Due to the rapid evolution of technology, IT software has become incredibly complex. However the human factor still has a very important role on the application of it, since people are responsible to create software. Consequently, software vulnerabilities represent inevitable drawbacks, found to cost extremely large amounts of money to the companies. “Heartbleed” is a recently discovered vulnerability with no prior investigation that answers questions about the impact it has to the companies affected. This paper focuses on the impact of it on the market value of the companies who participated in the vulnerability disclosure process with the help of an event study methodology. Furthermore our analysis investigates if there is a different affection to the value of the company based on the roles those companies had in the process. Our results suggest that the market did not punish the companies about the existence of vulnerability. However the general negative reaction of the market to the incident reflects the importance of a strategic vulnerability disclosure plan for such cases.

According to the IPCC (2007) fourth assessment report, small islands and coastal communities have a set of characteristics that makes them very vulnerable to climate change impacts, mainly sea-level rise and storm surges. Coastal hazards including inundation, salinisation of the water supply, and erosion threaten vital infrastructure that support coastal communities. Although Canada has the longest coastline in the world, little work has been done on impacts of climate change and adaptation to these impacts in the Canadian coastal zones. This research is part of an International Community-University Research Alliance (ICURA) C-Change, project to develop a multicriteria decision evaluation and support for the systems analysis of adaptation options for coastal communities toward adapting to environmental changes. This study estimates the vulnerability of coastal communities with respect to their environmental, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. It also applies a group version of the Analytical Hierarchy Process for identifying decisions that various stakeholders make on suggested adaptation strategies. This study develops a methodological framework that is applicable to various coastal and small island contexts. The application of the proposed framework is further discussed in a case study conducted on the communities of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (PEI), and Little Anse on Isle Madame, Nova Scotia. Specifically, the state of the Little Anse breakwater is analyzed and new adaptation options are presented and evaluated. This research has illustrated and applied a process of decision evaluation and support that explicitly engages multiple participants and critieria in complex problems situations involving environmental change in coastal communities.

Water resources in Canada are of major environmental, social and economic value. It is expected that climate change will be accompanied by more intense competition for water supply in water-stressed agricultural areas such as the southern Prairies. Beyond physical impacts, drought can be seen as a socio-economic and political problem which ultimately has implications for community-level vulnerability to climate change. This thesis presents empirical vulnerability case studies focused on the exposure-sensitivity and adaptive capacity of Coronach and Gravelbourg in southern Saskatchewan. The results illustrate the fact that farmers or ranchers are not merely passive victims of drought. They also take an active role in shaping the environment around them, thus affecting their own vulnerability to drought. Therefore, by understanding the causal linkages of the coupled social-environment system, a more comprehensive understanding of community vulnerability is achievable and informed decisions can be made based on this thorough understanding of local conditions. In the second part of this thesis, the potential of soft water path is evaluated as a possible adaptation strategy. Based on the results gathered in the first part of this thesis, adaptation measures are tailored to address specific needs of different sectors in the Town of Coronach and the Town of Gravelbourg while ensuring ecological sustainability. Examples of possible paths (adaptation measures) are suggested in order to increase community adaptive capacity to water shortages in light of future climate changes.

Since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated coastal areas of several countries in South East Asia, there has been renewed interest in disaster recovery operations. Although governments and aid organizations have increasingly focused on improving living conditions and reducing vulnerability to future disaster events during the recovery period, there has been limited understanding of what effective disaster recovery entails, and a lack of empirical assessments of longer-term recovery initiatives. Researchers, governments and aid organizations alike have increasingly identified the need for a systematic, independent, and replicable framework and approach for monitoring, evaluating and measuring the longer-term relief and recovery operations of major disaster events. Within this context, the research contends that a conceptualization of effective disaster recovery, referred to as ‘resilient disaster recovery’, should be built upon the holistic concepts of vulnerability, resilience and sustainable livelihoods. Using the resilient disaster recovery framework, the research aimed to develop an evaluative strategy to holistically and critically assess disaster recovery efforts. Using a case study of the 2006 Yogyakarta, Indonesia earthquake event, the research examined one long-term recovery effort in order to develop and test the usefulness and applicability of the resilient disaster recovery conceptualization and assessment framework. The research results further contributed to disaster recovery knowledge and academic literature through a refined conceptualization of resilient disaster recovery and further understanding of recovery as a process. The research used qualitative research approaches to examine the opinions and experiences of impacted individuals, households, and communities, as well as key government, academic and humanitarian stakeholders, in order to understand their perceptions of the long-term recovery process. Using the resilient disaster recovery approach, the research found that the recovery programming after the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake contributed to reductions in visible manifestations of vulnerability, although the root causes of vulnerability were not addressed, and many villagers suffer from ongoing lack of access to assets and resources. While some aspects of resilience were improved, particularly through earthquake-resistant housing structures, resilience in other forms remained the same or decreased. Furthermore, livelihood initiatives did not appear to be successful due to a lack of a holistic approach that matched the skill and capital levels of impacted populations. Using the evidence from the 2006 Yogyakarta recovery effort, the research furthered knowledge and understanding of disaster recovery as a complex and highly dynamic process. The roles of a variety of actors and stakeholders were explored, particularly highlighting the role of civil society and the private sector in facilitating response and recovery. Furthermore, issues of conflict, the context and characteristics of place and scale, and the impact of disasters on income equality were explored. Through this research, an improved understanding of disaster resilient recovery and long-term recovery processes has been highlighted in order to facilitate improved and resilient recovery for future disaster events.

Masters Research - Master of Science / Recent flash floods and landslides in the Philippines have caused many fatalities, loss of livelihoods; destroyed infrastructures, damaged natural resources and displaced several communities. Investigation of five disaster cases of flash floods and landslides from 1991 to 2006 was undertaken to gain an understanding of the causes, behaviour, distribution and biophysical impacts of these recurrent natural hazards. Sustaining healthy and resilient communities and protecting the ecosystem from natural disasters is a key development goal. Therefore, communities at risk need to adequately prepare for, respond to, and recover from the impacts of these natural disasters. A theory model on community resilience called the Landslip-Disaster Quadrant Model was developed to examine the capacity for resilience and the vulnerability of threatened communities. Six building blocks comprise this Model. A community study of the February 17, 2006 landslides in St. Bernard, Southern Leyte, was conducted to test and refine this Model. Major findings of the study have revealed that flash floods and landslides have been frequent due to changing climatic patterns and greater interaction of natural processes. Extreme weather conditions have resulted in intense rainfall that seeps through fractures and cracks in the ground. Rains saturate and loosen soil particles, weaken slope resistance, triggering landslides that formed natural dams. Failure of these natural dams or log jams caused flash floods and debris flows. The rapidity and destructiveness of these hazards were influenced by the angular position of sliding materials, slope resistance, type of cascading materials caught in the flow, river channel configuration, and human structures that obstruct and/or intensify overflow. These were the physical conditions of vulnerability to disasters in the five cases of natural disaster investigated. Rural livelihoods and the economic base of the local people in Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte, were limited and subsistent. Though the local people have a high literacy rate, they have inadequate understanding of the natural processes associated with landslides. Natural observations such as receding water levels in the river, fractures and cracks in the ground on the mountain, excessive rains and landslides in nearby communities could have been used as early warnings by the local people and authorities for safe evacuation. Many lives in Guinsaugon village could have thus been saved from the deadly landslides of 17 February 2006. Political interests have affected progress of resettlement housing and development projects that obliged many local people to extend the period spent living in the evacuation centres. However, the local people were expressive of their faith and hope to rise from the tragedy. These ‘bouncing back’ attitudes of the local people were indicative of their strong cultural values that formed the core of their coping capacity for natural disasters. The results of the community study tested and refined the Landslip-Disaster Quadrant Model. Among the six blocks for building a disaster-resilient community, cultural values and local norms ranked first. This is followed by ecological security, then livelihood sufficiency and economic base, and further by human health and wellness. The last two blocks were structural networks and institutional arrangements, and political will and priorities. This Model could form the framework for a Comprehensive Landslide and Flash Flood Disaster Risk Assessment in the Philippines. The community assessment toolkit developed in this study could be expanded further into policy and planning guidelines of the National Disaster Coordinating Council of the Philippines.

The small land area of the islands of the Maldives, combined with high population density, makes the communities of these islands vulnerable to natural disaster events such as flooding and tsunami. The Indian Ocean Tsunami on 26 December 2004 impacted 69 islands of the Maldives, killing 82 people, leaving 26 people missing and 15, 000 people internally displaced, making it the worst disaster in recorded history. Following the event, the Government of the Maldives announced a Safer Island Development Programme which seeks to provide the infrastructure necessary to adapt to natural disasters. The key focus of disaster management is to reduce the vulnerability of the communities exposed to hazards and risks, and to help them to enhance their resilience. Efforts have been made to develop safer and sustainable communities in all corners of the developed and developing worlds. New Zealand Government announced its effort to build safe and secure communities in 2007 while at a local level the Christchurch City Council published the Safer Christchurch Strategy in 2005. Overseas, the Community Strategy 2000, outlines the vision of "A safe and strong Island" at Isle of Wight United Kingdom. The islands of the Maldives have natural characteristics which make them vulnerable to disasters such as tsunami. This research has been able to identify the relationship between these characteristics and the natural vulnerability of the islands using the data that was collected following the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Out of 11 island, that have been identified for the Safer Islands Development Programme, one island is found to have very high natural vulnerability and 5 islands a high natural vulnerability, from the island vulnerability index model developed through this study. The Island Vulnerability Index model could be used to enhance the present Safer Island Development Programme island selection criteria, to reduce the possibility of 'building risk' into the infrastructure development on the islands. The index could also be used in the Environmental Impact Assessment studies to address the issue of disasters, effective resources allocation in the Public Sector Infrastructure Programme for 'building back better', and resource identification in land use planning.

Risks posed by geohazards to urban centres are constantly increasing, due to the continuous increase in population and associated infrastructure. A major risk to North Island urban centres is impacts from volcanic ashfall. This study analyses the vulnerabilities of selected New Zealand lifelines infrastructure to volcanic ash, to better understand and mitigate these risks. Telecommunications and wastewater networks are assessed, as is the vulnerability of Auckland Airport and grounded aircraft. The ability of vehicles to drive on ash covered roads is also tested, to determine the extent to which emergency services, utility providers and the public will be able to travel during and immediately after ashfall. Finally, air-conditioners have been identified as a significant vulnerability during ashfall, due to the high dependence on cooling for infrastructure and lifelines providers. These are examined to quantify the effects of ashfall on their performance. Each of the selected infrastructure types is assessed through a review of past impacts of ashfall, and experimentation either in the field or under laboratory conditions. Where appropriate, mitigation options that reduce identified vulnerabilities are considered. In most cases these options are operational rather than physical engineering solutions, and indicate pre-planning and response requirements. Key recommended mitigation options include the acquirement or strategic relocation of resources prior to ashfall, regular cleaning and maintenance of essential air conditioners during ashfall to enable their continued use, access to appropriate vehicles for utility providers to reach infrastructure, and discharge of untreated wastewater into Waitemata harbour at Orakei during ashfall on Auckland, to preserve the ability to continue treating wastewater at the Mangere treatment plant

[Truncated abstract] It has frequently been reported that individuals with elevated anxiety vulnerability impose threat-congruent interpretations upon emotionally ambiguous stimuli. A common hypothesis is that such threat-congruent interpretations contribute causally to the intensity and frequency of the anxiety elevations experienced by vulnerable individuals. However, no direct evidence has been provided to support this hypothesis. Empirically evaluating this theoretical position was the goal of the series of empirical studies described in this thesis. The approach employed here involved first, systematically and specifically manipulating interpretive bias, and second, assessing the consequences of such manipulations for anxiety vulnerability as assessed by individual differences in the intensity of emotional reaction to a subsequent stressor. This research was conducted in two phases. The studies in Phase 1 were designed to permit the development of training tasks, capable of inducing group differences in interpretive bias. The employed approach to such interpretive training involved the modification of priming tasks previously used to assess interpretive bias. In each trial of such priming tasks, homograph primes with both threatening and non-threatening meanings are first presented, followed by targets which, on different trials, are related to their threatening or to their non-threatening meanings. Participants are required to respond to identify each target, using the prime as a cue. In order to create interpretive training tasks capable of manipulating interpretive bias, contingencies were introduced into such priming task methodologies, such that the targets were related to differentially valenced prime meanings for different groups of participants. For the threat training group, the targets presented during training were always related to the threatening meanings of the 2 homograph primes, making it advantageous for these participants to interpret the primes in a threat-congruent fashion, with the intention of inducing a threat-congruent interpretive bias. For the non-threat training group, the targets in training were always related to the non-threatening meanings of the ambiguous primes, making it advantageous to interpret the primes in a non-threat-congruent fashion, with the intention of thus encouraging a non-threat-congruent interpretive bias. The success of these training procedures in modifying interpretive bias was then assessed in subsequent, non-contingent versions of these priming procedures

Submitted by Maria Medeiros (maria.dilva1@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-06-11T13:40:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 SARA CAMELO AGUIAR - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGRN) 2015.pdf: 1539853 bytes, checksum: a1c677e58623f70e0b048033305a2ba1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-11T13:40:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SARA CAMELO AGUIAR - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGRN) 2015.pdf: 1539853 bytes, checksum: a1c677e58623f70e0b048033305a2ba1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-20 / Capes / O presente trabalho teve como área de estudo a zona rural do município de Gado Bravo, localizado na mesorregião do Agreste Paraibano e seu objetivo consistiu em analisar a relevância social, ambiental e econômica da água subterrânea para as famílias da zona rural de Gado Bravo diante da vulnerabilidade do município. Foi empregada uma abordagem quantiqualitativa e adotada uma pesquisa do tipo exploratória, foi realizado um estudo espaçotemporal da degradação das terras de Gado Bravo e um georreferenciamento dos poços do município. Foram utilizadas técnicas de Processamento Digital das Imagens para estudar as imagens obtidas pelos satélites Landsat 5 e 8 e foram aplicados uma entrevista semiestruturada e um questionário a 83 famílias, o que corresponde a cerca de 5% do universo que é composto por 1.661 famílias. Conforme os resultados, o município possui baixos níveis de degradação e apresenta regeneração de algumas áreas devido à diminuição da prática da agricultura e a intensificação do plantio da palma forrageira consorciado com gramíneas. Quanto à percepção das famílias foi verificado que a água subterrânea possui grande relevância social e econômica, pois ela é condição essencial para a criação dos rebanhos que é a principal atividade econômica do município e seu uso não é condicionado a pagamento, sua presença é sinônimo de riqueza, porém sua relevância ambiental se encontra em parte comprometida em função do predominante desconhecimento das famílias a respeito da possibilidade de contaminação e finidade do recurso. Todos esses pontos relevantes da água subterrânea fazem frente aos significativos índices de vulnerabilidade social (43,97%), econômica (73,93%), tecnológica (68,65%) e hídrica (54,4%), que resultam de elementos como baixa escolaridade, presença marcante do atravessador na venda da produção das propriedades, baixa renda, inexistência de assistência técnica, desconhecimento de práticas de conservação, pouca duração da água armazenada e ausência de planejamento da produção. / The present work was to study area the rural municipality of Gado Bravo, located in the middle region of the Paraíba arid and its purpose was to analyze the social, environmental and economic importance of groundwater for rural families Gado Bravo before the county vulnerability. Was used a quantitative-qualitative approach and adopted a survey of the exploratory type, there was a space-time study of the degradation of Gado Bravo land and georeferencing of municipal wells. Digital processing techniques were used to study the images images taken by the Landsat satellites 5:08 and were applied one semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire to 83 families, which corresponds to about 5% of the universe is composed of 1,661 families. According to the results, the city has low levels of degradation and regeneration presents some areas due to the decrease of the practice of agriculture and the intensification of planting cactus intercropping with grasses. Regarding the perception of the families was found that the groundwater has great social and economic importance, as it is essential for the creation of herds is the main economic activity of the city and its use is not conditional on payment, your presence is synonymous with wealth, but their environmental relevance is compromised in part due to the prevailing ignorance of the families about the possibility of resource contamination and finiteness. All these important points of the groundwater are facing the significant social vulnerability index (43.97%), economic (73.93%), technology (68.65%) and water (54.4%), resulting from elements low education, strong presence of the middleman in the sale of production of properties, low income, lack of technical assistance, lack of conservation practices, short duration of stored water and lack of production planning.

Existing gender inequality is believed to be heightened as a result of weather events and climate-related disasters that are likely to become more common in the future. We show that an already marginalized group-female-headed households in South Africa-is differentially affected by relatively modest levels of variation in rainfall, which households experience on a year-to-year basis. Data from three waves of the National Income Dynamics Survey in South Africa allow us to follow incomes of 4,162 households from 2006 to 2012. By observing how household income is affected by variation in rainfall relative to what is normally experienced during the rainy season in each district, our study employs a series of naturally occurring experiments that allow us to identify causal effects. We find that households where a single head can be identified based on residency or work status are more vulnerable to climate variability than households headed by two adults. Single male-headed households are more vulnerable because of lower initial earnings and, to a lesser extent, other household characteristics that contribute to economic disadvantages. However, this can only explain some of the differential vulnerability of female-headed households. This suggests that there are traits specific to female-headed households, such as limited access to protective social networks or other coping strategies, which makes this an important dimension of marginalization to consider for further research and policy in South Africa and other national contexts. Households headed by widows, never-married women, and women with a non-resident spouse (e.g., "left-behind" migrant households) are particularly vulnerable. We find vulnerable households only in districts where rainfall has a large effect on agricultural yields, and female-headed households remain vulnerable when accounting for dynamic impacts of rainfall on income.