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Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-phr-10.1177_00333549231155473 for The New York State COVID-19 Healthcare Personnel Study: One-Year Follow-up of Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants, 2020-2021 by Charles DiMaggio, Ezra Susser, Spiros Frangos, David Abramson, Howard Andrews, Christina Hoven, Megan Ryan and Guohua Li in Public Health Reports

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-phr-10.1177_00333549231155473 for The New York State COVID-19 Healthcare Personnel Study: One-Year Follow-up of Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants, 2020-2021 by Charles DiMaggio, Ezra Susser, Spiros Frangos, David Abramson, Howard Andrews, Christina Hoven, Megan Ryan and Guohua Li in Public Health Reports

Modern scientific instruments are becoming essential for discoveries because they provide unprecedented insight into physical or biological events – often in real time. However, these instruments may generate large amounts of data, and increasingly they require sophisticated e-infrastructure for analysis, storage and archive. The increasing complexity and scale of the data, processing steps and systems has made it difficult for domain scientists to perform their research, narrowing the user base to a select few. In this paper, we present a framework that democratises large-scale instrument-based science, increasing the number of researchers who can engage. We discuss a prototype at the University of Queensland. The system is illustrated through two case studies, one involving light microscopy imaging of the innate immune system, and the other electron microscopy imaging of the SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins.&nbsp

Given the increasingly pervasive role and growing importance of computing and data in all aspects of science and society fundamental advances in computer science and their translation to the real world have become essential. Consequently, there may be benefits to formalizing Translational Computer Science (TCS) to complement the traditional foundational and applied modes of computer science research, as has been done for translational medicine. TCS has the potential to accelerate the impact of computer science research overall. In this talk I discuss the attributes of TCS, and formally define it. I enumerate a number of roadblocks that have limited its adoption to date and sketch a path forward. Finally, I will provide some specific examples of translational research underpinning eScience projects and illustrate the advantages to both computer science and the application domains

The Research Data Culture Conversation submits a poster at the RDA 2020, the 16th Plenary session on an Effective Research Data Culture.

The Research Data Culture Conversation submits a poster at the RDA 2020, the 16th Plenary session on an Effective Research Data Culture.

As part of the eResearch Australasia 2022 conference, the Research Data Culture Conversation hosted a workshop sponsored by the ARDC to discuss the Macro View of Australia's research data. In this full day workshop, the morning session involved discussing the activity to date of expanding the Macro View to include more Australian universitites, National Research Institutes, Medical Research Institutes and CSIRO. The afternoon session then involved a table activity to explore the emerging ideas and concepts.

This thesis was scanned from the print manuscript for digital preservation and is copyright the author. Researchers can access this thesis by asking their local university, institution or public library to make a request on their behalf. Monash staff and postgraduate students can use the link in the References field.

Shortest poster I ever managed to produce

Shortest poster I ever managed to produce

The Collaborative Environment for Ecosystem Science Research and Analysis (CoESRA) is a Web-based virtual desktop environment that integrates existing eResearch infrastructure in Australia for synthesis and analysis of scientific data for the ecological science community. Data synthesis and analysis is performed through scientific workflows. Even though this is powerful, it has a large learning curve for novice users. We have implemented a Web layer on top of an existing virtual desktop layer to hide this complexity from users. This new layer allows users to execute scientific workflows without requiring a desktop, and thus reduces the learning curve. The virtual desktop is still accessible for more advanced users.

Limited data are available regarding long-term morbidity in adult survivors of retinoblastoma (Rb).The Retinoblastoma Survivor Study is a retrospective cohort of adult survivors of Rb diagnosed between 1932 and 1994. Participants completed a comprehensive questionnaire adapted from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study surveys. Chronic conditions were classified using the National Cancer Institute's Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (version 4.03). Multivariate Poisson regression was used to compare survivors of Rb with 2377 non-Rb controls, consisting of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study sibling cohort and survivors with bilateral versus unilateral disease.Survivors of Rb (53.6% with bilateral disease) and non-Rb controls had a mean age of 43.3 years (standard deviation, 11 years) and 37.6 years (SD, 8.6 years), respectively, at the time of study enrollment. At a median follow-up of 42 years (range, 15-75 years), 86.6% of survivors of Rb had at least 1 condition and 71.1% had a severe/life-threatening (grade 3-4) condition. The adjusted relative risk (RR) of a chronic condition in survivors compared with non-Rb controls was 1.4 (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.3-1.4; P.01); for a grade 3 to 4 condition, the RR was 7.6 (95% CI, 6.4-8.9; P.01). Survivors were at an excess risk regardless of laterality. After stratifying by laterality and excluding ocular conditions and second malignant neoplasms (SMNs), only those with bilateral disease were found to be at an increased risk of any nonocular, non-SMN condition (RR, 1.2; 95% CI, 1.1-1.2) and for grade 3 to 4 nonocular, non-SMN conditions (RR, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.2-2.5).Survivors of Rb have an increased risk of chronic conditions compared with non-Rb controls. After excluding ocular conditions and SMNs, this excess risk was found to persist only for those with bilateral disease. Cancer 2016;122:773-781. © 2016 American Cancer Society.

This report is one of the four-part 2015 Briefing Report Series of the Sandy Child and Family Health (S-CAFH) Study. Reports in the series describe the impact of Hurricane Sandy on several key aspects of New Jersey resident’s lives. The impact a disaster has on the health of a population can be described as having a “dose-response” relationship: the larger the “dose” of the disaster, the greater the health impact or “response” among those individuals and communities exposed. This PERSON Briefing Report describes the impact of Hurricane Sandy (the dose) on the health and well-being of adults and children exposed to the storm (the response). Data for the report are drawn from the baseline survey of the Sandy Child and Family Health (S-CAFH) Study, an observational cohort study of nearly 1,000 randomly-selected New Jersey residents who were living in areas of the state exposed to the storm in 2012. Participants in the study represent over 1 million people living in Sandy’s “Disaster Footprint,” the hurricane-exposed portions of the state. This report describes and examines several critical aspects of individual health and well-being that may be associated with the storm, including:1. Physical health of adults;2. Psychological and emotional health of adults;3. Social and economic health of adults;4. Health and well-being of children; and5. The association between disaster exposure and individual outcomes.This Briefing Report measures dose in terms of the hurricane’s impact on the lives of New Jersey residents living across nine counties most exposed to the storm: Was a member of the household killed or injured in the storm? Was a pet lost in the storm? Was a vehicle destroyed in the storm? Did a member of the household come into contact with floodwaters, debris, or mold? Was the home slightly or moderately damaged by the storm, or did it sustain major structural damage? The response includes the incidence of health conditions such as asthma, the emergence of mental health distress, increases in risk behaviors such as smoking and alcohol consumption, and rising economic constraints on individuals and households struggling to recover from the storm. From among the many findings in this report, several stand out: Housing damage can be a risk factor for poor health that has an effect on people’s lives remarkably similar to the effect of poverty. Within the Disaster Footprint, those individuals living in homes that sustained major structural damage, regardless and independent of their household’s income level, expressed health problems that were often mirror images of those who lived in deep poverty, with household incomes less than $20,000 a year; Implications: More refined physical and mental health screening should be considered for residents whose homes have experienced substantial damage, and additional surveillance efforts undertaken to follow residents of significantly damaged homes and to provide ongoing access to physical and mental health services; Some toxins had “double-barreled effects”: exposure to mold was associated with both clinically-diagnosed asthma and with mental health distress. Adults who were exposed were 2.5 times as likely as those not exposed to mold to be diagnosed with asthma after the storm, and were twice as likely to report mental health distress;- Implications: Mold mitigation efforts should include components of psychological first aid in order to identify residents at risk for mental health problems, and provide referral mechanisms for those residents who meet the threshold established by New Jersey Hope and Healing. Similarly, disaster case management and psychological first aid programs should inquire about mold and housing damage as potential indicators or risk factors for mental health distress; Children living in homes that experienced minor damage were at particularly high risk for psychological and emotional issues. Children living in homes with minor damage were over four times as likely to be sad or depressed, and over twice as likely to have problems sleeping since the storm as were children from homes with no damage. These levels of emotional and mental distress amongst children in homes with minor damage were higher even than those reported by children living in homes with major structural damage; - Implications: The pediatric and social services communities should be particularly attentive to children’s living environments, and consider homes with minor damage (which, according to FEMA definitions, may be uninhabitable for a short period of time) as significant risk factors in children’s lives. Moreover, housing assistance programs should work to accelerate repairs and restorations for households with children and consider existing gaps in restoration programs that may not allow for complete repairs.As an analysis of population health following Hurricane Sandy, this PERSON Report reflects some of the devastating and potentially enduring effects that storms of this magnitude can exert on a population.

This report is one of the four-part 2015 Briefing Report Series of the Sandy Child and Family Health (S-CAFH) Study. Reports in the series describe the impact of Hurricane Sandy on several key aspects of New Jersey resident’s lives. This Place Report focuses on the decisions and actions related to evacuation, housing, community, and restoration and repair. It documents the storm’s impact on PLACE in New Jersey residents’ lives, with a particular emphasis on Sandy’s effect on people’s homes and housing decisions. Any effort to facilitate good decision-making on the part of New Jersey residents, whether it involves evacuation decisions, restoration decisions, or financial decisions, should be predicated on timely and targeted messaging. It provides data on the decisions and actions that residents adopted in the face of the impending storm and throughout the recovery period. This information should help inform officials and stakeholders as they develop even more effective communication campaigns.Assuring safe and stable housing is one of the most important individual and collective goals after a catastrophic disaster. Individuals and families rely upon homes for shelter, sanctuary, and often as a significant economic asset; in turn, communities rely upon a strong housing base as a means of maintaining or enhancing political strength and community resilience, as well as serving as linchpins for social and economic growth. While many residents in New Jersey’s Disaster Footprint are making substantial progress in rebuilding their homes and communities, there are clearly still pockets of damage and disruption, even two and a half years after the storm.

In December 2011, researchers from Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) interviewed key officials and community leaders in Joplin, Missouri in order to document the major themes of the recovery effort approximately six months after the May 22 tornado. Researchers interviewed individuals in Joplin, Missouri to document recovery efforts six months after the tornado that displaced one third of the city’s population. They observed a favorable foundation for recovery, including limited physical damage to critical infrastructure or the city government’s fiscal base, minimal political conflict over the direction and control of recovery, a history of prior collaborative efforts across diverse sectors, and a highly involved and visible governor. The study documents several quick critical decisions that set a positive recovery trajectory and a FEMA-supported long-term recovery planning process. It notes that six months after the tornado, Joplin’s leadership faced hard decisions about how to apply federal and state redevelopment support and private philanthropic donations, deal with long-term community mental health issues, maintain a high level of citizen involvement, and sustain the cooperative atmosphere that had defined the first six months of recovery.

This poster was presented at the New Opportunities for Better User Group Software (NOBUGS) 2008 Conference November 3-5, 2008 at ANSTO, Australia. There is a large momentum toward the better curation of data. It is arguably driven by the management of the data explosion, and questions such as: Can scientific outcomes be repeated? Does the data provide what the user wants? With the ever increasing availability of computational resources and the proliferation of open source software, there becomes a clear need to also curate the algorithms and methods used in processing and analysis. This poster describes a scientific community approach to computational software development, and some of the software development principles that underpin it. Contributors and users of this environment also face an overwhelming complexity in the depth of algorithms and methods used. Can these implementations be trusted? Do they do as expected? This poster presents how software artifacts of a computational, numerical or physics nature can be developed and contributed to the community with the testing and meta-data appropriate to curation.

In 2012, with funding from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia University, in partnership with the Children’s Health Fund, launched a four-state study in order (1) to identify communities of children in the coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida who were adversely impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, (2) to explore the prevalence of physical and mental health effects among these children, and (3) to conduct a preliminary assessment of the health services available to these children and the potential for targeted interventions or health system enhancements. We identified fifteen communities with higher numbers of BP compensation claims submitted by individuals and by businesses, and which also had higher rates of oil washing up on their shores based upon monitoring data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Over a span of four and a half months, a field team of six interviewers and two field coordinators completed 1,437 face-to-face household surveys. The parents whom we interviewed reported considerable exposure to the oil spill as well as a number of physical and mental health problems among their children. Over half of the parents interviewed in these highly-impacted communities reported that their children had some type of oil spill-related exposure, whether it was through physical, environmental, or economic factors. One in every five parents said their children had direct contact with the oil; one in four reported smelling strong oil-related odors; and two of every five said their household had lost income or a job since the oil spill. A little over 40% of parents in these high-impact communities reported some type of health effect experienced by their children since the oil spill. 18.1% of the parents said their children had experienced breathing problems after the oil spill, 14.8% noted skin problems, 16.0% reported visual problems and 21.6% mentioned emotional or behavioral problems since the oil spill. In October 2012 our research team traveled to four communities to interview local officials and leaders and conduct in-depth parent focus groups. We selected the four communities based on the household data, where parents had reported significant health effects. Across the four communities, the team heard of significant issues related to children’s health and well-being.

This paper examined the effect of Hurricane Katrina on children's access to personal healthcare providers and evaluated the use of propensity score methods to compare a nationally representative sample of children, as a proxy for an unexposed group, with a smaller exposed sample. 2007 data from the Gulf Coast Child and Family Health (G-CAFH) Study, a longitudinal cohort of households displaced or greatly impacted by Hurricane Katrina, were matched with 2007 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) data using propensity score techniques. Propensity scores were created using poverty level, household educational attainment, and race/ethnicity, with and without the addition of child age and gender. The outcome was defined as having a personal healthcare provider. Additional confounders (household structure, neighborhood safety, health and insurance status) were also examined. All covariates except gender differed significantly between the exposed (G-CAFH) and unexposed (NSCH) samples. Fewer G-CAFH children had a personal healthcare provider (65 %) compared to those from NSCH (90 %). Adjusting for all covariates, the propensity score analysis showed exposed children were 20 % less likely to have a personal healthcare provider compared to unexposed children in the US (OR = 0.80, 95 % CI 0.76, 0.84), whereas the logistic regression analysis estimated a stronger effect (OR = 0.28, 95 % CI 0.21, 0.39). Two years after Hurricane Katrina, children exposed to the storm had significantly lower odds of having a personal health care provider compared to unexposed children. Propensity score matching techniques may be useful for combining separate data samples when no clear unexposed group exists.

This study examines the reliability and validity of the Evacuation Decision Support Tool (EDST). The EDST is designed to provide healthcare facilities, emergency managers, and other agencies with a systematic process with which to evaluate and guide “evacuation” versus “shelter in place” decision making for a variety of “all hazards” situations. The EDST is comprised of 7 items that assess “threat” and 9 items that measure “consequences” of a situation. The tool was designed to provide users with a decision on whether to remain, prepare, or evacuate from a healthcare facility. To date, there has not been a study that examined psychometric properties of any evacuation decision tool, including the EDST.

This guidance paper goes above and beyond what donors can learn--or already have learned--from a handful of excellent guides developed by the philanthropic community since Hurricane Katrina. Much of this literature on "disaster philanthropy" has been directed at the most effective ways for donors and their agents to deliver assistance during unfolding crises and the immediate aftermath, and how donors and their agents can help provide food, water, clothing, shelter, sanitation, health care and self-governance for masses of displaced and traumatized people. Here, we discuss innovative and under-appreciated ways that donors can help American communities recover and rebuild resiliently from disasters. The goal is to give donors a fresh perspective on supporting local efforts not only to rebuild from disasters already sustained, but also to prepare to recover from potential disasters. In both cases, there are opportunities for donors to directly fund, or pool and leverage funds for a variety of recovery and rebuilding activities, programs and services.

Recent cuts in the federal budget have serious implications for the country's preparedness and response standing. In mid-May, federal agencies released their final FY11 budgets. Much of the country's funding for homeland security and public health preparedness resides in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budgets. Preparedness and response funding within DHHS and DHS dropped by nearly $900 million, from $5.3 billion in FY10 to $4.4 billion in FY11, a 17% overall reduction.

Among the four phases along the hazard continuum -- preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation -- the sub‐field of long‐term recovery has long been an outlier, an "orphan" when it comes to concerted policy attention and pre‐disaster planning. It's not that community residents or municipal and state government officials are unaware of the potential long‐term residual consequences of natural disasters. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars to upgrade and enhance the country's ability to detect and respond to major catastrophic events, whether man‐made or natural in origin. The country experienced catastrophic wildfires in 2003, 2007‐2008, and 2011, a regional electrical blackout affecting 9 states and part of Canada in 2003, major Midwest flooding in 2008 and again this year, Category 3 or greater hurricanes in 2004, 2005, and 2008, and significant tornado clusters in 2011 that claimed 529 lives and caused over $17 billion in damages. These hazards have struck virtually every region of the country, and the consequences are readily evident to emergency managers and local city and county. Although the ratio of uncovered to covered losses has declined over this three‐decade timeframe, from approximately 8:1 to 4:1, absolute dollar losses have escalated tremendously. This may represent gains in mitigation efforts to insure against losses in high‐risk areas, but the size and growth of uncovered losses suggest a growing recovery challenge. This difference between covered and uncovered losses reflects the absolute minimum investment required for affected areas to return to pre‐event conditions, much less build back to a better or higher standard. Furthermore, what this trend line cannot capture are those disaster consequences not so easily monetized -- diminished physical and mental health among an affected citizenry, loss of a sense of community and attachment to place, or large scale social disruptions or population displacements. Given the magnitude of the social investment needed to pursue long‐term recovery after a disaster, and the attention that other phases in the hazard continuum have experienced, why is recovery still a policy orphan, and what are the local implications for pre‐disaster planning for long‐term recovery?

Although the ruptured Deepwater Horizon oil well was capped on July 15, 2010, an estimated 3 to 5 million barrels of oil spilled in to the Gulf of Mexico over a three-month period. Several surveys prior to the capping of the well documented the concerns and immediate effects of the oil spill on coastal residents. One report by a team of LSU sociologists highlighted the anxiety caused by the oil spill - nearly 60% of the 925 coastal Louisiana residents interviewed said they were almost constantly worried by the oil spill. As the "acute phase" of the oil spill transitions to a longer-term "chronic phase," researchers at Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness, in collaboration with the Children's Health Fund and The Marist Poll, interviewed over 1,200 coastal residents in Louisiana and Mississippi, with a particular focus on the short- and potential long-term impact of the disaster on children. This study was informed by work the researchers have done post-Katrina as part of the Gulf Coast Child & Family Health Study, which has documented the enduring effects on impacted populations in the two states, particularly children.

The category 2 Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the Louisiana Coast on Sept. 1, 2008, nearly three years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, resulting in an evacuation of approximately 2 million people and considerable property damage. Although it did not match the intensity or consequence of Hurricane Katrina, the experience of anticipating and responding to Hurricane Gustav had the potential to trigger emotional and physical consequences among a population previously traumatized or displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Gustav also had the potential to exert a considerable impact upon the overall economic, social, and emotional recovery of these populations. The Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study (G-CAFH), a randomly-sampled post-Katrina longitudinal cohort study of 1,079 displaced and impacted households in Louisiana and Mississippi, was uniquely positioned to examine the evolving impact of Gustav upon a previously traumatized population. G-CAFH researchers were in the final stages of the third round of interviews with the study group when Hurricane Gustav struck, thus allowing for comparable pre- and post-event data for approximately 700 respondent households. Further information on the study, including previous reports and peer-reviewed research articles, may be found at www.gcafh.org. In particular, the research team was interested in the following issues: Evacuation: People's response to the event itself -- did they evacuate, and if so, where and how did they evacuate? How did people decide whether to evacuate or not? For those who did, what was the economic impact of the evacuation? Recovery Impact: What was the impact on post-Katrina recovery amongst this group, particularly since Hurricane Gustav may have set some people even further back in their efforts to recover their homes and their lives? Psychological Impact: What was the emotional impact on adults and children: among adults, did Hurricane Gustav trigger Katrina-related post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms? Among children, did Hurricane Gustav lead to newly experienced behavioral or emotional problems? Health Effects: What were the health consequences of Hurricane Gustav on children, particularly those who needed access to medications and medical care? Within three weeks of Hurricane Gustav, the G-CAFH field team had reassembled after their own evacuation and begun re-contacting the 718 respondents whom they had recently interviewed as part of the third round of the study. Of these 718 respondents, 528 were located and interviewed (a 73.5% retention rate). Respondents received a $20 gift card for participating in this study supplement, which had received approval by the Columbia University Medical Center Institutional Review Board.

Public health risk communication is a central feature of New York City’s pandemic flu preparedness plan. Particularly in the early stages of a pandemic, before effective therapeutic measures are available, non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing, personal protective hygiene, and voluntary isolation are critical strategies for suppressing the spread of a novel viral strain. New York City health and emergency management officials have decided to use the city’s risk communication structure – the Office of Emergency Management’s Ready New York outreach and dissemination capacities – as one of the primary means to communicate pandemic flu health messages. In October 2008, NCDP contracted with Public Health Solutions and the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to evaluate the reach and effectiveness of its planned Ready NY Pandemic Flu community outreach campaign.

If humans did not occupy the planet, disasters would never occur. Massive climatic events, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis would be regular occurrences, of course, and the earth would look like a dynamic cauldron of natural activity, changing the look and the balance of nature and natural events continuously and randomly. What morphs these natural phenomenon into catastrophic events we call “disasters” is simply the presence of human beings who by choice, chance, or necessity find themselves in harm’s way. The “human factors” may be straightforward and benign. For instance, people making their livelihood from the sea are at risk from coastal storms and tsunamis. Similarly, people are found living in areas at considerable risk for mudslides and volcanoes. It could even be said that living in New Orleans, a coastal city actually below sea level, is a gamble, as was so dramatically emphasized by the storms and subsequent flooding of August and September 2005.

Since 2002, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, and The Children's Health Fund (CHF), have conducted annual surveys of public attitudes and personal preparedness in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Produced in collaboration with the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion (MIPO), each is a random-dial telephone survey of approximately 1,300 - 1,500 adults stratified according to US Census 2000 data. Current and trend data from these surveys reveal a disjuncture between Americans' awareness and sensitivity to possible natural and man-made threats and their consistently low levels of personal preparedness. Each survey, including the current, have included trended questions as well as "one-off" questions appropriate to the given time period. Trended questions ask about confidence in government; willingness and ability to evacuate; personal and family preparedness plans; personal sacrifice; community preparedness; and perceptions and engagement of all-hazard preparedness. All questions are cross-tabulated with a variety of demographic characteristics including race, age, gender, income, and region, size of community, political affiliation, and education. Further, select questions establishing a division of respondent (e.g. those having personal and family preparedness plans vs. those who do not) are cross-tabulated with other selected questions to observe correlations (e.g. awareness of community preparedness plans). The surveys are developed by NCDP and CHF investigators in conjunction with MIPO, who administers the survey, codes the data, and produces the frequency tables.

Pandemic influenza and other large scale communicable disease outbreaks pose a unique public safety concern in respect to transit and emergency planning. While local transit agencies, supported by federal funds, have identified disaster planning and response as critical to maintaining continuity of service and quality of life, most plans contend solely with event-based scenarios such as responding to natural hazards and manmade disasters. A pandemic is particularly challenging, given no discrete event but a slow accumulation of organizational and social disruption. Contending with second order consequences and of the long-term effects of an influenza pandemic is of equal importance in city planning and operations. A major objective for City of New York and the Metropolitan Transit Authority will be to mitigate the effects of second order consequences. Pre-planning and connecting the public and employees to those plans will serve to minimize concerns and aid in the continuity of transit usage, service delivery and potentially minimize negative economic, social and political impacts.

Six months after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, a Columbia-led research team conducted a random household survey of people who had been displaced by the disaster in Louisiana. Mental health disability and psychological strain were rampant, people’s lives were chaotic, and their futures were uncertain. The children who had been displaced were often socially and medically adrift – many of them were disengaged from schools, without adequate primary medical care, and living among very fragile families1. One year after the hurricane, we replicated the study among residents of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast who had been heavily impacted or displaced by the hurricane. Based on interviews with a random sample of displaced and impacted residents, it appears that for a number of households the situation remains dire or is worsening. Furthermore, there is evidence of an economic determinism at work, in that those who had been struggling to maintain their financial footing at the time of the hurricane – the working class and the working poor – have been forced back down the socioeconomic ladder towards impoverished and dependent states. Recovery has become a test of resilience – who will bounce back, both in terms of people and in terms of geography? The premise of much recovery policy is to invest in geographically-based recovery – the bricks and mortar of critical infrastructure, housing, and markets – with the notion that once a place has recovered, the population’s recovery will follow as well. Findings from the Mississippi Child & Family Health (M-CAFH) study suggest that the population recovery – particularly among the most economically and socially vulnerable – may be lagging significantly behind that of other infrastructure recovery.

During the period of August 6 through August 26, 2006, the Columbia-led Mississippi Child & Family Health Study conducted an assessment among Mississippi residents displaced or heavily impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The purpose of the study was to gather information that could inform local, state, and federal policymakers about the health and social service needs of displaced and impacted populations living in transitional community-based settings, such as trailer parks, and in community settings that had been heavily damaged or destroyed by the hurricane. Using FEMA damage assessment maps, the team randomly sampled 150 census blocks across the three most heavily impacted counties along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Each of the census blocks contained between 1 - 80 housing units, with an average of 8 - 10 housing units. An advance team visited each of the census blocks and drew maps of all the housing "footprints," whether existing housing structures, or as in many cases, concrete slabs where houses had previously existed. The field team interviewed residents of 243 households in these community settings. Additionally, based on lists of trailer parks provided by FEMA, thirteen trailer parks were randomly selected, stratified by size and whether they were FEMA-developed parks or pre-existing commercial parks. The field team interviewed 333 residents in the selected parks. The respondents reported on their health status and health care needs, described their children's physical and mental health needs, and talked about the resources available to them as well as their plans for the future. The 576 households sampled are representative of approximately 14,000 households in the heavily impacted areas, encompassing over 37,000 individuals. The margin of error for most of the reported rates is + 4 points. Among households with children present, one child was randomly selected using a Kish sampling technique, and the adult respondent was asked about the child's health. Results reporting child-level data have been weighted proportional to the number of children in the household.

There is fairly consistent evidence that ethnic and minority communities have historically been more vulnerable to disasters, less trusting of public authority, and often so socially marginalized that it placed them in harm’s way. In an effort to explore some of these issues we conducted a series of community-based focus groups among selected ethnic communities in order to understand how perceptions of neighborhood life during a pandemic -- and community adaptation -- might vary across the city. We conducted the focus groups in six distinct New York City neighborhoods, each meant to represent a particular ethnic sub-group: Jamaican- Americans in Wakefield, Bronx; Chinese-Americans in Chinatown; African-Americans in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; Dominican-Americans in Washington Heights; Greek-Americans in Astoria, Queens; and South Indian-Americans in Flushing, Queens. Four of the focus groups were conducted in English, one was in Spanish, and one was in Mandarin, Chinese.

Six months after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, a Columbia-led research team conducted a random household survey of people who had been displaced by the disaster in Louisiana. Mental health disability and psychological strain were rampant, people’s lives were chaotic, and their futures were uncertain. The children who had been displaced were often socially and medically adrift – many of them were disengaged from schools, without medical homes, and living among very fragile families1. One year after the hurricane, we replicated the study among residents of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast who had been heavily impacted or displaced by the hurricane. Based on interviews conducted with randomly sampled residents, it appears that the situation remains dire or is worsening for a number of people. Furthermore, there is evidence of an economic determinism at work, in that those who had been struggling to maintain their financial footing at the time of the hurricane – particularly the working class and the working poor – have been forced back down the socioeconomic ladder towards impoverishment and dependency. The first wave of research on populations affected by Katrina reflected the impact of the initial response – consequences of evacuation, displacement, and massive economic and social loss2. One year out from the hurricane, circumstances are driven by the opportunities for long-term recovery, or by the boundaries of how far people can recover. Recovery has become a test of resilience – who will bounce back, both in terms of people and in terms of geography? The premise of much recovery policy is to invest in geographically-based recovery – the bricks and mortar of critical infrastructure, housing, and markets – with the notion that once a place has recovered, the population’s recovery will follow as well. Findings from the Mississippi Child & Family Health (M-CAFH) study suggest that the population recovery – particularly among the most economically and socially vulnerable – may be lagging significantly behind that of other infrastructure recovery.

Since 2002, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and The Children's Health Fund (CHF), have conducted annual surveys of public attitudes and personal preparedness in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Produced in collaboration with the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion (MIPO), each is a random-dial telephone survey of a representative random sample of the US population (selected consistent with demographic characteristics of the most recent available update of the 2000 census). Each survey, including the current, has included a set of questions repeated every year, which generate trend data, as well as questions specific to events current to each study period. Repeated questions ask about confidence in government; willingness and ability to evacuate; extent of personal and family preparedness; and perceptions of community preparedness. All questions are compared across a variety of demographic characteristics including race, age, gender, income, and region, size of community, political affiliation, and education. Further, the responses to select questions, such as awareness of community preparedness plans, are compared across certain groups of respondents (e.g. those having personal and family preparedness plans vs. those who do not). The surveys are developed by NCDP and CHF investigators in conjunction with MIPO, who administers the survey, codes the data, and produces the frequency tables.

It will be only a matter of time before another influenza pandemic occurs. Pandemic flu refers to a novel human influenza virus that causes a global outbreak, or pandemic. Researchers cannot accurately predict the timing, severity, or source of the next pandemic, but are certain it would present a myriad of issues for the public health infrastructures of our local communities. In the case of a pandemic flu outbreak, daily routine would be interrupted and school administrators would have many challenges to face. School principals in particular serve a unique role in their communities -- they are the link between their schools and the outside world, as well as a means of communication between these two sectors. It is important for individuals in this role to be seen as a clear and constant channel of communication at all times, especially during an emergency. In October of 2006, researchers from the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), in coordination with the New York City (NYC) based Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA), conducted a web based survey of NYC school principals to gauge their level of preparedness and to address the concern of principals for the many consequences that may arise for their schools if a pandemic flu outbreak is to occur. 330 of the 1260 principals responded (26.2%). Among key findings were the following: 1) 84.1% of principals did not have a pandemic flu plan; 2) Among the few schools with a plan, four out of five principals were not familiar with it; 3) The overwhelming majority of principals said their school had no process for talking with parents, and few have been involved in community level planning efforts. Schools are a resource to the safety of the community, and the well-being of schools and the community are inexorably intertwined. Recommendations for the future center on the need for schools and communities to work together to prepare for pandemic flu, as well as other emergencies. Other important recommendations include improving upon the role of the principal as a risk communicator and integrating the pandemic flu plan into the school's existing safety plan.

The 2005 hurricane season, which included hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, exacted a monumental toll on the people and infrastructure of the Gulf Coast region in the southern United States. Disaster-related losses were estimated to have exceeded $110 billion. Much has been written about the short-term effects on the local housing stock, economy, and populations. Less understood, however, are the long-term consequences on the children of the Gulf Coast who experienced first the storm, and then the displacement which uprooted so many from their homes and communities. The displacement, which for many children and families continues through the present, has resulted in households living in unfamiliar environments, far from friends and family or locally-supportive community-based organizations, faith-based institutions, and schools. More tangibly, the displacement has also led to hazardous and crowded housing conditions as families were forced to double-up, move in to small travel trailers for extended periods of time, or live in areas adjacent to environmental or construction hazards. The loss of civic infrastructure — particularly among education, health care, and criminal justice systems — has compounded the problems facing families and children as they return to their recovering communities or as they continue to live in temporary or transitional settings. The objective of this research brief is to enumerate the population of children who have been "exposed" to this post-hurricane displacement and infrastructure loss, and to consider how many of them are at elevated risk of a poor future outcome. However much the housing, roadways, and levees are rebuilt and the local economies reconstituted, the legacy of these hurricanes may endure in the lives of these "at-risk" children.

Publication in the conference proceedings of EUSIPCO, Florence, Italy, 2006

Background: Retinoblastoma is caused by loss of the Rb protein in early retinal cells. Although numerous Rb functions have been identified, Rb effects that specifically relate to the suppression of retinoblastoma have not been defined. Results: In this study, we examined the effects of restoring Rb to Y79 retinoblastoma cells, using novel retroviral and lentiviral vectors that co-express green fluorescent protein (GFP). The lentiviral vector permitted transduction with sufficient efficiency to perform biochemical analyses. Wild type Rb (Rb^(WT)) and to a lesser extent the low penetrance mutant Rb^(661W) induced a G0/G1 arrest associated with induction of p27^(KIP1) and repression of cyclin E1 and cyclin E2. Microarray analyses revealed that in addition to down-regulating E2F-responsive genes, Rb repressed expression of Brn-2 (POU3F2), which is implicated as an important transcriptional regulator in retinal progenitor cells and other neuroendocrine cell types. The repression of Brn-2 was a specific Rb effect, as ectopic p27 induced a G0/G1 block, but enhanced, rather than repressed, Brn-2 expression. Conclusion: In addition to Rb effects that occur in many cell types, Rb regulates a gene that selectively governs the behavior of late retinal progenitors and related cells.

The individuals and families who were displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and who have ended up in FEMA-subsidized community housing in Louisiana are facing a second crisis, one in which untreated and undertreated chronic medical problems and incipient mental health issues will overwhelm patients and providers. Among the displaced, children may be particularly vulnerable. In New Orleans alone, approximately 110,000 children under age eighteen — 85% of the pre-Katrina pediatric population — have not returned to the city since the hurricanes. These children, and others from outside of New Orleans, have been scattered throughout the Gulf Coast and across the fifty states. Louisiana's school enrollment dropped by 70,000 students, many of whom have resettled in other states, some who have not yet returned to school in Louisiana. The Louisiana Child & Family Health Study focused on the displaced population living in FEMA-subsidized housing in Louisiana, and who may be among the most needy. According to interviews with adults in 665 randomly selected households at trailer communities and hotels throughout the state, this displaced group of children and families suffers from a constellation of serious medical and mental health problems. Parents report high rates of asthma, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities among their children. Despite that, access to continuous medical care, appropriate mental health care, medications, specialized medical equipment, and specialty medical care, is either fragmented at best, or absent altogether. The medical and mental health needs documented in this report may be regarded as the consequence of inadequately treated chronic diseases, psychological and emotional traumas secondary to the chaos and despair of a massive dislocation, and the social deprivations of the chronically-poor and the newly-impoverished. At a deeper level, though, the problems relate to the loss of stability in people's lives: families that are increasingly fragile, children who are disengaged from schools, and the wholesale loss of community, workplace, and health care providers and institutions.

The individuals and families who were displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and who have ended up in FEMA-subsidized community housing in Louisiana are facing a second crisis, one in which untreated and undertreated chronic medical problems and incipient mental health issues will overwhelm patients and providers. Among the displaced, children may be particularly vulnerable. In New Orleans alone, approximately 110,000 children under age eighteen — 85% of the pre-Katrina pediatric population — have not returned to the city since the hurricanes. These children, and others from outside of New Orleans, have been scattered throughout the Gulf Coast and across the fifty states. Louisiana's school enrollment dropped by 70,000 students, many of whom have resettled in other states, some who have not yet returned to school in Louisiana. The Louisiana Child & Family Health Study focused on the displaced population living in FEMA-subsidized housing in Louisiana, and who may be among the most needy. According to interviews with adults in 665 randomly selected households at trailer communities and hotels throughout the state, this displaced group of children and families suffers from a constellation of serious medical and mental health problems. Parents report high rates of asthma, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities among their children. Despite that, access to continuous medical care, appropriate mental health care, medications, specialized medical equipment, and specialty medical care, is either fragmented at best, or absent altogether. The medical and mental health needs documented in this report may be regarded as the consequence of inadequately treated chronic diseases, psychological and emotional traumas secondary to the chaos and despair of a massive dislocation, and the social deprivations of the chronically-poor and the newly-impoverished. At a deeper level, though, the problems relate to the loss of stability in people's lives: families that are increasingly fragile, children who are disengaged from schools, and the wholesale loss of community, workplace, and health care providers and institutions.

Virtual Reality is becoming a serious candidate for a learning environment for complex skills like vascular interventions. The diagnostics, dimensioning and insertion of the endograft stent has been modeled as a decision making process and now faces its implementation in a VR learning space.

Scientific workflows integrate data and computing interfaces as configurable, semi-automatic graphs to solve a scientific problem. Kepler is such a software system for designing, executing, reusing, evolving, archiving and sharing scientific workflows. Electron tomography (ET) enables high-resolution views of complex cellular structures, such as cytoskeletons, organelles, viruses and chromosomes. Imaging investigations produce large datasets. For instance, in Electron Tomography, the size of a 16 fold image tilt series is about 65 Gigabytes with each projection image including 4096 by 4096 pixels. When we use serial sections or montage technique for large field ET, the dataset will be even larger. For higher resolution images with multiple tilt series, the data size may be in terabyte range. Demands of mass data processing and complex algorithms require the integration of diverse codes into flexible software structures. This paper describes a workflow for Electron Tomography Programs in Kepler (EPiK). This EPiK workflow embeds the tracking process of IMOD, and realizes the main algorithms including filtered backprojection (FBP) from TxBR and iterative reconstruction methods. We have tested the three dimensional (3D) reconstruction process using EPiK on ET data. EPiK can be a potential toolkit for biology researchers with the advantage of logical viewing, easy handling, convenient sharing and future extensibility.

Recently we have introduced Ambient Petri nets, as a multilevel extension of the Elementary Object Systems, that can be used to model the concept of nested ambients from the Ambient Calculus. Both mobile computing and mobile computation are supported by that calculus, and then by means of our Ambient Petri nets we get a way to introduce in the world of Petri nets these important features of nowadays computing. Nevertheless, our basic proposal does not yet provide the suitable background for the modeling of replication, one of the basic operators from the original calculus, by means of which infinite processes are introduced and treated in a very simple way. In this paper we enrich our framework by introducing that operator. We obtain a simple and nice model in which the basic nets are still static and finite, since the dynamics of the systems can be covered by the adequate notion of marking, where all the copies generated by the application of the replication operator will live together, without interfering in an inadequate way.