This paper examines how the discourses and practices of design can be applied to both mitigate damaging impacts (un-)natural disasters guide resilient post-disaster recovery. Integrated with systems analysis, provide an innovative window for understanding complexities disaster-risk reduction recovery, as well a conceptual bridge new ways building socio-economic physical resilience in disaster-a...

Background: Millions of children are affected by disasters every year. Children need not be passive victims, however, but instead may contribute to disaster risk reduction activities. Objective: This paper provides a theoretical foundation for children's involvement in disaster risk reduction activities. Method: The paper reviews and analyses the literature on children's participation, on their...

The research reported here attempts to understand how language may have originated from sensori-motor competences. Recently the observation of mirror neurons [1] has lead to the suggestion that there is not only a rich representation of motor action but also that this representation is used for multiple purposes: action execution, action planning, action imaging, and action recognition. Of part...

One important challenge for a set of agents to achieve more efficient collaboration is for these agents to maintain proper models of each other. An important aspect of these models of other agents is that they are often partial and incomplete. Thus far, there are two common representations of agent models: MDP based and action based, which are both based on action modeling. In many applications...

This study examined the extent of children's and adolescents' psychosocial maladjustment associated with a natural disaster, namely, wildfire. The course of psychopathology was assessed six weeks after a major wildfire destroyed 420 homes. Victims' functioning relative to a comparison group from the same community, matched for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and fire insurance was examined. ...

High rates of mental health (MH) problems have been documented among disaster relief workers. However, few workers utilize MH services, and predictors of service use among this group remain unexplored. The purpose of this study was to explore associations between predisposing, illness-related, and enabling factors from Andersen's behavioral model of treatment-seeking and patterns of service use...

Recently, emphasis has been placed on improving and expanding research in disaster response and the treatment of disaster-stricken populations. However, research in these settings presents unique ethical challenges with which the scientific and biomedical ethics communities continue to struggle. At the core of the controversy is the question of how best to balance the critical need for research...

In post-disaster reconstruction the social aspects of housing provision are important for the success of both emergency shelters and permanent housing, particularly in settlements that have been permanently relocated or entirety rebuilt. The social dimensions of housing reconstruction after disaster are discussed in the context of the long-term effects of reconstruction after the Yungay, Peru E...

The United States Department of Defense funded a research project at the University of Virginia to increase community resilience after a crisis (e.g., natural disaster, bioterrorism attack). The premise is that the public would be better served if it had access to reliable, near real-time information concerning the “ground truth” (actual observations and pictures) of unfolding events. One way (...

disasters are one of the most important challenges which must be considered by every management system. higher education centers have high disaster risk because of their risk factors (existence of historical and scientific documents and resources and expensive laboratory equipment in these centers emphasizes the importance of disaster management). moreover, the existence of young volunteers of ...