Disaster risk reduction and 'built-in' resilience: towards overarching principles for construction practice.

The emerging emphasis on disaster risk reduction has broadened the range of experts whose knowledge must be garnered to resolve complex socio-technical challenges. This paper examines the role and position of the construction sector for addressing these concerns. Specifically, it examines the recursive nature of practices within the built environment, which can be seen as deeply ingraining fragmented approaches to the development process.

Realising a resilient and sustainable built environment: towards a strategic agenda for the United Kingdom.

Recent natural and human-induced emergencies have highlighted the vulnerability of the built environment. Although most emergency events are not entirely unexpected, and the effects can be mitigated, emergency managers in the United Kingdom have not played a sufficiently proactive role in the mitigation of such events. If a resilient and sustainable built environment is to be achieved, emergency management should be more proactive and receive greater input from the stakeholders responsible for the planning, design, construction and operation of the built environment.

Infrainguinal reconstruction with arm vein, lesser saphenous vein, and remnants of greater saphenous vein: a report of 257 cases.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the results of infrainguinal reconstructions with arm vein, lesser saphenous vein, and remnants of greater saphenous vein (ectopic vein grafts).

Methods: The records of 222 patients who underwent 257 bypasses were restrospectively reviewed. Most of the grafts were placed for rest pain or tissue loss (88%) and were secondary reconstructions (70%) to the infrapopliteal level (90%).

Achalasia in siblings. Clinical and genetic aspects.

Achalasia is rare in children; less than 2% of all patients with achalasia are less than 6 years old. Familial achalasia is extraordinarily rare, for an exhaustive search of the world literature yielded only 31 cases. Two additional cases are reported here.

The elastic modulus of canine aortic valve leaflets in vivo and in vitro.

Aortic valve leaflets undergo extraordinary flexion due to the complete reversal of their curvature during billions of cardiac cycles. The flexion stresses in the leaflet depend on its elastic modulus which we investigated in vivo and in vitro. In six dogs, we placed radiopaque markers on an aortic leaflet.

The mechanism of opening of the aortic valve.

The mechanism of opening of the aortic valve was investigated in dogs by attaching radiopaque markers to the commissures and the leaflets. Analysis of abnormal cardiac cycles demonstrated that, when the ventricular pressure first equalled the aortic pressure, the intercomissural distances increased 9 percent, and the valve opened with a stellate orifice without forward flow and without a rise in aortic pressure. Further opening of the aortic valve was dependent on forward flow over a narrow range.

Associated coarctation of the aorta and mitral valve disease: nine cases with surgical correction of both lesions in three.

Nine cases of the combination of coarctation of the aorta and mitral stenosis were evaluated over a seven-year period. Symptoms did not usually cause distress in infancy, but began subtly with pneumonia or cardiac failure at about 2 years of age. Important clues were differences in blood pressure between the arms and legs, paroxysmal dyspnea, congestive heart failure, right ventricular hypertrophy, and left atrial enlargement.