Rescue Systems Research Articles

Construction & establishment of two minigenome rescue systems for Chandipura virus driven by recombinant vaccinia virus expressing T7 polymerase.

Background & objectives:Chandipura virus (CHPV) is an emerging pathogenic rhabdovirus with a high case fatality rate. There are no reports of a minigenome system for CHPV, which could help its study without having to use the infectious agent. This study was, therefore, undertaken for the establishment of T7 polymerase-driven minigenome system for CHPV.Methods:The minigenome rescue system for CHPV consists of three helper plasmids expressing the nucleocapsid protein (N), phosphoprotein (P) and large protein (L) based on a recombinant vaccinia virus expressing bacteriophage T7 polymerase (vTF7-3). The minigenome construct is composed of a reporter gene, flanked by the non-coding regions of CHPV. Two minigenomes were constructed in an antigenome or complimentary sense, expressing luciferase or green fluorescent protein (GFP). The minigenome system was evaluated by co-transfection of the minigenome construct and three helper plasmids into CV-1 cells and analysis of the reporter gene activity.Results:All the helper proteins were expressed from the helper plasmids confirmed by Western blotting. Expression of reporter genes was observed from both the GFP and luciferase-based minigenomes. Green fluorescence could be visualized directly in live CV-1 cells. Luciferase activity was found to be significantly different from control.Interpretation & conclusions:The results showed that the helper plasmids provided all the necessary viral structural proteins required for the production of minigenome mRNA template, which in turn could rescue the expression of reporter genes. Thus, these minigenomes can be applied to mimic the manifestation of CHPV life cycle.

Mechanistic insights into the alternative translation termination by ArfA and RF2.

During cellular translation of messenger RNAs by ribosomes, the translation apparatus sometimes pauses or stalls at the elongation and termination steps. With the exception of programmed stalling, which is usually used by cells for regulatory purposes, ribosomes stalled on mRNAs need to be terminated and recycled to maintain adequate translation capacity. Much ribosome stalling originates in aberrant mRNAs that lack a stop codon. Transcriptional errors, misprocessing of primary transcripts, and undesired mRNA cleavage all contribute to the formation of non-stop mRNAs. Ribosomes stalled at the 3' end of non-stop mRNAs do not undergo normal termination owing to the lack of specific stop-codon recognition by canonical peptide release factors at the A-site decoding centre. In bacteria, the transfer-messenger RNA (tmRNA)-SmpB-mediated trans-translation rescue system reroutes stalled ribosomes to the normal elongation cycle and translation termination. Two additional rescue systems, ArfA-RF2 (refs 13, 14, 15, 16) and ArfB (formerly known as YaeJ), are also present in many bacterial species, but their mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, using cryo-electron microscopy, we characterize the structure of the Escherichia coli 70S ribosome bound with ArfA, the release factor RF2, a short non-stop mRNA and a cognate P-site tRNA. The C-terminal loop of ArfA occupies the mRNA entry channel on the 30S subunit, whereas its N terminus is sandwiched between the decoding centre and the switch loop of RF2, leading to marked conformational changes in both the decoding centre and RF2. Despite the distinct conformation of RF2, its conserved catalytic GGQ motif is precisely positioned next to the CCA-end of the P-site tRNA. These data illustrate a stop-codon surrogate mechanism for ArfA in facilitating the termination of non-stop ribosomal complexes by RF2.

Prioritizing safety critical human and organizational factors of EER systems of offshore installations in a harsh environment

This paper introduces a methodology for identifying critical human and organizational factors in the escape, evacuation and rescue (EER) systems of offshore installations in a harsh environment. To elucidate the complex dependence of human and organizational factors on risky incidents, this methodology uses a Bayesian network (BN) and a sensitivity analysis to assess the criticality of these factors. As a case study, the methodology is applied to the activation of an emergency alarm and considers the consequences introduced because of a harsh environment. The results of the case study show that the probability of success for personnel to become aware of an emergency alarm is most likely affected by noise due to strong wind. Using the proposed methodology, the probability calculations include the human and organizational factors that stem from the organizational level and extend to the evacuation procedures, emergency equipment, and personnel to provide a more practical result than the probabilities estimated by expert judgements.

Numerical simulation and application study on a remote emergency rescue system during a belt fire in coal mines

Once initiated, coal mine belt fires can develop rapidly, and if improperly controlled, these fires could easily lead to the airflow disorders that undermine the function of the ventilation system, and the smoke plume could lead to heavy casualties. However, belt fires can be effectively prevented by establishing a fire smoke plume control system. According to the characteristics of fire smoke plume control in the ventilation network, models of ventilation systems are analyzed, and different methods of fire emergency rescue systems are designed. A mathematical model for fire smoke flow was developed based on the west-wing mining area in Long-Dong coal mine. The distributions of the smoke parameters and airflow temperature on the roadway before and after performing the smoke flow control measures were simulated by Fluent software. The results indicate that 37 min after the fire began, the smoke plume had invaded all of the roadways in the west-wing mining area. The average temperature of the roadway in the west mining area is 332 K, the O2 concentration is 14.8 %, the CO2 concentration is 5.1 % and the highest concentration of CO is 0.98 %. In this environment, miners in distress are unable to survive. A function to adjust the opening degree of the air-doors was designed, and the air volume control of the key branches was realized during a fire emergency rescue. A permanent refuge chamber was situated in the mining area to provide a safe shelter for miners when a disaster occurs. Many field exercises have verified the combined function of the emergency rescue system and refuge chamber to ensure the security of the miners in the underground coal mine.

Overview of Search and Rescue from Robotics to Wireless Sensors and Robots Networks

In the recent years, many researchers have shown interest in developing search and rescue system composed of one or multiple robots, which have the mission of finding victims and identifying the potential hazards. To enhance the robotic systems there is a growing trend of integrating wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to robots and multi-robot systems, which gives more awareness of the environments. In the first part of this article, the authors present a review of robotic system and their environments in search and rescue systems. Additionally, they explain challenges related to these systems and tasks that a robot or a multi-robot system should execute to fulfil the search and rescue activities. As a second part, the authors expose the system that integrates WSNs with robots and the advantages that brings this latter. In addition, they cite tasks and missions that are achieved in a better way with a cooperation of WSN and robots. Furthermore, the authors expose and discuss the remarkable research, challenges and the open research challenges that includes this cooperation.

Social vulnerability of rural households to flood hazards in western mountainous regions of Henan province, China

Abstract. Evaluating social vulnerability is a crucial issue in risk and disaster management. In this study, a household social vulnerability index (HSVI) to flood hazards was developed and used to assess the social vulnerability of rural households in western mountainous regions of Henan province, China. Eight key indicators were identified using existing literature and discussions with experts from multiple disciplines and local farmers, and their weights were determined using principle component analysis (PCA) and an expert scoring method. The results showed that (1) the ratio of perennial work in other places, hazard-related training and illiteracy ratio (15+) were the most dominant factors of social vulnerability. (2) The numbers of high, moderate and low vulnerability households were 14, 64 and 16, respectively, which accounted for 14.9, 68.1 and 17.0 % of the total interviewed rural households, respectively. (3) The correlation coefficient between household social vulnerability scores and casualties in a storm flood in July 2010 was significant at 0.05 significance level (r = 0.748), which indicated that the selected indicators and their weights were valid. (4) Some mitigation strategies to reduce household social vulnerability to flood hazards were proposed, which included (1) improving the local residents' income and their disaster-related knowledge and evacuation skills, (2) developing emergency plans and carrying out emergency drills and training, (3) enhancing the accuracy of disaster monitoring and warning systems and (4) establishing a specific emergency management department and comprehensive rescue systems. These results can provide useful information for rural households and local governments to prepare, mitigate and respond to flood hazards, and the corresponding strategies can help local households to reduce their social vulnerability and improve their ability to resist flood hazard.

VANET Clustering Based Routing Protocol Suitable for Deserts.

In recent years, there has emerged applications of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) towards security, safety, rescue, exploration, military and communication redundancy systems in non-populated areas, besides its ordinary use in urban environments as an essential part of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). This paper proposes a novel algorithm for the process of organizing a cluster structure and cluster head election (CHE) suitable for VANETs. Moreover, it presents a robust clustering-based routing protocol, which is appropriate for deserts and can achieve high communication efficiency, ensuring reliable information delivery and optimal exploitation of the equipment on each vehicle. A comprehensive simulation is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed CHE and routing algorithms.

Analiza porównawcza modeli systemów ratownictwa w Polsce i w wybranych krajach

Rescue systems determine safety and guarantee it is provided at an adequate level. One aspect of the development of rescue systems is their continuous improvement and enrichment through the application of specialised tools and methods. Selection of these tools and methods should be preceded by an analysis of currently operating systems both in country and globally. This article presents solutions used outside of Poland which the authors believe could be implemented in Poland’s national rescue system. They base their indication on the analysis of the national rescue systems in Poland and elsewhere.

Changing Trends in Dental Procedural Sedation

Although most dental procedures are amenable under local anesthesia, but many a time, depending on the extent of procedure, anxiety or phobia, patient needs some degrees of sedation. Procedural sedation outside the operating room increases the risk of adverse events. Most commonly, near miss or critical events occur due to operator error or lack off rescue systems. Unfamiliar location, inadequate monitoring, insufficient or untrained staff and non-availability of emergency resuscitation equipment or medication in emergency situations are some of the major factors for adverse outcome. Proper monitoring; provision of readily available access to resuscitation facility and continuous presence of anesthesiologist have contributed to the decrease in death and disability caused by anesthesia related adverse events. Pre-procedural evaluation is done to screen patients for suitability for procedural sedation and assess the risk factors. Patients with full stomach, difficult airway or significant medical illness requiring more than mild sedation, alternative to procedural sedation should be consider. Clinician performing procedural sedation should have through knowledge of action, dose, side-effects, and antidote of commonly used sedative analgesics. Newer and innovative techniques have been evolved recently including transmucosal, transnasal, inhalational anesthetic, patient controlled sedation, target controlled sedation. All patients after dental procedural sedation should be monitored in a designated recovery area and should not be discharged until they meet all the discharge criteria and while sending home, proper written discharge instruction should be provided to all.

Human Planning and Coordination in Spatial Search Problems

Abstract: Search is an essential technology for rescue and other mobile robot applications. Many robotic search and rescue systems rely on teleoperation. How to cover the search space efficiently is one of the key problems in search tasks. Search is also central to humans' daily activities. Analyzing human search behavior through teleoperation could help improve understanding of human search strategies as well as autonomous search algorithms. This research proposes a novel framework to model and analyze humans' search behavior. The framework is based on structure learning and K-means clustering. The analysis of the experimental data demonstrates that (1) humans are able to solve the complex search task by breaking it up into smaller tasks; and (2) humans consider both coverage and motion cost while searching. The results are used to design near optimal subgoals to guide humans in searching. Experiments showed that the humans' search performance is improved with the subgoals assistance.

細菌におけるリボソームレスキュー機構

リボソーム上のタンパク質合成は開始コドンに始まり，遺伝情報に基づいたペプチド伸長サイクルの繰り返しを経て終止コドンで終了する．翻訳の終了にあたっては，ペプチド解離因子（RF1またはRF2）が合成されたポリペプチドをtRNAから切り離す．しかしながら，さまざまな原因により（場合によっては計画的に）タンパク質合成を途中で中断せざるをえない状況に追い込まれることがある．たとえば，mRNAが翻訳中に切断を受けて3′側を失うと，リボソームは終止コドンに出会うことなしにmRNAの3′末端に到達してしまう．この場合，ペプチドの解離が行われないため，リボソームはそこで立ち往生することになる．こうした状況を解消すべく，細胞はリボソームレスキュー機構（翻訳停滞解消機構）を備えている．細菌のリボソームレスキュー機構として最初に見つかったのはtmRNAとSmpBによるトランストランスレーションである．ほぼすべての細菌はトランストランスレーション機構を必ずもっているが，それ以外にも2つのリボソームレスキュー機構が存在することが明らかになってきた．本稿では，これら3種類を中心に細菌のリボソームレスキュー機構について概説する（図1）．

Studies in Convergence? Post-Crisis Effects on Corporate Rescue and the Influence of Social Policy: The EU and the USA

The financial crisis and the sovereign debt crisis that it precipitated in a number of peripheral EU Member States heralded massive changes in insolvency, corporate rescue and employment protection policies. The US and the EU both suffered greatly in the wake of the crisis, but their recoveries have occurred along very different tracks. The US has managed to regain much of its position in terms of relative growth and the UK has outpaced the recoveries of those European countries that are members of the European Monetary Union. The purpose of this treatise is to explore the context of the 2007-2008 financial crisis in the US and in the EU, its impact on legal reform in corporate rescue and restructuring and those aspects of social policy implicated within insolvency systems (notably collective redundancy and transfers of undertakings), whether or not the corporate rescue and employee protection systems can be seen to be converging, in view of the different socio-economic, political and cultural aspects of the US and the EU, such convergence might be beneficial or, indeed, possible.

Studies in Convergence? Post‐Crisis Effects on Corporate Rescue and the Influence of Social Policy: The EU and the USA

AbstractThe financial crisis and the sovereign debt crisis that it precipitated in a number of peripheral EU Member States heralded massive changes in insolvency, corporate rescue and employment protection policies. The US and the EU both suffered greatly in the wake of the crisis, but their recoveries have occurred along very different tracks. The US has managed to regain much of its position in terms of relative growth and the UK has outpaced the recoveries of those European countries that are members of the European Monetary Union. The purpose of this treatise is to explore the context of the 2007–2008 financial crisis in the US and in the EU and its impact on legal reform in corporate rescue and restructuring as well as those aspects of social policy implicated within insolvency systems (notably collective redundancy and transfers of undertakings). It will also consider whether or not the corporate rescue and employee protection systems can be seen to be converging, and whether, in view of the different socio‐economic, political and cultural aspects of the US and the EU, such convergence might be beneficial. Copyright © 2015 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The road traffic injury treatment network in mainland China

The issue of road traffic safety in mainland China is particularly serious. The total number of vehicles is growing rapidly (e.g. 60 million in 2000 vs. 240 million in 2012); meanwhile the number of road traffic accidents and associated casualties still remains high and shows no signs of meaningful decline. It is reported road traffic causalities in China ranks highest in the world, with an annual death toll exceeding 100,000 and an average daily death toll of 300 [Yue, Liu & Cai, 2004]. Therefore, it is urgent to build up a China-specific road traffic injury treatment network in order to reduce the fatality and disability rate. This article intends to review China’s road traffic injury treatment system from pre- and in-hospital aspects, meanwhile discuss how to improve traffic safety in the future. 1. Pre-hospital rescue system for traffic injury To improve the efficiency of pre-hospital treatment, the key lies in shortening the reaction time, which calls to establish a multi-level treatment system in each region. In China, trauma treatment system is built upon regional emergency centers and 120 emergency calls. The city level rescue systems are generally well-established, comprising of independent emergency centers or emergency departments affiliated with large hospitals. Most of county-level trauma treatment systems rely on county hospitals, while rural areas on first-aid stations [Wang, 2000]. There are three main types of pre-hospital rescue control center in China (Table 1). In addition, standardization of pre-hospital treatment unit, quick on-site rescue and real-time connect with the corresponding medical treatment organization are essential. China’s road injury pre-hospital treatment system varies greatly across regions, mainly resulted from differences in regional cultures, economic development, and status of local infrastructure. These differences have led to issues such as non-standardized pre-hospital treatment system, deficient emergency treatment network, prolonged accident response time; shortage of emergency rescue staff, etc. 2. In-hospital traffic injury treatment There is no universal in-hospital trauma treatment protocol in China. Majority of the general hospitals use specialist consultation to treat trauma patients. The two dominant mechanisms are cross-department consultation coupled with serial treatment process and integrated process. In our hospital, trauma treatment center consists of specialists and technicians from many departments such as general surgery, orthopedics, neurosurgery, etc. Conclusion Improving traffic injury treatment requires a systematic approach and coordinated efforts from the whole society. After all, the medical emergency treatment is the last link of the 5E strategy (education, environment, enforcement, engineering, and emergency). To conduct definitive treatment in the golden window and to enhance the pre-hospital as well as in-hospital treatment capabilities are critical. It is also recommended to unify various pre-hospital and in-hospital treatment protocols in China based on field experience [Wang 2007]. Other critical areas include to establish a national level treatment system closely linked to the 120 emergency call system, to use helicopters as the main aerial transport vehicles, to set up state-level training centers for trauma treatment, to build national and regional traffic injury database, and to formulate standards to qualify trauma treatment hospitals and doctors

A Surveys on clinical interns' mastery and understanding status of medical core systems

Objective To investigate clinical interns' mastery and understanding status of medical core systems in order to provide reference for formulating training programs. Methods The questionnaires including medical core systems trained and self-assessment and test paper were de-signed. Then survey was carried out among 188 clinical interns of Grade 2009 of Zunyi Medical College at the end of training. All data were obtained, collected and analyzed with Excel and a SPSS 17.0.The result was described with percentage. Results ①78/41.34% and 117/62.33% clinical interns accepted training of medical core systems respectively before or during clinic training. 74/39.43% hos-pitals or 70/37.30% departments were systematically trained by medical core systems and the propor-tion of teachers who systematically or non-systematically explained medical core systems for clinical interns was 42/22.29% and 61/32.37% respectively. ②The clinical interns who mastered first diagnosis responsibility systems, patient communication system, and systems of discussing difficult cases were 178/94.68%, 178/90.43% or 168/89.36%. The clinical interns who mastered rescue systems in critically ill patients, surgical classification management systems and audit system in clinical blood transfusion were 84/44.68%, 67/35.64% or 34/18.28% respectively. ③8/6.90% interns fully grasped the core system of the medical situation. 165/87.71% and 165/83.43% clinical interns believed medical core systems should be mastered and 157 interns (83.43%) thought that mastering medical core system can help them better adapt to clinical medical work. Conclusion Systematic training of medical core system should be enhanced for clinical interns and mastering medical core systems is better for their future. Key words: Clinical medicine internship; Interns; Medical core systems; Systematic training

A Spatial Translational Cable Robot

In this paper, a novel design has been presented for a spatial translational cable-driven robot. The original design of this robot was introduced by Bosscher et al. (2005, “A concept for rapidly-deployable cable robot search and rescue systems,” DETC2005: ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Long Beach, CA). In this paper, a structure has been proposed to enhance the workspace of the robot. This has been done by using more cables in the mechanism. However, no extra actuator has been added to the robot. Additionally, a method has been proposed to obtain the workspace of the presented robot by calculating the available moment (AM) set in each point of space. The results imply that the workspace of the robot has been enhanced significantly by using the new design.

Enabling Efficient Sensor Rescue Service inMobile Cloud Computing with Assisted Sensor

We implement system that can be helpful to integrate rescue schemes as varied as Disaster prediction, Evacuation planning & Emergency broadcast. In this system we implement multiple sensed mobile devices for personal awareness so that flexibility and reliability of rescue services are improved. Reliability and scalability of rescue services are modified by cloud computing. The system shows advantage of power efficiency and scalability of rescue service architecture.Rescue services are play important role in emergency services to minimize the damage. Current rescue systems (of Emergency Calls) have significant problems in emergency; the victim may not be in a position to activate/initiate the required help and in-efficiency during massive casualty situations.

Ribosome rescue systems in bacteria.

Ribosomes often stall during protein synthesis in various situations in a cell, either unexpectedly or in a programmed fashion. While some of them remain stalled for gene regulation, many are rescued by some cellular systems. Ribosomes stalled at the 3' end of a truncated mRNA lacking a stop codon (non-stop mRNA) are rescued by trans-translation mediated by tmRNA (transfer-messenger RNA) and a partner protein, SmpB. Through trans-translation, a degradation tag is added to the C-termini of truncated polypeptides from a truncated mRNA to prevent them from accumulation in the cell. Trans-translation has crucial roles in a wide variety of cellular events, especially under stressful conditions. The trans-translation system is thought to be universally present in the bacterial domain, although it is not necessarily essential in all bacterial cells. It has recently been revealed that two other systems, one involving a small protein, ArfA, with RF2 and the other involving YaeJ (ArfB), a class I release factor homologue, operate to relieve ribosome stalling in Escherichia coli. Thus, many bacterial species would have multiple systems to cope with various kinds of stalled translation events.

Hormesis and trade-offs: a comment.

Hormesis and trade-offs: a comment.

Status of road safety and injury burden: Europe.

Road traffic injuries are an ongoing global health burden and cause more than 1.2 million deaths per year.1 In Europe, the annual socioeconomic impact accounts for €130 billion.2 In 2011, the United Nations set a special focus on road safety and injury prevention by the proclamation of the “Decade of Action for Road Safety.” This initiative focuses mainly on developing countries.3 In Germany, many measures have been undertaken to improve the mortality rates associated with traffic injuries.4 Among these are countrywide mandatory helmet laws for motorcyclists, speed limits on the Autobahn, speed limit reinforcements associated with fines in and outside the cities, and a network of overlapping rescue helicopter coverage throughout the country5 (Table 1). Despite a general decrease in mortality, the European Commission in 2001 set a new law to reduce the number of road traffic fatalities by another 50%.6 Until 2009, a reduction of more than one third (38%) was achieved7 (Fig. 1). The improvements observed seem to be a result of improvements in education, engineering, and technical improvements in active and passive car safety. These have had effects for cyclists and pedestrians, as well.1 In addition, a 1% reduction of distance traveled by motorized vehicles has occurred, which may have contributed to a decreased incidence of accidents (1.8%).1TABLE 1: Injury Prevention and Road Fatalities in Germany Since 1955FIGURE 1: Road fatalities in Europe since 2001.Based on these prerequisites, this article provides an overview on the current situation in Europe and focuses on 2 questions: How can the improvements in road traffic–associated fatalities in Europe be explained? Is there a special patient group that should be aimed at in the future? The observed decline of fatalities over the last decades can be explained by different factors. The highest number of fatalities was observed in the age group between 15 and 29 years.7 Furthermore, most pronounced decrease in fatalities was found for children younger than 14 years of age (55%). The age group between 15 and 24 years demonstrated a decrease of 40%. In elderly persons, the reduction was only 9%.7 This may be explained by the fact that more elderly people continue to drive. Moreover, if involved in a car accident, their chances of death are higher than in all other age groups. Over the last 2 decades, Germany has been setting the path in terms of road safety in Europe in several ways. Multiple safety measures have been instituted to help reduce the number of road traffic injuries. Within Europe, Germany is the only country that has a complete coverage of helicopter air rescue services.4,8,9 In Germany, by law, every injured patient is required to be seen by an emergency physician within 30 minutes after the accident. Further measures are documented in Table 1 and include rigorous speed limits (including the Autobahn), mandatory helmet laws in every county, and other measures to improve passive driver safety. Based on the available literature, the questions addressed initially can be answered as follows: A significant reduction in mortality rates across Europe has been successfully achieved. Germany seems to have gained, in particular, from overlapping coverage of helicopter emergency rescue systems, speed limits on the Autobahn, and passive car safety. According to current data, elderly patients are at special risk to sustain unsurvivable injuries. Although no clear cut data are available, multiple factors might play a role, such as impairment of hearing and vision, as well as reduced reactivity toward speed and other changes in traffic patterns. Therefore, a major focus should lie on age adaptions of vehicles for the retired drivers.