M. Tech. Business Administration / The purpose of the study was to investigate, evaluate and validate the state of readiness of South African National Defence Force infantry military commanders to manage disasters in southern Africa. A survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire that was completed by 122 respondents from three infantry battalions and the infantry formation headquarters across South Africa, representing a reasonable cross-section of infantry battalions leaders.

The aim of this thesis is to study through four essays the economics of migration from developing countries. The …rst chapter assesses the e¤ect of natural disasters (mainly due to climate change), in developing countries, on migration rates and looks at how this e¤ect varies according to the level of education of people. Our results show that natural disasters are positively associated with emigration rates and also involve the migration of highly skilled people. The second chapter presents the di¤erent channels explaining the intention to migrate illegally. One of the novelties of the analysis is that it uses a tailor-made survey among urban Senegalese individuals. We …nd that potential illegal migrants are willing to accept a substantial risk of death and tend to be young, single and with a low level of education. We also show that the price of illegal migration, migrant networks, high expectations, tight immigration policies and the preferred destination country all play a role in the willingness to migrate illegally. The third chapter completes the second one by studying the role of risk-aversion and discount rate in illegal migration from Senegal. Our results show that these individual preferences matter in the willingness to migrate illegally and to pay a smuggler. Finally in the fourth chapter, we are interested in the e¤ect of migrants on credit markets in a rural Senegalese context. According to our results, having a migrant in a household increases both the likelihood of having a loan and its size, whether the loan is formal or informal. We also …nd that this positive e¤ect remains signi…cant no matter if the loan is taken for professional activities or simply to buy food.

This thesis is an investigation of the multi-dimensional impact of disaster on community engagement with respect to capacity and vulnerability factors. The historic community of Goderich, Ontario, ravaged by an F3 tornado August 21, 2011, was the study population. A mixed-methods approach utilizing surveys, semi-structured interviews, and key informant interviews was employed in an effort to yield a more confident set of data and help facilitate understanding. Testing results revealed that the community was very aware of its capacities and vulnerabilities and utilized the disaster situation to affect positive change in these conditions. However, disaster itself was only found to stimulate engagement patterns in its immediate aftermath. Therefore, while disaster does not adversely affect community engagement, it also does not encourage sustained engagement activity. It does, however, stimulate extended associations of connection to the community, which may hold the key to long-term engagement motivation.

This thesis focused on the consequences of remittance inflows in developing countries. The first partexplored the causal impacts of remittances on some indicators of aggregate welfare while the secondpart examined the effects of remittances on public policy. Several results emerged. First, remittanceinflows help reduce the proportion of individuals selling low wages and this effect is stronger in acontext of low level of financial development, high macroeconomic instability and less unpredictableremittances (Chapter 1). Second, remittances have a robust stabilizing impact on the privateconsumption. However, this effect tends to decrease with the levels of remittance inflows and financialdevelopment. Moreover, remittance-dependent economies seem to be strongly sheltered against thedamaging effects of various types of shocks affecting consumption (Chapter 2). In Chapter 3, theresults highlighted that remittance inflows dampen the positive effect of natural disasters on the outputgrowth volatility. However, this impact was strongly reduced as the level of remittances increased.The second part of the thesis revealed interesting results regarding the effects of remittance inflows onpublic policy. First, remittance inflows reduce the insurance role played by the governmentconsumption in more open economies and this effect is more likely to hold when remittances exhibit acountercyclical behavior (Chapter 4). In Chapter 5, the results showed that the fiscal retrenchmentinduced by remittance inflows, is particularly marked for the public education and health spending incountries characterized by various types of governance problems. Finally, the thesis showed that theeffects of remittances do not only concern the expenditure side but also the revenue side. Remittancesare more likely to increase the fiscal space in receiving economies that rely on the value added taxsystem. In these countries, remittance inflows help increase both the level and the stability of thegovernment tax revenue ratio (Chapter 6).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma. / Bibliography: leaves 247-258.

Thesis (LL.M.)--George Washington University, 2006. / Title from title screen (viewed Dec. 29, 2006). "ADA454285"--URL. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in paper format.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:39:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3299.pdf: 1151673 bytes, checksum: f7833cd2c234e17130f9cdcae385d11f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-09-27 / In contact with some specific agents, the disordered occupation of the cities reveals risks that were somewhat dormant. Rain can be considered one of these agents, because your interaction with the environment often affects the routines of places, promoting various disruptions to the lives of people, including a disaster situation. The Civil Defense is the agency responsible for the security of the population in these events and considers in their manuals that some groups are more vulnerable: people with physical disabilities are one of this. Thus, the objective was to analyze sociologically how a person with disabilities is considered by the Civil Defense and by the scientific literature in the context of disaster, seeing there is a gap in sociological literature as concerning the analysis of disabled people and their interaction with the biophysical environment. To this end, we conducted a survey to review documents and protocols provided by the Brazilian Civil Defense, as well as documents and studies available in online research platforms, which analyze the interaction of disability with disasters, and thereby discriminating the foci predominant theme in contemporary studies. The aim is to present a synthesis of sociological knowledge about the group in the context of disasters. / A ocupação desordenada das cidades revelam perigos que estavam de certa forma latentes, quando em contato com alguns agentes específicos. As chuvas podem ser consideradas um desses agentes, pois a sua interação com o meio, muitas vezes prejudica as rotinas dos lugares, promovendo inúmeros transtornos à vida das pessoas, inclusive situações de desastres. A Defesa Civil é o órgão responsável pela segurança da população frente a esses eventos, e considera em seus Manuais alguns grupos como mais vulneráveis, entre eles, as pessoas com deficiência física. Nesse sentido, o objetivo desse trabalho foi o de analisar sociologicamente de que forma a pessoa com deficiência física é considerada tanto pelos orgãos da Defesa Civil, quanto pela literatura científica especializada, num contexto de desastre, visto que existe uma lacuna na literatura sociológica no que concerne a análise das pessoas com deficiência e sua interação com o meio biofísico. Para tal, foi realizada uma pesquisa documental a fim de analisar documentos e protocolos disponibilizados pela Defesa Civil brasileira, como também documentos e estudos existentes em plataformas de pesquisa online, que abordam a interação da deficiência física com os desastres, e assim, discriminando os focos predominantes de estudos contemporâneos no tema. O intuito é o de apresentar uma síntese sociológica do conhecimento a respeito do grupo, no contexto de desastres.

Seventeenth-century Seville, one of early modern Spain's most populous cities and the mercantile hub of its imperial trade, endured repeated and severe flooding of the Guadalquivir River, events that have been largely overlooked by historians. Additionally, Seville's boom-then-bust history and the allure of the 'decline of Spain' thesis have ensured that the second half of the seventeenth century for both the urban and the national context remains similarly neglected. This thesis, by conducting research into the city's flooding from 1621 to 1700 presents an alternative narrative of continuity, at the same time as asserting the value to be gained from a historical study of the environment and disasters. I argue that urban responses - political and cultural - to disaster provide fundamental evidence of the impact of wider historical processes and structures. The asistente - the royal governor - of Seville likewise lacks sustained or detailed study. These men, as the king's appointees, had a vital role in the performance of the government of the Habsburg monarchy. The city's equivalent of the corregidor in other Spanish cities and towns, and previously understood as a legal and administrative official, the asistente was, I argue, responded to a broader set of political attitudes, which prioritised conservation and discouraged novelty. I also stress the hands-on and practical aspects to the post, which demanded a working appreciation of urban space. By connecting a study of royal government in one of the most significant of early modern Spanish cities to an environmental history of flooding, I address important gaps in the scholarship and suggest new avenues of research into the history of environmental disaster. Spanish 'decline' might be reinterpreted as a failure to deal with specific local environmental issues, and environmental disaster acknowledged as an issue of central political importance.

These comments have the objective of opening discussion regarding intervention of the State in the economy, regulating prices in times of natural disasters due to the sudden increase of the demand by consumers and consequent economic exploitation by some providers. Taking the chilean case as example, the authors raise certain legislative amendments to avoid that certain providers take improper advantage of consumers in such dramatic times. / Los presentes comentarios pretenden abrir la discusión sobre si el Estado peruano debería intervenir, en tiempos de desastres naturales, en la regulación de los precios de los productos, en tanto estos suelen encarecerse ante el aumento repentino de la demanda por parte de los consumidores y el consiguiente aprovechamiento económico de algunos proveedores. Tomando como ejemplo el caso chileno, planteamos algunas modificatorias legislativas para evitar así que ciertos proveedores se aprovechen de la desesperación de los consumidores en circunstancias tan dramáticas.

Submitted by Edileide Reis (leyde-landy@hotmail.com) on 2013-04-10T19:12:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 José.pdf: 1419530 bytes, checksum: 4209d589859c5afd7252296c118864b3 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Meirelles(rodrigomei@ufba.br) on 2013-04-13T19:58:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 José.pdf: 1419530 bytes, checksum: 4209d589859c5afd7252296c118864b3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-04-13T19:58:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 José.pdf: 1419530 bytes, checksum: 4209d589859c5afd7252296c118864b3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Efetuou-se um levantamento dos conceitos de desastres, riscos, vulnerabilidades, ameaças,capacidade e termos associados advindos de diferentes autores, comparando-os entre si. São apresentados e identificados processos de geração de desastres ao longo do tempo, considerando-se as diversas forças sociais e políticas, concluindo-se nessa revisão que o desastre é gerado ao longo do tempo. É descrita a situação de risco que se encontra no Quadrante Nordeste da Baía de Todos os Santos (QUANEBTS), cuja área de estudo compreende porções dos municípios de Santo Amaro, São Francisco do Conde, Candeias, Simões Filho e Salvador e todo o território municipal de Madre de Deus. Estende-se da foz do rio Subaé, ao norte, até a Baía de Aratu, à leste, passando pelo corpo hídrico da baía e pelas ilhas de Maré, dos Frades e de Bom Jesus dos Passos pertencentes à Salvador. Apresentam-se também os conceitos de bacias hidrográficas, dos processos naturais, do uso e ocupação do solo e as conseqüências socioambientais na pessoa humana e nas comunidades e sua interferência em situações adversas. Os dados secundários foram coletados sobre os empreendimentos em documentos oficiais e sítios eletrônicos de órgãos públicos (CEPRAM, IMA, INGÁ, IBAMA, dentre outros), empresas (Petrobras, Brasken, CODEBA e Porto de Aratu), assim como nos planos diretores de grandes empreendimentos instalados no CIA. Os dados primários são oriundos de anotações elaboradas ao longo do tempo, a partir do início da década de 1990, até a presente data, em diversas visitas efetuadas e pareceres redigidos em variados temas para regiões continentais e insulares da área em estudo. Todos esses dados geraram uma caracterização e um diagnóstico socioambiental. Usou-se como critério básico, o levantamento de dados físicos, biológicos e antrópicos. Analisou-se mais profundamente a indústria do petróleo e gás, a contaminação de chumbo em Santo Amaro e o fenômeno da Maré Vermelha ocorrido em março de 2007. Os riscos e seus fatores internos foram identificados nos empreendimentos e situações levantadas, aplicando-se o referencial teórico desenvolvido neste trabalho. A análise contemplou também os efeitos cumulativos advindos dos processos industriais e das atividades portuárias. A principal conclusão é a existência de vulnerabilidades institucionais e sociais, dentre as quais se destaca a falta de inserção do risco na cultura gerando a não percepção das ameaças, das vulnerabilidades, das capacidades e das ações prospectivas mais conseqüentes. Os resultados podem servir de ponto de partida na avaliação e interpretação de simulações de cenários futuros, com efeitos ambientais e socioeconômicos a serem considerados no planejamento para o desenvolvimento desta região e outras. / Salvador