Volcanic eruptions are powerful, spectacular, uncontrollable geophysical events which require management to mitigate loss of life and property. An essential part of volcanic risk management is to quantify the vulnerability of exposed elements of society to volcanic hazard. Agriculture takes advantage of the fertile soils of volcanic regions, but is vulnerable to damage and disruption from volcanic hazards, in particular ashfall. This thesis investigates the vulnerability of pastoral agriculture to volcanic ashfall by examining impacts on the resource base of pastoral farming (water supply, pasture and soil, and livestock) and explores mitigation and recovery strategies for ashfall hazards at varying levels. It provides a quantitative understanding of pastoral farming vulnerability to ashfall hazards, as part of probabilistic risk assessment. Surface farm water supplies are found to be more vulnerable to ashfall, through contamination and sedimentation, than groundwater supplies. After heavy ashfall, the physical impacts of ashfall overwhelm the more subtle chemical impacts on water supply systems, but even relatively thin ashfalls may cause potential toxic changes to water quality. Farm-scale assessment of water supplies was used to identify key areas of vulnerability to ash hazards. Modelling a large-scale evacuation of livestock following widespread, heavy ashfall found the logistical, time and cost requirements high and may make this action unrealistic. Perhaps most critically, it is doubtful that farms in surrounding regions have the capacity to accommodate the numbers of animals likely to be affected. Tunnel-house and field trials have shown pastures are relatively resilient to ashfalls of 10 mm, but this resilience rapidly reduces with increasing ashfall thickness and at .100 mm there is effectively no pasture recovery. Ashfall grain size, frequency, soluble salt volume, and different meteorological conditions also have a significant impact on pastures and soils. Pasture reestablishment will benefit from tillage of ash covered soils to mix ash and topsoil and break up the surface crust which may form on ash deposits. Targeted fertiliser treatments may also be required to buffer acidic soluble salts and remedy deficiencies of essential nutrients. Reworking of ash deposits was found to be highly disruptive to pasture re-establishment and in extreme cases may prolong and intensify the impacts following an ashfall. The majority of farmers impacted by ashfall will continue farming, albeit with varying levels of disruption. However real or perceived impacts to human health may result in farm evacuation in the short-term. Where ashfall thicknesses are too thick for a return to profitable farming, migration from impacted farms and agriculture-related industries will result in significant demographic changes to rural communities and potential social impacts. Stressed farming systems are most vulnerable to failure and psychosocial impacts.

The need for an employee-specific measure of resilience has directed the development of the Employee Resilience Scale (EmpRes). The conceptualisation of employee resilience in the present study describes an employee capacity that organisations can help develop through the provision of enabling factors. The EmpRes Scale was developed and tested in three samples, and was found to have adequate measurement properties. Findings from two organisational samples also revealed that employee resilience is significantly associated with learning culture, empowering leadership, job engagement, job satisfaction and intentions to turnover, and unrelated to employee participation and corporate communication. The research indicated that employee resilience has a mediating effect on the relationships between learning culture and job engagement and job satisfaction, and empowering leadership and job engagement, job satisfaction and intentions to turnover. The findings suggest that organisations enable their employees to be more resilient by creating a learning oriented culture and building empowering leadership, which in turn leads to better organisational outcomes. Although future research is required, the present study shows preliminary support for the psychometric properties of the scale as well as the conceptual model.

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the role of mindfulness as a resilience resource in depressed and trauma exposed college students (Thompson, Arnkoff, & Glass, 2011). Chapter one reviews current literature that is relevant to the role of mindfulness in resilience and focuses on depression as an outcome. Further, chapter two details the research study. The study proposed and tested a model in which resilience and mindfulness predict trauma symptoms and depressive symptoms and mindfulness mediates the relationship between resilience and trauma and depression symptomology. A total of 529 college students were recruited at a large urban university. They were asked to complete a demographics questionnaire followed by an assessment of their trauma exposure using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM–5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Participants were then be asked to complete the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer, 2003), the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003), the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (Radloff, 1977), and the Trauma Symptom Checklist (Briere & Runtz, 1989). To assess how well resilience and mindfulness predict depression and trauma symptomology in trauma exposed individuals vs. individuals who did not endorse trauma exposure, separate hierarchical regression analyses were completed based on trauma exposure and outcome variable. The results showed that while mindfulness significantly predicted trauma symptoms and depressive symptoms in trauma exposed college students as well as students with no trauma exposure, resilience did not significantly predict the outcome variables. Further, to test the mediational effects of mindfulness on the relationship between resilience and the outcome variables for the trauma exposed and non-trauma exposed college students, the Preacher and Hayes (2008) bootstrapping approach was utilized by performing the analysis using the macro PROCESS. The results indicated that mindfulness mediated the relationship between resilience and trauma symptoms as well as resilience and depressive symptoms in both trauma-exposed and non-trauma exposed college students. Limitations were discussed and implications for practitioners and future research were provided.

Optimal health is best achieved through direct access to effective holistic and relevant health prevention strategies, timely and accurate diagnosis, appropriate treatment, and follow-up (K. Woodcock & Pole, 2007). Effective two-way communication is an essential component in all of these stages. It increases the opportunity for a thorough assessment, and thereby contributes to an intervention plan that is appropriate, timely, and suitable to that particular consumer. This study explored how a group of Deaf adults, for whom ASL is their primary language, and all of whom have been diagnosed with depression, managed their symptoms of depression in a health care system that privileges hearing and speaking as the primary mode of communication. A case study methodology with individual, in-depth interviews, and the completion of a hand-drawn person and environment map were used. The participants shared the nature and depth of the barriers that exist and that intersect to prevent their equal access to quality mental health assessment, intervention, and follow-up otherwise available to their hearing counterparts. Faced with these intersecting barriers, negative attitudes from some in the dominant society, and the fear of discrimination from their own collectivist community, participants saw few formal options for managing their symptoms of depression. In most cases participants turned to a strategies of an intrapersonal nature. Some engaged in positive activities such as reading self-help books, volunteering within the Deaf community, walking, and, for two, accessing traditional counseling services. More frequently, however, participants were forced to engage in maladaptive activities such as isolating themselves in an attempt to avoid detection of their symptoms. Some distracted from their feelings of isolation and discrimination through exercise, though others used alcohol or over-eating as their strategy. A number of changes or enhancements were recommended by the participants, including creation of a comprehensive Deaf Awareness Training plan for professionals and the associated staff, an increase in the number and availability of ASL/English interpreters, and the creation of Deaf sensitive health promotional and prevention materials in modes easily accessible to Deaf visual language users. The study concludes by exploring implications for policy, practice, and future research.

Background: Many children in the world today grow up under very challenging circumstances. In Lesotho, the issue of HIV/AIDS, food-insecurity and poverty has caused the country several problems and statues a threat to the wellbeing of its young inhabitants. In those circumstances, adolescents’ capacity to face these challenges becomes a great part of the nurses’ work in the country. Aim: The aim of this study is to describe nurses’ experiences from strengthening capacity in vulnerable adolescents in a southern African nursing context. Method: Four qualitative, semi-structured interviews was conducted with nurses working at two different health care clinics for youth in Lesotho. The findings were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Results: In the results, Resilience was identified as a core theme. This core theme was found to be encircled by four main themes: Nursing care, Strengthen capacity, Identify the whole and Challenges. Conclusion: Resilience was a concept used by all interviewed nurses and also the over-all goal of various nursing interventions. By using a holistic approach, the nurses viewed the whole person in his or her cultural and familial context. Thereafter different methods and techniques were used to build capacity in the adolescents and help them to face and overcome difficulties. Clinical relevance: Describing how nurses can help adolescents to build capacity can inspire nurses in all health care settings to implement nursing interventions and hence build resilience. / <p>Röda Korsets sjuksköterskeförening stipendium 2015</p>

This research involves conducting a resilience assessment on the Town of Caledon in southern Ontario, Canada, through the use of the Resilience Assessment Workbook authored by the Resilience Alliance. The purpose of the research is to develop a comprehensive understanding of Caledon, and identify ways to enhance its resilience as a linked social-ecological system in the context of urban growth. Urban growth pressures have brought multiple challenges to Caledon in land use, infrastructure maintenance, farmland preservation and watersheds conservation. Urban growth management in Caledon is situated in the provincial growth strategy for the Greater Golden Horseshoe areas in Ontario. Provincial legislation including the Places to Grow Act (2005), the Greenbelt Act (2005), the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act (2001) and the Provincial Policy Statement (2005) aim to reconcile the needs for population increase, economic growth and environmental protection. The results of the resilience assessment of Caledon consist mainly of a cross-scalar study and interviews with twenty-six community members. The cross-scalar study examines Caledon in its social, ecological and economic domains on the provincial, regional and municipal levels. The study also identifies potential resilience threats and assets of Caledon in the context of urban growth. Interviews have been conducted to verify and complement findings of the cross-scalar study. Interviewees include Caledon municipal staff, residents, environmental group leaders, politicians, an aggregates industry representative, a social services representative and a local property developer. The results of this research reveal resilience threats and assets in Caledon, and identify ways for the town to enhance resilience against urban growth pressures. Threats to resilience are found to be associated with urbanization, agricultural land loss, aggregates mining and a lack of affordable housing. Assets of resilience in Caledon are found to be related to civic engagement, participatory planning and agricultural diversification. Based on the cross-scalar study and interview results, emerging themes of resilience and recommendations are developed. Recommendations for Caledon to enhance its resilience include: promoting continual learning and adaptive governance; diversifying agriculture; providing affordable housing; treating urbanization as an opportunity; and developing trade-off principles for the implementation of an integrated plan for resilience.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004. / Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 232 p. Includes bibliographical references. Abstract available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2005 Aug. 17.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-106). Also available in print.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.