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The climate is changing, and the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region is vulnerable to the consequences. Many of the region's countries are facing warmer temperatures, a changing hydrology, and more extremes, droughts, floods, heat waves, windstorms, and forest fires. This book presents an overview of what adaptation to climate change might mean for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It starts with a discussion of emerging best-practice adaptation planning around the world and a review of the latest climate projections. It then discusses possible actions to improve resilience organized around impacts on health, natural resources (water, biodiversity, and the coastal environment), the 'unbuilt' environment (agriculture and forestry), and the built environment (infrastructure and housing). The last chapter concludes with a discussion of two areas in great need of strengthening given the changing climate: disaster preparedness and hydro-meteorological services. This book has four key messages: a) contrary to popular perception, Eastern Europe and Central Asia face significant threats from climate change, with a number of the most serious risks already in evidence; b) vulnerability over the next 10 to 20 years is likely to be dominated by socioeconomic factors and legacy issues; c) even countries and sectors that stand to benefit from climate change are poorly positioned to do so; and d) the next decade offers a window of opportunity for ECA countries to make their development more resilient to climate change while reaping numerous co-benefits.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a global crisis affecting all sectors of society. Higher education is no exception. The closure of higher education institutions has dictated a sudden and unexpected transition from face-to-face to remote teaching to mitigate the spread of the SARS-CoV-2. This paper draws upon a wider piece of research which aimed to understand how higher education students adapted to the closure of their institution and how they looked at their experience of online teaching and learning. In total, 2718 students from different Portuguese higher education institutions participated in the study. Findings showed that both personal and contextual factors explained students’ positive or negative adaptation to online teaching and learning as a result of the closure of higher education institutions. Institutional and pedagogical responses, individual self-regulatory and socio-emotional competencies and adequate resources were factors that led to either a more positive or negative student experience of online teaching and learning in times of COVID-19.

This study represents a stochastic model for the adaptation process performed on adaptive control systems by the filtered-x least-mean-square (FxLMS) algorithm. The main distinction of this model is that it is derived without using conventional simplifying assumptions regarding the physical plant to be controlled. This model is then used to derive a set of closed-form mathematical expressions for formulating steady-state performance, stability condition and learning rate of the FxLMS adaptation process. These expressions are the most general expressions, which have been proposed so far. It is shown that some previously derived expressions can be obtained from the proposed expressions as special and simplified cases. In addition to computer simulations, different experiments with a real-time control setup confirm the validity of the theoretical findings.

Climate change is a serious concern for the agricultural sector given that this sector is highly dependent on climate conditions. Moreover, farmersʼ adaptation process under changing climate can be explained by the psychological factors and the incorporation of socio-environmental background. Therefore, the current study aimed at socio-cognitive perceptions and extended protection motivation theory (PMT) as the basis. This paper estimated the influence of cognitive factors on individualsʼ views and decisions regarding climate change adaptation. Data from this study came from a survey with 245 rural farmers in temperate mount areas of Fars province, Iran. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to estimate the different factors. Results showed that three core elements of the theory, namely, risk evaluation, adaptation evaluation, and maladaptation, were the statistically significant factors that could directly explain farmersʼ adaptation decisions to adopt appropriate coping strategies under changing climate. Findings also suggested that another structural factor, adaptation incentives, had a statistically significant influence on adaptation decision-making among farmers. The study proposed valuable insights on social discourse to promote adaptation. Findings strongly offered that social discourse should focus more strongly on confirming the truth and timeliness of information that individuals gained. Eventually, further investigations are necessary to conduct the measurement model in other cultures and geographical areas and see how socio-environmental components can influence risk evaluation and adaptation evaluation.

We reviewed existing and planned adaptation activities of federal, tribal, state, and local governments and the private sector in the United States (U.S.) to understand what types of adaptation activities are underway across different sectors and scales throughout the country. Primary sources of review included material officially submitted for consideration in the upcoming 2013 U.S. National Climate Assessment and supplemental peer-reviewed and grey literature. Although substantial adaptation planning is occurring in various sectors, levels of government, and the private sector, few measures have been implemented and even fewer have been evaluated. Most adaptation actions to date appear to be incremental changes, not the transformational changes that may be needed in certain cases to adapt to significant changes in climate. While there appear to be no one-size-fits-all adaptations, there are similarities in approaches across scales and sectors, including mainstreaming climate considerations into existing policies and plans, and pursuing no- and low-regrets strategies. Despite the positive momentum in recent years, barriers to implementation still impede action in all sectors and across scales. The most significant barriers include lack of funding, policy and institutional constraints, and difficulty in anticipating climate change given the current state of information on change. However, the practice of adaptation can advance through learning by doing, stakeholder engagements (including “listening sessions”), and sharing of best practices. Efforts to advance adaptation across the U.S. and globally will necessitate the reduction or elimination of barriers, the enhancement of information and best practice sharing mechanisms, and the creation of comprehensive adaptation evaluation metrics.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a global crisis affecting all sectors of society. Higher education is no exception. The closure of higher education institutions has dictated a sudden and unexpected transition from face-to-face to remote teaching to mitigate the spread of the SARS-CoV-2. This paper draws upon a wider piece of research which aimed to understand how higher education students adapted to the closure of their institution and how they looked at their experience of online teaching and learning. In total, 2718 students from different Portuguese higher education institutions participated in the study. Findings showed that both personal and contextual factors explained students' positive or negative adaptation to online teaching and learning as a result of the closure of higher education institutions. Institutional and pedagogical responses, individual self-regulatory and socio-emotional competencies and adequate resources were factors that led to either a more positive or negative student experience of online teaching and learning in times of COVID-19.

Over the past 20 years, an increasing number of empirical research conducted aims to understand climate change adaptation among Indigenous groups. Despite the increased scholarly interest, a comprehensive understanding of empirical adaptation research trends across various continents and disciplines is noticeably absent from the literature. Thus, this article systematically assesses the state of empirical adaptation literature involving Indigenous peoples globally. Using Scopus and the Web of Science, we analyzed 140 peer-reviewed journal articles, identifying two main trends—research attributes and themes of adaptation. Research attributes identified include publication year, research location, and methods. Our results show that studies are increasing in number each year, primarily in Africa, Asia, and North America, and primarily use qualitative methods. Synthesizing research attributes informs how scholars engage with adaptation research involving Indigenous peoples. Thematic analysis results show that articles mainly focused on four themes of adaptation, including adaptation strategies, drivers, barriers, and adaptation process approaches. The most prominent sub-theme of adaptation strategies was agricultural practices, adaptation drivers were Indigenous knowledge and traditions, and adaptation barriers were governance barriers. Adaptation process approaches sub-themes included holistic approaches to adaptation, local collaboration, and knowledge integration in adaptation. Identifying themes of adaptation contributes to the body of knowledge and practical application by informing adaptation plans, investment, and policy. This analysis points to the need for: (1) researchers to conduct additional studies in the Pacific Islands and Central and South America, where increased vulnerability emphasizes the importance of adaptation; (2) researchers to expand sectors included in studies, such as health and cultural adaptation; (3) researchers and practitioners to employ participatory methods; and (4) researchers and practitioners to situate adaptation in the context of colonization.

The continuous evolution of digital technologies applied to the more traditional world of industrial automation led to Industry 4.0, which envisions production processes subject to continuous monitoring and able to dynamically respond to changes that can affect the production at any stage (resilient factory). The concept of agility , which is a core element of Industry 4.0, is defined as the ability to quickly react to breaks and quickly adapt to changes. Accurate approaches should be implemented aiming at managing, optimizing and improving production processes. In this vision paper, we show how process management (BPM) can benefit from the availability of raw data from the industrial internet of things to obtain agile processes by using a top-down approach based on automated synthesis and a bottom-up approach based on mining.

Monitoring the state of currently running processes and reacting to ad-hoc situations during runtime is a key challenge in Business Process Management (BPM). This is especially the case in cyber-physical environments that are characterized by high context sensitivity. MAPE-K control loops are widely used for self-management in these environments and describe four phases for approaching this challenge: Monitor, Analyze, Plan, and Execute. In this paper, we present an architectural solution as well as implementation proposals for using MAPE-K control loops for adaptive workflow management in smart factories. We use Complex Event Processing (CEP) techniques and the process execution states of a Workflow Management System (WfMS) in the monitoring phase. In addition, we apply automated planning techniques to resolve detected exceptional situations and to continue process execution. The experimental evaluation with a physical smart factory shows the potential of the developed approach that is able to detect failures by using IoT sensor data and to resolve them autonomously in near real time with considerable results.

Background Among the growing migrant population in China, older adults who choose to migrate with their children to provide caregiving for grandchildren have attracted scholarly attention. This study explored what challenges they have experienced in sociocultural and psychological adaptation process in host cities and what social support was effective based on the adaptation theory and stress and coping theory. Methods The study employed a mixed-method study. Twenty-five older urban relocators participated in interviews and 376 older migrants completed a set of surveys. Interview responses were analysed with the thematic analysis approach and quantitative data were examined with linear regression analyses. Results In the qualitative phase, interviews indicated that older urban relocators depended on not only social support from host cities, but also support from their hometown to deal with adaptation difficulties, so whether and how these types of support predicted different dimensions of adaptation was examined later through a questionnaire. In the quantitative phase, results of a survey showed that support from co-living children and new friends in the host city was the most effective protective factor to promote both sociocultural and psychological adaptation and support from community services was positively associated only with sociocultural adaptation. Conclusion These findings provide a better understanding of how older urban relocators experienced new lives in host cities, and they could guide professionals to provide older adults with necessary support and promote older adults’ adaptation to the current community.