Adaptive Priority Research Articles

Mitigating the effects of extreme weather on crop yields: insights from farm management strategies in the Netherlands

Abstract Weather extremes can drive substantial crop losses. Farm level management strategies play a critical role in mitigating the impacts of and consequences for farmer livelihoods and food security. While the impacts of extreme weather on crop yields are well documented in recent studies, these predominantly focused on expansive geographical scales and commonly overlooked the critical role of management practices in modulating the dynamics of weather-crop sensitivities. In our study, a unique data-set is used that explores the timely relationship between extreme weather and crop yields at farm level in the Netherlands. We cover 10 types of crops and elucidate the role of soil types, irrigation and nutrient application in modulating the relationship between extreme weather and crops. We show substantial impacts from drought during the growing- and harvesting period and excessive precipitation during the planting- and growing period. Severe droughts show significant (p≤0.05) reductions in yield for all crops, and lead to yield reductions up to 24 percent relative to average yields during the growing period. Meanwhile, eight crops show significant reductions in yield due to severe water excess during the planting period, with yield reductions up to 18 percent. Soils such as sand or loess amplify the negative impact of drought on crop yield, while softening the impact of excessive precipitation. Irrigation and to a lesser extent nutrient application are shown to moderately decrease the impact of extreme weather on crop yield. Our findings contribute valuable insights to guide local adaptation priorities which are critical given the projected increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather under climate change.

Enhancing the adaptive capacity of fisheries to climate change: Bridging academic theory and management practice through practitioner interviews

Climate change is dramatically altering the environmental context in which marine resources are harvested and managed. A growing field of academic literature has begun to explore the adaptive capacity of fishers and managers to respond to this change, but much of this field is abstract and theory-driven. Therefore, it is unclear whether this literature accurately reflects the adaptation priorities of fishery management practitioners, or whether there are gaps in the literature that these practitioners could fill with on-the-ground knowledge. Second, even if these principles of adaptive capacity are perfectly aligned with management practitioners’ priorities, it is unclear to what extent these principles are actively considered in the decision making process, and if not, why. This study seeks to address these questions by confronting fisheries professionals with academic ideas around adaptive capacity through a series of semi-structured interviews with federal fishery managers and scientists whose work informs decision making in the United States regional fishery management system. The study then uses these interviews to identify three low-cost, high-impact action items that could make concepts from the academic literature more accessible and useful to these practitioners and expand the literature by incorporating practitioners’ expertise. These action items are: 1) distinguish adaptive capacity from adaptive management, 2) use practitioner insights to contextualize the elements of adaptive capacity within the constraints and opportunities of governance systems, and 3) expand academic research to explicitly consider the capacity to adapt on appropriate timelines given the scale and pace of systemic change.

Predictive breast cancer diagnosis using ensemble fuzzy model

Breast cancer continues to be a major global health challenge, necessitating reliable diagnostic methods for early detection and improved patient outcomes. This study introduces a novel ensemble fuzzy model for predictive breast cancer diagnosis, integrating multiple deep-learning classifiers with fuzzy logic to enhance decision-making. Traditional diagnostic approaches often struggle with the complexity and heterogeneity of breast cancer data, which this new model addresses through an innovative ensemble technique. The ensemble model combines the strengths of Inception-V4, Inception-ResNet, and Inception V3/V4 + BN, with fuzzy logic for adaptive priority assignment based on confidence scores. The method employs a re-parameterized Gompertz function to assign fuzzy ranks to constituent classifiers, allowing flexible fusion strategies. The proposed model is evaluated on two benchmark breast cancer datasets: the Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM) and the Breast Cancer Histopathological Image Classification (BACH) dataset. It achieves high performance across key metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score, consistently outperforming individual classifiers. On the DDSM dataset, the ensemble fuzzy model attains an accuracy of 0.97, a recall of 0.93, a precision of 0.95, and an F1 score of 0.96. Similarly, on the BACH dataset, the proposed method records an accuracy of 97.05%, a recall of 99.31%, a precision of 95.44%, and an F1 score of 97.37%, demonstrating its robust capability to identify positive instances and maintain a balanced performance. These results highlight the potential of the ensemble fuzzy model to improve breast cancer diagnosis, offering a reliable solution to the inherent challenges in this field.

Boosting Fair Classifier Generalization through Adaptive Priority Reweighing

With the increasing penetration of machine learning applications in critical decision-making areas, calls for algorithmic fairness are more prominent. Although there have been various modalities to improve algorithmic fairness through learning with fairness constraints, their performance does not generalize well in the test set. A performance-promising fair algorithm with better generalizability is needed. This paper proposes a novel adaptive reweighing method to eliminate the impact of the distribution shifts between training and test data on model generalizability. Most previous reweighing methods propose to assign a unified weight for each (sub)group. Rather, our method granularly models the distance from the sample predictions to the decision boundary. Our adaptive reweighing method prioritizes samples closer to the decision boundary and assigns a higher weight to improve the generalizability of fair classifiers. Extensive experiments are performed to validate the generalizability of our adaptive priority reweighing method for accuracy and fairness measures (i.e., equal opportunity, equalized odds, and demographic parity) in tabular benchmarks. We also highlight the performance of our method in improving the fairness of language and vision models. The code is available at https://github.com/che2198/APW .

Impact of climate services on the operational decision and economic outcome of wheat (Triticum aestivum) and rice (Oryza sativa) cultivation in Haryana

The management of weather and climate risks in agriculture has become an important issue. Application of weather forecast and related advisories offer a great potential to make better-informed decisions and help farmers in adapting climate change. In the present study, weekly forecast-based crop advisories were prepared and disseminated among the farmers of Jind, Rothak and Hisar districts of Haryana. From each block, three experimental villages i.e., one each village receiving weather based advisory services through either of Whatsapp, Text SMS and Mobile Application and one control village (not receiving weekly advisory services) were chosen and thus resulting in 18 experimental villages and 6 control villages. Difference in Difference (DiD) research design was used to study the impact of advisories on farm operational decision making as well as economic outcome of the wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and paddy A(Oryza sativa L.) cultivation. Average treatment effect of advisories in both crops was found to be significant in all the farm operational decisions except weed management. Reduced seed rate of 3.47, 3.99 and 3.84 kg/acre, reduction in 14.93, 16.92 and 20.23 kg/acre of fertilizer application and saving 0.25, 0.31, 0.34 number of sprays in wheat crop and similarly reduced seed rate of 1.05, 1.15 and 1.27 kg/acre, reduction in fertilizer usage by 18.52, 20.00 and 20.91 kg/acre, and also saving 0.96, 1.02 and 1.15 number of sprays in paddy crop was observed from Text SMS, WhatsApp and Mobile App treatment groups, respectively. The study has also indicated reduced input cost of ₹943.45, 1026.05 and 1168.33/acre in wheat and similarly ₹1439.98, 1566.86 and 1670.22/acre in paddy from Text SMS, WhatsApp and Mobile App treatment groups, respectively. The provision of seamless weather-based advisories for agriculture need to become a national adaptation priority in adapting to changing climate of today and of the future.

How are health systems in sub-Saharan Africa adapting to protect human health from climate change threats? A scoping review and case study

BackgroundSub-Saharan Africa stands out as one of the regions most affected by the climate crisis, while it has contributed to the problem only marginally. The foreseen negative effect on health adds great stress to the already overburdened health systems. Health systems' adaptation to climate change is, therefore, urgently needed to better protect human health. There is, however, scant evidence on how adaption is being planned and implemented in Africa. The aim of this study was to review the literature on health system adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa. MethodsIn this scoping review and case study, we first carried out the scoping review, searching for publications on adaptation measures using the PubMed, Science Direct, and Web of Science databases on July 1, 2023. We included papers in English and French that addressed the adaptation of health systems in countries in sub-Saharan Africa without time limit. Second, we did a case study of the design and implementation of the National Adaptation Plan of Benin, with a specific focus on the policy-making process underlying the plan, whereby we used the health policy triangle as a policy analysis framework. Data were collected through a document review of national policy plans, reports, and evaluations. FindingsA total of 14 papers met the inclusion criteria, showing that climate change adaptation remains a niche in the literature for sub-Saharan Africa. Most included papers were authored by individuals from high-income countries. Health system adaptation measures cover seven domains: health systems strengthening; policy and planning; financing and implementation; information and capacity building; societal resilience; disaster risk prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery; and mitigation. The review found that the dominant role of global agencies in supporting or steering health system adaptation planning contributes to policy mimicry across countries, as confirmed by the case study of the adaptation plan in Benin. Benin's National Adaptation Plan prioritised three climate hazards: heat, drought, and flooding. Although the financial and technical inputs of international agencies effectively support Benin's adaptation planning, these inputs might induce a more narrow focus that does not fully respond to Benin's needs in terms of climate shocks and adaptation priorities. InterpretationHealth systems in sub-Saharan Africa are already adapting to climate change. Future research could focus on how national governments could develop adaptation plans that are responsive to local needs by making the needs analysis and priority-setting processes more inclusive of local stakeholders. FundingThe Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid.

Resource allocation on periotity based schuduling and improve the security using DSSHA-256

Cloud computing has gained popularity with advancements in virtualization technology and the deployment of 5G. However, scheduling workload in a heterogeneous multi-cloud environment is a complicated process. Users of cloud services want to ensure that their data is secure and private, especially sensitive or proprietary information. Several research works have been proposed to solve the challenges associated with cloud computing. The proposed Adaptive Priority based scheduling (PBS) focuses on reducing data access completion time and computation expense for task scheduling in cloud computing. PBS assigns tasks depending on its size and selects the minimum cost path for data access. It contains a task register, scheduler, and task execution components for efficient task execution. The proposed system also executes a double signature mechanism for data privacy and security in data storage. This study correlates the performance of three algorithms, PBS, (Task Requirement Degree) TRD and (recommended a Risk adaptive Access Control) RADAC, in terms of task execution time and makespan time. The experimental results demonstrate that PBS outperforms TRD and RADAC in both metrics, as the number of tasks increases. PBS has a minimum task execution time and a lower makespan time than the other two algorithms

Adaptive Priority Scheduling of Internet of Things Data for Disaster Management in Smart Cities

Adaptive Priority Scheduling of Internet of Things Data for Disaster Management in Smart Cities

DEMOCRATIC CHOICE OF UKRAINE: CONTENT AND PARAMETERS OF POLITICAL ENGINEERING

The article is devoted to the issue of the modern democracy. The key parameters of democratic choice of Ukrainian society are analyzed such as: possibilities of сo-development democracy as form of spiritual intercourse and as form of effective government; potential of this form of management for development of competitiveness of society in a modern world. Scientific interest is directed on the study of base points of democratic development. The problem of political engineering in the information age is considered. It is determined that political engineering is a system of management techniques and technologies, which in strategic and tactical terms is aimed at creative and effective social design and construction. Effective political engineering is a condition for overcoming destructive phenomena, the most important of which is the excessive growth of the phenomenon of randomness in political development. The article is devoted to the specifics of the explication of the concept of value (axiological) meanings in the information age. The content of axiological guidelines, which are a priority for political adaptation of both society and the political regime, is analyzed. The negativism of the tendency to prioritize technology over axiology in the spiritual and practical mastery of the world by man is noted. The challenges of modernity reflect on the understanding of democracy: procedural aspects prevail over substantive ones. The aggravation of contradictions in the orbit of such more important axiological meanings as stability, democracy, and freedom is logical. It is emphasized that the important risks of the information age are due to the use of axiological meanings of political entertainment, carnivalization and glamorization of the political space. The author identifies ways to overcome negative trends.

The Condition of Climate Change Adaptation in Polish Municipalities Before and After the Pandemic on the Basis of Cso Environmental Indicators - Management Implications

The pandemic undoubtedly had a significant impact on local development management processes in municipalities in economic, social, environmental and institutional-political dimensions. The article presents and evaluates various activities of municipal governments in the field of environmental management for climate protection and formulates recommendations for municipalities in this regard. The main purpose of this article is to assess the condition of climate change adaptation in municipalities before and after the pandemic, particularly in Polish municipalities, based on the environmental specific indicators of the Central Statistical Office. The purpose of the paper was realized on the basis of a review of the latest literature on the subject, domestic and foreign, as well as quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis. The study was carried out in thirty Polish urban-rural municipalities, , at the same time district cities (cities of the seat of county government, cities, "micro capitals" of counties), with varying own incomes. In Polish municipalities, climate change adaptation priorities have changed in very positive terms after the pandemic, in particular, this applies to municipal spending on ambient air protection (including renewable energy sources, thermal modernization, etc.), which has increased two or even three times compared to the time before the pandemic, which has not yet been recognized and studied in the conducted review of the recent literature on the subject. At the same time, the pandemic period slowed down the remaining investment and management of environmental activities, and generally did not improve waste management in municipalities.

Advice complexity of adaptive priority algorithms

The priority model was introduced to capture “greedy-like” algorithms. Motivated by the success of advice complexity in the area of online algorithms, the fixed priority model was extended to include advice, and a reduction-based framework was developed for proving lower bounds on the amount of advice required to achieve certain approximation ratios in this rather powerful model. To capture most of the algorithms that are considered greedy-like, the even stronger model of adaptive priority algorithms is needed. We extend the adaptive priority model to include advice. We modify the reduction-based framework from the fixed priority case to work with the more powerful adaptive priority algorithms, simplifying the proof of correctness and strengthening all previous lower bounds by a factor of two in the process.As evidence that adding advice to adaptive priority algorithms extends both adaptive priority algorithms and online algorithms with advice, we present a purely combinatorial adaptive priority algorithm with advice for Minimum Vertex Cover on triangle-free graphs of maximum degree three. Our algorithm achieves optimality and uses at most 7n/22 bits of advice. No adaptive priority algorithm without advice can achieve optimality without advice, and we prove that an online algorithm with advice needs more than 7n/22 bits of advice to reach optimality.We show connections between exact algorithms and priority algorithms with advice. The branching in branch-and-reduce algorithms can be seen as trying all possible advice strings, and all priority algorithms with advice that achieve optimality define corresponding exact algorithms, priority exact algorithms. Lower bounds on advice-based adaptive algorithms imply lower bounds on running times of exact algorithms designed in this way.

Engagement of Older Adults Receiving Home Care Services and Their Caregivers in Health Decisions in Partnership With Clinical Teams: Protocol for a Multimethod Study to Prioritize and Culturally Adapt Decision Aids for Home Care.

Older adults (people aged 65 years and older) face many difficult decisions. Patient decision aids (PtDAs) can help them and their families make informed value-congruent decisions. Some PtDAs have been developed for the home care context, but little is known about scaling them for use with older adults in a different culture. This study aims to (1) assess the scalability of existing PtDAs for older adults in the home care context; (2) prioritize those that best match the decisional needs of older adults in home care; and (3) culturally adapt the prioritized PtDAs so they can be scaled successfully to the Quebec health care system. This multimethod study includes 3 phases. All phases will be overseen by a steering committee of older adults, caregivers, health professionals, decision makers, community organization representatives, and researchers with the needed expertise. In phase 1, we will use the Innovation Scalability Self-administered Questionnaire, a validated scalability self-assessment tool, to assess the scalability of 33 PtDAs previously identified in a systematic review. Based on their scalability, their quality (based on the International Patient Decision Aids Standards), and the importance of the decision point, we will retain approximately a third of these. In phase 2, we will conduct a 2-round web-based Delphi to prioritize the PtDAs selected in phase 1. Using a snowball recruitment strategy, we aim to recruit 60 Delphi participants in the province of Quebec, including older adults, caregivers, health professionals, decision makers involved in home care services, and PtDA experts. In the first round, we will ask participants to rate the importance of several PtDA decision points according to various criteria such as prevalence and difficulty on a 5-point Likert scale (1=not important to 5=very important). Approximately 6 of the highest-rated PtDAs will be retained for presentation in the second round, and we will select up to 3 PtDAs judged as having the highest priority for cultural adaptation. In phase 3, using the Chenel framework and user-centered design methods, we will update and adapt the PtDAs to the Quebec health care system and integrate these PtDAs into an interprofessional shared decision-making training program for home care teams. The adapted PtDAs will respect the International Patient Decision Aids Standards criteria. This study was funded in March 2022 by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Data collection for the web-based Delphi began in October 2023. Results are expected to be published in May 2024. This project will provide relevant and culturally appropriate decision support tools for older adults making difficult decisions and their home care teams that will be ready for scaling across the province of Quebec. PRR1-10.2196/53150.

Stakeholder mapping: regional comparisons in adaptation implementation

Abstract Background Health adaptation planning is rapidly progressing but implementing actions on key health and climate change priorities is slow. We summarise and compare findings on progress in health adaptation in Europe and East and Southern African regions. Methods A desk-review of national health adaptation plans and strategies (NAPs) was conducted in 20 European countries and 14 East and Southern African countries to identify adaptation priorities. Key informant interviews were conducted with government representatives, non-governmental organizations, development partners, and civil society organisations. Participants were identified through partner networks and snowballing. The WHO framework was followed in mapping stakeholders’ interests, knowledge, and influence on health adaptation. Interview responses were transcribed and analysed in Nvivo to identify key themes. Results 34 NAPs were reviewed (20 in Europe, 14 in Africa). Interviews were conducted with 48 stakeholders (32 in Europe, 16 in Africa). Across Europe, more than half of the countries have policies addressing infectious diseases (12) and heat-related risks (14). In Africa, infectious diseases were a national priority for all countries, but heat management plans were largely absent (only one nation had a heat management plan). In both regions, adaptation action was driven by national policies, high stakeholder interest and knowledge, and the presence of focal points or joint working groups. Key barriers included: limited interagency or institutional collaborations, a need for evidence-based practice-oriented research, and funding for health adaptation activities. Conclusions There are similarities in drivers and barriers to health adaptation in Europe and Africa. Progress on implementation is uneven, with heat-health planning largely lacking in East and Southern Africa.

Barriers to Equity Within Environmental Justice and Climate Justice Grant Programs

Abstract In 2020, Connecticut undertook a statewide engagement process via the Governor’s Council on Climate Change (GC3) to develop priorities for climate change mitigation and adaptation, especially from an equity approach. A priority action from the GC3 process called for grants to fund participation by community-based organizations and nongovernmental organizations to increase representation from communities that have been marginalized. This is similar to efforts from other states and the federal government to direct funds to historically excluded groups to redress inequities or to financially support their participation and sharing of their expertise in these processes. While the programs have the intent to address inequity, often the grantmaking mechanisms can make it harder for marginalized groups to participate in the grant process, nullifying the grant’s intent. This review of environmental justice and climate justice grant programs offers insight to grantmakers on embedding equity into the grant process and, ideally, achieving their intent.

인천광역시의 기후적응 우선순위 선정 및 계획에서의 활용방안

인천광역시의 기후적응 우선순위 선정 및 계획에서의 활용방안

Canada and ocean climate adaptation: tracking law and policy responses, charting future directions

This research article provides a law and policy summary of climate change adaptation initiatives in Canada at the ocean-climate nexus. Three levels of governance are examined (national, provincial, and Indigenous) with a focus on the Atlantic region. The research method was the review of relevant and newly amended laws, regulations and policy statements, and related commentaries. The roles of the federal government are first described with key developments including the launch of a Climate Adaptation Platform in 2012 to share adaptation experiences and information and release of a National Adaptation Strategy and accompanying Adaptation Action Plan in November 2022. Federal adaptation efforts in the areas of fisheries, aquaculture and shipping are also reviewed along with progress in establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures. Provincial adaptation initiatives are next summarized with a focus on the four Atlantic provinces. Those provinces have established a regional hub, CLIMAtlantic, to provide climate information and advance climate-related research and training. Each province has developed a climate action plan which includes climate adaptation priorities. Indigenous-led climate engagement and adaptation initiatives are finally described including the publication in 2019 of a National Inuit Climate Change Strategy, regional initiatives of the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs Secretariat, and the development of climate adaptation plans by select First Nation communities in the Atlantic region. The paper concludes by discussing future law and policy directions to make Canada more “climate ready.” Adoption of climate adaptation strategies for governmental departments and agencies with ocean and coastal responsibilities should be a priority. Incorporating climate change adaptation responsibilities through legislative and regulatory changes also needs to be considered, for example, by amending Canada’s Oceans Act to recognize the role of oceans in climate adaptations and mitigation, to authorize the designation of MPAs as climate refuges and to require adaptive and dynamic MPA management plans through strict monitoring and timely review provisions. Indigenous peoples must be effectively included in all climate adaptation discussions and planning.

Breeding priorities for rice adaptation to climate change in Northeast China

Breeding priorities for rice adaptation to climate change in Northeast China

From assembly to action: how planning language guides execution in indigenous climate adaptation.

Indigenous Peoples of the USA are already feeling the disproportionate impacts of climate change and the challenges created to their resource-based livelihoods from effects like sea level rise, species migration and extinction, and more severe and frequent storms. In response, American Indigenous communities have initiated hundreds of adaptation actions. At the center of the Indigenous climate response are efforts to identify local climate threats and prioritize adaptation actions through careful planning. To better understand their potential, 14 tribal climate adaptation plans were reviewed to decipher different types of proposed adaptation actions and evaluated based on 11 criteria often associated with successful plan implementation. Adaptation actions were dominated by "soft" measures such as capacity building with neighboring jurisdictions, policy reform, and information gathering. The most common criteria present in the tribal plans were identification of a party to implement an action and mainstreaming of climate activities into other documents, such as resource management plans. In-depth interviews with tribal climate specialists found that actual implementation has been slowed by funding shortages, lack of staff expertise, and weak communication and coordination across tribal government departments. Successful implementation has occurred through the mainstreaming of adaptation priorities into other environmental concerns, such as hazard mitigation or emergency preparedness, that benefit from more stable funding. Training staff, developing dedicated funding streams, and the integration of adaptation efforts into all areas of tribal government operations is needed to ensure Indigenous communities can protect vital cultural resources and steward lands under rapidly changing climatic conditions.

Task Scheduling Based on Adaptive Priority Experience Replay on Cloud Platforms

Task scheduling algorithms based on reinforce learning (RL) have been important methods with which to improve the performance of cloud platforms; however, due to the dynamics and complexity of the cloud environment, the action space has a very high dimension. This not only makes agent training difficult but also affects scheduling performance. In order to guide an agent’s behavior and reduce the number of episodes by using historical records, a task scheduling algorithm based on adaptive priority experience replay (APER) is proposed. APER uses performance metrics as scheduling and sampling optimization objectives with which to improve network accuracy. Combined with prioritized experience replay (PER), an agent can decide how to use experiences. Moreover, this algorithm also considers whether a subtask is executed in a workflow to improve scheduling efficiency. Experimental results on Tpc-h, Alibaba cluster data, and scientific workflows show that a model with APER has significant benefits in terms of convergence and performance.

ENGINEERING OF VALUE MEANINGS IN THE INFORMATION AGE

The problem of political engineering in the information age is considered. It is determined that political engineering is a system of management techniques and technologies, which in strategic and tactical terms is aimed at creative and effective social design and construction. Effective political engineering is a condition for overcoming destructive phenomena, the most important of which is the excessive growth of the phenomenon of randomness in political development. The article is devoted to the specifics of the explication of the concept of value (axiological) meanings in the information age. The content of axiological guidelines, which are a priority for political adaptation of both society and the political regime, is analyzed. The negativism of the tendency to prioritize technology over axiology in the spiritual and practical mastery of the world by man is noted. The challenges of modernity reflect on the understanding of democracy: procedural aspects prevail over substantive ones. The aggravation of contradictions in the orbit of such more important axiological meanings as stability, democracy, and freedom is logical. Political engineering with national interests in mind involves technological sovereignty. Such engineering is a condition for political stability and a source of opportunities for prosperity. It is emphasized that the important risks of the information age are due to the use of axiological meanings of political entertainment, carnivalization and glamorization of the political space. The author identifies ways to overcome negative trends. These include: individual experience; stimulation of activity; strengthening of rational guidelines for the formation of a political position; the government's interest in an informed citizen and in increasing his role as a participant in the political process; harmonious correlation of humanity's desire for high technologies with the tasks of implementing axiological meanings that will stand in the way of replacing the Cartesian principle «I think, therefore, I exist» with «I consume, therefore, I exist». The author uses the typology of parameters and strategies of political adaptation to characterize the phenomenon of political engineering.