The World Trade Center Bombing: Injury Prevention Strategies for High-rise Building Fires

The WTC disaster provided an opportunity to look for ways to prevent morbidity among occupants of high-rise buildings during fires. This paper first describes the overall morbidity resulting from the explosion and fire, and second, presents the results of a case-control study carried out to identify risk factors for smoke-related morbidity. The main ones include: increased age, presence of a pre-existing cardio-pulmonary condition, entrapment in a lift and prolonged evacuation time. Study results point to the importance of the following safety systems during high-rise building fires: smoke-control systems with separate emergency power sources; lift-cars, lift-car position-monitoring systems, and lift-car communication systems with separate emergency power sources; two-way emergency communication systems on all floors and in stairwells; stairwells with emergency lighting and designed for the rapid egress of crowds; evacuation systems/equipment to assist in the evacuation of vulnerable people (elderly, infirm). Also important are evacuation plans that include regularly scheduled safety training and evacuation drills.     

A Nationwide Assessment of the Biodiversity Value of Uganda's Important Bird Areas Network

Abstract:  BirdLife International's Important Bird Areas (IBA) program is the most developed global system for identifying sites of conservation priority. There have been few assessments, however, of the conservation value of IBAs for nonavian taxa. We combined past data with extensive new survey results for Uganda's IBAs in the most comprehensive assessment to date of the wider biodiversity value of a tropical country's IBA network. The combined data set included more than 35,000 site × species records for birds, butterflies, and woody plants at 86 Ugandan sites (23,400 km²), including 29 of the country's 30 IBAs, with data on additional taxa for many sites. Uganda's IBAs contained at least 70% of the country's butterfly and woody plant species, 86% of its dragonflies and 97% of its birds. They also included 21 of Uganda's 22 major vegetation types. For butterflies, dragonflies, and some families of plants assessed, species of high conservation concern were well represented (less so for the latter). The IBAs successfully represented wider biodiversity largely because many have distinctive avifaunas and, as shown by high cross-taxon congruence in complementarity, such sites tended to be distinctive for other groups too. Cross-taxon congruence in overall species richness was weaker and mainly associated with differences in site size. When compared with alternative sets of sites selected using complementarity-based, area-based, or random site-selection algorithms, the IBA network was efficient in terms of the number of sites required to represent species but inefficient in terms of total area. This was mainly because IBA selection considers factors other than area, however, which probably improves both the cost-effectiveness of the network and the persistence of represented species.     

The Impact of a Reduced and Uncertain Food Supply in Three Besieged Cities of Bosnia-Hercegovina

Nutritional status and household food security were longitudinally monitored in three besieged cities of Bosnia-Hercegovina (Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla) during the winter and spring of 1993 to 1994. The objectives were to provide early warning of a deterioration in the food and nutrition situation and identify particularly vulnerable groups so that action could be taken to prevent potential undernutrition and target resources to the most needy. Before the cease-fire, which came into effect at the end of February 1994, trends in various indicators (weight loss, decline of household food stocks, rising food prices, reduction in food aid distribution, sale of possessions) suggested that the situation was deteriorating. Access to food improved as a result of the cease-fire, however, which was reflected in improvements in indicators of food security and weight gain. The impact of, and response to, the food emergency differed between individuals, households and locations; the elderly were found to be more nutritionally vulnerable than children or adults, households with the least access to resources were the most food insecure, while the city of Zenica appeared to be particularly hard hit. The findings show the effects of an uncertain and reduced food supply on a previously well-fed healthy population in an industrialised country. The value and constraints of an Early Warning System set up to monitor trends in an emergency in a European context are discussed.