Search

Thank you. Our task is to think about the possible role of the humanities and qualitative social sciences in the context of the climate disaster. I teach the humanities. My [...]

In this paper in three parts, climate change is approached by dealing with the three sides from which the danger comes: (i) global warming, (ii) increasing climate variability, (iii) more (and possibly more severe) meteorological and climatological extreme events. These are the three panels of this triptych review and the right panel on climate extremes and society's responses, including mitigation attempts as part of preparedness of African farmers, is this part. The occurrence of more (and possibly more severe) extreme meteorological/climatological events, as another likely consequence of climate change, is discussed, reviewing the literature and dealing for Africa with recent droughts and famines. It appears that there is more than sufficient proof that the numbers of disasters have risen globally, and on average at an increasing rate, over the last half a century, with more evidence in the later decades. Extreme hazards have a shorter recurrence time but whether they also have become more severe cannot be easily determined. This is due to developments in observations, populations and vulnerabilities and lack of developments in climate models. Only for increased temperature related disasters, severity has clearly become larger. However, recent more realistic calculations appear to suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years. In physical terms, there is also little or no evidence of increased severity of floods over the past century. Increasing farmer preparedness will be an important part of better responses to these conditions. The traditional response farming as to droughts, floods (annual recession and recurrent occasional ones), strong winds and other serious disasters should be among starting points. At the end of this paper, the contributions that tropical agriculture can make to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) in win-win situations are also dealt with. Soil carbon sequestration has a higher mitigation potential than emission reductions in African agriculture, although both may be important. These are best achieved under management systems with higher carbon density, as well as improved soil conservation. Agroforestry, assisted natural regeneration, forest rehabilitation, forest gardens, and improved forest fallow projects should all be eligible under the Clean Development Mechanism. Throughout the paper text boxes are used that illustrate local conditions that must be taken into account to understand the impacts/consequences of climate change for African farmers and how they may cope with them. Key words: Disasters, extreme events, famine, mitigation, CLIMATE CHANGE, WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR AFRICAN FARMERS? More (and possibly more severe) climate extremes--Attributing events, counting hazards, understanding vulnerability Extreme atmospheric events are among the most devastating causes [...]

ABSTRACT A liberal-arts-based undergraduate nursing program engaged in curriculum enhancement activities that led to the implementation of a disaster simulation for 81 multidisciplinary undergraduate students. A pretest/posttest design was used [...]

A simulation exercise 'The Meyerhoff Incident' in national security decision-making was introduced with an aim to excite the intellects and make the study of politics more relevant to the real world. The students' level of enthusiasm and engagement and their comments about the exercise indicate that 'The Meyerhoff Incident' was a great success as it broke up the ordinary classroom routine and put the students in control of their own learning.

This article examines the importance of communication and coordination in the successful management of emergencies, focusing on training theories and technologies used to support emergency management teams. Topics addressed include problem solving, decision making, and organization goals.

Research presented concerns the effectiveness of using computer simulations for training teams to deal with emergencies. Topics addressed include situated learning, team communication, organizational learning, and intelligent training systems.

To facilitate the implementation of restoration procedures in the event of a blackout, Consolidated Edison is considering the implementation of a knowledge-based restoration tool. This tool would not only guide operators through the execution of predefined procedures, but would also have the ability to adapt and modify these procedures if needed. These requirements can be met if the tool is built on top of a model of the power system and if it decomposes the procedure into components with an explicit or easily identifiable purpose. This tool has been developed and integrated with ConEd's Operator Training Simulator so that it can be used to train the operators in the restoration procedures. After evaluation it may be enhanced to become an on-line tool for use during an actual restoration. Keywords: power system restoration, knowledge-based system, operator training simulator.

Although expert systems are usually thought of as decision aids for human users, they may also serve as training aids for situations in which humans must make quick decisions and computer-based decision aids would not be viable. This paper describes an exploratory study of the application of expert system-based training for an emergency management of a hazardous chemical spill. Human factors methodologies are employed to define the training, control, and test conditions needed to quantify the significance of using an expert system for training human decision makers for an emergency management application. The results confirmed the hypothesis that the natural human tendency in processing rules would be to resort to a data-driven strategy. The expert system-based training can deter the human from employing such a strategy and can improve his performance, especially as the complexity in rule-chaining increases. Overall, the results of this study are supportive of the use of artificial intelligence-based techniques for training humans in the emergency management of risk.

First in a series on public health preparedness in conjunction with APHA's National Public Health Week. The event, to be held April 2-8, has a theme of "Take the First [...]

In many ministries of health, applied epidemiology and training programs (AETPs) are responsible for detecting and responding to acute health events, including bioterrorism, In November 2001, we assessed the bioterrorism response capacity of 29 AETPs; 17 (59%) responded. Fifteen countries (88%) had bioterrorism response plans; in 6 (40%), AETPs took the lead in preparation and in 6 (40%) they assisted. Between September 11 and November 29, 2001, 12 AETPs (71%) responded to a total of 3024 bioterrorism-related phone calls. Six programs (35%) responded to suspected bioterrorism events. AETPs play an important role in bioterrorism surveillance and response. Support for this global network by various health agencies is beneficial for all developed and developing countries.