Search results for "Adapta"

Eco-genetics of desiccation resistance in Drosophila.

2021

International audience; Climate change globally perturbs water circulation thereby influencing ecosystems including cultivated land. Both harmful and beneficial species of insects are likely to be vulnerable to such changes in climate. As small animals with a disadvantageous surface area to body mass ratio, they face a risk of desiccation. A number of behavioural, physiological and genetic strategies are deployed to solve these problems during adaptation in various Drosophila species. Over 100 desiccation-related genes have been identified in laboratory and wild populations of the cosmopolitan fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and its sister species in large-scale and single-gene approaches…

Usability and acceptability assessment of an empathic virtual agent to prevent major depression

2016

In Human-Computer Interaction, the adaptation of the content and the way of how this content is communicated to the users in interactive sessions is a critical issue to promote the acceptability and usability of any computational system. We present a user-adapted interactive platform to identify and provide an early intervention for symptoms of depression and suicide. In particular, we describe the work performed to assess users' system acceptability and usability. An empathic Virtual Agent is the main interface with the user, and it has been designed to generate the appropriate dialogues and emotions during the interactions according to the detected user's specific needs. This personalizat…

Reviewing the role of ecosystems services in the sustainability of the urban environment: A multi-country analysis

2020

The urban environment is characterised by many pressures caused by population growth, transport (and its related emissions), and the damage to green areas. Yet, there is a variety of ecosystem services available in urban areas, which may be deployed to ameliorate the current problems and foster their sustainability. This paper reviews the role of ecosystem services as tools for sustainability, based on an urban setting. It also describes a series of multi-country case studies, where an assessment of their functions using a set of benefits valuation approaches such as health benefits, economic benefits, social benefits and benefits to climate resilience, are provided, along with an appraisal…

The tougher the environment, the harder the adaptation? A psychological point of view in extreme situations

2021

IF: 2.8 (Q1); International audience; Grounded within a multidimensional and multilevel approach, the aim of this study was to investigate the time course of Psychological Adaptation Process (PAP) dimensions (social, emotional, occupational, and physical) during one-year polar winter-overs in Subantarctic and Antarctic stations. The effects of perceived control (PC) at the start of polar winter on the dynamics of the PAP dimensions were also examined. The present findings clarify some changes in PAP in extreme environments: (a) The dimensions of psychological adaptation evolved differently as a function of environmental conditions; and (b) PC influenced the trajectories of PAP dimensions. T…

Assessing Urban System Vulnerabilities to Flooding to Improve Resilience and Adaptation in Spatial Planning

2018

Fluvial, pluvial and coastal flooding are the most frequent and costly natural hazard. Cities are social hubs and life in cities is reliant on a number of services and functions such as housing, healthcare, education and other key daily facilities. Urban flooding can cause significant disruption to these services and wider impacts on the population. These impacts may be short or long with a variably spatial scale: urban systems are spatially distributed and the nature of this can have significant effects on flood impacts. From an urban-planning perspective, measuring this disruption and its consequences is fundamental in order to develop more resilient cities. Whereas the assessment of phys…

Adaptive Control of Soft Robots Based on an Enhanced 3D Augmented Rigid Robot Matching

2021

Despite having proven successful in generating precise motions under dynamic conditions in highly deformable soft-bodied robots, model based techniques are also prone to robustness issues connected to the intrinsic uncertain nature of the dynamics of these systems. This letter aims at tackling this challenge, by extending the augmented rigid robot formulation to a stable representation of three dimensional motions of soft robots, under Piecewise Constant Curvature hypothesis. In turn, the equivalence between soft-bodied and rigid robots permits to derive effective adaptive controllers for soft-bodied robots, achieving perfect posture regulation under considerable errors in the knowledge of …

Smart factory in the context of 4th industrial revolution: challenges and opportunities for Romania

2017

Manufacturing companies, independent of operation sector and size, must be able to produce lot size one products, just-in-time at a competitive cost. Coping with this high adaptability and short reaction times proves to be very challenging. New approaches must be taken into consideration for designing modular, intelligent and cooperative production systems which are easy to integrate with the entire factory. The coined term for this network of intelligent interacting artefacts system is cyber-physical systems (CPS). CPS is often used in the context of Industry 4.0 – or what many consider the forth industrial revolution. The paper presents an overview of key technological and social requirem…

Climate Change and Disasters

2017

Ideas and approaches proven successful within disaster risk reduction (DRR) literature and practice are either bypassed or inadequately considered by contemporary climate change work. This chapter explores the intersections between climate change and hazards, vulnerability, and risk, looking at climate change as both a hazard driver and a hazard inhibitor. The implications of the narrow interpretations of vulnerability employed in climate change work are examined, as well as the ways in which climate change has come to act as a scapegoat for issues, events, and processes caused by hazard-independent factors. The chapter formulates a case for climate change adaptation (CCA) to be seen as a s…

Landslide Hazards and Climate Change Adaptation of Transport Infrastructures in Germany

2017

Helices of disaster memory: How forgetting and remembering influence tropical cyclone response in Mauritius

2020

Abstract Tropical cyclones have had a considerable impact on Mauritius. Large cyclones are relatively rare, and in popular imagination are thought to hit Mauritius every 15 years. Yet it has been over 25 years since the last cyclone widely considered as ‘significant’. Critically, there is little known about the role of memory in responses to cyclones and details regarding responses to past cyclones in Mauritian history are scant. This article examines past experiences and impacts of cyclones in Mauritius, as well as contemporary perceptions of cyclone vulnerability and memories of historical cyclones. The analysis draws on both community interviews and archival research conducted in Mauriti…