A framework for evaluating the effectiveness of flood emergency management systems in Europe

Calls for enhancing societal resilience to flooding are echoed across Europe alongside mounting evidence that flood risk will increase in response to climate change amongst other risk-enhancing factors. At a time where it is now widely accepted that flooding cannot be fully prevented, resilience discourse in public policy stresses the importance of improving societal capacities to absorb and recover from flood events. Flood emergency management has thus emerged as a crucial strategy in flood risk management. However, the extent to which emergency management supports societal resilience is dependent on the effectiveness of governance and performance in practice. Drawing from the extensive body of literature documenting the success conditions of so-called effective emergency management more broadly, this study formulates an evaluation framework specifically tailored to the study of Flood Emergency Management Systems (FEMS) in Europe. Applying this framework, this research performs a cross-country comparison of FEMS in the Netherlands, England, Poland, France, and Sweden. Important differences are observed in how FEMS have evolved in relation to differing contextual backgrounds (political, cultural, administrative and socio-economic) and exposures to flood hazard. Whereas the organization and coordination of actors are functioning effectively, other aspects of effective FEMS are relatively under-developed in several countries, such as provisions for institutional learning, recovery-based activities and community preparedness. Drawing from examples of good practice, this paper provides a critical reflection on the opportunities and constraints to enhancing the effectiveness of FEMS in Europe

Plant-plant mediated interactions by volatile organic compounds : a study of how cultivar mixtures affected the growth patterns of spring barley

Växter utgör grunden för många ekosystem och näringskedjor. Som platsbundna organismer behöver växter kunna anpassa sig efter de rådande förutsättningarna kring växtplatsen. Växter anpassar sig inte bara efter abiotiska faktorer, utan även stress från skadegörare och andra växter spelar en stor roll för en växtens överlevnad. För oss människor har växter en lika stor betydelse som deras betydelse i naturliga ekosystem. Dagens kulturväxter står för en stor andel av vårt dagliga energiintag, och krav på en försäkrad livsmedelsproduktion ökar i takt med klimatförändringar och degradering inom naturliga ekosystem. Att hitta och undersöka mer hållbara odlingsmetoder, som exempelvis odling av flera sorter tillsammans, minskar kravet som jordbruket ställer på både vattenanvändningen och den närliggande miljön samt som ökar motståndskraften inom odlingen är därför av stor vikt. Denna studie syftade till att utforska sortblandningar som odlingsmetod. Detta gjordes genom att undersöka de luftbaserade allelopatiska interaktioner som förekommer bland växter för att se om en vårkornssort kan anpassa sig efter luftburna signalsubstanser som avges från en annan sort. I samband med studien utfördes laborativt arbete under 35 dagar för att undersöka eventuell skillnad i tillväxt och utveckling hos vårkornssorten Salome när denna utsattes för luftburna signalsubstanser från en annan vårkornssort, totalt så ingick fyra olika vårkornssorter i den laborativa delen där varje sort har distinkta egenskaper. Växtfysiologiska data samlades in ifrån varje sortkombination för att undersöka hur avgivarsorten påverkade vårkornssortens Salomes tillväxt. I studien fann man att Salome lyckas identifiera och anpassa sig efter den andra sorten som ingick i sortkombinationen. Positiva korrelationer hittades mellan de olika sortkombinationerna, och resultaten visade på att det fanns både gynnsamma och negativa anpassningar hos vårkornssorten Salome baserat på vilken annan sort som ingick i sortkombinationen. Resultaten visade att sortblandningar har potential som odlingsmetod, men att det är väsentligt att undersöka vilka sortkombinationer som ger vilka resultat i ett odlingssystem. Sammanfattningsvis så spelar det alltså roll vilka sorter som ingår i en sortkombination baserat på vad man vill uppnå, alla sortkombinationer ger inte samma resultat, och därav uppstår vikten av att öka förståelsen kring de interaktioner som uppstår inom ett växtsamhälle eller på fältnivå.Plants are the foundation for most land-based ecosystems and food webs. As sessile organism’s plants lack the ability to spatially avoid stress, and therefore their need to adapt to prevailing conditions increase. However, plants do not only adapt and respond to abiotic stress factors, but also to stress cues from other organisms such as pests and other plants. Plants are vital to humans as they are to most ecosystems, they make up the majority of our calorific intake each day, and demands for increased sustainability within the agricultural sector increase with each year that goes by. Understanding and researching new and concurrent viable farming practices is therefore vital to maintain or increase the current productivity of most farmlands. This study aimed to explore and understand the potential use of cultivar mixtures, by examining the aerial allelopathic or allelobiotic interactions that occur within plant-societies. Laboratory work was done over 35 days in order to study the underlying differences in development and growth patterns that may occur within different cultivar combinations. In doing so four different spring barley cultivars were chosen, one of these cultivars, Salome, acted as the measurement cultivar, and was exposed to volatile organic compounds from either itself, or from the other three cultivars, each in separate combinations. The study then examined the adaption that would occur from Salome when these interactions by volatile organic compounds happened. Two harvests of the plants within the cultivar combinations were done over a total of 35 days, and physiological - and morphological data were gathered. Positive correlations were found within the different cultivar combinations, and the results show that there are cultivar mixtures that have both negative- and positive impacts on Salome’s growth and development. The results therefore suggest that cultivar mixing as a farming practice has potential to increase the productivity of spring barley, but that further studies withing this specific scientific area needs to be done to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanics. In conclusion this study showed that not all cultivar combinations function the same, and that different cultivar combinations can give different results. It is therefore of a certain merit to understand the underlying plant-based interactions both on a stand level as well as in plant-societies

Assessing the legitimacy of flood risk governance arrangements in Europe: insights from intra-country evaluations

Legitimacy has received comparatively less attention than societal resilience in the context of flooding, thus methods for assessing and monitoring the legitimacy of Flood Risk Governance Arrangements (FRGA) are noticeably lacking. This study attempts to address this gap by assessing the legitimacy of FRGAs in six European countries through cross-disciplinary and comparative research methods. On the basis of this assessment, recommendation

Humankapital som en varaktig konkurrensfördel: - en fallstudie på EY

Sammanfattning Examensarbetets titel: Humankapital som en varaktig konkurrensfördel -En fallstudie på EY Seminariedatum: 16-01-2015 Ämne/kurs FEKH19 Examensarbete i Strategic Management Författare: Alexander Evjenth, Louise Macksey, Mattias Pettersson Handledare: Niklas Hallberg Fem nyckelord: RBV, humankapital, konkurrensfördel, EY, PSF Syfte: Studien syftar till att undersöka hur humankapital kan utgöra en källa för varaktiga konkurrensfördelar. Metod: En kvalitativ enfallsstudie av det kritiska fallet EY har genomförts med hjälp av intervjuer. Dataanalysen skedde genom ”pattern-matching” där relevant forskning sammanställdes till ett teoretiskt ramverk som syftar till att besvara studiens frågeställning. Detta ramverk matchades sedan med vår fallstudie för att slutligen konstruera ett reviderat och slutgiltigt ramverk. Teoretiska perspektiv: Den resursbaserade teorin är en av de dominerande teorierna inom Strategic Management gällande resurser och hur de kan utgöra konkurrensfördelar. När det gäller teoretiseringar kring humankapitalbaserade konkurrensfördelar kan teorin dock beskrivas som bristfällig. Vi har därför valt att undersöka hur denna resurs kan ugöra en källa till varaktiga konkurrensfördelar. Empiri: Karaktäriserande för Professional Service Firm (PSF) branschen är att företagen bygger sin verksamhet på humankapital. Branschen är därför intressant att undersöka gällande hur denna resurs kan utgöra en källa till konkurrensfördelar. EY, ett framgångsrikt Professional Service Firm, utgör därför fallföretag i studien. Resultat: Studien resulterade i att vi kunde dra slutsatsen att mönstren från teori och empiri till stor del stämde överens. Samt att störningen Intern konkurrens som uppmärksammandets i fallstudies skulle adderas till ramverket. Vi lyckades således med att framställa ett ramverk som beskriver hur ett framgångsrikt PSF hanterar sitt humankapital. Attrahera, Behålla, Kunskapsspridning och Motivera förefaller utgöra de kritiska rutiner ett företag kan använda för att skapa en humankapitalbaserad konkurrensfördel.Abstract Title: Human capital as a sustainable competitive advantage - A casestudy of EY Seminar date: 16-01-2015 Course: FEKH19 Bachelor Strategic Management Authors: Alexander Evjenth, Louise Macksey, Mattias Pettersson Advisor: Niklas Hallberg Key words: RBV, Human capital, competitive advantage, EY, PSF Purpose: This study aims to examine in what way human capital can be a source of a sustainable competitive advantage. Methodology: The study constitutes a qualitative single case study, of the critical case EY. In order to analyze the data we used the method “pattern-matching”. We matched our theoretical framework of routines that influence human capital-based competitive advantages with the findings from the case study. This resulted in the addition of “internal competition” as a disturbance to the four original routines. Theoretical perspectives: According to the Resource Based View a resource needs to be non-mobile in order to be a source of a sustainable competitive advantage. The current researches within the resource-based view can be considered as inadequate in explaining human capital-based competitive advantages. Empirical foundation: Typical for the Professional Service Firm (PSF) industry is that human capital is a key asset in their companies. The industry is therefore interesting to our case. EY, a successful PSF will therefore be the foundation for our case study. Conclusions: At the end of the study we can confirm that we succeeded in producing a framework that describes how a successful PSF manage its human capital. Our choice of earlier research turned out to match well with our case study. We discovered the need for an additional factor; internal competition. The conclusions is that attract, retain, knowledge sharing and motivation is critical procedures a company can use to create a sustainable competitive advantage through human capital

Flood risk mitigation in Europe: how far away are we from the aspired forms of adaptive governance?

Flood mitigation is a strategy that is growing in importance across Europe. This growth corresponds with an increasing emphasis on the need to learn to live with floods and make space for water. Flood mitigation measures aim at reducing the likelihood and magnitude of flooding and complement flood defenses. They are being put in place through the implementation of actions that accommodate (rather than resist) water, such as natural flood management or adapted housing. The strategy has gained momentum over the past 20 years in an effort to improve the sustainability of flood risk management (FRM) and facilitate the diversification of FRM in the pursuit of societal resilience to flooding. Simultaneously, it is increasingly argued that adaptive forms of governance are best placed to address the uncertainty and complexity associated with social-ecological systems responding to environmental challenges, such as flooding. However, there have been few attempts to examine the extent to which current flood risk governance, and flood mitigation specifically, reflect these aspired forms of adaptive governance. Drawing from EU research into flood risk governance, conducted within the STAR-FLOOD project, we examine the governance of flood mitigation in six European countries: Belgium, England, France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. Using in-depth policy and legal analysis, as well as interviews with key actors, the governance and implementation of flood mitigation in these countries is evaluated from the normative viewpoint of whether, and to what extent, it can be characterized as adaptive governance. We identify five criteria of adaptive governance based on a comprehensive literature review and apply these to each country to determine the “distance” between current governance arrangements and adaptive governance. In conclusion, the flood mitigation strategy provides various opportunities for actors to further pursue forms of adaptive governance. The extent to which the mitigation strategy is capable of doing so varies across countries, however, and its role in stimulating adaptive governance was found to be strongest in Belgium and England

Functional brain networks before the onset of psychosis : a prospective fMRI study with graph theoretical analysis

Individuals with an at-risk mental state (ARMS) have a risk of developing a psychotic disorder significantly greater than the general population. However, it is not currently possible to predict which ARMS individuals will develop psychosis from clinical assessment alone. Comparison of ARMS subjects who do, and do not, develop psychosis can reveal which factors are critical for the onset of illness. In the present study, 37 patients with an ARMS were followed clinically at least 24 months subsequent to initial referral. Functional MRI data were collected at the beginning of the follow-up period during performance of an executive task known to recruit frontal lobe networks and to be impaired in psychosis. Graph theoretical analysis was used to compare the organization of a functional brain network in ARMS patients who developed a psychotic disorder following the scan (ARMS-T) to those who did not become ill during the same follow-up period (ARMS-NT) and aged-matched controls. The global properties of each group's representative network were studied (density, efficiency, global average path length) as well as regionally-specific contributions of network nodes to the organization of the system (degree, farness-centrality, betweenness-centrality). We focused our analysis on the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region known to support executive function that is structurally and functionally impaired in ARMS patients. In the absence of between-group differences in global network organization, we report a significant reduction in the topological centrality of the ACC in the ARMS-T group relative to both ARMS-NT and controls. These results provide evidence that abnormalities in the functional organization of the brain predate the onset of psychosis, and suggest that loss of ACC topological centrality is a potential biomarker for transition to psychosis

A framework for evaluating the effectiveness of flood emergency management systems in Europe

Society is faced with a range of contemporary threats to everyday life, from natural and technological hazards to accidents and terrorism. These are embodied within integrated emergency management arrangements that are designed to enhance preparedness and response to such incidents, and in turn facilitate a prompt recovery. Such arrangements must be inherently dynamic and evolve as new threats emerge or as existing threats change. An example of the latter is the changing nature of flooding, which is projected to increase in both frequency and severity with climate change. Recognizing this evolving threat, we focus on the evaluation of the effectiveness of domestic Flood Emergency Management Systems (FEMS) as components of integrated emergency management arrangements. Despite the extensive body of literature that documents success conditions of so-called effective emergency management more broadly, there have been only a few attempts to construct a comprehensive evaluation framework to support objective assessment and cross-country comparison. Addressing this gap, we formulate an evaluation framework specifically tailored to the study of FEMS in Europe, which is then provisionally applied to the study of FEMS in England (UK), France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. Important differences are observed in how FEMS have evolved in relation to differing contextual backgrounds (political, cultural, administrative, and socio-economic) and exposures to flood hazard. From this provisional assessment, a number of opportunities for, and constraints to, enhancing the effectiveness of FEMS in Europe are discerned. The evaluation framework thus serves as an important stepping stone for further indepth inquiry, and as a valuable tool for future comparative study

Ice tectonic deformation during the rapid in situ drainage of a supraglacial lake on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

We present detailed records of lake discharge, ice motion and passive seismicity capturing the behaviour and processes preceding, during and following the rapid drainage of a 4 km<sup>2</sup> supraglacial lake through 1.1-km-thick ice on the western margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Peak discharge of 3300 m<sup>3</sup> s<sup>−1</sup> coincident with maximal rates of vertical uplift indicates that surface water accessed the ice–bed interface causing widespread hydraulic separation and enhanced basal motion. The differential motion of four global positioning system (GPS) receivers located around the lake record the opening and closure of the fractures through which the lake drained. We hypothesise that the majority of discharge occurred through a 3-km-long fracture with a peak width averaged across its wetted length of 0.4 m. We argue that the fracture's kilometre-scale length allowed rapid discharge to be achieved by combining reasonable water velocities with sub-metre fracture widths. These observations add to the currently limited knowledge of in situ supraglacial lake drainage events, which rapidly deliver large volumes of water to the ice–bed interface