Weak Resilience Research Articles

The COVID Pandemic in the Market: Infected, Immune and Cured Bonds

By focusing on the cost conditions at issuance, I find that not only the Covid-19 pandemic effects were different across bonds and firms at different stages, but also that the market composition was significantly affected, collapsing on investment-grade bonds, a segment in which the share of bonds eligible to the ECB corporate programmes strikingly increased from 15% to 40%. Contemporaneously, the high-yield segment shrunk to almost disappear at 4%. Another source of risk detected in the pricing mechanism is the weak resilience to pandemic: the premium requested is around 30 bp and started to be priced only after the early containment actions taken by the national authorities. On the contrary, I do not find evidence supporting an increased risk for corporations headquartered in countries with a reduced fiscal space, nor the existence of a premium in favour of green bonds, which should be the backbone of a possible “green recovery”.

The nexus between FDI inflows and economic development in Ghana: empirical analysis from ARDL model

This study examined FDI and economic progress in Ghana. Using annualised time series data obtained from the World Bank over a period from 1984 to 2018, an ARDL approach was implemented. Our findings show that external factors affirm positive impact on FDI attraction and economic development. Specifically, inflation and population have a long and short run substantial impact on attraction of FDI into Ghana. Similarly, at the micro level, financial expansion in the financial sector exerts long- and short-term substantial positive effect on FDI attraction. A 1% rise in FDI inflow and population would result in 234% and 200% economic expansion in the long run. Financial development in the private sector, however, exerts a considerable effect in the short run. This implies a weak resilience against shock for FDI in the private sector. Overall, our model confirms FDI-led economic expansion in Ghana in the long-run. To sustain this, recommendation is policymakers should reduce total control and involvement in the markets by allowing and empowering private sector expansion.

The COVID Pandemic in the Market: Infected, Immune and Cured Bonds

By focusing on the cost conditions at issuance, I find that not only the COVID-19 pandemic effects were different across bonds and firms at different stages, but also that the market composition was significantly affected, collapsing on investment- grade bonds, a segment in which the share of bonds eligible to the ECB corporate programmes strikingly increased from 15% to 40%. At the same time the high-yield segment shrunk to almost disappear at 4%. In addition to a market segmentation along the bond grade and the eligibility to the ECB programmes, another source of risk detected in the pricing mechanism is the weak resilience to pandemic: the premium requested is around 30 basis points and started to be priced only after the early containment actions taken by the national authorities. On the contrary, I do not find evidence supporting an increased risk for corporations headquartered in countries with a reduced fiscal space, nor the existence of a premium in favour of green bonds, which should be the backbone of a possible “green recovery”.

ДЕРЖАВНА СТРУКТУРНА ПОЛІТИКА ЯК ВАЖІЛЬ СТРУКТУРНИХ ПЕРЕТВОРЕНЬ В ЕКОНОМІЦІ УКРАЇНИ

Introduction. Excessive openness and weak resilience of Ukraine's economy to the manifestation of externalities requires the formation of a more effective state structural policy as a basic tool for systemic change in the national economy. The complexity of this policy involves a wide range of approaches and measures, including non-standard, to address strategic and operational challenges, which is accompanied by additional risks. At the same time, the risks affecting the deepening of structural deformations of the national economy of Ukraine are both a manifestation of constant changes in global market conditions and the presence of internal hidden vestiges stemming from the old traditional ways of organizing economic relations based on process thinking, anticompetitive principles, corruption, etc. Purpose. Research of the essence of structural policy, definition of principles of its formation and realization, and also realization of classification of its types. Results. Approaches to the interpretation of the concept of state structural policy are studied. It was found that the most popular is the mechanistic approach, where structural policy is seen as a tool of state regulation. Foreign experience on the nature of implementation and strategic guidelines of the state structural policy is analyzed. It is determined that structural policy in other countries is seen as a key means of transition from one type of development of society to another, more progressive. Substantiated determinants of state structural policy, on the example of revolutionary and evolutionary policy, allow us to determine a list of methods and measures to stimulate the development of the national economy. Originality. The conditions of formation and functioning, flexible and effective system of state regulation of economic processes in the country are investigated. The author's definition of the state structural policy is presented, which reflects the principles of sustainable development of the national economy. The determinants of the state structural policy in accordance with its types and approaches to the organization of development are substantiated. It is proposed to classify the types of structural policy according to the following criteria: by the nature of changes (radical and inertial), by directions of transformations (vertical and horizontal), by the scale of implementation (general and selective). The basic principles of formation and implementation of the state structural policy that determine its effectiveness are determined, namely: dualism, utilitarianism, historicism, laissez faire. Conclusion. The paradigm of the state structural policy of any country is based on the platform of opportunities for administrative influence on the economic environment with adaptability to economic realities and its regulation in accordance with certain imperatives. However, the instruments of this regulation are of a directive and indicative nature, which may outline the priority of the current government and the degree of state influence on the spheres and branches of activity. In general, the state structural policy is polysystemic in nature, as it is implemented through fiscal, monetary, industrial, agricultural, social, innovation, investment and other policies to achieve the strategic goals of the state. Thus, structural policy as the main lever of state regulation should provide system-forming and compensatory effects in the national economy, its resistance to negative exogenous and endogenous factors, improve the investment climate and macroeconomic indicators, improve the system of reproduction and self-organization of the economic complex.

Financial resilience of municipal civil servants’ pension funds

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to analyze the responses and the repetitive pattern of financial resilience which emerge within the civil servants’ pension funds (RPPS, in Portuguese) of local governments in Brazil. The analysis extends the traditional financial resilience approach discussing the emergence of vulnerability from the sponsor and RPPS interaction, often stimulated by the lock-in effect from the federal regulation, which constrains the space for transformative responses. Financial resilience is a concern usually applied to governments’ response to crises, but not for pension funds. However, the long-term objective of such funds when juxtaposed to short-term pressures conduce a paradoxical standpoint for fund’s managers absorbing the pressures. The impact of this article to the pension funds and the regulatory field is the proposition that the growing vulnerability of RPPS regimes comes from the insufficient governance belt protecting them, which would be a necessary and applicable remedy to any pension funds reform the country decides to take . It was applied a sequential mixed-method approach, starting by interviews with fund managers, actuarial consultants and representatives of the Ministry of Finance's Pension Secretariat (SPREV), to identify the usual responses to emerging financial pressures which affect the funds’ financial performance. Secondly, four from the identified typical responses were selected and analyzed through financial and accounting data to detect the response for about 1,8 thousand funds from 2014 to 2016. Based on the frequency of the adopted responses by each fund, it was proposed a recurrent financial resilience pattern, and how the managers’ responses vary according to the vulnerability provoked by the City Hall’s decisions. It was observed that the City Halls accommodate budgetary pressures failing to transfer or downsizing the contributions to the fund, increasing the fund’s vulnerability. The managers consequently respond subjoining the reserves to pay pensioners, reinforcing the fund’s vulnerability. Such response is a weak resilience pattern, which reinforces the funds’ vulnerability due to governance gaps and the lock-in effect proposed by Pike, Dawley & Tomaney (2010), which constrains the local agents’ capacity to perceive and find solutions more transformative and actives looking for financial sustainability.

Connectomics-Based Functional Network Alterations in both Depressed Patients with Suicidal Behavior and Healthy Relatives of Suicide Victims

Understanding the neural mechanisms of suicidal behavior is crucial. While regional brain alterations have previously been reported, knowledge about brain functional connectomics is currently limited. Here, we investigated differences in global topologic network properties and local network-based functional organization in both suicide attempters and suicide relatives. Two independent samples of depressed suicide attempters (N = 42), depressed patient controls (N = 43), healthy controls (N = 66) as well as one sample of healthy relatives of suicide victims (N = 16) and relatives of depressed patients (N = 16) were investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging in the resting-state condition. Graph theory analyses were performed. Assortativity, clustering coefficients, global efficiency, and rich-club coefficients were calculated. A network-based statistic approach was finally used to examine functional connectivity matrices. In comparison to healthy controls, both patient groups showed significant reduction in assortativity, and decreased functional connectivity in largely central and posterior brain networks. Suicide attempters only differed from patient controls in terms of higher rich-club coefficients for the highest degree nodes. Compared to patient relatives and healthy controls, suicide relatives showed reduced assortativity, reduced clustering coefficients, increased global efficiency, and increased rich-club coefficients for the highest degree nodes. Suicide relatives also showed reduced functional connectivity in one anterior and one posterior sub-network in comparison to healthy controls, and in a largely anterior brain network in comparison to patient relatives. In conclusion, these results suggest that the vulnerability to suicidal behavior may be associated with heritable deficits in global brain functioning – characterized by weak resilience and poor segregation - and in functional organization with reduced connectivities affecting the ventral and dorsal prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate, thalamus, striatum, and possibly the insula, fusiform gyrus and the cerebellum.

Community resilience in rural China: The case of Hu Village, Sichuan Province

Building on conceptual frameworks to assess community resilience developed by Emery and Flora (2006) and Kelly et al. (2015), this study analyses the resilience of Hu village (Sichuan, China). The resilience of the village is assessed in the face of multiple and complex slow- and fast onset anthropogenic disturbances, especially the impacts of globalisation and modernisation, which have substantially transformed Chinese society. Hu village is typical for a rural community in transition affected by industrialisation, deagrarianisation, counter-urbanisation and changing stakeholder expectations and opportunities. This has been accompanied by agricultural depopulation, outmigration, increasing non-farm employment, declining agricultural incomes, and associated social and psychological changes – processes that have decreased community resilience. Overall, Hu village emerges as only moderately resilient with tendencies for a further weakening of resilience. While economic, social and cultural domains are (still) moderately resilient, the natural and political domains show weak resilience. Building on critical studies of Chinese rural areas (e.g. Ye and He, 2008; He, 2010; Huang et al., 2010) the study concludes by arguing that Chinese government policies need to be substantially realigned if the resilience of rural communities such as Hu village is to be improved.

Impact of Urban Anthropogenic Pressures on the Mangrove Forest of Sainte Marie (East Madagascar)

This article demonstrates the urban anthropogenic threats and their impacts on Sainte Marie (Eastern Madagascar) mangrove ecosystem. In addition to conducting interview with 158 residents, floristic inventories were carried out in order to compare the mangrove structure between a control site and another one that was impacted by Belle Vue dyke (south of the District downtown) rehabilitation. From 2003 to 2014, the island of Sainte Marie lost 0.47% per year of its mangrove area. 87% of the harvested resources from this ecosystem are fish products and are related to human nutrition. The mangrove is used as a dumping ground for liquid and solid waste in the lots of Saint Joseph and La Pointe. Defecation in the open air is topical under the island’s mangrove forest. A very weak resilience of the mangrove impacted by the rehabilitation of Belle Vue dyke was noted. Indeed, regenerations of Bruguiera gymnorrhiza and Ceriops tagal have struggled to rebuild. The total height and diameter of impacted trees decreased by 37.2% and 44.3%, respectively. The development of an updated urban master plan, including mangroves in the related zoning process is an imperative measurement for the conservation and/or valuation of existing lots.

The resilience and vulnerability of remote mountain communities: The case of Vent, Austrian Alps

Building on critical community resilience studies, this study analyses the resilience of the village of Vent, a remote mountain community in the Austrian Ötztal valley challenged by slow-onset disturbances such as climate change, outmigration of young people and the repercussions of the post-2008 recession. A conceptual framework which focuses on how well economic, social, cultural, political and natural domains are developed within a community, is used as the conceptual springboard to assess the resilience of Vent. The study highlights that Vent is facing substantial resilience challenges and that the community is particularly vulnerable (weak resilience) with regard to the political and natural domains, is only moderately resilient in economic and social terms, and that only the cultural domain emerges as strongly resilient. Overall, Vent is, at most, moderately resilient in the face of continuing and future shocks/disturbances. The study interrogates current resilience frameworks and suggests that an approach based on the five resilience domains provides a richly textured framework for understanding the subtleties of resilience pathways, all the while acknowledging that obtaining a relatively complete picture of resilience is easier in small (and geographically bounded) communities.

Enhanced sprout-regeneration offsets warming-induced forest mortality through shortening the generation time in semiarid birch forest

Abstract Warming-induced mortality and a decline in regeneration potential have recently been observed in semiarid forests. To understand future forest dynamics, studies have begun to examine the long-term resilience of semiarid forests against climate change. Previous research has documented a relatively high resilience through seedling production for patchy coniferous forests at the arid timberline compared to continuous and arid tree line forests. However, it remains unclear whether broad-leaved forests in semiarid regions share the same pattern and how they work. In this study, we observed a similar nonlinear pattern in forest resilience along a local aridity gradient by reconstructing the regeneration history and investigating post-mortality regeneration in white birch-dominated (Betula platyphylla) forests in semiarid Inner Asia. Changes in regeneration modes from seedling to sprout production accelerated the white birch regeneration process and speeded up tree replacement. High competition from abundant recruits enhanced both forest resilience and resistance to climate change in arid timberline forests. However, only weak resilience was observed in birch forests at the arid tree line, which stopped regeneration and meant that old trees dominated the age structure. This might increase the risk of hydraulic failure. Our results implied that the decline in regeneration potential was not consistent in semiarid regions. Although forest mortality increased along with aridity, some broad-leaved forests at the arid timberline have a high resilience because they generate abundant sprouts to compensate for the losses from forest mortality. This study shows that a similar resilience pattern occurs under the impact of climate change and that various resilience mechanisms are affected by the different biological features of coniferous and broad-leaved forests in Inner Asia, which have important implications for future forest dynamics in semiarid regions and provide scientific background for managing this vulnerable forest and important insights into persistence of forests in semi-arid Inner Asia.

Assessing European ecosystem stability to drought in the vegetation growing season

AbstractAimThe present study models the response of vegetation to drought between 1982 and 2011 focusing on the growing season, considering: (1) vulnerable versus resistant ecosystems, (2) ecosystem resilience, (3) the delayed response of vegetation to accumulated precipitation deficits and (4) reduction in productivity due to drought.LocationContinental Europe.MethodsVegetation condition was analysed by anomalies of the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by vegetation (FAPAR) within the growing season. FAPAR was modelled as a function of: (1) monthly deviation from long‐term average drought conditions, (2) past monthly deviation from long‐term average drought conditions, and (3) past monthly deviation from long‐term average FAPAR conditions. Significant regression coefficients were mapped as ecosystem resistance as well as ecosystem resilience to drought. Annual and long‐term growing season productivity were assessed over ecosystems vulnerable to drought within diverse biomes and plant functional types and were studied together with the extent, timing, frequency, duration and intensity of drought events.ResultsMediterranean ecosystems showed the least resistance to drought but were resilient. Steppic ecosystems showed weak resistance and also weak resilience. Results also indicated weak resistance against drought of the Atlantic and Continental regions with various recovery rates. Productivity decline was observed when the timing, intensity, frequency and extent of drought events targeted the growing season of the vegetation cover.Main conclusionsThis study presents an improved method for modelling the impact of drought on the productivity of vegetation by considering the timing, intensity, duration and location of drought events within the growing season, and maps and analyses the resistance and resilience of plant functional types and biomes.

The effect of weakened resilience on food insecurity in protracted crisis: the case of South Sudan

This study aims to determine predictors of food insecurity in a typical setting where resilience of population is weakened as a result of protracted crises. South Sudan is used as a case study. The rationale of the study is anchored on the perception that food insecurity risk is a function of weak resilience, which in turn is a function of the absence of a combination of certain characteristics and livelihood endowments of a household or a population. Analysis explores the use of SAS® SURVEYLOGISTIC procedure, as it has been established to be useful in analysis of data from sample surveys. The procedure is known for its valid statistical inference. Employing a survey logistic model with generalised logit link function determined all fitted fixed effects to be statistically significant. Analysis showed that characteristics of households and agriculture (including livestock and fishing) were typically associated with acceptable level of food consumption and implying that the absence of these factors demonstrated weakened resilience and thus increased risk of food insecurity. Analysis also examined the odds of each level of fixed effect compared to the reference level in relation to the food consumption score (the response or outcome variable). Findings were interesting, but largely confirmed what was expected (see Table 5). For instance, it was found out that households headed by younger adults aged 17 years or less fared three times worse than those aged 60 years and above. It was also shown that smaller households fared better than larger ones. The odds of a household with three or less members were twice as worse as those with seven or more members. We conclude that the method exerted reasonable statistical efficiency for fulfilling the study end, thus providing sufficient evidence for food security analysts and development policy makers in the course of developing appropriate interventions for early preparedness and crises response.

Individual Markers of Resilience in Train Traffic Control: The Role of Operators' Goals and Strategic Mental Models and Implications for Variation, Expertise, and Performance.

Objective:The aim of this study was to examine individual markers of resilience and obtain quantitative insights into the understanding and the implications of variation and expertise levels in train traffic operators’ goals and strategic mental models and their impact on performance.Background:The Dutch railways are one of the world’s most heavy utilized railway networks and have been identified to be weak in system and organizational resilience.Method:Twenty-two train traffic controllers enacted two scenarios in a human-in-the-loop simulator. Their experience, goals, strategic mental models, and performance were assessed through questionnaires and simulator logs. Goals were operationalized through performance indicators and strategic mental models through train completion strategies.Results:A variation was found between operators for both self-reported primary performance indicators and completion strategies. Further, the primary goal of only 14% of the operators reflected the primary organizational goal (i.e., arrival punctuality). An incongruence was also found between train traffic controllers’ self-reported performance indicators and objective performance in a more disrupted condition. The level of experience tends to affect performance differently.Conclusion:There is a gap between primary organizational goals and preferred individual goals. Further, the relative strong diversity in primary operator goals and strategic mental models indicates weak resilience at the individual level.Application:With recent and upcoming large-scale changes throughout the sociotechnical space of the railway infrastructure organization, the findings are useful to facilitate future railway traffic control and the development of a resilient system.

Toward quantifying metrics for rail-system resilience: identification and analysis of performance weak resilience signals

This paper aims to enhance tangibility of the resilience engineering concept by facilitating understanding and operationalization of weak resilience signals (WRSs) in the rail sector. Within complex socio-technical systems, accidents can be seen as unwanted outcomes emerging from uncontrolled sources of entropy (functional resonance). Various theoretical models exist to determine the variability of system interactions, the resilience state and the organization's intrinsic abilities to reorganize and manage their functioning and adaptive capacity to cope with unexpected and unforeseen disruptions. However, operationalizing and measuring concrete and reliable manifestations of resilience and assessing their impact at a system level have proved to be a challenge. A multi-method, ethnographic observation and resilience questionnaire, were used to determine resilience baseline conditions at an operational rail traffic control post. This paper describes the development, implementation and initial validation of WRSs identified and modeled around a `performance system boundary.' In addition, a WRS analysis function is introduced to interpret underlying factors of the performance WRSs and serves as a method to reveal potential sources of future resonance that could comprise system resilience. Results indicate that performance WRSs can successfully be implemented to accentuate relative deviations from resilience baseline conditions. A WRS analysis function can help to interpret these divergences and could be used to reveal (creeping) change processes and unnoticed initiating events that facilitate emergence that degrades rail-system resilience. Establishing relevant change signals in advance can contribute to anticipation and awareness, enhance organizational learning and stimulate resilient courses of action and adaptive behavior that ensures rail operation reliability.

Measuring Workload Weak Resilience Signals at a Rail Control Post

OCCUPATIONAL APPLICATIONS This article describes an observational study at a rail control post to measure workload weak resilience signals. A weak resilience signal indicates a possible degradation of a system's resilience, which is defined as the ability of a complex socio-technical system to cope with unexpected and unforeseen disruptions. A method based upon a weak resilience signal framework introduces a new metric, stretch, to measure the signals. Stretch is a subjective or an objective reaction of the system to an external cluster event and is an operationalization of variables in an earlier stress–strain model. The stretch ratio between the subjective and objective stretch are used to identify workload weak resilience signals. Weak resilience signals identified during real-time operation revealed obstacles that influence the resilience state and enabled actions to anticipate and mitigate changes to maintain the resilience of the system.TECHNICAL ABSTRACT Background: Continuous performance improvement of a complex socio-technical system may result in a reduced ability to cope with unexpected and unforeseen disruptions. As with technical and biological systems, these socio-technical systems may become “robust, yet fragile.” Resilience engineering examines the ability of a socio-technical system to reorganize and adapt to the unexpected and unforeseen. However, the resilience doctrine is not yet sufficiently well developed for designing and achieving those goals, and metrics are needed to identify resilience change. Purpose: A new approach was explored to identify changes in the resilience of a rail system around the workload boundary to anticipate those changes during normal operations and hence improve the ability to cope with unexpected and unforeseen disruptions. Methods: A weak resilience signal framework was developed with a resilience-state model for a railway system, resulting in a generic, quantifiable, weak resilience signal model. Two workload measurements (i.e., external cognitive task load and integrated workload scale) were combined into a new metric called stretch. Heart rate variability was used for correlation and validation. An observational study was used to measure workload weak resilience signal through workload quantification at an operational rail control post. Results: A theoretical resilience-state model for a railway system was developed and used to generate a generic quantifiable weak resilience signal model, forming a weak resilience signal framework that is the basis for a method to measure workload weak resilience signal through a new metric called stretch with three variations: objective stretch, subjective stretch, and stretch ratio. A component of the subjective stretch is the integrated workload scale, for which a real-time tool was developed for measuring and monitoring. Workload weak resilience signals identified at a rail control post triggered analysis to reveal anticipated obstacles. Conclusions: A resilience-state model of a rail system can be used to quantify workload weak resilience signals. Stretch ratio differences represent changes of the workload state used to measure workload weak resilience signals that aid in revealing obstacles jeopardizing the resilience state.

Climate change and poverty: building resilience of rural mountain communities in South Sikkim, Eastern Himalaya, India

The rural mountain communities have long faced challenges from a range of social, economic, political and environmental factors and the threat from these factors has only intensified due to the current climate change. This study was conducted in South Sikkim, a mountain region located in the Indian Eastern Himalaya, to get a deeper insight of the multitude of barriers and stresses that a poor rural mountain community experiences. The purpose of the study was to get community’s perception on the kind of interventions that they consider important to lift them out of poverty and enhance their resilience to manage climate risk. The analysis is based on focus group discussions and household survey, using a multidimensional poverty assessment tool. The study highlights that the vulnerability of the study region to climate change is not concentrated to physical or geographical factors alone, but mostly to the socio-economic factors like lack of access to education, health care, limited livelihood opportunities, limited resources, etc. People consider that these non-climatic factors act as barriers for them to overcome poverty, contribute to their weak resilience, and make it extremely difficult for them to manage the risk posed by climate change. The study therefore suggests that it is of utmost importance that the interventions are planned in ways that address the multidimensional poverty in the region which in turn will enhance community’s inherent capacity to adapt to current as well as future climate risk.

Robust Distributed Routing in Dynamical Networks—Part I: Locally Responsive Policies and Weak Resilience

Robustness of distributed routing policies is studied for dynamical networks, with respect to adversarial disturbances that reduce the link flow capacities. A dynamical network is modeled as a system of ordinary differential equations derived from mass conservation laws on a directed acyclic graph with a single origin-destination pair and a constant total outflow at the origin. Routing policies regulate the way the total outflow at each nondestination node gets split among its outgoing links as a function of the current particle density, while the outflow of a link is modeled to depend on the current particle density on that link through a flow function. The dynamical network is called partially transferring if the total inflow at the destination node is asymptotically bounded away from zero, and its weak resilience is measured as the minimum sum of the link-wise magnitude of disturbances that make it not partially transferring. The weak resilience of a dynamical network with arbitrary routing policy is shown to be upper bounded by the network's min-cut capacity and, hence, is independent of the initial flow conditions. Moreover, a class of distributed routing policies that rely exclusively on local information on the particle densities, and are locally responsive to that, is shown to yield such maximal weak resilience. These results imply that locality constraints on the information available to the routing policies do not cause loss of weak resilience. Fundamental properties of dynamical networks driven by locally responsive distributed routing policies are analyzed in detail, including global convergence to a unique limit flow. The derivation of these properties exploits the cooperative nature of these dynamical systems, together with an additional stability property implied by the assumption of monotonicity of the flow as a function of the density on each link.

The uniqueness of the energy security, justice, and governance problem

This article argues that among all policy fields exhibiting externalities of a global scale, energy stands out on four dimensions: vertical complexity, horizontal complexity, higher entailed costs, and stronger path dependency. These structural attributes are at odds with contemporary key challenges of energy security, energy justice, and low carbon energy transition. With regard to the latter, energy governance challenges occur related to unclear levels of authority and weak resilience. This has implications for energy scholarship, specifically relating to the political economy of energy transitions, discussions about common pool resources, systems analysis, and other neighboring disciplines.

A Multi-Scale Image Matching Recognition Algorithm Based on Phase Correlation

The image matching recognition method of phase correlation is based on the shift characteristics of the Fourier transform. The traditional image matching recognition algorithm has significant influence of the template size upon its matching accuracy and has weak resilience to noises except for the gauss noise. Addressing these shortcomings, we proposed a multi-scale matching recognition method based on phase correlation, combined with wavelet transform and edge detection. The algorithm, processed the reference image and the template image in different scales with such steps: decomposition, denoising, reconstruction, edge detection and the Fourier transform, phase correlation. Hence, it overcome the dependence upon template size effectively and improve the reliability and the resilience of various noises. Finally, we verified the algorithm with a real ground shooting image as the reference image and an intercepted part as the template image. The results have shown that the proposed approach is better than the traditional image matching method.

Water, livelihoods and climate change adaptation in the Tonle Sap Lake area, Cambodia: learning from the past to understand the future

The changing environment is expected to intensify the challenges that people in developing countries are facing, particularly among the groups whose livelihoods depend on natural resources. The adaptive capacity of livelihoods largely defines the extent to which people can cope with future environmental changes, whether caused by climate change or other factors such as land use changes and water resources development. This article analyses the resilience and adaptive capacity of rural livelihoods around Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake, an exceptional lake-floodplain system dominated by flood pulse. The research findings demonstrate that despite the people's tradition of adapting to the remarkable seasonal variation of water and related resources, their capacity to adapt to unusual environmental changes is weak, with the poorest being clearly the most vulnerable group. Reasons for the weak resilience include villages' relatively homogenous livelihood structures, unjust governance practices, increasing inequality and the lack of opportunities for livelihood diversification. It is concluded that while climate change is likely to pose a remarkable challenge to people's livelihoods in the longer term, climate change adaptation activities should also take into account other environmental changes. Equally critical is the understanding of the broader socio-political context and its dynamics in increasing—and decreasing—livelihood resilience.