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Large sandbars resulted from the instability of loose sedimentary materials are very common in lowland rivers. These, not only, interrupt the inland waterways at low flow, but also make the channels highly unstable forming anabranches, influencing bank erosion, and so on. Groins have key roles to play in such cases. Formation processes of sandbars and their interactions with groins become very urgent to learn for better management of river engineering. RIC-Nays, a two-dimensional model for flow and morphology, is utilized in this study. Computation results reveal that different initial conditions lead to different equilibrium states, and periodic boundary conditions with a small computation domain tend to stabilize multiple bars. Intrusion of groins accelerates the flow in the main channel, which triggers the sediment movement there. Thus the bars move downstream reducing their scale and finally they disappear from the main channel.

The purpose of this paper is to identify two medical digital libraries from each of the following three countries: Canada, the USA and the UK. It aims to discuss strengths and weaknesses in system design in an effort to provide a basis on which to improve both the organisation of, and the access to, electronic, scholarly information.

Inclusion criteria for identifying the medical digital libraries were, those who: had primarily text‐based collections, intended for use by researchers or healthcare professionals; were freely accessible, and fulfilled the author's definition of a digital library as opposed to an online database. (Medical digital libraries with either a historical focus or that had primarily image/video collections were excluded.) To identify suitable medical digital libraries, the following resources were used: scholarly databases, online search engines, government and national library web sites, lists of online medical resources, and university web sites. Selection preference was given to those libraries with the most recent launch dates and service features. Each library was systematically evaluated, qualitatively and quantitatively, from the user's perspective in six distinct areas: administrative overview and site architecture, knowledge organisation, results management, interaction with the collection, additional information services, usability, and personalisation.

The study finds that each digital library had a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. Each offered different services to help users identify relevant material and to quickly understand and assess their contents. However, this required that each library have a team of experts to obtain, assess, catalogue, and annotate the information. Where available, user comments were supportive of each effort and very positive.

Medical digital libraries are an excellent conduit between authors and practitioners. However, they require intensive resources for establishment and maintenance. For these libraries to realise their full potential, emphasis must be placed on the currency and quality of their collections, maintaining pace with the technology employed by their users, providing services that facilitate the access and digestion of complex, scholarly information, and ensuring that online users are aware of the existence of these libraries.

This paper contributes to the overall improvement of existing and future medical digital libraries.

This is the first ever evaluation and comparison of freely available medical digital libraries from three countries.

StarLogo is a computer modeling tool that empowers students to understand the world through the design and creation of complex systems models. StarLogo enables students to program software creatures to interact with one another and their environment, and study the emergent patterns from these interactions. Building an easy‐to‐understand, yet powerful tool for students required a great deal of thought about the design of the programming language, environment, and its implementation. The salient features are StarLogo's great degree of transparency (the capability to see how a simulation is built), its support to let students create their own models (not just use models built by others), its efficient implementation (supporting simulations with thousands of independently executing creatures on desktop computers), and its flexible and simple user interface (which enables students to interact dynamically with their simulation during model testing and validation). The resulting platform provides a uniquely accessible tool that enables students to become full‐fledged practitioners of modeling. In addition, we describe the powerful insights and deep scientific understanding that students have developed through the use of StarLogo.

The Aso area of Kumamoto Prefecture and the western part of Oita Prefecture in Japan experienced heavy rainfall from midnight until morning on 12 July 2012. Flooding and landslides caused by this torrential rain killed 31 people and injured 11. This paper aims to analyze a time series of flood risk perception and evacuation behavior, and to identify factors that promote effective autonomous evacuation.

A time series of flood risk perception and evacuation behavior following the 2012 flood was developed and systematically analyzed. Differences between the data sets (compiled from survey data) for the evacuated group and the non-evacuated group were statistically evaluated. Then, an evacuation behavior model was developed to simulate which households would be likely to evacuate in different scenarios. The relationship between disaster prevention and activities of a local community were also statistically assessed.

This study concludes that an assessment of river conditions and evacuation advice from fellow local community members are the factors that most strongly influence and promote autonomous evacuation. This study also revealed that the everyday activities of a local community have the potential to foster effective disaster prevention and emergency responses if they promote the building of relationships between community members.

The research focused on actual decision-making and autonomous evacuation behavior. Whereas previous studies were limited to the analysis of activities of disaster prevention on a normal day, this study proved that the usual activity level in local community activities and relationships significantly affected evacuation behavior.

In Kumamoto, Japan flood risk information is made available on several websites. In the event of heavy rainfall, local citizens need to access these websites and make household-level decisions. It is difficult for citizens to monitor all these sites, analyze and make effective decisions. Evacuation orders are issued by the local government who then filters the information to the relevant multiple stakeholders and local citizens. This takes time and reduces the response lead time of citizens especially in fast-onset floods. There was a therefore a need for illustrative integrated approaches, integrating these data sets.

Using precipitation, river water and tide level data, user-friendly real-time graphs were set up for the Shirakawa River, Kumamoto, Japan. Flood data were collected and used to create numerical simulations, and electronic community-based hazard maps were created.

The data gathered from the July 2012 flood event were used as a demonstrator, illustrating a flood event, as well as how to utilize the information provided on user-friendly real-time graphs’ website, to determine the location, future time and possibility of flooding. Additionally, an electronically generated flood hazard map-making process was developed for distribution across Japan.

These illustrative approaches are relatively new and have only been tested and evaluated in communities across Kumamoto, Japan. As such, it is too early to determine robustness and generalized applications worldwide, especially in data-scarce countries and communities. Improvements and maintenance are ongoing.

These illustrative approaches can be adopted and utilized in cities and communities around the globe, thereby helping in overall disaster risk-reduction initiatives and better flood risk management strategies.

These illustrative approaches are new to Kumamoto City and Japan. These provide citizens with user-friendly real-time graphs that can be accessed anytime and used in flood hazard preparations, warnings, response or recovery.

This paper aims to study dams on transboundary rivers. In this study, the case of the Nu–Salween–Thanlwin River is reviewed. This study is an attempt toward developing a conceptual model to explain the unequal hydropower exchange of hydropower dams on transboundary rivers.

This paper reviews big dam project plans on the Salween–Thanlwin River near the Myanmar–Thailand border from the perspective of critical hydropolitics. The evidence is drawn from an extensive review of academic literature, reports, newspapers and websites on this topic. Cascao and Zeitoun’s (2010) four pillars of power, namely, geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power, are reviewed in the case of the Salween–Thanlwin River and its riparian states.

On the basis of a realist discourse, power relationships between dams and their socio-environmental effects are discussed from the perspective of critical hydropolitics. Multiple levels of power asymmetry regarding geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power are observed. The powerful states are high electricity consumers and importers. They invest in hydroelectric dams of adjacent developing states and buy back most of the electricity generated to fuel their industrialization and urbanization. Weak states generally do not have high bargaining power. They depend on the investment of high material power states for domestic and economic development and gain from the export of electricity. However, the externalities of hydropower dams are transferred to these weak states. This contributes to an unequal hydropower exchange model.

The model provides an analytical framework for hydropower dam projects through which comprehensive and multidimensional views are extracted. Academia, policymakers, private developers, international development agencies and nongovernment organizations will have a better understanding of hydropower dam projects and the interactions among riparian states.

This conceptual model stems from Cascao and Zeitoun’s (2010) four pillars of power – geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power. The author limits the framework to hydroelectric dams in transboundary rivers. The powerful states are high electricity consumers and importers that dominate the dam development projects and exchange process.