Public Health Humanitarian Responses to Natural Disasters

The pressure of climate change, environmental degradation, and urbanisation, as well as the widening of socio- economic disparities have rendered the global population increasingly vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters. With a primary focus on medical and public health humanitarian response to disasters, Public Health Humanitarian Responses to Natural Disasters provides a timely critical analysis of public health responses to natural disasters. Using a number of case studies and examples of innovative disaster response measures developed by international agencies and stakeholders, this book illustrates how theoretical understanding of public health issues can be practically applied in the context of humanitarian relief response. Starting with an introduction to public health principles within the context of medical and public health disaster and humanitarian response, the book goes on to explore key trends, threats and challenges in contemporary disaster medical response. This book provides a comprehensive overview of an emergent discipline and offers a unique multidisciplinary perspective across a range of relevant topics including the concepts of disaster preparedness and resilience, and key challenges in human health needs for the twenty-first century. This book will be of interest to students of public health, disaster and emergency medicine and development studies, as well as to development and medical practitioners working within NGOs, development agencies, health authorities and public administration

Re-evaluation of Japanese Phytophthora Isolates Based on Molecular Phylogenetic Analyses

岐阜大学(Gifu University)博士(農学)博士論文 (Doctoral dissertation)doctoral thesi

Plant Diseases

Plant pathogens, the causal agent of infectious plant diseases, influence our lives more than just as an economic impact through yield lost. The study of plant pathogens has given rise to the development of new sciences, new technologies for plant breeding, and the agrochemical industry for pesticide developments. Yet, all our actions and efforts to suppress or eradicate them constantly pressures these various organisms to evolve and adapt for survival. Therefore today, when facing climate changes, accelerated transport of plants and plant products, and world population growth, we have to ask quo vadis phytopathology. Like Alice in Wonderland “If we wish to go anywhere we must run twice as fast as that” so we need to constantly broaden our knowledge. However, today’s literature abounds with knowledge about plant pathogens. Hence, this book intends to present to the reader all the latest material and knowledge about plant pathogens, changes or refinements in plant disease epidemiology, and new approaches and materials used for plant pathogen control. Hopefully, this book will be of interest to those working within the field and looking for an up-to-date introduction. We hope it also interests students and thereby, will influence the future development of phytopathology and our better coexistence with plant pathogens

Genetics and Improvement of Forest Trees

Forest tree improvement has mainly been implemented to enhance the productivity of artificial forests. However, given the drastically changing global environment, improvement of various traits related to environmental adaptability is more essential than ever. This book focuses on genetic information, including trait heritability and the physiological mechanisms thereof, which facilitate tree improvement. Nineteen papers are included, reporting genetic approaches to improving various species, including conifers, broad-leaf trees, and bamboo. All of the papers in this book provide cutting-edge genetic information on tree genetics and suggest research directions for future tree improvement

Science of Societal Safety

This open access book covers comprehensive but fundamental principles and concepts of disaster and accident prevention and mitigation, countermeasures, and recovery from disasters or accidents including treatment and care of the victims. Safety and security problems in our society involve not only engineering but also social, legal, economic, cultural, and psychological issues. The enhancement needed for societal safety includes comprehensive activities of all aspects from precaution to recovery, not only of people but also of governments. In this context, the authors, members of the Faculty of Societal Safety Science, Kansai University, conducted many discussions and concluded that the major strategy is consistent independently of the type and magnitude of disaster or accident, being also the principle of the foundation of our faculty. The topics treated in this book are rather widely distributed but are well organized sequentially to provide a clear understanding of the principles of societal safety. In the first part the fundamental concepts of safety are discussed. The second part deals with risks in the societal and natural environment. Then follows, in the third part, a description of the quantitative estimation of risk and its assessment and management. The fourth part is devoted to disaster prevention, mitigation, and recovery systems. The final, fifth part presents a future perspective of societal safety science. Thorough reading of this introductory volume of societal safety science provides a clear image of the issues. This is largely because the Japanese have suffered often from natural disasters and not only have gained much valuable information about disasters but also have accumulated a store of experience. We are still in the process of reconstruction from the Great East Japan earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. This book is especially valuable therefore in studying the safety and security of people and their societies

Living in Post-Fukushima Grey Zones: Family Decisions in the Wake of Nuclear Disaster

This dissertation examines how Fukushima mothers who were pregnant or had school-aged children at the time of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident of March 11, 2011, navigated constrained choices and conflicting values in a world the Japanese government deemed permissibly toxic for them and their children. This would seem an extraordinary set of circumstances, and yet living through nuclear and other manmade disasters has become a regularly recurring part of being human the world over—in the global North and South, East and West; within former communist states, emerging and established liberal democracies, and global neoliberal orders. Concurrently, we all seek to live “normally” in, through, and within a permissibly toxic world—full of not only nuclear materialities, but also things like permissible food additives, ingestible and otherwise circulating carcinogens, air pollution, and climate change. How can we understand the material and social reconstitution of a world that contains radioactive materials, where things, people, places, and social relations have been exposed to radiation, contaminated by a kind of toxicity that is invisible to the human eye, but made visible and knowable through other means? How do these toxic and nuclear normalities and abnormalities articulate with the contingencies of everyday life, raising and caring for children, and living as families? How do people agentively live—or to use Bourdieu’s (1977) term, strategize—through nuclear contamination? How do people navigate trust in expertise and authorities, their environments, and their interpersonal relationships when knowledge about that toxicity is debated and disagreements abound? Living in Post-Fukushima Grey Zones offers ethnographic answers to these questions for different Fukushima families. My central analytic is what I call “everyday nuclearity.” Hecht (2012) argues that “nuclearity” refers to disagreements about what is radiologically acceptable and unacceptable, exceptional and banal in a given historical, technological, and political moment. Nuclearity “emerges from political and cultural configurations of technical and scientific things, from the social relations where knowledge is produced” (Hecht 2012, 15). I build on this insight to argue that in post-Fukushima accident grey zones, the “social relations where knowledge [about nuclear things] [was] produced” became the social relations of people’s homes, families, communities, and economic and non-economic forms of exchange, including everyday life, kinship, gifts, and produce. Everyday life already involves navigating contrasting perspectives on and practices of consumption, social and economic values, food, child rearing, outdoor play, and so much more. Everyday nuclearity refers to the navigation of disagreements between radiation-related considerations and the demands and practicalities of interpersonal relations, extant differences of opinions, and already varied practices of daily life. Everyday nuclearity acknowledges, on the one hand, that citizens are empowered to make decisions about safety and danger, banality and exceptionality of nuclear things. On the other, it underscores how the displacement of radiation-related decisions into everydayness and family life created strain within those already varied social relations. Living in Post-Fukushima Grey Zones tells the stories of Fukushima mothers learning to live and raise their children “normally” (futsū ni) in a nuclear grey zone despite criticism, misunderstanding, and conflict resulting from their decisions not to return to the status quo ante and how Japanese civil society sought to support them, their children, and their family choices.PHDAnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153480/1/asklyar_1.pd

Reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident: Toward Social-Scientific Literacy and Engineering Resilience

Nuclear Engineering; Environmental Science and Engineering; Social Sciences, genera

Campylobacter jejuni colonization of broiler chickens

The pathogenesis of C. jejuni in broiler chickens is still poorly understood despite the importance of poultry meat as a source of infection in humans. The overall objective of this project was to understand the role of flagella and Campylobacter invasion antigens in mucosal and systemic colonization, and to evaluate the vaccine potential of C. jejuni paralyzed flagella mutants. As a first step to track C. jejuni in vivo, a Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) reporter system that is constitutively expressed was constructed. The system was transformed into different C. jejuni strains and isolates, and their mucosal and systemic spreading was studied over the period of 7 days. C. jejuni NCTC11168V1 and V26 share the same background but differ in their ability to colonize chickens. C. jejuni 81-176 and K2-55 share the same genetic background but K2-55 has an insertion mutation in pflA gene that produced paralyzed flagella. Although the K2-55 flagella remained intact structurally, it did not secret Campylobacter invasion antigens (Cia). The reporter system was stable in all of these strains both in vitro and in vivo. Fluorescent bacteria were visualized successfully using fluorescent and confocal microscopes. C. jejuni NCTC11168V1 and 81-176 were detected in the intestinal tract and in the liver and spleen of more than 30% of the challenged birds, while V26 and K2-55 were only detected in the intestinal tract. C. jejuni 81-176 and K2-55 did not spread systemically to the spleen and liver of BALB/c mice challenged using the same approach, although they colonized the ceca. A live attenuated vaccine based on C. jejuni K2-55 protected broiler chickens from C. jejuni 81-176 challenge in chickens following streptomycin treatment of drinking water. The same vaccine had no significant protection against a heterolgous C. jejuni NCTC11168V1 strain challenge. The vaccine was a poor stimulator of secretory IgA. Macrophage-like HD11 cells inflammatory response to the presence of C. jejuni K2-55 was not significantly different from their response to wild-type 81-176 when measured by qRT-PCR. The lack of Cia secretion and motility had no effect on expression of IL-1â, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, IL, IL-10, IL-12â, or TLR5. A flgK mutant expressing the flagella up to the hook had a significantly lower expression of these genes