish schoolchildren. The participants in Study 1 were 1281 children aged 8-11. Exploratory factor analysis identified four factors: worry about calamitous events, fear of abandonment, fear of being alone, and fear of physical illness, which explained 47.77% of the variance. The participants of Study 2 were 4628 schoolchildren aged 8-11. The four related factors model was validated by confirmatory factor analysis. The internal consistency (α=.84) and temporal stability (r=.77) were good. The convergent validity was evident from the pattern of correlations with the measures of separation anxiety, sensitivity to anxiety and school fears. The sensitivity of the scale was 83%, and its specificity, 93%. The complementary subscales predicted the diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder. The results support the reliability, validity and clinical utility of the SAAS.

MEDIA COVERAGE ON DISASTERS – THE PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS

This conceptual paper has two main objectives. First, to shed light on the previous studies done in the field of applied linguistics exploring the skilful use of language by media and the role it plays in societies. Second, it draws the attention on the lack of language studies on man-made disasters represented by those calamitous events other than natural disasters such as the tragedies of the 11 th of September, the crash of the Malaysian Hospitality Flight (MH17) and the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370). This gap is represented by two observations. First, in most of the studies done, man-made disasters were approached from other perspectives than language. Most of the studies were from political, technical or administrative perspectives. Second, the few studies done from language perspective had not covered the many sides of language use in media. Thus, unlike the studies on natural disasters, there is a lack of study that used various methodologies and lack of in-depth studies addressing significant issues related to the language use in the media. This paper identifies the gap and invites researchers and scholars to bridge this gap by widening the range of research to cover other characteristics of media language like the media-audience relation, the power of language represented by influencing the perception of people, the impact of authority on media and the difference between local and international media in relation to the area of the disaster.

Natural Disasters: Causes, Consequences and Its Preventive Role in Sustainable Development

Disaster is defined as a crisis situation causing wide spread damage which far exceeds our ability to recover. Disaster is a sudden, calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, destruction and devastation to life and property. The damage caused by disaster is immeasurable and varies with the geographical location, climate and the type of the earth surface. Natural disasters are relatively sudden and cause large scale, widespread death, loss of property and disturbance to social systems and life over which people have a little or no control. Thus, any event can be classed as disaster when the magnitude of destruction and damage caused by it is very high. Communities will always face natural hazards, but today’s disasters are often generated by, or at least exacerbated by, human activities. At the most dramatic level, human activities are changing the natural balance of the earth, interfering as never before with the atmosphere, the oceans, the polar ice caps, the forest cover and the natural pillars that make our world a liveable home. But we are also putting ourselves in harm’s way in less visible ways. This paper seeks to determine the natural disasters, causes and consequences and its prevention. Nature is bountiful full of resources used by the living organisms use for their survival and well-being. But nature has its own control systems. Resources used up are replenished excesses are checked, all naturally through the biogeochemical cycles, the food chains and webs and other natural phenomena. Thus equilibrium is maintained in nature. This is called ecological balance and has in recent times been disturbed by human activities.

3. Transboundary Environmental Cooperation

On 13 December, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted Resolution A/RES/71/141 and took note of the draft articles on the topic ‘Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters’ contained in Chapter IV (Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters) of the report of the UN International Law Commission (ILC) (see Report of the International Law Commission, sixty-eighth session (2016), UN Doc. A/71/10 <http://legal.un.org/ilc/reports/2016/> at 12–73). It consists of a draft preamble and eighteen draft articles, together with their commentaries (see the Eighth Report on Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters, UN Doc. A/CN.4/697 (17 March 2016)). At the fifty-ninth session of the ILC held in 2007, this topic was included in its program of work, and Eduardo Valencia Ospina (Colombia) was appointed as a special rapporteur. These draft articles apply to the protection of persons in the event of disasters (Article 1), and the key term ‘disasters’ is defined as ‘a calamitous event or series of events resulting in widespread loss of life, great human suffering and distress, mass displacement, or large-scale material or environmental damage, thereby seriously disrupting the functioning of society’ (Article 3(a)). Naturally, the definition is solely for the purpose of the draft articles, and this term has various theoretical and practical implications (see Daniel Farber, ‘Disaster Law in the Anthropocene’ in Jacqueline Peel and David Fischer (eds), The Role of International Environmental Law in Disaster Risk Reduction (Brill/Nijhoff, 2016) at 51–4). The draft articles are meant not to be applicable in the situations governed by international humanitarian law (Article 18(2)). Importantly, draft Article 9(1) provides that ‘[e]ach State shall reduce the risk of disasters by taking appropriate measures, including through legislation and regulations, to prevent, mitigate, and prepare for disasters,’ and the report of the secretary-general suggests that this article represents a critical contribution to the development of normative frameworks for disaster risk reduction (see UN Doc. A/71/230 (29 July 2016) at 6, para. 16). To elaborate a future convention on this topic, the UNGA invited governments to submit comments on the draft articles.