INTRODUCTION During 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the US Gulf Coast, displacing approximately two million people. With >250,000 evacuees in shelters, volunteers from the American Red Cross (ARC) and other nongovernmental and faith-based organizations provided services. The objective of this study was to evaluate the composition, pre-deployment training, and recognition of scenarios w...

In the aftermath of a nuclear attack, shelters can offer potentially important protection. How well they fill that role depends on a set of interdependent decisions made by the individuals and organizations that must prepare and use them. We look at three such decisions. For each, we begin with formal analysis of the consequences expected from different possible actions. Those analyses are, the...

For me and my fellow citizens, the war started on May 2, 1991, with the massacre of Croatian guardsmen in Borovo Selo. Until August 25, the wounded were brought to the hospital every day, indicating that fights were going on close to Vukovar. We never expected such destruction and terror but realized that we had to prepare for a total war. The Crisis Management Council of the hospital was estab...

The zoonotic transmission cycles of Rickettsia rickettsii and other spotted fever group (SFG) rickettsiae in Latin America have usually been associated with rural or sylvatic environments, although domestic dogs can be implicated in more populated settings. In this study, exposure of dogs to SFG rickettsiae in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Costa Rica was investigated. Dogs from sites associa...

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 89, NO. 4, 25 AUGUST 2005 596 frequently as epiphytes on tombs or old buildings, dry rocks and on stems of trees, often entirely covering their stem and killing them or causing mechanical damage to old buildings and rocks. The more common species are pipal (F. religiosa) and banyan (F. benghalensis, F. mollis, F. rumphii and F. scandens). The rock-shelters of Bhimbetka are...

Introduction Feline upper respiratory infection (URI) is perhaps the most frustrating illness facing shelter veterinarians, managers and staff, and has been identified as the number one disease concern for cats in shelters and after adoption[1, 2]. Many cats enter shelters already silently carrying the viruses that lead to illness; vaccines are partially effective at best; and specific treatmen...

The aim of this study was to identify behavioral aspects of the sandfly fauna of a fishing tourism area in the municipality of Bonito (MS). Monthly captures were undertaken from December 2009 to November 2010, using automatic CDC type light traps, from 18h00 to 06h00, in a forested area, a savannah area, peridomiciles and animal shelters near peridomiciliary areas. Nyssomyia whitmani was the mo...

Many homeless shelters conduct interventions to raise awareness about HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) among homeless youth. Due to human and financial resource shortages, these shelters need to choose intervention attendees strategically, in order to maximize awareness through the homeless youth social network. In this work, we propose HEALER (hierarchical ensembling based agent which plans ...