Safety Sector Research Articles

Urban Greening: An Alternative Mechanism to Address Public Health and Safety in Underserved Communities

Community safety is increasingly understood to be intertwined with public health and quality of life. However, health and safety are often appraised and budgeted independently, impeding the ability of local governments to identify efficient interventions to benefit communities. Urban greening is widely acknowledged to improve public health but is also a cost-effective public safety measure associated with reductions in aggression, violence, and crime. Current research suggests that the physiological and psychosocial factors that mediate the benefits of green spaces fall at the intersection of health and safety. Critically, historically marginalized, low-income, and over-policed neighborhoods are also typically those that most acutely lack urban greenery, exacerbating substandard health and safety outcomes. Investing in green spaces is therefore a promising solution to mitigate existing disparities across both public health and safety sectors. We propose that Los Angeles prioritize urban greenery in underserved neighborhoods as a public safety measure and reallocate funding from law enforcement and incarceration budgets to small-scale changes in green spaces (e.g., sidewalk planting and park maintenance). Green spaces are a promising alternative to traditional public safety methods and would improve the health and safety of disadvantaged neighborhoods, mitigate the harms of heat and pollution, and begin to counteract a history of structurally racist neighborhood policies.

Experiences of families of public safety personnel: a systematic review protocol of qualitative evidence

BackgroundPublic safety occupations are well-recognized to be dangerous and stressful. Despite recent attention on post-traumatic stress injuries among public safety personnel, there has been considerably less attention paid to the ongoing ways in which the risks and requirements associated with those occupations shape family life, and how families respond and adapt to those lifestyle dimensions. This systematic review aims to understand how day-to-day family life is affected and shaped when a family member works in a public safety sector, such as fire, police, paramedic, corrections, and emergency communications.MethodsQualitative studies that examine the experiences of families or family members of public safety personnel will be included in this review, with no date or language restrictions. An initial search of Embase and CINAHL will be conducted, followed by an analysis of text words contained in the title and abstract, and of the index terms used to describe the articles. Databases to be searched for published studies include MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Sciences, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Sociological s. Titles and abstracts will be screened by two independent reviewers. The full texts of selected studies will be assessed in detail, and findings and their illustrations will be extracted and aggregated. Any disagreements between the reviewers that arise at each stage will be resolved through discussion, or by a third reviewer. Further analysis of the synthesized findings will be informed by family systems theory.DiscussionThe ways that occupational risks and requirements shape family life have been better investigated within other high-risk occupation groups, which has led to productive advancements in organizational policies and supports in the respective sectors. An understanding of the experiences which typify family life ongoing within PSP sectors is a critical gap in the development of meaningful family-informed occupational initiatives and supports.Systematic review registrationSubmitted to PROSPERO for systematic review registration: CRD42020208126

Are Traffic Announcements Really Effective? A Systematic Review of Evaluations of Crash-Prevention Communication Campaigns

Communication campaigns are commonly used in the traffic and road safety sector to raise public awareness of the importance of avoiding risky road user attitudes and behaviors. Surprisingly few of these communication campaigns evaluate their effectiveness in a formal and comprehensive manner. The core aim of the present systematic review is to identify the type of studies that evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns in this sector, in order to identify and contrast their main findings. This systematic review followed the PRISMA methodology, by means of which the relevant articles based on the search term were identified. A total of 613 indexed articles were filtered, and a final set of 27 articles directly addressing the issue was analyzed. Search strategies were developed and conducted in WOS, Scopus, NCBI, Google Scholar and APA databases. The selected articles point out that, although advertisements alone have a certain positive effect, their effectiveness is substantially increased if they are accompanied by other preventive measures such as legislation or road safety education. In any case, more evaluations of traffic campaigns are needed to identify which techniques are effective and which are not, and which should therefore be replaced by new methods of behavior modification in future communication campaigns.

Croatian banks profitability under capital requirements pressure

Regulating bank behavior throughout capital requirements has been a focal point of prudential regulation since the late 1980s. However, their beneficial effect on the banking sector's safety and soundness was disputed ever since their initial implementation, mainly due to an assumption that they deteriorate bank profitability and increase the odds for the enlarged risk appetites of bank managers, especially in the highly competitive financial markets. On the other hand, bank profitability is driven by many factors other than compliance with capital regulation. Concerning that, a question about the capital requirements' impact on bank profitability was raised in this paper. The dynamic panel data analysis served to examine the consequences of bank capital regulation for the Croatian banking sector profitability, by taking into observation 24 commercial banks in the 2011-2016 timespan. The impact of capital regulation on the return on assets and net interest margin was positive, while for the return on equity a negative relationship was found. It was concluded that banks transfer regulatory costs on their clients, which was approximated with the net interest margin. In addition, results reveal that the overall bank profitability is achieved at the expense of bank shareholders. Thus, a more cost-efficient approach to managing a bank is suggested.

Dynamics of agency governance: Evidence from the Nuclear safety sector

Public organizations are compound bodies characterized by competing endogenous dynamics of governance. This study makes two main contributions. First, it contributes to an organizational approach to studies of public policy and administration by conceptualizing compound agency governance. Second, by determining how variation in agency governance reflects endogenous organizational factors. Based on a study of the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (DSA), two observations are highlighted: Firstly, DSA staff are torn between two competing behavioural logics: A governmental and a transnational logic. Moreover, portfolios of core state powers are more closely monitored by parent ministries than portfolios that relate to non-core state powers. Secondly, the study suggests that organizational factors are vital determents in balancing behavioral logics in agency governance.

Beyond Blame: What Investigations of Intelligence Failures Can Learn from Aviation Safety

Investigations into intelligence failures are frequently conducted by multiple parties in parallel, and in several important cases, their conclusions have been controversial. In addition, investigations into minor incidents, such as mishandling of sensitive information or equipment, tradecraft errors, or similar events where no major consequences have been detected, tend to be handled internally by the concerned agency, or through limited interagency cooperation. This can lead to missed opportunities to prevent them from developing into major failures. These issues are compared to the investigative procedures employed in the aviation safety sector, where an independent body is responsible for investigating both major failures and minor incidents, with a view specifically to develop proactive measures to prevent repetition. The conclusion presented is that the Intelligence Community could benefit from studying how aviation safety investigations are handled, in order to be more effective in addressing minor incidents at an early stage, and to avoid controversies in investigations of major events.

A one health glossary to support communication and information exchange between the human health, animal health and food safety sectors

Collaboration across sectors, disciplines and countries is a key concept to achieve the overarching One Health (OH) objective for better human, animal and environmental health. Differences in terminology and interpretation of terms are still a significant hurdle for cross-sectoral information exchange and collaboration within the area of OH including One Health Surveillance (OHS). The development of the here described glossary is a collaborative effort of three projects funded within the One Health European Joint Programme (OHEJP). We describe the infrastructure of the OHEJP Glossary, as well as the methodology to create such a cross-sectoral web resource in a collaborative manner. The new OHEJP Glossary allows OH actors to identify terms with different or shared interpretation across sectors. Being aware of such differences in terminology will help overcome communication hurdles in the future and consequently support collaboration and a more inclusive development of OHS. The OHEJP Glossary was implemented as a web-based, user-friendly and searchable infrastructure that complies with the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) data principles. Maintenance, enrichment and quality control of the OHEJP Glossary is supported through a flexible and updatable curation infrastructure. This increases the uptake potential and exploitation of the OHEJP Glossary by other OH initiatives or tools and services.

Organizational legal principles of collaboration to the sector of safety and defensive of Ukraine with the structures of European Union

In the article taking into account activation of eurointegration processes of Ukraine description over of normative basis of coope -ration of Ukraine and European Union is brought. Reasonably, that adjusting of all-round system collaboration from ЄС it is been thesector of safety and defensive of Ukraine by not only a guarantee military-political of safety of Ukraine as the European state but alsomortgage of stability in the east Europe region.On the basis of analysis of provisions of Agreement about an association between Ukraine and European Union the dynamics ofdevelopment of collaboration of parties is reflected in part of gradual convergence in the field of a foreign and safety policy, to partici -pating of Ukraine in General politics of safety and defensive, general decision of question in relation to non-admission of conflicts andanti-crisis management, providing of regional stability, disarmament, non-proliferation, and also control above an armament and exportof weapon. Realities of the permanent structured military collaboration of Ukraine and European Union are reflected within the limitsof the program “PESCO”. The role of money funds of the European commission is underline in relation to a collaboration to the sectorof safety and defensive of Ukraine with the analogical structures of European Union.It is resulted, that the important factor of braking of development of partner relations between the Armed Forces of Ukraine anddefensive administrative institutes of European Union are such factors as: а) deficit of material resources, б) insufficient skilled possibilityof institutes, accountable for development associative relations, в) too bureaucratic procedure of acceptance of acts of legislationin the field of military, г) conflict of interests of political character between different public organs in relation to distribution of plenarypowers from a management military organization the state, д) absence at Ukraine necessary political experience near to EU reform. Bya basic factor the normative base of introduction of new organizational standards of functioning to the sector of safety and defensive ofUkraine is developed not enough and, in particular, are aspects of administrative cooperation of military structures with the aim ofimplementation of tasks in the field of providing of defensive capacity of the state and national safety. Taking into account the existentlacks of the normatively-legal providing of cooperation to the sector of safety and defensive of Ukraine with the structures of EuropeanUnion expediency is reasonable to increase the volume of possibilities of organs and subjects of military management to provide deve -lopment of integrations of alliance at legislative level. For this purpose it offers to complement a current legislation about the armedforces norms that would extend the competense of subjects of military management from adjusting of the administrative co-operatingwith the military structures of ЄС. In particular, expansion of legal framework of realization of administrative cooperation of subjectsof military management. Determination of managing role of President of Ukraine offers the basic feature of regulator action of corres -ponding norms as country’s and Supreme Commander-in-chief Leaders in the processes of cooperation.

Socioeconomic factors and the probability of death by Covid-19 in Brazil.

BackgroundTo design better measures to contain the Covid-19 epidemics, it is relevant to know whether socioeconomic factors are associated with a higher risk of death by Covid-19. This work estimates the effects of individual socioeconomic characteristics on the risk of death by Covid-19.MethodsLogistic models were estimated to assess the effect of socioeconomic characteristics (income, race/ethnicity, schooling, occupation and economic activity) on the risk of death from Covid-19. For this purpose, Covid-19 individual death records in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil were combined with the Annual Register of Social Information, which contains socioeconomic information about formal workers.FindingsWorkers employed in establishments in the health and public safety sectors present a risk of dying 2.46 and 2.25 times higher than those employed in other activities. Non-white people, men, and those who work in the Metropolitan Region are also more likely to die from Covid-19. People with higher education are 44% less likely to die from the disease.ConclusionsSome population groups are more vulnerable to the Covid-19 pandemic and individual socioeconomic conditions play a relevant role in the probability of death by the disease. That should be considered in the design of prevention policies to be adopted.

PROTOCOL: The effects of cannabis liberalization laws on health, safety, and socioeconomic outcomes: An evidence and gap map.

PROTOCOL: The effects of cannabis liberalization laws on health, safety, and socioeconomic outcomes: An evidence and gap map.

Road safety status and some initiatives in Nepal

Global number of deaths due to road accident recorded is 1.35 million people each year and became the 8th leading cause of death globally and 3 times higher deaths rate in low income than in high income countries. Also 1st cause of death among children aged 5-14 and among young adults aged 15-29 with an average rate of 27.5 deaths per 100,000 populations and in every 24 seconds someone dies on the road. Nepal recorded 13,366 road-traffic accidents in the fiscal year 2018/19 resulting 2,789 fatalities, 4376 serious injuries and 10,360 minor injuries. Road Safety became a critical theme and number of deaths on the roads remains unacceptably high. Road Traffic Accident (RTA) related fatalities and injuries continue to be an important morbidity and mortality problem. Human factors, Road conditions, Vehicle conditions became the major causes of road crashes. Within SASEC countries, the accident rate is in increasing trend except a little improvement in Maldives. Education, Engineering and Enforcement are the major sectors to reduce the rate of accident. With due priority we should focus on them and for this several activities/action plan need to be implemented by allocating sufficient dedicated budget on road safety and strict implementation of road safety legislations/activities. The government policy in Nepal for transportation sector is to develop a self-sustainable, reliable, economic and safe transportation system for the social and economic advancement of the country. The road safety strategy is Safe road-infrastructures and services backed with effective post-crash response and conducive environment resulting in little or no casualties from the Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs). In a country where the annual loss due to road crashes is US$ 55 million approx. improvement of safety standards on its roads should be highly prioritized. Nepal has committed to reduce road fatality by 50% in a decade. Instead the rate was found to be accelerating. The rate has not flattened even after the country renewed the commitment by adopting SDG Goal 3.6 of achieving 50% reduction in road fatality by 2020. Following declaration of Global Action Plan for the Decade on Road Safety, Nepal drafted a Road Safety Action Plan 2013/20 to mobilize efforts of relevant agencies in reducing crashes and is being updated. Considering the death data 2789 in 2018/19, we have to reduce about 2000 fatality from road crashes to achieve the 50% reduction target.  So, in Nepal it is urgent to carry out enormous actions on all the five pillars of the Decade Action Plan to achieve the targeted reduction in road fatalities and SDG goals in road safety sector. Substantial improvements of expected number of accidents are to be quantified when the road section parameters improved and up keeping the city’s infrastructure is important in reducing accidents as well as the severity level of the accidents that do occur. Attention to the inclusion of dedicated lanes that separate slow moving vehicles and high-speed vehicles and from pedestrians will have a positive effect on the frequency and severity of vehicle related collisions. The first horizontal curve after a long tangent may be the most critical curve and the risk will be 1.5 times greater than that of the tangent section and accident frequencies reduced due to improvement in land and shoulder width. A reduction in overloaded trucks is also conducive to a reduction in crashes.

Environmental safety in the countries bordering Kazakhstan in the context of sustainable development

Current situation in the environmental sector for the EAEU countries it is one of the most burning topics. One of the priority areas of the country’s sustainable development policy The Eurasian economic Union recognizes ensuring the welfare of the population living in the Eurasian space and introducing environmental technologies, creating environmentally friendly industries, and much more. Important changes have taken place in the environmental safety sector, and positive dynamics are beginning to be determined not only by intentions, but also by real actions aimed at improving the quality of the environment and health. In the context of globalization, the nature of the market–plan relationship in environmental management is changing dramatically. On the one hand, the influence of market forces and competition that stimulate the development and implementation of environmental policies by each individual state is increasing. On the other hand, the impact of international economic institutions on national relations is increasing, resulting in the creation of a system of supranational environmental management. Joint solution of issues related to prevention of negative impact on the environment is possible only through: contractual actions, investment policies, and planned activities aimed at maintaining environmental balance. Kazakhstan, being a full member of the EAEU actively participates in the formation of a regulatory framework aimed at reducing industrial risks, identifying the scale of anthropogenic pollution and implementing environmental monitoring.

Industry Works To Balance Risk and Reward of Digitizing Safety

The oil and gas industry has picked up on the benefits of digitization and artificial intelligence (AI) in its day-to-day activities, and the health, safety, and environment (HSE) sector is no exception. While AI brings clear benefits, the risks that come with those benefits remain unclear. While touting the advances of technology in HSE at SPE’s Virtual Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE), Olav Skar, director of health, safety, security, and wells at the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP), said, “I also see risks, and I remain concerned that we do not truly understand them.” Skar spoke at the ATCE on a panel that included Mohamed Kermoud, Schlumberger’s global vice president for HSE, and Philippe Herve, the vice president of energy solutions at Spark-Cognition. The panel was moderated by Josh Etkind, Shell’s Gulf of Mexico digital transformation manager. “A lot of power is in the technology,” Herve said. “The technology is beautiful. How we as humans are going to apply it, we need to think about it. We are thinking about all of the good things that the technology is bringing to humanity. Let’s keep it that way and remove all of the applications of artificial intelligence technology that may not be well perceived or beneficial to anybody.” An early target for digitization in oil and gas, driving has been the most dangerous HSE activity for employees. The IOGP claims that land-transportation-related incidents historically have been the largest cause of fatalities for its member companies. Since 2000, such incidents have accounted for 22% of all work-related fatalities reported by IOGP members. Schlumberger’s approach to driving safety was outlined in a paper presented at the 2020 SPE International Conference and Exhibition on Health, Safety, Environment, and Sustainability, a synopsis of which appeared in the August 2020 issue of JPT (http://go.spe.org/_01104-1542r). Schlumberger’s approach to improving driver safety includes an advanced driver-assistance system that alerts drivers of maximum speed limits, lane departures, and the proximity of pedestrians and other vehicles. The goal of the system is to effect good driver behavior. “If you analyze all the data, all the incidents, you find that behavior is always behind it,” Schlumberger’s Kermoud said. “People are trying to save time, to save the day. … The rules are generally perfect, but the behavior is something that we absolutely need to make sure that we impact one way or the other. And using technology will help us.”

Nordic Cooperation in the Nuclear Safety Sector: High, Low, or Differentiated Integration?

Nordic cooperation has been depicted as eroding due to the increased importance of EU-related cooperation and integration. However, scholars propose that longstanding Nordic networks, grounded in professions and located in the state administration, may prove to be more robust toward external changes. This article discusses this proposal by looking at Nordic cooperation between the national radiation protection and nuclear safety authorities in Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The article maps behavioural perceptions of agency staff based on a dataset of 37 interviews to illustrate if the cooperation between the Nordic authorities is characterized by high integration, low integration, or differentiated integration within the nuclear safety sector. The study finds that the cooperation is differentiated between the highly integrated areas of radiation protection and emergency preparedness, and the less integrated areas of nuclear security and safeguards. To account for variation, the data indicates the importance of path dependency and portfolio.

EC announces actions to increase security and sustainability of Europe's raw materials supply.

Currently, the coronavirus crisis is leading many parts of the world to look critically at how they organize their supply chains, especially where public safety or strategic sectors are concerned. In September, the European Commission (EC) released its “Action Plan on Critical Raw Materials,” the “2020 List of Critical Raw Materials,” and a foresight study on critical raw materials for strategic technologies and sectors from the 2030 and 2050 perspectives. The Action Plan looks at the current and future challenges and proposes actions to reduce Europe's dependency on third countries, diversifying supply from both primary and secondary sources, and improving resource efficiency and circularity while promoting responsible sourcing worldwide.

The Pearl River Declaration: a timely call for enhancing health security through fostering a regional one health collaboration in the Asia-Pacific

The Second International Symposium on One Health Research (ISOHR) was held in Guangzhou city, China on 23–24 November 2019. A transdisciplinary collaborative approach, One Health (OH), was the central theme of the symposium which brought together more than 260 experts, scholars and emerging researchers from human health, veterinary health, food safety, environmental health and related disciplines and sectors. More than 50 organizations including World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control (USA), and Queensland Government (Australia) participated in the symposium. Scholars, experts and emerging researchers, policy-makers and practitioners in their respective fields delivered over 50 presentations at the symposium, highlighting the collective vulnerability to some of the emerging health challenges the region was combating. These included emerging infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, climate change, food safety and the growing burden of non-communicable diseases. The Pearl River Declaration, emanated from the symposium, called for establishing a One Health Cooperation Network in the Southeast Asia–Pacific region with a vision to strengthen regional health security through sharing each other’s knowledge and experience, and making investments in workforce development, scientific innovations such as vaccine research and development, sharing epidemic intelligence, risk identification, risk communication and appropriate response measures against emerging health threats.

Conceptual principles of the strategic planning in the field of safety of state boundary of Ukraine

Conceptual principles of the strategic planning are set forth in the field of safety of state boundary of Ukraine, that include the concept of the strategic planning in the field of safety of state boundary, her aim, principles and model. Origin of the new threats of national safety, related to "hybrid" aggression of Russian against Ukraine, to temporal occupation by her Crimea, kindling of the armed conflict in the east regions of Ukraine, realization of the events sent to destabilization of political and economic situation in Ukraine, development of terrorism and by the threat of his distribution territory of Ukraine, transformations that take place in the sector of safety and defensive stipulated an urgent requirement in a revision and determination of new aims, priorities and tasks on development frontier organization Ukraine, and also revision existent strategic document. In addition, the necessity of creation of the new system of defence of border appeared with Russian and other contiguous states as a guarantee of state sovereignty and providing of national safety, introductions of the European standards of the integrated management by borders.Determination of concept, principles, aim and model of the strategic planning in the field of safety of state boundary of Ukraine offers authors. In the context of this research, under providing of safety of state boundary of Ukraine the process of defence of national interests is understood on a state boundary, and also, making the systems of providing of national safety.For today, strategic planning in the field of safety of state boundary of Ukraine, as the mechanism of state administration, sent to providing of counteraction to the present and potential threats of national safety, that comes true in interests a frontier department, other law enforcement authorities and soldiery forming, and also executive, enterprises, establishments and organizations activity of that is related to national safety bodies.

Smart Wrist Band for Women Safety

It has become quite difficult for today girls to move freely on streets. This has become a constant matter of worry and safety regarding their safety. There has been a tremendous increase the harassments against women these days. 54%of all the harassments registered are women harassments. We can’t change the society but we can increase the security of girls. This proposed system for women consists of a wearable safety device which operates with sos button. This project is built using raspberry pi, GSM module and GSM modem. The sos button is provided in the band. If women get into any trouble, then if she presses sos button then the message is sent to registered mobile number. The message along with the location details is sent to the already registered mobile numbers and other emergency contacts. The location of the user is tracked using GPS. The LCD display will display the status of the project. This tracking system is a combination of raspberry pi, GPS receiver and GSM modem. The GPS receiver receives the location data from the satellite in the form of latitude and longitude. When a person presses the sos button, the raspberry pi processor processes this information and send it to the predefined registered mobile numbers through GSM modem. This research work can be applied in the safety sector for women. It reduces the crime rate against women to a major extent.

Risk analysis of Chongqing urban rail transit network

Urban rail network safety is a critical sector of urban public safety. However, there is no uniform standard for the safety evaluation of the urban rail network. This paper presents a novel methodology by integrating a multilevel decision tree with a fuzzy analytical approach to enhance urban rail network safety. The proposed methodology overcomes serious limitations such as subjectivity in the data and independence of the variables in decision-making processes. The proposed methodology is applied to the risk evaluation of the selected Chongqing rail transit lines and the Expo Line. The risk analysis is considered using the field data collected from these transit lines. The applied case studies confirm the general applicability of the methodology and the multilevel decision tree network. The main risk factors identified for the Chongqing rail traffic system are the terrorist threat, emergency management, and aging infrastructure which need to be investigated as a priority to mitigate risk associated with these infrastructures.

Perspective of Printed Solid‐State Ion Sensors toward High Sensitivity and Selectivity

Ion‐selective field‐effect transistors (ISFETs) are integrated device systems with transistors and ion‐selective electrodes. The printed ISFET's sensing mechanisms are discussed. Then, different sensitive membranes linked with ISFETs are highlighted. To achieve high sensitivity and selectivity of ISFETs, various printing methods have been introduced recently. The real‐time monitoring sensing applications, such as ion detection in health, food safety, and environmental sectors, are discussed with the highlight on the biological applications for the cost‐efficient detection of DNA molecules. Finally, the challenges of the ISFETs are considered and illustrated with the proposed perspectives.