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Readability of Ebola Information on Websites of Public Health Agencies, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Europe

CDC IED JOURNAL  by    Enrique Castro-Sánchez , Elpiniki Spanoudakis, and Alison H. Holmes    Volume 21, Number 7- July 2015                                          

 Public involvement in efforts to control the current Ebola virus disease epidemic requires understandable information. We reviewed the readability of Ebola information from public health agencies in non–Ebola-affected areas. A substantial proportion of citizens would have difficulty understanding existing information, which would potentially hinder effective health-seeking behaviors....

Several factors, including readability of information provided (8), can help reduce health literacy deficits...It is recommended that health information materials should be written at a level typically understandable by an 11-year-old person ... anxiety or panic attributed to a highly virulent infection, such as Ebola, might hinder comprehension of related information (11).

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Favipiravir—a prophylactic treatment for Ebola contacts?

THE LANCET byMichel Van Herp, Hilde Declerck and Tom Decroo June 13, 2015

.. the efficacy of candidate Ebola vaccines for primary prevention has not been proven.2 Furthermore, in communities in which Ebola transmission might be ongoing, an important question is: how will such a vaccination be perceived if a vaccinated person develops Ebola? Such a scenario is possible in people who contract Ebola virus before vaccination. If a person is infected with Ebola virus before vaccination, the vaccine might have a post-exposure prophylactic effect. However, how effective this prophylaxis might be is unknown.2 Moreover, if someone is infected more than 48 h before vaccination, the post-exposure prophylactic effect is likely to be insufficient, leading to possible development of Ebola after vaccination. This scenario is likely to result in serious issues relating to community trust and acceptance of an Ebola vaccine.3 How to exclude Ebola among people presenting with post-vaccination fever is also an issue.2

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Japanese Ebola test gives results in 11 minutes: researcher

AFP     April  9, 2015

Tokyo  A Japanese research team said on Thursday it had developed a field test for Ebola that gives results in just over 11 minutes -- down from the 90-minute test used now.

The breakthrough by Nagasaki University's Institute of Tropical Medicine will allow medics to move much more quickly in treating people with the haemorrhagic fever, Professor Jiro Yasuda told AFP.

"The result time was unexpectedly short," said Yasuda of the trial conducted in Guinea last month on 100 samples, of which 47 proved positive.

The Guinean government has now asked the institute and its collaboration partner Toshiba to supply equipment to roll out the test, he added.

Read complete story.
http://news.yahoo.com/japanese-ebola-test-gives-results-11-minutes-researcher-064839139.html

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Three Mile Island Veteran Optimistic on Fukushima Fuel Removal

      

Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato, in the orange helmet, inspects the contaminated water tanks at Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture on Oct. 15, 2013. Photograph: JIJI Press-Pool/AFP via Getty Images

bloomberg.com - by Jacob Adelman - October 17, 2013

The first removal of nuclear fuel rods next month from the stricken Fukushima atomic station should be successful based on findings that the rods -- each about twice the average weight of a sumo wrestler -- appear undamaged from an explosion at the site almost three years ago.

That’s the view of Lake Barrett, a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official appointed last month as an adviser to Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

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New NRC Hazard Analysis Earthquake Study Released

submitted by Kay Goss

                 

US NRC study released today on "New Seismic Model Will Refine Hazard Analysis at U.S. Nuclear Plants" and performs studies at many central and eastern U.S. susceptible locations. The Central and Eastern United States Seismic Source Characterization for Nuclear Facilities (CEUS SSC) Project was conducted from April 2008 to December 2011 to develop a new, regional seismic source model for use in conducting and reviewing probabilistic seismic hazard analyses (PSHAs) for nuclear facilities in the CEUS. PSHA is a method for assessing site-specific seismic hazard that includes getting the best estimate of ground motions and a transparent quantitative accounting of uncertainty. The results of PSHA are used in seismic design and in calculating seismic risk. 

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Reframing Resilience

 


First, there is great value in a systems approach as a heuristic for understanding interlocked social-ecological-technological processes, and in analysis across multiple scales. Yet we need to move beyond both systems as portrayed in resilience thinking, and the focus on actors in work on vulnerability, to analyse networks and relationships, as well as to attend to the diverse framings, narratives, imaginations and discourses that different actors bring to bear.

 

For More:

http://resilienturbanism.tumblr.com/post/7573475902/reframing-resilience

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Resilience Alliance

There are many definitions of resilience from simple deterministic views of resilience anchored in Newtonian mechanics to far more dynamic views of resilience from a systems perspective, including insights from quantum mechanics and the sciences of complexity.  One baseline perspective of resilience sees it in terms of the viability of socio-ecological systems as the foundation for sustainability.  For those that are ready to look beyond resilience as the ability to return to the "normal state" before a disaster, take a look at:

http://www.resalliance.org/

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APEC: Joint efforts to reduce disaster risks

Sunday, Nov 13, 2011

The public and private sectors signed a joint statement of intent at Apec to strengthen regional disaster risk reduction and resilience, following US Secretary of State's High-Level Policy Dialogue on Disaster Resiliency yesterday.

The Asia-Pacific Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilient Collaboration joint statement, which was signed by nine organisations at the Sheraton Waikiki, intends to use public private partnership as means to help save lives, ensure economic vitality, and enhance human well-being across the region.

The members also urged more organisations from Apec members to get on-board with their effort to reduce disaster risks and increase resilience in the the Asia-Pacific region.

Does Adaptive Management of Natural Resources Enhance Resilience to Climate Change?

Emerging insights from adaptive and community-based resource management suggest that building resilience into both human and ecological systems is an effective way to cope with environmental change characterized by future surprises or unknowable risks. In this paper, originally published in Ecology and Society, authors Emma Tompkins argue that these emerging insights have implications for policies and strategies for responding to climate change. The authors review perspectives on collective action for natural resource management to inform understanding of climate response capacity. They demonstrate the importance of social learning, specifically in relation to the acceptance of strategies that build social and ecological resilience. Societies and communities dependent on natural resources need to enhance their capacity to adapt to the impacts of future climate change, particularly when such impacts could lie outside their experienced coping range. This argument is illustrated by an example of present-day collective action for community-based coastal management in Trinidad and Tobago.

Resources

Disaster Preparedness Tokyo

Disaster guide from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government

http://japan.resiliencesystem.org/disaster-preparedness-tokyo


BBC . UK

Live Japan earthquake

www.bbc.co.uk/


Reuters

Live coverage of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan

live.reuters.com/uk/Event/Japan_earthquake2


TBStv . USTREAM

Live Broadcast from Japan . Language: Japanese

www.ustream.tv/channel/tbstv

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