Integration of Ignatian Principles in Emergency and Disaster Management Education

This study seeks to explore, understand, and develop a comprehensive application of Ignatian principles into academic emergency and disaster management programs. The research focuses on relevant work discussing Ignatian principles, Ignatian pedagogy, and emergency management training and education. This exploratory and novelistic research approach utilizes document analysis as the strategy for inquiry on how Ignatian principles and pedagogy interact with emergency and disaster management. The document analysis conducted presented limitations due to constraints in the amount of literature available. The study is original; no direct research associating the fields involved is available. The research identified the use of Ignatian principles in several professional disciplines. There is a focus on the application of a modern version of the spiritual exercises, discernment, reflection, and contemplation as tools for improvement of critical thinking, academic excellence, ethics, social analysis, and justice as they apply to emergency and disaster management.

Climate Variability and Its Associated Community Losses in Gicumbi District, Northern Rwanda

Climate change causes loss on lives and livelihoods while regular update strengthens resilience. This study aimed to analyze the rainfall variability impact on livelihoods in Northern Rwanda. The data on community losses due to rainfall variability were considered from 2013 to 2019. The GIS and SPSS helped the data analysis process. The results showed high mean monthly rainfall (119.345 and 90.05 mm) in 2013 and 2017, respectively. This caused landslide, flood, rainstorms, windstorms, lightning, and hailstorms occurrence, which killed/injured people, damaged houses and cropland, livestock loss, and destruction of infrastructures. The correlation analysis indicated a statistically significant p-value of 0.0151 lower than 0.05 and approved that rainfall variability negatively impacts livelihoods. This study can enable policymakers to better understand how changes in rainfall impact livelihoods and strategic measures to adopt for climate variability and climate change adaptation.

Sentiment Analyses of Twitter for Winter Storm Leo

This study sheds new light on sentiment analysis of Twitter for natural disasters according to a magnitude of the importance of information and a multitude of regions and periods. First, this study finds that a winter storm plays a more important role in positive sentiment than negative sentiment based on the magnitude of the importance of information and the number of tweets. Second, people are more interested in sharing information about the weather, such as forecasts and reports, rather than the positive or negative sentiment according to the winter storm. Third, people actively utilize their Twitter for disaster preparation, response, and recovery. Fourth, the spatial patterns of the proportion of tweets in the US states are differentiated by weeks. The results show that governments should develop natural disaster policies by understanding a multitude of human responses, needs, regional characteristics, and periods.

Confidence in Mental Health Professionals and Other Interdisciplinary Involvement in Disaster Response

Increased utilization of coordinated disaster response in the United States has resulted in the integration of interdisciplinary professions, which must involve mental health professionals to maximize potential success. The lack of interdisciplinary training has been cited as problematic. An anonymous survey identifying current training and scaling effectiveness was distributed. Seventy-two responses were recorded from various industries including fire rescue, law enforcement, emergency management, mental health professionals, physicians, and health professional students. As expected, very high percentages of these professionals had received response training. However, the average response often included “neutral” within the standard deviation of responses assessing training efficacy suggesting a possible lack of comfort and confidence. Most significantly, respondents were least comfortable working with mental health professionals, suggesting a need for considerable improvement in mental health professionals' involvement in interdisciplinary disaster response training and exercises.

Risk Acceptance for Humanitarian Crisis Response

This paper tries to identify the risk acceptance of humanitarian crisis response associated with the Rohingya influx into Bangladesh. Myanmar government's oppression at Rakhine state triggered Rohingya people to flee to Bangladesh to save their lives. While Bangladesh is a densely populated small country, she welcomed Rohingyas considering the humanitarian ground. This study analyzed journal articles, situation reports of different agencies and media contents on Rohingya issues, and conducted interviews of Rohingyas, host community, and crisis responders. By accepting risk, Bangladesh is responding to the Rohingya crisis which has saved humanity; however, it created conflicting dynamics, increased population, leading to environmental degradation and creating health risks. This is also challenging national security and impacting reversely on the economy, food security, employment, and tourism. For the betterment of the region, it is necessary to solve the problem in a peaceful way through bi-lateral and multilateral dialogue.

Using Spreadsheet Maps for the Placement of Low Altitude Platform (LAP) Wireless Network Nodes After Disasters

Low altitude platform (LAP) architectures are an emerging platform for providing temporary wireless network connectivity to areas with a damaged fixed wireless network infrastructure. The authors propose a spreadsheet-based approach for practitioners to locate LAP nodes in the field. This approach does not require radio frequency propagation expertise and incorporates standard models to display the coverage areas for the placement of LAP aerial devices. The proposed tool allows the transmission range for a given aerial device to be visually optimized during deployment. The spreadsheet-based tool the authors are proposing is expressly suited for battery-powered LAP architecture devices with payload weight restrictions, such as those utilizing balloons or kites, that can be quickly deployed by emergency responders. An additional contribution of this work is the development of a hybrid propagation model for LAP device transmissions for deployments above 200 meters which is absent in the literature. This model is a linear combination of two existing models for free space radio propagation.

Safety Intelligence and Security Management in Public Secondary Schools in Epe Local Government Area, Lagos State

The research adopted a descriptive survey design. The respondents were selected via simple random sampling. Four hundred participants including 19 principals and 381 students were the targeted population for this study. Findings from this study show that majority of schools have the basic safety and security apparatus but lack the knowledge and experience to employ them in the event of a disaster. Results also show that there is no subject in the school curriculum from kindergarten to secondary level that teaches on safety and security management. Public secondary schools in Epe LGA do not also have constituted disaster management committees or an emergency management plan. Most students however do not know how to use safety and security gadgets in their school premises. The study therefore recommended that a disaster/emergency management curriculum should be inaugurated in public school to teach students on how to respond in cases of emergencies and prevent emergencies.

How Individuals Hypothetically and Realistically Respond to Media Messages About Severe Weather

This study sought to measure how risk perception and behavior intention of residents in coastal counties in Southern Alabama, Mississippi, and Northern Florida may have changed before and after Hurricane Michael in October 2018. The aim of this research project was to compare individual responses to impending disasters before the hurricane and compare them to responses in areas hit by the storm. The authors used an experiment to examine how visual cues and media messages were interpreted by residents and their reported influence on an individual's risk perception and decision-making in the situation. With roughly 1,030 respondents, results indicated that live video was most likely to motivate respondents to prepare activities after the storm, which was in the opposite direction of those respondents answering before the hurricane struck. The authors hope the findings of this study can help broadcasters better target their messages as they move forward.

The Impact of Teen Community Emergency Response Team Training

A study of 481 high school students who completed Teen Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training using the Federal Emergency Management Agency CERT curriculum was conducted over a five-year period, with the objective of identifying the impacts of that training. Through both quantitative and qualitative data collection, the researcher found that a highly engaging emergency response curriculum has multiple positive impacts on teens completing the course. Those impacts include explicit knowledge and skills of emergency preparedness and response, college and career goal orientation enhancement, as well as enhancement to self-efficacy, self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-concept. Replicating such curricula and comprehensive training program at other secondary schools could have a very positive impact on the emergency preparedness and response capacity of communities where it is implemented.

A Restrictive Humanitarian Policy and the Wellbeing of the Disabled in Disasters in Kisumu County

This paper explores how PWD's well-being is realized in disaster situations in Kisumu County of Kenya. There is a significant population of 15,760 persons with disability across Kisumu County. Their well-being is protected by the international humanitarian policy. At the national level, the well-being of persons with disability is taken care of in the Disability Act 2003 and the National Disability Policy. Despite existence of a humanitarian policy framework, the well-being of the disabled is compromised in disaster situations within Kisumu County. The humanitarian policy framework limits humanitarian action to response, which compromises the well-being of PWD. The study employed semi-structured questionnaire instruments to gather information on humanitarian policies applicable to PWD in disaster context. From the key findings, the study concludes that the international humanitarian policies as well as national humanitarian policies are restrictive in nature. The policy lacks enforcement and implementation mechanisms to support the wellbeing of persons with disability in disasters.