Chaotic Situations Research Articles

Culture, Gross National Happiness and Disasters: Strategies for preparedness and Management of Disasters in Bhutan

Disasters are inevitable especially those caused by natural calamities. The severity of a disaster depends on the preparedness of people and their mindset to deal with such calamities positively instead of creating chaotic situations out of them. The externalities cause disasters that result in crisis situations and many times they are environmental as well. There are ways through which an environmental imbalance can be avoided. However, individuals need to be taught how to deal with calamities through their rich cultural values. Bhutan is a country of rich cultural heritage. This constitutes one of its greatest strengths. According to Gross National Happiness (GNH) literature, cultural heritage is considered one of the four pillars of GNH. Public Policy initiatives have to be designed in such a way that individuals are encouraged to engage themselves in decision making and implementation of the decisions with honest intentions so that such prescribed guidelines are followed strictly to avoid crisis situations. In order to mitigate the influence of the calamities, individuals have to be oriented towards such occurrences at other similar places so that there is proper preparedness in the minds of individuals. This paper is divided in four parts. The first part deals with the importance of culture and cultural values. The second part discusses the concept of GNH. The third concentrates on disasters and the aftermath, and the fourth part tries to link culture and GNH with disaster management and suggests measures to follow for preparedness for occurrences of disasters or/and to deal with its victims.

Three-vortex quasi-geostrophic dynamics in a two-layer fluid. Part 2. Regular and chaotic advection around the perturbed steady states

AbstractWe study fluid-particle motion in the velocity field induced by a quasi-stationary point vortex structure consisting of one upper-layer vortex and two identical vortices in the bottom layer of a rotating two-layer fluid. The regular regimes are investigated, and the possibility of chaotic regimes (chaotic advection) under the effect of quite small non-stationary disturbances of stationary configurations has been shown. Examples of different scenarios are given for the origin and development of chaos. We analyse the role played by the stochastic layer in the processes of mixing and in the capture of fluid particles within a vortex area. We also study the influence of stratification on these effects. It is shown that regular and chaotic advection situations exhibit significant differences in the two layers.

Core Topics in Airway Management, Second Edition

Northwestern University and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Illinois. rnava@nmff.orgEdited by Ian Calder, M.B. Ch.B., F.R.C.O.G., F.R.C.A., Adrian Pearce, F.R.C.A. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pages: 330. Price: $88.00.Anesthesiologists are notoriously creatures of habit. Every one of us has a specific way we organize our medications, airway equipment, lines, and so forth. The key word is organization, and this filters down through every aspect of the field. Much of our training is spent learning algorithms and protocols, which are designed to bring a semblance of order into potentially chaotic situations. Although Core Topics in Airway Management has all of the information one might expect from a book on this particular subject, it does not always have the tight sense of organization that most of us crave.As with most discussions of airway management, the text starts in chapter one with a description of airway anatomy and corresponding figures. The main pitfall in this chapter is the addition of extraneous material that muddies the waters. Between sections of a thorough discussion of basic airway anatomy, airway management techniques are described; the author even comments that he is discussing management rather than anatomy in one section. Although the information presented is very useful, the main objective of the chapter is somewhat lost. There is also a rather extensive discussion of dental injuries, which seems oddly placed in this chapter.The next few chapters detail important principles regarding airway management, specifically airway reflexes, hypoxemia, the physics of air flow, and the scientific basis behind preoxygenation. The only omission seems to be a lack of discussion regarding intrathoracic airway obstruction, but extrathoracic obstructions are reviewed in extensive detail.The organizational issue arises again in the subsequent chapters. Individually, each of the chapters accomplishes its assigned task of explaining the relevant subject. The main issue is how all of the component chapters are arranged to achieve the final product. For example, chapter five, a thorough discussion of prion disease and airway equipment decontamination, immediately precedes chapter six, entitled “Basic Principles of Airway Management.” As the book progresses, the individual chapters are excellent, but there is a fair amount of redundancy in the subject matter, and chapters that may have better served the book by being combined. For instance, the information within the chapter “Airway Management with Limited Resources” is interesting, but reintroduces topics already discussed at length earlier in the text.The highlights of the text are numerous: the discussions on different endotracheal tube types, practical tips for success for fiberoptic intubation of the awake patient, and the not-often-discussed topic of anesthesia for dental procedures are excellent. The two standout chapters are airway management in the intensive care unit and anesthesia for ear, nose, and throat procedures. The chapter on the intensive care unit touches on the subject of the ethics of intubation as well as a good basic discussion of tracheostomies and the timing of their placement. The ear, nose, and throat chapter does an excellent job of explaining vocal cord pathology and airway techniques for the different levels of airway obstruction.The two chapters that conclude the book, “Ethical Issues Arising in Airway Management” and “Legal and Regulatory Aspects of Airway Management,” broach some of the tougher, less clinical facets of the subject. Do-not-resuscitate orders, patient refusal of specific airway techniques, and patient refusal to allow trainees to care for them are all discussed. Some of the legal concepts regarding malpractice are also covered. Although neither of these chapters is particularly in depth and both are geared toward the legal system in the United Kingdom, the overarching concepts are still widely applicable and are very useful for generating discussion.The most useful application of this book might not necessarily be reading it from cover to cover, but rather using the individual chapters as concise primers, starting from anatomy for the earliest of trainees to potentially challenging airway cases that may arise in practice long after residency has been completed. Overall, Core Topics in Airway Management is a thorough text with a wealth of both discrete facts and practical tips regarding the management of airways in a variety of different situations. Except for the organizational issues mentioned previously, this is a good resource for anyone involved in airway management.

Children and disasters: A framework for mental health assessment

Background: Providers serving children’s mental health needs face the complexities of tailoring assessments based on developmental stages, family characteristics, school involvement, and cultural and economic factors.This task is even more challenging in the face of a disaster, terrorist incident, or other mass trauma event. Traditional mental health knowledge and skills may not be sufficient to meet children’s needs in these chaotic situations. Unfortunately, disaster planning and response often overlook or only briefly address the unique mental health needs of children. While there is general agreement that children have specific vulnerabilities, few comprehensive plans exist for identifying and addressing children’s mental health needs predisaster and postdisaster.Objectives/methods: Based on a review of the literature, the objectives of this article are to provide an overview of the central tenets of assessment with children throughout the course of a disaster and to propose a framework for disaster mental health assessment that can be used by a variety of providers in community disaster planning and response.Results: Disaster-related assessments are described including surveillance, psychological triage, needs assessment, screening, clinical evaluation, and program evaluation. This article also identifies easily accessible resources for responders and providers who desire to become more familiar with child disaster mental health assessment concepts.Conclusions: The framework described here provides an overview for understanding how assessment can be conducted to identify child and family needs and to inform the delivery of services following a disaster.

The Mad, Madness and Chaos in Lessing’s The Sweetest Dream

Set in Swinging London in the Sixties Doris Lessing’s novel titled The Sweetest Dream 1 presents a chaotic environment amidst the moral and psychical rubble of World War I and World War II. The Sixties is a transitional era sandwiched between the aftermath of wars and the effort to rebuild the country, full of socially and politically chaotic situations. On the social front, delinquent acts such as stealing become a common practice and initiation into groups among teenagers. Social chaos is also marked by broken families and insanity. Political chaos is marked among other things by The Revolution, meetings and street rallies. This paper looks at the portrayal of “inflated consciousness” in relation to chaos, the mad and madness in the novel using Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology’s lens in order to understand how the psyche negotiates itself out of chaos to restore balance and order. This paper limits its discussion to the first half of the novel, focussing on “Swinging London.” 2

Nature, correlates, and consequences of stress-related biological reactivity and regulation in Army nurses during combat casualty simulation

This study examined the nature, concomitants, and consequences of stress-related biological reactivity and regulation among Army nurses. Saliva was collected, heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP) recorded from 38 Army nurses (74% female; mean age 28.5 years [SD=6.5]) before, during, and after participation in the Combat Casualty Stress Scenario (CCSS). Saliva was assayed for cortisol and alpha-amylase (sAA). The CCSS simulates emergency combat rescue, employing two simulated combat casualties, aversive body odors, recorded battlefield sounds, and smoke in a low light environment. Participants locate and conduct preliminary assessments of the simulated patients, triage based on injury severity, initiate treatment, and coordinate medical evacuation by radio. Results revealed large magnitude increases in cortisol, sAA, HR, systolic BP and diastolic BP in response to the CCSS, followed by recovery to baseline levels 30min after the task for all physiological parameters except cortisol. Age, gender, perceived difficulty of the CCSS, and previous nursing experience were associated with individual differences in the magnitude of the physiological responses. Lower levels of performance related to triage and treatment were associated with higher levels of reactivity and slower recovery for some of the physiological measures. The findings raise important questions regarding the utility of integrating measures of the psychobiology of the stress response into training programs designed to prepare first responders to handle highly complex and chaotic rescue situations.

Atmospheric Pollution by Iceland Volcano Lava Dispersion - the Brussels Case

In April 2010 the Icelandic Eyjafjallajokull stratovolcano emitted large clouds of volcanic ashes that provoked chaotic situations for the air traffic of the Northern hemisphere. The impact of the resulting atmospheric pollution may have widespread effects on the health of the populations living in the affected regions. For this reason, the study of the airborne particles brought by the ash clouds must cover not only their concentrations expressed in μg/m3, but also their size, shape and chemical composition. Our results revealed that during the eruption days, some periods with a higher concentration of the coarse particles (between 2.5 and 10 μm) were observed. The sphericity (R1) and roughness (R2) parameters showed specific characteristics of the particles, suggesting long distance of their origin. Furthermore, an increase up to 4 times more in the At% of the elements K, Al, Ca, Na and Si, which characterize the felsic lava, was observed during the eruption period.

English

The paper attempts to examine the influences on motivations for earnings management from the perspectives of workplace spirituality in Taiwan’s hospitality industry. The findings suggest that workplace spirituality is a new perception of individuals toward their lives and selves under the influence of the workplace. Such influence further affects the individuals on the acknowledgement of self-group relationships, and the actions of individuals. Therefore, spiritual awareness shows a mediating effect between organizational spirituality and earnings management. Moreover, the mediating effect is greater than the direct effect of organizational spirituality on the motivations of earnings management. In addition, this paper proves that there are no significant variances in the awareness of workplace spirituality among people who have different religious beliefs. Most literatures address earnings management from the perspectives of audits or business ethics, and suggest that moral education is the best way to cope with this issue. However, a sole reliance on the awaking and realization of the individual ethics may not be sufficient to amend current chaotic situations regarding earnings management. In fact, earnings management, in essence, is highly relevant to the opportunistic behaviors of management.   Key words: Earnings management, workplace spirituality, motivations for earnings management.

(P2-47) Emergency Response to a Mass Gathering Involving Hazardous Materials

Mass gatherings involving hazardous materials (HAZMAT) poses unique challenges to the operations of any emergency department. A screening station is essential for risk stratification and identification of HAZMAT casualties. Existing patients and relatives in the emergency department must be restricted and controlled. Prompt segregation and decontamination of casualties is crucial in a HAZMAT incident. Identification of such a facility with planning of inflow and outflow routes must not be undermined. Crowd control should be performed by securing all entrances and exits, minimizing cross-contamination The topography of the emergency department must be examined with the objectives of minimizing acquaintance and cross-contagion in mind. Directional leadership is crucial during chaotic situations. Clarity of thought and decisiveness is critical. Good communication channels must be established with internal and external agencies in all phases of emergency department response. Apart from the acute response mechanism, training is an important factor in enhancing staff preparedness. Regular continuity of education is essential to keep staff up-to-date with the latest procedures and legislation. Drills and audits are useful for assessing staff competency levels. Familiarity and easy accessibility to overall response plans and detailed individual action cards also are important. The availability and adequacy of operationally ready equipments and consumables must not be underestimated. All equipment and consumables must be easily accessible and clearly labeled. Bimonthly audits are recommended to ensure defect-free equipment and validity of consumables. In conclusion, regardless of these difficulties, emergency departments continue to be the main provider of care to contaminated individuals. Thus, it is imperative that all emergency departments in Singapore be vigilant during peace time.

A Teacher's Lesson: Learn by Listening to Families' Stories

A Teacher's Lesson: Learn by Listening to Families' Stories

Tools to Cope with Clients’ Misbehavior: A Comparative Study

In a comparative study, 56 professionals who work in public organizations: schools, welfare and health agencies, were presented with three vignettes about conflicts with clients. They were then asked how they would respond to each case and which of their actions they would define as tools. It was found that nurses appear to hold the most mature practical and theoretical knowledge of tools; teachers present a rather practical stance, while social workers and school psychologists tend to rely on intuitive and ad hoc solutions. The discussion suggests how to educate professionals to use skills and tools more effectively in response to frequent chaotic situations.

Conceptual Framework to Study Peasant Society and Economy

There are ample references that Asian peasantry showed militant revolutionary tendencies repeatedly since the early years of Asian revolutions. The ceaseless disturbances and class conflict in various Asian societies occurred only after the end of the Second World War. Without removing colonial and feudalistic remnants, modern history deteriorated into deep fetters.1 In colonies, there existed tendencies such as foreign bourgeoisie class, exploited and alienated proletariats, foreign oriented social ideologies and thoughts; and cultural and academic dependencies. Those situations were the major causes of chaotic situations. This kind of situation was mostly common in the past. Since the ancient times, China held supremacy over East Asia. However, in modern times, Japan became the leader in the East Asian region and the British had political control over South and South East Asia. This situation was far more responsible for penetration of revolutionary ideals among the political activists as well as the peasantry. It has disintegrated traditional social values and order. In fact, incompetent ruling classes or autocratic regimes were no longer to sustain national identity or sovereignty, while oppressed masses, poor peasantry and isolated intellectuals fought against the imperialists and the feudal states. In many cases, movements of oppressed and toiling Asian peasantry started with their economic grievances, but later on those movements developed into the struggle against the feudal state. More importantly, those movements developed into class struggles. The Taiping revolution of China (1851-64) 2 and Gab-O revolution of Korea (1894) 3 are such examples. There occurred many peasant movements in other South Asian countries as well which paralleled those revolutions in terms of the nature of class conflict.

Masculinity in Nontraditional Occupations: Ecological Constructions

The authors present Bronfenbrenner's ecological model as a conceptual framework to explore interlocking systemic and interpersonal influences on the development and perpetuation of men's gender role-related distress. To demonstrate the utility of this model, the authors present results from an exploratory qualitative study of men in nontraditional occupations. Using the constant comparison method, the authors' analysis of multiple interviews with elementary educators and medical support staff unearthed interwoven themes among the effects of cultural notions of masculinity on relationships, job tasks, and perceptions of themselves as men. Expectations about men (e.g., that men confront danger, remain calm in chaotic situations, and/or are predators) affected hiring decisions and interactions with colleagues, limited the scope of the men's work, and provided opportunities to reinforce traditional notions of masculinity and affirm the value of masculinity in their occupations. These different experiences all interacted to inform participants' senses of themselves as men.

Hurricane Katrina, the Crisis of Leadership, and Chaos Management: Time for Trying the ‘Surprise Management Theory in Action’

Four years have gone by since the historic Hurricane Katrina hit and drowned the city of New Orleans and caused a massive crisis of, and a global case of grand failure in, governance, leadership, and public management. Advancing on an earlier work published in Public Administration Review (Farazmand 2007), in which a global case of grand failure was established with several lessons drawn for future crisis management, this article argues further for developing and applying a theory of ‘surprise management’ to manage future crises and chaotic situations. Crises are borne out of natural and human made disasters, catastrophes, revolutions, and rapidly changing emergencies. Surprise management is the best approach to managing or coping with crises and crisis driven emergencies.

Emergence as a computability-theoretic phenomenon

In dealing with emergent phenomena, a common task is to identify useful descriptions of them in terms of the underlying atomic processes, and to extract enough computational content from these descriptions to enable predictions to be made. Generally, the underlying atomic processes are quite well understood, and (with important exceptions) captured by mathematics from which it is relatively easy to extract algorithmic content. A widespread view is that the difficulty in describing transitions from algorithmic activity to the emergence associated with chaotic situations is a simple case of complexity outstripping computational resources and human ingenuity. Or, on the other hand, that phenomena transcending the standard Turing model of computation, if they exist, must necessarily lie outside the domain of classical computability theory. In this talk we suggest that much of the current confusion arises from conceptual gaps and the lack of a suitably fundamental model within which to situate emergence. We examine the potential for placing emergent relations in a familiar context based on Turing’s 1939 model for interactive computation over structures described in terms of reals. The explanatory power of this model is explored, formalising informal descriptions in terms of mathematical definability and invariance, and relating a range of basic scientific puzzles to results and intractable problems in computability theory.

Sampling and design challenges in studying the mental health consequences of disasters

Disasters are unpredictable and frequently lead to chaotic post-disaster situations, creating numerous methodologic challenges for the study of the mental health consequences of disasters. In this commentary, we expand on some of the issues addressed by Kessler and colleagues, largely focusing on the particular challenges of (a) defining, finding, and sampling populations of interest after disasters and (b) designing studies in ways that maximize the potential for valid inference. We discuss these challenges - drawing on specific examples - and suggest potential approaches to each that may be helpful as a guide for future work. We further suggest research directions that may be most helpful in moving the field forward.

Supporting disaster response and recovery through improved situation awareness

PurposeThis paper aims to discuss how a high level of situation awareness (SA) has the potential to enhance first responders' performance and manage work demand resulting from distributed, dynamic, and chaotic situations resulting from a disaster in modern urban environments. It also aims to present a theoretical framework to address needs of an effective disaster response, enhanced collaboration and improved SA. The purpose of this is to help better understand current disaster response schemes in terms of SA, based on the understanding, find a way to improve the disaster response effectiveness, and quantitatively evaluate existing and future disaster response processes. The paper seeks to characterize current disaster response operations by various shortcomings, including inability to access information, lack of coordination, and poor communications. All this makes it difficult to deal with dynamic work demand resulting from disasters.Design/methodology/approachA response framework, integrating IT and Civil Engineering components is presented highlighting the relationship between situation awareness, collaboration and performance. Also, the implementation approach is discussed.FindingsThe paper finds that SA is very relevant to ensuring how much a current disaster response system is effective cognitively and physically, and in understanding how well disaster response systems support the responders at both strategic and operational levels.Practical implicationsSupport of Civil Engineers and IT components can increase the response performance by facilitating collaboration through improved SA.Originality/valueThe paper presents a comprehensive framework and implementation approach to ensure effectiveness of disaster response operations. The framework ensures high situation awareness while supporting collaboration among first responders, including improved civil engineers' roles and exploiting IT components to collect, analyze, and share information.

Whose Role Is It Any Way?

The august group of scholars who developed the recommendations and co–wrote the article “Five Essential Elements of Immediate and Mid–Term Mass Trauma Intervention: Empirical Evidence” took on a very daunting task. They have attempted, in the absence of a clear model, to distill from decades of research on coping, disaster, and general psychology, a set of recommendations about the goals for immediate and shorter term intervention in the face of mass violence or disaster. This article does a wonderful job pulling together, from the best information and best experts available, the basic components that should comprise psychosocial intervention in the aftermath of disasters and mass violence: to promote a sense of safety, calming, self– and community efficacy, connectness, and hope. An overarching model for basic achievable goals has been needed ever since mental health professionals began trying to assist in disaster response in the 1980s. For decades, mental health professionals have wanted to help in times of disaster, and they frequently traveled to disaster locations to provide the best counseling/therapy they had available. They often arrive assuming that someone is in charge, will tell them how they can help, and put them to work. They come armed with compassion and eagerness to help but no sense of whether or how they are needed or what they should do. They often find themselves in chaotic situations where there is no one in charge, or at least no one who seems to know anything about mental health needs in this type of situation. Some end up doing what other disaster workers are doing, assisting with the delivery of basic resources such food and water; some serve as good listeners if someone wants to talk. Some attempt to do therapy or counseling. In the absence of a good model of intervention, mental health professionals may fall back onto what they have been trained in most, the study and treatment of psychopathology. What was notably absent in “Five Essential Elements” was the delivery of traditional psychotherapy in the immediate and mid–term phases post–trauma as a standard intervention. The focus here was on primary and secondary prevention and community-level interventions. What is the role of mental health professionals in these situations, especially if they have been trained in clinical psychology or psychiatry with its emphasis on individual psychopathology, Psychiatry 70(4) Winter 2007 350

Numerical simulation of avascular tumor growth

A mathematical and numerical model for the description of different aspects of microtumor development is presented. The model is based in the solution of a system of partial differential equations describing an avascular tumor growth. A detailed second-order numeric algorithm for solving this system is described. Parameters are swiped to cover a range of feasible physiological values. While previous published works used a single set of parameters values, here we present a wide range of feasible solutions for tumor growth, covering a more realistic scenario. The model is validated by experimental data obtained with a multicellular spheroid model, a specific type of in vitro biological model which is at present considered to be optimum for the study of complex aspects of avascular microtumor physiology. Moreover, a dynamical analysis and local behaviour of the system is presented, showing chaotic situations for particular sets of parameter values at some fixed points. Further biological experiments related to those specific points may give potentially interesting results.

The Treatment Advocacy Program-Sinai: A Peer-Based HIV Prevention Intervention for Working with African American HIV-Infected Persons

As HIV/AIDS continues to disproportionately affect African American communities, there is a growing need for empirically based, culturally appropriate, tailored interventions for this clientele. As part of a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)/Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) initiative to increase prevention amongst those living with HIV, we implemented the Treatment Advocacy Program Intervention at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago, IL, USA. The main goal of the intervention was to help patients increase their medication adherence and sexual safety skills. This paper describes the rationale for implementing this peer-based HIV-prevention intervention, discusses how the intervention was tailored to work within our low socio-economic status, urban patient population, and reviews the training and quality assurance activities needed to integrate the intervention into our primary care clinic. We review the intervention content in detail, including the structure of the multiple, one-on-one education sessions, and the core topics covered (medication adherence and sexual safety). Finally, we discuss the challenges in implementing this program, many of which arise from the chaotic social situations that our patients experience.