High-level Concern Research Articles

'Food can help numb the pain': A mixed methods exploration of disordered eating, shame and self-compassion in an international community sample of men and women.

Background: Research into disordered eating (DE), shame and self-compassion (SC) has poorly represented men, general populations and non-Western communities. Aim: To explore associations between these variables in an international community sample of men and women. Methods: An online exploratory sequential mixed methods cross-sectional survey assessed levels of (quantitative Phase 1) and perceptions of (qualitative Phase 2) eating behaviours, external shame and body image shame (BIS) and SC. Results: Phase 1: Nearly 60% of our 142 survey participants were male (82/142) and about one-third were from India (43/142). About one-third of people (41/142) had a high-level concern regarding dieting, body weight, or eating (based on Eating Attitudes Test scores), and they had significantly higher levels of external shame, BIS and (SC-related) self-judgement and overidentification - compared to the 101/142 participants with low concern. Men had healthier levels of study outcomes than women. Phase 2: Four key themes were identified using inductive thematic analysis of the responses of 55 survey participants: (T1) DE as a Psychological Issue, (T2) DE as a Social Issue, (T3) The Vicious Cycle of Shame and (T4) Seeking Help. Conclusion: In participants in Phase 1 of our study - who were mostly male - DE behaviours were related to more external shame and body image-specific shame, and to less SC. Men had healthier levels of study variables than women. In Phase 2, participants talked about a vicious cycle of pathological eating and shame.

STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE RUSSIAN URANIUM MINING AND URANIUM PROCESSING INDUSTRY IN THE CONTEXT OF WORLD DEVELOPMENT

A major Russian political and economic objective is to increase exports, particularly for front-end fuel cycle services through Tenex, as well as nuclear power plants. Russia uses about 3800 tonnes of natural uranium per year. After enrichment, this becomes 190 tU enriched to 4.3% for 9 VVER-1000 reactors (at 2004, now 13), 60 tU enriched to 3.6% for 6 VVER-440s, 350 tU enriched to 2.0% for 11 RBMK units, and 6 tU enriched to 20% (with 9 tU depleted) for the BN-600. Some 90 tU recycled supplements the RBMK supply at about 2% enrichment. This RepU arises from reprocessing the used fuel from BN, VVER-440 and marine and research reactors. There is high-level concern about the development of new uranium deposits, and a Federal Council meeting in April 2015 agreed to continue the federal financing of exploration and estimation works in Vitimsky Uranium Region in Buryatia. It also agreed to financing construction of the engineering infrastructure of Mine No. 6 of Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Union (PIMCU). The following month the Council approved key support measures including the introduction of a zero rate for mining tax and property tax; simplification of the system of granting subsoil use rights; inclusion of the Economic Development of the Far East and Trans-Baikal up to 2018 policy in the Federal Target Program; and the development of infrastructure in Krasnokamensk. In June 2015 Rosgeologia signed a number of agreements to expedite mineral exploration in Russia, including one with Rosatom. It was established in July 2011 by presidential decree and consists of 38 enterprises located in 30 regions across Russia, but uranium is a minor part of its interests. Russia is engaged in international nuclear energy markets, far from the traditional sites of Eastern Europe. In June 2011, Rosatom announced that it was creating a "Rusatom" overseas company, a new structure responsible for building projects that could not benefit from them. It can be executed as a primary contractor as well as as owner of foreign capacities under a self-exploitation agreement (BOO). She actively strives for shopping in developing countries and has set up eight offices abroad. The Soviet Union also used 116 nuclear explosions (81 in Russia) for geological research, creating underground gas storage, boosting oil and gas production and excavating reservoirs and canals. Most were in the 3-10 kiloton range and all occurred 1965-88.

Satellites Are Just Things on the Internet of Things

The innovation of Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) technology, the basis for the Internet, has created dramatic changes in how technologies are linked. Cybersecurity is now an issue for everyday devices as they are connected to the Internet of Things (IoT). Satellites are no different; they are on the IoT. This article argues that cybersecurity is a high level concern in that it directly implicates state responsibility for space activities and international peace and security in general, but that it is regulated by low level governance and soft legal mechanisms. It recommends that satellite operators approach cybersecurity as a dynamic enterprise. It also recommends that the industry make proactive engagement in the cybersecurity community at large and seek to define industry specific best practices and guidelines.

Risk Mitigation in Automotive Supply Chain: An Empirical Exploration of Enablers to Implement Supply Chain Risk Management

Supply chain (SC) risk management (SCRM) is a high-level concern for SC professionals. Supply chain risk management implementation is a difficult task because it requires involvement of various firms across the SC. For effective SCRM implementation, managers need to know the enabling factors and their relative importance. In this research, an empirical study on SC risk mitigation enablers was carried out in Indian automotive industry to examine the relationship between SCRM enablers and SCRM implementation. This relationship was tested using discriminant analysis. The research shows that the most important enabler is information visibility and it is followed by incentives alignment. Contingency planning is the third-most important enabler and last is risk management governance (RMG). Success of the SCRM implementation in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness can be assured by following the sequence of SCRM enablers suggested in this research.

Environmental change and challenge in the Himalaya. A historical perspective

This overview, or retrospective, has two objectives. The first is to demonstrate how the principles of ‘mountain geoecology’ were applied in an attempt to counteract the political and socio-economic impacts of a major and misguided environmental orthodoxy-the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation (henceforth to be referred to as the ‘Theory’). The second is to explore the difficulties of transferring the results of on-going scholarly mountain research into the public and political decision-making process. In this sense the paper should be regarded as a case study of the potentially serious effects of exaggerated and emotionally based responses to orthodoxies founded on assumptions and latter-day myths. A third objective, reserved for the companion paper in this issue, outlines the origins of mountain geoecology and explores how academic research influenced the inclusion of high level concern for mountain problems within AGENDA 21, one of the principal results of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (popularly known as the Rio Earth Summit) and declaration of 2002 as the International Year of Mountains. The original environmental orthodoxy (the Theory) has been eclipsed since the turn of the Millennium by a new populist alarm proposing that the current climate warming will cause all the Himalayan glaciers to disappear in the near future. From this it would follow that, as the glacier melt progresses, numerous large glacial lakes, forming as a consequence, would burst and the ensuing floods would annihilate many millions of people. Eventually, as the glaciers disappeared vital rivers, such as the Ganges and Brahmaputra, would wither to seasonal streams heralding further massive loss of life due to desertification and starvation. This current environmental alarm could be regarded as a present day parallel to the original Theory and will be examined in the final section of the paper. Between 1970 and about 1985 it was almost universal wisdom amongst scholars and development specialists, as well as conservationists, that the Himalaya were on the brink of environmental, and hence socio-economic and political collapse. This theme of gloom and doom was taken up avidly by journalists, politicians, and diplomats; it influenced the expenditure of large sums of aid and development money, and augmented periodic international confrontations. In concise terms, in the early 1970s an assumed approaching environmental disaster was perceived to be driven by relentless growth in the population of subsistence hill communities and their dependence on mountain forests for fuel, fodder, building materials, and conversion to agricultural land. The assumption of rapid and catastrophic deforestation of steep hillslopes under a monsoon climate (the World Bank predicted that there would be no accessible forest remaining in Nepal by the year 2000) led inexorably to a series of dependent assumptions: increasing soil erosion and worsening landslide incidence; accelerated flooding and siltation on the plains of Gangetic India and Bangladesh; social and political unrest, if not serious armed conflict – the notion of a world super-crisis, considering that the region in question contained about ten percent of the world’s entire human population and about thirty percent of its poorest. As will be emphasized later, none of this all-embracing construct was based on reliable evidence, but it was accepted world-wide as a given. It represents a prime example of the dangers associated with convenient adoption of environmental myths, or environmental orthodoxies, especially where the myth is a Western ‘scientific’ construct. I characterized it as The Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation (Ives, 1985).

Public perceptions of CCS in context: Results of NearCO2 focus groups in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Poland

Abstract This paper presents initial findings from focus groups with the general public, conducted as part of the European (FP7) NearCO2 project on public perceptions and understanding of CCS in six European countries. The research design specifically enabled the evolution of opinion to be observed in a relatively naturalistic setting. Each focus group was exposed to a specially-commissioned DVD that provided an overview of CCS, its rationale and arguments for and against CCS. Exposure was phased and a pre- and post-questionnaire was applied. The results concurred with much of the preceding work on CCS perceptions, namely a strong preference for renewable energy and a high level concern about the safety implications of CO2 leakage. There were few strong differences between groups, with the exception of a higher level of concern about climate change in Spain, related to experience of drought. In all groups, concerns about safety quickly amplified and information on the difficulty in rapidly installing very high levels of renewable energy supply infrastructure had little influence on opinion. We conclude that the case for CCS, and reassurance on the risks posed by CO2 leakage, will need to be made more convincingly and overtly, particularly for affected European publics. Moreover, in so far as the focus groups simulated the consequences of exposure to information on CCS without expert-moderation, they illustrate the importance of involving trusted parties in CCS communication processes, with the objective of moderating and responding to concerns as they arise.

The higher education and loyalty: a strategic tool to the retaining of clients

With the expansion of the higher education in Brazil, the dropout phenomenon has reached a high-level concern among the university managers. In this study, are presented the theoretical bases of the element loyalty, prominence in the management area, in terms of maintenance of the relationship with the customers, applying it to the higher education environment. The characteristics of the student’s loyalty towards the institutions of higher education (known in Portuguese as IES, Instituições de Ensino Superior) are presented and deined, leading to managerial implications that can be relected in the universities and colleges that aim to increase the students’ retention levels.

Parents Concerned About Vaccine Safety: Differences in Race/Ethnicity and Attitudes

Parental concerns about immunization safety have been covered widely in the media and on the Internet and have been correlated in some studies with under-immunization and the late receipt of immunizations. Phase 1: To (1) measure the prevalence of parents with immunization safety concern, specifically those with high-level concern, (2) determine demographic characteristics and attitudes typical for this subgroup of parents, and (3) determine factors that influence such parents, nevertheless, to have their children immunized. Phase 2: To further explore the racial/ethnic difference found in the first-phase results, specifically to compare the immunization attitudes of Hispanic (both black and white) and non-Hispanic black parents with those of non-Hispanic white parents. ConsumerStyles (2004) survey data of a nationwide panel of U.S. adults were analyzed in January 2006. In Phase 1, bivariate and logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with parental concerns about immunization safety. In Phase 2, logistic regression was used to compare immunization attitudes among non-Hispanic black; Hispanic (both black and white); and non-Hispanic white parents. The response rate was 62% (6207/10,000); analysis was restricted to the 2937 (47%) respondents who were parents with a child aged 18 years or younger; 634 (21%) responded with the highest level of concern, 5 on a 1-to-5-point scale. Demographics (Hispanic ethnicity/nonwhite race, low income, and less education) and negative attitudes toward immunization and the child's healthcare provider were significantly associated with high-level concern. Seventy-two percent of parents with high-level concern responded that the risk of a child getting a disease was their primary reason for having their child immunized, while 17% listed state laws requiring immunizations for school/daycare entry. Importantly, black parents were more likely than white parents to have negative attitudes toward immunizations and their child's healthcare provider. One fifth of parents reported high-level concern with the safety of childhood immunizations. To prevent the erosion of childhood immunization rates, healthcare providers need to learn how to recognize and address these concerns.

Enuresis Prevalence and Accompanying Factors in Schoolchildren: A Questionnaire Study from Southeast Anatolia

Introduction: The aims of this study were to establish the prevalence of enuresis, to determine accompanying factors, and to identify common methods in the management of enuresis in Turkish children aged between 6 and 11 years living in eastern Anatolia. Methods: The parents of 3,527 schoolchildren aged between 6 and 11 years completed a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire asked about sociodemographic data, enuresis data, physical or psychological disorders, and family stressors. Descriptive statistics and χ² test were used for data analysis. Results: The response rate was 88%. The overall prevalence of reported enuresis was 12.96%, and the prevalence of marked enuresis (at least weekly) was 9.8%. Enuresis was notably more common in boys (male:female ratio 1.6), and the prevalence rates decreased by age without gender bias. Of all enuretic children, 21% had also daytime bed-wetting. The rate of a positive family history was 42% for siblings only and 66% for the other family members. Significantly more of the dry children woke up spontaneously at night to void as compared with the enuretic children (p < 0.001). The parental concern level was not high, and only 15% of the children visited a physician for the management of enuresis. Low socioeconomic status, unfavorable perinatal or postnatal history, and unsatisfactory familial characteristics were significantly more frequent in the enuretic group (p < 0.05). The enuretic children had also higher rates of poor school performance and poor social adaptation as compared with nonenuretic children (p < 0.001). Conclusions: These results suggest that the prevalence of enuresis in eastern Anatolia is similar to that reported from western Anatolia and from most other countries. Turkish families did not report a high-level concern about enuresis, and the problem was managed primarily within the family.

Globalization and Cholera: Implications for Global Governance

Plague and pestilence have become an increasingly popular theme since the end of the Cold War among policymakers, journalists, fic tion writers, and film directors searching for new threats to personal and national security. Ill health and, in particular, infectious diseases have generated a spate of popular, and often alarmist, literature.1 This has been accompanied by growing high-level concern within governments and the medical community with global health issues that threaten national inter ests.2 The emphasis in many of these discussions has been on emerging health threats that are perceived to pose potentially sudden and serious dangers to public health. We begin this essay with the premise that the process of globalization has particular impacts on health and that there is a clear need to better un derstand and more effectively respond to these impacts. However, with out underplaying the dangers posed by health emergencies caused, for ex ample, by the genetic mutation of viral agents or epidemics of emerging infectious diseases, we seek to develop a broader understanding of the his torical and structural factors behind the health challenges posed by glob alization. As we discuss later, globalization can be defined as a process that is changing the nature of human interaction within a range of social spheres. Globalization's impact on health can be seen as part of a longer historical process firmly located in social change over decades, and per haps centuries, rather than recent years. From this perspective, an understanding of global health issues at the turn of the twenty-first century could benefit substantially from the volu minous literature on globalization from international relations, including the subfields of social and political theory and international political econ omy. This is a rich and highly relevant literature. It documents what struc tural changes are occurring toward a global political economy, how power relationships are embedded within this process of change, what varying impacts this may have on individuals and groups, and to what extent global governance could effectively mediate this process. These issues counterbalance the strong focus in the health literature on biom?dical re search, information systems, and other technical solutions. Although

Comparative Requirements for Premarketing Premanufacture Notifications in the EC Countries and the USA, with Special Reference to Risk Assessment in the Framework of the US Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

The legal-scientific control system for toxic substances is embodied in the 79/831 EC Directive in the European Community countries and in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in the United States. The 6th Amendment of the EC Directive and Section 5 of TSCA cover notification of new chemicals and require a Premarketing Notification and a Premanufacture Notification, respectively (both known as PMN). Beyond a commonality of some general information required in the submission on a new chemical (such as chemical identity and molecular structure, proposed categories of use, production or importation level) there are two important differences between the two systems. First, the EC Directive requires as a mandatory part of a PMN submission a specified “base set” of health, environmental, and physicochemical test data; TSCA Section S does not specify a set of mandatory test data but requires, as a part of the PMN submission, data on all health and environmental effects in the possession or control of the notifier, as well as on byproducts, resulting from the manufacture, processing, use, or disposal of the new chemical. Second, the EC Directive is not concerned with either controlling the potential adverse health and environmental effects of a new chemical or with the assessment of risk that these effects represent; these issues are left up to the EC member states to legislate and handle. Forty-five days after submission of an EC PMN, if all notification requirements have been met and if the packaging and labeling requirements comply with the Directive, the chemical may be placed on the market. In TSCA, companies must notify the US EPA 90 days before they intend to begin the manufacturing or importation of a new chemical for commercial use. The 90 days (which may be extended under TSCA to 180) is used by EPA to carry out an initial assessment of the health and environmental risk that the chemical may represent. Should a “reasoned evaluation” of the data submitted and/or otherwise available indicate that the chemical could or does present an “unreasonable risk to health and the environment,” the Agency can, under Sections 5(e) and 5(f), respectively, limit or prohibit the production, use or disposal of the chemical. Both the EC Directive and TSCA mandate the establishment and publication of Inventories of chemicals. The EC Directive Inventory is a closed system, listing only those chemicals which were on the EC market during specified reporting periods; chemicals submitted subsequently will remain “new” so that each subsequent manufacturer or importer must submit a PMN. In contrast, the TSCA Inventory keeps on continuously increasing by those PMN chemicals, the manufacture or importation of which has actually begun. The TSCA assessment framework for chemicals makes a clear distinction between hazard and risk. The hazard of a chemical represents its suspected or established inherent toxicological capabilities to inflict damage on the health of humans, animals, plants, and the environment at-large, through some type of exposure. There is risk, when there is actual exposure to a hazardous chemical; in other words, risk of chemicals represents the overlap of hazard and exposure. The overall process of PMN assessment in the US EPA includes a first phase of risk assessment and a second phase of regulatory disposition. In accordance with the distinction made between hazard, exposure and risk, the stage-setting initial evaluation of PMNs is carried out along two converging procedural channels (representing hazard assessment and exposure assessment) in the risk assessment stage. Following the convergence of the outcomes of the hazard and exposure assessments, the level of risk that a new chemical may represent determines the regulatory disposition (if any) taken subsequently. A key component of the hazard assessment of PMN chemicals at EPA resides in the Structure-Activity Team (SAT). SAT assesses PMNs against a hazard evaluation grid, representing data or estimate categories on chemical and physiocochemical properties, environmental fate, bioaccumulation, irritant properties toward and absorption into living organisms, acute and chronic toxicological and pharmacological effects, generation of xenobiotic metabolic split products, impurities present,, etc. The hazard rating of PMN chemicals (into those of low-, medium-, and high-level concern) is based on a combination of three approaches or data source categories: (a) evaluation of the test data and related information submitted; (b) evaluation of the xenobiotic and/or pharmacological potentialities of the compound regarded singly, as distinct from its possible analogy to other compounds; (c) structure-activity relationship analysis, based on structural analogy to compounds or classes of compounds established to have xenobiotic effects. Only chemicals of substantial concern are led through all steps of the assessment process. Submissions on certain categories of PMN chemicals (e.g., certain water-insoluble high polymers, low/medium hazard level photographic chemicals incorporated into films) receive special procedural treatment and undergo limited assessment.

Response : College Entrance Standards

In the issue of 13 April, in the News and Comment article, "Low-level radiation: A high-level concern" (p. 155), Health Physics was incorrectly referred to as the Journal of Health Physics. It was also stated that Oak Ridge Associated Universities runs Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In fact, the laboratory is run by the Union Carbide Corporation. In that same issue, in the Research News article, "Low-level radiation: Just how bad is it?" (p. 160), the name of the American Journal of Public Health was transmogrified to the American Journal of Health Physics the second time the journal was mentioned.

Erratum: Low-Level Radiation: A High-Level Concern

In the issue of 13 April, in the News and Comment article, "Low-level radiation: A high-level concern" (p. 155), Health Physics was incorrectly referred to as the Journal of Health Physics . It was also stated that Oak Ridge Associated Universities runs Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In fact, the laboratory is run by the Union Carbide Corporation. In that same issue, in the Research News article, "Low-level radiation: Just how bad is it?" (p. 160), the name of the American Journal of Public Health was transmogrified to the American Journal of Health Physics the second time the journal was mentioned.

Erratum: Low-Level Radiation: A High-Level Concern

In the issue of 13 April, in the News and Comment article, "Low-level radiation: A high-level concern" (p. 155), Health Physics was incorrectly referred to as the Journal of Health Physics. It was also stated that Oak Ridge Associated Universities runs Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In fact, the laboratory is run by the Union Carbide Corporation. In that same issue, in the Research News article, "Low-level radiation: Just how bad is it?" (p. 160), the name of the American Journal of Public Health was transmogrified to the American Journal of Health Physics the second time the journal was mentioned.

Low-Level Radiation: A High-Level Concern

The role of DOE in radiation health effects research is discussed. The possibility of conflict of interest is presented. The Mancuso episode is cited as evidence. The roles of several agencies (EPA, NRC, and OSHA) in establishing safe limits of radiation exposure are discussed.