Recently, we are witnessing the progressive increase in the occurrence of largescale disasters, characterized by an overwhelming scale and number of causalities. After 72 hours from the disaster occurrence, the damaged area is interested by assessment, reconstruction and recovery actions from several heterogeneous organizations, which need to collaborate and being orchestrated by a centralized ...

Social media becomes a communicating channel during a natural disaster for detecting disaster events because people share their opinions, feelings, activity during the disaster through the Twitter. Twitter is not simply a platform for broadcasting information, but one of informational interaction. So, we use this platform for mining various disaster relevant tweets during a natural disaster. We...

BACKGROUND Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis is triggered by environmental factors, including silica dust exposure. Repeated tsunami waves brought a large volume of silica-containing sludge inland after the Great East Japan earthquake in 2011. We aimed to determine if the serious disaster influenced the clinical features of the microscopic polyangiitis. METHODS This is...

There has been an increasing concern about inactive drivers who would easily lead to road accidents and fatalities once return to driving. This study investigated the re-usability of traffic signs for inactive drivers with consideration of driver factors and cognitive sign features. Fifty-seven Hong Kong Chinese, who possessed a full driving license but had not driven for an extended period, co...

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to evaluate the incidences and obstetric outcomes of women who conceived using assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures in Fukushima Prefecture before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. METHODS Information was collected and analyzed from 12,070 women who conceived with or without ART in Fukushima P...