Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the American Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. Biloxi, Mississippi, a small town on the coast, was one of the towns devastated by the storm. A decade after the storm, recovery remains an ongoing process. My ethnographic research in 2006, 2010, and 2011 and media and historic document analysis throughout these ten years explore this recovery process and what pre-disaster cultural, social, political, and economic issues have shaped Biloxi and Biloxians' recovery. The small coastal city of Biloxi sits on the Mississippi Sound of the Gulf of Mexico. The city's history and residents' identities are intertwined with this waterfront location. Biloxians rely on the Gulf for recreation and job opportunities, particularly in the long-standing seafood and tourism industries. Scattered piers are filled with recreational and shrimping boats. Casinos dot the shoreline where seafood processing plants once stood. Many Biloxians still proudly identify with the city's coastal location, neighborhoods they were raised in or lived in before Katrina, their perceived socioeconomic class status, and their own and their ancestor's racial, ethnic, and national identities. However, Biloxi's waterfront location also makes the city prone to hurricane strikes. Historic storms like Camille in 1969 and Fort Lauderdale in 1947 have affected the city's development and influenced residents' beliefs and behaviors during their preparation for Katrina. Biloxians were aware of Katrina's predicted landfall in the days and hours before the storm, but this history of hurricanes influenced many residents' decisions to remain in the city for the storm. Many residents I spoke to described their belief that survival in previous storms indicated they would survive Katrina. Other pre-Katrina processes influenced Biloxians' preparations for, coping with, and response to the disaster, as expected in vulnerability theory. Poorer and working class residents were less able to prepare for or evacuate before the storm, if they chose to do so. Residents in higher risk neighborhoods like East Biloxi found themselves affected more severely by the storm, often losing much of their homes and lives. Biloxians' with less political and economic power struggled to keep their voice heard as city and other government officials laid the framework for recovery. Pre-Katrina Biloxians' cultural, political, and economic inequalities directly affected the recovery process. To better understand these influences, in this research I use a political economy approach to describe and analyze Biloxi's recovery from Katrina. To strengthen this analysis, I have also drawn on theories regarding vulnerability and resilience, risk and uncertainty, and cultural-historical context. Each of these approaches contributes to a better understanding of how post-disaster recovery processes work - particularly in the case of post-Katrina Biloxi. This work also builds on disaster anthropology and social science research that rejects the concept of disasters as isolated events and instead argues that disasters are influenced by broader and long-standing cultural, political, and economic processes. In this work I also bring this argument for a holistic approach into long-term disaster recovery. The holistic anthropological approach to the post-Katrina Biloxi that I have used here reveals the importance of understanding a range of facts and processes that exist before, during, and after a disaster to explore the recovery process. Post-Katrina Biloxi is as much a product of pre-Katrina Biloxi as it is a product of the effects of the hurricane itself.

Freight transportation networks are an important component of everyday life in modern society. Disruption to these networks can make peoples’ daily lives extremely difficult as well as seriously cripple economic productivity. This dissertation develops a quantitative framework for assessing vulnerability and redundancy of freight transportation networks. The framework consists of three major contributions: (1) a two- stage approach for estimating a statewide truck origin-destination (O-D) trip table, (2) a decision support tool for assessing vulnerability of freight transportation networks, and (3) a quantitative approach for measuring redundancy of freight transportation networks.The dissertation first proposes a two-stage approach to estimate a statewide truck O-D trip table. The proposed approach is supported by two sequential stages: the first stage estimates a commodity-based truck O-D trip table using the commodity flows derived from the Freight Analysis Framework (FAF) database, and the second stage uses the path flow estimator (PFE) concept to refine the truck trip table obtained from the first stage using the truck counts from the statewide truck count program. The model allows great flexibility of incorporating data at different spatial levels for estimating the truck O- D trip table. The results from the second stage provide us a better understanding of truck flows on the statewide truck routes and corridors, and allow us to better manage the anticipated impacts caused by network disruptions.A decision support tool is developed to facilitate the decision making system through the application of its database management capabilities, graphical user interface, GIS-based visualization, and transportation network vulnerability analysis. The vulnerability assessment focuses on evaluating the statewide truck-freight bottlenecks/chokepoints. This dissertation proposes two quantitative measures: O-D connectivity (or detour route) in terms of distance and freight flow pattern change in terms of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The case study adopts a “what-if” analysis approach by generating the disruption scenarios of the structurally deficient bridges in Utah due to earthquakes. In addition, the potential impacts of disruptions to multiple bridges in both rural and urban areas are evaluated and compared to the single bridge failure scenarios.This dissertation also proposes an approach to measure the redundancy of freight transportation networks based on two main dimensions: route diversity and network spare capacity. The route diversity dimension is used to evaluate the existence of multiple efficient routes available for users or the degree of connections between a specific O-D pair. The network spare capacity dimension is used to quantify the network- wide spare capacity with an explicit consideration of congestion effect. These two dimensions can complement each other by providing a two-dimensional characterization of freight transportation network redundancy. Case studies of the Utah statewide transportation network and coal multimodal network are conducted to demonstrate the features of the vulnerability and redundancy measures and the applicability of the quantitative assessment methodology.

Being in the era of information technology, importance and applicability of analytical statistical model an interdisciplinary setting in the modern statistics have increased significantly. Conceptually understanding the vulnerabilities in statistical perspective helps to develop the set of modern statistical models and bridges the gap between cybersecurity and abstract statistical /mathematical knowledge. In this dissertation, our primary goal is to develop series of the strong statistical model in software vulnerability in conjunction with Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) framework. In nutshell, the overall research lies at the intersection of statistical modeling, cybersecurity, and data mining. Furthermore, we generalize the model of software vulnerability to health science particularly in the stomach cancer data. In the context of cybersecurity, we have applied the well-known Markovian process in the combination of CVSS framework to determine the overall network security risk. The developed model can be used to identify critical nodes in the host access graph where attackers may be most likely to focus. Based on that information, a network administrator can make appropriate, prioritized decisions for system patching. Further, a flexible risk ranking technique is described, where the decisions made by an attacker can be adjusted using a bias factor. The model can be generalized for use with complicated network environments. We have further proposed a vulnerability analytic prediction model based on linear and non-linear approaches via time series analysis. Using currently available data from National Vulnerability Database (NVD) this study develops and present sets of predictive model by utilizing Auto Regressive Moving Average (ARIMA), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) settings. The best model which provides the minimum error rate is selected for prediction of future vulnerabilities. In addition, we purpose a new philosophy of software vulnerability life cycle. It says that vulnerability saturation is a local phenomenon, and it possesses an increasing cyclic behavior within the software vulnerability life cycle. Based on the new philosophy of software vulnerability life cycle, we purpose new effective differential equation model to predict future software vulnerabilities by utilizing the vulnerability dataset of three major OS: Windows 7, Linux Kernel, and Mac OS X. The proposed analytical model is compared with existing models in terms of fitting and prediction accuracy. Finally, the predictive model not only applicable to predict future vulnerability but it can be used in the various domain such as engineering, finance, business, health science, and among others. For instance, we extended the idea on health science; to predict the malignant tumor size of stomach cancer as a function of age based on the given historical data from Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER).

Agriculturalists in Lebanon are exposed to a wide range of vulnerability factors that have direct impacts on farmers’ livelihoods. To evaluate the effects of those factors and the livelihood challenges they breed, this research analyses how two agricultural activities shape farmer livelihood vulnerability, namely urban agriculture and fruit and vegetable value chains. First, I analyze how vulnerability factors influence urban agriculturalist livelihoods and assess if urban agriculture is an adequate solution to lower their livelihood vulnerability. Second, I analyse how various actors partaking in fruit and vegetable value chains are exposed to different vulnerability factors and how this impacts their individual livelihoods. Conceptually, the urban agriculture component of this research builds from the vulnerability framework and sustainable livelihoods approaches scholarships. The agricultural value chain section engages with literatures centered on the vulnerability framework, sustainable livelihoods approaches and value chain analysis. This thesis concludes that the main vulnerability factors associated with urban agriculture relate to physical, financial and human capitals, and that urban agriculture is not an adequate tool to reduce the livelihood vulnerability of urban agriculturalists. I also conclude that social, financial and human capital barriers significantly affect agricultural value chains actors’ livelihoods. Overall, the vulnerability of the different actors is linked to their socioeconomic status, which dictates the amount of human capital they possess, thus their ability to adapt to changing conditions and external stressors. I posit that human capital is key to both urban agriculture and agricultural value chains, as this asset dictates the vulnerability of individual livelihoods and Lebanese agriculturalists’ ability to sustain their livelihoods.

As organizations have become more reliant on computers and technology to operate in a globalized world, they have also become more vulnerable to cyberattacks on their networks. The expense to organizations from cyberattacks now exceeds $400 billion USD annually. These costs highlight the need for behavioral research in the cyber domain. The first phase of this research developed an instrument to measure workers’ cybersecurity attitudes. An iterative process resulted in a scale with good psychometric properties - The Cybersecurity Attitudes Scale. The scale measures two factors: cyber policy adherence attitudes and perceived vulnerability to a cyberattack. The second phase of this research used the theory of planned behavior as a theoretical framework to model the relationship between personality facets, policy adherence attitudes, perceived vulnerability, locus of control, cybersecurity climate, and cybersecurity behaviors. While the hypothesized model had poor fit for the data, there was a strong relationship between cybersecurity attitudes (i.e. policy adherence attitudes and perceived vulnerability) and dutifulness, altruism, compliance, cybersecurity climate, and cybersecurity behavior. This research provides practical value to academic researchers and organizations by providing a scale to measure cybersecurity attitudes and to help organizations better understand the nature of the antecedents that lead to cybersecurity attitudes and behavior.

Vulnerability is a phenomenon that with life changing events becomes more apparent. The nurse’s approach to their own and the patient’s vulnerability affects the caring relationship where all the feelings the patient is experiencing is considered. For the patient to dare express the feelings that vulnerability induces it is important not to disregard it. Caring tradition implies a deeper emotional connection between the patient and nurse, it fills an important and central part in caring for vulnerable patients. The aim of the study was to illuminate what vulnerability is within caring. The method was a literature study where systematical searches in different databases with care focus resulted in ten scientific result articles. With inspiration from content analysis the result articles were processed and analysed. The result clarifies experiences of vulnerability within caring through the categories: feelings, courage, alleviation, and burden-resource. It emerged that vulnerability occurs because of different reasons for the patient and nurse and how vulnerability is considered has impact on the emotional connection that is needed in a caring relationship. The conclusion from the literature study is that vulnerability is an important phenomenon to have knowledge of. It is relatively unexplored and demands further research with the purpose of exploring vulnerability in a caring context and thereby give the nurse better tools to be able to give best possible care based in scientific evidence. / Sårbarhetär ett fenomen som i samband med livsomställningar blir mer framträdande. Sjuksköterskans inställning till sin egen och patientens sårbarhet påverkar huruvida en omsorgsfull relation skapas där alla känslor patienten upplever beaktas. För att patienten ska våga uttrycka känslorna sårbarheten framkallar är det viktigt att sårbarhet inte förbises. Vårdande medcaringtraditionen i fokus som innebär en djupareemotionell anknytning mellan patient och sjuksköterskafyller därfören viktig och central del i omvårdnaden av sårbara patienter.Syftetvar att belysa vad sårbarhet är inomcaring.Metodför studien varallmän litteraturstudie där systematiska sökningar i databaser med omvårdnadfokus resulterade i tio vetenskapliga resultatartiklar. Med inspiration från innehållsanalys bearbetades samt analyserades de vetenskapliga resultatartiklarna.Resultatettydliggör upplevelser av sårbarhet inomcaringgenom kategorierna:känslor,mod,lindrandeochbörda-resurs. Det framkom att sårbarhet uppkommer av olika skäl för patienten och sjuksköterskan och hur sårbarheten beaktas har inverkan påden emotionella anknytningen som behövs i en vårdande relation.Slutsatsenfrån litteraturstudiens resultat är att sårbarhet är ett viktigt fenomen att ha kunskap om. Det är relativt obeforskat, därför rekommenderas fortsatt forskning med syfte att undersöka sårbarhet i en caring kontext för att ge sjuksköterskan bättre redskap att geen patientsäker och evidensbaserad omvårdnad.

Aujourd’hui notre société met à l’écart les personnes désignées « vulnérables ». Cette mise à l’écart traduit dans les faits un rejet plus global de tout ce qui renvoie à la vulnérabilité. Considérant que celle-ci est une dimension impensée de notre culture, une grande partie de cette thèse consistera à montrer ce qu’il en est de la vulnérabilité et par quels chemins il est possible de la penser. L’exclusion de cette vulnérabilité, qui nous est pourtant constitutive, n’est que le revers de l’identité que chacun veut préciser du haut de sa conscience assurée d’elle-même. Avec Emmanuel Levinas, il s’agit de penser la vulnérabilité comme sens-sensibilité PAR l’autre en égard POUR l’autre, plaçant la rencontre comme condition d’un évidement désidentificateur. L’altérité est ma première ressource, elle me convoque à l’accueil de l’étrangeté de l’autre et cet accueil me révèle à moi-même bien plus que ce que j’en décide. Ce petit déplacement qui propose à chacun d’habiter sa vulnérabilité, ce presque-rien qui ne se commande pas mais qui opère dans l’altération, telle est la « phénoménologie du soi affecté par l’autre que soi » (P. Ricœur) que nous avons tenté de penser. A partir de là, une autre société peut s’envisager, une « société des singularités » qui fait toute sa place à nos in-suffisances dans une qualité de « socialité » (E. Levinas). Ce terreau permet de revisiter l’État, le singulier et l’universel, l’hospitalité, la fraternité, l’économique, le lien entre éthique et politique pour faire éclater le besoin individuel d’une coupure entre un « moi-nous » et un « tout-eux ». Habiter sa vulnérabilité c’est alors rester à l’endroit intenable de la non coupure. / Nowadays our society sets aside people pointed out as "vulnerable". This sidelining translates in the facts a more global discharge of anything sending back to vulnerability. Considering vulnerability as un unthought dimension of our culture, a large part of this thesis will consist in showing what the situation is regarding vulnerability and through which ways it is poile possible to think it out. The excluding of this vulnerability, which is nevertheless essential to us, is only the backhand of an identity which each of us wants to specify from his own insured consciousness. With Emmanuel Levinas, the matter is to think out vulnerability as sensitivity THROUGH the other in consideration FOR the other, where the encounter turns to be the condition of à desidentifying hollowing out. Otherness is my first resource, it convenes me to receive the otherone's strangeness and this reception is giving me a self awareness much more than what I decide. That small shift suggests to each one to inhabit his own vulnerability, that uncontrolled futility but which operates in change, such is the "phenomenology of the one, modified by the other than one " that we tried to think. From that prospect point, another society can be considered, a "society of singularities" giving room to our insufficiencies within the "sociality quality ". That breeding ground gîtes lies the opportunity to re-visit the Nation, the singular and the universal, hospitality, fraternity, economics, the link between ethics and politics, in order to blow up the individual need of a cut between " me-us " and " whole-them ". To live into its own vulnerability is then to stay into the unbereable place of a non cut.

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.

Tongatapu coastal zone vulnerability assessment study was conducted to examine the degree of current and future risks of projected climate change and sea level rise on the coastal zone of the main island of the Kingdom of Tonga-Tongatapu. Inundation, and flooding hazards generated by tropical cyclone storm surges are the common threats to Tongatapu coastal towns and villages because of their low-lying settings. Flooding problems are exacerbated by the social trends of population growth and migration from the outer islands of the Kingdom, to Tongatapu the main island where the capital town of the Kingdom, Nuku'alofa is located. Other threats include beach erosion, saltwater intrusion, and seawater spraying of coastal vegetations and properties. A survey of the local people of Tongatapu, mapping of vulnerable areas with GIS, and using my local knowledge of the island coastal zone were the three methods were used to conduct this study. The main objective of this research was to assess the vulnerability of the coastal zone of Tongatapu to local impacts of inundation and flooding hazards associated with climate and sea-level rise related risks. The results of the survey indicated that more than 95% of the respondents agreed that the coastal zone of Tongatapu is vulnerable to inundation and flooding risks generated by tropical cyclones that visit Tongatapu coastal water every year, based on their recollection, knowledge, and experienced of the past storm events that hit Tongatapu. GIS work showed that those coastal towns and villages of Tongatapu that are located in areas less than 5 meter above sea level are vulnerable to the local impacts of inundation and flooding hazards. It is concluded that the yearly visited tropical cyclones to Tonga that are actually hit Tongatapu coastal zone had increasing the vulnerability of the coastal towns and villages of Tongatapu that are located in areas below 5 meters above sea level to inundation and flooding hazards associated with climate change and sea level rise related risks. Other possible cause might be the gradual uplifted of the south coast of Tongatapu due to ongoing earthquake activities in Tonga since the last 200 years. But in facts more research it has to be done to confirm this argument. The response to the local impacts of inundation and flooding hazards in the coastal zone of Tongatapu should be focused on adaptation, risk and hazard management.

Much work and research has been carried out on effective school cultures, accountability and relationships. Underlying all that happens in schools, is the notion of trust. But what do we understand about trust? Is the definition of trust consistent amongst everyone? How is trust defined? Is trust a valued or even an identified component of successful leadership? Does trust underpin all that we do and what, if any, are the commonalities of trust? Central to this thesis is the notion that trust and trusting relationships play a pivotal role in the culture of a school and that without trust a school ceases to be as effective as it has the potential to be. The purpose of this study was to consider existing research and information and to attempt to establish a definition of trust, while identifying the place that trust is perceived to have in an effective school culture. While seeking to establish a baseline understanding of trust and peoples' perceptions of trust, it was also the purpose of this study to examine the dichotomy of trust and accountability. This looked at the challenge of building and maintaining trust while meeting individual and school accountability tasks. Consideration was also given to high-trust/low-trust situations and to whether they are actually the same situation, just seen through different eyes. The literature review examined what an effective school culture might look like and how trust impacts on this culture and, ultimately, on student learning. The literature review also defined trust and the skills, actions or emotions which contribute to trust and for whom these aspects of trust are a reality. The understanding that trust in the school situation is based on having common values and goals was evident in the literature. Trust was defined as being critical in the role of leadership and it is inherent in the way that principals act and lead and that it impacts greatly on the effectiveness of the relationships within a school and on student learning. Eight principals from a range of school sizes, with a gender balance of participants, took part in this research. All were involved in separate, semi-structured interviews, which provided the data for grounded theory analysis. Three distinct findings emerged from this process. These were the notion of what it means to be trustworthy, the role of the principal in extending trust and the dichotomy of trust. The results of this qualitative study suggested that the modelling of trust through daily actions and the empowering of staff were found to be important aspects in developing and maintaining trust within schools as was the competence, experience and knowledge of the principal. Walking the talk and valuing staff as individuals as well as professional members of the school organisation, were critical aspects to effective leadership. Prior experiences in which low trust was evident, informed the practice of these principals to develop philosophies of high trust. Within the final chapter in the Recommendations for Further Study which could add to current research by considering in more depth, specific relationships involving high trust. Six recommendations for further study were discussed in this final section. This study concludes that trust is significant in effective school cultures. It is a fragile emotion and action that can quickly be undermined and decimated and conversely, needs to be actively worked on to be maintained and developed to a high trust model. Being aware of and considering trust will assist principals and their colleagues to enhance effective school cultures, which will impact positively on student learning outcomes.