High Priority Issue Research Articles

Comprehensive assessment of specific antibodies on infectious activity of tick-borne encephalitis virus

Vaccines for prophylactic immunization provide the most reliable and effective protection against the vast majority of infectious diseases. Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) represents a high-priority medical issue at the territory of the Eurasian continent. Of great importance is assessing a role of distinct antibody titers especially low titers, observed quite often in vaccinated individuals, sometimes posing obstacles in determining a threshold of seropositivity as well as the level of specific protection against TBE virus. We aimed at obtaining data to assess antiviral activity of virus-specific antibodies with distinct titer levels based on the in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo experimental studies with a highly virulent Far-Eastern strain of tick-borne encephalitis virus. The in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo comprehensive experimental studies with a highly virulent Far-Eastern strain of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) were conducted and the dynamics of antiviral activity of virus-specific antibodies at variable titers (1:100–1:3200) was measured (timeframe ranged within 1–96 hours p.i.) to provide a rationale for evaluating the antiviral immune response. It was found that the in vitro experiments demonstrated that the IgG at 1:100 titer exerted a weak anti-TBEV neutralizing effect at all time-points examined. The IgG 1:400 titer caused a 2 log PFU/mL decline in TBEV Dal strain yield at 72 h post-infection, whereas at 1:3200 titer it completely suppressed TBEV replication throughout the observation period. The ex vivo experiments with blood serum obtained from vaccinated subjects demonstrating a range of TBEV antibody titers (sera from vaccinated individuals with varying anti-TBEV antibody titers) and in vivo (outinbred white mice) experiments revealed a delayed virus elimination for antibody titers at 1:100 and 1:200 as well as rapid virus elimination (1–2 days p.i.) for antibody titers greater than 1:400. Thus, antibody titer at 1:400 may be considered as the universal anti-TBEV protection threshold. In order to properly conclude regarding the revaccination schedule it is advised to start with testing blood serum for durability of anti-TBEV immune response. Subjects with TBEV antibody titers at 1:100 and 1:200 should be strongly recommended to undergo a mandatory revaccination. Such an approach is believed to be the most effective way toward enhancing efficacy of vaccine-mediated protection against TBE.

A step forward to the joint management of the South China Sea fisheries resources: Joint works on catches, management measures and conservation issues

Degradation of the fishery resources in the SCS has been frequently reported, and calls for international cooperation through establishing an international or multilateral fisheries management organization were frequently made in recent years. However, little progress has been observed in this regard and most resources in the region are not subject to any regional cooperative management, mainly due to the disputes of sovereign rights on the SCS. In order to bypass such disputes and take a practical step forward towards reaching the goal of joint management for the SCS fisheries, a ‘bottom-up approach’ was undertaken through holding a “SCS Fisheries Resources and Management Workshop” in 2017 which is a non-political, depoliticized and non-State driven forum with key SCS fishing actors providing and exchanging substantive information on their individual fisheries for building up mutual understanding and confidence as the first step for further collaboration on the management of SCS fisheries resources. Based on information from the Workshop and substantial joint works afterwards, for the first time, this study have successfully compiled and presented basic information on (1) the fisheries statistics from key fishing actors of the region, (2) the management measures implemented by each fishing actor, and (3) subjective evaluations from managers/scientists of the key fishing actors through a questionnaire study on the causes of the stock depletion and/or the key issues that should be addressed for any potential stock recovery. Several statistical issues have been identified, and a further review of the existing statistical systems of the participating parties was recommended as an important topic for future meetings. Communication and mutual understanding of the management measures designed for and implemented in the region are considered crucial for the future construction of any regional collaborative management scheme. High priority issues that were emphasized by the respondents of the questionnaire study include insufficient control on fishing capacity and fishing efforts as well as weak law enforcement; which may relate to the issues of insufficient enforcement resources, low policy priority and institutional weakness.

Chemical Residues in Food Grains: The Burning Health Issues in Asian Countries

Food security is a high-priority issue for sustainable global development both quantitatively and qualitatively. Once pesticides are applied, residues may be found in soil, on plant, on harvested product, on application equipment, in water and irrigation canals, in pesticide storage area, on cloth of applicant.

A Self-Check Program Targeting Quality Improvement in a Hospital-Based Palliative Care Consultation Team, Japanese Society for Palliative Medicine: Issues Regarding Team Activities Identified through the Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle.

Background: The number of hospital-based palliative care consultation teams (PCCTs) has increased in Japan, and quality improvement (QI) of PCCTs is an issue. The Japanese Society for Palliative Medicine is building a framework for continuous QI of PCCT activities. Objective: The objective of this study was to develop a program to support QI for PCCTs, and to describe the initial experience with the program. Design: The report details the development of a self-check program, followed by a one-year follow-up observational survey. Methods: We developed a self-check program using the concept of the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle and a multidisciplinary expert panel. A total of 114 PCCTs entered the program in the first year. Results: We developed three forms for the CHECK, ACT-PLAN, and DO phases aligned with the PDCA cycle. The forms consisted of 34 items across 8 domains. A total of 83 PCCTs (729 members) returned the CHECK, ACT-PLAN forms, and 41 PCCTs returned the DO forms after one year. Overall, 213 high priority issues were identified in the ACT phase. The issues of many PCCTs were "Sharing goals of care is inadequate within the PCCT (33%)" and "Sharing goals of care is inadequate between patient/family or primary team and the PCCT (28%)." Improvements in identified issues were: "achieved" 23% and "almost achieved" 48% after one year. Conclusions: We developed a self-check program to support QI efforts for hospital-based PCCTs. The priority issues among PCCTs and improvement goals with examples were identified. These results will support ongoing efforts to develop a continuous improvement model for QI of PCCTs.

Chemical Residues in Food Grains: The Burning Health Issues in Asian Countries

Food security is a high-priority issue for sustainable global development both quantitatively and qualitatively. Once pesticides are applied, residues may be found in soil, on plant, on harvested product, on application equipment, in water and irrigation canals, in pesticide storage area, on cloth of applicant. Short term poisoning effects like nausea, vomiting, headache, chest pain, eye, skin and throat irritation etc. and potential long-term health effect like allergies, cancer, nervous system damage, birth defects, reproductive problem have been reported in recent decades, adverse effects of unexpected contaminants on crop quality have threatened both food security and human health. Heavy metals, metalloids (e.g., Hg, As, Pb, Cd, and Cr) from pesticides and fertilizers can jeopardize human metabolomics, contributing to morbidity and even mortality. Those during crop production include soil nutrient depletion, water depletion, soil and water contamination, and pest resistance/outbreaks and the emergence of new pests and diseases.

Fusion of Feature Selection and Random Forest for an Anomaly-Based Intrusion Detection System

Considering current network scenario hackers and intruders has become a big threat today. As new technologies are emerging fast, extensive use of these technologies and computers, what plays an important role is security. Most of the computers in network can be easily compromised with attacks. Big issue of concern is increase in new type of attack these days. Security to the sensitive data is very big threat to deal with, it need to consider as high priority issue which should be addressed immediately. Highly efficient Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are available now a days which detects various types of attacks on network. But we require the IDS which is intelligent enough to detect and analyze all type of new threats on the network. Maximum accuracy is expected by any of this intelligent intrusion detection system. An Intrusion Detection System can be hardware or software that analyze and monitors all activities of network to detect malicious activities happened inside the network. It also informs and helps administrator to deal with malicious packets, which if enters in network can harm more number of computers connected together. In our work we have implemented an intellectual IDS which helps administrator to analyze real time network traffic. IDS does it by classifying packets entering into the system as normal or malicious. This paper mainly focus on techniques used for feature selection to reduce number of features from KDD-99 dataset. This paper also explains algorithm used for classification i.e., Random Forest which works with forest of trees to classify real time packet as normal or malicious. Random forest makes use of ensembling techniques to give final output which is derived by combining output from number of trees used to create forest. Dataset which is used while performing experiments is KDD-99. This dataset is used to train all trees to get more accuracy with help of random forest. From results achieved we can observe that random forest algorithm gives more accuracy in distributed network with reduced false alarm rate.

Mini-Review on Domination of Pollutant Residues Among Food Products:Perspective of South-East Asian Countries

Southeast Asia is a region that produces high amounts of key food commodities and includes areas of divergent socioeconomic status. Food security is a high-priority issue for sustainable global development both quantitatively and qualitatively. In recent decades, the adverse effects of unexpected contaminants on crop quality have threatened both food security and human health. Public concern about the adverse environmental and human health impacts of organochlorine contaminants led to strict regulations on their use in developed nations two decades ago. Nevertheless, DDT and several other organochlorine insecticides are still being used for agriculture and public health programs in developing countries in Asia and the South Pacific. As a consequence, humans in this region are exposed to greater dietary levels of organochlorines. Heavy metals and metalloids (Hg, As,Pb, Cd and Cr) can jeopardize human metabolomics, contributing to morbidity and even mortality. This review indicates potential contaminants associated with crop production process through soil nutrient depletion, water depletion, soil and water contamination, and pest resistance/outbreaks and the emergence of new pests and diseases.

Challenges for water infrastructure asset management in South Korea

Abstract Most Korean citizens today have access to water services, owing to the enormous investment made in water infrastructure. Recently, however, Korean society is facing issues concerning rapid deterioration and inappropriate management of urban water infrastructure. It has been determined that 72.3% of all water infrastructure will have deteriorated by 2035, which implies that the standard of water services then would be even lower than the current standard. Given the complex institutional system required for urban water infrastructure, the vagueness of management authority, limited maintenance budget, poor information management, and issues with maintenance methods are the high priority issues currently being faced. This paper discusses the challenges that Korean society is facing and proposes the need for a change in cognizance for successful water infrastructure management in the future.

Improved Support Vector Machine Models for Work Zone Crash Injury Severity Prediction and Analysis

Work zones are a high priority issue in the field of road transportation because of their impacts on traffic safety. A better understanding of work zone crashes can help to identify the contributing factors and countermeasures to enhance roadway safety. This study investigates the prediction of work zone crash severity and the contributing factors by employing a parametric approach using the mixed logit modeling framework and a non-parametric machine learning approach using the support vector machine (SVM). The mixed logit model belongs to the class of random parameter models in which the effects of flexible variables across different observations are identified, that is, data heterogeneity is taken into account. The performance of the SVM model is enhanced by applying three metaheuristic algorithms: particle swarm optimization (PSO), harmony search (HS), and the whale optimization algorithm (WOA). Empirical findings indicate that SVM provides higher prediction accuracy and outperforms the mixed logit model. Estimation results reveal key factors that increase the likelihood of severe work zone crashes. Furthermore, the analysis illustrates the ability of the three metaheuristics to enhance the SVM and the superiority of the harmony search algorithm in improving the performance of the SVM model.

Ensemble-based semi-supervised learning approach for a distributed intrusion detection system

ABSTRACTIntrusion has become a growing concern today. With the advent of new technologies each day and widespread of computers, security has become a very important issue. Attacks like Ransomware, Distributed Denial of service, User to Root, Remote Login have become a big threat to every computer in the network. Such attacks compromise the security of the computer and obtain access to sensitive data. Hence, Security of any network is a high priority issue which must be taken care of. Various Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) exist which help to identify threats in the system, but only an intelligent system will correctly yield them with maximum accuracy. An IDS is a machine or software that monitors the traffic in a network and on detection of a malicious packet informs the user to take further action and avoid the malicious packet from entering in the network. In this paper, an intelligent IDS system is presented which classifies the normal traffic in a network with abnormal or attacked ones. A method used for feature selection is based on gini index and variable importance measure. Classifiers used are Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, Artificial Neural Network, Decision Tree and K Nearest Neighbor for classification. Proposed hybrid system of IDS selects data using feature selection technique and then classifies it by individual classifiers. An ensembling is used to give the final class from multiple classifiers to the packet in the network as an anomaly or normal. All classifiers are working in distributed network where all anomaly detected attack converted into signature to reduce future attacks. The dataset used for training is NSL – KDD dataset. Ensembling technique increase accuracy of detection by 10%, reduces false positive rate to 0.05 and it improves system performance in terms of execution time with more true positive rate. Results are tested in real time environment and training is given with NSL KDD dataset.

Противопожарная профилактика лесных объектов

Forest fires cause significant damage to the countries’ economy, which is not always possible to be represented by specific numbers. The forest fires’ prevention is one of the high-priority issues of forestry. A certain operation sequence at a forest site will help in implementing the system approach in the development and implementation of a set of measures to ensure fire prevention of the forest site. The success of the fire safety system depends on the effective analysis of situation at the time of its development, which begins with the study of the forest fund state based on the latest forest management measures. Changes in the forest fund of the forest site are updated at field observation. Timelines and standard of forestry measures’ performance are assessed, as well as the state of fire safety on the forest site. The fire prevention management cartographic document of the site with indication of order and timing of actions gives real information for opera-tional staff work. Testing the system of fire prevention measures on the example of the Borovskaya Forest Dacha of the Bryansk Military Forestry according to the developed uniform algorithm of effective actions has shown its reliability and sufficiently high efficiency.For citation: Ivanov V.P., Marchenko S.I., Nartov D.I. Fire Prevention Measures for Forest Sites. Lesnoy Zhurnal [Forestry Journal], 2019, no. 3, pp. 43–54. DOI: 10.17238/issn0536-1036.2019.3.43

The problem of pertussis in some regions of the world

Pertussis infection remains a high-priority issue both for Russian health care and abroad. A rise of pertussis incidence in various human age groups instigates a search for new ways to fight this infection and improve methods for its laboratory diagnostics. By taking into consideration a short-term effect induced by acellular and whole-cell vaccines, a feasibility of introducing the second or even the third pertussis revaccination is vigorously debated. Objective of the study was to analyze the experience and effectiveness of acellular pertussis vaccines in countries, which use the second and third pertussis revaccination in the National Immunization Schedule in order to have an insight into adjusting strategy and tactics of pertussis immunization In Russia. Analyzing pertussis prevalence demonstrated that despite a wide immunization coverage pertussis incidence in the last years (2008–2015) was increased in a large number of countries in the European region, as well as inAustralia,CanadaandUSA. However, the reasons for elevated pertussis incidence have not been clarified yet. On one hand, it may be accounted for by low vaccination coverage in adolescents and adults; weakened immune protection after vaccination; genetic changes in Bordetella pertussis; shortened durability of protective immunity in children vaccinated with acellular vs. whole-cell vaccine; improved monitoring and morbidity reporting, as well as improved laboratory diagnostics due to shifting from serological and bacteriological to molecular genetic assays. In an attempt to solve this issue, researchers from several countries collaborate to discuss and develop a strategy to reduce pertussis incidence. ForRussia, the most important is to empower and/or improve existing infant immunization strategy in order to provide wide coverage with the four dose pertussis vaccine for decreasing the risk of pertussis morbidity and mortality. It is worth noting the “cocoon” strategy given the high risk of pertussis infection in children of the first months of life. We believe that forRussiait is worth investigating an opportunity of using children 2–3 months of life an acellular vaccine as the first vaccination, which is expected to increase the coverage of this cohort and allow to increase proportion of children who might complete vaccination by 5 months of age. At the same time, more reasonable might be to preserve a number of age groups for pertussis vaccination in the current National Immunization Schedule, as expanding age limits for vaccination might put a risk at increasing pertussis morbidity in older individuals, which could be hard to diagnose.

Factors associated with environmental barriers of people with disabilities in Mexico.

ABSTRACTOBJECTIVE:To examine the associations between sociodemographic, health and disability-related factors and the perception of environmental barriers outside the home environment by individuals with permanent disabilities in Mexico.METHODS:In this cross-sectional, population-based study, we used data from the 2010 National Survey of Perceptions of Disability in the Mexican Population of 2,041 participants older than 18 with permanent disability. The perceptions of barriers take into consideration the challenges of getting around and using transportation outside the home environment. The covariates consisted of sociodemographic, health-related and disability-related factors. Multivariate logistic regression was used.RESULTS:The perception of environmental barriers outside the home environment was associated with being a woman, living in an urban area, speaking an indigenous language, experiencing emotional symptoms, having walking/movement, visual or self-care disabilities, having severe/extreme disability, having disability caused by illness, using physical devices, and receiving assistance and care in the home environment.CONCLUSIONS:This information is valuable for the design of public policies and programs that promote the participation of individuals with permanent disabilities, a high-priority issue in low- and middle-income countries.

Land managers’ and service providers’ perspectives on the magnitude, impact and management of non-domestic grazing pressure in the southern rangelands of Australia

In the southern rangelands of Australia, the capability of land managers to manage total grazing pressure, with support from their service providers, influences resource condition, livestock production and pastoral business profitability. This study investigated the perspectives of people who face the challenge of managing total grazing pressure. Self-administered surveys were used to collect the perspectives of 220 land managers and 46 service providers to total grazing pressure management and the impacts of grazing animals. Land managers and service providers agreed that, on average, 40 to 50% of the total demand for forage is due to non-domestic animals, that a reduction in this component is required, and that current levels are at least double the desirable level. The majority of respondents (>54%) assessed both livestock and non-domestic animals to have a negative impact on soils and pastures. However, livestock were more frequently assessed to have a positive impact on soils and pastures than non-domestic animals. The respondents commonly suggested that the impact livestock have on soils and pastures depends on management. Non-domestic animals were assessed by the majority of respondents to have a negative impact on livestock production and business profitability, apart from unmanaged goats where opinions were divided. Both land managers and service providers used the ‘large negative’ category to describe the impact on livestock production and business profitability more frequently for kangaroos than for any other herbivore. There were significant differences in the respondents’ perspectives among the States. Respondents in New South Wales and Queensland estimated a higher proportion of demand for forage from non-domestic animals than respondents from other States. The respondents in New South Wales also more frequently assessed unmanaged goats to have a positive impact on business profitability compared with the other States. Total grazing pressure management was rated as a high priority issue by 66% of respondents. ‘Improved kangaroo management’ and ‘fencing’ were the two main factors identified with potential to make a substantial difference to total grazing pressure management in the next ten years.

Japan's Flagship 2020 “Post-K” System

Based on the success of the K Computer, Japan's Flagship 2020 "Post-K" computer has been in development since 2014. The Post-K project is led by the R-CCS with Fujitsu as the prime manufacturer, and MEXT as the funding agency. The Post-K project is heavily utilizing codesign approach that coordinates the development of hardware, middleware software, and applications to achieve more than 100 times performance boost on some of the key applications compared to its predecessor, the K computer. As was with K, the Post-K system aims for a balanced approach among flops, bandwidth, and programmability to optimize the performance on a wide range of applications that will address social and scientific issues of high priority, rather than to aspire to be on top of a particular benchmark such as Linpack.

The Formation of the Environmental Agenda of the United Nations General Assembly (1946-2016)

The history of an environment as an issue of the international politics pays remarkably little attention to the circumstances in which the environmental agenda develops and to its constitutive issues. The Stockholm Conference on the human environment is one of the important milestones that made the environment as an issue of international concern. However, its success would be impossible without the immense experience in addressing environmental issues gathered at the multilateral level. A review of the literature on the research topic shows that the term «environmental agenda» is not always used properly, there is a lack of empirical data to explain the «greening» of international relations. Indeed, given the fragmented nature of international environmental governance, specifically within the framework of the United Nations, it is difficult to trace the evolution of the environmental agenda from the first days of Organization to the present. For identification and definition of the content of the environmental agenda, the authors used the content analysis of the title of the resolutions of the UN General Assembly adopted in the period from 1946 to 2016. The research identified environmental issues of high priority: sovereignty over resources, environment, sustainable development, desertification, climate, natural disasters. The analysis made it possible to track their appearance on the agenda in chronological order. Also, we identified the issues underlying the formation of the environmental agenda of the General Assembly, namely international security issues related to nuclear weapons and economic development. In addition, we examined some voting patterns on environmental issues, the dynamics of changes in the attention of UN member states to key issues such as sustainable development, desertification, climate, sovereignty over natural resources.

Identifying governance gaps among interlinked sustainability challenges

Sustainability issues cannot be separated from their social and biophysical context, and collaborative governance responses to interdependent sustainability issues are inherently complex. Governance gaps emerge when responsible actors fail to recognize how multiple issues and actors are interlinked. Closing governance gaps is particularly challenging for sustainability issues that intersect several sectors of society, such as livelihoods, agriculture and biodiversity conservation. This study introduces a new quantitative empirical approach that conceptualizes how governance gaps emerge at the intersection of two networks that are usually studied separately: an actor network and a network of interdependent sustainability issues. We differentiate between (1) integrative gaps that arise when interdependent issues are managed in separation without recognizing their interdependencies, versus (2) collaborative gaps that arise when actors working on common issues do not collaborate. Using data on 60 actors and 38 sustainability issues in southwest Ethiopia, we found comprehensive collaboration networks around, for example, agricultural production and land-use issues, but large collaborative gaps for forest and wildlife issues. While actors actively managed interdependencies around national high-priority issues such as coffee export and family planning, integrative gaps were common for low-profile issues such as access provision of finance, transportation, schools, food and crop markets. In general, smaller specialized actors had a stronger tendency than larger generalist actors to focus their management capacity towards the closing of governance gaps. Surprisingly, greater system complexity did not per se cause governance gaps, except when system interactions were cross-sectoral. Furthermore, our data suggested that integrative system management and collaboration reinforced each other. In conclusion, our network framework advances how governance gaps can be understood and prioritized in different empirical contexts. It enables a theoretically informed empirical identification of the specific sustainability issues for which targeted structural changes are most likely to facilitate improved sustainability outcomes.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Economic Performance in EU Agriculture: An Empirical Study in a Non-Linear Framework

Numerous linkages among Agriculture and climate change have been identified and validated in global terms. In European Union, the economic performance–carbon dioxide emission relationship has become a particularly high priority issue for Common agricultural policy within the last decade, attracting scientific interest. Within this socio–economic framework, the present work studies the relationship between agricultural carbon emissions equivalents and income per capita for the agricultural sector in different EU countries with the assistance of the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) cointegration technique. Our findings validate the existence of a strong relationship between GHG emissions and agricultural income, since the cointegration among the two variables is established in all instances, while the asymmetric impact of agricultural income on carbon emissions may well provide policy makers with tools which when implemented, may well promote the increase of agricultural income along with GHG effect mitigation in a successful way.

Identifying and Addressing High Priority Issues in General Surgery Training and Education

Complex problems are often easier to address when multiple entities collaborate. The Procedural Learning and Safety Collaborative (PLSC) was established to address complex problems in general surgery residency training by connectively engaging multiple residency programs in addressing progressive research questions. Recently, PLSC members held a national symposium which included leadership from several leading surgical societies to come to a consensus on what are the most critical issues in general surgery education. This paper describes the process used and the end result of this process. This paper describes the process used and the end result of this process.

Heart and Shield Family Violence Prevention Program

Children exposed to domestic violence (DV) inadvertently learn behaviors that make them more likely to become victims and/or perpetrators later in life unless they learn skills to address childhood trauma. This article discusses how two rural community needs assessments identified that DV prevention was a high-priority issue, the effects of DV on youth mental and physical health, and the resulting Heart and Shield Family Violence Prevention Program, a Cooperative Extension program designed to strengthen family relationships and break the cycle of violence. Implications for practice include helping youth build healthy relationships, incorporating DV awareness training in staff/volunteer professional development, collaborating with community partners, and advocating for programs that teach positive parent-child interactions.