Threat Management Research Articles

Using In Situ Simulation to Identify Latent Safety Threats in Emergency Medicine: A Systematic Review.

This review aimed to explore existing literature on the use of in situ simulation to identify latent safety threats in emergency medicine. Studies were required to take place in a clinically active emergency department and have either a primary or secondary aim of identifying latent safety threats. A total of 2921 articles were retrieved through database searches and a total of 15 were deemed to meet the inclusion criteria.Latent safety threats were detected by a variety of methods including documentation during debrief/discussion (66%), during the simulation itself (33%), participant surveys (20%), and video analysis (20%). Using a multimodality approach with input from observers and participants from different professional backgrounds yielded the highest number of threats per simulation case (43 per case). Equipment was the most commonly reported threat (83%), followed by teamwork/communication (67%). Some studies did not report on mitigation of identified risks; formal processes should be implemented for the management of latent safety threats identified by in situ simulation. Future research should focus on translational outcomes to further strengthen the position of in situ simulation in emergency medicine.

Modern views on the problem of antifungal resistance of strains of fungi of the genera Fusarium and Aspergillus in the context of the concept of One Health

the «One Health» concept integrates human, animal and environmental health and emphasizes the need for collaboration between different sectors such as medicine, veterinary medicine, ecology, public health and other sciences to achieve greater understanding and management of common health threats. This concept arose from the realization that many diseases, including infectious diseases, cancer and mental disorders, have common roots related to the state of the ecosystem. For example, the spread of infectious diseases can be caused by climate changes, loss of biodiversity, inappropriate use of antibiotics, xenobiotics, and other factors. In addition, pathogens of animal diseases can also acquire pathogenic properties and pose a threat to public health. «One Health» implements such an approach to health, which instead of the traditional vertical approach is system-oriented, it encourages comprehensive actions to prevent and control disease at different levels. This approach includes comprehensive medical diagnostics, monitoring, research and coordination, as well as strengthening cooperation between scientists, doctors, veterinarians, ecologists and other specialists. Undoubtedly, an important issue in the context of the implementation of the «One Health» concept is the study of the formation of resistance to antifungal drugs in microscopic fungi, including representatives of the genera Fusarium and Aspergillus. The ratio of natural to artificial resistance can be highly variable among different fungal strains, even within the same species or genus. This is due to the genetic diversity of fungi and their ability to mutate and adapt to new conditions. Considering these factors, it is important to constantly monitor the resistance of mycelial fungi to antifungal drugs and detect the emergence of new resistant strains. This will make it possible to use antimicrobials correctly and provide effective treatment.

Beyond detection: Uncovering unknown threats

Threat management is essential for ensuring an organisation’s security, but traditional strategies often only address known threats, leaving the organisation vulnerable to unknown threats. To be well equipped against advanced cyberattacks, a proactive approach beyond detection that uncovers unknown and emerging threats is necessary. This paper proposes a comprehensive approach to threat management involving the partnership between the threat detection, threat hunting, threat intelligence and threat exposure teams. Various approaches for hunting unknown threats are explored, including simulation, forensics, threat modelling, incident pivoting, deception, and a process to hunt once and automate. Insights detailed in this paper will also help organisations make informed decisions on resources and practices around threat hunting. The proposed strategy emphasises the need for a proactive and iterative approach to threat management, allowing organisations to stay ahead of adversaries and be prepared for unknown threats.

The Impact of Capital Structure on the Operational Efficiency of Commercial Banks Listed on the Australian Stock Exchange

Profitability serves as one of the determinants of both capital structure and stock returns in Australia. This paper looks at bank specific profitability. Researchers take into consideration two actions of financial institution performance: bank productivity (determined as profits separated by properties), and financial institution passion margins (measured as web interest income split by assets). It is commonplace to highlight that in order for a company to have the needed sources in regards to properties, they need to elevate the capital. The years given that the onset of the global financial situation has actually brought about significant architectural adjustments in the financial sector. The crisis revealed considerable weaknesses in the financial system of Australia as well as the prudential framework, bring about too much financing and also risk-taking unsupported by ample capital as well as liquidity buffers. The impacts of the crisis have taxed financial growth, monetary stability and also financial institution performance in several territories including in Australia, although the headwinds have begun to subside. Technical adjustment, increased non-bank competitors as well as changes in globalization are still broader ecological difficulties facing the financial system. Regulators have reacted to the crisis by reforming the international prudential structure and improving supervision. The study was a literature based in which literature from far and wide were reviewed to derive study themes. The findings revealed that Banks in Australia have boosted their durability to future risks by significantly accumulating funding and also liquidity barriers. The boosted use anxiety testing by banks and also managers since the situation additionally attends to greater strength on a positive basis, which ought to aid support credit circulations in excellent as well as hard times. Furthermore, progressed economic situation financial institutions have moved to even more stable funding resources and also purchased more secure as well as less complex assets. Several of these changes may be driven partly by intermittent aspects, such as accommodative monetary policy, and also hence may lessen as conditions transform. Qualitative evidence indicates that financial institutions have significantly enhanced their threat management and also internal control practices. Although these modifications are tough to analyze, scientists point to substantial range for further enhancements, in particular because of the inherent unpredictability regarding the future development of risks. The research concludes that the financial obligation ratios make contrast of the overall debt with the complete properties owned by the company and a low proportion shows that a company depends much less on debt while a high percentage suggests that a firm count a lot more on financial debt money. The findings of this research study have important policy implications on the individual banks in Australia, the industry and the macro levels. Since most of the reviewed studies found a negative correlation between the financial leverage and the firms value, the research study recommend that bank financial managers should decrease the finance leverage they employ in their capital structure in order to increase firms value. Keywords: Capital, Structure, Productivity, Listed, Commercial, Banks, Australia.

Biocontrol-based strategies for improving soil health and managing plant-parasitic nematodes in coffee production.

Coffee is an important commodity for Kenya, where production is steadily declining, despite a global rise in demand. Of the various constraints affecting production, plant-parasitic nematodes are a significant, but often overlooked, threat. As a perennial crop, treating plantations once infected with nematodes becomes difficult. The current study evaluated the drenching application of two biocontrol agents, Trichoderma asperellum and Purpureocillium lilacinum, for their nematode control efficacy, as well as their impact on the soil nematode community structure on mature, established coffee trees in Kenya. Seven Arabica coffee field trials were conducted over two years on trees of various ages. All the fields were heavily infested with Meloidogyne hapla, the first report of the species on coffee in Kenya. Both fungal biocontrol agents were detected endophytically infecting roots and recovered from soil but not until six months after initial applications. The population densities of M. hapla had significantly declined in roots of treated trees 12 months after the initial application, although soil nematode density data were similar across treatments. Based upon the maturity index and the Shannon index, treatment with T. asperellum led to improved soil health conditions and enrichment of diversity in the microbial community. Application of P. lilacinum, in particular, led to an increased abundance of fungivorous nematodes, especially Aphelenchus spp., for which P. lilacinum would appear to be a preferred food source. The soils in the trials were all stressed and denuded, however, which likely delayed the impact of such treatments or detection of any differences between treatments using indices, such as the functional metabolic footprint, over the period of study. A longer period of study would therefore likely provide a better indication of treatment benefits. The current study positively demonstrates, however, the potential for using biologically based options for the environmentally and climate-smart management of nematode threats in a sustainable manner on established, mature coffee plantations.

A Case Report on Complex Polytrauma with Multiple Complications

Polytrauma involving injury to multiple organ systems poses tremendous challenges in emergency management and long term recovery. Averting disastrous complications while managing life-threatening conditions frequently requires painful judgements that weigh delivering prompt definitive treatment of any specific problem against cautious, step-by-step management of the entire frail system of patient care. This case report aims to convey the challenges inherent to polytrauma through injury to multiple organ systems simultaneously. Prevention of the worst fate remains the sole definition of success, attained not through perfection but persistence. Though complex, diligent management of threats is possible through a continuum of care. Monitoring entire systems, not individual tissues or limbs alone, determines the difference between loss and preserved ability. This complex case of traumatic leg fractures in a patient with uncontrolled hypertension and bradycardia highlights the challenges of surgical management in such cases. Despite hours of cardiovascular resuscitation, pharmacologic control of blood pressure and pacemaker placement, delayed healing of the fractures and development of post-traumatic stress disorder with severe anxiety and insomnia occurred. This case emphasizes the importance of vigilance, coordination of specialists, willingness to delay procedures when stability cannot be achieved pharmacologically and diligence in post-operative monitoring for complications. The patient continues rehabilitation and close follow-up aims to maximize function and manage health issues to prevent future catastrophic events.

Predictive policing and negotiations of (in)formality: Exploring the Swiss case

Predictive policing, that is, the data-driven deployment of police operations on the ground, has become increasingly important in recent years. While predictive policing instruments serve to formalise the ways in which police think and operate, the human agent remains central to their exploitation and translation into strategic, operational, and tactical decision-making. The introduction of predictive policing instruments and methods therefore represents a particularly insightful terrain on which to analyse negotiations of formality and informality. How this plays out in the Swiss context will be addressed in this paper. Based on a review of documents and policies on predictive policing developments and exploratory interviews conducted with police officers and developers, we discuss how institutions and actors engage with predictive policing and what this tells us about the formalisation, respectively informalisation of police work. Our findings point to the challenges related to the federalist organisation of police in Switzerland and the growing importance of cantonal threat management (Bedrohungsmangement) platforms. We also note a general lack of awareness regarding the potentially harmful outcomes of predictive policing instruments, which may be related to a specifically Helvetic narrative that downplays the impact these instruments have on decision-making.

Combining Drones and Deep Learning to Automate Coral Reef Assessment with RGB Imagery

Coral reefs and their associated marine communities are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic climate change. A key step in the management of climate threats is an efficient and accurate end-to-end system of coral monitoring that can be generally applied to shallow water reefs. Here, we used RGB drone-based imagery and a deep learning algorithm to develop a system of classifying bleached and unbleached corals. Imagery was collected five times across one year, between November 2018 and November 2019, to assess coral bleaching and potential recovery around Lord Howe Island, Australia, using object-based image analysis. This training mask was used to develop a large training dataset, and an mRES-uNet architecture was chosen for automated segmentation. Unbleached coral classifications achieved a precision of 0.96, a recall of 0.92, and a Jaccard index of 0.89, while bleached corals achieved 0.28 precision, 0.58 recall, and a 0.23 Jaccard index score. Subsequently, methods were further refined by creating bleached coral objects (>16 pixels total) using the neural network classifications of bleached coral pixels, to minimize pixel error and count bleached coral colonies. This method achieved a prediction precision of 0.76 in imagery regions with >2000 bleached corals present, and 0.58 when run on an entire orthomosaic image. Bleached corals accounted for the largest percentage of the study area in September 2019 (6.98%), and were also significantly present in March (2.21%). Unbleached corals were the least dominant in March (28.24%), but generally accounted for ~50% of imagery across other months. Overall, we demonstrate that drone-based RGB imagery, combined with artificial intelligence, is an effective method of coral reef monitoring, providing accurate and high-resolution information on shallow reef environments in a cost-effective manner.

The costs of managing key threats to Australia's biodiversity

Abstract Budgeting for biodiversity conservation requires realistic estimates of threat abatement costs. However, data on threat management costs are often unavailable or unable to be extrapolated across relevant locations and scales. Conservation expenditure largely occurs without a priori cost estimates of management activities and is not recorded in ways that can inform future budgets or cost‐effective management decisions. We provided transparent, broadly applicable cost models for 18 Threat Abatement Strategies aimed at managing the processes threatening Australia's biodiversity. We defined the actions required to implement each strategy and used a consistent structure to classify costs of labour, travel, consumables and equipment. We drew upon expert knowledge and published literature to parameterise each model, estimating the implementation cost of each strategy across the Australian continent, accounting for spatial variables such as threat presence, terrain, and travel distance. Estimated annualised costs for the threat abatement strategies varied considerably between strategies and across Australia, ranging from $24 to $879,985 per km2 ($0.24–$8880 per ha). On average, labour was the largest cost component (49%), followed by consumables (37%), travel (13%) and equipment (2%). Based on national scale variables and assumptions, cost estimates across Australia for each threat abatement strategy ranged from +44% and −33% of the most common cost estimate. Policy implications. We provide a consistent and transparent approach to budgeting for threat abatement strategies, aiming to improve conservation planning processes, outcomes, and reporting across Australia. In addition, understanding the budget required to achieve threat management outcomes can aid revenue‐raising and target setting. The models, cost layers and estimates we generate provide the basis for a nationally consistent approach for estimating and recording the cost of biodiversity management strategies, which should be continually updated and improved with local‐scale information over time.

The Mazarrón II Wreck (Murcia, Spain). Management of human and natural threats

The two Phoenician shipwrecks, Mazarrón I and Mazarrón II, discovered in 1988 and 1994 respectively, are highly significant remains of underwater archaeology. While Mazarrón I has been lifted and transferred to the ARQUA Museum in Cartagena, Mazarrón II has remained in situ, protected by a metal structure and meshes placed on the sediments. However, monitoring has shown that the structures are probably deteriorating as a result of human action. A project is planned to safely extract the wreck in order to display it in the ARQUA Museum in the future.

Towards a Secure Fog-Computing Cyber Space: A Bayesian Game-Theoretic Risk Management Framework

Cyber security is one of the most difficult and fast-growing concerns today's enterprises are focusing on. The practice of reducing potentially damaging and unknown events that pose a danger to cyber security is known as cyber security risk management. The Game Theoretic Approach is a popular cyber security risk or threat management strategy (GTA). This study provides a paradigm for cybersecurity risk or threat handling based on a game-theoretic approach to Fog computing, which will encourage proactive cyber risk management and improve cyber-operational efficiency/effectiveness. The method is written in such a way that the PyQt4 framework acts as a shield for the Fog server, performing inline packet inspection and logging any malicious packets to the console and a database on the server using Snort. The study proposes a Bayesian game model for risk management in the cyber domain.

COVID-19 and the Indian healthcare scenario

Background: The Indian economy and health system has been shaken to the core by the sudden strike of the COVID-19 pandemic. The already fragile and underequipped public health system reeled under the pressure of escalating cases of infection and demand for hospitalization of critical and emergency cases of COVID. Although the private healthcare sector worked in sync with the public counterpart and provided adequate support for case management, the former is not expected to play the primary role when it comes to a public health crisis like COVID-19. The study attempts to explore the pattern of utilization of the existing health system by Indian households in the event of general illness, which is expected to throw some light on the mechanism for devising an optimal public-private mix for management of COVID or similar public health threats in future. Methods: The study was exploratory and based on secondary data. It employs unit level data from NFHS-4 (2015-16) besides published reports and documents. Results: Health insurance coverage is low among households belonging to the lowest wealth quintile. Inequalities in access to quality health care coupled with spiraling health costs due to COVID and falling incomes continue to push such vulnerable households into poverty and debt. Conclusions: Public expenditure on health should be increased with a shift in focus from curative to preventive care.

Prussian Blue Sensor for Bacteria Detection in Personal Protection Clothing.

Biological hazards can be defined as substances that endanger the life of any living organism, most notably humans, and are often referred to as biohazards. Along with the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), early detection of contact is essential for the correct management and resolution of a biological threat, as well as lower mortality rates of those exposed. Herein, Prussian blue (PB) was evaluated as a functional compound applied on polyester knits to act as an on-site sensor for bacteria detection. In order to study the best compound concentration for the intended application, polymeric solutions of 0.5, 1 and 2 g/L were developed. The three conditions tested displayed high abrasion resistance (>2000 cycles). The bacterial sensing capacity of the coated knits was assessed in liquid and solid medium, with the functionalised substrates exhibiting the capability of detecting both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and changing colours from blue to white. Evaluation of water repellence and chemical penetration resistance and repellence was also performed in polyester functionalised with PB 0.5 and 1 g/L. Both knits showed a hydrophobic behaviour and a capacity to resist to penetration of chemicals and level 3 repellence effect for both acid and base chemicals.

Emotions and securitisation: a new materialist discourse analysis

In this article, I explore how pride as a collective emotion is ontologically bound to the securitisation of energy and put forward an innovative method that engages materiality and discourse in securitisation theory. I examine the case of energy securitisation in Azerbaijan to show that collective pride is anchored to materialisations and reiterative identity discourses that stick to energy sites and align with the nation in ways that fit with the coercive and controlling nature of securitisation. While the existing literature on emotions and securitisation engages with the process of threat construction and focuses on the audience’s affective experience, I approach securitisation as threat construction and threat management and locate the affective dimension of the process in a transversal space that considers the affective experience of the audience alongside that of the securitising actor. This article pays considerable attention to methods and introduces an experimental new materialist discourse analysis, which accounts for the material, affective and non-human world exerting an agential force on the texts.

"Do No Harm": Promoting Anti-Racist Policing in Pediatric Emergency Departments Through 20 Practice Change Considerations.

Children represent some of the most vulnerable and most valuable members of society. When acutely ill or injured, pediatric emergency departments (EDs) provide first line, specialized care for children and adolescents. Unique and unpredictable, the pediatric ED environment requires a wide range of health care professionals to care for children and their families and often includes hospital-employed security professionals and local law enforcement personnel to ensure safe and protective spaces paramount for optimal patient care. However, an active policing presence within environments designed to promote healing can paradoxically contribute to harm, particularly for Black and Brown patients. As health care systems pledge to dismantle structural racism and achieve health equity, efforts must include anti-racist reforms of threat management systems within clinical environments. We propose assessment and evaluation of current security and police encounters within pediatric EDs. We call for institution of policies that mitigate biases, address medical mistrust, distinguish clinical from criminal aggression, and minimize punitive contact with police. We outline a multitiered, patient-centered approach to disruptive and violent acts that prioritizes prevention, early intervention, and de-escalation strategies with a goal of reducing the perceived need for policing presence in pediatric EDs.

The EU’s resilience and the management of hybrid threats coming from the Eastern neighbourhood: Belarus and the deliberate facilitation of irregular immigration

Taking into consideration the current developments as regards the intensification of the irregular movement of third country nationals at the EU’s border with Belarus, this paper sets as its main objective to assess the resilience building measures that were taken at the level of the affected Member States and that of the EU in order to manage the newly emerged border crisis. It is being argued that we are not dealing with an ordinary migration crisis, but a deliberate act of the Belarusian regime to instrumentalise migrants from the Middle East for political purposes. The research presents the facilitation of irregular immigration in a dual nexus, firstly as a hybrid warfare tool, and secondly, as a shock/stress factor disturbing the system or the prevalent status quo. After presenting the statistics on the modification of the illegal border-crossings between Belarus and the EU in the 2021-2022 period, we shall attempt to briefly analyse the resilience building measures to the hybrid threat of weaponizing migrants that were taken at both Community and Member State level, by grouping them in five resilience building categories: political/legal, institutional, inter-institutional, regulatory and societal.

Management of threats to the financial stability of enterprises in interactive mode

The article states that during the years of independence, the energy sector has gone through a thorny path of trial and error, since at the initial stages of its formation, Ukrainian energy enterprises did not have sufficient knowledge and practical skills in managing financial sustainability. Today, their experience is much more extensive, enriched by new knowledge and approaches. However, in terms of financial sustainability management, they still cannot compete with energy companies in Western countries, where such management has been carried out for decades and in an interactive mode according to the concept of “dual materiality” – a symbiosis of financial materiality and sustainability. It is emphasised that financial materiality is a qualitative characteristic of the financial condition of enterprises and, of course, one of the main components of their economic security. Its research and operational management is carried out in an interactive mode, and the experience in digital structuring of reporting data is of some value for Ukrainian enterprises. It is emphasised that Ukraine still does not have a national Taxonomy for digital structuring of enterprise reporting data by “double materiality”, and the implementation of the EU Taxonomy in the national practice requires some time to implement it, so in order to promptly manage threats to the financial stability of enterprises, it is advisable, first of all, to modify the methodology for their rating assessment. Based on the requests of stakeholders, the methodology for rating threats to the financial sustainability of energy sector enterprises has been modified. The results of testing the proposed methodological approach to assessing threats to the financial stability of energy enterprises, based on the materials of leading energy companies in Ukraine, are highlighted. The levels of financial threats, existing problems and their scale, as well as the possibility of minimising their impact on the financial condition of enterprises are determined. It is substantiated that the application by enterprises of the proposed methodological approach to assessing threats to financial stability will allow to specify measures aimed at ensuring the management of their financially sustainable development at the operational, tactical and strategic levels.

Adoption of Bio-Security Threats Management Practices and Food Security among Arable Farmers in South-West, Nigeria

Adoption of Bio-Security Threats Management Practices and Food Security among Arable Farmers in South-West, Nigeria

Identifying freshwater priority areas for cross-taxa interactions

Information about biotic interactions (e.g. competition, predation, parasitism, diseases, mutualism, allelopathy) is fundamental to better understand species distribution and abundance, ecosystem functioning, and ultimately guide conservation efforts. However, conservation planning often overlooks these important interactions. Here, we aim to demonstrate a new framework to include biotic interactions into Marxan. For that, we use freshwater mussels and fish interaction (as mussels rely on fishes to complete their life cycle) in the Douro River basin (Iberian Peninsula) as a case study. While doing that, we also test the importance of including biotic interactions into conservation planning exercises, by running spatial prioritisation analysis considering either: 1) only the target species (freshwater mussels); 2) freshwater mussels and their obligatory hosts (freshwater fishes); 3) freshwater mussels, fishes and their interactions. With this framework we found that biotic interactions tend to be underrepresented when the data on both freshwater mussels and fishes is not simultaneously included in the spatial prioritisation. Overall, the priority areas selected across all scenarios are mostly located in the western part of the Douro River basin, where most freshwater mussels and fishes still occur. Given the low overlap of priority areas identified here and the current Natura 2000 network, our approach may be useful for establishing (or enlarging) protected areas, especially in light of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Also, this work may provide guidance for future habitat restoration and management of main threats to freshwater biodiversity.

Threat management priorities for conserving Antarctic biodiversity.

Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity faces multiple threats, from invasive species to climate change. Yet no large-scale assessments of threat management strategies exist. Applying a structured participatory approach, we demonstrate that existing conservation efforts are insufficient in a changing world, estimating that 65% (at best 37%, at worst 97%) of native terrestrial taxa and land-associated seabirds are likely to decline by 2100 under current trajectories. Emperor penguins are identified as the most vulnerable taxon, followed by other seabirds and dry soil nematodes. We find that implementing 10 key threat management strategies in parallel, at an estimated present-day equivalent annual cost of US$23 million, could benefit up to 84% of Antarctic taxa. Climate change is identified as the most pervasive threat to Antarctic biodiversity and influencing global policy to effectively limit climate change is the most beneficial conservation strategy. However, minimising impacts of human activities and improved planning and management of new infrastructure projects are cost-effective and will help to minimise regional threats. Simultaneous global and regional efforts are critical to secure Antarctic biodiversity for future generations.