Patterns Of Resilience Research Articles

Tourism Resilience Patterns in Southern Europe

This article studies the patterns of tourism resilience, understood as the capacity to recover tourism demand, which has characterized Spain, Greece, Italy, and Portugal after the impact of the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. A shift-share analysis will allow us to decompose the growth of nonresident tourist arrivals to hotels and similar establishments originating from markets outside these four countries in 2009–2016. The technique used allows us to classify the markets according to the competitive advantage or specialization demonstrated by each country. The results reveal some similarity in resilience patterns in tourism between Portugal and Spain, whereas Italy and Greece maintain their own singularities. In this context, some ideas are suggested for the design of a tourism policy that makes the most of the potential of each country.

Is Oxytocin "Nature's Medicine"?

Oxytocin is a pleiotropic, peptide hormone with broad implications for general health, adaptation, development, reproduction, and social behavior. Endogenous oxytocin and stimulation of the oxytocin receptor support patterns of growth, resilience, and healing. Oxytocin can function as a stress-coping molecule, an anti-inflammatory, and an antioxidant, with protective effects especially in the face of adversity or trauma. Oxytocin influences the autonomic nervous system and the immune system. These properties of oxytocin may help explain the benefits of positive social experiences and have drawn attention to this molecule as a possible therapeutic in a host of disorders. However, as detailed here, the unique chemical properties of oxytocin, including active disulfide bonds, and its capacity to shift chemical forms and bind to other molecules make this molecule difficult to work with and to measure. The effects of oxytocin also are context-dependent, sexually dimorphic, and altered by experience. In part, this is because many of the actions of oxytocin rely on its capacity to interact with the more ancient peptide molecule, vasopressin, and the vasopressin receptors. In addition, oxytocin receptor(s) are epigenetically tuned by experience, especially in early life. Stimulation of G-protein–coupled receptors triggers subcellular cascades allowing these neuropeptides to have multiple functions. The adaptive properties of oxytocin make this ancient molecule of special importance to human evolution as well as modern medicine and health; these same characteristics also present challenges to the use of oxytocin-like molecules as drugs that are only now being recognized.Significance StatementOxytocin is an ancient molecule with a major role in mammalian behavior and health. Although oxytocin has the capacity to act as a “natural medicine” protecting against stress and illness, the unique characteristics of the oxytocin molecule and its receptors and its relationship to a related hormone, vasopressin, have created challenges for its use as a therapeutic drug.

Risk factors for the conservation of saltmarsh vegetation and blue carbon revealed by earthquake-induced sea-level rise

Vegetated coastal ecosystems (VCEs) are in global decline and sensitive to climate change; yet may also assist its mitigation through high rates of ‘blue’ carbon sequestration and storage. Alterations of relative sea-level (RSL) are pervasive drivers of change that reflect the interaction between tidal inundation regimes and ground surface elevation. Although many studies have investigated sediment accretion within VCEs, relatively few have addressed spatiotemporal patterns of resilience in response to RSL change. In this study, we used high resolution elevation models and field surveys to identify RSL changes and socio-ecological responses in a tidal lagoon system following earthquakes in New Zealand. We expected that vegetation changes would result from RSL effects caused by surface-elevation changes in intertidal zones. Elevation measurements showed a sequence of vertical displacements resulting from major earthquakes in 2011 and 2012, and additional surface-elevation loss since. VCE losses were recorded over an 8 year period post-2011 in response to high rates of RSL rise (up to 41 mm yr−1). Anthropogenic factors influenced the pattern of losses and illustrate opportunities for managing risks to other VCEs facing RSL rise. Four key principles for building VCE resilience were identified: i) anthropogenic encroachment results in resilience loss due to the need for landward migration when changes exceed the tolerance thresholds of VCEs at their lower elevational limits; ii) connectivity losses exacerbate encroachment effects, and conversely, are a practical focus for management; iii) landscape-scale risk exposure is disproportionately influenced by the largest wetland remnants illustrating the importance of site-specific vulnerabilities and their assessment; and iv) establishing new protected areas to accommodate the movement of VCEs is needed, and requires a combination of land tenure rearrangements and connectivity conservation. Embracing these concepts offers promise for improving whole-system resilience to help address the challenge of global climate change.

Phytoplankton size- and abundance-based resilience assessments reveal nutrient rather than water level effects

The use of discontinuity analysis to assess resilience and alternative regimes of ecosystems has mostly been based on animal size. We so far lack systematic comparisons of size-based and abundance-based approaches necessary for assessing the performance and suitability of the discontinuity analysis across a broader range of organism groups. We used an outdoor mesocosm setup to mimic shallow lake ecosystems with different depths (1.2 m deep, “shallow”; 2.2 m deep, “deep”) and trophic status (i.e. low and high nutrient status characteristic of mesotrophic and hypertrophic lakes, respectively). We compared resilience assessments, based on four indicators (cross-scale structure, within-scale structure, aggregation length and gap size) inferred from the size and abundance (biovolume) structure of phytoplankton communities. Our results indicate that resilience assessments based on size and biovolume were largely comparable, which is likely related to similar variability in the size and abundance of phytoplankton as a function of nutrient concentrations. Also, nutrient enrichment rather than water depth influenced resilience, manifested in decreased cross-scale structure and increased aggregation lengths and gap sizes in the high-nutrient treatment. These resilience patterns coupled with decreased phytoplankton diversity and dominance of cyanobacteria in the high nutrient treatment support the use of discontinuity analysis for testing alternative regimes theory. Concordance of size-based and abundance-based results highlights the approach as being potentially robust to infer resilience in organism groups that lack discrete size structures.

Multiple metastable network states in urban traffic

While abrupt regime shifts between different metastable states have occurred in natural systems from many areas including ecology, biology, and climate, evidence for this phenomenon in transportation systems has been rarely observed so far. This limitation might be rooted in the fact that we lack methods to identify and analyze possible multiple states that could emerge at scales of the entire traffic network. Here, using percolation approaches, we observe such a metastable regime in traffic systems. In particular, we find multiple metastable network states, corresponding to varying levels of traffic performance, which recur over different days. Based on high-resolution global positioning system (GPS) datasets of urban traffic in the megacities of Beijing and Shanghai (each with over 50,000 road segments), we find evidence supporting the existence of tipping points separating three regimes: a global functional regime and a metastable hysteresis-like regime, followed by a global collapsed regime. We can determine the intrinsic critical points where the metastable hysteresis-like regime begins and ends and show that these critical points are very similar across different days. Our findings provide a better understanding of traffic resilience patterns and could be useful for designing early warning signals for traffic resilience management and, potentially, other complex systems.

Examining Patterns of Interpersonal Violence, Structural and Social Exclusion, Resilience, and Arrest among Young Transgender Women

Young transgender women aged 16–29 years experience high rates of carceral involvement, warranting greater inclusion of this community within decarceration research and practice. The present study investigates patterns of violence, exclusion, resilience, and arrest among a sample of 298 transgender women aged 16–29 years in Chicago, Illinois, and Boston, MA. Women in the sample reported high rates of arrest, violence, and exclusion. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify classes with similar response patterns to items assessing violence, exclusion, resilience, and arrest. A three-class model was selected to best represent the data, including: (a) “High Violence and Exclusion/High Arrest”; (b) “Low Arrest”; and (c) “Moderate Violence and Exclusion/High Arrest.” Race and perceived gender expression significantly predicted class membership. Findings illustrate the heterogeneity of young transgender women’s experiences, suggesting that a variety of tailored decarceration program and policy interventions are required to meet the differing needs of young transgender women.

Changing Patterns of Resilience: Exploring the Local

AbstractThe notion of resilience is often referred to in relation to data services or the effects of climate change. However, understanding of social resilience and how it can vary across urban districts over time is vital too. Social Life co‐founder Nicola Bacon and data scientist Paul Goodship outline the research organisation's resilience mapping with the London Borough of Hounslow, which supported a better understanding of community dynamics and decision‐making.

Temporal trade-off between gymnosperm resistance and resilience increases forest sensitivity to extreme drought.

The frequency and intensity of droughts have increased over the decades, leading to increased forest decline. The response of forest to drought can be evaluated by both its sensitivity to drought (resistance) and its post-drought recovery rate (resilience). However, it remains uncertain how drought resistance and resilience of forests change over time under climate change. We assessed the spatiotemporal dynamics of forest resistance and resilience to drought over the past century (1901-2015) with global tree ring data records from 2,935 sites, in conjunction with plant trait data. We found that gymnosperms and angiosperms showed different spatial patterns of drought resistance and resilience, driven by variations in eco-physiological traits. Resistance and resilience also varied with drought seasonal timing. Surprisingly, we found that the trade-off between resistance and resilience for gymnosperms, previously reported only spatially, also occurred at the temporal scale. In particular, drought resilience markedly increased, but resistance decreased, for gymnosperms between 1950-1969 and 1990-2009, indicating that previous model simulations assuming invariant resistance may have underestimated the impacts of drought on gymnosperm-dominated forests under future climate change.

Disassembled Food Webs and Messy Projections: Modern Ungulate Communities in the Face of Unabating Human Population Growth

The human population grows inexorably. When Charles Darwin explored the southern cone of South America in 1830, fewer than 1.2 billion people inhabited Earth. When Ehrlich’s Population Bomb appeared in 1968 there were ~3.5 billion. We approach eight billion today, and biospheric impacts do not abate. We’ve affected most life forms through climate modification, harvest, erasure and fragmentation of habitat, disease, and the casting of alien species. Given the lack of abatement in human population growth, herein we focus on the modalities of ecological disruption – direct and indirect – that mitigate the changing role of ungulates in landscapes. Much of what was once generally predictable in terms of pattern and process is no longer. Offshore climatic events have strong onshore consequence, as exemplified by toxic algal blooms in the Patagonian Pacific. These have diminished the harvest of fish and likely resulted in fisherman using dogs to hunt huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus), the most endangered large terrestrial mammal of the Western Hemisphere. Similarly, human economies foment change in the Himalayan realm and Gobi Desert by increasing numbers of cashmere-producing goats, and where dogs that once followed tourists or guarded livestock they now hunt a half dozen threatened, endangered, and rare ungulates including kiang (Equus kiang) and chiru (Pantholops hodgsonii), saiga (Saiga tatarica) and takin (Budorcas taxicolor), spread disease, and displace snow leopards (Panthera uncia). In North America’s Great Basin Desert, one hundred years of intense livestock grazing created a phase shift by which changed plant communities enabled mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) colonization. An altered predator-prey system ensued with the arrival of pumas (Panthera concolor). Patterns of resilience postulated by Hollings (1973) become more difficult to witness in the absence of humans as our domination of earth destabilizes systems beyond return points. These include ungulates both in and out of protected areas. Consequently, only messy projections of future community reorganization seem reasonable whether related to food webs or assembly rules that once governed ungulate communities of the very recent past.

Evaluation and prediction of transportation resilience under extreme weather events: A diffusion graph convolutional approach

Resilience offers a broad social-technical framework to deal with breakdown, response and recovery of transportation networks adapting to various disruptions. Although current research works model and simulate transportation resilience from different perspectives, the real-world resilience of urban road network is still unclear. In this paper, a novel end to end deep learning framework is proposed to estimate and predict the spatiotemporal patterns of transportation resilience under extreme weather events. Diffusion Graph Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network and a dynamic-capturing algorithm of transportation resilience jointly form the backbone of this framework. The presented framework can capture the spatiotemporal dependencies of urban road network and evaluate transportation resilience based on real-world big data, including on-demand ride services data provided by DiDi Chuxing and grid meteorological data. Results show that aggregate data of related precipitation events could be used for transportation resilience modeling under extreme weather events when facing sample imbalance problem due to limited historical disaster data. In terms of observed transportation resilience, transportation network demonstrates different characteristics between sparse network and dense network, as well as general precipitation events and extreme weather events. The response time is double or triple of the recovery time, and an elastic limit exists in the recovery process of network resilience. In terms of resilience prediction, the proposed model outperforms competitors by incorporating topological information and has better predictions of the system performance degradation than other resilience indices. The above results could assist researchers and policy makers clearly understand the real-world resilience of urban road networks in both theory and practice, and take effective responses under emergent disruptive events.

Narratives of long-term resilience: two cases of women aging with spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a life-changing event that drastically affects a person's sense of identity, ability to participate, and quality of life (QOL). Researchers studying the coping process have often focused on identifying maladaptive behaviors and barriers, and less on positive psychology approaches emphasizing individual strengths. More recently, positive psychology constructs, such as resilience, have received greater attention from SCI researchers. Early and ongoing recognition of resilience in patients with SCI may provide important information to clinicians about adjustment and long-term management. Our purpose is to document patterns and indicators of resilience, using a narrative approach, during various stages of adjustment following SCI. Narrative case presentations are deriving from in-depth qualitative interviews with two women aged 63 and 52, living with SCI. Both had complete motor neurological injuries that incurred at 27 and 35 years, respectively. Each woman was interviewed twice, approximately 10 years apart (age 63 and 52, and age 54 and 42). Each demonstrated high levels of resilience through evolving roles of family and caregivers, inner personal strength, and participation in their respective communities. We highlight differences, similarities, and evolution of resilience factors in and between each case. These cases illustrate examples of long-term resilience, adding richness to the resilience construct. Results provide knowledge that can be used to target rehabilitation interventions toward successful coping styles. In sharing these cases, we hope to assist clinicians and researchers to better recognize patterns of resilience in their own patients and study participants.

How do governments cope with austerity? The roles of accounting in shaping governmental financial resilience

PurposeStudies on how accounting is involved in financial crises and austerity are limited. The context of austerity provides an interesting opportunity to explore the role of accounting in shaping governmental financial resilience, i.e. the capacity of governments to cope with shocks affecting their financial conditions.Design/methodology/approachBased on a multiple case analysis of eight Italian municipalities, this paper explores how accounting contributes to the government capacities which are used to anticipate and respond to shocks affecting public finances.FindingsMunicipalities cope with financial shocks differently; accounting can support self–regulation and can affect internally-led or externally-led adaptation. Different combinations of anticipatory and coping capacities lead to different responses to shocks.Practical implicationsThe findings can be useful for public managers, policymakers and oversight bodies for strengthening governmental financial resilience in the face of crises and austerity.Originality/valueThe results provide evidence of the conditions, contexts, processes under which accounting becomes a medium which can support both anticipation of and coping with financial shocks, supporting cuts in some cases and resistance in the short run or driving long-term changes intended to maintain public services as much intact as possible. This highlights the existence of different patterns of governmental financial resilience and thus indicates ways of best preserving the service of the public interest.

Benchmarking Community Disaster Resilience in Nepal

Building disaster resilience is a stated goal of disaster risk reduction programs. Recent research emphasizes a need for a greater understanding of community disaster response and recovery capacity so that communities can absorb shocks and withstand severe conditions and progress through the recovery period more efficiently. Nepal, which is prone to a multitude of hazards and having recently experienced a large earthquake in 2015, provides a unique opportunity for exploring disaster resilience in the developing world context. To date, no study investigating community disaster resilience across the entire country of Nepal exists. This study quantifies disaster resilience at Nepal’s village level, primarily using census data. Guided by the Disaster Resilience of Place (DROP) model, 22 variables were selected as indicators of social, economic, community, infrastructure, and environmental resilience. Community resilience was assessed for 3971 village development communities (VDCs) and municipalities while using a principal component analysis. Additionally, a cluster analysis was performed to distinguish spatial patterns of resilience. Analyses reveal differential community disaster resilience across the country. Communities in the capital city Kathmandu and in the western and far western Hill are relatively resilient. While the entire Tarai region, which holds the greatest proportion of Nepal’s population, exhibits relatively low levels of resilience when compared to the rest of the county. The results from this analysis provide empirical evidence with the potential to help decision-makers in the allocation of scarce resources to increase resilience at the local level.

The link between quality of government and regional resilience in Europe

This study analyzes the robustness of the link between quality of government and resilience in a sample of 264 NUTS-2 regions of 28 European countries during the Great Recession. Bayesian Model Averaging techniques are used to analyze the relevance of the quality of government together with a large set of macroeconomic, institutional, innovation, socio-demographic and labor market and sectoral specialization factors that may affect observed resilience patterns in Europe. The robustness of individual covariates is measured through posterior inclusion probabilities. The empirical analysis provides conclusive evidence on the role played by the regional quality of government as it appears to be one of the most robust drivers of resilience. In a second step, posterior jointness is investigated finding that factors related to the knowledge and innovation environment reinforce the relevance of quality of government while others such as trade openness act as substitutes.

Mapping patterns of abiotic and biotic stress resilience uncovers conservation gaps and breeding potential of Vigna wild relatives

This study provides insights in patterns of distribution of abiotic and biotic stress resilience across Vigna gene pools to enhance the use and conservation of these genetic resources for legume breeding. Vigna is a pantropical genus with more than 88 taxa including important crops such as V. radiata (mung bean) and V. unguiculata (cowpea). Our results show that sources of pest and disease resistance occur in at least 75 percent of the Vigna taxa, which were part of screening assessments, while sources of abiotic stress resilience occur in less than 30 percent of screened taxa. This difference in levels of resilience suggests that Vigna taxa co-evolve with pests and diseases while taxa are more conservative to adapt to climatic changes and salinization. Twenty-two Vigna taxa are poorly conserved in genebanks or not at all. This germplasm is not available for legume breeding and requires urgent germplasm collecting before these taxa extirpate on farm and in the wild. Vigna taxa, which tolerate heat and drought stress are rare compared with taxa, which escape these stresses because of short growing seasons or with taxa, which tolerate salinity. We recommend prioritizing these rare Vigna taxa for conservation and screening for combined abiotic and biotic stress resilience resulting from stacked or multifunctional traits. The high presence of salinity tolerance compared with drought stress tolerance, suggests that Vigna taxa are good at developing salt-tolerant traits. Vigna taxa are therefore of high value for legume production in areas that will suffer from salinization under global climate change.

Risk, Resilience, and Smoking in a National, Probability Sample of Sexual and Gender Minority Adults, 2017, USA.

Background. There are well-documented inequities in smoking between sexual and gender minority (SGM; e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender [LGBT]) and straight and cisgender people. However, there is less information about risk for and resilience against smoking among SGM people. Such information is critical for understanding etiology and developing interventions. Aims. To conduct a within-group assessment of risks and resiliencies relating to smoking status. Method. In 2017, we conducted a cross-sectional telephone survey with a national, probability-based sample of SGM adults (N = 453). We assessed theory-informed risks (adverse childhood events, substance use-oriented social environment, mental distress, stigma, discrimination, social isolation, and identity concealment) and resiliencies (advertising skepticism, identity centrality, social support, and SGM community participation). We applied survey weights, standardized predictor variables, and fit logistic regression models predicting smoking status. We stratified by age and SGM identity. Results. Patterns of risk and resilience differ by age and identity. Effects were consistently in the same direction for all groups for participating in substance use-oriented social environments, pointing to a potential risk factor for all groups. Advertising skepticism and having people you can talk to about being LGBTQ were potential protective factors. Discussion. Intervention development should address risk and resilience that differs by SGM identity. Additionally, our findings suggest interventionists should consider theoretical frameworks beyond minority stress. Conclusion. While much of the literature has focused on the role of stress from stigma and discrimination in tobacco use, addressing social norms and bolstering protective factors may also be important in SGM-targeted interventions.

Investigating space‐time patterns of regional industrial resilience through a micro‐level approach: An application to the Italian wine industry

AbstractThis paper introduces a new methodology to identify space‐time patterns of regional resilience using a micro‐level approach. The novel empirical tool combines geographically weighted regression with panel stochastic frontier analysis with endogenous covariates. The analysis is implemented on a panel of farm holdings operating in the Italian wine industry, focusing on the impact of a major institutional change. The results show the effectiveness of the new procedure in identifying geographical clusters of wine producers who reacted to the shock in similar ways. The responses are found to be homogeneous within specific territories and heterogeneous between regions.

The role of national settings in the economic resilience of regions—Evidence from recessionary shocks in Europe from 1990 to 2014

AbstractThis paper focuses on the particular role of the national setting for the economic resilience of regions during the resistance and recovery phase. Our empirical set‐up introduces a spatial hierarchy of 249 NUTS‐2 regions nested in 22 European countries while it includes numerous recessionary shocks from 1990 to 2014. Our results suggest that the impact of the national setting is strongest during the resistance phase when the national level accounts for up to 44.9% of the variance in regional GDP development. During recovery, however, the national share decreases but still amounts to no less than 22.0%. Apart from the direct effects that originate from, for example, regulatory density and fiscal policy measures, the national impact takes the form of cross‐level moderation effects. These indirect effects indicate that the regional patterns of resilience are additionally shaped by the inter‐linkages of country‐specific institutional factors and regional determinants. Taking all this into account, regional economic resilience is anything but just a matter of regional capacities.

Spatial Expression of Malay Kampung Semarang in Facing Flood Disaster

Disaster is one of the most significant global challenges confronting the society and environment in recent days. It poses a threat to the cultural heritage of conservation areas, including Malay Kampung (Kampung Melayu) Semarang. Today, it is experiencing physical, social and economic degradation, triggered by environmental factors and disasters such as flooding. This research therefore aims to identify the areas of residual disasters and monitor its impact on spatial expression and the resilience patterns. New adaptation and spatial expression develop when there is prolonged contact between flood disaster and the environment. Hence, a spatial expression transformation due to disaster adaptation occurs this expression is a type of resiliency pattern vulnerable in the area. During flood disasters, this pattern is essential to observe and understand the resiliency along with the sustainability of the cultural heritage of these affected areas. This research used qualitative method, Descriptive analysis technique conducted in this study to determining the research area delineation, identifying phenomena of flood disasters in Malay Kampung Semarang, analyzing spatial expression of Malay Kampung Semarang, and determining flood effects on spatial expression. Banjar Kampung was then chosen to represent the entire Semarang Malay Kampung. The spatial expression affected the building conditions, resulting in damage to some inhabited and non-inhabited buildings though some were not severely affected (are in good condition), and however, the buildings can be renovated. Out of the 57 buildings, in the region, 41 are in good condition and 16 others are in damaged condition. The result obtained from the study indicated that the flood phenomenon that occurred is now improved. The occurrence, depth, affected areas and duration of flood has improved as shown in this study.

Ekonomická odolnost evropských venkovských regionů v období 2000 – 2016: případová studie čtyř států EU

In this paper, we focus on economic resilience of selected rural NUTS3 regions in Germany, Italy, Czechia and Romania between 2000 and 2016. Our main aim is to provide empirical evidence of the long-term differences in economic resilience and volatility of rural regions across the national contexts. We ask, if and to what extent is it possible to identify similar regional patterns in various countries in terms of the reaction to the crisis: a) which rural regions improved/deteriorated in comparison to the economic performance of other rural regions in the respective country, b) which regions were characteristic by the high/low volatility of economic performance. We found highly diverse regional reactions to the crisis. While there were no clearly recognizable patterns of economic resilience, volatility was related to the changes in economic structure. Rural regions in Romania combined high economic volatility with the shift from agriculture mostly towards services.