Event Of Catastrophe Research Articles

Morphological and transcriptional effects of crude oil and dispersant exposure on the marine sponge Cinachyrella alloclada

Marine sponges play important roles in benthic ecosystems. More than providing shelter and food to other species, they help maintain water quality by regulating nitrogen and ammonium levels in the water, and bioaccumulate heavy metals. This system, however, is particularly sensitive to sudden environmental changes including catastrophic pollution event such as oil spills. Hundreds of oil platforms are currently actively extracting oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico. To test the vulnerability of the benthic ecosystems to oil spills, we utilized the Caribbean reef sponge, Cinachyrella alloclada, as a novel experimental indicator. We have exposed organisms to crude oil and oil dispersant for up to 24 h and measured resultant gene expression changes. Our findings indicate that 1-hour exposure to water accommodated fractions (WAF) was enough to elicit massive shifts in gene expression in sponges and host bacterial communities (8052 differentially expressed transcripts) with the up-regulation of stress related pathways, cancer related pathways, and cell integrity pathways. Genes that were upregulated included heat shock proteins, apoptosis, oncogenes (Rab/Ras, Src, CMYC), and several E3 ubiquitin ligases. 24-hour exposure of chemically enhanced WAF (CE-WAF) had the greatest impact to benthic communities, resulting in mostly downregulation of gene expression (4248 differentially expressed transcripts). Gene deregulation from 1-hour treatments follow this decreasing trend of toxicity: WAF > CE-WAF > Dispersant, while the 24-hour treatment showed a shift to CE-WAF > Dispersant > WAF in our experiments. Thus, this study supports the development of Cinachyrella alloclada as a research model organism and bioindicator species for Florida reefs and underscores the importance of developing more efficient and safer ways to remove oil in the event of a spill catastrophe.

An effective blockchain‐based smart contract system for securing electronic medical data in smart healthcare application

SummaryIn today's world, data management plays a key role in smart healthcare applications. However, data availability, trustworthiness, confidentiality, and security are the major issues faced by current healthcare data management systems. The modern healthcare systems manage Electronic Medical Records (EMR) using a centralized manner, which increases the single point of failure in the event of a natural catastrophe. In this paper, a new robust Blockchain‐based Medical Cloud (BC‐MedCl) framework has been proposed to provide secure EMR sharing between patient and doctor. Primarily, Internet of Things (IoT) devices will gather the health‐related data of the patient periodically. The proposed framework then stores the encrypted EMRs in cloud storage while their correlating hash values are placed into the blockchain. Finally, a decentralized selective smart contract‐based access control mechanism is developed to enhance the security of the proposed system. The prototype file‐sharing performance of the proposed architecture has been evaluated using the Ethereum platform. The performance results manifest that the proposed blockchain framework is more effective to handle EMR in the real‐time healthcare system with a superior accuracy ratio of 98.7% and a lesser latency ratio of 25% as compared with the existing systems.

Role of ICT in Entrepreneurship Education for Employability in Nigeria in the New Normal

This work specifically concerned on the role ICT in entrepreneurship education for global employability and competitiveness in Nigeria. The purpose of this paper is to find out the role of Information Communication Technology in entrepreneurship education for global employability and competitiveness in Nigeria in the new normal. A large proportion of young graduates in most African countries exist without clear job prospects. Self-employment is the potential answer to issue of entrepreneurship education. However, this necessitates the introduction of entrepreneurship education for global employability and in Nigeria in the new normal. ICT should be seen as an ideal tool to accelerate the development, growth and process of Nigeria’s entrepreneurship programs in the new normal. It has also been discovered that restricting factors such as irregular power loss, shortage of skilled technicians/repairers, availability of insurance, emergencies, and uncertainty are barriers that any potential entrepreneur will overcome. Among other issues, the following suggestions were made among other; that the government subsidizes these ICT resources imports to minimize the expense of such tools to enable them to remain in business and the government should be health insurance for these ICT businesspersons in the event of injuries, fraud and natural catastrophe.

Assessment of the Women‘s Participation to Disaster Preparedness and Response in the Municipality of San Juan, Batangas

In the Province of Batangas, Municipality of San Juan, Batangas is regarded to be vulnerable to disaster. It has coastal, upland and populated lowland geographical areas. In the fortuitous event of catastrophe, women are deemed the frailest among the marginalized sectors. While the Magna Carta of Women gives women the right to protection and security in terms of disasters, specialized needs of women may be overlooked, gender-blind and insensitive to the development actions. This study assesses the participation of women to disaster preparedness and response in the Municipality of San Juan. Research surveys states that in the event of fire, traumatic experiences of people affected therein got the highest weighted mean of 3.3640. In terms of flood, the highest weighted mean is 3.4740, where flood is caused by the large amounts of rainwater, which cannot be absorbed in to the ground, drainages and canals. Relative to typhoon, the highest weighted mean is 3.4260, an intense circulation of the weather system causes typhoon over tropical seas and oceans accompanied with very strong winds, heavy rains and large ocean waves. About landslide, it is triggered by other natural hazards such as prolonged, heavy rainfall, and typhoon or by other sources of water, which increases the water content of the slope materials and got the highest weighted mean of 3.4200. Regarding earthquake, the highest weighted mean is 3.370, where earthquake is caused by sudden slippage of rock masses below or at the surface of the earth. In terms of participation in disaster preparedness and response, the lowest weighted mean is 2.3380, it is where women slightly or sometimes participate in forming and mobilizing women’s group in the local government units during disaster to protect and meet the necessary needs of women. Based on findings, the extent of participation in disaster preparedness and response practices in the Municipality of San Juan, Batangas is significant and highly important on the assessment of the respondents regarding disasters and their empowerment is necessary in developing a disaster resilient community. Thus, this study serves as basis for the determination in policy-decision making process necessary to address and integrate the specialized needs of women in the Municipality of San Juan, Batangas relative to participation to disaster preparedness and response.

Резервное человечество

The Reserve Humanity international project is proposed for the preservation of man, as well as for the salvation and restoration of the human civilization in the event of a global catastrophe on the Earth and as an "embryo" of the space humanity. In the 21-22 centuries it is necessary to create an infrastructure in near-earth space and / or on the Moon under the auspices of the UN, to settle a reserve humanity of ~ 1000 people, taking into account technological, resource, biological and social autonomy from the earthly civilization. The concept of the project is presented. Basic notions and definitions are given. A brief substantiation and description of the reserve humanity, goals, objectives, and organization of the project has been made. A conceptual model is proposed. Conclusions are formulated.

해고위험인식이 유지의도에 미치는 영향: 자기효능감의 역할

The intention of this study was to empirically explore the effect of perceived risk of dismissal on intention to stay, focusing on the role of employees’ self-efficacy, a type of positive self-confidence and self-competence. The research sample consisted of full-time employees of a five-star hotel in Seoul, operated by a large corporation. The survey period took place from June 1st to June 20th, 2021 and 220 copies of the structured questionnaires were distributed via convenience extraction method. A total of 200 (91%) were used for the final analysis. The results are as follows: first, the theoretical implications are that the dismissal perceived risk has a negative causal relationship with intention to stay, a positive causal relationship with self-efficacy, and there is a positive causal relationship between self-efficacy and intention to stay by the recognition of dismissal risk. The implications of this study are significant in that it empirically derives research results for areas that previous studies have not approached theoretically. Second, practical implications suggest that employers or managers need to always prepare strategic alternatives in advance to minimize damage to companies in the event of an unexpected long-term catastrophe that is navigable or unavoidable (e.g. prevention measures are better than a cure, diversification, etc.). In addition, it is necessary for workers (employees) to also develop themselves through the awareness that a catastrophe can occur at any time and should prepare countermeasures to respond appropriately to the situation.

Decolonizing the Anthropocene: ‘Slow Violence’ and Indigenous Resistance in Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves

Through a reading of Cherie Dimaline’s 2017 young adult novel The Marrow Thieves, a survival story set in a futuristic Canada destroyed by global warming, this article explores the conceptualization and reimagination of the Anthropocene in contemporary postcolonial and Indigenous theory and fiction. Firstly, I will argue that literary representations of climate change can be complicit in producing hegemonic strands of Anthropocene discourse that consider human destructiveness and vulnerability at undifferentiated species level. Secondly, I will suggest that the novel’s apocalypse reveals the processes of colonial violence and dispossession that have culminated in the eruptive event of environmental catastrophe, rather than portraying a story of universal and disembodied human threat that conceals oppression against Indigenous people.

Role of ICT for entrepreneurship development in Nigeria

A large proportion of young graduates in most African countries exist without clear job prospects. Self-employment may be one potential answer to this issue. On the other side, such an approach necessitates the production of entrepreneurship skills. ICT should be seen as an ideal tool to accelerate the development process of Nigeria’s entrepreneurship programs. This article attempted to address the roles of ICT in an Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria's entrepreneurial growth. It has also been discovered that restricting factors such as regular power loss, shortage of skilled technicians/repairers, availability of insurance, emergencies, and uncertainty are barriers that any potential entrepreneur will overcome. Among other issues, the article suggests that the government subsidizes these ICT resources imports to minimize the expense of such tools to enable them to remain in business and the government should be health insurance for these ICT businesspersons in the event of injuries, fraud and natural catastrophe.

PKCδ inhibition as a novel medical countermeasure for radiation-induced vascular damage.

In the event of a radiologic catastrophe, endothelial cell and neutrophil dysfunction play important roles in tissue injury. Clinically available therapeutics for radiation-induced vascular injury are largely supportive. PKCδ was identified as a critical regulator of the inflammatory response, and its inhibition was shown to protect critical organs during sepsis. We used a novel biomimetic microfluidic assay (bMFA) to interrogate the role of PKCδ in radiation-induced neutrophil-endothelial cell interaction and endothelial cell function. HUVECs formed a complete lumen in bMFA and were treated with 0.5, 2, or 5 Gy ionizing radiation (IR). At 24 h post-IR, the cells were treated with a PKCδ inhibitor for an additional 24 h. Under physiologic shear flow, the role of PKCδ on endothelium function and neutrophil adherence/migration was determined. PKCδ inhibition dramatically attenuated IR-induced endothelium permeability increase and significantly decreased neutrophil migration across IR-treated endothelial cells. Moreover, neutrophil adhesion to irradiated endothelial cells was significantly decreased after PKCδ inhibition in a flow-dependent manner. PKCδ inhibition downregulated IR-induced P-selectin, intercellular adhesion molecule 1, and VCAM-1 but not E-selectin overexpression. PKCδ is an important regulator of neutrophil-endothelial cell interaction post-IR, and its inhibition can serve as a potential radiation medical countermeasure.-Soroush, F., Tang, Y., Zaidi, H. M., Sheffield, J. B., Kilpatrick, L. E., Kiani, M. F. PKCδ inhibition as a novel medical countermeasure for radiation-induced vascular damage.

Risks associated with the transportation of hazardous materials on public roads

A significant proportion of the transport of hazardous materials is carried out on public roads. Therefore, the safety of such transport is becoming increasingly important. Every catastrophe involving hazardous materials has a negative impact on direct road users and the surrounding environment, becauses its range is mostly not local. It follows that in the event of such catastrophe, its effects should be minimized. This is possible only when we know the mechanism of spreading effects of a catastrophe involving hazardous materials. Those effects are spread by two basic media: ground (in particular water in the ground) and air. Sometimes those effects are spread by water, while the catastrophe has occurred near a water reservoir or watercourse with a free flow surface. In extreme cases, this can even lead to an ecological disaster. Dynamic systems, especially those with distributed parameters, can be used to describe the mechanism of the disaster's spread. Properties of phenomena accompanying analyzed catastrophes are well reflected in their linear or non-linear mathematical models [1,2], which are analyzed by various operator methods [3].

The Limits of Language as the Limits of the World: Cormac McCarthy’s and David Markson’s Post-Apocalyptic Novels

The article examines the correlation between the world and the word in two novels which engage with a post-apocalyptic scenario: David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress (1988) and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). Shifting the focus from the very event of catastrophe to the notion of survival through memory and storytelling, both novels problematize the strained relationship between language and reality in an increasingly diminished and dehumanized world. My aim is to investigate the limits of language as well as its capacity to withstand the chaos, loss, trauma, and death that follow the apocalypse. The issues to be considered include the influence of external experience on forms of communication, the role of central metaphors (the archive and the museum in Markson’s novel; cinders and the road in McCarthy’s) and their relation to the form of both novels, as well as the word’s (in)capacity to preserve human values and hopes. Both novels will be discussed as deconstructionist projects in which language becomes a habitat at once impossible and life-preserving: in Wittgenstein’s Mistress it plays the role of both home and prison, whereas in The Road it functions as messianic discourse which simultaneously carries, propels and extinguishes the human hope for a transcendental reality beyond the post-apocalyptic emptiness and doubt.

Socio-economic vulnerability and sustainable development in context of Development vs. Conservation debate: A study of Bhagirathi Basin, Uttarakhand, INDIA

Abstract. mountain system bound to have a different path of development owing to its fragile ecological and geological setup. Any drastic and abrupt changes in this system can have repercussion beyond mitigation in form of natural disasters. Remote sensing can play a key role in risk assessment and management, particularly when a few simultaneous reasons coincide, for example, susceptibility to natural disaster and the urban sprawl, spreading over highly vulnerable regions. The present study furnish socioeconomic vulnerability mapping of the Bhagirathi basin through computation of the Socio vulnerability Index (SoVI). SoVI correlates vulnerability to natural or anthropogenic disasters to socio – economic development and illustrates how developmental parameters alter equation of potential effect and recovery in event of a natural catastrophe in the study region. An analytical framework has been imparted to understand possible triggering factors of disasters. Built up area expansion; land use land cover change (LULCC) – deforestation, conversion of forested land into agricultural land and residential settlements, and dam project area; road network development; urbanization; population growth & migration and pilgrimage activities are major drivers which put burden on limited carrying capacity of the natural resources. A guideline for policy making has been presented for an integrated and wholesome development incorporating regional developmental aspiration of the people and ingredients of sustainable development.

Automation under suspicion – case flight AF-447 Air France

The probes allow the pilot to control the aircraft speed was essential to the balance of the flight. Opinions of experts who claim that "the design of the plane would have exercised a not inconsiderable role in the occurrence of a disaster." These messages revealed a series of important operating errors in a zone of turbulence, "making the plane uncontrollable, leading to a rapid depressurization device, according to these reports. A lawsuit in Toulouse and in Brazil aims to recognition of the liability of Air France and Airbus not insignificant role in the design and operation of the aircraft in the event of catastrophe. Opinions are taken from senior pilots that no commercial aviation training for certain situations abnormal flight that, if realized, could have influenced the pilots of the AF-447 to remove the plane's fatal dive show what experiments performed in simulators for military pilots, who are permanently subject to critical flight situations.

Should Palliative Care Be a Necessity or a Luxury during an Overwhelming Health Catastrophe?

In the event of a widespread health catastrophe in which either or both human and material resources were in critically short supply, rationing must take place, especially if the scarcity will last for some time. There are several tested allocation methods that are routinely used during emergencies. These include triage procedures employed by emergency departments and the military on the battlefield. The goal is to save the lives of as many as possible. When it is not possible to save all, or even most, who come for care, what should be done, if anything, with those whose fate is death? The central tenet and goal of medicine is the relief of suffering. If we take this seriously as an axiom of practice, then healthcare providers and the institutions in which they work are duty-bound to provide comfort and relief to all, especially the dying. There are several ways this can be done. One is to prepare by training sufficient individuals to provide what might be called emergency palliative care. These people do not all have to be doctors but could (and should) include people from a range of backgrounds including nursing, allied health, pastoral care, and social work. For them to be able to do their jobs effectively, some basic supplies should be stockpiled so the pain and suffering associated with untreated illness and injury can be relieved. However, what happens when there is a shortage of, say, opiates, so that relief of air hunger and pain cannot be eased? Then critical decisions must be made. Alternative sources of symptom relief not considered under ordinary circumstances might be used. However, it is possible to imagine a situation when all resources are in critically short supply. Those remaining resources, logically and morally, should be allocated to persons who can survive. In this scenario, what can be offered to the suffering dying? This might depend on the attitude of personnel caring for patients. In desperate circumstances, it is possible the proscription against active euthanasia could be justifiably overridden by concern for ongoing, relentless, and unmitigated suffering. Any justification that could be made for such action would be undermined by arbitrary or capricious administration. Thus, preparation for a catastrophic healthcare emergency should take into account all conceivable outcomes.

Chapter 6: Insurance industry

Chapter 6: Insurance industry

Carcass rendering systems for farm mortalities: A review

Improper animal-mortality disposal may allow pathogenic microorganisms to spread diseases in soil, plants, animals, and to humans;; and resulting odor reduces the quality of life for neighbors. Health hazards posed by neglect in carcass disposal would be pronounced in the event of a natural catastrophe, disease outbreak or intentional depopulation of herds or flocks. Conventional rendering systems have been utilized for the last two decades to convert various animal carcasses to different products. However, considerations regarding prion diseases will further shape the rendering industry. New rendering technologies that convert suspected prion-infected animal tissues into tallow and protein for use as a biofuel and fertilizer, respectively, are beginning to emerge. This paper reviews the rendering industry and new methods for carcass rendering to produce safe and economically valuable products while minimizing impacts on public safety and environmental quality.

Nuclear fission power for 21st century needs: Enabling technologies for large-scale, low-risk, affordable nuclear electricity

We examine the principal concerns regarding provision of a large fraction of human energy needs with nuclear fission reactor-derived electricity, and offer robust physics and engineering responses to each of them. We then propose a representative system-level integration of these solutions to the longstanding problems that have confronted nuclear fission-based power. This integration obviates all fuel supply issues, including the entire set of isotopic enrichment ones, while rendering comparably useful as nuclear fuels all of the actinide elements and isotopes. It entirely avoids transport and reprocessing and the full set of ad hoc waste disposal issues, and completely precludes all those involving proliferation/diversion of fissile isotopes into weapons' programs. It offers high-grade heat in pressurized helium gas for thermodynamically efficient, economically appealing, environmentally attractive combined-cycle conversion to electricity while robustly avoiding prospects of internal overheating of any portion of the reactor's core or fuel. It provides highly redundant means of any desired statistical reliability for prevention of core meltdown in LOCA circumstances. It provides zero biospheric hazard in event of either natural or man-made catastrophe. It requires – indeed, admits of – no operator control actions, other than initial start-up and final shutdown commands, so that operator errors are entirely precluded; during the half-century of potentially full-power operational life in between these two commands, it thermostatically regulates in an entirely automatic manner its own nuclear power generation to match the heat removed from its core in a time-varying fashion. The thorium-burning variant of this new class of reactors involves no long-lived actinide isotopes, thereby obviating a present-day keystone issue of long-term reactor waste storage and disposal. Each of these novel features is technologically separable, so that these new reactor design concepts may be applied piecewise to enhance prospects of nuclear reactor-centered power generation in many different utilization circumstances. However, synergisms arising from their full integration seem likely to be compellingly attractive in most situations, for a constellation of economic and safety reasons. We therefore project a bright future for cheap electricity safely obtained in >10 TWe quantities from nuclear power reactors of this new type, moreover over multi-century time frames. We observe that pertinent aspects of neutron physics and modern technology together offer a far richer spectrum of possibilities for nuclear power reactors than has been significantly explored through the present; the present architecture is merely exemplary.

If No Risk Is Proven, Is There a Risk? Some Reflections on Risk, Science and Environmental Regulation in Ireland after Watson v EPA and Monsanto

There are few areas where risk, science and politics collide that are more controversial than genetically modified organisms. This paper places the findings of the Watson v EPA case heard in the High Court in Dublin in 1998 within the context of change wrought upon international institutional politics, where modern conservatism has challenged the state's responsibility for defining what is an acceptable level of risk. A neo-liberal agenda transpires in which science no longer underscores the regulation of the market through the state (the realm of the political/legal), but participates in the reconstruction of individual citizens as consumers of both products and their attendant risks (the economic/legal). In the event of catastrophe, the function of science is to participate in assigning negligence or culpability to market failure. More crucially, its role is not to prevent development on the grounds that it may be risky (because in all walks of life we encounter risk), but to define more clearly where a risk can be proven. And, if no risk can be proven, state intervention, or regulation that impinges upon a free market, cannot be justified.

Breadth of vision [CCTV system

The article describes the major networking challenges posed in designing a CCTV system for the Tyne and Wear Metro. 550 high-quality analogue cameras are located in and around 58 Metro stations. Operators can use touchscreens to select stations and individual cameras. The Metro system passes through five different local authority areas within the Tyne and Wear region, and each local authority wanted a control room that could monitor and control cameras within its area. In addition, there is a central control room for the Metro, giving a total of six control centres on the digital network. A crucial aspect of the design remit was for any single control room to be able to take full control of the entire system, accessing every camera on the network if necessary - for example in the event of a major catastrophe or police investigation.

The Whiteness of Ireland Under and After the Union. A Response to the Commentators

Though Perry Curtis considers my article somewhat opaquely written, I really do not believe that he helps himself in striving for understanding. He chides me, for instance, for failing to list examples in my first paragraph of scholars who “have emphasized the fact and power of circumlocutions adopted by British cultural agencies to justify assumptions that the Irish were (or are) uncivilized.” But surely it should be possible for him to have the patience to read on two paragraphs where I do iterate three such instances (David Lloyd, Claire Wills, and Anne McClintock) in recapitulating the argument. More fundamentally, Curtis insists in reading into my article an assertion that within the period reviewed “the Irish could not possibly have been racialized by the British governing class because both peoples were white” (Curtis, p. 135). This is notwithstanding that I at no point make that argument; as Curtis himself notes, I reject the reduction of racism to chromatism and at numerous points suggest that concepts of racialization have been and can be fruitfully applied to historical analysis of British perceptions of Ireland. Curtis also accuses me of not paying attention to the sentiments of unionists such as Leopold Amery (p. 142) when I quote what I explicitly state to be an example of racialization in a letter by Leopold Amery (Peatling, pp. 128 29; Curtis ignores my analysis of its context). Yet Curtis still insists on suggesting that denial of racialization is, in fact, the subtext of my argument. He thus insists on reading a subtext opposed to what I actually say, thus refuting an argument that I nowhere advance. In offering this example of what he apparently has in mind by “scholarly” reading (p. 145), Curtis repeatedly misses the mark. Instead, the issue really between us, as John Belchem identifies, is the question of “the distance . . . between cultural sources [of anti-Irish prejudice] and the political decision-making process” at key moments in the nineteenthand twentieth-century periods under review (Belchem, p. 148). It is not my view that racialization, or anti-Irish prejudice, did not exist or had no political influence in those periods. In relation to the Irish famine, for instance, I suggest it may be of limited benefit to emphasize the influence of racialization on British government relief policy and British opinion toward Ireland (Peatling, p. 120). This is not to suggest that there was no such influence, merely that there were also other factors and that the role of this one factor may be exaggerated. While I criticize aspects of the recent work of Michael de Nie, it is legitimate to suggest that British government policy in the event of an equivalent humanitarian catastrophe in contemporary Britain may have been different and that the currency of racial ideologies may partly, but only partly, explain this difference. However, one should also take note of other recent research on the famine which may alter our understanding on this point. On the larger question, while both Curtis and I feel that anti-Irish prejudice did have a political influence on British policy, at least at certain times,