Investigating the status of disaster management within a world-wide context: a case study analysis

Disasters can be described as feats of spontaneous occurrences, in that they can happen at any minute at any time. There are two classifications of disasters, which are, natural disasters that cannot be predicted and continuously occur throughout society. While the other classification of disaster is that of man-made disasters, where disasters are caused not by natural phenomena, but by man's or society's actions, involuntary or voluntary, sudden or slow, with grave consequences to the population and the environment (Hays, 2008). Both these types of disasters can be controlled to a certain extent through appropriate disaster management plans and if managed efficiently have the potential to reduce the likelihood of overwhelming loss of lives and property. The Disaster Management cycle is split into four elements of response, recovery, mitigation and preparedness which contribute to emergency protocols of a nation when disaster strikes. Therefore, nations should incorporate them in their development plans and ensure efficient follow-up measures at community, national and international levels. This paper investigates worldwide disasters in order to examine how these disasters were managed and to identify the lessons learned. It provides an analysis of five worldwide case studies of recent disasters (Tsunami in Sri Lanka, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Earthquake in Pakistan, Summer floods in the UK and Flooding of the West-Link in Northern Ireland) mapping those to the four staged disaster management cycle. The paper analyses in detail the strategies adopted at each stage of the cycle comparing strengths and weaknesses of each case. It concludes that there had been satisfactory progress in both response and recovery phases but more attention is needed for disaster mitigation and preparedness

English Language Teachers’ Conceptions of Intercultural Empathy and Professional Identity: A Critical Discourse Analysis

English language teaching is intercultural in nature, and like all human activity, involves emotion and emotional understanding. Empathy is a means through which people can understand and express concern and care for one another. This article focuses on findings from a qualitative study that explored intercultural empathy in a culturally and linguistically diverse educational setting in Australia. A constructivist grounded theory research design was combined with Critical Discourse Analysis to develop theory inductively. An interpretation of the data as Discourse found connections and tensions in participants’ conceptions of themselves as empathic, interculturally effective teachers

Accurate position tracking of optically trapped live cells

Optical trapping is a powerful tool in Life Science research and is becoming common place in many microscopy laboratories and facilities. There is a growing need to directly trap the cells of interest rather than introduce beads to the sample that can affect the fundamental biological functions of the sample and impact on the very properties the user wishes to observe and measure. However, instabilities while tracking large inhomogeneous objects, such as cells, can make tracking position, calibrating trap strength and making reliable measurements challenging. These instabilities often manifest themselves as cell roll or re-orientation and can occur as a result of viscous drag forces and thermal convection, as well as spontaneously due to Brownian forces. In this paper we discuss and mathematically model the cause of this roll and present several experimental approaches for tackling these issues, including using a novel beam profile consisting of three closely spaced traps and tracking a trapped object by analysing fluorescence images. The approaches presented here trap T cells which form part of the adaptive immune response system, but in principle can be applied to a wide range of samples where the size and inhomogeneous nature of the trapped object can hinder particle tracking experiments

Beyond the Big Leave: The Future of U.S. Automotive Human Resources

Based on industry interviews and trends analyses, forecasts employment levels and hiring nationwide and in Michigan through 2016, and compiles automakers' input on technical needs, hiring criteria, and suggestions for training and education curricula

Participation in the UK National Home Energy Efficiency Programmes : a study of homeowners' perspectives

Since the 1970s, energy efficiency programmes have formed an integral part of the UK's strategy to reduce energy consumption in the home. From the outset, individual programme elements, such as approaches to behaviour change, were subject to some research but programmes were often criticized for failing to achieve large-scale participation. Even now, few comprehensive and cross-disciplinary examinations of people's perceptions of existing programmes have been carried out. This thesis sought to investigate, from the homeowners' perspectives, the efficacy of these programmes: it reviewed pro-environmental behaviour change theories and identified energy programmes' key aspects before proposing an evidence-based theoretical framework for the design of future programmes. Primary data were collected from 721 homeowners participating or enquiring about current programmes by means of a questionnaire, which enabled the identification of motivating and hindering factors and programmes' features that encourage/discourage homeowners' participation. Fifty semi-structured interviews clarified issues affecting homeowners' decisions whether or not to participate. The empirical data enabled the assessment of programmes using two rating scales: the first identified the level of significance of the barriers and motivators to homeowners; the second measured how successfully homeowners felt the programmes addressed them. The results were used to develop a new framework to guide future programmes' design. The findings show that while participating homeowners are generally satisfied with the programmes, making the decision to participate is largely influenced by comprehensive and holistic communication and the availability of a wide variety of measures and economic incentives. The findings demonstrate that advice and education programmes should form an intrinsic part of the more technical programmes, which should be much more localized. Even though the empirical part of the study has been carried out before the new government initiative 'Green Deal' was introduced, the research findings have direct implications for its design and dissemination careful consideration must be given to: who will administer the programme; how the current lack of trust in programmes and funding bodies can be overcome; and how to ensure accurate two-way conversation

An Inconvenient Truth: Barriers to Truth Recovery in the Aftermath of Institutional Child Abuse in Ireland

Contemporary settled democracies, including the United States, England and Wales and Ireland, have witnessed a string of high profile cases of institutional child abuse in both church and state settings. Set against the broader literature on transitional justice, this analysis argues that there are significant barriers to truth recovery within the particular context of historical institutional abuse by the clergy in the Republic of Ireland. In the main, I argue that the frameworks of the inquiries and commissions into historical institutional child abuse are not conducive to truth recovery or the search for justice in dealing with the legacy of an abusive past. It is the church-state relationship which makes the Irish situation noteworthy and unique. The Catholic Church and child care institutions are especially self-protective, secretive and closed by nature and strongly discourage the drawing of attention to any deficiencies in organisational procedures. The nature of the public inquiry process also means that there is often a rather linear focus on accountability and apportioning blame. Collectively, such difficulties inhibit fuller systemic investigation of the veracity of what actually happened and, in turn, meaningful modification of child care policies. The article concludes by offering some thoughts on implications for transitional justice discourses more broadly as well as the residual issues for Ireland and other settled democracies in terms of moving on from the legacy of institutional child abuse