This qualitative study utilized the protective action decision model to explore the risk perceptions and hazard adjustments to the earthquake risk of residents in El Reno, Oklahoma.

Heavy rains and El Nio phenomenon are recurring natural phenomena at a national level. These can cause floods due to the overflowing of rivers, which, when close to cities, can cause both human and material losses. The district of Catacaos, located in the city of Piura, was the one with the highest number of injuries due to the flood caused by El Nio phenomenon in 2017. This phenomenon causes a large amounts of rainfalls due to the presence of abnormally warm waters along the northern coast of Peru [1]. It is for this reason that the need arose to carry out an analysis of the physical vulnerability due to instability of people through static equilibrium, in said district, in order to present maps of unsafe areas in the face of this phenomenon. In this investigation, flood hazard maps are generated simulating the one presented in 2017, using 2D hydraulic modeling. For the generation of vulnerability curves, the instability analysis is performed by moment and drag force. Finally, maps with unsafe areas are made using ArcGis software. Where the results obtained indicate that 29.37% of the city was flooded. Likewise, the vulnerability maps generated show us that women and men over 18 years of age in the city of Catacaos would be vulnerable to dragging and overturning in the face of floods in 16.54% and 13.21%, respectively, of the total studied area. This information will be useful for the development of future evacuation plans during floods, carried out by national entities. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

This dissertation consists of three essays on dynamic contracts. Chapter One studies a dynamic principal-agent model in which the agent continuously works on a project which may yield a success. The principal cannot observe the success, but she observes imperfect signals over time after the agent stops working. The principal is more patient than the agent and both are risk neutral. In the optimal contract where the agent observes the success, the agent is induced to exert full effort until success and report it truthfully. The optimal payment scheme features a combination of wage and deferred bonus. When the agent does not observe the success, the optimal contract features a stochastic deadline and a deferred bonus payment. Chapter Two studies a discrete time principal-agent model where the agent's effort and ability are both private information. The wage is exogenously fixed and the principal designs a firing policy to incentivize the agent to work. In each period, the agent works on a project with binary outcomes. The high type has a higher probability of getting a good outcome than the low type conditional on high effort. The outcome in each period is publicly observed. In the optimal contract, the principal hires the high type for sure and hires the low type with some probability. Conditional on being hired, the high type faces a higher standard of performance. Chapter Three studies a dynamic model of delegated decision making with adverse selection and imperfect monitoring. In each period, a principal may delegate to a biased agent who has better information. The quality of the agent's information depends on his ability. In the optimal mechanism where the agent's ability is publicly observable, the principal delegates to the agent at the beginning of their relationship and the agent behaves in the principal's interest. Depending on the history, the principal either commits to delegating forever or stops delegating eventually. When the agent's ability is private information, the optimal mechanism features pooling at the top. The principal offers the same mechanism to the agent if his ability is known to be above a cutoff.

Investments in new weather forecasting technologies and communication products can be costly and serve the ultimate purpose of protecting life and property. The Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETs) paradigm attempts to improve technology and communication through the provision of probabilistic hazard information (PHI). The research and technology necessary to produce this information requires a substantial resource investment, but the societal value of the information may outweigh the costs. This study provides an initial estimate of this value by exploring public willingness to pay (WTP) for an app that provides continuously updated, geographically situated PHI that could be utilized during a tornado event. Findings indicate that the mean WTP, in a one-time payment, for this precise hazard information product is $7.53 per person. Aggregated to the US population, the estimated value is between $901 million and $1.56 billion. These findings indicate that federal agencies and private companies are likely to generate a substantial surplus by developing these products and will contribute to improving informed decision-making and protecting lives and property.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第23151号 / 工博第4795号 / 新制||工||1750(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 澤田 純男, 教授 清野 純史, 准教授 後藤 浩之 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

Jamaica, the third largest island in the Caribbean, has been affected significantly by flooding and flood-related damage. Hence assessing the probability of flooding and susceptibility of a place to flood hazard has become a vital part of planning and development. In addition to heavy rainfall from tropical storms and Atlantic hurricanes, several terrestrial factors play significant roles in flooding, including local geology, geomorphology, hydrology and land-use. In this study, a GIS-based multi-criteria statistical methodology was developed to quantify hazard potential and to map flood characteristics. Fourteen factors potentially responsible for flooding were identified and used as initial input in a hybrid model that combined principal component analysis with logistic regression and frequency distribution analysis. Of these factors, seven explained 65 % of the variation in the data: elevation, slope angle, slope aspect, flow accumulation, a topographic wetness index, proximity to a stream network, and hydro-stratigraphic units. These were used to prepare the island’s first map of flood hazard potential. Hazard potential was classified from very low to very high, nearly one-fifth (19.4 %) of the island was included within high or very high flood hazard zones. Further analysis revealed that areas prone to flooding are often low-lying and flat, or have shallow north- or northwest-facing slopes, are in close proximity to the stream network, and are situated on underlying impermeable lithology. The multi-criteria hybrid approach developed could classify 86.8 % of flood events correctly and produced a satisfactory validation result based on the receiver operating characteristic curve. The statistical method can be easily repeated and refined upon the availability of additional or higher quality data such as a high resolution digital elevation model. Additionally, the approach used in this study can be adopted to evaluate flood hazard in countries with similar characteristics, landscapes and climatic conditions, such as other Caribbean or Pacific Small Island Developing States.

In 1960, Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii erupted, destroying most of the village of Kapoho and forcing evacuation of its approximately 300 residents. A large and unprecedented social science survey was undertaken during the eruption to develop an understanding of human behavior, beliefs, and coping strategies among the adult evacuees (n = 160). Identical studies were also performed in three control towns located at varying distances from the eruption site (n = 478). During these studies data were collected that characterized ethnic grouping and attitudes toward Hawaiian cultural issues such as belief in Pele and two lava flow mitigation measures-use of barriers and bombs to influence the flow of lava, but the data were never published. Using these forgotten data, we examined the relationship between Hawaiian cultural issues and attitudes toward the use of barriers and bombs as mitigation strategies to protect Kapoho. On average, 72% of respondents favored the construction of earthen barriers to hold back or divert lava and protect Kapoho, but far fewer agreed with the military's use of bombs (14%) to protect Kapoho. In contrast, about one-third of respondents conditionally agreed with the use of bombs. It is suggested that local participation in the bombing strategy may explain the increased conditional acceptance of bombs as a mitigation tool, although this can not be conclusively demonstrated. Belief in Pele and being of Hawaiian ethnicity did not reduce support for the use of barriers, but did reduce support for bombs in both bombing scenarios. The disparity in levels of acceptance of barriers versus bombing and of one bombing strategy versus another suggests that historically public attitudes toward lava flow hazard mitigation strategies were complex. A modern comparative study is needed before the next damaging eruption to inform debates and decisions about whether or not to interfere with the flow of lava. Recent changes in the current eruption of Kīlauea make this a timely topic.

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the existing noise conditions within industrial education woodworking and metalworking laboratories to determine whether these noise conditions were a problem as seen by the instructors and if in fact these noise conditions exceeded the standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). The study was conducted in three phases: (1) the assessment of the opinions of professional industrial educators towards noise as a pollutant; (2) an electronic instrument measurement of the actual noise exposure conditions that existed in a sampling of laboratories; and (3) the comparison between the opinions of the professional educators and the actual laboratory noise conditions. The study incorporated the responses from every identifiable high school woods and metals instructor throughout Utah. Comparisons between groups were made concerning the opinions of the professional educators. towards noise as a pollutant, their knowledge about OSHA, and their identification of the noisiest pieces of equipment. The second phase of the study entailed the electronic instrument measurement of the actual environmental noise levels within 30 randomly selected laboratories. The use of a sound level dosimeter and a hand held sound level meter were employed. The data obtained from the study disclosed that the two groups were not in agreement on their knowledge about OSHA. The electronic instrument measurements revealed that 8 of the 18 woodworking instructors and 5 of the 12 metals instructors visited were subjected to noise exposures that were in violation to OSHA. The loudest pieces of equipment were the surface planer, radial arm saw, table saw, foundry furnace, pedestal grinder and portable disc grinder. The third phase of the study used a statistical analysis to compare the opinions of the instructors to the actual measured noise conditions. The chi-square test for significance at the . 05 level of confidence was used to reject the null hypothesis. The major conclusions reached as a result of the analysis of data include: (1) a potential safety and health hazard exists from noise pollution within the industrial education facilities; (2) many members of the profession are not fully informed about OSHA; (3) most labs are in compliance to OSHA noise standards, however, many do exceed the maximum a llowable limits; (4) under stringent OSHA compliance, certain curriculum alterations would have to be initiated; (5) there is no apparent connection between those laboratoryies which were in volation to OSIIA noise standards and the composition of size and construction materials; (6) the opinions of the teachers from the field do not necessarily reflect the actual measured conditions of the environmental noise exposures; and (7) the din of noise produced around machinery must not be considered a problem relevant only to industry.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第18640号 / 理博第4019号 / 新制||理||1579(附属図書館) / 31554 / 京都大学大学院理学研究科地球惑星科学専攻 / (主査)教授 石川 裕彦, 准教授 林 泰一, 教授 余田 成男 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

PROPHAZ is a computer program created for the analysis of survival data using the general proportional hazards model. It was designed specifically for the situation in which the underlying hazard function may be estimated from the mortality experience of a large reference population, but may be used for other problems as well. Input for the program includes the variables of interest as well as the information necessary for estimating the hazard function (demographic and mortality data). Regression coefficients for the variables of interest are obtained iteratively using the Newton-Raphson method. Utilizing large sample asymptotic theory, χ2 statistics are derived which may be used to test hypotheses of the form Cβ = 0. Input format is completely flexible for the variables of interest as well as the mortality data.