A Context-Aware Architecture for Realizing Business Process Adaptation Strategies Using Fuzzy Planning

Business competency emerges in flexibility and reliability of services that an enterprise provides. To reach that, executing business processes on a context-aware business process management suite which is equipped with monitoring, modeling and adaptation mechanisms and smart enough to react properly using adaptation strategies at runtime, are a major requisite. In this paper, a context-aware architecture is described to bring adaptation to common business process execution software. The architecture comes with the how-to-apply methodology and is established based on process standards like business process modeling notation (BPMN), business process execution language (BPEL), etc. It follows MAPE-K adaptation cycle in which the knowledge, specifically contextual information and their related semantic rules — as the input of adaptation unit — is modeled in our innovative context ontology, which is also extensible for domain-specific purposes. Furthermore, to support separation of concerns, we took apart event-driven adaptation requirements from process instances; these requirements are triggered based on ontology reasoning. Also, the architecture supports fuzzy-based planning and extensible adaptation realization mechanisms to face new or changing situations adequately. We characterized our work in comparison with related studies based on five key adaptation metrics and also evaluated it using an online learning management system case study.

Dynamics of social practices of migration during the pandemic of the example of Republic of Armenia

Historically rich history of Armenian migration was supplemented in 2020-2021 by new social practices, including the return of migrants to their homeland during the restrictions in the first half of 2020, and new practices of quick decision-making on emigration in the fall and winter of 2020-2021. In this article, the impact of the pandemic and the development of adaptation strategies of reactive (forced), active (making a choice from the available options) and proactive (planning the prospects for self-realization, career and professional growth and development) types. These practices are considered based on the analysis of statistical data and on the basis of our own empirical research by the method of focused interviews among Armenian families.

Charting the evidence for climate change impacts on the global spread of malaria and dengue and adaptive responses: a scoping review of reviews

Background Climate change is expected to alter the global footprint of many infectious diseases, particularly vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue. Knowledge of the range and geographical context of expected climate change impacts on disease transmission and spread, combined with knowledge of effective adaptation strategies and responses, can help to identify gaps and best practices to mitigate future health impacts. To investigate the types of evidence for impacts of climate change on two major mosquito-borne diseases of global health importance, malaria and dengue, and to identify the range of relevant policy responses and adaptation strategies that have been devised, we performed a scoping review of published review literature. Three electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus and Epistemonikos) were systematically searched for relevant published reviews. Inclusion criteria were: reviews with a systematic search, from 2007 to 2020, in English or French, that addressed climate change impacts and/or adaptation strategies related to malaria and/or dengue. Data extracted included: characteristics of the article, type of review, disease(s) of focus, geographic focus, and nature of the evidence. The evidence was summarized to identify and compare regional evidence for climate change impacts and adaptation measures. Results A total of 32 reviews met the inclusion criteria. Evidence for the impacts of climate change (including climate variability) on dengue was greatest in the Southeast Asian region, while evidence for the impacts of climate change on malaria was greatest in the African region, particularly in highland areas. Few reviews explicitly addressed the implementation of adaptation strategies to address climate change-driven disease transmission, however suggested strategies included enhanced surveillance, early warning systems, predictive models and enhanced vector control. Conclusions There is strong evidence for the impacts of climate change, including climate variability, on the transmission and future spread of malaria and dengue, two of the most globally important vector-borne diseases. Further efforts are needed to develop multi-sectoral climate change adaptation strategies to enhance the capacity and resilience of health systems and communities, especially in regions with predicted climatic suitability for future emergence and re-emergence of malaria and dengue. This scoping review may serve as a useful precursor to inform future systematic reviews of the primary literature.

Climate Change-Induced Flood Disaster Policy Communication Issues for Local Community Adaptation Resilience Management in Uganda

Effective climate change and disaster policy communication services are vital for enhancing the adaptive resilience capacity of the vulnerable local communities in poor countries like Uganda. This chapter focuses on the effectiveness of the Ugandan national climate change and disaster policy information communication strategies in addressing national flooding disaster risks, highlights the recent trends of knowledge based responses to climate change induced floods, assesses the impact of the flood on the socio-economic well-being of local households and communities, and determines the vulnerability issues with corresponding adaptation strategies to floods in the flood prone country. Climate change flood risks have continued to exact huge socio-economic loss and damage effects due to the vulnerability and weak adaptation strategies to floods. The national meteorological services tend to forecast seasonal flood events; some flood forcing factors; and the impact of floods on social, economic, ecological, and physical infrastructure are on the rise in some parts of the country.

Participatory Evaluation of Effectiveness of Farmer-Led Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change in Eastern Uttar Pradesh

India has shown high vulnerability towards the impact of climate change due to thedependency of 58 per cent of India’s population on agriculture. The study was carried on180 respondents in three districts selected randomly of eastern Uttar Pradesh to evaluatefarmer-led adaptation strategies to the impact of climate change, activities that arepredominantly led by farmers to make them more adaptable to long-term changes in weatherpatterns. All the respondents had experienced extreme climatic events in the last 5-10 years,making the region climate-prone. Nine farmers’-led adaptation strategies to climate changefollowed in crop farming were documented and quantified by using Climate ChangeAdaptation Index. Adaptation strategies were evaluated using the Quantification ofIndigenous Knowledge method (QuIK) method; by involving the key informants followedby peer farmers. Crop diversification, use of high yielding varieties of crops andpreparations of bunds to control water flow were the most preferred adaptation strategiesto climate change. The irregular rainfall increased the incidence of floods in eastern UttarPradesh; thus, the preparation of bunds to regulate water flow in crop fields was the mostefficient adaptation strategy.