The role of temporary accommodation buildings for post-disaster housing reconstruction

The number of houses damaged or destroyed after disasters is frequently large, and re-housing of homeless people is one of the most important tasks of reconstruction programmes. Reconstruction works often last long and during that time, it is essential to provide victims with the minimum conditions to live with dignity, privacy, and protection. This research intends to demonstrate the crucial role of temporary accommodation buildings to provide spaces where people can live and gradually resume their life until they have a permanent house. The study also aims to identify the main problems of temporary accommodation strategies and to discuss some principles and guidelines in order to reach better design solutions. It is found that temporary accommodation is an issue that goes beyond the simple provision of buildings, since the whole space for temporary settlement is important. Likewise, temporary accommodation is a process that should start before a disaster occurs, as a preventive pre-planning. In spite of being temporary constructions, these housing buildings are one of the most important elements to provide in emergency scenarios, contributing for better recovery and reconstruction actions.

Modeling microbes: New methods for integrated metabolic and regulatory network reconstruction

PhD Thesis in Bioengineering

Self-narrative reconstruction after dilemma-focused therapy for depression: a comparison of good and poor outcome cases

Objective: The aim of this study is to improve the understanding of self-changes after an intervention for depression focused on implicative dilemmas, a type of cognitive conflict related to identity. As recent research has highlighted the relevance of identity-related dilemmas in clients with depression, we sought to assess the way in which clients resolve such inner conflicts after a tailored dilemma-focused intervention and how this is reflected in the clients’ self-narratives. Method: We used three instruments to observe differences between good (n = 5) and poor (n = 5) outcome cases: (i) the Repertory Grid Technique to track the resolution of dilemmas, (ii) the Change Interview to compile clients’ accounts of changes at posttreatment, and (iii) the Innovative Moments Coding System to examine the emergence of clients’ novelties at the Change Interview. Results: Groups did not differ in terms of the number and relevance of client-identified significantly helpful events. However, between-group differences were found for the resolution of dilemmas and for the proportion of high-level innovative moment (IM) types. Furthermore, a greater self-narrative reconstruction was associated with higher levels of symptom improvement. Conclusions: Good outcome cases seem to be associated with the resolution of conflicts and high-level IMs.

Dynamic three-dimensional reconstruction of the heart by transesophageal echocardiography

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate echocardiography accuracy in performing and obtaining images for dynamical three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction. METHODS: Three-dimensional (3D) image reconstruction was obtained in 20 consecutive patients who underwent transesophageal echocardiography. A multiplanar 5 MHz transducer was used for 3D reconstruction. RESULTS: Twenty patients were studied consecutively. The following cardiac diseases were present: valvar prostheses-6 (2 mitral, 2 aortic and 2 mitral and aortic); mitral valve prolapse- 3; mitral and aortic disease - 2; aortic valve disease- 5; congenital heart disease- 3 (2 atrial septal defect- ASD - and 1 transposition of the great arteries -TGA); arteriovenous fistula- 1. In 7 patients, color Doppler was also obtained and used for 3D flow reconstruction. Twenty five cardiac structures were acquired and 60 reconstructions generated (28 of mitral valves, 14 of aortic valves, 4 of mitral prostheses, 7 of aortic prostheses and 7 of the ASD). Fifty five of 60 (91.6%) reconstructions were considered of good quality by 2 independent observers. The 11 reconstructed mitral valves/prostheses and the 2 reconstructed ASDs provided more anatomical information than two dimensional echocardiography (2DE) alone. CONCLUSION: 3D echocardiography using a transesophageal transducer is a feasible technique, which improves detection of anatomical details of cardiac structures, particularly of the mitral valve and atrial septum.

Reconstruction of the regulatory network for Bacillus subtilis and reconciliation with gene expression data

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb. 2016.00275

A critical evaluation of methods for the reconstruction of tissue-specific models

Under the framework of constraint based modeling, genome-scale metabolic models (GSMMs) have been used for several tasks, such as metabolic engineering and phenotype prediction. More recently, their application in health related research has spanned drug discovery, biomarker identification and host-pathogen interactions, targeting diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer, obesity or diabetes. In the last years, the development of novel techniques for genome sequencing and other high-throughput methods, together with advances in Bioinformatics, allowed the reconstruction of GSMMs for human cells. Considering the diversity of cell types and tissues present in the human body, it is imperative to develop tissue-specific metabolic models. Methods to automatically generate these models, based on generic human metabolic models and a plethora of omics data, have been proposed. However, their results have not yet been adequately and critically evaluated and compared. This work presents a survey of the most important tissue or cell type specific metabolic model reconstruction methods, which use literature, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics data, together with a global template model. As a case study, we analyzed the consistency between several omics data sources and reconstructed distinct metabolic models of hepatocytes using different methods and data sources as inputs. The results show that omics data sources have a poor overlapping and, in some cases, are even contradictory. Additionally, the hepatocyte metabolic models generated are in many cases not able to perform metabolic functions known to be present in the liver tissue. We conclude that reliable methods for a priori omics data integration are required to support the reconstruction of complex models of human cells.

Tapping the wealth of microbial data in high-throughput metabolic model reconstruction

Genome-scale metabolic models are valuable tools in the metabolic engineering process, based on the ability of these models to integrate diverse sources of data to produce global predictions of organism behavior. At the most basic level, these models require only a genome sequence to construct, and once built, they may be used to predict essential genes, culture conditions, pathway utilization, and the modifications required to enhance a desired organism behavior. In this chapter, we address two key challenges associated with the reconstruction of metabolic models: (a) leveraging existing knowledge of microbiology, biochemistry, and available omics data to produce the best possible model; and (b) applying available tools and data to automate the reconstruction process. We consider these challenges as we progress through the model reconstruction process, beginning with genome assembly, and culminating in the integration of constraints to capture the impact of transcriptional regulation. We divide the reconstruction process into ten distinct steps: (1) genome assembly from sequenced reads; (2) automated structural and functional annotation; (3) phylogenetic tree-based curation of genome annotations; (4) assembly and standardization of biochemistry database; (5) genome-scale metabolic reconstruction; (6) generation of core metabolic model; (7) generation of biomass composition reaction; (8) completion of draft metabolic model; (9) curation of metabolic model; and (10) integration of regulatory constraints. Each of these ten steps is documented in detail.

Controlled resolution reconstruction of one-dimensional permittivity profiles

Electromagnetic scattering inverse problems, microwave imaging, reconstruction of dielectric media, remote sensing, tomography

3-D surface reconstruction using spatial frequency-based approaches under influence of perspective distortion

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik, Diss., 2008

Subclinical femoral neuropathy after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

Background and aim of the study: Patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction and femoral catheter analgesia may develop quadriceps amyotrophy. We aimed to determine whether this amyotrophy might be related to a femoral neuropathy. Material and method: After Ethical Committee approval and patients' written informed consent, 17 patients ASA I and II scheduled to undergo ACL reconstruction were recruited. An electromyography (EMG) was performed before the operation in order to exclude a femoral neuropathy. A femoral nerve catheter was inserted before the surgery with the aid of a nerve stimulator, and 20 ml of 0.5% ropivacaine was injected. The operation was done under spinal or general anaesthesia. Postoperative analgesia was provided with 0.2% ropivacaine for 72 hours, in association with oxycodone, paracetamol and ibuprofen. A second EMG was performed 4 weeks after the ACL repair. A femoral neuropathy was defined as a reduction of the surface of the motor response of more than 20%, compared to the first EMG. A third EMG was performed at 6 months if a neuropathy was present. Results: Mean age of this group of patients was 27 years old (range 18-38 y.). Among the 17 patients, 4 developed a transient femoral neuropathy (incidence of 24%) without clinical complain. Conclusion: In this study, the incidence of subclinical femoral neuropathy after ACL reconstruction is high. This lesion may be caused by the femoral catheter (mechanical damage, toxicity of local anaesthesia) or by the Tourniquet. Further studies are needed to investigate the incidence of subclinical neuropathy, according to the type of analgesia (epidural analgesia, PCA) and surgery.

Renal transplantation following aorto-iliac reconstruction is a safe a strategy

Introduction: Renal transplantation is considered the treatment of choice for end-stage renal disease. However, the association of occlusive aorto-iliac disease and chronic renal failure is frequent and aorto-iliac reconstruction may be necessary prior to renal transplantation. This retrospective study reviews the results of this operative strategy.Material and Methods: Between January 2001 and June 2010, 309 patients underwent renal transplantation at our institution and 8 patients had prior aorto-iliac reconstruction using prosthetic material. There were 6 men and 2 women with a median age of 62 years (range 51-70). Five aorto-bifemoral and 2 aorto-bi-iliac bypasses were performed for stage II (n=5), stage IV (n=1) and aortic aneurysm (n=1). In one patient, iliac kissing stents and an ilio-femoral bypass were implanted. 4 cadaveric and 4 living donor renal transplantations were performed with an interval of 2 months to 10 years after revascularization.The results were analysed with respect of graft and patients survival. Differences between groups were tested by the log rank method.Results: No complications and no death occurred in the post-operative period. All bypasses remained patent during follow-up. The median time of post transplantation follow-up was 46 months for all patients and 27 months for patients with prior revascularization. In the revascularized group and control group, the graft and patient survival at 1 year were respectively 100%/96%, 100%/99% and at 5 years 86%/86%, 86%/94%, without significant differences between both groups.Discussion: Our results suggest that renal transplantation following prior aorto-iliac revascularisation with prosthetic material is safe and effective. Patients with end-stage renal disease and concomitant aorto-iliac disease should therefore be considered for renal transplantation. However, caution in the interpretation of the results is indicated due to the small sample size of our study.

Evaluation of the reconstruction limits of a frequency-independent crosshole georadar waveform inversion scheme in the presence of dispersion

Waveform tomographic imaging of crosshole georadar data is a powerful method to investigate the shallow subsurface because of its ability to provide images of pertinent petrophysical parameters with extremely high spatial resolution. All current crosshole georadar waveform inversion strategies are based on the assumption of frequency-independent electromagnetic constitutive parameters. However, in reality, these parameters are known to be frequency-dependent and complex and thus recorded georadar data may show significant dispersive behavior. In this paper, we evaluate synthetically the reconstruction limits of a recently published crosshole georadar waveform inversion scheme in the presence of varying degrees of dielectric dispersion. Our results indicate that, when combined with a source wavelet estimation procedure that provides a means of partially accounting for the frequency-dependent effects through an "effective" wavelet, the inversion algorithm performs remarkably well in weakly to moderately dispersive environments and has the ability to provide adequate tomographic reconstructions.

Sparse regularization for fiber ODF reconstruction: from the suboptimality of ℓ2 and ℓ1 priors to ℓ0.

Diffusion MRI is a well established imaging modality providing a powerful way to probe the structure of the white matter non-invasively. Despite its potential, the intrinsic long scan times of these sequences have hampered their use in clinical practice. For this reason, a large variety of methods have been recently proposed to shorten the acquisition times. Among them, spherical deconvolution approaches have gained a lot of interest for their ability to reliably recover the intra-voxel fiber configuration with a relatively small number of data samples. To overcome the intrinsic instabilities of deconvolution, these methods use regularization schemes generally based on the assumption that the fiber orientation distribution (FOD) to be recovered in each voxel is sparse. The well known Constrained Spherical Deconvolution (CSD) approach resorts to Tikhonov regularization, based on an ℓ(2)-norm prior, which promotes a weak version of sparsity. Also, in the last few years compressed sensing has been advocated to further accelerate the acquisitions and ℓ(1)-norm minimization is generally employed as a means to promote sparsity in the recovered FODs. In this paper, we provide evidence that the use of an ℓ(1)-norm prior to regularize this class of problems is somewhat inconsistent with the fact that the fiber compartments all sum up to unity. To overcome this ℓ(1) inconsistency while simultaneously exploiting sparsity more optimally than through an ℓ(2) prior, we reformulate the reconstruction problem as a constrained formulation between a data term and a sparsity prior consisting in an explicit bound on the ℓ(0)norm of the FOD, i.e. on the number of fibers. The method has been tested both on synthetic and real data. Experimental results show that the proposed ℓ(0) formulation significantly reduces modeling errors compared to the state-of-the-art ℓ(2) and ℓ(1) regularization approaches.

Risk Attitude And Wage Growth: Replication And Reconstruction

We replicate Shaw (1996) who found that individual wage growth is higher for individuals with greater preference for risk taking. Expanding her dataset with more American observations and data for Germany, Spain and Italy, we find mixed support for the earlier results. We present and estimate a new model and find that in particular the wage level is sensitive to attitudes towards risk taking. Comments given at the Labour Economics Conference in honour of Niels Westergaard (Nyborg, August 2008) and EALE 2008 (Amsterdam) and at seminars in Maastricht,Reus and Essen (RWI) are gratefully acknowledged. The authors also acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant number SEJ2007-66318) and from the Barcelona Economics Program of CREA. JEL code: J24; J30. Key words: wage growth, risk, post-school investment.

Indications et techniques actuelles de reconstruction mammaire après mastectomie [Indications and techniques of reconstruction after mastectomy].

Reconstructive surgery takes an important place in breast cancer treatment. Immediate breast reconstruction is performed during the same operation as mastectomy. It is contraindicated following radiotherapy. Reconstruction performed after mastectomy is called differed breast reconstruction. It is completed 6 months after chemotherapy and 1 year after radiotherapy. Prosthetic breast reconstruction is indicated when tissues are of good qualities and breast are small. Autologous reconstruction is performed in case of radiotherapy or large breast. After breast reconstruction, imperfections can be corrected with autologous fat injection.