BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Environmental worry involve primarily the thoughts of some hazardous immediate and long-run side effects of degradation that happened to our ecological system. Despite the side effects of this phenomenon, psychometrics measuring environmental worry from the African context are insufficient. Therefore, the Environmental Worry index (EWI-11) was developed to assess proximal and personal experiences of worry about climate change and environmental degradation. METHODS: This study used a qualitative method among environmental professionals and students (between the ages of 18 to 65) in a university to generate the themes and the pool of items that were used to determine the Environmental Worry index (EWI-11). Thereafter, 925 participants were purposively selected and assessed from Ibadan city through a cross-sectional survey to ascertain the validity and reliability of this new scale. The participants were selected in Ibadan city, Nigeria. The software of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (Version 26. 0) was used for all analyses. FINDINGS: Using exploratory factor analysis, the construct validity and Varimax rotation showed that the scale has two components (KMO = 0. 892, df=91, p. 00), thus showing a strong validity. The reliability dimensions and subscales have meritorious reliability (Proximal, α,=. 894, and Personal experience of worry, α,=. 671). The overall Cronbach’, s Alpha was 0. 894. CONCLUSION: The EWI-11 is adequate for measuring environmental worry and could be useful for experts in mental and environmental research and practice. EWI-11 is therefore recommended as a reliable and valid screening tool for environmental worry and may be acceptable across Africa and other countries as well.

Background: The preparedness of families for disasters can set auspicious grounds for the preparedness of the whole society. In the health system of Iran, the Household Disaster Preparedness index (HDPI) composed of 15 items is applied for the assessment of household preparedness in disasters. Objectives: The current study was carried out in order to investigate the reliability and validity of the HDPI. Methods: Two methods, namely internal consistency and stability determination, were utilized for the investigation of HDPI reliability. Face validity, content validity, and construct validity were examined for the assessment of HDPI validity. Accordingly, in addition to interviewing with experts and family heads, 200 families were selected from a study population, including the families in all the counties of Isfahan province, Iran, based on multistage cluster sampling. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used for the investigation of content validity. Furthermore, exploratory factor analysis was the method of choice for the examination of construct validity. Results: The rate of HDPI internal consistency was calculated at 0. 786 which was within an acceptable range. Moreover, HDPI stability was computed at 0. 98 using the test-retest method which was also within an optimal level. Therefore, it can be stated that the HDPI enjoys the required reliability. The investigation of HDPI face validity indicated that the families have problems in perceiving some of the items of this index. The experts put forward suggestions for the improvement of HDPI content validity following the qualitative investigation of content validity. In the examination of content validity ratio, all the items except those numbered 1, 3, and 4 were within an acceptable range; however, the investigation of the content validity index demonstrated that only the validity of the items numbered 12 and 13 was acceptable regarding all the three scales of relevancy, clarity, and simplicity. For the determination of construct validity, exploratory factor analysis was applied to extract five factors (i. e., subscales), namely the reduction of vulnerability, planning for disasters, family empowerment, procurement of resources for disasters, and specialized programs. The investigation of the internal consistency of the aforementioned subscales indicated that only the internal consistency of the first and second factors was within an acceptable range. Conclusion: The results of the present study revealed that although the HDPI is a reliable measure, it does not enjoy the required validity for the assessment of household preparedness for disasters.

While sophisticated analytical methods like Morgenstern-Price or finite element methods are available for more realistic analysis of stability of slopes, assessment of the exact values of soil parameters is practically impossible. Uncertainty in the soil parameters arises from two different sources: scatter in data and systematic error inherent in the estimate of soil properties. Hence, stability of a slope should be expressed using a factor of safety accompanied by a reliability index. In this paper, theory of fuzzy sets is used to deal with the uncertain nature of soil parameters and the inaccuracy involved in the analysis simultaneously. Soil parameters are defined using suitable fuzzy sets and the uncertainty inherent in the value of factor of safety is assessed accordingly. It is believed that this approach accounts for the uncertainty in soil parameters more realistically compared to the conventional probabilistic approaches reported in the literature. A computer program is developed that carries out the large amount of calculations required for evaluating the fuzzy factor of safety based on the concept of domain interval analysis. An aggregated fuzzy reliability index (AFRI) is defined and assigned to the calculated factor of safety. The proposed method is applied to a case study and the results are discussed in details. Results from sensitivity analysis describe where the exploration effort or quality control should be concentrated. The advantage of the proposed method lies in its fast calculation speed as well as its ease of data acquisition from experts* opinion through fuzzy sets.