Enhancing the Resilience of Vulnerable Groups Through Participatory Climate Change Adaptation Planning: A Case Study with the Elderly Community of Bridgeport, Connecticut

Recent reports highlight the vulnerability of the elderly to climate change. Unfortunately, a lack of research incorporating the perspectives of the elderly on this topic could cause their needs to go unrecognized and unaddressed. To promote adaptation planning that is responsive to the concerns of the elderly, this dissertation presents the results of a participatory research and adaptation planning process conducted in partnership with the elderly community of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The process combined a five-step climate change adaptation planning model with a community-based action research approach that placed the elderly participants as key drivers in the research and planning processes. For this research, the elderly participants began by exploring their vulnerability to current and predicted climate stressors including extreme heat, flooding, storms, and air pollution. They then developed adaptation goals and strategies. Finally, a summative evaluation assessed the planning process itself. Among the key findings, this research identified personal attributes, including health, economic, and social characteristics, that interact with a range of contextual factors to influence the elderly population’s vulnerability. As a result, predicted climate changes could have serious consequences for Bridgeport’s elderly. Participants recommended adaptation goals and strategies to enhance their resilience with a focus on encouraging preparedness and providing community services including warning mechanisms, resources to secure safe shelter, transportation resources, as well as resources to aid in coping and recovery. A prioritization exercise showed that participants believed all the suggestions were likely to be effective and feasible to implement. Furthermore, the summative evaluation revealed that the participatory planning process enhanced the elderly’s resilience by raising awareness and understanding, increasing communication, and strengthening elders’ ability to self-advocate. Key themes that contributed to the process’s effectiveness included the value of collaborating with local organizations, fostering an accessible and inclusive process, connecting subject matter with the day-to-day concerns of participants, and using an iterative process to build the capacity of participants. While limited to a single case study, this research offers potentially transferable insights into the broader elderly community’s vulnerability to climate change and presents a model for engaging vulnerable groups in adaptation planning

Liberalization of international air transportation markets: the effect of terrorism on market trends

Since the United States deregulated its airline industry with the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, the international air transport industry has been on a path toward market liberalization. Market changes have included entry, capacity, and pricing freedom as well as increased levels of foreign ownership. The recent terrorist acts of September 11, 2001 have the potential to alter, if not reverse this course. This paper examines the forces fueling the trend toward liberalization and analyzes the impact of recent events on the future prospects of open aviation markets

Enhancing the Resilience of Vulnerable Groups Through Participatory Climate Change Adaptation Planning: A Case Study with the Elderly Community of Bridgeport, Connecticut

Recent reports highlight the vulnerability of the elderly to climate change. Unfortunately, a lack of research incorporating the perspectives of the elderly on this topic could cause their needs to go unrecognized and unaddressed. To promote adaptation planning that is responsive to the concerns of the elderly, this dissertation presents the results of a participatory research and adaptation planning process conducted in partnership with the elderly community of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The process combined a five-step climate change adaptation planning model with a community-based action research approach that placed the elderly participants as key drivers in the research and planning processes. For this research, the elderly participants began by exploring their vulnerability to current and predicted climate stressors including extreme heat, flooding, storms, and air pollution. They then developed adaptation goals and strategies. Finally, a summative evaluation assessed the planning process itself. Among the key findings, this research identified personal attributes, including health, economic, and social characteristics, that interact with a range of contextual factors to influence the elderly population’s vulnerability. As a result, predicted climate changes could have serious consequences for Bridgeport’s elderly. Participants recommended adaptation goals and strategies to enhance their resilience with a focus on encouraging preparedness and providing community services including warning mechanisms, resources to secure safe shelter, transportation resources, as well as resources to aid in coping and recovery. A prioritization exercise showed that participants believed all the suggestions were likely to be effective and feasible to implement. Furthermore, the summative evaluation revealed that the participatory planning process enhanced the elderly’s resilience by raising awareness and understanding, increasing communication, and strengthening elders’ ability to self-advocate. Key themes that contributed to the process’s effectiveness included the value of collaborating with local organizations, fostering an accessible and inclusive process, connecting subject matter with the day-to-day concerns of participants, and using an iterative process to build the capacity of participants. While limited to a single case study, this research offers potentially transferable insights into the broader elderly community’s vulnerability to climate change and presents a model for engaging vulnerable groups in adaptation planning

Telerobotic controller development

To meet NASA's space station's needs and growth, a modular and generic approach to robotic control which provides near-term implementation with low development cost and capability for growth into more autonomous systems was developed. The method uses a vision based robotic controller and compliant hand integrated with the Remote Manipulator System arm on the Orbiter. A description of the hardware and its system integration is presented

Overview of Low-Cost Carriers in Russia and Post-Soviet States

The low-cost carrier\u27s model made remarkable gains across the globe in the prior decade, although growth was uneven domestically and intraregionally. Within this region, there are significant differences in overall country size, the size of the domestic aviation market, and the number of carriers serving the market. The largest and most developed market is in Russia, but rest of the region also experienced growth in economy airlines\u27 activity as they discovered the power of the model to expand aviation access and lower costs. The success of low-cost carriers, however, has been halting and hampered by government decisions on foreign investment, ownership, and leasing. Still, some carriers have been able to grow and achieve gains over rivals. The recent Russian-Ukrainian war has further complicated the situation

The Challenge of Intervention to Monetarily Support or Not Support the National Airline Carriers: A Case of the Airline Industry in Eastern Europe

The airline industry has been considered a special case in national and international business virtually since its beginning. Because of this status, national governments have repeatedly intervened to support national carriers in order to prevent bankruptcy and failure. The nations of Eastern Europe are no exception to this rule and are currently considering additional intervention to support their carriers. This paper explores the rationale for intervention, particularly the suggested economic impact, using traffic and financial information from the Flightglobal database. The conclusion is that the case for intervention is weak at best and that the results may not justify the expense

Analysis of Low-Cost Carriers in the Post-Soviet States

The research paper provides an overview of low-cost carrier (LCC) development in the post- Soviet states with the analysis of the largest aviation market in Russia. The LCC model seeks to achieve a competitive advantage through the reduction of operating costs below the traditional airline model. Since the post-Soviet states are emerging economies, airlines face a high level of uncertainty and experience a number of unique problems. While the global community enjoys the benefits offered by LCCs, the question remains why this model has not been successful in the 15 newly formed countries, with the exception of the Hungarian low-cost subsidiary Wizz Air Ukraine. Convenient geographic location, large population with comparable GDP per capita, high levels of tourism, and good transportation infrastructure make this market very attractive for domestic and foreign-based LCCs. The research addresses strategies employed by airlines, as well as the challenges and opportunities. The airline classifications and data is collected using the Flightglobal database. Future strategies, including government legislation, are discussed in order to promote the LCC business model as a successful option to compete in these markets

The Model of Network Carriers\u27 Strategic Decision Making With Low-Cost Carrier Entry

After deregulation in the United States in 1978, airlines faced intense competition on previously regulated routes. The proponents of deregulation stated that equilibrium in the industry would be achieved by providing lower fares and improved service (Daraban and Fournier, 2008). While this became true to some extent, the airline network in the U.S. was dominated by the hub-and-spoke system and concentrated in the hands of few large airlines. The emergence of the Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) model, which originated in the U.S. through Southwest Airlines in the early 1970s, became an instrument to drive the airlines towards a competitive equilibrium. The LCC model was later adapted by the European market with the Irish carrier Ryanair in 1991, followed by the U.K.-based easyJet in 1995… --Introduction

Regional Jet Aircraft Competitiveness: Challenges and Opportunities

The Purpose of the Study is to investigate the current trends in the aviation industry in regards to regional jets and to examine country-level factors that can potentially explain the number of Embraer and Bombardier regional jet deliveries. Possible factors include GDP, price of crude oil, prior aircraft deliveries and the land area of receiving RJ countries

Predictive Weather Display in ATC: Implications for Research and Training

Two systems are central to the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) air traffic management program - Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) and En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM). One purpose of both systems is to reduce air traffic control (ATC) delay. The present study reports on an exploratory integration of convective weather, a major source of delay, into the ATC systems to allow early re-route around weather in order to reduce delay. Pseudo-controllers ran a series of simulation-based scenarios with screen capture and video collection to assess delay and safety performance. Results provide evidence that delay was reduced by early rerouting in response to convective weather predictions. Implications for training and research are discussed