Search results for " vulnerability"
showing 10 items of 138 documents
A new hybrid procedure for the definition of seismic vulnerability in Mediterranean cross-border urban areas
2016
Assessment of seismic vulnerability of urban areas provides fundamental information for activities of planning and management of emergencies. The main difficulty encountered when extending vulnerability evaluations to urban contexts is the definition of a framework of assessment appropriate for the specific characteristics of the site and providing reliable results with a reasonable duration of surveys and post-processing of data. The paper proposes a new procedure merging different typologies of information recognized on the territories investigated and for this reason called “hybrid.” Knowledge of historical events influencing urban evolution and analysis of recurrent building technologie…
An Urban Governance Framework for Including Environmental Migrants in Sustainable Cities
2022
This article proposes an urban governance framework for including environmental migrants in sustainable cities. It outlines the links among environmental migration, vulnerability, and sustainability, showing how vulnerability and sustainability are not about the environment or the human condition as snapshots in space and time, but rather are long-term, multi-scalar, ever-evolving processes. This theoretical baseline is followed by a description of some practical approaches already applied for including environmental migrants in sustainable cities. The wide variety and lack of cohesion justifies the need for a framework, leading to three principal characteristics of a governance framework s…
Statistical downscaling and attribution of air temperature change patterns in the Valencia region (1948–2011)
2015
This study is based on the statistical downscaling and spatial interpolation of high-resolution temperatures (90 m) over the 1948–2011 period performed for the Valencia Region (east Iberian Peninsula) after considering local topographical factors in the fine-scale distribution of temperatures. The objective was to detect the areas that were potentially more vulnerable to air temperature change. This allowed the detection of local climate change patterns, which were analyzed and found to be consistent in spatial and temporal terms. These patterns indicate a more marked warming tendency in higher parts of reliefs and their slopes. However, this tendency is less pronounced in bottoms of valley…
Der Spannungsbogen von Autonomie und Verletzlichkeit. Eine phänomenologisch-anthropologische Reflexion
2017
A phenomenological approach to anthropology should not propose a static definition of man, but inquire into specific human motivations, which never occur isolated. Therefore, the autonomy-dependency connection is presented as a possible human motivational ground. The notion of autonomy, presented with reference to the Kantian idea of the self-determining reason and to the Husserlian account of self-constitution, reveals in itself elements of dependency. On the other side, the notion of vulnerability and reliance is displayed through different approaches of Gehlen, MacIntyre and Toombs in order to illustrate dependency not as a mere capitulation of the subject, but as one of its intrinsic po…
Tsunami Vulnerability Evaluation for a Small Ancient Village on Eastern Sicily Coast
2022
The Ionian sea is prone to tsunamis due to its proximity to the Calabrian subduction zone, which is one of the major tsunamigenic areas of the Mediterranean. The tsunami disaster risk is, nowadays, significantly higher due to the increased exposure of buildings as a result of the economic and touristic growth of the Mediterranean coastal areas. This study focuses on Marzamemi, a small village in the western coast of Sicily, since its morphology and human presence amplify the need to assess its buildings’ vulnerability. The main objective of this research is to quantify the building vulnerability to tsunami hazards using a physical and realistic tsunami scenario. For this purpose, the relati…
Intellectual and Psychosocial Disability as Situations of Vulnerability
2021
La garantía de los derechos de las personas con discapacidad intelectual y psicosocial pone a prueba a la teoría de los derechos y al modelo social de la discapacidad. En el trabajo se mantiene que el análisis de la discapacidad desde la teoría de la opresión continúa siendo adecuado siempre que se recupere la importancia de la dimensión individual de la discapacidad y se incorpore la representación de la condición humana que deriva de una concepción contemporánea de los derechos y que a su vez es el resultado de la revisión del proyecto de la modernidad desde las teorías críticas. The guarantee of the rights of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities challenges both, the th…
Unaccompanied minors in Sicily: promoting conceptualizations of child well-being through children’s own subjective realities
2020
Understanding unaccompanied minors’ (UAMs’) individual migration journeys and aspirations and hopes helps make sense of the meaning they ascribe to their personal and social reality in their quest for integration and mobility. Although the well-being of children is considered to be of the utmost importance in contemporary times, we still lack good evidence of what children themselves regard as key facets of this, from their own life experiences. Identifying different domains and dimensions of children’s well-being and touching upon its multifaceted nature, this study presents an alternative framework, showing how the quality of the reception path is fundamental to having successful results …
Self-worth contingencies and obsessionality: A promising approach to vulnerability?
2012
Abstract Cognitive behavioral theories (CBT) posit deficiencies in selfhood processes as possible vulnerability factors for obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). This paper presents two psychometric studies on the development of the Obsessional Concerns and Self Questionnaire (OCSQ), a measure of failure to attain self-worth in personal domains relevant to obsessionality. In the first study based on 563 community Spaniards, principal factor analysis of an 80 item pool resulted in a three factor solution and a final 35 item version (OCSQ-r). In the second study self-worth and symptom measures were administered to 152 Spanish, 142 Argentinean and 112 Canadian nonclinical samples. Group compari…
Facilitating climate change adaptation through communication:Insights from the development of a visualization tool
2015
Climate change communication on anticipated impacts and adaptive responses is frequently presented as an effective means to facilitate implementation of adaptation to mitigate risks to residential buildings. However, it requires that communication is developed in a way that resonates with the context of the target audience, provides intelligible information and addresses perceived barriers to adaptation. In this paper we reflect upon criteria for useful climate change communication gained over a three year development process of a web-based tool – VisAdapt™ – aimed at increasing the adaptive capacity among Nordic homeowners. Based on the results from continuous user-testing and focus group …
[RIU project: perceived changes by health agents and professionals after a health intervention in an urban area of socioeconomic disadvantage].
2013
Resumen Objetivo Describir los cambios percibidos por la población y los profesionales en relación con la salud y el uso de servicios tras la intervención RIU con agentes comunitarios en un barrio vulnerable. Diseño Estudio descriptivo cualitativo con entrevistas individuales y grupales y observación participante de octubre de 2008 a julio de 2009. Emplazamiento Barrio Raval (Algemesí-Valencia). Participantes Selección por muestreo opinático de 7 mujeres agentes de salud, todas las que finalizaron la intervención, y 10 profesionales implicados en la misma. Método Con las mujeres se mantuvo una entrevista grupal a los 6 meses, y una entrevista grupal y 7 individuales a los 9 meses de interve…