Search results for: climate adaptation strategies

Authors: Joanne Sin Wei Yeoh, Quynh Lê, Daniel R. Terry, Rosa Mc Manamey

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Food security is a global issue and one of the concerns in Australia, particularly in regional and rural areas. Despite Australia’s current ability to produce enough food to feed more than its current population, evidence has been accumulating over the last decade to demonstrate many Australians struggle to feed themselves, including immigrants from cultural and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. This study aims to identify the acculturation strategies used by migrants to enhance their approach to food security in Tasmania. The study employed a mixed methods approach that used both questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with migrants living in Tasmania. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyse data collected from questionnaire, whereas, thematic analysis was employed to analyse the interview data. Migrants (n=301) completed the questionnaire with a response rate of 50.2% and 33 follow-up interviews were conducted. We found that majority of the migrants (70.0%) replaced food ingredients and went without the food they could not buy from shops with similar ingredients. Support and advice from friends were effective ways to improve their food access. Additionally, length of stays in Tasmania and region of origin were significantly associated with the ways migrants dealing with food security. The interview results revealed that migrants managed to adapt to the new food culture by using different acculturation strategies, including access food ingredients from other country; adjusting or adapting; home gardening and access to technology. In addition, social and cultural capitals were also treated as vital roles in improving migrants’ food security. To summarize, migrants employed different strategies for food security while acculturating into the new environment. Our findings could become the guidelines for migrants and relevant government or private sectors that address food security.

Keywords: food security, migrants, strategies, inferential statistics

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Authors: Gözde Arzu Sarıcan

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Contemporary urbanization processes and spatial transformations are intensely debated across various fields of social sciences. One prominent concept in these discussions is "common spaces." Common spaces offer a critical theoretical framework, particularly for addressing the social and economic inequalities brought about by urbanization. This study examines the processes of commoning and their impacts through the lens of squatter neighborhoods in Turkey, emphasizing the importance of affordable housing. It focuses on the role and significance of these neighborhoods in the formation of common spaces, analyzing the collective actions and resistance strategies of residents. This process, which began with the construction of shelters to meet the shelter needs of low-income households migrating from rural to urban areas, has turned into low-quality squatter settlements over time. For low-income households lacking the economic power to rent or buy homes in the city, these areas provided an affordable housing solution. Squatter neighborhoods reflect the efforts of local communities to protect and develop their communal living spaces through collective actions and resistance strategies. This collective creation process involves the appropriation of occupied land as a common resource through the rules established by the commons. Organized occupations subdivide these lands, shaped through collective creation processes. For the squatter communities striving for economic and social adaptation, these areas serve as buffer zones for urban integration. In squatter neighborhoods, bonds of friendship, kinship, and compatriotism are strong, playing a significant role in the creation and dissemination of collective knowledge. Squatter areas can be described as common spaces that emerge out of necessity for low-income and marginalized groups. The design and construction of housing in squatter neighborhoods are shaped by the collective participation and skills of the residents. Streets are formed through collective decision-making and labor. Over time, the demands for housing are communicated to local authorities, enhancing the potential for commoning. Common spaces are shaped by collective needs and demands, appropriated, and transformed into potential new spaces. Common spaces are continually redefined and recreated. In this context, affordable housing becomes an essential aspect of these common spaces, providing a foundation for social and economic stability. This study evaluates the processes of commoning and their effects through the lens of squatter neighborhoods in Turkey. Communities living in squatter neighborhoods have managed to create and protect communal living spaces, especially in situations where official authorities have been inadequate. Common spaces are built on values such as solidarity, cooperation, and collective resistance. In urban planning and policy development processes, it is crucial to consider the concept of common spaces. Policies that support the collective efforts and resistance strategies of communities can contribute to more just and sustainable living conditions in urban areas. In this context, the concept of common spaces is considered an important tool in the fight against urban inequalities and in the expression and defense mechanisms of communities. By emphasizing the importance of affordable housing within these spaces, this study highlights the critical role of common spaces in addressing urban social and economic challenges.

Keywords: affordable housing, common space, squating process, turkey

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Authors: Cheryl Teelucksingh

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Toronto is in the midst of an urban development and infrastructure boom. Population growth and concerns about urban sprawl and carbon emissions have led to pressure on the municipal and the provincial governments to re-think urban development. Toronto’s approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation has positioning of the emerging green economy as part of the solution. However, the emerging green economy many not benefit all Torontonians in terms of jobs, improved infrastructure, and enhanced quality of life. Community benefits agreements (CBAs) are comprehensive, negotiated commitments, in which founders and builders of major infrastructure projects formally agree to work with community interest groups based in the community where the development is taking place, toward mutually beneficial environmental and labor market outcomes. When community groups are equitably represented in the process, they stand not only to benefit from the jobs created from the project itself, but also from the longer-term community benefits related to the quality of the completed work, including advocating for communities’ environmental needs. It is believed that green employment initiatives in Toronto should give greater consideration to best practices learned from community benefits agreements. Drawing on the findings of a funded qualitative study in Toronto (Canada), “The Green Gap: Toward Inclusivity in Toronto’s Green Economy” (2013-2016), this paper examines the emergent CBA in Toronto in relation to the development of a light rail transit project. Theoretical and empirical consideration will be given to the research gaps around CBAs, the role of various stakeholders, and discuss the potential for CBAs to gain traction in the Toronto’s urban development context. The narratives of various stakeholders across Toronto’s green economy will be interwoven with a discussion of the CBA model in Toronto and other jurisdictions.

Keywords: green economy in Toronto, equity, community benefits agreements, environmental justice, community sustainability

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Authors: Ya-Mei Chen

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Online crowdsourced translation, an innovative translation practice brought by Web 2.0 technologies and the democratization of information, has become increasingly popular in the Internet era. Carried out by grass-root internet users, crowdsourced translation contains fundamentally different features from its off-line traditional counterpart, such as voluntary participation and parallel collaboration. To better understand such a participatory and collaborative nature, this paper will use the online Chinese translation project of Global Voices as a case study to investigate the following issues: (1) the changes in volunteer translators’ and reviewers’ motivations for participation, (2) translators’ and reviewers’ use of translation strategies and (3) the correlations of translators’ and reviewers’ motivations and strategies with the organizational mission, the translation style guide, the translator-reviewer interaction, the mediation of the translation platform and various types of capital within the translation field. With an aim to systematically explore the above three issues, this paper will collect both quantitative and qualitative data and then draw upon Engestrom’s activity theory and Bourdieu’s field theory as a theoretical framework to analyze the data in question. An online anonymous questionnaire will be conducted to obtain the quantitative data. The questionnaire will contain questions related to volunteer translators’ and reviewers’ backgrounds, participation motivations, translation strategies and mutual relations as well as the operation of the translation platform. Concerning the qualitative data, they will come from (1) a comparative study between some English news texts published on Global Voices and their Chinese translations, (2) an analysis of the online discussion forum associated with Global Voices’ Chinese translation project and (3) the information about the project’s translation mission and guidelines. It is hoped that this research, through a detailed sociological analysis of a cause-driven crowdsourced translation project, can enable translation researchers and practitioners to adequately meet the translation challenges appearing in the digital age.

Keywords: crowdsourced translation, global voices, motivation, translation strategies

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Authors: Theo Heyns Veldsman, Dieter Veldsman

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Organisational Identity (OI) refers to who and what the organisation is, what it stands for and does, and what it aspires to become. OI explores the perspectives of how we see ourselves, are seen by others and aspire to be seen. It provides as rationale the ‘why’ for the organisation’s continued existence. The most widely accepted differentiating features of OI are encapsulated in the organisation’s core, distinctive, differentiating, and enduring attributes. OI finds its concrete expression in the organisation’s Purpose, Vision, Strategy, Core Ideology, and Legacy. In the emerging new order infused by hyper-turbulence and hyper-fluidity, the VICCAS world, OI provides a secure anchor and steady reference point for the organisation, particularly the growing widespread focus on Purpose, which is indicative of the organisation’s sense of social citizenship. However, the transforming world of work (TWOW) - particularly the potent mix of ongoing disruptive innovation, the 4th Industrial Revolution, and the gig economy with the totally unpredicted COVID19 pandemic - has resulted in the consequential adoption of different workplace strategies by organisations in terms of how, where, and when work takes place. Different employment relations (transient to permanent); work locations (on-site to remote); work time arrangements (full-time at work to flexible work schedules); and technology enablement (face-to-face to virtual) now form the basis of the employer/employee relationship. The different workplace strategies, fueled by the demands of TWOW, pose a substantive challenge to organisations of doing durable OI work, able to fulfill OI’s critical attributes of core, distinctive, differentiating, and enduring. OI work is contained in the ongoing, reciprocally interdependent stages of sense-breaking, sense-giving, internalisation, enactment, and affirmation. The objective of our paper is to explore how to do durable OI work relative to different workplace strategies in the TWOW. Using a conceptual-theoretical approach from a practice-based orientation, the paper addresses the following topics: distinguishes different workplace strategies based upon a time/place continuum; explicates stage-wise the differential organisational content and process consequences of these strategies for durable OI work; indicates the critical success factors of durable OI work under these differential conditions; recommends guidelines for OI work relative to TWOW; and points out ethical implications of all of the above.

Keywords: organisational identity, workplace strategies, new world of work, durable organisational identity work

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Authors: Tirtha Raj Adhikari, Lochan Prasad Devkota

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This research studied the hydrological regime of three glacierized river basins in Khumbu, Langtang and Annapurna regions of Nepal using the Hydraologiska Byrans Vattenbalansavde (HBV), HVB-light 3.0 model. Future scenario of discharge is also studied using downscaled climate data derived from statistical downscaling method. General Circulation Models (GCMs) successfully simulate future climate variability and climate change on a global scale; however, poor spatial resolution constrains their application for impact studies at a regional or a local level. The dynamically downscaled precipitation and temperature data from Coupled Global Circulation Model 3 (CGCM3) was used for the climate projection, under A2 and A1B SRES scenarios. In addition, the observed historical temperature, precipitation and discharge data were collected from 14 different hydro-metrological locations for the implementation of this study, which include watershed and hydro-meteorological characteristics, trends analysis and water balance computation. The simulated precipitation and temperature were corrected for bias before implementing in the HVB-light 3.0 conceptual rainfall-runoff model to predict the flow regime, in which Groups Algorithms Programming (GAP) optimization approach and then calibration were used to obtain several parameter sets which were finally reproduced as observed stream flow. Except in summer, the analysis showed that the increasing trends in annual as well as seasonal precipitations during the period 2001 - 2060 for both A2 and A1B scenarios over three basins under investigation. In these river basins, the model projected warmer days in every seasons of entire period from 2001 to 2060 for both A1B and A2 scenarios. These warming trends are higher in maximum than in minimum temperatures throughout the year, indicating increasing trend of daily temperature range due to recent global warming phenomenon. Furthermore, there are decreasing trends in summer discharge in Langtang Khola (Langtang region) which is increasing in Modi Khola (Annapurna region) as well as Dudh Koshi (Khumbu region) river basin. The flow regime is more pronounced during later parts of the future decades than during earlier parts in all basins. The annual water surplus of 1419 mm, 177 mm and 49 mm are observed in Annapurna, Langtang and Khumbu region, respectively.

Keywords: temperature, precipitation, water discharge, water balance, global warming

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Authors: François Chiocchio, Mahshid Gharibpour

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Regardless of the extent to which succession management is implemented in the private sector, it is still overlooked in the public sector. Traditional succession management is evolving providing a better alignment between business strategies and HR strategies. Succession management brings sustainable effectiveness for succession programs through career path development, knowledge and skill transfer, job retention, as well as high-potential candidates’ empowerment for upcoming vacancies. By way of a systematic literature review, we bring into focus strategic succession management in public organizations and discuss best ways of implementation. 

Keywords: succession management, strategic succession management, public organization, succession management model

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Authors: Matthew David Marmet

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Knowing your audience is important regardless of what profession you are in. Whether this audience is comprised of customers or students, having an idea of who these people are, where they come from, and some of the challenges they may have faced allows us to build better relationships with them. This paper will recap a field study experience that has been dubbed a "reverse field trip" to a local high school. Here, going back in time produced not only a great deal of nostalgia, but also served as a reminder of who prospective university students are before they arrive. This information is invaluable as it can help inform classroom (and other) strategies that may help them succeed, and persist through the college years, which will no doubt present them with undeniable changes and challenges. Interviews with school staff and observations of student behavior, both inside and outside the classroom, yielded several lessons learned (i.e., issues to address). These include considerations of regimen, three separate yet related levels of context, and expectation-setting. Each issue will be presented in detail, along with pedagogical strategies to help address them. These strategies have both student-level and institutional benefits as they have the potential not only to increase student engagement, but also improve retention rates.

Keywords: pedagogy, Student engagement, student retention, teaching strategy

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Authors: Atefeh Kalantari

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The increase in population and energy consumption has caused environmental crises such as the energy crisis, increased pollution, and climate change, all of which have resulted in a decline in the quality of life, especially in urban environments. Iran is one of the developing countries which faces several challenges concerning energy use and environmental sustainability such as air pollution, climate change, and energy security. On the other hand, due to its favorable geographic characteristics, Iran has diverse and accessible renewable sources, which provide appropriate substitutes to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Sustainable development programs and post-carbon cities rely on implementing energy policies in different sectors of society, particularly, the built environment sector is one of the main ones responsible for energy consumption and carbon emissions for cities. Because of this, several advancements and programs are being implemented to promote energy efficiency for urban planning, and city experts, like others, are looking for solutions to deal with these problems. Among the solutions provided for this purpose, low-carbon design can be mentioned. Among the different scales, the neighborhood can be mentioned as a suitable scale for applying the principles and solutions of low-carbon urban design; Because the neighborhood as a "building unit of the city" includes elements and flows that all affect the number of CO2 emissions. The article aims to provide criteria for designing a low-carbon and carbon-free neighborhood through descriptive methods and secondary data analysis. The ultimate goal is to promote energy efficiency and create a more resilient and livable environment for local residents.

Keywords: climate change, low-carbon urban design, carbon-free neighborhood, resilience

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Authors: Nadish Anand, Richard D. Gould

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A simplistic model is introduced for determining the thermal characteristics of a Low-rise Residential (LRR) building and then predicts the energy usage by its Heating Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) system according to changes in weather conditions which are reflected in the Ambient Temperature (Outside Air Temperature). The LRR buildings are treated as a simple lump for solving the heat transfer problem and the model is derived using the lumped capacitance model of transient conduction heat transfer from bodies. Since most contemporary HVAC systems have a thermostat control which will have an offset temperature and user defined set point temperatures which define when the HVAC system will switch on and off. The aim is to predict without any error the Body Temperature (i.e. the Inside Air Temperature) which will estimate the switching on and off of the HVAC system. To validate the mathematical model derived from lumped capacitance we have used EnergyPlus simulation engine, which simulates Buildings with considerable accuracy. We have predicted through the low order model the Inside Air Temperature of a single house kept in three different climate zones (Detroit, Raleigh & Austin) and different orientations for summer and winter seasons. The prediction error from the model for the same day as that of model parameter calculation has showed an error of < 10% in winter for almost all the orientations and climate zones. Whereas the prediction error is only <10% for all the orientations in the summer season for climate zone at higher latitudes (Raleigh & Detroit). Possible factors responsible for the large variations are also noted in the work, paving way for future research.

Keywords: building energy, energy consumption, energy+, HVAC, low order model, lumped capacitance

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Authors: Malihe Shahidan, Azin Madhi, Meisam Shahbaz

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In recent decades, the role of supply chains in sustaining businesses and establishing their superiority in the market has been under focus. The realization of the goals and strategies of a business enterprise is largely dependent on the cooperation of the chain, including suppliers, distributors, retailers, etc. Supply chains can potentially be disrupted by both internal and external factors. In this paper, resilience strategies have been identified and analyzed in three levels: sourcing, producing, and distributing by considering economic depression as a current risk factor for the machine-made rugs industry. In this study, semi-structured interviews for data gathering and thematic analysis for data analysis are applied. Supply chain data has been gathered from seven rug factories before and after the economic depression through semi-structured interviews. The identified strategies were derived from literature review and validated by collecting data from a group of eighteen industry and university experts, and the results were analyzed using statistical tests. Finally, the outsourcing of new products and products in the new market, the development and completion of the product portfolio, the flexibility in the composition and volume of products, the expansion of the market to price-sensitive, direct sales, and disintermediation have been determined as strategies affecting supply chain resilience of machine-made rugs' industry during an economic depression.

Keywords: distribution, economic depression, machine-made rug, outsourcing, production, sourcing, supply chain, supply chain resilience

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Authors: Mouna Essaadi, Mohamed Khafallah, Abdallah Saad, Hamid Chaikhy

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This paper presents a comparative analysis between conventional direct torque control (C_DTC), Modified direct torque control (M_DTC) and twelve sectors direct torque control (12_DTC).Those different strategies are compared by simulation in term of torque, flux and stator current performances. Finally, a summary of the comparative analysis is presented.

Keywords: C_DTC, M_DTC, 12_DTC, torque dynamic, stator current, flux, performances

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Authors: Nachawit Tikul

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This study aimed to determine low-income housing adaptations for flooding, which causes living problems and housing damage, and the results from improvement. Three low-income settlements in Chiang Mai which experienced different flood types, i.e. flash floods in Samukeepattana, drainage floods in Bansanku, and river floods in Kampangam, were chosen for the study. Almost all of the residents improved their houses to protect the property from flood damage by changing building materials to flood damage resistant materials for walls, floors, and other parts of the structure that were below the base of annual flood elevation. They could only build some parts of their own homes, so hiring skilled workers or contractors was still important. Building materials which have no need for any special tools and are easy to access and use for construction, as well as low cost, are selected for construction. The residents in the three slums faced living problems for only a short time and were able to cope with them. This may be due to the location of the three slums near the city where assistance is readily available. But the housing and the existence in the slums can endure only the regular floods and residence still have problems in unusual floods, which have been experienced 1-2 times during the past 10 years. The residents accept the need for evacuations and prepare for them. When faced with extreme floods, residence have evacuated to the nearest safe place such as schools and public building, and come back to repair the houses after the flood. These are the distinguishing characteristics of low-income living which can withstand serious situations due to the simple lifestyle. Therefore, preparation of living areas for use during severe floods and encouraging production of affordable flood resistant materials should be areas of concern when formulating disaster assistance policies for low income people.

Keywords: flooding, low-income settlement, housing, adaptation

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Authors: Ahmed Ali Samejo, Riffat Sultana

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Pakistan has the sandy Thar Desert in the eastern area, which share border line with India and has exotic fauna and flora, the livelihood of native people rely on livestock and rain fed cultivated fields. The climate of Thar Desert is very harsh and stressful due to frequent drought and very little rainfall, which may occur during monsoon season in the months of July to October and temperature is high, and wind speed also increases in April to June. Schistocerca gregaria is a destructive pest of vegetation from Mauritania to the border line of Pakistan and India. Sometimes they produce swarms which consume all plant where ever they land down and cause the loss in agro-economy of the world. During the recent study, we observed that vegetation was not unique throughout the Thar Desert in the year 2015, because the first spell of rainfall showered over all areas of the Thar Desert in July. However, the second and third spell of rain was confined to village Mahandre jo par and surroundings from August to October. Consequently, vegetation and cultivated crops grew up specially bajra crop (Pennistum glaucum). The climate of Mahandre jo par and surroundings became favorable for S.gregaria, and remaining areas of Thar Desert went hostile. Therefore desert locust attracted to the pleasant area (Mahandre jo par and surroundings) and gradually concentrated, increased reproductive activities, but did not gregarize due to the harvest of bajra crop and the onset of the winter season with an immediate decrease in temperature. An outbreak was near to come into existence, and thereupon conditions become stressful for hoppers to continue further development. Afore mentioned was one reason behind hurdle to the outbreak, another reason might be that migration and concentration of desert locust took place at the end of the season, so climate becomes unfavorable for hoppers, due to dryness of vegetation. Soils also become dry, because rainfall was not showered in end of the season, that’s why eggs that were deposited in late summer were desiccated. This data might be proved fruitful to forecast any outbreak update in future.

Keywords: agro-economy, destructive pest, climate, outbreak, vegetation

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Authors: Muhammad Imran, Iqra Basit, Mobushir Riaz Khan, Sajid Rasheed Ahmad

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The present study investigates the space-time impact of climate change on the rice crop calendar in tropical Gujranwala, Pakistan. The climate change impact was quantified through the climatic variables, whereas the existing calendar of the rice crop was compared with the phonological stages of the crop, depicted through the time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from Landsat data for the decade 2005-2015. Local maxima were applied on the time series of NDVI to compute the rice phonological stages. Panel models with fixed and cross-section fixed effects were used to establish the relation between the climatic parameters and the time-series of NDVI across villages and across rice growing periods. Results show that the climatic parameters have significant impact on the rice crop calendar. Moreover, the fixed effect model is a significant improvement over cross-sectional fixed effect models (R-squared equal to 0.673 vs. 0.0338). We conclude that high inter-annual variability of climatic variables cause high variability of NDVI, and thus, a shift in the rice crop calendar. Moreover, inter-annual (temporal) variability of the rice crop calendar is high compared to the inter-village (spatial) variability. We suggest the local rice farmers to adapt this change in the rice crop calendar.

Keywords: Landsat NDVI, panel models, temperature, rainfall

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Authors: Yuliya Lipshits-Braziler

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For many young adults, career decision making is a difficult and complex process that may lead to indecision. Indecision is frequently associated with great psychological distress and low levels of well-being. One important resource for dealing with indecision is career decision self-efficacy (CDSE), which refers to people’s beliefs about their ability to successfully accomplish certain tasks involved in career choice. Drawing from Social Cognitive Theory, it has been hypothesized that CDSE correlates with (a) people’s likelihood to engage in or avoid career decision making tasks, (b) the amount of effort put into the decision making process, (c) the people’s persistence in decision making efforts when faced with difficulties, and (d) the eventual success in arriving at career decisions. Based on these assumptions, the present study examines the associations between the CDSE and 14 strategies for coping with career indecision among young adults. Using the structural equation modeling (SEM), the results showed that CDSE is positively associated with the use of productive coping strategies, such as information-seeking, problem-solving, positive thinking, and self-regulation. In addition, CDSE was negatively associated with nonproductive coping strategies, such as avoidance, isolation, ruminative thinking, and blaming others. Contrary to our expectations, CDSE was not significantly correlated with instrumental help-seeking, while it was negatively correlated with emotional help-seeking. The results of this study can be used to facilitate the development of interventions aiming to reinforce young adults’ career decision making self-efficacy, which may provide them with a basis for overcoming career indecision more effectively.

Keywords: career decision self-efficacy, career indecision, coping strategies, career counseling

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Authors: Muhammad Nur Haniff Mohd Noor, Rokiah Kadir, Suriyani Muhamad

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The National Forestry Act (NFA) 1984 is the primary forest law that regulates forest-related activities in Peninsular Malaysia. In the 1990s, abundance of illegal logging cases have called for legislative reform of the NFA 1984. As a result, NFA 1984 was amended in 1993 with the principal goal of controlling illegal forest encroachment in the forms of illegal logging, unauthorized harvesting, unlicensed forest settlement and other forms of unlawful activities. At a conceptual level, this paper discusses the policies and strategies implemented under the NFA 1984 (Amendment 1993) that are dedicated to overcome illegal logging. Then, the policies and strategies employed are reviewed and evaluated. Next, this paper conceptually discusses the loopholes of NFA 1984 (Amendment 1993) in relation to aspects where the regulation is considered insufficient to curb illegal logging. In the final section, vital actions and suggested improvements to improve the overall effectiveness of NFA 1984 (Amendment 1993) are examined.

Keywords: forest law and regulation, illegal logging, National Forestry Act 1984, NFA 1984, Amendment 1993, Peninsular Malaysia

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Authors: Djimy Dolcin

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Haiti is a victim of the seismic threat, due to its geographical location and geodynamic context. Moreover, the vulnerability of the population is aggravated by the occupation of areas highly exposed to this threat. This work, therefore, presents an analysis of seismic risk management in Haiti in the context of geodiversity and its potential for understanding risk. To carry out this work, a bibliographical search was carried out on the subject. Faced with this state of affairs, we realized that the implementation of information and education strategies aimed at the population, which until now has been unaware of the danger it faces, is a fundamental obligation.

Keywords: geodiversity, earthquake risk management, Haiti, earthquake risk

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Authors: Raquel Nieto, Marta Vázquez, Anita Drumond, Luis Gimeno

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One of the hot spots of climate change is the increment of ocean evaporation. The best estimation of evaporation, OAFlux data, shows strong increasing trends in evaporation from the oceans since 1978, with peaks during the hemispheric winter and strongest along the paths of the global western boundary currents and any inner Seas. The transport of moisture from oceanic sources to the continents is the connection between evaporation from the ocean and precipitation over the continents. A key question is to try to relate evaporative source regions over the oceans where trends have occurred in the last decades with their sinks over the continents to check if there have been also any trends in the precipitation amount or its characteristics. A Lagrangian approach based on FLEXPART and ERA-interim data is used to establish this connection. The analyzed period was 1980 to 2012. Results show that there is not a general pattern, but a significant agreement was found in important areas of climate interest.

Keywords: ocean evaporation, Lagrangian approaches, contiental precipitation, Europe

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Authors: Sibnath Sarkar

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Developing countries are facing many Social problems. In India, too there are several such problems. The problem of street children is one of them. No country or city anywhere in the world today is without the presence of street children, but the problem is most acute in developing countries. Thousands of street children can be seen in our populous cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, and Chennai. Most of them are in the age group of 5-15 years. The number of street children is increasing gradually. Poverty, unemployment, rapid urbanization, rural-urban migrations are the root causes of street children. Being deprive from many of their, they have escaped to the street as a safe place for living. Street children always related with the urban spaces in the developing world and it represents a sad outcome of the rapid urbanization process. After coming to the streets, these children have to cope with the new situation every day. They also adopt or develop many complex survival strategies and a variety of different informal or even illegal activities in public space and form supportive social networks in order to survive in street life. Street children use the different suitable urban spaces as their earning, living, entertaining spot. Therefore, the livelihoods of young people on the street should analyze in relation to the spaces they use, as well as their age and length of stay on the streets. This paper tries to explore the livelihood strategies and copping situation of street children in Sealdah station area. One hundred seventy-five street living children are included in the study living in and around the railway station.

Keywords: strategies, street children, survive, urban-space

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Authors: Teresa Carlone, Matteo Mannocchi

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In the last decade, a growing number of International Organizations are pushing toward green solutions for adaptation to climate change. This is particularly true in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and land planning, where Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) had been sponsored through funding programs and planning tools. Stakeholder engagement and co-creation of NBS is growing as a practice and research field in environmental projects, fostering the consolidation of a multidisciplinary socio-ecological approach in addressing hydro-meteorological risk. Even thou research and financial interests are constantly spread, the NBS mainstreaming process is still at an early stage as innovative concepts and practices make it difficult to be fully accepted and adopted by a multitude of different actors to produce wide scale societal change. The monitoring and impact evaluation of stakeholders’ participation in these processes represent a crucial aspect and should be seen as a continuous and integral element of the co-creation approach. However, setting up a fit for purpose-monitoring strategy for different contexts is not an easy task, and multiple challenges emerge. In this scenario, the Horizon 2020 OPERANDUM project, designed to address the major hydro-meteorological risks that negatively affect European rural and natural territories through the co-design, co-deployment, and assessment of Nature-based Solution, represents a valid case study to test a monitoring strategy from which set a broader, general and scalable monitoring framework. Applying a participative monitoring methodology, based on selected indicators list that combines quantitative and qualitative data developed within the activity of the project, the paper proposes an experimental in-depth analysis of the stakeholder engagement impact in the co-creation process of NBS. The main focus will be to spot and analyze which factors increase knowledge, social acceptance, and mainstreaming of NBS, promoting also a base-experience guideline to could be integrated with the stakeholder engagement strategy in current and future similar strongly collaborative approach-based environmental projects, such as OPERANDUM. Measurement will be carried out through survey submitted at a different timescale to the same sample (stakeholder: policy makers, business, researchers, interest groups). Changes will be recorded and analyzed through focus groups in order to highlight causal explanation and to assess the proposed list of indicators to steer the conduction of similar activities in other projects and/or contexts. The idea of the paper is to contribute to the construction of a more structured and shared corpus of indicators that can support the evaluation of the activities of involvement and participation of various levels of stakeholders in the co-production, planning, and implementation of NBS to address climate change challenges.

Keywords: co-creation and collaborative planning, monitoring, nature-based solution, participation & inclusion, stakeholder engagement

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Authors: Bryan Jenkins

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Introduction: The expansion of irrigation in the Canterbury region has led to the sustainability limits being reached for water availability and the cumulative effects of land use intensification. The institutional framework under New Zealand’s Resource Management Act was found to be an inadequate basis for managing water at sustainability limits. An alternative paradigm for water management was developed based on collaborative governance and nested adaptive systems. This led to the formulation and implementation of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. Methods: The nested adaptive system approach was adopted. Sustainability issues were identified at multiple spatial and time scales and defined potential failure pathways for the water resource system. These included biophysical and socio-economic issues such as water availability, cumulative effects on water quality due to land use intensification, projected changes in climate, public health, institutional arrangements, economic outcomes and externalities, and, social effects of changing technology. This led to the derivation of sustainability strategies to address these failure pathways. The collaborative governance approach involved stakeholder participation and community engagement to decide on a regional strategy; regional and zone committees of community and rūnanga (Māori groups) members to develop implementation programmes for the strategy; and, farmer collectives for operational management. Findings: The strategy identified improvements in the efficiency of use of water already allocated was more effective in improving water availability than a reliance on increased storage alone. New forms of storage with less adverse impacts were introduced, such as managed aquifer recharge and off-river storage. Reductions of nutrients from land use intensification by improving management practices has been a priority. Solutions packages for addressing the degradation of vulnerable lakes and rivers have been prepared. Biodiversity enhancement projects have been initiated. Greater involvement of Māori has led to the incorporation of kaitiakitanga (resource stewardship) into implementation programmes. Emerging issues are the need for improved integration of surface water and groundwater interactions, increased use of modelling of water and financial outcomes to guide decision making, and, equity in allocation among existing users as well as between existing and future users. Conclusions: However, sustainability analysis indicates that the proposed levels of management interventions are not sufficient to achieve community targets for water management. There is a need for more proactive recovery and rehabilitation measures. Managing to environmental limits is not sufficient, rather managing adaptive cycles is needed. Better measurement and management of water use efficiency is required. Proposed implementation packages are not sufficient to deliver desired water quality outcomes. Greater attention to targets important to environmental and recreational interests is needed to maintain trust in the collaborative process. Implementation programmes don’t adequately address climate change adaptations and greenhouse gas mitigation. Affordability is a constraint on adaptive capacity of farmers and communities. More funding mechanisms are required to implement proactive measures. The legislative and institutional framework needs to be changed to incorporate water framework legislation, regional sustainability strategies and water infrastructure coordination.

Keywords: collaborative governance, irrigation management, nested adaptive systems, sustainable water management

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Authors: Fakhreddin El Wali Elalaoui, Maatouk Mustapha

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The problem of global climate change isbecoming more and more serious. Therefore, there is a growing interest in renewable energy sources to minimize the impact of this phenomenon. Environmental policies are changing in different countries, including Morocco, with a greater focus on the integration and development of renewable energy projects. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the potential of solar power plants in Morocco based on two technologies: concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaics (PV). In order to perform an accurate search, we must follow a certain method to select the correct criteria. Four selection criteria were retained: climate, topography, location, and water resources. AnalyticHierarchy Process (AHP) was used to calculate the weight/importance of each criterion. Once obtained, weights are applied to the map for each criterion to produce a final ranking that ranks regions according to their potential. The results show that Morocco has strong potential for both technologies, especially in the southern region. Finally, this work is the first in the field to include the whole of Morocco in the study area.

Keywords: PV, Csp, solar energy, GIS

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Authors: T. Dubayova

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Slovak, as well as foreign authors, believe that the influence of non-cognitive factors on a student's academic success or failure is unquestionable. The aim of this paper is to establish a link between the mental vulnerability and coping strategies used by 4^th grade elementary school students in dealing with stressful situations and their academic performance, which was used as a simple quantitative indicator of academic success. The research sample consists of 320 students representing the standard population and 60 students with special education needs (SEN), who were assessed by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) by their teachers and the Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist (CCSC-R1) filled in by themselves. Students with SEN recorded an extraordinarily high frequency of mental vulnerability (34.5 %) than students representing the standard population (7 %). The poorest academic performance of students with SEN was associated with the avoidance behavior displayed during stressful situations. Students of the standard population did not demonstrate this association. Students with SEN are more likely to display mental health problems than students of the standard population. This may be caused by the accumulation of and frequent exposure to situations that they perceive as stressful.

Keywords: coping, mental vulnerability, pupil with special education needs, school performance, school success

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Authors: Kousay Abid

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The aim of this paper is to better understand talent and talent management (TM) in small French companies as well as in medium-sized ones (SME). While previous empirical investigations have largely focused on multinationals and big companies and concentrated on the Anglo-Saxon context, we focus on the pressing need for implementing TM strategies and practices, not only on a new ground of SME but also within a new European context related to France and the French context. This study also aims at understanding strategies adopted by those firms as means to attract, retain, maintain and to develop talents. We contribute to TM issues by adopting a multilevel approach, holding the goal of reaching a global holistic vision of interactions between various levels while applying TM, to make it more and more familiar to us. A qualitative research methodology based on a multiple-case study design, bottomed firstly on a qualitative survey and secondly on two in-depth case study, both built on interviews, will be used in order to develop an ideal analysis for TM strategies and practices. The findings will be based on data collected from more than 15 French SMEs. Our theoretical contributions are the fruit of context considerations and the dynamic of multilevel approach. Theoretically, we attempt first to clarify how talents and TM are seen and defined in French SMEs and consequently to enrich the literature on TM in SMEs out of the Anglo-Saxon context. Moreover, we seek to understand how SMEs manage jointly their talents and their TM strategies by setting up this contextualized pilot study. As well, we focus on the systematic TM model issue from French SMEs. Our prior managerial goal is to shed light on the need for TM to achieve a better management of these organizations by directing leaders to better identify the talented people whom they hold at all levels. In addition, our TM systematic model strengthens our analysis grid as recommendations for CEO and Human Resource Development (HRD) to make them rethink about the companies’ HR business strategies. Therefore, our outputs present a multiple lever of action that should be taken into consideration while reviewing HR strategies and systems, as well as their impact beyond organizational boundaries.

Keywords: french context, multilevel approach, small and medium-sized enterprises, talent management

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Authors: Jing Chen, Jun-E Liu, Peng Yue

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Objective: The objective of this study was to develop a psychological adjustment and adaptation status scale for breast cancer survivors, and to examine the reliability and validity of the scale. Method: 37 breast cancer survivors were recruited in qualitative research; a five-subject theoretical framework and an item pool of 150 items of the scale were derived from the interview data. In order to evaluate and select items and reach a preliminary validity and reliability for the original scale, the suggestions of study group members, experts and breast cancer survivors were taken, and statistical methods were used step by step in a sample of 457 breast cancer survivors. Results: An original 24-item scale was developed. The five dimensions “domestic affections”, “interpersonal relationship”, “attitude of life”, “health awareness”, “self-control/self-efficacy” explained 58.053% of the total variance. The content validity was assessed by experts, the CVI was 0.92. The construct validity was examined in a sample of 264 breast cancer survivors. The fitting indexes of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed good fitting of the five dimensions model. The criterion-related validity of the total scale with PTGI was satisfactory (r=0.564, p<0.001). The internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability were tested. Cronbach’s alpha value (0.911) showed a good internal consistency reliability, and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC=0.925, p<0.001) showed a satisfactory test-retest reliability. Conclusions: The scale was brief and easy to understand, was suitable for breast cancer patients whose physical strength and energy were limited.

Keywords: breast cancer survivors, rehabilitation, psychological adaption and adjustment, development of scale

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Authors: Jixiang Lei, Alexander Fuchs, Franz Pernkopf, Katrin Ellermann

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Within the Space@Sea project, funded by the Horizon 2020 program, an island consisting of multiple platforms was designed. The platforms are connected by ropes and fenders. The connection is critical with respect to the safety of the whole system. Therefore, fault detection systems are investigated, which could detect early warning signs for a possible failure in the connection elements. Previously, a model-based method called Extended Kalman Filter was developed to detect the reduction of rope stiffness. This method detected several types of faults reliably, but some types of faults were much more difficult to detect. Furthermore, the model-based method is sensitive to environmental noise. When the wave height is low, a long time is needed to detect a fault and the accuracy is not always satisfactory. In this sense, it is necessary to develop a more accurate and robust technique that can detect all rope faults under a wide range of operational conditions. Inspired by this work on the Space at Sea design, we introduce a fault diagnosis method based on deep neural networks. Our method cannot only detect rope degradation by using the acceleration data from each platform but also estimate the contributions of the specific acceleration sensors using methods from explainable AI. In order to adapt to different operational conditions, the domain adaptation technique DANN is applied. The proposed model can accurately estimate rope degradation under a wide range of environmental conditions and help users understand the relationship between the output and the contributions of each acceleration sensor.

Keywords: fault diagnosis, deep learning, domain adaptation, explainable AI

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Authors: Afsaneh Jasmine Majidi

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Language testing is an important part of language teaching experience and language learning process as it presents assessment strategies for teachers to evaluate the efficiency of teaching and for learners to examine their outcomes. However, language testing is demanding and challenging because it should provide the opportunity for proper and objective decision. In addition to all the efforts test designers put to design valid and reliable tests, there are some other determining factors which are even more complex and complicated. These factors affect the educational system, individuals, and society, and the impact of the tests vary according to the scope of the test. Seemingly, the impact of a simple classroom assessment is not the same as that of high stake tests such as International English Language Testing System (IELTS). As the importance of the test increases, it affects wider domain. Accordingly, the impacts of high stake tests are reflected not only in teaching, learning strategies but also in society. Testing experts use the term ‘washback’ or ‘impact’ to define the different effects of a test on teaching, learning, and community. This paper first looks at the theoretical background of ‘washback’ and ‘impact’ in language testing by reviewing of relevant literature in the field and then investigates washback effects of IELTS test of on Iranian IELTS teachers and students. The study found significant relationship between the washback effect of IELTS test and teaching strategies of Iranian IELTS teachers as well as performance of Iranian IELTS candidates and their community.

Keywords: high stake tests, IELTS, Iranian Candidates, language testing, test impact, washback

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Authors: Hugh Taylor

Abstract:

Industry analysts project that edge computing will be generating tens of billions in revenue in coming years. It’s not clear, however, if this will actually happen, and who, if anyone, will make it happen. Edge computing is seen as a critical success factor in industries ranging from telecom, enterprise IT and co-location. However, will any of these industries actually step up to make edge computing into a viable technology business? This paper looks at why the edge seems to be in a chasm, on the edge of realization, so to speak, but failing to coalesce into a coherent technology category like the cloud—and how the segment’s divergent industry players can come together to build a viable business at the edge.

Keywords: edge computing, multi-edge strategies, edge data centers, edge cloud

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Authors: Sylvain Amailland, Jean-Hugh Thomas, Charles Pézerat, Romuald Boucheron, Jean-Claude Pascal

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The noise requirements for naval and research vessels have seen an increasing demand for quieter ships in order to fulfil current regulations and to reduce the effects on marine life. Hence, new methods dedicated to the characterization of propeller noise, which is the main source of noise in the far-field, are needed. The study of cavitating propellers in closed-section is interesting for analyzing hydrodynamic performance but could involve significant difficulties for hydroacoustic study, especially due to reverberation and boundary layer noise in the tunnel. The aim of this paper is to present a numerical methodology for the identification of hydroacoustic sources on marine propellers using hydrophone arrays in a large hydrodynamic tunnel. The main difficulties are linked to the reverberation of the tunnel and the boundary layer noise that strongly reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper it is proposed to estimate the reflection coefficients using an inverse method and some reference transfer functions measured in the tunnel. This approach allows to reduce the uncertainties of the propagation model used in the inverse problem. In order to reduce the boundary layer noise, a cleaning algorithm taking advantage of the low rank and sparse structure of the cross-spectrum matrices of the acoustic and the boundary layer noise is presented. This approach allows to recover the acoustic signal even well under the boundary layer noise. The improvement brought by this method is visible on acoustic maps resulting from beamforming and DAMAS algorithms.

Keywords: acoustic imaging, boundary layer noise denoising, inverse problems, model adaptation

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