Mental health services required after disasters: Learning from the lasting effects of disasters

Extent: 13p.Disasters test civil administrations’ and health services’ capacity to act in a flexible but well-coordinated manner because each disaster is unique and poses unusual challenges. The health services required differ markedly according to the nature of the disaster and the geographical spread of those affected. Epidemiology has shown that services need to be equipped to deal with major depressive disorder and grief, not just posttraumatic stress disorder, and not only for victims of the disaster itself but also the emergency service workers. The challenge is for specialist advisers to respect and understand the existing health care and support networks of those affected while also recognizing their limitations. In the initial aftermath of these events, a great deal of effort goes into the development of early support systems but the longer term needs of these populations are often underestimated. These services need to be structured, taking into account the pre-existing psychiatric morbidity within the community. Disasters are an opportunity for improving services for patients with posttraumatic psychopathology in general but can later be utilized for improving services for victims of more common traumas in modern society, such as accidents and interpersonal violence.A. C. McFarlane and Richard William

Application of palynological techniques for correlation of coal seams in the Lower Lignite Creek area, Nenana Coal Field

This study concerns spores and pollen in the coals of the lower Lignite Creek area in the Nenana Coal Field, which is operated by Usibelli Mining Company. The seams studied are part of the Suntrana Formation which contains a large portion of the coal reserves of Nenana coal. These coals are mid-Miocene in age and are separated from each other by cyclic sandstone, clay and silt deposits, which reflect alternating periods of coal forming swamps and depositing streams. A preliminary study of the mega and micro botanical fossils of this area was made in 1969 by Wolfe and Leopold (Wahrhaftig et al, 1969). Palynological investigation was done on 26 samples of the Suntrana Formation and evidence from this and fossil leaves indicate that the formation should be placed in the Seldovian stage.Introduction -- Sampling -- Maceration procedures -- Interpretation -- References -- Appendix

Breeding Behavior and Space Use of Male and Female Mule Deer: An Examination of Potential Risk Differences for Chronic Wasting Disease Infection

The dynamics of pathogen and host relationships relative to disease transmission in wildlife populations are important ecological processes to understand, particularly since spatial dynamics of disease can be driven by movement, behavior, and dispersal of animals. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is an example of this important interface, where little is known regarding origin of the disease or routes of transmission. Surveillance data for CWD in free-ranging mule deer indicates that breeding-age male deer have 2-4 times higher prevalence rates than females or younger age males. In an effort to understand differences that might increase risk for exposure to CWD infective agents, I used GPS data to examine breeding behavior and home range sizes of mule 11 deer. GPS radiocollars were placed on adult (\u3e 2 ½ years) males, females, and young ( \u3c 2 ½ years) males. Data collected during the breeding season was used to infer visitation rates of males to females. Cluster analysis was used to separate data into periods of movement (spatio-temporal clusters) and non-movement. Females formed more spatio-temporal clusters and movement paths than males. However, males spent more time moving, had more long-term periods of movement, moved an estimated 1 km/day more than females, and had more tortuous movement paths. Male home ranges for winter, summer, and breeding seasons were also larger than those of females. Overall, data indicates that males may have an increased risk of exposure to CWD relative to females, because of larger movements and greater space use. These male behavioral differences may result in increased encounter rates with CWD infectious material through greater exposure in the environment to sources such as carcasses from infected animals, their excreta, or contaminated soils. Furthermore, during the breeding season increased male sociality, as suggested by increased movement rates and movement path tortuousity, combined with larger space use may further enhance direct contact with infected individuals and increase exposure to excreta sources such as feces and alimentary secretions due to licking and tending behaviors

Joke Book

Joke Book is a creative thesis, a collection of comic personal essays, somewhat in the spirit of Montaigne, in which I trace the impact of several pivotal jokes on my life. Among other digressions, I give a mathematical theory of comedy using the Fibonacci sequence, mostly fail to read Kierkegaard’s Repetition, try to blame lutefisk for the bitter character of Saskatchewan humour, reflect on my experiences in Skit Skit (a mildly successful local sketch comedy troupe in my city of 250,000), and tell of the time my father brought home his malfunctioning Wang (Laboratories Computer). In the process, I give an incomplete though still exhaustive account of my life and my surroundings (namely, rural Saskatchewan since 1985), and reflect on racism, class, sexism, television, memes, hip-hop, and, again, lutefisk. Sometimes bordering on the absurd, the work is more footnotes than actual prose, and more sizzle than steak. It also details the author’s complicity in the wrongful accusation and subsequent murder of a chicken in 1993, when the author was eight years old

Assessing the potential economic benefits to farmers from various GM crops becoming available in the European Union by 2025: results from an expert survey

This paper reports on a study that identified a range of crop-trait combinations that are: agronomically suited to the EU; provide advantages to arable farmers and consumers; and are either already available in international markets, or advancing along the development pipeline and likely to become available by 2025. An expert stakeholder panel was recruited and asked for their views, using the Delphi approach, on the impact of these crop-traits on enterprise competitiveness, through changes to yields, production costs and product prices. In terms of input traits, there was consensus that traits such as herbicide tolerant/insect resistant (HT/IR) maize, HT sugar beet and HT soya bean would provide positive benefits for farmers. Output-side traits such as winter-sown rape with reduced saturated fats, were seen as offering benefits to consumers, but were either likely to be restricted to niche markets, or offer relatively modest price premia to farmers growing them. Our analysis of the financial impact of the adoption of GM crops more widely in the EU, showed that the competitiveness of the agricultural sector could well be improved by this. However, such improvements would be relatively small-scale in that large-scale national natural advantages from either economic or environmental conditions is unlikely to be overturned

Applying mesh conformation on shape analysis with missing data

A mesh conformation approach that makes use of deformable generic meshes has been applied to establishing correspondences between 3D shapes with missing data. Given a group of shapes with correspondences, we can build up a statistical shape model by applying principal component analysis (PCA). The conformation at first globally maps the generic mesh to the 3D shape based on manually located corresponding landmarks, and then locally deforms the generic mesh to clone the 3D shape. The local deformation is constrained by minimizing the energy of an elastic model. An algorithm was also embedded in the conformation process to fill missing surface data of the shapes. Using synthetic data, we demonstrate that the conformation preserves the configuration of the generic mesh and hence it helps to establish good correspondences for shape analysis. Case studies of the principal component analysis of shapes were presented to illustrate the successes and advantages of our approach

Gas-liquid mass transfer : a comparison of down-and up-pumping axial flow impellers with radial impellers

The performance of a down- and up-pumping pitched blade turbine and A315 for gas-liquid dispersion and mass transfer was evaluated and then compared with that of Rushton and Scaba turbines in a small laboratory scale vessel. The results show that when the axial flow impellers are operated in the up-pumping mode, the overall performance is largely improved compared with the down-pumping configuration. Compared with the radial turbines, the up-pumping A315 has a high gas handling capacity, equivalent to the Scaba turbine and is economically much more efficient in terms of mass transfer than both turbines. On the other hand, the uppumping pitched blade turbine is not as well adapted to such applications. Finally, the axial flow impellers in the down-pumping mode have the lowest performance of all the impellers studied, although the A315 is preferred of the pitched blade turbine

A description of the soils and geology of the Berkshire Valley experimental catchment

Basic land resource data are provided in this report to assist an investigation of the effect of contour banking on surface runoff in the Berkshire Valley experimental catchement. Brief descriptions of the catchment\u27s geology, soils and their inferred hydrological significance are provided and a 1:2000 scale map produced. Of major significance to the hydrologic study is the fact that soil depth and internal drainage conditions were found to be not related to landscape positions

Estimation of runoff volumes for ungauged catchments in the agricultural areas of Western Australia

Describes an analysis of flood runoff volumes from 16 small, gauged catchments in the agricultural areas of south western Australia. It also describes methods for estimating flood runoff volumes from ungauged catchments. The independent variables found to be statistically significant in explaining the variability in flood runoff volumes from the gauged catchments were catchment area, mean annual rainfall and the percentage of the catchment that was cleared. No soil factor was found to be significant

Soil factors affecting flood runoff on agricultural catchments in Western Australia

Reviews methods of including soil properties in flood runoff-predicting equations. Concentrates on practical methods that can be routinely used by soil conservation technicians for flood prediction rather than complex research models. A case is made for collecting soil data from the gauged catchments which are relevant to a perceived runoff mechanism and are capable of being routinely applied in simple flood prediction methodologies