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This book discusses the legal responsibility of UN peacekeepers for the protection of civilians under international legal regimes, particularly international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international refugee law, and occupation law. It considers both negative and positive obligations, that is, a duty to respect or not violate a particular right directly and a duty to take positive action to secure or protect a particular right, respectively. In addition, it describes the standards and methods, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, by which actors in UN peacekeeping operations, including the UN, troop contributing countries, and individual peacekeepers, can be held accountable for third-party claims and allegations of criminal misconduct against UN peacekeepers for violations of responsibility in peacekeeping operations.

The aim of this study was to explore the coping resources and the present and past experiences of two groups with refugee experiences in Estonia through narrative approach. Avert narratives, Struggling narratives, Instantaneous narratives, Boundary narratives, and Re-occurrence narratives identified through the interviews with 12 refugees. Differences between this two groups and individual accounts were also identified. The structure of the narratives, identity construction while in exile and coping mechanism through the narratives shaped their life stories and lives in exile. One significant outcome of this study is the lack of compatibility of the stories between two groups, through which five narratives established to elaborate the variety of their accounts.

This study analyzes literature about migration and ethnic minorities in Estonia. Following initial identification and using content analysis process, existing literature were characterized into four major patterns: definition of immigrant population in Estonia, emigration and ethnic return migration in Estonia, formation of ethnic minorities and their structure, and ethnic minorities and integration. Despite of having long historical background of emigration, return migration and ethnic minorities in Estonia; existing literature lacks focusing on refugees and ethnic minorities having background from outside Europe. New question emerged from the reviewed literature, whether Estonia is ready to accept quota refugees under EU quota system?

Mobile phone arguably is one of the most reached and used technology in human history. Technology has become ubiquitous in the life of human beings. Equipped with multiple sensors and devices, smartphones can record each and every action, psychological and environmental states of users, making it a goldmine of rich data about and insight into the dynamics of human communication, human behavior, relationships, and social interaction. As a source of data for empirical research, this device has gotten much attention from scholars in various disciplines like sociology, social psychology, urban studies, communication and media studies, public health, epidemiology, and computer science. This research tries to understand the structure of social networks of university students by investigating their communication patterns using self-reported mobile phone data. Here, we can find those students who are connected to most of the classmates and maintain a strong relationship and perform a task successfully using the values of eigenvector, closeness, and betweenness centrality, respectively.

This book outlines disaster risk reduction [DRR] in Bangladesh, drawing examples and lessons from national and local programs, projects and other experiences. Outlines the basics of DRR, reviews six current hazards, and offers examples of disaster response.

This book outlines climate change adaptation actions in Bangladesh, covering the impact of sea-level rise on health; strategy and action plans; socio-economic consequences and adaptive applications for agriculture, the livelihood of residents and fisheries.

This book outlines disaster risk reduction (DRR) approaches in Bangladesh, drawing examples and lessons from the national and community-level programs, projects, and relevant experiences of the country. The content is based on a selection of available documents, a consultative workshop with academicians from different universities undertaking DRR higher education programs, and the editors' own knowledge and experience in the field. Special emphasis is given to analyzing field experiences from academic perspectives, and to highlighting key issues and the policy relevance of disaster risk reduction. The book has three parts: Part I provides the outline and basics of DRR, with examples from a global review and from national policies and priorities. Part II covers seven different hazards in Bangladesh, focusing on both shocks and stresses. Part III provides examples of approaches and issues of DRR practices. The primary target groups for this book are students and researchers in the fields of environment, disaster risk reduction, and climate change studies. The book will provide them with a good idea of the current trend of research in the field and will furnish basic knowledge on this important topic in Bangladesh. Another target group comprises practitioners and policy makers, who will be able to apply collective knowledge to policy and decision making.

Background: Tropical cyclones have significant destructive features like strong winds, heavy rainfall, and storms. It happens frequently in Bangladesh because of its geographical position. The southern parts of Bangladesh suffer most, especially the south-western region. Cyclone YASS hit the same parts of the country as cyclone Amphan did in 2020. These areas are still reeling from the effects of the prior tragedies.
Methods: Secondary data has used to full fill the objective of the study investigating the damages of cyclone YASS in Bangladesh.
Results: Wind and storm surge of the cyclone affected the south-western of Bangladesh. In Patuakhali and Jhalokathi districts, people were mostly affected and houses were mostly damaged in Patuakhali district. Paddy fields were mostly damaged and fish farms in Satkhira district were mostly damaged due their proximity to the cyclone track. Some places have been affected due to the storm surge.
Conclusion: Due to the lack of suitable embankments in the coastal region, these areas are flooded by the storm surge. Authorities and government has to take necessary steps to overcome the losses.

Rumor spread has become a significant issue in online social networks (OSNs). To mitigate and limit the spread of rumors and its detrimental effects, analyzing, detecting and better understanding rumor dynamics is required. One of the critical steps of studying rumor spread is to identify the level of the rumor truthfulness in its early stage. Understanding and identifying the level of rumor truthfulness helps prevent its viral spread and minimizes the damage a rumor may cause. In this research, we aim to debunk rumors by analyzing, visualizing, and classifying the level of rumor truthfulness from a large number of users that actively engage in rumor spread. First, we create a dataset of rumors that belong to one of five categories: "False", "Mostly False", "True", "Mostly True", and "Half True". This dataset provides intrinsic characteristics of a rumor: topics, user's sentiment, network structural and content features. Second, we analyze and visualize the characteristics of each rumor category to better understand its features. Third, using theories from social science and psychology, we build a feature set to classify those rumors and identify their truthfulness. The evaluation results on our new dataset show that the approach could effectively detect the truth of rumors as early as seven days. The proposed approach could be used as a valuable tool for existing fact-checking websites, such as Snopes.com or Politifact.com, to detect the veracity of rumors in its early stage automatically and educate OSN users to have a well-informed decision-making process.

Exposure to Coxiella burnetii is a risk in the Hunter New England (HNE) region of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, based on yearly reported cases of Q fever. We assessed seroprevalence of phase II antibodies to C. burnetii by indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA; screening at 1/50 dilution) of residents of 24 local government areas (LGA) of the HNE region of NSW. A total of 2,438 randomly selected sera sent to the Hunter Area Pathology Service for routine diagnostic purposes (not Q fever testing) during the period of 2006–2009 were tested. The overall seroprevalence in sample group was 7%. The proportion of males (59%) was higher than females (41%). In age distribution, the largest proportion (37%) of seropositives was in the > 60 years age group. Lower prevalence was observed in 0–9 years (1%) and 10–19 years (5%) age groups. The seroprevalence in different LGAs varied between 0.5% and 22%. It was highest in Guyra (22%), Gunnedah (21%), Tenterfield (18%), and Narrabri (16%), with Newcastle (0.5%), Port Stephens (2%), Lake Macquarie (3%), and Singleton (3%) being the lowest. In most of the LGAs, seroprevalence was between 6% and 12%. This report indicates a considerable exposure to C. burnetii of residents in rural areas of the HNE region and is consistent with the high notification rate for Q fever in this part of Australia.

The important strategic issue of the 21st century states as the struggle for existence is the struggle for sustainable energy. In the last few years, the interest in renewable fuels has increased dramatically due to high demand of energy and the limitation of fossil fuel. Given the rapidly increasing demand for energy, which is projected to double by mid- 21st century, it is expected that biodiesels will become an important part of the global energy mix and make a significant contribution to meeting energy demand. Through extensive research, many commercial enterprises have offered comprehensive, innovative, and state-of-the-art technologies to produce high-quality biodiesel consistently at a competitive price via transesterification process. Therefore, this book gives a critical review on the recent emerged process intensification technologies for biodiesel production as well as the various methods for assessing biodiesel fuel quality and/or monitoring the transesterification reaction with advantages and drawbacks, and offers suggestions on selection of appropriate methods, which could provide a thrilling adventure ahead of all interested scientists. The adequate and up-to-date information provided in this book should be of interest for biochemical engineers, academics, post graduate and graduate students, and industrial researchers in these areas of study. It will also cater to researchers and enthusiastic readers in the realm of alternative energy resources as well as in areas of sustainable and green energy technology development