Fire safety in historic buildings.

This report presents findings on fire prevention in historical buildings. Several areas of fire protection have been touched on in the report. These focus areas deal with prevention, retrofitting, past fires and legislation dealing with fire prevention. A case study was performed on the Massachusetts Military Archive and Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts. The study provides possibilities that present several alterations and upgrades to improve the building against fire

Finding Significant Stress Episodes in a Discontinuous Time Series of Rapidly Varying Mobile Sensor Data

Management of daily stress can be greatly improved by delivering sensor-triggered just-in-time interventions (JITIs) on mobile devices. The success of such JITIs critically depends on being able to mine the time series of noisy sensor data to find the most opportune moments. In this paper, we propose a time series pattern mining method to detect significant stress episodes in a time series of discontinuous and rapidly varying stress data. We apply our model to 4 weeks of physiological, GPS, and activity data collected from 38 users in their natural environment to discover patterns of stress in real-life. We find that the duration of a prior stress episode predicts the duration of the next stress episode and stress in mornings and evenings is lower than during the day. We then analyze the relationship between stress and objectively rated disorder in the surrounding neighborhood and develop a model to predict stressful episodes

Continuous in-the-field measurement of heart rate: Correlates of drug use, craving, stress, and mood in polydrug users

BACKGROUND: Ambulatory physiological monitoring could clarify antecedents and consequences of drug use and could contribute to a sensor-triggered mobile intervention that automatically detects behaviorally risky situations. Our goal was to show that such monitoring is feasible and can produce meaningful data. METHODS: We assessed heart rate (HR) with AutoSense, a suite of biosensors that wirelessly transmits data to a smartphone, for up to 4 weeks in 40 polydrug users in opioid-agonist maintenance as they went about their daily lives. Participants also self-reported drug use, mood, and activities on electronic diaries. We compared HR with self-report using multilevel modeling (SAS Proc Mixed). RESULTS: Compliance with AutoSense was good; the data yield from the wireless electrocardiographs was 85.7%. HR was higher when participants reported cocaine use than when they reported heroin use (F(2,9)=250.3, p\u3c.0001) and was also higher as a function of the dose of cocaine reported (F(1,8)=207.7, p\u3c.0001). HR was higher when participants reported craving heroin (F(1,16)=230.9, p\u3c.0001) or cocaine (F(1,14)=157.2, p\u3c.0001) than when they reported of not craving. HR was lower (p\u3c.05) in randomly prompted entries in which participants reported feeling relaxed, feeling happy, or watching TV, and was higher when they reported feeling stressed, being hassled, or walking. CONCLUSIONS: High-yield, high-quality heart-rate data can be obtained from drug users in their natural environment as they go about their daily lives, and the resultant data robustly reflect episodes of cocaine and heroin use and other mental and behavioral events of interest

Resection of the angle of Treitz and distal diverticulization of the duodenum in penetrating abdominal injuries

BackgroundAccess to the 4th part of the duodenum in the region of the ligament of Treitz can be very difficult. Primary repair or traditional duodenal diverticulization is often technically challenging for managing trauma at this location. Due to the frequent concomitant injuries and hemorrhage, a quick, simple and safe repair technique is highly desirable.Methods3 patients with penetrating injuries to the 4th part of the duodenum were managed by a technique affording good exposure, and involving linear stapling across the bowel proximal and distal to the site of injury, with a jejuno-duodenal anastomosis to the 2nd part of the duodenum, the proximal jejunum having been delivered through a window fashioned in the transverse mesocolon.ResultsAll patients survived and suffered no complications of their duodenal repair.ConclusionsThe technique described offers a relatively simple, apparently safe and effective approach to a difficult problem in trauma surgery.Luis Ruso, Roberto Taruselli, Matthew Metcalfe, Guy Madder