Mobilizing Communities to Sustainably Produce Face Masks: Public Health Practice in the Time of COVID-19

Background: Face mask shortages in health care and use recommendations and requirements in a variety of com-munity and professional contexts associated with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States created initial and ongoing demand for face masks. In March 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided guidelines for use of cotton masks for individuals in health care settings and in public. Community volun-teers provide a potential workforce to rapidly and flexibly address critical needs in emergent circumstances. Methods: People Protecting Each-other Sustainably (PPEs) was developed to recruit and manage over 100 Northeast Ohio volunteers. People Protecting Each-other Sustainably used the social media platform Facebook to facilitate material donations, volunteer recruitment and training, and to function as an ongoing central communications hub. Leaders used an assembly line process with zero contact pick up and drop off at multiple stages of production to allow safe assembly and distribution of face masks. Results: A total of 7 695 handmade face masks were created to distribute to local frontline responders in 10 weeks. Use of upsourced and donated materials allowed this project to reduce potential landfill waste and made a zero cost project possible. Volunteers had positive responses to the project and reported benefits from their participation. Conclusion: This model has been successfully recreated by a smaller group in Geauga County, Ohio, with similarly successful results. Clearly this model of community mobilization has the potential to be replicated in other state of emer-gency crises and emergency response situations to produce lifesaving or necessary equipment when industry standard equipment is not readily available

Establishing a Taphonomic Research Facility in the United Kingdom

In May 2009, the University of Central Lancashire, UK, launched TRACES (Taphonomic Research in Anthropology—Centre for Experimental Study). This facility uses animal models in taphonomic research. The use of animal models facilitates wider studies of factors influencing decomposition than the low replicate numbers common to human cadaver studies. The establishment of dedicated facilities to carry out taphonomic research is long and complex. Whether the facility uses human cadavers, as in the United States, or animal models, as in the UK, the issues that arise can be common to both. These include commitment of resources, local community concerns, and planning and legal issues. However, the use of animal models also raises additional ethical and legislative concerns. These include environmental impact, animal welfare, biosecurity, and disposal activities. This article discusses the processes undertaken during the establishment of a taphonomic facility using animal models in the UK and demonstrates the level of commitment, enthusiasm, and perseverance required

Sustained moderate reductions in arterial CO2 after brain trauma Time-course of cerebral blood flow velocity and intracranial pressure

Objective: In healthy volunteers cerebral blood flow starts to recover towards baseline within a few minutes of continued hyperventilation due to normalisation of perivascular pH. We investigated the time-course of changes in middle cerebral artery mean flow velocity (FVm) and intracranial pressure (ICP) in head-injured patients during sustained moderate reductions in arterial partial pressure of CO2 (PaCO2). Design: Observational study. Patients: Twenty-seven sedated, mechanically ventilated patients with severe head injury. Interventions: Measurements were made during and after routine determination of CO2-reactivity: an acute 20% increase in respiratory minute volume was followed by a 10-min stabilisation period and 50min of continued moderate hyperventilation at a constant PaCO2 (>3.5kPa). Measurements and results: FVm was monitored with transcranial Doppler, ICP was monitored with intraparenchymal probes. During the 50-min period with stable PaCO2 FVm increased in 36% of patients. All other patients showed a decline in FVm over the same time period. Overall FVm recovery was −0.03±0.14%·min-1. The time-course of ICP changes was significantly different from that of FVm, with ICP reaching its lowest value earlier than FVm (23±12 vs 37±20min; P = 0.001) and returning more rapidly towards baseline than FVm (0.23±0.23 vs −0.03±0.14%·min-1; P< 0.0001). Conclusions: Head-injured patients may adapt differently to hyperventilation than healthy volunteers. Potentially harmful reductions in cerebral blood flow may persist beyond the duration of useful ICP reductio

AXES at TRECVID 2012: KIS, INS, and MED

The AXES project participated in the interactive instance search task (INS), the known-item search task (KIS), and the multimedia event detection task (MED) for TRECVid 2012. As in our TRECVid 2011 system, we used nearly identical search systems and user interfaces for both INS and KIS. Our interactive INS and KIS systems focused this year on using classifiers trained at query time with positive examples collected from external search engines. Participants in our KIS experiments were media professionals from the BBC; our INS experiments were carried out by students and researchers at Dublin City University. We performed comparatively well in both experiments. Our best KIS run found 13 of the 25 topics, and our best INS runs outperformed all other submitted runs in terms of P@100. For MED, the system presented was based on a minimal number of low-level descriptors, which we chose to be as large as computationally feasible. These descriptors are aggregated to produce high-dimensional video-level signatures, which are used to train a set of linear classifiers. Our MED system achieved the second-best score of all submitted runs in the main track, and best score in the ad-hoc track, suggesting that a simple system based on state-of-the-art low-level descriptors can give relatively high performance. This paper describes in detail our KIS, INS, and MED systems and the results and findings of our experiments

From exercise intolerance to functional improvement: The second wind phenomenon in the identification of McArdle disease

McArdle disease is the most common of the glycogen storage diseases. Onset of symptoms is usually in childhood with muscle pain and restricted exercise capacity. Signs and symptoms are often ignored in children or put down to 'growing pains' and thus diagnosis is often delayed. Misdiagnosis is not uncommon because several other conditions such as muscular dystrophy and muscle channelopathies can manifest with similar symptoms. A simple exercise test performed in the clinic can however help to identify patients by revealing the second wind phenomenon which is pathognomonic of the condition. Here a patient is reported illustrating the value of using a simple 12 minute walk test.RSS is funded by Ciências sem Fronteiras/CAPES Foundation. The authors would like to thank the Association for Glycogen Storage Disease (UK), the EUROMAC Registry funded by the European Union, the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, the NHS National Specialist Commissioning Group and the Myositis Support Group for funding

Subject Benchmark Statement: Forensic Science 2012

QAA subject benchmark statement for Forensic Scienc

A Newsvendor Approach to Compliance and Production under Cap and Trade Emissions Regulation

Since the 1990s, governmental agencies have increasingly turned to market based cap and trade programs to control the emission of pollutants. Firms subject to cap and trade regulation are typically required to acquire emissions allowances via open auction markets. The cost to acquire allowances may impose a substantial financial burden on a firm. While emissions reduction efforts may eliminate some firm\u27s need to acquire additional allowances, there are still numerous firms that need to purchase additional allowances on the open market. This study presents a new forward buying heuristic, designed for those firms that need to purchase emissions allowances via auctions, which reduces the impact of emissions allowance acquisitions on the firms\u27 financial performance. The heuristic, designated as the Newsvendor Production Planning with Emissions Allowance Forward Buying (NPPAFB) method, applies a forward buying algorithm to determine the number of periods for which to forward buy allowances, the current production order up to level, and the current and future emissions allowance requirements (which serves as the order up to level for allowance purchases). Additionally, NPPAFB also authorizes unused emissions allowances to be sold when market conditions are favorable. Compared against three existing production planning and allowance procurement strategies, a simulation exercise finds that the NPPAFB method significantly reduces a firm\u27s emissions allowance expenditures. These results indicate that heuristic can be readily adopted by any firm that is required to procure emissions allowances via open markets in an effort to improve the firm\u27s profitability

The AXES research video search system

We will demonstrate a multimedia content information retrieval engine developed for audiovisual digital libraries targeted at academic researchers and journalists. It is the second of three multimedia IR systems being developed by the AXES project1. The system brings together traditional text IR and state-of-the-art content indexing and retrieval technologies to allow users to search and browse digital libraries in novel ways. Key features include: metadata and ASR search and filtering, on-the-fly visual concept classification (categories, faces, places, and logos), and similarity search (instances and faces)

The AXES submissions at TrecVid 2013

The AXES project participated in the interactive instance search task (INS), the semantic indexing task (SIN) the multimedia event recounting task (MER), and the multimedia event detection task (MED) for TRECVid 2013. Our interactive INS focused this year on using classifiers trained at query time with positive examples collected from external search engines. Participants in our INS experiments were carried out by students and researchers at Dublin City University. Our best INS runs performed on par with the top ranked INS runs in terms of P@10 and P@30, and around the median in terms of mAP. For SIN, MED and MER, we use systems based on state- of-the-art local low-level descriptors for motion, image, and sound, as well as high-level features to capture speech and text and the visual and audio stream respectively. The low-level descriptors were aggregated by means of Fisher vectors into high- dimensional video-level signatures, the high-level features are aggregated into bag-of-word histograms. Using these features we train linear classifiers, and use early and late-fusion to combine the different features. Our MED system achieved the best score of all submitted runs in the main track, as well as in the ad-hoc track. This paper describes in detail our INS, MER, and MED systems and the results and findings of our experimen

Infiltration efficiency and subsurface water processes of a sustainable drainage system and consequences to flood management

With increased intensity rainfall events globally and urban expansion decreasing permeable surfaces, there is an increasing problem of urban flooding. This study aims to better understand rainfall infiltration into a Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) permeable pavement, compared with an adjacent Green Area of made ground, in relationship to groundwater levels below both areas. Both areas were instrumented with soil water content and matric potential sensors and four shallow boreholes were instrumented with groundwater level sensors. Surface infiltration rates were measured using a double‐ring infiltrometer. Results showed that average infiltration rates of the SuDS (1,925 mm/hr) were significantly higher than the Green Area (56 mm/hr). The SuDS was well designed to transfer rainfall rapidly to the aquifer below, where groundwater levels rapidly rose within 1 hr of a 1 in 30 year event (32.8 mm/hr). In comparison, soil compaction of the made ground Green Area decreased infiltration rates, but still enabled the majority of rainfall events to infiltrate. The aquifer below the Green Area responded more slowly, as lower matrix potentials facilitated water retention in the soil profile, slowing water draining to the aquifer. This work reiterates the importance of ensuring a 1 m separation depth between the base of the SuDS infiltration zone and aquifer depth