This project has two aims. First, to provide a comprhensive interpretation of Jean-Paul Sartre's theory of alienation, beginning with the discussion of alienation in Being and Nothingness and concluding with Critique of Dialectical Reason. I argue that the meaning of alienation throughout these works is the revelation or experience of being an object for another freedom. I argue that this experience is fundamentally an experience of vulnerability, in the sense of the capacity to be wounded. The meaning of alienation in Sartre's philosophy is therefore an experience of vulnerability. Understanding alienation as an experience of vulnerability provides an alternative to the conventional understanding of Sartrean alienation as equivalent to violence and oppression. The second aim of this project is to discuss the way alienation is related to the concepts of violence and oppression. Violence and oppression are understood, by Sartre, in terms of alienation, but alienation itself is not identified with either violence or oppression. I explore Sartre's discussions of violence and oppression in the posthumously published Notebooks for an Ethics and in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, and show through these texts, that alienation consistently refers to the experience of vulnerability, but also, that and this experience is the basis of violent actions and oppressive social relations. Although alienation is not equivalent to violence and oppression, and these concepts must not be confused, violence and oppression must be understood in terms of alienation, according to Sartre's thought. / Philosophy

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is the most common mental illness, with estimated lifetime prevalence of 25% (Kessler, Avenevoli, & Merikangas, 2001). Importantly, research suggests that the one-year prevalence rates of depression are relatively low in childhood, but dramatically increase, as much as six-fold, from early to late adolescence (Hankin et al., 1998; Kessler et al., 2003). These trends have led researchers to examine the developmental antecedents of depression in hopes of identifying risk factors associated with the first onset of disorder. This study examined the relationship between two empirically supported risk factors for depression: stress reactivity and cognitive vulnerabilities (CV). To varying degrees, these factors have been examined throughout development; yet, these bodies of literature have been surprisingly separate, which may contribute to the disappointing performance of selective intervention strategies to identify and treat youth at risk (Kovacs & Lopez-Duran, 2010). The current study examined the developmental antecedents and combined effects of two risk factors for depression. A sample of 127 adolescents and their mothers from the greater Philadelphia area completed questionnaires and interviews. In addition, adolescents participated in a social stress task to elicit a stress response. Measures of biological stress reactivity were measured through the endocrine system (e.g., cortisol) and the autonomic nervous system (e.g., heart rate). Findings suggest that a number of proximal stressors predict higher levels of both CV and stress reactivity components. We did not find evidence for more distal antecedents (e.g., early life stress, maternal depression, parenting styles) in the prediction of these risk factors, however. Importantly, this study highlights the combined risk factors of CVs and biological stress reactivity. Specifically, adolescents with higher levels of CV and a poorer ability to regulate after a stressor are at increased risk for depressive symptoms. Findings did not support the hypothesis that the mechanism through which CVs lead to depression is biological reactivity. The current study presents an important methodological and theoretical advancement in the body of literature examining risk factors for depression and stress reactivity. From the evidence obtained, it appears that in many cases these aspects of reactivity may operate synergistically in the development of depression and that the lack of physiological recovery may amplify the negative effects of different cognitive styles. The joint effects of cognitive and biological reactivity can enhance our understanding of reactions to stressful events and lead to more personalized treatment. Approaches that incorporate mindfulness and relaxation strategies may be particularly relevant to the regulation of physiological reactivity to stress that may reduce the prolonged feelings associated with stressful events. Overall, the results from the current study provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between stress responses and move beyond prior research on risk factors for depression. / Psychology

Groundwater conditions beneath 11 hectares property owned by HydroOne near the southeastern edge of the Oak Ridges Moraine were assessed for contamination susceptibility using groundwater and geological information from HydroOne monitoring on-site and within one kilometre. Geological information was obtained from preexisting well records and a deep cored hole through dense glacial deposits (Newmarket Till) and through two deep regional sand aquifers (Thorncliffe and Scarborough Aquifers) into shale at 130 mbgs. The multiple data types included water levels, Tritium-Helium groundwater dating, oxygen-18 and deuterium, and major and minor ions. The water table is close to surface (<3m) and wells above 22 m depth in the highly active shallow zone show chemicals and Coliform Bacteria from human activities including roads, septics and agriculture. Shallow groundwater flows downward towards the Thorncliffe aquifer; the bottom of this most active zone is unknown due to insufficient data from deeper wells. Two private wells (100 mbgs) thought to be in the Thorncliffe aquifer contain constituents indicative of human influence. Seven of eight homeowner wells show tritium from nuclear power stations, one at detection limit. Three hypotheses are proposed to explain the susceptibility of wells in the Thorncliffe Aquifer to contamination: 1) the Newmarket aquitard is contains preferential pathways due to fractures connected to sand layers allowing deep penetration of contamination, 2) recharge can occur directly into the Thorncliffe aquifer in areas where Newmarket Till is non-existent, and 3) wells have faulty construction allowing short-circuiting to depth of contaminated shallow water down and along well casings. Based on the current data preferential pathways through the Newmarket is the most plausible hypothesis. However, additional work to define groundwater flow paths both on and off-site as well as additional geochemical and isotopic analyses from existing and new deep wells is needed to better determine risk to residential wells. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / A groundwater study was conducted in an eight square kilometre area at the southeast edge of the Oak Ridges Moraine near Oshawa, ON. It included: geology from a 130m hole through overburden (including Newmarket Till) to bedrock, groundwater age determinations and water chemistry obtained by Hydro One from 16 monitoring wells on HydroOne property (11 hectares) and 25 nearby homeowner wells, most less than 22m deep. Wells above 22m show salt and other constituents from roads, septics or agriculture and show young groundwater age. Two deep wells (100m) in the Thorncliffe Aquifer beneath the Newmarket Till also show these chemicals; one of them sampled for tritium-helium showed young age, as do some intermediate -depth wells. The pathways for young water migrating so deep are undetermined.

This research explores geospatial patterns in social vulnerability to flooding and experimentally examines the effect of coverage maximums on flood insurance demand. In the first chapter, I analyze census data for the City of Calgary from 1991-2016 to identify trends in social vulnerability based on flood hazard level. Using a quasi-experimental design, I estimate the short-term changes in social vulnerability attributable to the 2013 Calgary flood. The results show that the Calgary flood was associated with a 2.6% increase in postsecondary education, a 1.4% decrease in the immigrant population, a 1.7% decrease in the visible minority population, a $7,100 increase in median family income, 2.8% decrease in home ownership, 3.7% increase in housing construction and 2.2% increase in recent movers. Together, these findings suggest that the highest flood hazard areas in Calgary are generally comprised of lower vulnerability populations; absolute loss potential from floods is getting higher over time due to higher property wealth in high flood hazard areas; and flooding events are associated with a decline in social vulnerability over the short-term. In the second chapter, I examine flood insurance coverage preferences through the use of a hypothetical choice experiment. The experiment was designed to examine the effect of dwelling value and coverage limit on the probability of flood insurance purchase, while holding the probability of flooding and insurance price constant. Controlling for income, the results indicate that amount of coverage is negatively related to flood insurance demand, however, for people in high-value dwellings the opposite is observed. This may suggest an approach to flood insurance as an investment into high-value properties as a financial asset, but the trade-off in higher yearly premiums may not seem worth the investment for lower-valued dwellings. This research shows an inconsistent demand for flood insurance, dependent on dwelling value and independent of income. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / In this research I analyze the population characteristics of the City of Calgary geographically in order to determine if more vulnerable populations are exposed to the hazard of flooding. I also look at the before-and-after flood population characteristics of the flooded and non-flooded areas to see if flooding makes communities more or less vulnerable following an event. My aim is to provide context for the flooding hazard in Calgary and see if a flood changes the population vulnerability of the affected areas afterwards. I also conduct a choice experiment where I provide participants with a devised flood insurance scenario. I keep some of the variables constant, such as flood probability and insurance price, but change the amount of coverage and dwelling value randomly to see if they influence the likelihood that people buy insurance. The goal of this is to understand how insurance maximums can influence consumer demand.

The importance of school buildings, among the built heritage of a community, is largely acknowledged. Due to past seismic events, damage or even collapse of schools have had a huge social impact. The safety of children and youth has a fundamental priority and, in addition, the unsafety of schools can aggravate social dispersion phenomena which follow an earthquake. In the aftermath of the Molise earthquake (2002), which caused the collapse of a primary school in San Giuliano di Puglia (Campobasso, Italy) and the consequent death of 27 children and a teacher, the Italian government issued a national plan for the seismic vulnerability assessment of relevant and strategic structures all over the country. The huge number of structures to be evaluated makes this operation extremely complex and, after almost twenty years, it still requires efficient and cost-effective (also in terms of execution time) tools to be effectively planned. More recently, the United Nations adopted, in March 2015, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, which is articulated in “priorities”, providing actions to be implemented. Specifically, Priority 1 is focused on “understanding disaster risk”, while Priority 2 sets the goal of “strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk”. Both objectives require to deepen knowledge of risks and of its components (i.e., hazard, exposure and vulnerability) at various territorial scale (e.g., national or urban). This thesis presents the seismic vulnerability and fragility assessment of school buildings in Italy, to address this problem at multiple scales, at municipality level and at national level, also including investigations on case studies for refined modelling. First, a prioritisation procedure to sort school buildings part of an urban stock by their seismic vulnerability is proposed. This procedure has the aim of supporting local administrations and enterprises in charge with built stocks in decision-making for the allocation of limited funds for retrofit. The knowledge process of the building stock is comprised of on-site visual surveys and retrieval of original projects documentations. Then, the priority list is defined based on the combination of a qualitative evaluation and of a quantitative capacity/demand ratio resulting from a simplified mechanics-based model. The former results from the application of a form, counting structural and non-structural deficiencies, which is proposed in this work for masonry, reinforced concrete (r.c.), and mixed masonry-r.c. buildings, by updating an existing form. The priority-ranking procedure was applied to r.c. school buildings managed by the Municipality of Padova, in north-east Italy. Then, in the second part of the thesis, the research focuses on the fragility assessment of macro-classes of buildings, representative of the Italian school taxonomy, aimed at risk evaluation at national scale. Based on the Italian school building census, macro-classes of buildings were identified according to a limited number of parameters (i.e., the construction material, age of construction, number of stories, and plan area). Fragility curves were derived for five damage states (from slight damage to complete collapse), with reference to the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS98). For masonry schools, fragility curves were derived for 265 building types by means of a simplified mechanics-based approach, named Vulnus, which accounts for both in-plane and out-of-plane responses. Fragility assessment was also carried out for a macro-class of r.c. school buildings by selecting two representative schools from the above-mentioned urban stock managed by the Municipality of Padova. A non-linear fibre model was developed for each prototype building, taking into account its specific features, such as the presence of infills and of non-seismic joints. Non-Linear Time History Analyses (NLTHA) were carried out by applying a great number of natural and scaled ground motion records, covering a large range of seismic intensities. Fragility curves were derived by statistically processing the outcomes of NLTHA. Thus, the application of two alternative approaches for fragility estimate are provided in this work. Finally, damage maps at national scale are provided by implementing the obtained fragilities, showing the distribution of expected damage for a selected return period and for observation time windows.

Despite concerted efforts at agricultural development over many years, millions of people in developing countries still suffer from poverty and under-nutrition. New crop varieties, such as those released during the green revolution in Asia, increased farmers' income and reduced the level of under-nutrition. In recent years, while the speed of the development of conventional breeding technology has slowed, biotechnology has developed rapidly. In 2005, about 8.5 million farmers in 21 countries grew transgenic crops. Transgenic rice has not been commercially released on a large scale, but progress has been made in developing varieties with potential to increase yield and reduce input costs. In this context, this research aims to provide empirical evidence on the potential effects of introducing transgenic rice on farm households' income and nutritional well-being in Bangladesh, including the impacts on their current nutritional status and nutritional vulnerability over time. To this end, two econometric models are constructed and estimated. A farm household model is employed to project farm households' production and consumption responses to introducing improved rice varieties such as transgenic rice. The model estimates the profit effect of introducing transgenic rice. The influence of the profit effect on farmers' consumption decisions is then considered. Due to the ex ante nature of this research and data limitations, the effects of transgenic rice are assumed to be similar to that of previous high yielding varieties (HYVs), and the impact of transgenic rice on farm household profit is assumed to be similar to the effect of the percentage of rice area in HYVs and the yield effect of transgenic rice is the same as HYVs. On the production side, the supply of three outputs- rice, all other crops and animal products- and demand of labor and fertilizer were estimated. On the consumption side, both poor and non-poor households' demand for rice, wheat/other food, pulse, oil, vegetables/fruits, meat/egg/ milk, fish, and spices were estimated. Based on the parameter estimates, the calorie intake and protein intake elasticities with respect to introducing transgenic rice were computed. The results indicate that the total profit elasticity with respect to the percentage of rice area in HYVs is 0.08. The calorie elasticity with respect to the percentage of rice area in HYVs ranges from 0.062 in non-poor to 0.074 in poor households, and the protein elasticity ranges from 0.075 in non-poor to 0.084 in poor households. The results indicate that transgenic rice is likely to play a positive role in improving farm households' nutritional status in terms of total calorie/protein intake. The magnitude, however, is likely to be moderate, if only the profit effect is considered. A consumption forecasting model is used to examine farmers' nutritional vulnerability a probabilistic concept defined as having a high probability now of suffering a shortfall in the future. It is assumed that when exposed to risk, farmers' consumption decisions have already considered their risk coping strategies. The effect of transgenic rice is reflected by its impact on farm income. Farm households' calorie intake in the future (hunger season) was predicted by a multivariate regression function with the logarithmic daily per resident calorie intake as the dependent variable. The independent variables include variables that represent households' income, flood exposure, assets, and demographic composition. Farm households' nutritional vulnerability profiles, based on the estimation of ex ante mean and variance, indicate that vulnerability exists among surveyed rice farm households. The model also predicts that the income increase induced by introducing transgenic rice will reduce each individual household's probability of suffering a future consumption shortfall and subsequently will reduce its vulnerability. The overall vulnerability profile of farm households improves in Bangladesh. / Ph. D.

As populations of the European gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar L.) move into the southeast, laboratory studies indicate that the potential exists for defoliation and possible tree mortality in mixed pine-hardwood stands. This dissertation describes a field study that was initiated to determine the susceptibility and vulnerability of pure and mixed stands of loblolly pine, oaks and sweetgum in pine-oak and pine-sweetgum cover types in the Atlantic Coastal Plain physiographic province. Sixteen stands were defoliated between 1992 and 1996. Stand susceptibility was significantly related to stand composition; stands with a greater proportion of susceptible species experienced greater defoliation. Oaks and sweetgum were heavily defoliated. Pines did not suffer extensive defoliation, and results of the study indicate that the probability of widespread gypsy moth defoliation in pine plantations appears to be low. A multiple linear regression model for the prediction of mean stand defoliation is also presented. Trends in tree mortality were similar to those previously described in northeastern forests. Susceptible tree species were heavily impacted, however, oaks displayed greater vulnerability than sweetgum. Suppressed and intermediate trees in the understory, and trees that were in poor or fair condition, had a greater probability of dying subsequent to defoliation. However, under- and overstory basal area mortality rates were not significantly different in the pine-oak type, and stem mortality rates were not significantly different in either type. Loblolly pine mortality was observed, but it was difficult to isolate the source, and thereby determine whether gypsy moth defoliation was a primary causal factor. In general, the potential for extensive pine mortality in mixed pine-hardwood stands does not appear to exist. Logistic regression was found to be a useful tool in the prediction of individual tree mortality and two logistic regression equations were derived and validated for use in pine-oak and pine-sweetgum cover types. / Ph. D.

For this study, I have constructed a logistic regression model, using existing datasets of environmental parameters to predict the probability of As concentrations above 5 parts per billion (ppb) in Virginia groundwater and to evaluate if geologic or other characteristics are linked to elevated As concentrations. Measured As concentrations in groundwater from the Virginia Tech Biological Systems Engineering (BSE) Household Water Quality dataset were used as the dependent variable to train (calibrate) the model. Geologic units, lithology, soil series and texture, land use, and physiographic province were used as regressors in the model. Initial models included all regressors, but during model refinement, attention was focused solely on geologic units. Two geologic units, Triassic-aged sedimentary rocks and Devonian-aged shales/sandstones, were identified as significant in the model; the presence of these units at a spatial location results in a higher probability for As occurrences in groundwater. Measured As concentrations in groundwater from an independent dataset collected by the Virginia Department of Health were used to test (validate) the model. Due to the structure of the As datasets, which included As concentrations mostly (95-99%) = 5 ppb, and thus few (1-5%) data in the range > 5 ppb, the regression model cannot be used reliably to predict As concentrations in other parts of the state. However, our results are useful for identifying areas of Virginia, defined by underlying geology, that are more likely to have elevated As concentrations in groundwater. Results of this work suggest that homeowners with wells installed in these geologic units have their wells tested for As and regulators closely monitor public supply wells in these areas for As. / Master of Science

Intensive agricultural developments and increasing human population has caused severe lowland-forest loss and fragmentation in the western coastal plain in Taiwan over the past centuries. The goal of this study is to explore the multiscale impacts of forest fragmentation on species richness and community composition of lowland-forest birds in Taiwan. At a regional scale, Island Biogeography Theory was applied to examine area and isolation effects on species richness of lowland-forest birds using bird data derived from Breeding Bird Survey Taiwan in 2009 and 2010. I also investigate the differential responses of two functional groups (forest specialists and generalists) to area and isolation effects Furthermore, I examine the relative influences of environmental variables at regional, landscape and local scales on avian community indices and composition in northern Taiwan with a hierarchical multiscale approach. Finally, species vulnerable to forest fragmentation and the ecological traits associated with specie vulnerability to forest fragmentation were identified. Only forest specialist species responded to the regional-scale area and isolation effects. The species richness of forest specialists increased with the size of forest islands, and the community similarity of forest specialist species declined with increasing the distance from the sources of immigrants. Structurally isolated forests may not function as real habitat patches from the view of forest generalists because of their flexibility in utilizing the non-forest matrix. After accounting for the influences of environmental variables at other spatial scales, the regional-scale isolation effect still played a key role in determining avian community composition based on the  presence/absence data set. But local-scale forest condition also explained a considerable amount of variability in the presence/absence data set. The regional-scale isolation effect, however, didn't show significant influences on community composition based on the abundance data set. In contrast, the landscape-scale variables explained the largest amount of variability in the abundance data set at the entire community level. There were six bird species (Parus varius, Dicrurus aeneus, Treron sieboldii, Pericrocotu solaris, Erporniszan tholeuca and Alcippe brunnea) whose occurrence and abundance were both vulnerable to forest fragmentation. Habitat specialization was the ecological traits most strongly associated with their vulnerability / Ph. D.

This thesis presents a methodology and analysis tool to explore ship system vulnerability using a simplified modeling approach during the naval ship concept design process within the Concept and Requirements Exploration (CandRE) process used at Virginia Tech. The CandRE is based on a Multi-Objective Generic Optimization (MOGO) approach that explores a design space to produce a non-dominated set of ship design solutions comparing design effectiveness, risk, and cost. The current CandRE process evaluates ship characteristics and intact system options to determine a design Overall Measure of Effectiveness (OMOE) through the calculation of Measures of Performance (MOPs). Using the CandRE ship design process and a Preliminary Arrangement and Vulnerability (PAandV) model, an Overall Measure of Vulnerability (OMOV) is calculated for each ship design using the developed process and tools described in this thesis. The OMOV is calculated by combining the Vulnerability Measure of Performance (VMOP) scores across multiple ship mission capabilities. / Master of Science