Threat Assessment Research Articles (Page 1)

Abstract What factors make aligned relationships possible, and how can we account for transformation of alignments? Alignment patterns and the durability of some aligned relationships above others have often raised questions about factors that influence cooperative arrangements. This article makes a twofold contribution by proposing a tentative process-centred alignment typology as an analytical tool and by empirically applying this tool to examine Sino–Russian alignment (1991–2024). Our conceptual typology differentiates among six primary alignment types: thin strategic partnerships, coalitions, thick strategic partnerships, alliances, non-allied security communities, and allied security communities. We propose that these types become possible due to varying compatibility between prospective or existing alignment partners in their assessment of threats, interpretations of identities, and status expectations. Our empirical analysis focuses on specific upgrades in the Sino–Russian relationship as presented by both states in 1996, 2001, 2011, and 2021 while also discussing more recent developments after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Abstract Wildfires are a growing threat to roadway infrastructure. While causing minimal direct damage, wildfires cause substantial indirect damage, including through post-fire debris flows (PFDFs), which occur when moderate intensity rainfall occurs over recently burned areas where soil has been destabilized. PFDFs damage pavement systems, block drains and culverts, and disrupt roadway services. Wildfire frequency and intensity and rainfall intensity are evolving with climate change, which may lead to increased PFDF threats. Public agencies managing roadways need tools to support decision-making that accounts for limited resources and appropriately mitigates fire and debris flow risk. While there have been targeted assessments of fire and PFDF threat in specific areas of Arizona, there is no comprehensive assessment of statewide threat. In this work, we create a statewide assessment of roadway vulnerability to wildfire and PFDFs in Arizona in current conditions and future climate scenarios. We use a state-of-the-art regression-based model to estimate debris flow likelihood on each roadway segment in the state. Our model adapts novel geological methods to assess PFDF threats and engineered infrastructure data to characterize roadway threats. PFDF threat is affected by terrain ruggedness, burn intensity, soil characteristics, and rainfall intensity. Vulnerability of roadways is assessed by overlaying PFDF threat, roadway criticality (using betweenness centrality), and traffic data. We identify roadways most vulnerable in current conditions and estimate how threats change in future climate scenarios. Our results indicate roadways facing the highest PFDF threat are concentrated in the rugged mountains of Southeastern Arizona, the White Mountains of Eastern Arizona, and the Mogollon Rim in Central Arizona. We find that projected changes in precipitation patterns lead to an increase in PFDF threat in much of the state. The framework and results will provide guidance for agencies and decision-makers on where to focus their resources to mitigate the evolving threats of PFDFs.

Allomaieta is the most diverse genus of the tribe Cyphostyleae (Melastomataceae) and is only known for Colombia. In this contribution two new species of Allomaieta are described and illustrated: Allomaieta melidae and A. peltata. Both grow in the inter-Andean valleys of Central cordillera in the Department of Caldas. Based on their restricted distribution and habitat degradation pressure where these new taxa occur, we present preliminary threat assessments under IUCN guidelines and criteria.

Rhinacanthus grandiflorus Dunn (Acanthaceae) was known mainly by its type specimens collected in 1911 by Burkill from the Abor Hills, situated in the state of Indian Himalayan Region (IHR), Arunachal Pradesh. The present paper discusses its recollection after 95 years with a comprehensive morphological account, its distributional status and threat assessment according to IUCN standards.

Protected areas (PAs) are subjected to threats that make biodiversity conservation programs fragile if not understood and addressed properly. This study identified type, scope, severity, timing, and frequency of direct threats affecting eight PAs (i.e., Nyanga, Chimanimani, Vumba, Bunga, Haroni, Rusitu, Osborne, and Eland Sanctuary) located in Eastern Highlands region of Zimbabwe. Data on local direct threats from published and unpublished literature, questionnaires, and field surveys were assembled. Forty participants from eight PAs were interviewed and asked to rank existing threats in their respective PAs. Threats were coded using the IUCN-Conservation Measures Partnership Unified Classification of direct threats. Common threats recorded across all eight PAs were fires, siltation, hunting and collecting terrestrial animals/plants, trespassing, flooding and shallow landslides, invasive plant species, droughts, and habitat shifting and alteration. There were significant differences in the scope and number of threats between Vumba and Nyanga (p = 0.001), Osborne and Rusitu (p = 0.025), Vumba and Osborne (p = 0.0002), Vumba and Haroni (p = 0.010), Chimanimani and Vumba (p = 0.018), Vumba and Eland Sanctuary (p = 0.010), and Rusitu and Vumba (p = 0.025) at p-critical = 0.05. Participants' views on threat severity showed no significant difference across the landscape (p = 0.835). PA managers should prioritize reducing direct threats of very high scopes and severity before losing biodiversity integrity.

ABSTRACT This study examined outcomes from the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines training, delivered in-person and synchronously online to 882 participants from a large Florida school district. School-based mental health (SBMH) staff and administrators’ outcomes for knowledge of threat assessment, ability to classify a threat case appropriately, and overall evaluations of the training were examined. Structural equation modeling indicated no significant differences between in-person and online groups for knowledge and threat classification. In-person participants rated the training more favorably. SBMH staff scored higher on threat classification, while participants with more previous training and case experience in threat assessment had lower posttest knowledge scores and training ratings. Results suggest that online training may enhance the accessibility and scalability of training. Future research and implications are discussed.

Filling a gap in workplace violence prevention: The value of employee assistance programs in threat assessment and management.

This report presents a comprehensive revision of the Great Britain (GB) Red List for all native and archaeophyte vascular plants, utilising verified datasets published by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) covering three distribution atlas time periods (1930-1969; 1987-1999; 2000-2019). Assessments of threat were undertaken using the latest International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Guidelines and Criteria. Of 1720 taxa evaluated, 434 (25%) were assessed as Critically Endangered (55), Endangered (117) or Vulnerable (262). A further 22 taxa were assessed as Regionally Extinct, and 140 as Near Threatened. Factors associated with threat included rarity, the intensification of management, long-term neglect, development, eutrophication and pollution. Such factors have had a disproportionate impact on the flora of lowland regions. An elevated threat status for numerous historically widespread ‘positive indicator’ taxa of semi-improved terrestrial habitats, and those of wetland and aquatic habitats, was associated with the degradation or destruction, and increased fragmentation, of suitable habitat, with such taxa increasingly confined to protected refugia. For a small number of montane plants present at their absolute southern European range limits in GB, threat was also linked to the symptoms of climate change.

Looking back on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) after 50-plus years of implementation reveals a substantial influence on conservation science. The ESA catalyzed science to support listing decisions, species status assessments, a shared understanding of species’ habitats and ranges, threat assessment and recovery planning. However, rising threats to species and limited resources to support recovery have resulted in increasing numbers of imperiled species. Prioritizing investment in biodiversity management requires more interdisciplinary approaches. Emerging research is shifting from objective solution seeking to supporting complex listing decisions based on increasingly complex genetic data to nontraditional management measures like assisted migration. Conservation science has evolved to focus on scales beyond a single species, leading to both new challenges and opportunities in how the ESA can support ecosystem and landscape-scale conservation. The importance of increasingly inclusive management also presents challenges and opportunities for more integrative research to support ESA decision-making.

ABSTRACT The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) operates with a public health approach, through catalysing mental health treatment for those with mental health needs unidentified, untreated, or sub-optimally managed by mainstream services. While much literature examines mental illness’s role in fixated threats, unmet mental health needs garner less attention. This paper evaluates the value and fulfilment of safeguarding within FTAC, through analysing whether (1) FTAC identifies and successfully refers into treatment those with unmet needs, and (2) unmet needs are related to concerning behaviours. Two measures of unmet needs are analysed: disengagement from mental health services, and unidentified mental illness. Data comprise FTAC referrals from 2012 to 2016, and methods include chi-squared tests and logistic regressions. Results indicate FTAC does safeguard individuals referred. Over a quarter of referrals (where previous mental healthcare information is available) have unmet needs, predominantly psychotic illnesses. These are directed to (mental) health-based interventions, reducing concern levels. Safeguarding is useful for violence prevention, as unmet needs isolate a subgroup exhibiting disproportionately concerning behaviours (approach, problematic approach, breaching security barriers). Findings imply unmet mental health needs should be given more attention in research as a variable, and in threat assessment as a risk indicator for assessments of levels of concern.

Climate change is shifting where suitable habitats occur for many species across the planet. Sarracenia purpurea L., the most widely distributed pitcher plant species in North America, already faces significant threats from land use change. While S. purpurea is well studied at physiological and local scales, threat assessments for this species at biogeographic scales are absent. Here, we remedy this by using Habitat Suitability Models to predict current suitable habitats and estimate climate-based shifts in the suitable habitat for S. purpurea in the near (2040) and long term (2100). The models predicted large areas of habitat loss in the southeastern United States and the western portion of the Great Lakes region by 2040. While the models also predict significant gains in suitable habitats north of the current S. purpurea range, the limited dispersal ability of this species precludes the possibility of natural migration to newly suitable habitats. Our results suggest that the degradation of considerable portions of current suitable habitats is already occurring and will continue in the future. Particularly threatened are the southern subspecies (e.g., Sarracenia purpurea subsp. venosa) of S. purpurea. We therefore urge land managers to make conservation efforts targeting threatened subspecies and encourage further the biogeographic investigation of less widely distributed congenerics of S. purpurea.

Currently, the problem of ensuring information security of critical information infrastructure is steadily increasing and acquiring strategic importance, which is caused by the explosive growth of complex targeted attacks on infrastructure facilities. The solution to this problem requires the development of new approaches for assessing information security threats that combine the relevance of data provided by threat intelligence technology with a deep understanding of the specifics of the protected systems. An analysis of the state of the problem shows that existing approaches for assessing information security threats to critical information infrastructure facilities have such shortcomings as a gap between threat intelligence data and the context of a specific system, subjectivity of qualitative assessments, and the complexity of ranking threats given many conflicting criteria. To overcome these shortcomings, the article proposes a method for multi-criteria assessment of information security threats to critical information infrastructure facilities that integrates threat intelligence and digital twin technologies, where the digital twin technology is designed to provide the necessary understanding of object specifics. A system of indicators has been developed, structured according to five projections of threat assessment: severity of consequences, intruder capabilities, vulnerability of the facility, complexity of the attack, and effectiveness of protection. A conceptual model of an information security threat assessment system based on the technologies of digital twins and threat intelligence has been developed. A multi-criteria threat assessment methodology is presented, in which the integral threat index and Pareto-optimal threat ranks are calculated based on a set of criteria. Experimental testing on synthetic data confirmed the consistency of the results of these calculations. Practical application of the proposed method allows for threat analysis both as a whole and within individual projections of the indicator system.

The endangered lake minnow, Rhynchocypris percnurus (Pallas, 1814), has been known from Lithuanian inland waters for over 20 years, but we have a very limited understanding of its current population size. The main purpose of this study was to provide a concise account of the species in Lithuania, including a rough assessment of threats to its populations and habitats. In 2018–2019, we investigated 360 small water bodies across the country, all of which were potentially suitable for lake minnows. Results revealed that lake minnows were present in only 12 water bodies, all concentrated in one regional park in the southern part of the country. However, by 2024 the species had gone extinct at nine of these sites due to habitat loss. At present (2025), only one viable Lithuanian population of this species can be considered to exist. Our results conclusively show that the species is on the very edge of extinction. Urgent action is needed to protect this species in Lithuanian waters, with special emphasis on revitalizing its most suitable habitats and translocating fish from the only currently known population in Lithuania.

In an answer to increasing calls to prevent mass violence, law enforcement has partnered with multidisciplinary community shareholders to develop threat assessment teams that actively work together to mitigate potential mass attacks. As bystanders report concerning behavior to law enforcement, these teams work to identify, assess, and manage these concerns in a manner aimed to mitigate the potential for violence and provide necessary support to individuals whose behavior caused concern. To date, there is limited empirical research regarding specific interventions that disrupt individuals moving toward targeted violence. A key focus was to determine if disrupted persons of concern (POC) for violence were more likely to have been reported to law enforcement by bystanders than the active shooter group. In addition, we sought to determine whether the proposed mitigating factor of being "on the radar" moderates targeted violence. The present study examined a matched sample of 72 active shooters (AS) and 74 POC who had been assessed by a threat assessment team. The sample was coded using the North Carolina Behavioral Threat Assessment Investigation-25 structured professional judgment tool. The odds of an individual being classified in the POC group were 33.37 times higher if a law enforcement agency had been previously alerted to concerns about them. Monitoring by agencies other than law enforcement was not significantly predicative of group membership. Concerned others with a much wider range of relationships had made reports to law enforcement about POC, resulting in markedly higher rates of bystander reporting than for AS (M = 4.91 alerts to law enforcement for POC vs. M = 0.48 reports for AS; p = .032). These findings emphasize the importance of ongoing law enforcement participation in threat assessment teams and the necessity of bystander education in specific behaviors to watch for and report. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The malicious contamination of food has been recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a real and current threat that must be integrated into food safety systems to ensure preparedness for deliberate attacks. Traditional approaches, such as HACCP, effectively address unintentional hazards but remain insufficient against intentional contamination and sabotage. Food defense frameworks such as HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), VACCP (Vulnerability Assessment and Critical Control Points), and TACCP (Threat Assessment and Critical Control Points) represent complementary methodologies, addressing unintentional, economically motivated, and deliberate threats, respectively. This review critically examines food defense frameworks across the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom, as well as standards benchmarked by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), drawing on peer-reviewed and grey literature sources. In the United States, the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) mandates the development and periodic reassessment of food defense plans, while the European Union primarily relies on general food law and voluntary certification schemes. The United Kingdom’s PAS 96:2017 standard provides TACCP-based guidance that also acknowledges cybercrime as a deliberate threat. Building on these regulatory and operational gaps, this paper proposes the Cyber-FSMS model, an integrated framework that combines traditional food defense pillars with cyber risk management to address cyber–physical vulnerabilities in increasingly digitalized supply chains. The model introduces six interconnected components (governance, vulnerability assessment, mitigation, monitoring, verification, and recovery) designed to embed cyber-resilience into Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS). Priority actions include regulatory harmonization, practical support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the alignment of cyber-resilience principles with upcoming GFSI benchmarking developments, thereby strengthening the integrity, robustness, and adaptability of global food supply chains.

This study assessed the extent to which existing international governance instruments address nuclear security for space-based nuclear-powered systems. A structured literature review identified the twelve Essential Elements of IAEA Nuclear Security Series No. 20 (NSS-20) as the only internationally endorsed statement of nuclear security objectives. Each element was reformulated to suit the launch, orbital, transit, and end-of-life phases, then mapped against the Outer Space Treaty (1967), the Liability Convention (1972), the Registration Convention (1975), and the Safety Framework for Nuclear Power Source Applications in Outer Space (2009). Clause-by-clause coding produced a 12  4 matrix in which scores of 1, 0.5, or 0 indicated, respectively, full, partial, or no correspondence. The mapping showed strong coverage for State responsibility, liability, and information exchange, partial coverage for risk-informed planning, and little or no coverage for the criminalization of hostile acts, threat assessment, anomaly detection, or sustained assurance. None of the instruments defined nuclear security for space activities. The discussion concluded that the NSS 20 principles were compatible with space law at a fundamental level; however, they presupposed terrestrial conditions, rendering their existing implementation guidance insufficient once a mission entered orbit. The study, therefore, recommends the development of a dedicated Space Nuclear Security Framework that would retain NSS 20 terminology while providing space-specific requirements for the life-cycle protection of nuclear-powered missions.

In untrusted execution environments such as web browsers, code from remote sources is regularly executed. To harden these environments against attacks, constituent programming languages and their implementations must uphold certain safety properties, such as memory safety. These properties must be maintained across the entire compilation stack, which may include intermediate languages that do not provide the same safety guarantees. Any case where properties are not preserved could lead to a serious security vulnerability. In this work, we identify a specification vulnerability in the WebGPU Shading Language (WGSL) where code with data races can be compiled to intermediate representations in which an optimizing compiler could legitimately remove memory safety guardrails. To address this, we present SafeRace, a collection of threat assessments and specification proposals across the WGSL execution stack. While our threat assessment showed that this vulnerability does not appear to be exploitable on current systems, it creates a ”ticking time bomb”, especially as compilers in this area are rapidly evolving. Given this, we introduce the SafeRace Memory Safety Guarantee (SMSG), two components that preserve memory safety in the WGSL execution stack even in the presence of data races. The first component specifies that program slices contributing to memory indexing must be race free and is implemented via a compiler pass for WGSL programs. The second component is a requirement on intermediate representations that limits the effects of data races so that they cannot impact race-free program slices. While the first component is not guaranteed to apply to all possible WGSL programs due to limitations on how some data types can be accessed, we show that existing language constructs are sufficient to implement this component with minimal performance overhead on many existing important WebGPU applications. We test the second component by performing a fuzzing campaign of 81 hours across 21 compilation stacks; our results show violations on only one (likely buggy) machine, thus providing evidence that lower-level GPU frameworks could relatively straightforwardly support this constraint. Finally, our assessments discovered GPU memory isolation vulnerabilities in Apple and AMD GPUs, as well as a security-critical miscompilation of WGSL in a pre-release version of Firefox.

The multidimensional impact mechanism of treatment convenience, threat assessment, and coping evaluation on medication adherence in pediatric epilepsy patients.

HERA was established in 2021 as a key pillar of the European Health Union with the aim of strengthening the EU's capacity to prevent, detect, and respond rapidly to serious cross-border health threats. Born from the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, HERA plays a central role in ensuring the development, availability, accessibility, and equitable distribution of medical countermeasures (MCMs)-including vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and personal protective equipment-across the entire value chain. HERA operates across the full preparedness and response cycle. In the preparedness phase, it conducts intelligence gathering, threat assessments, and maps MCM availability and needs, while supporting research, innovation, manufacturing, and procurement. During crises, HERA and its Health Crisis Board play a key role in the EU's health emergency response by coordinating MCM procurement, monitoring, and deployment from EU strategic reserves, fostering research, and activating mechanisms such as the EU FAB network. HERA's governance structure includes: (a) the HERA Board-composed of Commission experts and senior Member State representatives-which sets strategic objectives; and (b) the HERA Advisory Forum, a technical body of national experts providing advice. These are supported by the Joint Industrial Cooperation Forum (e.g. vaccine manufacturers) and the CSF (e.g. patient associations, scientific societies relevant to HERA's scope, NGOs). EUPHA has participated in the closed sessions of the CSF HERA since its inception, in the concerted collaboration effort to coalesce for strategic alignment across EU MS, EU agencies, international partners, academia, industry, and civil society- and for fostering research through EU4Health, Horizon Europe, and the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, and coordinating capacity-building and preparedness exercises.Speakers/PanellistsMaria GańczakDepartment of Infectious Diseases, University of Zielona Gora, Zielona Gora, PolandDimitra LingriNational Organization for Health Care Services Provision/Lawyer, Athens Greece, GreeceNeville CallejaDepartment of Health Information and Research, G'Mangia, Malta

The Overlooked Transition: Supporting School Reintegration After a Mental Health Emergency Department Visit.