Probability Of Spread Research Articles

Prediction of Occult Contralateral Nodal Metastasis in Surgical Treated p16 Negative Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

It is well known that p16 negative oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) has a high probability of spreading to the ipsilateral neck. However, no consensus exists as to whether to perform elective treatment for clinical nodal negative in contralateral neck. A total of 85 patients with p16 negative OPSCC who underwent primary tumor excision and bilateral neck dissections between 2005 and 2018 were analyzed retrospectively. Clinicopathologic variables were used to identify factors predicting occult contralateral nodal metastasis (OCNM). A nomogram was developed to assess the risk of OCNM and the model was validated internally by using bootstrap resampling. The overall prevalence of pathologically positive contralateral nodes was 30.6% (26/85) in our cohort, and the rate of OCNM was 18.3% (11/60). The presence of ipsilateral clinical extranodal extension (cENE) was significantly associated with contralateral neck metastasis (odds ratio, 5.662; 95% CI, 2.079-15.415) with increased risk of OCNM (odds ratio, 4.271; 95% CI, 1.045-17.458). Moreover, the concordance index of the proposed nomogram model without ipsilateral cENE was 0.623 and could increase to 0.717 with the inclusion of ipsilateral cENE in the calculation. The risk of OCNM in p16 negative OPSCC with ipsilateral cENE is notable. Ipsilateral cENE-based nomogram might assist in individual decision-making regarding contralateral nodal negative neck management and help avoid the over- and under-treatment of p16 negative OPSCC.

Variation in plant traits and phylogenetic structure associated with native and nonnative species in an industrialized flora

Industrialized sites are hotspots for nonnative species because of continuous anthropogenic disturbance and nonnative propagule rain resulting from hitchhikers exchanged through global trade. Investigating plant traits and the phylogenetic structure of species at initial ports of entry can contribute to our understanding of how species are introduced to, assembled into, and survive at industrialized sites, which can also inform how susceptible these sites are to nonnative plant invasions. To compare native and nonnative species, we asked three questions: 1) Are plant traits differentially associated with species nativity (native versus nonnative)? (2) Do these traits have phylogenetic signals? and (3) What is the phylogenetic structure of each trait for native and nonnative species? We collected, identified, and vouchered 170 angiosperm species within the Garden City Terminal at the Port of Savannah, Georgia, USA, the largest container terminal in North America. Species nativity was derived from the literature, as were traits of pollination syndrome, dispersal syndrome, duration, and growth habit. Pearson’s Chi-squared tests were used to determine if traits were differentially associated with species nativity. Phylogenetic signal, along with mean pairwise distance (MPD) and mean nearest taxon distance (MNTD), were used to assess the degree of phylogenetic relatedness of native and nonnative species with each trait. Nonnative species showed a significant association with multiple pollination syndromes. Native species were significantly associated with perennial duration and zoophily pollination syndrome. All traits possessed a phylogenetic signal, and the anemophily pollination syndrome was significantly clustered for both native and nonnative species. Still, most other traits differed in their phylogenetic structure pattern based on the nativity. Overall, findings suggest that the environment is filtering for native and nonnative species that possess traits promoting introduction and survival at this industrialized point-of-entry. They also suggest that nonnative species trait differences partition available niches that promote their introduction to the site. More research is needed at industrialized sites to inventory and monitor the floristic community, investigate the establishment and spread probabilities of nonnative species, and prevent and mitigate nonnative species risks and impacts.

Predicting the invasion risk of rugose spiraling whitefly, Aleurodicus rugioperculatus, in India based on CMIP6 projections by MaxEnt.

Rugose spiraling whitefly (RSW), Aleurodicus rugioperculatus Martin, is a highly polyphagous invasive pest native to Central America. The occurrence of A. rugioperculatus in the Oriental region was first reported from Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, India in 2017. This pest is widely distributed in India, causing severe economic damage to coconut and other horticultural crops. It is a recent invasion in India and information on its potential distribution is lacking. Thus, in the present study we used the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) dataset through Maximum Entropy species distribution modelling (version 3.4.1, MaxEnt) to determine the potential distribution of RSW in present and future climate change scenarios in 2050 and 2070 under Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) 126 and SSP585 emission scenarios. The performance of the model was evaluated using the area under the curve (AUC), true skill statistics (TSS) and the continuous Boyce index (CBI). The MaxEnt model performed well and predicted the potential distribution of A. rugioperculatus with high-accuracy AUC values of 0.991 and 0.989, TSS values of 0.891 and 0.842, and CBI values of 0.972 and 0.934 for training and testing, respectively. Jackknife analysis revealed that A. rugioperculatus distribution was mostly influenced by temperature-based bioclimatic variables contributing 62.1% of the suitability, with precipitation variables contributing the remainder. The most important bioclimatic variables for RSW distribution were annual mean temperature (Bio 1, 28.9%) followed by mean diurnal range (Bio 2, 19.5%) and annual precipitation (Bio 12, 19.1). Potential suitable areas for RSW establishment were mostly found in all coastal and southern states of India. A. rugioperculatus prefers a warm and humid climate, indicating that the tropics, subtropics and temperate regions are ideal for its spread and invasion. Our results highlighted that the suitable habitat area for A. rugioperculatus is predicted to increase and highest probability of invasion and spread in 2050 and 2070 under future climate change scenarios of SSP126 and SSP585 compared to present climatic conditions. This is the first study to use the latest CMIP6 models and it predicts the potential distribution of RSW in India under present and future climate change scenarios. The implementation of strict domestic quarantine measures may prevent the spread and damage of RSW to noncoastal regions of India. The results of the current study should help in timely monitoring and surveillance of RSW and to formulate integrated pest management strategies at the national level to restrict its spread, invasion and damage to new areas. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Hands-free printed door opener to limit the spread of Coronavirus: Design through topology optimization

Recently, the necessity of reducing the probability of spread of viruses has fostered the creativity of engineers to develop tools that would allow actions of every-day life to be executed differently. Moreover, the maturity of the Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology and the associated low costs has allowed creative solutions to be produced and used in real-life applications. A distinctive example is represented by the common action of opening a door. Since hands are a typical vector of contamination for viruses such as Coronavirus, hands-free devices aim at making use of the existing structure and kinematic to complete the same action in a different fashion. Typically, the mechanical and manufacturing requirements of these devices include a suitable stiffness-to-mass ratio, a reduced printing time as well as the minimization of supports which need to be removed in a post-printing phase. To tackle all these requirements a dedicated topology optimization (TO) method can be used since the preliminary design phase. Several design requirements of different nature can be included in the problem formulation: mechanical ones, like mass and stiffness, and manufacturing ones, like drawing direction or minimum member size. In this paper, a feasibility study on a hands-free 3D printed door opener has been carried out by means of the Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP) method for TO and its CAD-compatible variant, i.e., the SIMP approach reformulated in the framework of non-uniform rational basis spline hyper-surfaces. The aim of the study is to identify optimal solutions to be adapted to a real-case scenario wherein different loading cases and manufacturing constraints are evaluated. Different optimal solutions are obtained, reconstructed to be compatible with CAD environment and the optimized geometry numerically assessed. Finally, the optimal solutions are also evaluated with respect to indicators such as printing time, total filament mass and mass of the supports required by the printing process.

Identifying influential nodes in complex networks based on spreading probability

The identification of node importance is a challenging topic in network science, and plays a critical role in understanding the structure and function of networks. Various centrality methods have been proposed to define the influence of nodes. However, most existing works do not directly use the node propagation capacity for measuring the importance of nodes. Moreover, those methods do not have a high enough ability to distinguish nodes with minor differences, and are not applicable to a wide range of network types. To address the issues, we first define a method to calculate the propagation capability of nodes and divide the nodes in the network into an infected source and the uninfected nodes. The propagation capability of a source node is calculated from the probability that uninfected nodes are infected by the source, either directly or indirectly. Based on measuring the propagation ability of each node in the network, we propose a novel centrality method based on node spreading probability (SPC). Empirical analysis is performed by Susceptible–Infected–Recovered (SIR) model and static attacking simulation. We use six classical networks, and five typical methods to validate SPC. The results demonstrate that our method balances the measurement of node importance in the network connectivity and propagation structure with superior ability to discriminate nodes.

Spreading probability distribution and increase of entropy due to coherent quantum dynamics: Proof-of-principle for a model molecular boron rotor

Spreading of probability distributions and the corresponding increases of entropy are a familiar effect of everyday life. Here we show that the phenomenon can also be achieved by coherent quantum dynamics of a small molecular system, specifically the oriented boron rotor 11B10B@11B10B8-. Its molecular wheel 11B10B rotates in the pseudo-rotating bearing 11B10B8 so that it can snap in eighteen different positions which correspond to eighteen global minimum structures (GMs). After initial preparation of the rotor in a single GM, the subsequent quantum dynamics populates all other GMs. Accordingly, the distribution of the probabilities of occupying the GMs spreads, and the corresponding entropy increases. It does not climb to the maximum value, however, due to a quantum dynamical constraint imposed by molecular symmetry which prevents perfect equidistribution of all GMs.

Genetic algorithm based image reconstruction applying the digital holography process with the Discrete Orthonormal Stockwell Transform technique for diagnosis of COVID-19

World Health Organization has described the real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test method for the diagnosis of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). However, the limited number of test kits, the long-term results of the tests, the high probability of the disease spreading during the test and imaging without focused images necessitate the use of alternative diagnostic methods such as chest X-ray (CXR) imaging. The storage of data obtained for the diagnosis of the disease also poses a major problem. This causes misdiagnosis and delays treatment. In this work, we propose a hybrid 3D reconstruction method of CXR images (CXRI) to detect coronavirus pneumonia and prevent misdiagnosis on CXRI. We used the digital holography technique (DHT) for obtaining a priori information of CXRI stored in created digital hologram (CDH). In this way, the elimination of the storage problem that requires high space was revealed. In addition, Discrete Orthonormal S-Transform (DOST) is applied to the reconstructed CDH image obtained by using DHT. This method is called CDH_DHT_DOST. A multiresolution spatial-frequency representation of the lung images that belong to healthy people and diseased people with the COVID-19 virus is obtained by using the CDH_DHT_DOST. Moreover, the genetic algorithm (GA) is adopted for the reconstruction process for optimization of the CDH image and then DOST is applied. This hybrid method is called CDH_GA_DOST. Finally, we compare the results obtained from CDH_DHT_DOST and CDH_GA_DOST. The results show the feasibility of reconstructing CXRI with CDH_GA_DOST. The proposed method holds promises to meet demands for the detection of the COVID-19 virus.

Satellite Imagery-Based Identification of High-Risk Areas of Schistosome Intermediate Snail Hosts Spread after Flood

Snail intermediate host monitoring and control are essential for interrupting the parasitic disease schistosomiasis. Identifying large-scale high-risk areas of snail spread after floods has been greatly facilitated by remote sensing imagery. However, previous studies have usually assumed that all inundation areas carry snails and may have overestimated snail spread areas. Furthermore, these studies only used a single environmental factor to estimate the snail survival risk probability, failing to analyze multiple variables, to accurately distinguish the snail survival risk in the snail spread areas. This paper proposes a systematic framework for early monitoring of snail diffusion to accurately map snail spread areas from remote sensing imagery and enhance snail survival risk probability estimation based on the snail spread map. In particular, the flooded areas are extracted using the Sentinel-1 Dual-Polarized Water Index based on synthetic aperture radar images to map all-weather flooding areas. These flood maps are used to extract snail spread areas, based on the assumption that only inundation areas that spatially interacted with (i.e., are close to) the previous snail distribution regions before flooding are identified as snail spread areas, in order to reduce the misclassification in snail spread area identification. A multiple logistic regression model is built to analyze how various types of snail-related environmental factors, including the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), wetness, river and channel density, and landscape fractal dimension impact snail survival, and estimate its risk probabilities in snail spread area. An experiment was conducted in Jianghan Plain, China, where snails are predominantly linearly distributed along the tributaries and water channels of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The proposed method could accurately map floods under clouds, and a total area of 231.5 km2 was identified as the snail spread area. The snail survival risk probabilities were thus estimated. The proposed method showed a more refined snail spread area and a more reliable degree of snail survival risk compared with those of previous studies. Thus, it is an efficient way to accurately map all-weather snail spread and survival risk probabilities, which is helpful for schistosomiasis interruption.

Model-based inference of metastatic seeding rates in de novo metastatic breast cancer reveals the impact of secondary seeding and molecular subtype.

We present a stochastic network model of metastasis spread for de novo metastatic breast cancer, composed of tumor to metastasis (primary seeding) and metastasis to metastasis spread (secondary seeding), parameterized using the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) database. The model provides a quantification of tumor cell dissemination rates between the tumor and metastasis sites. These rates were used to estimate the probability of developing a metastasis for untreated patients. The model was validated using tenfold cross-validation. We also investigated the effect of HER2 (Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2) status, estrogen receptor (ER) status and progesterone receptor (PR) status on the probability of metastatic spread. We found that dissemination rate through secondary seeding is up to 300 times higher than through primary seeding. Hormone receptor positivity promotes seeding to the bone and reduces seeding to the lungs and primary seeding to the liver, while HER2 expression increases dissemination to the bone, lungs and primary seeding to the liver. Secondary seeding from the lungs to the liver seems to be hormone receptor-independent, while that from the lungs to the brain appears HER2-independent.

Gene dynamics of haplodiploidy favor eusociality in the Hymenoptera.

The problem of whether haplodiploidy is responsible for the frequent evolution of eusociality in the Hymenoptera remains unresolved. The little‐known “protected invasion hypothesis” posits that because a male will transmit a new allele for alloparental care to all his daughters under haplodiploidy, such an allele has a higher probability of spreading to fixation under haplodiploidy than under diploidy. This mechanism is investigated using the mating system and lifecycles ancestral to eusocial lineages. It is shown that although haplodiploidy increases the probability of fixation of a new allele, the effect is cancelled by a higher probability of the allele arising in a diploid population. However, the same effect of male haploidy results in a 30% lower threshold amount of reproductive help by a worker necessary to favor eusociality if the sex ratio of dispersing first‐brood offspring remains even. This occurs because when first‐brood daughters become workers, the sex ratio of dispersing first‐brood offspring becomes male‐biased, selecting for an overall female‐biased first‐brood sex ratio. Through this mechanism, haplodiploidy may favor eusociality in the absence of a female‐biased sex ratio in dispersing reproductive offspring. The gene‐centric approach used here reveals the critical role of male haploidy in structuring the social group.

Path-based multi-sources localization in multiplex networks

With the prosperity of modern technology, propagation phenomena of diverse information become universal nowadays. Nevertheless, spreading of malicious information will inevitably bring undesired harm or economic losses. These spreading phenomena are usually triggered by limited sources; therefore, it is of great significance to locate these sources to avoid further losses. With the emergence of various social platforms, social networks seem to be integrated. Hence, multiplex networks are desirable to mimic the properties of integrated social networks. Source localization problems on single-layer networks are studied by various scholars whereas less attention has been paid to corresponding problems on multiplex networks. Regarding this, we propose a source locating method in this manuscript, named path-based source localization on multiplex networks (PSLM). With the adoption of the source centrality theory, we apply a label iteration process in order to find nodes with the largest local labels which are regarded as the sources. Furthermore, high uncertainty of spreading path will be incurred by the low spreading probability. Aiming to address such uncertainty, observers are deployed in advance to record the spreading directions. Then, extensive experiments are performed on selected datasets and we find PSLM outperforms the existing ones. Moreover, we also study the effects of various factors on the locating accuracy and find that the locating accuracy improves with the increase of the inter-layer spreading rate.

Measurement of contagion spatial spread probability in public places: A case study on COVID-19

The scale and scope of the COVID-19 epidemic have highlighted the need for timely control of viral transmission. This paper proposed a new spatial probability model of epidemic infection using an improved Wasserstein distance algorithm and Monte Carlo simulation. This method identifies the public places in which COVID-19 spreads and grows easily. The Wasserstein Distance algorithm is used to calculate the distribution similarity between COVID-19 cases and the public places. Further, we used hypothesis tests and Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the spatial spread probability of COVID-19 in different public places. We used Snow's data to test the stability and accuracy of this measurement. This verification proved that our method is reliable and robust. We applied our method to the detailed geographic data of COVID-19 cases and public places in Wuhan. We found that, rather than financial service institutions and markets, public buildings such as restaurants and hospitals in Wuhan are 95 percent more likely to be the public places of COVID-19 spread.

Effects of Cognitive Dissonance Activation Emerged from Not Imposing Lockdown Restrictions on COVID-19-related Attitudes and Preventive Actions Considering the Role of Gender

Background: During the pandemic of COVID-19, some countries imposed lockdown restrictions on their cities to stop the outbreak of the virus. However, this mandatory lockdown was not imposed by all countries. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the induced-compliance situation generated by not imposing the lockdown restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals' COVID-19 perceived risk and practicing the World Health Organization preventive actions, considering the moderating role of gender. Methods: The research was conducted through a causal-comparative method. Participants were 320 social media users who were randomly selected to complete the justification of COVID-19 perceived risk and COVID-19 preventive action implementation questionnaires. Instruments' validity and reliability were confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis and Cronbach alpha. Results: The analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant interactive effects of gender and work attendance on the justification of COVID-19 perceived risk so that the highest rate of justification was applied by males who were required to attend their workplace physically. The ANOVA results showed the significant main effects of gender and work attendance on the action. Based on these findings, the lowest rate of preventive actions belonged to males and those who attended their workplace physically. Conclusions: It is concluded that not imposing the lockdown restrictions, other than its direct role in increasing social contacts and the probability of virus spread, also lowers preventive actions implementation. This could happen due to belief modification to eliminate the undesirable state of cognitive dissonance that emerged from the induced-compliance situations.

Agronomic practices preventing local outbreaks of rice yellow mottle virus disease revealed by spatial autoregressive analysis

Rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV) causes severe rice (Oryza sativa L.) yield loss. It has been endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar since 1966. Transmission (plant community level) and long-dispersal (regional and continental scale) models have been established but viral spread in farming communities continues, while the conditions causing local disease outbreaks remain unclear. We hypothesized that local outbreaks, comprising inter-plot virus spread and intra-plot disease aggravation, are significantly associated with individual farmers’ attributes and agronomic practices. To test this hypothesis, spatial autoregressive models were constructed using variables collected by visual observation and farmer interviews. Field surveys were conducted during four consecutive cropping seasons from 2011 to 2013 in the Lower Moshi Irrigation Scheme of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Our models detected spatial dependence in inter-plot virus spread, but not in intra-plot disease aggravation. The probability of inter-plot virus spread increased with use of the IR64 cultivar (26.9%), but decreased with straw removal (27.8%) and crop rotation (47.7%). The probability of intra-plot disease aggravation decreased with herbicide application (24.3%) and crop rotation (35.4%). A simple cost-benefit analysis suggested that inter-plot virus spread should be mitigated by cultivar replacement and straw removal. When disease severity is critical, intra-plot disease aggravation should be inhibited by herbicide application, and rice should be rotated with other crops. This is the first study to upscale the spatial autoregressive model from the experimental field level to the farming community level, by obtaining variables through easy-to-implement techniques such as visual observation and farmer interview. Our models successfully identified candidate agronomic practices for the control of RYMV. However, as the causal relationships between agronomic practices and RYMV outbreaks remain unknown, field trials are needed to develop robust control measures.

A graph theoretical approach to the firebreak locating problem

In the last decade, wildfires have become wider and more destructive. Climate change and the growth of urban areas are among the main factors that increase the risk of large-scale fires. This risk can be lowered with preventive measures. Among them, firefighting lines are used to stop the fire spread and to offer a safe corridor where firefighting resources can be deployed. Due to their high cost of installation and maintenance, the placement of these lines must be carefully planned. In this work, we address this problem from a theoretical perspective. The land is modeled by a mixed graph in which vertices represent areas subject to burn while edges model the possibility of fire spreading from one area to another. Vertices are associated with probabilities of ignition and edges with probabilities of spread. We consider the problem of positioning firefighting lines such that the risk is reduced under a budget constraint. We call this problem Firebreak Location. We study its complexity and prove in particular its NP-hardness even when the graph is planar, bipartite, with a maximum degree four and the probabilities of propagation are equal to one. Planarity and low degree are indeed natural properties of real instances. We also show an efficient polynomial time algorithm for particular instances on trees.

Identifying Influential Nodes in Complex Networks Based on Spreading Probability

Identifying Influential Nodes in Complex Networks Based on Spreading Probability

BURKHOLDERIA CARYOPHYLLI-POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS PATIENT OF BACTERIAL WITNESS IN FLORISTRY OF UKRAINE

To determine the harmfulness of the causative agent of bacterial wilt Burkholderia caryophylli for floriculture in Ukraine, to analyze the possibility and ways of getting this pathogen into our country. In preparing the article, general scientific methods were used: generalization, comparison, system analysis. The material for the analytical study was the data of the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organizations (EOPR), as well as data from the phytosanitary services of the EU and Ukraine, scientific literature. B. caryophylli causes bacterial wilt or bacterial cracking of stems on carnations, eustoma and pottery. This is a fairly heat- and cold-resistant bacterium (capable of actively infecting plants in the temperature range 17-33˚C) and can infect and stay in both the philosphere and rhizosphere of the plant. Cells are straight or slightly curved rods with rounded ends, single or paired cells. Aerobic, does not form disputes. Cells are motile with one or more flagella, gram negative. Oxidase-positive, do not form indole, H2S. Restores nitrates. Ferment glucose, inositol, argenin, xylose, ribose, rhamnose, sudan, dilute gelatin, do not hydrolyze starch. The main methods of research and identification are: visual, cultural-morphological and biochemical methods, IF, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and BOX-PCR. To date, there are no effective pesticides to kill B. caryophylli, so the only possible way to stop the spread of bacterial wilt is to remove and destroy infected plants, as well as to comply with phytosanitary measures. Thus, the causative agent of bacterial wilt of the carnation B. caryophylli is a quarantine object of the A-1 list in Ukraine and A-2 in the European and Mediterranean Plant Quarantine and Protection Organization. When imported into our country has a high probability of acclimatization and spread in floriculture in Ukraine

An Integrated Biosecurity Risk Assessment Model (IBRAM) For Evaluating the Risk of Import Pathways for the Establishment of Invasive Species.

An important aspect of analyzing the risk of unwanted organisms establishing in an area is understanding the pathways by which they arrive. Evaluating the risks of these pathways requires use of data from multiple sources, which frequently are uncertain. To address the needs of agencies responsible for biosecurity operations, we present an Integrated Biosecurity Risk Assessment Model (IBRAM) for evaluating the risk of establishment and dispersal of invasive species along trade pathways. The IBRAM framework consists of multiple linked models which describe pest entry into the country, escape along trade pathways, initial dispersal into the environment, habitat suitability, probabilities of establishment and spread, and the consequences of these invasions. Bayesian networks (BN) are used extensively to model these processes. The model includes dynamic BN components and geographic data, resulting in distributions of output parameters over spatial and temporal axes. IBRAM is supported by a web-based tool that allows users to run the model on real-world pest examples and investigate the impact of alternative risk management scenarios, to explore the effect of various interventions and resource allocations. Two case studies are provided as examples of how IBRAM may be used: Queensland fruit fly (Bactrocera tryoni) (Diptera: Tephritidae) and brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) are unwanted organisms with the potential to invade Aotearoa New Zealand, and IBRAM has been influential in evaluating the efficacy of pathway management to mitigate the risk of their establishment in the country.

Editorial December 2021

This issue of the EPPO Bulletin shows an important part of the work of EPPO; Regional Standards in the area of phytosanitary regulation to control invasive plant pests. These Standards have been developed by experts in EPPO Panels, were extensively discussed, comments received from EPPO countries were considered and, in the end, the Working Party approved the Standards and the EPPO Council endorsed them. This process is facilitated by the EPPO Secretariat but relies on contributions of experts from EPPO’s member countries and ensures that the Standards are implementable, reflect reality, support NPPOs and thereby contribute to a harmonized way of working. The EPPO Council approved in September 2021 too many Standards to have them all published in this issue of the Bulletin. The EPPO Standards on efficacy evaluation of plant protection products in the PP1 series and three PM8 Standards on commodity-specific measures for forestry species, approved by Council this year, will be published in the April 2022 issue of the Bulletin. These Standards are available via online early view at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/13652338/0/0. Moreover, EPPO’s Annual Report for 2020 in English is included, while the versions in French for 2020 and 2019 are available on the EPPO website, describing the whole range of EPPO’s work. The EPPO Standards in this issue include amongst others pest-specific Diagnostic Protocols, Standards for quality management and accreditation of laboratories, Standards on inspection of places of production and consignments of specific commodities and, a Standard on reducing the risk of soil from processing factories for potato cultivation. This latter Standard illustrates clearly how growers, processors and National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) can take their respective responsibility and can work together to reduce risks of returning soil to farms. The role of NPPOs remains crucial. Another interesting subject is covered by the new Standard in the PM5 series on the design and implementation of a buffer zone to minimize the probability of spread of a pest into or out of regulated areas. This Standard gives guidance to risk assessors and risk managers to assess what size of buffer zone is matching their needs and possibilities. Moreover, a revision on the Standard on biological control agents, to clarify the criteria to list biological control agents safely used in the EPPO region, and Standards on control of invasive alien plants are included. The article on the developments in the work area of invasive alien plants over the past ten years in Europe gives a good overview of the work done in Europe on assessing, controlling, preventing and regulating IAP and the role EPPO played in this. Furthermore, this issue continues to contribute to pest reporting by including several reports on first findings which are important to signal new or changed risks, e.g. of the giant date mealy bug and the bay sucker in Jordan, Drosophila suzukii in the Russian Caucasus and scale insects and mealy bugs in Kenya. EPPO continues to work with many experts inside and outside the EPPO region to support NPPOs in their work to prevent the introduction and spread of pests and to control them. We have greatly appreciated the efforts of all experts to continue to contribute to EPPO’s work remotely due to COVID-19 restrictions. EPPO is, however, looking forward to working together during physical meetings in the near future. This will enhance the formal and informal discussions and exchange of information and EPPO can fulfil its role as a platform to experts to strengthen and enlarge their network.

PM 5/10 (1) Guidelines on the design and implementation of a buffer zone

ScopeThis Standard provides general guidance on the use of buffer zones to minimize the probability of spread of a pest into or out of delimited areas. It is intended to be used by risk assessors and risk managers when they are conducting pest risk analysis or designing phytosanitary measures, including for contingency plans.Specific approvalThis Standard was first approved on 2021–09.