The state and civil society in disaster response: An analysis of the Tamil Nadu tsunami experience

ReportCAREEuropean Union's Humanitarian Aid Department

A dual propagation contours technique for semi-automated assessment of systolic and diastolic cardiac function by CMR

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is frequently performed to measure accurate LV volumes and ejection fractions, LV volume-time curves (VTC) derived ejection and filling rates are not routinely calculated due to lack of robust LV segmentation techniques. VTC derived peak filling rates can be used to accurately assess LV diastolic function, an important clinical parameter. We developed a novel geometry-independent dual-contour propagation technique, making use of LV endocardial contours manually drawn at end systole and end diastole, to compute VTC and measured LV ejection and filling rates in hypertensive patients and normal volunteers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>39 normal volunteers and 49 hypertensive patients underwent CMR. LV contours were manually drawn on all time frames in 18 normal volunteers. The dual-contour propagation algorithm was used to propagate contours throughout the cardiac cycle. The results were compared to those obtained with single-contour propagation (using either end-diastolic or end-systolic contours) and commercially available software. We then used the dual-contour propagation technique to measure peak ejection rate (PER) and peak early diastolic and late diastolic filling rates (ePFR and aPFR) in all normal volunteers and hypertensive patients.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Compared to single-contour propagation methods and the commercial method, VTC by dual-contour propagation showed significantly better agreement with manually-derived VTC. Ejection and filling rates by dual-contour propagation agreed with manual (dual-contour – manual PER: -0.12 ± 0.08; ePFR: -0.07 ± 0.07; aPFR: 0.06 ± 0.03 EDV/s, all P = NS). However, the time for the manual method was ~4 hours per study versus ~7 minutes for dual-contour propagation. LV systolic function measured by LVEF and PER did not differ between normal volunteers and hypertensive patients. However, ePFR was lower in hypertensive patients vs. normal volunteers, while aPFR was higher, indicative of altered diastolic filling rates in hypertensive patients.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Dual-propagated contours can accurately measure both systolic and diastolic volumetric indices that can be applied in a routine clinical CMR environment. With dual-contour propagation, the user interaction that is routinely performed to measure LVEF is leveraged to obtain additional clinically relevant parameters.</p

Deconstructing the human gaze: Stray dogs, indifferent governance and prejudiced reactions

Rather than implement animal birth control through sterilisation and adhere to the rules of solid waste management, the municipal authority in Bangalore recently launched a programme to kill all stray dogs. This is only an eyewash, meant to placate certain groups and gain political mileage

The state and civil society in disaster response: Post-tsunami experiences in Tamil Nadu,

This paper, based on the report “The State and Civil Society in Disaster Response: An Analysis of the Tamil Nadu Tsunami Experience,” (Srinivasan, Nagaraj, & Venkatesh, 2005) is essentially an empirical analysis of state and civil society responses in Tamil Nadu (India) to the tsunami of December 26, 2004. It examines interventions by state and non-state agencies, as well as people's experiences in the relief and rehabilitation phases to identify factors influencing both positive and negative outcomes of the tsunami response. Issues related to vulnerability and exclusion, equity, transparency and accountability in different sectors of disaster intervention are explored to highlight themes revolving around reach and efficacy of relief and recovery processes. These analyses bring out some interesting lessons with regard to the importance of institutional autonomy, non-politicized decision-making, and synergetic state-civil society interfaces in fostering inclusive, transparent and accountable rehabilitation processes. The roles played by institutional responsiveness and flexibility in shaping an effective disaster response also emerge very clearly from this study of the Tamil Nadu experience. Another crucial finding points to the need for detailed, reliable and disaggregated geo-demographic and socioeconomic records as a resource base for informing relief and rehabilitation interventions. The study draws extensively from the experiences and insights of people affected by, and involved in tsunami response, and from secondary knowledge resources available on the disaster

Transimulation - protein biosynthesis web service

Although translation is the key step during gene expression, it remains poorly characterized at the level of individual genes. For this reason, we developed Transimulation - a web service measuring translational activity of genes in three model organisms: Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Homo sapiens. The calculations are based on our previous computational model of translation and experimental data sets. Transimulation quantifies mean translation initiation and elongation time (expressed in SI units), and the number of proteins produced per transcript. It also approximates the number of ribosomes that typically occupy a transcript during translation, and simulates their propagation. The simulation of ribosomes' movement is interactive and allows modifying the coding sequence on the fly. It also enables uploading any coding sequence and simulating its translation in one of three model organisms. In such a case, ribosomes propagate according to mean codon elongation times of the host organism, which may prove useful for heterologous expression. Transimulation was used to examine evolutionary conservation of translational parameters of orthologous genes. Transimulation may be accessed at http://nexus.ibb.waw.pl/Transimulation (requires Java version 1.7 or higher). Its manual and source code, distributed under the GPL-2.0 license, is freely available at the website