Search results for "Treme"

The Invisible Violence of Celebrity Humanitarianism: Soft Images and Hard Words in the Making and Unmaking of Africa

2009

Through their actions to eliminate extreme poverty and preventable diseases in Africa, Irish musicians Robert (Bob) Geldof and Bono (Paul David Hewson) today form a visible and celebrated centre in the world of humanitarianism as ‘political activists,' ‘celebrity diplomats,' ‘global Samaritans,' men who, to quote former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, ‘rock the establishment' (TIME 13.11.2006). Their contemporary calls to ‘make poverty history' in Africa are so widely repeated and commonsensical that questions about the exceptionality of this humanitarian action itself rarely arise. In fact, despite the increasing visibility of celebrity humanitarianism, no research on their representa…

Investigating the changes in extreme rainfall in Sicily

2012

Changes in extreme rainfall are one of the most relevant sign of current climate alterations. Many studies have demonstrated an increase in rainfall intensity and a reduction of frequency in several areas of the world. This could be probably due to an acceleration of the hydrological cycle caused by temperature increase and could have, as consequence, the increase of flooding hazard. In the past, Sicily has been screened for several signals of possible climate change. Annual, seasonal and monthly rainfall data in the entire Sicilian region have been analyzed, showing a global reduction of total annual rainfall, which is mainly due to the winter reduction. Moreover, some annual maximum rainf…

Objective regional frequency analysis and future change of extreme precipitation in Sicily, Italy

A paradigm of extreme rainfall pluvial floods in complex urban areas: the flood event of 15 July 2020 in Palermo (Italy)

2021

Abstract. In the last years, some regions of the Mediterranean area are witnessing a progressive increase in extreme events, such as urban and flash floods, as a response to the increasingly frequent and severe extreme rainfall events and their ground effects, which are often exacerbated by ever-growing urbanization. In such a context, the traditional defense of urban areas, which are usually based on urban drainage systems designed without regard to the impacts of urbanization and climate change on natural systems, may not be sufficient to deal with the risk deriving from the occurrence of such events. This study focuses on a very recent and particularly intense urban flood that occurred i…

Collaborative Governance and Emergency Management: A Case Study of Latvia

2016

Emergencies – crises, disasters and catastrophes – cannot be managed by individuals or one organization,collaborative actions are needed In the context of this paper, a two-part research on collaborative governance and emergency management in Latvia has been carried out. This research is important because due to extreme weather conditions even “safe” countries should be able to deal with frequently recorded emergencies. It also contributes to the literature on emergency management in the context of Europe. The method of a case study was employed for this qualitative research seeking to clarify the situation and provide answers to the research question. The research showed that much attentio…

Enteral feeding policies for extremely low birth weight infants. A survey in 74 Italian neonatal intensive cAre units

1999

Background: Enterai feeding for infants with birth weight1000 g (ELBWI) is still a controversial issue. The aim of the present survey was to ascertain the attitudes of Italian neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) regarding this point. Method: A questionnaire, with multiple choice answers, regarding the timing of enteral feeding, its progression, the different techniques utilised, the eventual use of fortifiers and the interrupting criteria, was mailed to 92 Italian NICUs. Results: 74 NICUs all over the country participated in the study.1153 ELBWI were hospitalised in 1996 in these Units. Enterai feeding for babies between 501 g and 750 g is started on the 1st day of life in 23.3% of the NI…

Mislabel Detection of Finnish Publication Ranks

2019

The paper proposes to analyze a data set of Finnish ranks of academic publication channels with Extreme Learning Machine (ELM). The purpose is to introduce and test recently proposed ELM-based mislabel detection approach with a rich set of features characterizing a publication channel. We will compare the architecture, accuracy, and, especially, the set of detected mislabels of the ELM-based approach to the corresponding reference results on the reference paper.

Bayesian inference for the extremal dependence

2016

A simple approach for modeling multivariate extremes is to consider the vector of component-wise maxima and their max-stable distributions. The extremal dependence can be inferred by estimating the angular measure or, alternatively, the Pickands dependence function. We propose a nonparametric Bayesian model that allows, in the bivariate case, the simultaneous estimation of both functional representations through the use of polynomials in the Bernstein form. The constraints required to provide a valid extremal dependence are addressed in a straightforward manner, by placing a prior on the coefficients of the Bernstein polynomials which gives probability one to the set of valid functions. The…

Extreme value theory versus traditional GARCH approaches applied to financial data: a comparative evaluation

2013

Although stock prices fluctuate, the variations are relatively small and are frequently assumed to be normally distributed on a large time scale. But sometimes these fluctuations can become determinant, especially when unforeseen large drops in asset prices are observed that could result in huge losses or even in market crashes. The evidence shows that these events happen far more often than would be expected under the generalised assumption of normally distributed financial returns. Thus it is crucial to model distribution tails properly so as to be able to predict the frequency and magnitude of extreme stock price returns. In this paper we follow the approach suggested by McNeil and Frey …

Flood Frequency Analysis for Sicily, Italy

2006

In this paper a regional flood frequency analysis based on the two-component extreme value TCEV distribution is developed using flood data recorded in Sicily. The hierarchical approach, characterized by three investigation levels for estimating the parameters of the theoretical distribution, is discussed first. The highest level of homogeneity hypothesis with regard to the skewness coefficient was verified by using a Monte Carlo technique and taking account of the separation effect proposed by Matalas et al. in 1975. This analysis also showed 1 the inability of the generalized extreme value model to reproduce the empirical cumulative distribution function CDF of the skewness coefficients, a…