The societal costs of disasters around the world are continuing to increase and Pacific Island countries are considered some of the most vulnerable. This is primarily due to a combination of high hazard exposure coupled with a range of social, economic, physical, and political vulnerabilities. This article contributes to the growing body of work that aims to understand the causal factors of disast

Vanuatu is one of the most hazard prone nations in the world and frequently tops the World Risk Report as the nation with the highest overall disaster risk. The devastation wrought by category 5 cyclone Pam (2015), the El Niño drought (2015/16), and volcanic eruptions in Ambae (2018), are but a few recent examples of disasters which have disrupted livelihoods and curtailed development. The Vanuatu

Disasters are the result of a vulnerable socioecological system interacting with a hazard. Causal – or the root causes of – vulnerability relates to historical and contemporary social, economic, political, cultural, and biophysical processes and factors, and human and institutional actors that increase the susceptibility of socioecological systems. Indigenous cultures throughout Papua New Guinea s

PURPOSE: Radiological assessment of primary brain neoplasms, both high (HGG) and low grade tumors (LGG), based on contrast-enhancement alone can be inaccurate. We evaluated the radiological value of amide proton transfer weighted (APTw) MRI as an imaging complement for pre-surgical radiological diagnosis of brain tumors.METHODS: Twenty-six patients were evaluated prospectively; (22 males, 4 female

Abstract: Sedan 1990-talet finns en till synes motstridig rörelse inom kulturområdet. Dels en tendens att kultursektorn, i dess nuvarande kulturpolitiskt mer traditionella avgränsning, uppfattas som alltmer marginaliserad. Dels att kultur i bredare bemärkelse efterfrågas i allt högre grad och inom allt fler områden. Rörelsen hänger samman med övergripande samhällsförändringar som globaliseringens Since the 1990s, there has been a seemingly contradictory movement in the field of culture. On the one hand, there is a tendency for the cultural sector, in its current cultural-political more traditional demarcation, to be perceived as increasingly marginalized. Secondly, that culture in a broader sense is in increasing demand and in more areas. The movement is connected with overarching societal

Queen Lovisa Ulrika's of Sweden achievements in the fields of culture and science are described, with special emphasis on her founding 1753 and leading of The Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.

This paper concerns trajectory tracking control of attitude dynamics configured on SU(2). Inspired by a popular geometric tracking controller on SO(3), differential geometric tools are used to derive both continuous and discontinuous attitude controllers on the SU(2) manifold, relating these to preexisting controllers operating with imaginary quaternion errors. Additionally, a robustness result is

We exploit knowledge of linear substructure in the linear-regression Kalman filters (LRKFs) to simplify the problem of moment matching. The theoretical results yield quantifiable and significant computational speedups at no cost of estimation accuracy, assuming partially linear estimation models. The results apply to any symmetrical LRKF, and reductions in computational complexity are stated as a

We present a tracking controller for quadrotor UAVs which uses partial state information and filters measurement noise. We show uniform almost global and locally exponential asymptotic stability of the resulting closed-loop system, which implies robustness against bounded disturbances. We illustrate the performance of the controller by means of several numerical examples, including a complex loopi

This paper considers coordination control of double-integrator systems and proposes general control laws involving time-varying inputs. The nominal control input is weighted by time-varying (time-dependent or state-dependent) positive definite matrices, providing more freedoms in defining the control tasks. We present sufficient conditions to ensure the asymptotic convergence of double-integrator

Background: Little is known of possible gender differences in treatment of periampullary tumours and outcome after pancreatoduodenectomy (PD), and the aim of this study was therefore to investigate any variances from national multicentre perspective. Methods: Data from the Swedish National Registry for Pancreatic and Periampullary Cancer for all patients diagnosed with a periampullary tumour from

Under the application of longitudinal electric fields in microchannels, microparticles experience lift forces that push them away from the channel walls and affect their trajectories. At high frequencies (>100KHz) the dielectrophoretic forces dominate and are well understood but at lower frequencies there is little agreement as to the exact nature of the forces, how they are generated and how they

High throughput in particle and molecular sorting schemes is an important performance indicator and can be realized through increased volumetric processing rates or increased concentrations. Here we investigate the effect of increased concentration of high-molecular weight DNA in micropillar arrays for deterministic lateral displacement (DLD). We find that the array imposes regular fluctuations in

Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) are central adaptors that decode genetic information during translation and have been long considered static cellular components. However, whether dynamic changes in tRNAs and tRNA-derived fragments actively contribute to gene regulation remains debated. In this issue, Huh et al (2020) highlight tyrosine tRNAGUA fragmentation at the nexus of an evolutionarily conserved adapti

Proper compensation during foreclosure is essential to any effort to protect borrowers as consumers. However, the effectiveness of consumer protection and other safety nets during foreclosure has been debated within academia. This study contributes to this debate by exploring socio-economic group differences related to the compensatory potential of foreclosure proceedings. It employs micro-level d