Strategic Bridge Towards Community Building: The Military’s Role

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-03-24

matched easily by much of government—to address in its own way some significant domestic and global issues not normally associated with the private...wide-range of global issues and shared concerns, but there are other examples of strategic bridge organizations in recent years as well. The U.S

Process for Mapping Global Health Competencies in Undergraduate and Graduate Nursing Curricula.

PubMed

Dawson, Martha; Gakumo, C Ann; Phillips, Jennan; Wilson, Lynda

2016-01-01

Determining the extent to which existing nursing curricula prepare students to address global health issues is a critical step toward ensuring competence to practice in an increasingly globalized world. This article describes the process used by nursing faculty at a public university in the southern United States to assess the extent to which global health competencies for nurses were being addressed across nursing programs. Steps used and lessons learned throughout this process are discussed.

The Environmental Scrapbook. A Collection of Articles on Environmental Issues for Use in Secondary Schools. Global Issues Reading Kit #1. Revised.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gage, Andrew, Ed.; Ockenden, Sandy, Ed.

This document presents student readings that address a variety of environmental issues. The individual articles present a global perspective that is both alarming and hopeful. Drawing from events and situations in both the northern and southern hemispheres, the articles describe a world in crisis. By critically examining the status quo, the…

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Weaver, C. P.; Mooney, Sian; Allen, D.

US efforts to integrate social and biophysical sciences to address the issue of global change exist within a wider movement to understand global change as a societal challenge and to inform policy. Insights from the social sciences can help transform global change research into action.

Education, Democratization, and Globalization: A Challenge for Comparative Education. Guest Editorial Essay and Presidential Address.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McGinn, Noel F.

1996-01-01

Comparative education can contribute to democratization by addressing four issues: declining democratic practice and civic participation in the industrialized world, reasons why education does not resolve this problem, impact of economic globalization on education and on democratization, and the urgency for comparative research on cultural…

South Asia in the Global Electronic Village: Issues and Implications.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singh, Jagtar

This paper discusses issues related to developments in computer and communication technologies in south Asia. The first section considers the Internet and its impact. Paradigm shifts and globalization are addressed in the second section, including the shifts away from stand alone libraries to library and information networks, ownership to access,…

Argumentation as a Strategy for Increasing Preservice Teachers' Understanding of Climate Change, a Key Global Socioscientific Issue

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lambert, Julie L.; Bleicher, Robert E.

2017-01-01

Findings of this study suggest that scientific argumentation can play an effective role in addressing complex socioscientific issues (i.e. global climate change). This research examined changes in preservice teachers' knowledge and perceptions about climate change in an innovative undergraduate-level elementary science methods course. The…

Scotblood 2007: Tackling local and global issues in transfusion medicine - donor recruitment, effective use of blood, stem cell plasticity, and vCJD.

PubMed

Bessos, Hagop; Fraser, Robin; Seghatchian, Jerard

2008-02-01

This commentary briefly highlights some of the local and the global contemporary issues affecting transfusion medicine worldwide. The main areas of focus addressed this year were: donor recruitment, stem cell plasticity, the effective use of blood, and vCJD.

Developments in Impact Assessment in North America

EPA Science Inventory

Beginning with a background of recent global developments in this area, this presentation will focus on how global research has impacted North America and how North America is providing additional developments to address the issues of the global economy. Recent developments inc...

Combating healthcare corruption and fraud with improved global health governance.

PubMed

Mackey, Tim K; Liang, Bryan A

2012-10-22

Corruption is a serious threat to global health outcomes, leading to financial waste and adverse health consequences. Yet, forms of corruption impacting global health are endemic worldwide in public and private sectors, and in developed and resource-poor settings alike. Allegations of misuse of funds and fraud in global health initiatives also threaten future investment. Current domestic and sectorial-level responses are fragmented and have been criticized as ineffective. In order to address this issue, we propose a global health governance framework calling for international recognition of "global health corruption" and development of a treaty protocol to combat this crucial issue.

Repigmentation in vitiligo: position paper of the Vitiligo Global Issues Consensus Conference.

PubMed

Gan, Emily Y; Eleftheriadou, Viktoria; Esmat, Samia; Hamzavi, Iltefat; Passeron, Thierry; Böhm, Markus; Anbar, Tag; Goh, Boon Kee; Lan, Cheng-Che E; Lui, Harvey; Ramam, M; Raboobee, Noufal; Katayama, Ichiro; Suzuki, Tamio; Parsad, Davinder; Seth, Vaneeta; Lim, Henry W; van Geel, Nanja; Mulekar, Sanjeev; Harris, John; Wittal, Richard; Benzekri, Laila; Gauthier, Yvon; Kumarasinghe, Prasad; Thng, Steven T G; Silva de Castro, Caio Cesar; Abdallah, Marwa; Vrijman, Charlotte; Bekkenk, Marcel; Seneschal, Julien; Pandya, Amit G; Ezzedine, Khaled; Picardo, Mauro; Taïeb, Alain

2017-01-01

The Vitiligo Global Issues Consensus Conference (VGICC), through an international e-Delphi consensus, concluded that 'repigmentation' and 'maintenance of gained repigmentation' are essential core outcome measures in future vitiligo trials. This VGICC position paper addresses these core topics in two sections and includes an atlas depicting vitiligo repigmentation patterns and color match. The first section delineates mechanisms and characteristics of vitiligo repigmentation, and the second section summarizes the outcomes of international meeting discussions and two e-surveys on vitiligo repigmentation, which had been carried out over 3 yr. Treatment is defined as successful if repigmentation exceeds 80% and at least 80% of the gained repigmentation is maintained for over 6 months. No agreement was found on the best outcome measure for assessing target or global repigmentation, therefore highlighting the limitations of e-surveys in addressing clinical measurements. Until there is a clear consensus, existing tools should be selected according to the specific needs of each study. A workshop will be conducted to address the remaining issues so as to achieve a consensus. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Alien Genetic Algorithm for Exploration of Search Space

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patel, Narendra; Padhiyar, Nitin

2010-10-01

Genetic Algorithm (GA) is a widely accepted population based stochastic optimization technique used for single and multi objective optimization problems. Various versions of modifications in GA have been proposed in last three decades mainly addressing two issues, namely increasing convergence rate and increasing probability of global minima. While both these. While addressing the first issue, GA tends to converge to a local optima and addressing the second issue corresponds the large computational efforts. Thus, to reduce the contradictory effects of these two aspects, we propose a modification in GA by adding an alien member in the population at every generation. Addition of an Alien member in the current population at every generation increases the probability of obtaining global minima at the same time maintaining higher convergence rate. With two test cases, we have demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed GA by comparing with the conventional GA.

Rethinking Global Water Governance for the 21st Century

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ajami, N. K.; Cooley, H.

2012-12-01

Growing pressure on the world's water resources is having major impacts on our social and economic well-being. According to the United Nations, today, at least 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. Pressures on water resources are likely to continue to worsen in response to decaying and crumbling infrastructure, continued population growth, climate change, degradation of water quality, and other challenges. If these challenges are not addressed, they pose future risks for many countries around the world, making it urgent that efforts are made to understand both the nature of the problems and the possible solutions that can effectively reduce the associated risks. There is growing understanding of the need to rethink governance to meet the 21st century water challenges. More and more water problems extend over traditional national boundaries and to the global community and the types and numbers of organizations addressing water issues are large and growing. Economic globalization and transnational organizations and activities point to the need for improving coordination and integration on addressing water issues, which are increasingly tied to food and energy security, trade, global climate change, and other international policies. We will present some of the key limitations of global water governance institutions and provide recommendations for improving these institutions to address 21st century global water challenges more effectively.

Globalization and the Nation-State: Sovereignty and State Welfare in Jeopardy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jotia, Agreement Lathi

2011-01-01

This paper addresses the fact that although globalization cannot be resisted by the nation-state, it is often confronted by mixed reactions from both the GN (Global North) and the GS (Global South). The essay charges that globalization has political, economic and cultural impact on the nation-state, which ultimately impacts the issue of identity…

U.S.-China Relations: Policy Issues

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-12

China (PRC) include promoting U.S. trade and investment, protecting national security interests, addressing global environmental and climate change...influence and natural resources. Other U.S. concerns include the bilateral trade deficit with China and allegations of PRC unfair trade practices, PRC...with the PRC include promoting U.S. trade and investment, protecting national security interests, addressing global environmental and climate change

Considering World History as a Space for Developing Global Citizenship Competencies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Girard, Brian; Harris, Lauren McArthur

2013-01-01

This article addresses how we might teach for global citizenship in world history classrooms. Despite the name, secondary world history courses in the United States have not consistently focused on global interconnections, multiple perspectives, and inquiry into global issues. We explore why this might be, as well as suggest specific learning…

Globalisation and global health: issues for nursing.

PubMed

Bradbury-Jones, Caroline; Clark, Maria

2017-05-24

'Globalisation' is the term used to describe the increasing economic and social interdependence between countries. Shifting patterns of health and disease are associated with globalisation. Global health refers to a health issue that is not contained geographically and that single countries cannot address alone. In response to globalisation and global health issues, nurses practise in new and emerging transnational contexts. Therefore, it is important that nurses respond proactively to these changes and understand the effects of globalisation on health worldwide. This article aims to increase nurses' knowledge of, and confidence in, this important area of nursing practice.

Combating healthcare corruption and fraud with improved global health governance

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Corruption is a serious threat to global health outcomes, leading to financial waste and adverse health consequences. Yet, forms of corruption impacting global health are endemic worldwide in public and private sectors, and in developed and resource-poor settings alike. Allegations of misuse of funds and fraud in global health initiatives also threaten future investment. Current domestic and sectorial-level responses are fragmented and have been criticized as ineffective. In order to address this issue, we propose a global health governance framework calling for international recognition of “global health corruption” and development of a treaty protocol to combat this crucial issue. PMID:23088820

Global Health Governance at a Crossroads.

PubMed

Ng, Nora Y; Ruger, Jennifer Prah

2011-06-21

This review takes stock of the global health governance (GHG) literature. We address the transition from international health governance (IHG) to global health governance, identify major actors, and explain some challenges and successes in GHG. We analyze the framing of health as national security, human security, human rights, and global public good, and the implications of these various frames. We also establish and examine from the literature GHG's major themes and issues, which include: 1) persistent GHG problems; 2) different approaches to tackling health challenges (vertical, horizontal, and diagonal); 3) health's multisectoral connections; 4) neoliberalism and the global economy; 5) the framing of health (e.g. as a security issue, as a foreign policy issue, as a human rights issue, and as a global public good); 6) global health inequalities; 7) local and country ownership and capacity; 8) international law in GHG; and 9) research gaps in GHG. We find that decades-old challenges in GHG persist and GHG needs a new way forward. A framework called shared health governance offers promise.

Global Health Governance at a Crossroads

PubMed Central

Ng, Nora Y.; Ruger, Jennifer Prah

2014-01-01

This review takes stock of the global health governance (GHG) literature. We address the transition from international health governance (IHG) to global health governance, identify major actors, and explain some challenges and successes in GHG. We analyze the framing of health as national security, human security, human rights, and global public good, and the implications of these various frames. We also establish and examine from the literature GHG’s major themes and issues, which include: 1) persistent GHG problems; 2) different approaches to tackling health challenges (vertical, horizontal, and diagonal); 3) health’s multisectoral connections; 4) neoliberalism and the global economy; 5) the framing of health (e.g. as a security issue, as a foreign policy issue, as a human rights issue, and as a global public good); 6) global health inequalities; 7) local and country ownership and capacity; 8) international law in GHG; and 9) research gaps in GHG. We find that decades-old challenges in GHG persist and GHG needs a new way forward. A framework called shared health governance offers promise. PMID:24729828

FUTURE OF ENERGY

EPA Science Inventory

A complete Scientific American issue of nine specialist articles was devoted to the concern of powering the global economy and addressing the effects of global warming. Control of atmospheric carbon, transportation fuel, efficient use of energy, the disposition of coal, opportuni...

Comment on 'Current Budget of the Atmospheric Electric Global Circuit'

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Driscoll, Kevin T.; Blakeslee, Richard J.

1996-01-01

In this paper, three major issues relevant to Kasemir's new model will be addressed. The first concerns Kasemir's assertion that there are significant differences between the potentials associated with the new model and the conventional model. A recalculation of these potentials reveals that both models provide equivalent results for the potential difference between the Earth and ionosphere. The second issue to be addressed is Kasemir's assertion that discrepancies in the electric potentials associated with both models can be attributed to modeling the Earth as a sphere, instead of as a planar surface. A simple analytical comparison will demonstrate that differences in the equations for the potentials of the atmosphere derived with a spherical and a planar Earth are negligible for applications to global current flow. Finally, the third issue to be discussed is Kasemir's claim that numerous aspects of the conventional model are incorrect, including the role of the ionosphere in global current flow as well as the significance of cloud-to-ground lightning in supplying charge to the global circuit. In order to refute these misconceptions, it will be shown that these aspects related to the flow of charge in the atmosphere are accurately described by the conventional model of the global circuit.

Diverse Local Literacies and Standardizing Policies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bomer, Randy; Maloch, Beth

2012-01-01

The authors challenge educators to speculate on how to address local issues in a world that is increasingly diverse and global. This Research and Policy section emphasizes the seemingly paradoxical importance of both local and global literacy, illuminating the tension between the preservation of local literacy and a global standardization of…

Global Issues in the Elementary Classroom. Revised Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Social Science Education Consortium, Inc., Boulder, CO.

This activity book is the work of classroom teachers and is designed to address the need for global education elementary materials. There are 27 activities, organized into five sections, to help elementary teachers stimulate young students' global awareness and understanding. The activities are presented in a standard format: (1) a brief…

Introduction

Treesearch

Sheila E. Ward; David Boshier; James Grogan

2008-01-01

This special issue of Forest Ecology and Management addresses management issues for the tropical timber species of the Meliaceae. The concept for this issue originated from a technical session entitled ..Sustainable management of highvalue timber species of the Meliaceae: a global perspective.., held at the 2005 World Congress of the International Union of Forest...

Need for Enhanced Environmental Representation in the Implementation of One Health.

PubMed

Barrett, Meredith A; Bouley, Timothy A

2015-06-01

Issues of global environmental change, global health, emerging disease, and sustainability present some of the most complex challenges of the twenty-first century. Individual disciplines cannot address these issues in isolation. Proactive, innovative, and trans-disciplinary solutions are required. Recognizing the inherent connectedness of humans, animals, plants, and their shared environment, One Health encourages the collaboration of many disciplines-including human and veterinary medicine, public health, social science, public policy, environmental science, and others-to address global and local health challenges. Despite great progress in this shift toward transdisciplinarity, the environmental component of the One Health paradigm remains underrepresented in One Health discourse. Human and animal health issues are commonly discussed under the umbrella of the One Health paradigm, while upstream environmental drivers and solutions are less prominent. We assessed the current integration of environmental issues in One Health publications and leadership. There is room for enhanced integration of environmental knowledge in the implementation of One Health approaches. We discuss the potential benefits from the collaboration between One Health and ecohealth, and explore strategies for increased environmental involvement.

Beyond Green: From Issues to Initiatives.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niemeyer, Shirley; Francis, Charles A.

2000-01-01

Achieving sustainability requires pursuit of individual, family, and community solutions to environmental problems. Issues about the equitable use of resources and reduction of waste and consumption must be addressed through policies, regulations, and the building of global consensus. (SK)

A Proposed Framework for Global Leadership Education: Learning Objectives and Curricula

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, LeAnn M.; Whitaker, Brett L.; Brungardt, Curtis L.

2012-01-01

Many traditional leadership education paradigms are challenged by the transformational nature of globalization and are limited in application in diverse and complex contexts. In order to address these issues, a new framework must be adopted within higher education leadership programs to educate the next generation of global leaders. This paper…

U.S. Immigration Policy and Globalization.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Philip; Martin, Susan

2001-01-01

Focuses on U.S. immigration, exploring global issues that affect immigration, such as: economic trends, post-cold war events, and transnationalism. Addresses legal immigration, including permanent and temporary status, refugees and asylees, unauthorized migration, integrating immigrants, and administration of immigration programs. (CMK)

Scaling up the global nursing health workforce: contributions of an international organization.

PubMed

Rukholm, Ellen E; Stamler, Lynnette Leeseberg; Talbot, Lise R; Bednash, Geraldine; Raines, Fay; Potempa, Kathleen; Nugent, Pauline; Clark, Dame Jill Macleod; Bernhauser, Sue; Parfitt, Barbara

2009-01-01

In this paper key highlights of the scholarly work presented at the Toronto 2008 Global Alliance for Nursing Education & Scholarship (GANES) conference are summarized, challenges opportunities and issues facing nursing education globally arising from the conference discourse are outlined and initial steps are suggested as a way forward to a shared global view of baccalaureate and graduate nursing education and scholarship. This shared view arises from beginning understandings of the issues and opportunities we face globally starting with and building upon the lessons learned from the literature and from the experiences of nursing educators and nursing education organization locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The theme of the groundbreaking GANES Toronto conference was "Educating the future nursing and health workforce: A global challenge". One hundred seventy delegates from 17 countries attended the event, with over 80 papers presented. A primary focus of GANES is the contribution of a strategic alliance of national nursing education organizations to contribute to nursing education leading practices and policy that address the scaling up of global nursing and health workforce. The founding members of GANES see a clear link between a strong educational infrastructure and strong scholarship activities in nursing and the ability of a society to be healthy and prosperous. Evidence presented at the recent GANES conference supports that belief. Through the strength of partnerships and other capacity-building efforts, member countries can support each other to address the global nursing education and health challenges while respecting the local issues.

Spacecraft applications of advanced global positioning system technology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huth, Gaylord; Dodds, James; Udalov, Sergei; Austin, Richard; Loomis, Peter; Duboraw, I. Newton, III

1988-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate potential uses of Global Positioning System (GPS) in spacecraft applications in the following areas: attitude control and tracking; structural control; traffic control; and time base definition (synchronization). Each of these functions are addressed. Also addressed are the hardware related issues concerning the application of GPS technology and comparisons are provided with alternative instrumentation methods for specific functions required for an advanced low earth orbit spacecraft.

A horizon scan for species conservation by zoos and aquariums.

PubMed

Gusset, Markus; Fa, John E; Sutherland, William J

2014-01-01

We conducted the first horizon scan for zoos and aquariums to identify the 10 most important emerging issues for species conservation. This involved input from more than 100 experts from both the wider conservation community and the world zoo and aquarium community. Some of the issues are globally important: diseases, zoonoses, and biosecurity issues; new (communication) technologies; global water shortage and food insecurity; developing economies and markets for wildlife consumption; changes in wildlife population dynamics; and political instability and conflicts. Other issues are more specific to zoos and aquariums: need for extractive reserves; space shortage in zoos and aquariums; need for metapopulation management; and demand for caring of more species in zoos and aquariums. We also identified some broad approaches to these issues. Addressing the emerging issues identified in our horizon scan will further increase the contribution of the world zoo and aquarium community to global biodiversity conservation. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

76 FR 29649 - Approval and Promulgation of Air Quality Implementation Plans; Pennsylvania; Adoption of Control...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-05-23

... global warming, through regulations that will harm the economy of the United States,'' and asserts that EPA is attempting to take such action on the issue of global warming which Congress has ``decided that... purpose of addressing global warming. IV. Final Action EPA is approving Pennsylvania's adoption of the CTG...

Current Issues in Environmental Education and Environmental Studies. Volume VIII. Selected Papers from the Annual Conference of the National Association for Environmental Education (11th, Silver Bay, New York, October 15-20, 1982).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sacks, Arthur B.; And Others

Provided in three major sections are selected papers presented at the 1982 Conference of the National Association for Environmental Education. The first part contains four invited addresses on environmental issues and two symposium papers related to the Global 2000 Report to the President. Topics of addresses focus on education/citizen…

Local Action for Global Change. World Education Reports, Number 29.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garb, Gillian, Ed.; Baltz, Davis, Ed.

1991-01-01

This issue contains five articles that address environmental concerns. "Poverty and Environmental Decline" (Alan Durning) analyzes accelerating environmental decline and discusses the need for action at every level to reverse global deterioration. "Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Made Easy" (Cesar Galvan, Peter Kenmore)…

International Allied Health Education and Cross-Cultural Perspectives.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shah, Makhdoom A.; Robinson, Thomas C.; Al Enezi, Naser

2002-01-01

Three issues in global relations should be addressed in international education: societal and academic interdependence, global-centric perspectives, and cultural respect. A model for international allied health education exchange includes the following aspects of both advisors and advisees: history, politics, economics, sociocultural environment,…

Infections are a global issue: infection addresses global issues.

PubMed

Grobusch, M P; Calleri, G; Bogner, J R

2012-12-01

Infections are of unifying global concern, despite regional differences in disease epidemiology, clinical appearance and the instruments to tackle them. The primary aim of Infection is "to be a forum for the presentation and discussion of clinically relevant information on infectious diseases… from all over the world". To that end, and as a reflection of the global burden of infectious diseases, we intend to increase the number of high-quality contributions from authors addressing the aetiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases from outside Europe and the affluent North (Chang et al. Infection 40:359-365, 2012; Misra et al. Infection 40:125-130, 2012). The Editorial Board of Infection envisages the journal as an interface between where infectious diseases meet and mix between "North and South"--i.e., the field of travel medicine--frequently functioning as a sentinel for altered/novel disease activities that are encountered as imported conditions. With the change in generation on the Editorial Board, Infection aims to expand the areas of tropical medicine, travel medicine and global health with its own section editors (GC and MPG). Contributions from outside Europe are actively encouraged.

Forms of benefit sharing in global health research undertaken in resource poor settings: a qualitative study of stakeholders' views in Kenya.

PubMed

Lairumbi, Geoffrey M; Parker, Michael; Fitzpatrick, Raymond; English, Michael C

2012-01-17

Increase in global health research undertaken in resource poor settings in the last decade though a positive development has raised ethical concerns relating to potential for exploitation. Some of the suggested strategies to address these concerns include calls for providing universal standards of care, reasonable availability of proven interventions and more recently, promoting the overall social value of research especially in clinical research. Promoting the social value of research has been closely associated with providing fair benefits to various stakeholders involved in research. The debate over what constitutes fair benefits; whether those that addresses micro level issues of justice or those focusing on the key determinants of health at the macro level has continued. This debate has however not benefited from empirical work on what stakeholders consider fair benefits. This study explores practical experiences of stakeholders involved in global health research in Kenya, over what benefits are fair within a developing world context. We conducted in-depth interviews with key informants drawn from within the broader health research system in Kenya including researchers from the mainstream health research institutions, networks and universities, teaching hospitals, policy makers, institutional review boards, civil society organisations and community representative groups.The range of benefits articulated by stakeholders addresses both micro and macro level concerns for justice by for instance, seeking to engage with interests of those facilitating research, and the broader systemic issues that make resource poor settings vulnerable to exploitation. We interpret these views to suggest a need for global health research to engage with current crises that face people in these settings as well as the broader systemic issues that produce them. Global health research should provide benefits that address both the micro and macro level issues of justice in order to forestall exploitation. Embracing the two is however challenging in terms of how the various competing interests/needs should be balanced ethically, especially in the absence of structures to guide the process. This challenge should point to the need for greater dialogue to facilitate value clarification among stakeholders.

The Global International Waters Assessment for the Pacific Islands: aspects of transboundary, water shortage, and coastal fisheries issues.

PubMed

South, G Robin; Skelton, Posa A; Veitayaki, Joeli; Resture, Alan; Carpenter, Clive; Pratt, Craig; Lawedrau, Alena

2004-02-01

Aspects of transboundary, water shortage, and fisheries issues are discussed in the context of the recently completed Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA) for the Pacific Islands. The region encompasses some 30 million km2 and approximately 12% of the world's ocean space, and features great geographic, demographic and developmental diversity. Global change, especially sea level rise and sea surface temperature increases, is the dominant transboundary concern as it impacts all aspects of life. Water shortage and unsustainable fishing issues are selected for discussion, as they will dominate the region into the foreseeable future, and they are illustrated with examples from Fiji, Kiribati, and Tonga. The environmental impacts are exacerbated by socioeconomic issues such as high population growth rates, urban drift, the breakdown of traditional life styles and the rapid adoption of the cash economy. Policy options that may assist in addressing these issues are proposed.

Fundamental issues in the geology and geophysics of venus.

PubMed

Solomon, S C; Head, J W

1991-04-12

A number of important and currently unresolved issues in the global geology and geophysics of Venus will be addressable with the radar imaging, altimetry, and gravity measurements now forthcoming from the Magellan mission. Among these are the global volcanic flux and the rate of formation of new crust; the global heat flux and its regional variations; the relative importance of localized hot spots and linear centers of crustal spreading to crustal formation and tectonics; and the planform of mantle convection on Venus and the nature of the interactions among interior convective flow, near-surface deformation and magmatism.

Universality of Culture and Neo-Intuitionalism: Do They Make a Difference to Comparative Education?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mohammad, Amal Abdel Fattah

2017-01-01

Comparative education (CE) addresses culture through the lens of global culture which increasingly puts so much emphasis on human capital. Also, convergence of educational systems has become one of the main issues of global culture in CE, particularly with so many nationalities melting into the global society to become part and parcel of the…

Education and Poverty in the Global Development Agenda: Emergence, Evolution and Consolidation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tarabini, Aina

2010-01-01

The objective of this paper is to analyse the role of education and poverty in the current global development agenda. It intends to analyse the emergence, evolution and consolidation of a global agenda, which attributes a key role to education in the fight against poverty. With this objective, the paper addresses four main issues: first, it…

Developing an approach to assessing the political feasibility of global collective action and an international agreement on antimicrobial resistance.

PubMed

Rogers Van Katwyk, Susan; Danik, Marie Évelyne; Pantis, Ioana; Smith, Rachel; Røttingen, John-Arne; Hoffman, Steven J

2016-01-01

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global issue. International trade, travel, agricultural practices, and environmental contamination all make it possible for resistant microbes to cross national borders. Global collective action is needed in the form of an international agreement or other mechanism that brings states together at the negotiation table and commits them to adopt or implement policies to limit the spread of resistant microorganisms. This article describes an approach to assessing whether political and stakeholder interests can align to commit to tackling AMR. Two dimensions affecting political feasibility were selected and compared across 82 countries: 1) states' global influence and 2) self-interest in addressing AMR. World Bank GDP ranking was used as a proxy for global influence, while human antibiotic consumption (10-year percent change) was used as a proxy for self-interest in addressing AMR. We used these data to outline a typology of four country archetypes, and discuss how these archetypes can be used to understand whether a proposed agreement may have sufficient support to be politically feasible. Four types of countries exist within our proposed typology: 1) wealthy countries who have the expertise and financial resources to push for global collective action on AMR, 2) wealthy countries who need to act on AMR, 3) countries who require external assistance to act on AMR, and 4) neutral countries who may support action where applicable. Any international agreement will require substantial support from countries of the first type to lead global action, and from countries of the second type who have large increasing antimicrobial consumption levels. A large number of barriers exist that could derail efforts towards global collective action on AMR; issues of capacity, infrastructure, regulation, and stakeholder interests will need to be addressed in coordination with other actors to achieve an agreement on AMR. Achieving a global agreement on access, conservation, and innovation - the three pillars of AMR - will not be easy. However, smaller core groups of interested Initiator and Pivotal Countries could develop policy and resolve many issues. If highly influential countries take the lead, agreements could then be scaled up to achieve global action.

Global Warming: Its Implications for U.S. National Security Policy

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-19

The approach to this topic will be to look at the science behind anthropogenic global warming . Is man largely responsible for causing global warming due...paper will then investigate the nexus between global warming and U.S. national security policy. It will address the challenges facing U.S. leaders and...policy makers as they tackle the issue of global warming and its implications for U.S. policy. Finally it will conclude with recommendations for those

Afterword. Contesting Culture: Identity and Curriculum Dilemmas in the Age of Globalization, Postcolonialism, and Multiplicity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCarthy, Cameron; Giardina, Michael D.; Harewood, Susan Juanita; Park, Jin-Kyung

2003-01-01

Draws on articles in this special issue to find implications for educators of developments in popular culture, cultural globalization, and electronic images. Addresses questions concerning the reproduction of culture, identity, and community within contemporary educational debates. (Contains 48 references.) (Author/SK)

Agency as Place in Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Grant R.; Patrizio, Kami M.

2015-01-01

We build upon the conceptualizations of agency in teacher education presented in the three previous articles in this issue to address the question of "where" agency occurs in the context of globalization. We rely on theories of place and place-based education to illuminate the paradoxical dimensions of the global commons, raising…

Addressing AACSB Global and Technology Requirements: Exploratory Assessment of a Marketing Management Assignment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greene, Scott; Bao, Yongchuan

2009-01-01

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) standards mandate knowledge of global and technology issues. Businesses desire employees with ability to analyze international markets and to be adept with technology. Taxpayers supporting public universities and organizations hiring business school graduates expect accountability…

Congressional Response to Ensuring America's Competitiveness. BHEF Issue Brief

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Business-Higher Education Forum (NJ1), 2006

2006-01-01

Congress is taking an active role in understanding and responding to the underlying problems that confront America's competitiveness in the global economy. During the 109th congressional session, legislation has been introduced addressing the importance of mathematics and science in the global economy. The Senate's Protecting America's Competitive…

Social responsibility of nursing: a global perspective.

PubMed

Tyer-Viola, Lynda; Nicholas, Patrice K; Corless, Inge B; Barry, Donna M; Hoyt, Pamela; Fitzpatrick, Joyce J; Davis, Sheila M

2009-05-01

This study addresses social responsibility in the discipline of nursing and implications for global health. The concept of social responsibility is explicated and its relevance for nursing is examined, grounded in the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics and the International Council of Nurses Code of Ethics. Social justice, human rights, nurse migration, and approaches to nursing education are discussed within the framework of nursing's social responsibility. Strategies for addressing nursing workforce issues and education within a framework of social responsibility are explored.

The APRU Global Health Program: Past and Future.

PubMed

Samet, Jonathan; Withers, Mellissa

2016-01-01

The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) is an international consortium of 45 universities in the Pacific Rim, representing 16 economies, 130 000 faculty members and more than two million students. The APRU Global Health Program aims to expand existing collaborative research efforts among universities to address regional and global health issues. Since its launch in 2007-08, the program has covered a significant range of topics including emerging public health threats, ageing and chronic diseases, infectious diseases and health security issues, among others. The Program's activities in research, training, and service around the globe illustrate the diverse dimensions of global health. In this paper, the major activities to date are outlined and future planned activities are discussed.

Innovative Techniques for the Production of Low Cost 2D Laser Diode Arrays. Supplies or Services and Prices/Costs

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-12-31

continue on facet coatings, PL correlation to device performance, and CVD diamond. All global issues mentioned in Section 2.0 will be addresses and...The CVD diamond submounts will be hermetically sealed, electrically isolated and liquid cooled. (Deliverables: 5 5-bar arrays.) The following global ... issues not mentioned above will be investigated continuously throughout all four phases of this program: (1) design and development of a mask set to

USSOCOM’s Role in Addressing Human Trafficking

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-12-02

global issue runs parallel and at times intersects with the increasing prevalence of VEOs as a transnational threat. Already tasked to synchronize...There are 104 countries without laws, policies, or regulations to prevent victims’ deportation.8 These numbers indicate both the size of global HT...whole of government response through USSOCOM integration. HT exhibits the global connectivity of other transnational crimes, but is also

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rayner, S.

This report characterizes certain aspects of the Global Change Research Program of the US Government, and its relevance to the short and medium term needs of policy makers in the public and private sectors. It addresses some of the difficulties inherent in the science and policy interface on the issues of global change. Finally, this report offers some proposals for improving the science for policy process in the context of global environmental change.

Global perspectives on nursing and its contribution to healthcare and health policy: thoughts on an emerging policy model.

PubMed

Shamian, Judith

2014-12-01

We know from rigorous evidence that nurses can exert an incredible impact on the everyday lives of people and their health. Nurses can also contribute in much wider spheres of influence by applying their knowledge and skills to address broader issues affecting population health across communities, nations and globally. Despite the prevalence of so many vexing health and social issues, nurses often fail to think globally, or even regionally, when they are lobbying for change. And while much political influence is local, some issues are simply too complex to rely on local influence alone. Importantly in all this, we must acknowledge the ways these complex health issues are shaped by economic and political agendas and not necessarily by healthcare agendas. As such, the nursing community has to act globally and locally, both within and outside of the nursing arena. This paper explores early thinking about an evolving model of spheres--or "bubbles"--of policy influence in which nurses can and must operate to more effectively impact key global health and healthcare challenges.

Progress in global surveillance and response capacity 10 years after severe acute respiratory syndrome.

PubMed

Braden, Christopher R; Dowell, Scott F; Jernigan, Daniel B; Hughes, James M

2013-06-01

Ten years have elapsed since the World Health Organization issued its first global alert for an unexplained illness named severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the international response to this new global microbial threat. While global surveillance and response capacity for public health threats have been strengthened, critical gaps remain. Of 194 World Health Organization member states that signed on to the International Health Regulations (2005), <20% had achieved compliance with the core capacities required by the deadline in June 2012. Lessons learned from the global SARS outbreak highlight the need to avoid complacency, strengthen efforts to improve global capacity to address the next pandemic using all available 21st century tools, and support research to develop new treatment options, countermeasures, and insights while striving to address the global inequities that are the root cause of many of these challenges.

Face to Faith: Teaching Global Citizenship

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beauchamp, Marcia

2011-01-01

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation has created a program that enables students to learn directly with, from, and about one another's culture, religion and beliefs. Face to Faith is a state-of-the-art educational program that addresses cross-cultural and inter-religious understanding in the context of study about global issues. The program uses…

The role of the airline transportation network in the prediction and predictability of global epidemics.

PubMed

Colizza, Vittoria; Barrat, Alain; Barthélemy, Marc; Vespignani, Alessandro

2006-02-14

The systematic study of large-scale networks has unveiled the ubiquitous presence of connectivity patterns characterized by large-scale heterogeneities and unbounded statistical fluctuations. These features affect dramatically the behavior of the diffusion processes occurring on networks, determining the ensuing statistical properties of their evolution pattern and dynamics. In this article, we present a stochastic computational framework for the forecast of global epidemics that considers the complete worldwide air travel infrastructure complemented with census population data. We address two basic issues in global epidemic modeling: (i) we study the role of the large scale properties of the airline transportation network in determining the global diffusion pattern of emerging diseases; and (ii) we evaluate the reliability of forecasts and outbreak scenarios with respect to the intrinsic stochasticity of disease transmission and traffic flows. To address these issues we define a set of quantitative measures able to characterize the level of heterogeneity and predictability of the epidemic pattern. These measures may be used for the analysis of containment policies and epidemic risk assessment.

The role of health promotion: between global thinking and local action.

PubMed

King, Lesley

2006-12-01

The persistence of health inequities provides an ongoing challenge for health promotion. The dictum 'think globally, act locally' fails to recognise the significance of infrastructure and policy in linking global issues and local practices as a means of addressing health inequities. Commentary and opinion. Through analytic tools and methods, health promotion has much to contribute to facilitating health-improving changes in social, economic and physical environments. Local actions provide excellent illustrations of organisational change and intersectoral action, and present the possibility that such actions could be widely implemented. While this has occurred on some issues, this is not usually the case. Political support, policy and infrastructure are required to link global ideas and local actions and overcome the impasse. Media advocacy is one example of an approach with potential to make these links and mobilise political support. Reframing media and political discussion, away from the dichotomy of individual responsibility and government intervention and towards acknowledging the social context of human behaviour, could contribute to policy and social environments with greater capacity to address inequities.

Global occupational health: current challenges and the need for urgent action.

PubMed

Lucchini, Roberto G; London, Leslie

2014-01-01

Global occupational health and safety (OHS) is strictly linked to the dynamics of economic globalization. As the global market is increasing, the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries, occupational diseases, and injuries affect a vast number of workers worldwide. Global OHS issues also become local in developed countries due to many factors, including untrained migrant workers in the informal sector, construction, and agriculture. To identify the current status and challenges of global occupational health and safety and the needs for preventive action. Absence of OHS infrastructure amplifies the devastating consequences of infectious outbreaks like the Ebola pandemic and tuberculosis. Interventions in global OHS are urgently needed at various levels: 1. Increased governmental funding is needed for international organizations like the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization to face the increasing demand for policies, guidance, and training. 2. Regulations to ban and control dangerous products are needed to avoid the transfer of hazardous production to developing countries. 3. The OHS community must address global OHS issues through advocacy, position papers, public statements, technical and ethical guidelines, and by encouraging access of OHS professionals from the developing countries to leadership positions in professional and academic societies. 4. Research, education, and training of OHS professionals, workers, unions and employers are needed to address global OHS issues and their local impact. 5. Consumers also can influence significantly the adoption of OHS practices by demanding the protection of workers who are producing he goods that are sold in the global market. Following the equation of maximized profits prompted by the inhibition of OHS is an old practice that has proven to cause significant costs to societies in the developed world. It is now an urgent priority to stop this process and promote a harmonized global market where the health of workers is guaranteed in the global perspective. Copyright © 2014 Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Essence and Explanation: "Idea" as a Pedagogical Tool in the Analysis Class.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boge, Claire L.

One of the greatest challenges of music analysis, and especially its pedagogy, is the issue of unification: the integration of detailed and sometimes disparate analytical observations within a more global explanatory context. Music theory has traditionally addressed this issue from the perspective of syntax (the most familiar approaches being…

Travel Abroad: A Study of the Perceived Influence of High School Students' Experiences of Short-Term Travel or Study Abroad Prior to College

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Angwenyi, David Matara

2014-01-01

Students who participate in a short-term travel experience program of 4 weeks or less develop a sense of global citizenship. High school students who spend time traveling abroad might seek to address global issues, not only from a local perspective, but also from a global perspective. The Troika Study guided this study. Using qualitative…

Inernational research in health care management: its need in the 21st century, methodological challenges, ethical issues, pitfalls, and practicalities.

PubMed

Buttigieg, Sandra C; Rathert, Cheryl; D'Aunno, Thomas A; Savage, Grant T

2015-01-01

This commentary argues in favor of international research in the 21st century. Advances in technology, science, communication, transport, and infrastructure have transformed the world into a global village. Industries have increasingly adopted globalization strategies. Likewise, the health sector is more internationalized whereby comparisons between diverse health systems, international best practices, international benchmarking, cross-border health care, and cross-cultural issues have become important subjects in the health care literature. The focus has now turned to international, collaborative, cross-national, and cross-cultural research, which is by far more demanding than domestic studies. In this commentary, we explore the methodological challenges, ethical issues, pitfalls, and practicalities within international research and offer possible solutions to address them. The commentary synthesizes contributions from four scholars in the field of health care management, who came together during the annual meeting of the Academy of Management to discuss with members of the Health Care Management Division the challenges of international research. International research is worth pursuing; however, it calls for scholarly attention to key methodological and ethical issues for its success. This commentary addresses salient issues pertaining to international research in one comprehensive account.

Personal Health, Person-centred Health and Personalised Medicine - Concepts, Consumers, Confusion and Challenges in the Informatics World.

PubMed

Rigby, M

2012-01-01

To define and assess 'Consumer Health Informatics' and related emergent issues in an era of new media and of personalisation of care, and from this to define what actions need to be taken to optimise benefits and address risks. Definition of key concepts; review of health personalisation, emergent health information and communication technologies and knowledge sources available to citizens and social media; and identification of unresolved issues threatening optimal use of each. A structured review supported by citations and examples. Several new aspects of consumer health informatics are emerging, including new knowledge sources, feedback on treatments and care providers, on-line videos, and a new generation of patient experience sites including those which are for profit and seek to influence treatment paradigms. Not just the information usage, but also the potential social challenges and malicious abuses, are global issues, and also transcend the traditional health community and thus should be addressed in partnership with other global agencies.

How Global Science has yet to Bridge Global Differences - A Status Report of the IUGS Taskforce on Global Geoscience Workforce

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Keane, C. M.; Gonzales, L. M.

2010-12-01

The International Union of Geological Sciences, with endorsement by UNESCO, has established a taskforce on global geosciences workforce and has tasked the American Geological Institute to take a lead. Springing from a session on global geosciences at the IGC33 in Oslo, Norway, the taskforce is to address three issues on a global scale: define the geosciences, determine the producers and consumers of geoscientists, and frame the understandings to propose pathways towards improved global capacity building in the geosciences. With the combination of rapid retirements in the developed world, and rapid economic expansion and impact of resource and hazard issues in the developing world, the next 25 years will be a dynamic time for the geosciences. However, to date there has been little more than a cursory sense of who and what the geosciences are globally and whether we will be able to address the varied needs and issues in the developed and the developing worlds. Based on prior IUGS estimates, about 50% of all working geoscientists reside in the Unites States, and the US was also producing about 50% of all new geosciences graduate degrees globally. Work from the first year of the taskforce has elucidated the immense complexity of the issue of defining the geosciences, as it bring is enormous cultural and political frameworks, but also shed light on the status of the geosciences in each country. Likewise, this leads to issues of who is actually producing and consuming geoscience talent, and whether countries are meeting domestic demand, and if not, is external talent available to import. Many US-based assumptions about the role of various countries in the geosciences’ global community of people, namely China and India, appear to have been misplaced. In addition, the migration of geoscientists between countries raised enormous questions about what is nationality and if there is an ideal ‘global geoscientist.’ But more than anything, the taskforce is revealing clear global trends in geosciences education, both at the pre-college and university level and frame the state of health of geosciences education in the United States in a totally new light. But indicators are present that the developing world will likely overtake the developed world in the near future in the production of geoscientists, but a key question is will that fundamentally change the nature of the science given the social, cultural, and educational frameworks that the next global generation brings with them.

EPA Efforts in the Asia-Pacific Region

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

EPA’s engagement in Asia and the Pacific Islands helps safeguard our domestic environment; protect the health of our citizens; address global environmental issues; and improve the safety of products and food.

Student Power in a Global Perspective and Contemporary Trends in Student Organising

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klemencic, Manja

2014-01-01

Students, if organised into representative student governments or movements, can be a highly influential agency shaping higher education policy. This article introduces the Special Issue on student power in a global perspective, which addresses the question of how students are organised in different world regions and what role they play in higher…

A Global Environmental Agenda for the United States: Issues for the New U.S. Administration.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennedy, Donald; Sant, Roger W.

2000-01-01

The new presidential administration faces an array of urgent challenges. Complex public policy choices are necessary to address the near-term challenges of climate change and resource degradation which will help the United States deal with the chronic problems of global inequity and human deprivation. Outlines the environmental problems…

Applying Geography Course Projects to Issues in City Resilience and Global Connectivity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kalafsky, Ronald V.; Rosko, Helen M.

2017-01-01

Globalization would appear to be a subject that easily could be addressed in geography classrooms, yet this is not always the case. In terms of pedagogy, many geographers are concerned whether the field has been adequately engaging various components of this topic (e.g., connectivity, core-periphery), especially in terms of making the subject…

Global Issues in the Middle School Grades 5-8. Third Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Jacquelyn; And Others

This activity book contains 27 activities designed to help teachers address the goal of including global education in their classrooms. The activities, organized into five sections, are presented in a standard format of: (1) a brief introduction; (2) a list of objectives; (3) an estimate of required time for the activity; (4) list of needed…

Shared and Unique Genetic and Environmental Influences on Aging-Related Changes in Multiple Cognitive Abilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tucker-Drob, Elliot M.; Reynolds, Chandra A.; Finkel, Deborah; Pedersen, Nancy L.

2014-01-01

Aging-related declines occur in many different domains of cognitive function during middle and late adulthood. However, whether a global dimension underlies individual differences in changes in different domains of cognition and whether global genetic influences on cognitive changes exist is less clear. We addressed these issues by applying…

"You Don't Have to Travel the World": Accumulating Experiences on the Path toward Globally Competent Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parkhouse, Hillary; Tichnor-Wagner, Ariel; Cain, Jessie Montana; Glazier, Jocelyn

2016-01-01

As classrooms become increasingly diverse and students need more complex skills for collaboratively addressing transnational issues, we need a better understanding of the factors that contribute to globally competent teaching. Education research has highlighted the benefits of study abroad and overseas teaching, as well as local cross-cultural…

Reflecting on Role Play in Geographic Education: The Case of the Banana War

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kurtz, Hilda E.

2004-01-01

Debates over the nature and extent of globalization raise many issues to be addressed in a geographic education. In this paper, I briefly review case method instruction and role-play as teaching strategies suitable for material on globalization and other geographic subject matter, and then sketch an overview of an undergraduate geography role-play…

Preface--Environmental issues related to oil and gas exploration and production

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kharaka, Yousif K.; Otton, James K.

2007-01-01

Energy is the essential commodity that powers the expanding global economy. Starting in the 1950s, oil and natural gas became the main sources of primary energy for the rapidly increasing world population (Edwards, 1997). In 2003, petroleum was the source for 62.1% of global energy, and projections by energy information administration (EIA) indicate that oil and gas will continue their dominance, supplying 59.5% of global energy in 2030 (EIA, 2007). Unfortunately petroleum and coal consumption carry major detrimental environmental impacts that may be regional or global in scale, including air pollution, global climate change and oil spills. This special volume of Applied Geochemistry, devoted to “Environmental Issues Related to Oil and Gas Exploration and Production”, does not address these major impacts directly because air pollution and global climate change are issues related primarily to the burning of petroleum and coal, and major oil spills generally occur during ocean transport, such as the Exxon Valdez 1989 spill of 42,000 m3 (260,000 bbl) oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska.

Innovative Use of the Law to Address Complex Global Health Problems Comment on "The Legal Strength of International Health Instruments - What It Brings toGlobal Health Governance?"

PubMed

Walls, Helen L; Ooms, Gorik

2017-05-20

Addressing the increasingly globalised determinants of many important problems affecting human health is a complex task requiring collective action. We suggest that part of the solution to addressing intractable global health issues indeed lies with the role of new legal instruments in the form of globally binding treaties, as described in the recent article of Nikogosian and Kickbusch. However, in addition to the use of international law to develop new treaties, another part of the solution may lie in innovative use of existing legal instruments. A 2015 court ruling in The Hague, which ordered the Dutch government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% within five years, complements this perspective, suggesting a way forward for addressing global health problems that critically involves civil society and innovative use of existing domestic legal instruments. © 2017 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Total Army

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-01-01

basis for countries to cooperate on a range of issues from space exploration to addressing global climate change. Ironically, the success of this...countries to solve a current issue such as current “Friends of Yemen” and “Friends of Darfur”. While these groups are looser than a coalition, many of the...additional burden. Requirements Directed by the Department of Defense The Department of Defense uses DoD Directives (DoDDs) to issue institutional

The American Competitiveness Initiative: Addressing the STEM Teacher Shortage and Improving Student Academic Readiness. BHEF Issue Brief

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Business-Higher Education Forum (NJ1), 2006

2006-01-01

America's leaders are increasingly concerned about U.S. competitiveness in a rapidly globalizing world. In response, during the 2006 State of the Union Address, President Bush introduced the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) to promote policy that bolsters student achievement in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and…

Globalizing Air Pollution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, J.

2017-12-01

Recent studies have revealed the issue of globalizing air pollution through complex coupling of atmospheric transport (physical route) and economic trade (socioeconomic route). Recognition of such globalizing air pollution has important implications for understanding the impacts of regional and global consumption (of goods and services) on air quality, public health, climate and the ecosystems. And addressing these questions often requires improved modeling, measurements and economic-emission statistics. This talk will introduce the concept and mechanism of globalizing air pollution, with following demonstrations based on recent works on modeling, satellite measurement and multi-disciplinary assessment.

Our Changing Planet: The FY 1993 US Global Change Research Program. A report by the Committee on Earth and Environmental Sciences, a supplement to the US President's fiscal year 1993 budget

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1992-01-01

The U.S. Global Change Reasearch Program (USGCRP) was established as a Presidential initiative in the FY-1990 Budget to help develop sound national and international policies related to global environmental issues, particularly global climate change. The USGCRP is implemented through a priority-driven scientific research agenda that is designed to be integrated, comprehensive, and multidisciplinary. It is designed explicitly to address scientific uncertainties in such areas as climate change, ozone depletion, changes in terrestrial and marine productivity, global water and energy cycles, sea level changes, the impact of global changes on human health and activities, and the impact of anthropogenic activities on the Earth system. The USGCRP addresses three parallel but interconnected streams of activity: documenting global change (observations); enhancing understanding of key processes (process research); and predicting global and regional environmental change (integrated modeling and prediction).

Climate change and transportation : challenges and opportunities.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2008-06-01

Transportation in the United States is responsible for a disproportionate amount of global greenhouse gas emissions, : which contribute to climate change. To address the issue, strategies that seek to mitigate transportation-related : greenhouse gas ...

Lumped Model Generation and Evaluation: Sensitivity and Lie Algebraic Techniques with Applications to Combustion

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-03-03

address global parameter space mapping issues for first order differential equations. The rigorous criteria for the existence of exact lumping by linear projective transformations was also established.

On the Nexus of the Spatial Dynamics of Global Urbanization and the Age of the City

PubMed Central

Scheuer, Sebastian; Haase, Dagmar; Volk, Martin

2016-01-01

A number of concepts exist regarding how urbanization can be described as a process. Understanding this process that affects billions of people and its future development in a spatial manner is imperative to address related issues such as human quality of life. In the focus of spatially explicit studies on urbanization is typically a city, a particular urban region, an agglomeration. However, gaps remain in spatially explicit global models. This paper addresses that issue by examining the spatial dynamics of urban areas over time, for a full coverage of the world. The presented model identifies past, present and potential future hotspots of urbanization as a function of an urban area's spatial variation and age, whose relation could be depicted both as a proxy and as a path of urban development. PMID:27490199

On the Nexus of the Spatial Dynamics of Global Urbanization and the Age of the City.

PubMed

Scheuer, Sebastian; Haase, Dagmar; Volk, Martin

2016-01-01

A number of concepts exist regarding how urbanization can be described as a process. Understanding this process that affects billions of people and its future development in a spatial manner is imperative to address related issues such as human quality of life. In the focus of spatially explicit studies on urbanization is typically a city, a particular urban region, an agglomeration. However, gaps remain in spatially explicit global models. This paper addresses that issue by examining the spatial dynamics of urban areas over time, for a full coverage of the world. The presented model identifies past, present and potential future hotspots of urbanization as a function of an urban area's spatial variation and age, whose relation could be depicted both as a proxy and as a path of urban development.

Assessing biodiversity loss due to land use with Life Cycle Assessment: are we there yet?

PubMed

Souza, Danielle M; Teixeira, Ricardo F M; Ostermann, Ole P

2015-01-01

Ecosystems are under increasing pressure from human activities, with land use and land-use change at the forefront of the drivers that provoke global and regional biodiversity loss. The first step in addressing the challenge of how to reverse the negative outlook for the coming years starts with measuring environmental loss rates and assigning responsibilities. Pinpointing the global pressures on biodiversity is a task best addressed using holistic models such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is the leading method for calculating cradle-to-grave environmental impacts of products and services; it is actively promoted by many public policies, and integrated as part of environmental information systems within private companies. LCA already deals with the potential biodiversity impacts of land use, but there are significant obstacles to overcome before its models grasp the full reach of the phenomena involved. In this review, we discuss some pressing issues that need to be addressed. LCA mainly introduces biodiversity as an endpoint category modeled as a loss in species richness due to the conversion and use of land over time and space. The functional and population effects on biodiversity are mostly absent due to the emphasis on species accumulation with limited geographic and taxonomical reach. Current land-use modeling activities that use biodiversity indicators tend to oversimplify the real dynamics and complexity of the interactions of species among each other and with their habitats. To identify the main areas for improvement, we systematically reviewed LCA studies on land use that had findings related to global change and conservation ecology. We provide suggestion as to how to address some of the issues raised. Our overall objective was to encourage companies to monitor and take concrete steps to address the impacts of land use on biodiversity on a broader geographical scale and along increasingly globalized supply chains. © 2014 The Authors. Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Potential impacts of global climate change on the hydrology and ecology of ephemeral freshwater systems of the forests of the northeastern United States

Treesearch

Robert T. Brooks

2009-01-01

Global, national, and regional assessments of the potential effects of Global Climate Change (GCC) have been recently released, but not one of these assessments has specifically addressed the critical issue of the potential impacts of GCC on ephemeral freshwater systems (EFS). I suggest that this is a major oversight as EFS occur in various forms across the globe. In...

The Pursuit of Wisdom: A Modest, but Essential, Prescription for the Future

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sample, Steven B.

2010-01-01

Although higher education leaders are occupied with important issues such as accessibility, globalization, funding, and innovation, another issue--moral education--must be addressed if we are to equip students to navigate the future. One need not adhere to a particular religious orthodoxy or propound any sectarian dogma to engage students in the…

Dimensions of Culturally Sensitive Factors in the Design and Development of Learning Objects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Qi, Mei; Boyle, Tom

2010-01-01

Open educational resources (OERs) are designed to be globally reusable. Yet comparatively little attention has been given to the cultural issues. This paper addresses the issue of culturally sensitive factors that may influence the design of reusable learning objects. These influences are often subtle and hard to manage. The paper proposes a…

Analysis of the mass media coverage of the Gates Foundation grand challenges in global health initiative.

PubMed

Verma, G

2009-03-01

The Grand Challenges were launched in 2003 by the Gates Foundation and other collaborators to address the health needs of developing countries. This paper outlines the current problem with health research and development in the context of inequality as conveyed by the 90/10 divide. The paper then looks at the focus and nature of press reporting of global health issues by analysing how press articles have portrayed the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative. Analysis of the mass media illustrates that the focus of reporting on the Grand Challenges tends to be on utilitarian themes, leaving issues related to justice and equity comparatively under-reported.

Application of laser-wakefield-based x-ray source to global food security issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kieffer, J. C.; Fourmaux, S.; Hallin, E.; Arnison, P.; Brereton, N.; Pitre, F.; Dixon, M.; Tran, N.

2017-05-01

We present the development of a high throughput phase contrast screening system based on LWFA Xray sources for plant imaging. We upgraded the INRS laser-betatron beam line and we illustrate its imaging potential through the innovative development of new tools for addressing issues relevant to global food security. This initiative, led by the Global Institute of Food Security (GIFS) at the U of Saskatchewan, aims to elucidate that part of the function that maps environmental inputs onto specific plant phenotypes. The prospect of correlating phenotypic expression with adaptation to environmental stresses will provide researchers with a new tool to assess breeding programs for crops meant to thrive under the climate extremes.

Synthesis and review: Tackling the nitrogen management challenge: from global to local scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reis, Stefan; Bekunda, Mateete; Howard, Clare M.; Karanja, Nancy; Winiwarter, Wilfried; Yan, Xiaoyuan; Bleeker, Albert; Sutton, Mark A.

2016-12-01

One of the ‘grand challenges’ of this age is the anthropogenic impact exerted on the nitrogen cycle. Issues of concern range from an excess of fixed nitrogen resulting in environmental pressures for some regions, while for other regions insufficient fixed nitrogen affects food security and may lead to health risks. To address these issues, nitrogen needs to be managed in an integrated fashion, at a variety of scales (from global to local). Such management has to be based on a thorough understanding of the sources of reactive nitrogen released into the environment, its deposition and effects. This requires a comprehensive assessment of the key drivers of changes in the nitrogen cycle both spatially, at the field, regional and global scale and over time. In this focus issue, we address the challenges of managing reactive nitrogen in the context of food production and its impacts on human and ecosystem health. In addition, we discuss the scope for and design of management approaches in regions with too much and too little nitrogen. This focus issue includes several contributions from authors who participated at the N2013 conference in Kampala in November 2013, where delegates compiled and agreed upon the ‘Kampala Statement-for-Action on Reactive Nitrogen in Africa and Globally’. These contributions further underline scientifically the claims of the ‘Kampala Statement’, that simultaneously reducing pollution and increasing nitrogen available in the food system, by improved nitrogen management offers win-wins for environment, health and food security in both developing and developed economies. The specific messages conveyed in the Kampala Statement focus on improving nitrogen management (I), including the reduction of nitrogen losses from agriculture, industry, transport and energy sectors, as well as improving waste treatment and informing individuals and institutions (II). Highlighting the need for innovation and increased awareness among stakeholders (III) and the identification of policy and technology solutions to tackle global nitrogen management issues (IV), this will enable countries to fulfil their regional and global commitments.

Vaccines and global health.

PubMed

Greenwood, Brian; Salisbury, David; Hill, Adrian V S

2011-10-12

Vaccines have made a major contribution to global health in recent decades but they could do much more. In November 2011, a Royal Society discussion meeting, 'New vaccines for global health', was held in London to discuss the past contribution of vaccines to global health and to consider what more could be expected in the future. Papers presented at the meeting reviewed recent successes in the deployment of vaccines against major infections of childhood and the challenges faced in developing vaccines against some of the world's remaining major infectious diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), malaria and tuberculosis. The important contribution that development of more effective veterinary vaccines could make to global health was also addressed. Some of the social and financial challenges to the development and deployment of new vaccines were reviewed. The latter issues were also discussed at a subsequent satellite meeting, 'Accelerating vaccine development', held at the Kavli Royal Society International Centre. Delegates at this meeting considered challenges to the more rapid development and deployment of both human and veterinary vaccines and how these might be addressed. Papers based on presentations at the discussion meeting and a summary of the main conclusions of the satellite meeting are included in this issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

Enhancing Students' Interest in Science and Technology through Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration and Active Learning Techniques

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grant, Donna M.; Malloy, Alisha D.; Hollowell, Gail P.

2013-01-01

Twenty-nine rising high school 12th grade students participated in a 4-week summer program designed to increase their interest in science and technology. The program was a blend of hands-on biology, chemistry, and technology modules that addressed the global issue of obesity. Student groups developed websites to address obesity in one of five…

The global flow of aluminum from 2006 through 2025

USGS Publications Warehouse

Menzie, W.D.; Barry, J.J.; Bleiwas, D.I.; Bray, E.L.; Goonan, T.G.; Matos, Grecia

2010-01-01

This report presents results of an investigation of the global flow of materials related to the production and use of aluminum in 2006 and makes projections to 2025. The report was prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Environmental Policy Committee's Working Group on Waste Prevention and Recycling. The report addresses the major resource flows and effects of those flows and provides insights on the life cycle of aluminum; it does not address policy issues related to the production and use of aluminum.

Why We Need to Have Broad-Based Societal Discussions of the Governance of Geoengineering, at national and international levels, starting with scientists and increasingly with policy makers?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anbar, A. D.; Rowan, L. R.; Field, L. A.; Keith, D.; Robock, A.; Anbar, A. D.; van der Pluijm, B.; Pasztor, J.

2017-12-01

The Paris Agreement aims to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 to 2°C above preindustrial temperature, but achieving this goal requires much higher levels of mitigation than currently planned. This challenge has focused greater attention on climate geoengineering approaches, as part of an overall response starting with radical mitigation. Geoengineering cannot address climate change on its own, but some scientists say that it could delay or reduce the overshoot. In so doing, we may expose the world to other serious risks. There is , however, no comprehensive international framework for governing these emerging technologies. Carbon dioxide removal technologies can have serious environmental, social and economic impacts, which need to be addressed. The largest immediate risk, however, could be the unilateral deployment of solar engineering by one country, a small group of countries, or a wealthy individual. The real or perceived impacts of deployment, including geopolitical reactions, could further destabilize a world already going through rapid change. Effective global governance frameworks could reduce this risk. SRM research is in its infancy. The real challenges are not technical, but pertain to ethics and governance. Should there be a strategic research programme, coupled with a global agreement to prohibit deployment unless and until certain risks and governance questions are adequately addressed? How would the world's governments determine if the potential global benefit of geoengineering is worth the risks to certain regions? How should trans-border and trans-generational issues be addressed? How would governance frameworks withstand geopolitical changes over decades or more of deployment? How might such technologies be developed and deployed without undermining political will to cut emissions? The world is heading to an increasingly risky future and is unprepared to address the institutional and governance challenges posed by these technologies. Geoengineering has planet-wide consequences and must therefore be discussed within intergovernmental institutions, including the United Nations. The research community has been addressing many of these issues, but the global policy community and the public largely have not. It's time to do so.

Why We Need to Have Broad-Based Societal Discussions of the Governance of Geoengineering, at national and international levels, starting with scientists and increasingly with policy makers?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anbar, A. D.; Rowan, L. R.; Field, L. A.; Keith, D.; Robock, A.; Anbar, A. D.; van der Pluijm, B.; Pasztor, J.

2016-12-01

The Paris Agreement aims to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 to 2°C above preindustrial temperature, but achieving this goal requires much higher levels of mitigation than currently planned. This challenge has focused greater attention on climate geoengineering approaches, as part of an overall response starting with radical mitigation. Geoengineering cannot address climate change on its own, but some scientists say that it could delay or reduce the overshoot. In so doing, we may expose the world to other serious risks. There is , however, no comprehensive international framework for governing these emerging technologies. Carbon dioxide removal technologies can have serious environmental, social and economic impacts, which need to be addressed. The largest immediate risk, however, could be the unilateral deployment of solar engineering by one country, a small group of countries, or a wealthy individual. The real or perceived impacts of deployment, including geopolitical reactions, could further destabilize a world already going through rapid change. Effective global governance frameworks could reduce this risk. SRM research is in its infancy. The real challenges are not technical, but pertain to ethics and governance. Should there be a strategic research programme, coupled with a global agreement to prohibit deployment unless and until certain risks and governance questions are adequately addressed? How would the world's governments determine if the potential global benefit of geoengineering is worth the risks to certain regions? How should trans-border and trans-generational issues be addressed? How would governance frameworks withstand geopolitical changes over decades or more of deployment? How might such technologies be developed and deployed without undermining political will to cut emissions? The world is heading to an increasingly risky future and is unprepared to address the institutional and governance challenges posed by these technologies. Geoengineering has planet-wide consequences and must therefore be discussed within intergovernmental institutions, including the United Nations. The research community has been addressing many of these issues, but the global policy community and the public largely have not. It's time to do so.

Estimating Global Precipitation for Science and Application

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huffman, George J.

2013-01-01

Over the past two decades there has been vigorous development in the satellite assets and the algorithms necessary to estimate precipitation around the globe. In particular the highly successful joint NASAJAXA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the upcoming Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, also joint between NASA and JAXA, have driven these issues. At the same time, the long-running Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) continues to extend a stable, climate-oriented view of global precipitation. This talk will provide an overview of these projects and the wider international community of precipitation datasets, sketch plans for next-generation products, and provide some examples of the best use for the different products. One key lesson learned is that different data sets are needed to address the variety of issues that need precipitation data, including detailed 3-D views of hurricanes, flash flood forecasting, drought analysis, and global change.

What does a compound letter tell the psychologist's mind?

PubMed

Navon, David

2003-11-01

The paradigm based on using compound stimuli for studying global and local processing is revisited. Noting that not all researchers employ compound stimuli for the same purpose, the issue of its purpose is discussed. It is argued that the paradigm is pertinent for examining at least three notions--formation preference, global addressability, and within-object global precedence. It is suggested that findings in the paradigm are accommodated well by a disjunction of those three perceptual dispositions. A number of further issues associated with the interpretation of findings obtained with it are examined as well. An experimental study is reported that is meant to examine one such issue--a possible artifact putatively introduced by the special attribute of element homogeneity characteristic of compound stimuli. Seven experiments were used to examine to what extent, if at all, global advantage observed in compound stimulus paradigms depends on element heterogeneity. Across those experiments, heterogeneity did not have any effect that could be interpreted as suggesting that the paradigm is biased in favor of the global structure due to element homogeneity.

Learning Societies in the New Millennium: Creativity, Caring & Commitments. International Conference on Computers in Education/International Conference on Computer Assisted Instruction (Taipei, Taiwan, November 21-24, 2000).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. Asia-Pacific Chapter.

This conference addressed pedagogical, social, and technological issues related to computers in education. The conference theme, "Learning Societies in the New Millennium: Creativity, Caring & Commitments," focused on creative learning, caring for diverse cultures and global issues, and committing oneself to a new way of…

Topographic data requirements for EOS global change research

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gesch, Dean B.

1994-01-01

This document is a result of Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Version 0 activities of the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center at the U.S. Geological Survey's EROS Data Center. A relatively small part of the Version 0 funding provided by NASA is used to address topographic data issues related to EOS. These issues include identifying and improving access to existing sources of topographic data, data generation, facilitating the use of topographic data in global change research by demonstrating derivative products, and inventorying the specific topographic data requirements of EOS investigators. There is a clear need for global topographic data in EOSDIS. Only 10 percent of the global land surface is covered by high-resolution data that are available to the global change science community. Alternative sources for new data exist or have been proposed; however, none of them alone can fulfill the data requirements by the launch of the first EOS platform in 4 years. There is no operational provider of all the source data that are required. Even if appropriate global source data existed, a concerted production effort would be necessary to ensure the existence of the requisite topographic data before EOS launch. Additionally, no funding from NASA or any other agency has been appropriated for a new mapping mission or for other means of data acquisition. This effort to document requirements is an initial step toward understanding the severity of the data shortage. It is well beyond the scope of Version 0 funding and capabilities to provide the required data in the proper timeframe. The shortage of data and the lack of a plan for providing the necessary topographic data through EOSDIS in time for launch are issues that must be addressed by the EOS program.

Communicating Climate Change Science: Conundrum Or Creative Challenge?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Casey, A. G.; Webster, K.; Unger, H. M.

2004-12-01

"Climate change" may seem like a mild or politically motivated name for what most lay people know as "global warming." But the term is correct for what is happening to our planet, and it is an issue that scientific research organizations must address. Regardless of whether public outreach is part of an organization's mission, getting data to the scientific community usually is. Scientists are being asked the questions "Is global warming real? Is it just a scare tactic by environmentalists? What does it have to do with me?" So all research organizations must step up to help answer these questions. As National Geographic has done so well in its September 2004 issue "Global Warning," science outreach must not be afraid to deliver clear information and let the reader decide. Readers from any educational background can be made aware of the fact that many climate indicators are changing, even things in their own regions. One of the challenges is the sheer amount of information available. A creative way to address this problem is to present material that relates to peoples' local regions. Another challenge is that providing this alarming information can scare people. One way to deal with this issue is to present ways that people can participate in slowing the human impact on our planet.

Quantitative Outcomes of a One Health approach to Study Global Health Challenges.

PubMed

Falzon, Laura C; Lechner, Isabel; Chantziaras, Ilias; Collineau, Lucie; Courcoul, Aurélie; Filippitzi, Maria-Eleni; Laukkanen-Ninios, Riikka; Peroz, Carole; Pinto Ferreira, Jorge; Postma, Merel; Prestmo, Pia G; Phythian, Clare J; Sarno, Eleonora; Vanantwerpen, Gerty; Vergne, Timothée; Grindlay, Douglas J C; Brennan, Marnie L

2018-03-01

Having gained momentum in the last decade, the One Health initiative promotes a holistic approach to address complex global health issues. Before recommending its adoption to stakeholders, however, it is paramount to first compile quantitative evidence of the benefit of such an approach. The aim of this scoping review was to identify and summarize primary research that describes monetary and non-monetary outcomes following adoption of a One Health approach. An extensive literature search yielded a total of 42,167 references, of which 85 were included in the final analysis. The top two biotic health issues addressed in these studies were rabies and malaria; the top abiotic health issue was air pollution. Most studies described collaborations between human and animal (n = 42), or human and environmental disciplines (n = 41); commonly reported interventions included vector control and animal vaccination. Monetary outcomes were commonly expressed as cost-benefit or cost-utility ratios; non-monetary outcomes were described using disease frequency or disease burden measurements. The majority of the studies reported positive or partially positive outcomes. This paper illustrates the variety of health challenges that can be addressed using a One Health approach, and provides tangible quantitative measures that can be used to evaluate future implementations of the One Health approach.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury: attempting to address the global controversy of dental amalgam use and mercury waste disposal.

PubMed

Mackey, Tim K; Contreras, John T; Liang, Bryan A

2014-02-15

In October 2013, a new international binding treaty instrument called the Minamata Convention on Mercury opened for signature in Minamata City, Japan, the site of arguably the worst public health and environmental disaster involving mercury contamination. The treaty aims to curb the significant health and environmental impacts of mercury pollution and includes provisions addressing the mining, export and import, storage, and waste management of products containing mercury. Importantly, a provision heavily negotiated in the treaty addresses the use of dental fillings using mercury amalgam, an issue that has been subject to decades of global controversy. Though use of dental amalgam is widespread and has benefits, concerns have been raised regarding the potential for human health risk and environmental damage from emissions and improper waste management. While the Minamata Convention attempts to address these issues by calling for a voluntary phase-down of dental amalgam use and commitment to other measures, it falls short by failing to require binding and measurable targets to achieve these goals. In response, the international community should begin exploring ways to strengthen the implementation of the dental amalgam treaty provisions by establishing binding phase-down targets and milestones as well as exploring financing mechanisms to support treaty measures. Through strengthening of the Convention, stakeholders can ensure equitable access to global oral health treatment while also promoting responsible environmental stewardship. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Towards a viable and just global nursing ethics.

PubMed

Crigger, Nancy J

2008-01-01

Globalization, an outgrowth of technology, while informing us about people throughout the world, also raises our awareness of the extreme economic and social disparities that exist among nations. As part of a global discipline, nurses are vitally interested in reducing and eliminating disparities so that better health is achieved for all people. Recent literature in nursing encourages our discipline to engage more actively with social justice issues. Justice in health care is a major commitment of nursing; thus questions in the larger sphere of globalization, justice and ethics, are our discipline's questions also. Global justice, or fairness, is not an issue for some groups or institutions, but a deeper human rights issue that is a responsibility for everyone. What can we do to help reduce or eliminate the social and economic disparities that are so evident? What kind of ethical milieu is needed to address the threat that globalization imposes on justice and fairness? This article enriches the conceptualization of globalization by investigating recent work by Schweiker and Twiss. In addition, I discuss five qualities or characteristics that will facilitate the development of a viable and just global ethic. A global ethic guides all people in their response to human rights and poverty. Technology and business, two major forces in globalization that are generally considered beneficial, are critiqued as barriers to social justice and the common good.

Authorship ethics in global health research partnerships between researchers from low or middle income countries and high income countries

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Over the past two decades, the promotion of collaborative partnerships involving researchers from low and middle income countries with those from high income countries has been a major development in global health research. Ideally, these partnerships would lead to more equitable collaboration including the sharing of research responsibilities and rewards. While collaborative partnership initiatives have shown promise and attracted growing interest, there has been little scholarly debate regarding the fair distribution of authorship credit within these partnerships. Discussion In this paper, we identify four key authorship issues relevant to global health research and discuss their ethical and practical implications. First, we argue that authorship guidance may not adequately apply to global health research because it requires authors to write or substantially revise the manuscript. Since most journals of international reputation in global health are written in English, this would systematically and unjustly exclude non-English speaking researchers even if they have substantially contributed to the research project. Second, current guidance on authorship order does not address or mitigate unfair practices which can occur in global health research due to power differences between researchers from high and low-middle income countries. It also provides insufficient recognition of “technical tasks” such as local participant recruitment. Third, we consider the potential for real or perceived editorial bias in medical science journals in favour of prominent western researchers, and the risk of promoting misplaced credit and/or prestige authorship. Finally, we explore how diverse cultural practices and expectations regarding authorship may create conflict between researchers from low-middle and high income countries and contribute to unethical authorship practices. To effectively deal with these issues, we suggest: 1) undertaking further empirical and conceptual research regarding authorship in global health research; 2) raising awareness on authorship issues in global health research; and 3) developing specific standards of practice that reflect relevant considerations of authorship in global health research. Summary Through review of the bioethics and global health literatures, and examination of guidance documents on ethical authorship, we identified a set of issues regarding authorship in collaborative partnerships between researchers from low-middle income countries and high income countries. We propose several recommendations to address these concerns. PMID:24885855

Authorship ethics in global health research partnerships between researchers from low or middle income countries and high income countries.

PubMed

Smith, Elise; Hunt, Matthew; Master, Zubin

2014-05-28

Over the past two decades, the promotion of collaborative partnerships involving researchers from low and middle income countries with those from high income countries has been a major development in global health research. Ideally, these partnerships would lead to more equitable collaboration including the sharing of research responsibilities and rewards. While collaborative partnership initiatives have shown promise and attracted growing interest, there has been little scholarly debate regarding the fair distribution of authorship credit within these partnerships. In this paper, we identify four key authorship issues relevant to global health research and discuss their ethical and practical implications. First, we argue that authorship guidance may not adequately apply to global health research because it requires authors to write or substantially revise the manuscript. Since most journals of international reputation in global health are written in English, this would systematically and unjustly exclude non-English speaking researchers even if they have substantially contributed to the research project. Second, current guidance on authorship order does not address or mitigate unfair practices which can occur in global health research due to power differences between researchers from high and low-middle income countries. It also provides insufficient recognition of "technical tasks" such as local participant recruitment. Third, we consider the potential for real or perceived editorial bias in medical science journals in favour of prominent western researchers, and the risk of promoting misplaced credit and/or prestige authorship. Finally, we explore how diverse cultural practices and expectations regarding authorship may create conflict between researchers from low-middle and high income countries and contribute to unethical authorship practices. To effectively deal with these issues, we suggest: 1) undertaking further empirical and conceptual research regarding authorship in global health research; 2) raising awareness on authorship issues in global health research; and 3) developing specific standards of practice that reflect relevant considerations of authorship in global health research. Through review of the bioethics and global health literatures, and examination of guidance documents on ethical authorship, we identified a set of issues regarding authorship in collaborative partnerships between researchers from low-middle income countries and high income countries. We propose several recommendations to address these concerns.

PREDICT: Privacy and Security Enhancing Dynamic Information Monitoring

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-08-03

consisting of global server-side probabilistic assignment by an untrusted server using cloaked locations, followed by feedback-loop guided local...12], consisting of global server-side probabilistic assignment by an untrusted server using cloaked locations, followed by feedback-loop guided...these methods achieve high sensing coverage with low cost using cloaked locations [3]. In follow-on work, the issue of mobility is addressed. Task

Meeting the Energy Challenges of the 1990s. Experts Define the Key Policy Issues.

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-03-01

Forecast of Low Emission Fuel Usage-Liquid 79 Fuels Figure 2.10: Forecast of Low Emission Fuel Usage- 81 Gaseous Fuels Figure 2.11: Global Warming From...environmental problems caused by acid rain, smog, and global warming , he said. According to Mr. Lovins, utilities as well as their customers benefit from...made in relation to these effects. The panel- ists addressed the links between global warming and the fossil fuels that now produce nearly 90 percent

Curriculum Development for the Achievement of Multiple Goals in the Agri-Food Industry.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stonehouse, D. P.

1994-01-01

The agri-food industry is concerned with maximizing global food output while preventing environmental damage. Agricultural education focuses on multidisciplinary, holistic, and integrative approaches that enhance student capabilities to address this complex issue. (SK)

Population Education: Lessons for a Changing World.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wasserman, Pamela

1996-01-01

Considers the global effects of a rapidly growing population combined with dwindling natural resources and how these issues might be addressed in the classroom. Includes a population education lesson plan, guiding principles, list of resources, and suggested activities. (MJP)

Inter-organizational future proof EHR systems. A review of the security and privacy related issues.

PubMed

van der Linden, Helma; Kalra, Dipak; Hasman, Arie; Talmon, Jan

2009-03-01

Identification and analysis of privacy and security related issues that occur when health information is exchanged between health care organizations. Based on a generic scenario questions were formulated to reveal the occurring issues. Possible answers were verified in literature. Ensuring secure health information exchange across organizations requires a standardization of security measures that goes beyond organizational boundaries, such as global definitions of professional roles, global standards for patient consent and semantic interoperable audit logs. As to be able to fully address the privacy and security issues in interoperable EHRs and the long-life virtual EHR it is necessary to realize a paradigm shift from storing all incoming information in a local system to retrieving information from external systems whenever that information is deemed necessary for the care of the patient.

An analysis of global problem issues in sixth-and seventh-grade textbooks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamm, Mary; Adams, Dennis

The study examines the extent to which the global issues of population growth, world hunger, air quality and atmosphere, and water resources were treated in sixth- and seventh-grade science textbooks. Ten textbooks were examined by five raters to determine the amount of content presented by different textbooks on global issues, the number of pages of content devoted to each issue, and the degree of depth in which issues were treated. Differences between grade levels were also explored. Of the 4,393 pages of content analyzed, less than 2 percent was devoted to these issues identified as the most serious human problems. No significant differences were found between textbook series. Significant differences were found in the number of pages of content presented on each issue. Most of the content fell into the categories of water resources, population growth, air quality, and atmosphere. The issue of war technology had the least amount of content. Distribution of content did not vary by grade level. Both levels addressed the issues of population growth, air quality, and water resources with a greater degree of depth than the issue of world hunger or war technology. The study concludes that the most widely used textbooks at the sixth- and seventh-grade levels avoid serious discussion of major global problems. And like the career indecision of a recent Miss America contestant, purchasers don't seem to be able to decide whether they want science textbooks to be a brain surgeon or a movie actress. Implications stemming from this dichotomy and its relationship to future science education curricular are also explored.

A Comparative Analysis of Female Representation in the Faculties of Engineering and Law in a Nigerian University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olubor, Roseline O.

2006-01-01

Women education has been a global issue for decades now. It is therefore appropriate to occasionally find out the situation. This study, which is a comparative analysis of the representation of females in the Faculties of Engineering and Law in University of Benin, was therefore meant to address the issue. Relevant literatures were reviewed.…

Endangered species and nature conservation: science issues and challenges.

PubMed

Szaro, Robert C

2008-06-01

The issues and challenges facing us in ensuring the survival of as many species and ecosystems as possible call for a renewed research focus to address how to improve management strategies and policy making now and into the future. The key issues to be addressed by activities of the International Union of Forest Research Organization's (IUFRO) Task Force on Endangered Species and Nature Conservation include such issues as: (i) preventing species from being listed by maintaining species populations at sufficient levels that they do not require listing; (ii) recovering threatened and endangered species; (iii) developing management practices and strategies; (iv) balancing actions affecting suites of threatened or endangered species; (v) developing conservation strategies for species without definitive taxonomic treatments; (vi) dealing with global change; (vii) dealing with invasive species; and (viii) restoring critical habitats. © 2008 ISZS, Blackwell Publishing and IOZ/CAS.

From conceptual pluralism to practical agreement on policy: global responsibility for global health.

PubMed

Ruger, Jennifer Prah; Hammonds, Rachel; Ooms, Gorik; Barry, Donna; Chapman, Audrey; Van Damme, Wim

2015-10-28

As the human cost of the global economic crisis becomes apparent the ongoing discussions surrounding the post-2015 global development framework continue at a frenzied pace. Given the scale and scope of increased globalization moving forward in a post-Millennium Development Goals era, to protect and realize health equity for all people, has never been more challenging or more important. The unprecedented nature of global interdependence underscores the importance of proposing policy solutions that advance realizing global responsibility for global health. This article argues for advancing global responsibility for global health through the creation of a Global Fund for Health. It suggests harnessing the power of the exceptional response to the combined epidemics of AIDS, TB and Malaria, embodied in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to realize an expanded, reconceptualized Global Fund for Health. However this proposal creates both an analytical quandary embedded in conceptual pluralism and a practical dilemma for the scope and raison d'etre of a new Global Fund for Health. To address these issues we offer a logical framework for moving from conceptual pluralism in the theories supporting global responsibility for health to practical agreement on policy to realize this end. We examine how the innovations flowing from this exceptional response can be coupled with recent ideas and concepts, for example a global social protection floor, a Global Health Constitution or a Framework Convention for Global Health, that share the global responsibility logic that underpins a Global Fund for Health. The 2014 Lancet Commission on Global Governance for Health Report asks whether a single global health protection fund would be better for global health than the current patchwork of global and national social transfers. We concur with this suggestion and argue that there is much room for practical agreement on a Global Fund for Health that moves from the conceptual level into policies and practice that advance global health. The issues of shared responsibility and mutual accountability feature widely in the post-2015 discussions and need to be addressed in a coherent manner. Our article argues why and how a Global Fund for Health effectuates this, thus advancing global responsibility for global health.

Assessing biodiversity loss due to land use with Life Cycle Assessment: are we there yet?

PubMed Central

Souza, Danielle M; Teixeira, Ricardo FM; Ostermann, Ole P

2015-01-01

Ecosystems are under increasing pressure from human activities, with land use and land-use change at the forefront of the drivers that provoke global and regional biodiversity loss. The first step in addressing the challenge of how to reverse the negative outlook for the coming years starts with measuring environmental loss rates and assigning responsibilities. Pinpointing the global pressures on biodiversity is a task best addressed using holistic models such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is the leading method for calculating cradle-to-grave environmental impacts of products and services; it is actively promoted by many public policies, and integrated as part of environmental information systems within private companies. LCA already deals with the potential biodiversity impacts of land use, but there are significant obstacles to overcome before its models grasp the full reach of the phenomena involved. In this review, we discuss some pressing issues that need to be addressed. LCA mainly introduces biodiversity as an endpoint category modeled as a loss in species richness due to the conversion and use of land over time and space. The functional and population effects on biodiversity are mostly absent due to the emphasis on species accumulation with limited geographic and taxonomical reach. Current land-use modeling activities that use biodiversity indicators tend to oversimplify the real dynamics and complexity of the interactions of species among each other and with their habitats. To identify the main areas for improvement, we systematically reviewed LCA studies on land use that had findings related to global change and conservation ecology. We provide suggestion as to how to address some of the issues raised. Our overall objective was to encourage companies to monitor and take concrete steps to address the impacts of land use on biodiversity on a broader geographical scale and along increasingly globalized supply chains. PMID:25143302

Math Wars.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abreu, Julio

2000-01-01

Four decades ago following Russia's Sputnik satellite launching, the nation embraced "new" math as part of its commitment not to fall behind its global neighbors. Issues addressed in "new-new" math include equal access to challenging learning, problem solving, reasoning and proof, communications, multiple ways to solve…

Public Key Infrastructure Study

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-04-01

commerce. This Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) study focuses on the United States Federal Government operations, but also addresses national and global ... issues in order to facilitate the interoperation of protected electronic commerce among the various levels of government in the U.S., private citizens

Potter's notion of bioethics.

PubMed

ten Have, Henk A M J

2012-03-01

In 1970 Van Rensselaer Potter was the first to use the term "bioethics" in a publication to advocate the development of a new discipline to address the basic problems of human flourishing. This article analyzes Potter's notion of bioethics in order to understand its origins, sources, and substance. In early publications, Potter conceptualized bioethics as a bridge: between present and future, nature and culture, science and values, and finally between humankind and nature. In later publications, disappointed by a predominant focus on individual and medical issues, and with a wish to underscore the need for a broader perspective, Potter introduced the new term "global bioethics," meant to transcend ethics specialties and integrate them into a new interdisciplinary endeavor to address global problems. A growing interest in global bioethics today means that Potter's original insights are more timely than ever.

Global and Domestic Spheres: Impact on The Traditional Settlement of Penglipuran in Bali

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suartika, G. A. M.

2018-02-01

The issue addressed is how to situate the ‘life-world’ of a traditional Balinese village in the context of global tourism which is now worth USD 7.61 trillion, This problem has been brought sharply into focus, indeed amplified, by the recently adopted policy of local government in Bali to designate specific villages as tourist sites. Such action appears to be taking place in the absence of any prior studies of the social, environmental and other impacts on local communities. The following paper represents an initial attempt to sketch out the breadth of the problem from the global to the local. The paper first proceeds by examining the conceptual framework of globalisation - fundamentally an economic process, - from which global cultural identities merge. It proceeds to give an overview of policy at a global level starting with the idea of designated United Nations World Heritage sites and the inevitable commodification of ‘place.’ Then the issues and problems that flow from these first sections are discussed. Next, the situation in Indonesia as a whole is brought into sharp relief, focussing on policy and legislation that affect the internationally celebrated island of Bali. Finally, a case study of Penglipuran, a traditional Bali Aga village is discussed taking into account the preceding context. In conclusion, suggestions are made as to the significant research and policy issues that need to be addressed concurrently with the development of the settlement. The study documented in this paper was conducted using phenomenological approaches. It was grounded by researcher's experiences, gained from her deep involvement in community life as well as physical and site observation activities during data collection period.

Challenges in global ballast water management.

PubMed

Endresen, Øyvind; Lee Behrens, Hanna; Brynestad, Sigrid; Bjørn Andersen, Aage; Skjong, Rolf

2004-04-01

Ballast water management is a complex issue raising the challenge of merging international regulations, ship's specific configurations along with ecological conservation. This complexity is illustrated in this paper by considering ballast water volume, discharge frequency, ship safety and operational issues aligned with regional characteristics to address ecological risk for selected routes. A re-estimation of ballast water volumes gives a global annual level of 3500 Mton. Global ballast water volume discharged into open sea originating from ballast water exchange operations is estimated to approximately 2800 Mton. Risk based decision support systems coupled to databases for different ports and invasive species characteristics and distributions can allow for differentiated treatment levels while maintaining low risk levels. On certain routes, the risk is estimated to be unacceptable and some kind of ballast water treatment or management should be applied.

Promoting global health: utilizing WHO to integrate public health, innovation and intellectual property.

PubMed

Mackey, Tim K; Liang, Bryan A

2012-12-01

The appropriate role of innovation and intellectual property (IP) in global public health is a controversial issue. Discussion is one-sided, with potential benefits advocated by industry in stark contrast to condemnation by certain civil society players. WHO's Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Department (PHI) was established to address healthcare resource need for developing countries, assess impact of innovation and IP on access to medicines, explore innovative funding mechanisms for R&D and provide evidence-based policy-making recommendations in response to the changing global health landscape. Importantly, PHI could represent a potential forum to bridge shared, yet often diverse, interests and opportunities between various public and private stakeholders, a crucial issue for ensuring the future viability of WHO. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

International global network of fiducial stations: Scientific and implementation issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

1991-11-01

In this report, an ad hoc panel of the National Research Council's Committee on Geodesy, Board of Earth Sciences and Resources (1) evaluates the scientific importance of a global network of fiducial sites, monitored very precisely, using a combination of surface- and space-geodetic techniques; (2) examines strategies for implementing and operating such a network; and (3) assesses whether such a network would provide a suitable global infrastructure for geodetic and other geophysical systems of the next century. The panel concludes that a global network of fiducial sites would be a valuable tool for addressing global change issues and play a critical role in providing a reference frame for scientific Earth missions. The panel suggests that existing global networks be integrated and anticipates that such a network would grow from about 30 to the ultimate size of about 200 fiducial sites. It is noted that such a global network will provide a long-term infrastructure for geodetic and geophysical studies. The panel expects that these fiducial sites would evolve into terrestrial observatories or laboratories that would permit more comprehensive studies of the Earth than those now possible.

International global network of fiducial stations: Scientific and implementation issues

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1991-01-01

In this report, an ad hoc panel of the National Research Council's Committee on Geodesy, Board of Earth Sciences and Resources (1) evaluates the scientific importance of a global network of fiducial sites, monitored very precisely, using a combination of surface- and space-geodetic techniques; (2) examines strategies for implementing and operating such a network; and (3) assesses whether such a network would provide a suitable global infrastructure for geodetic and other geophysical systems of the next century. The panel concludes that a global network of fiducial sites would be a valuable tool for addressing global change issues and play a critical role in providing a reference frame for scientific Earth missions. The panel suggests that existing global networks be integrated and anticipates that such a network would grow from about 30 to the ultimate size of about 200 fiducial sites. It is noted that such a global network will provide a long-term infrastructure for geodetic and geophysical studies. The panel expects that these fiducial sites would evolve into terrestrial observatories or laboratories that would permit more comprehensive studies of the Earth than those now possible.

MAGGnet: An international network to foster mitigation of agricultural greenhouse gases

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Research networks provide a framework for review, synthesis, and systematic testing of theories by multiple scientists across international borders critical for addressing global-scale issues. In 2012, a greenhouse gas (GHG) research network referred to as MAGGnet (Managing Agricultural Greenhouse ...

Liberal Learning and the World: A Banker's Perspective.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Callander, Robert J.

1986-01-01

To address today's global banking issues requires the values and habits of mind that result from liberal education: integrity, critical thinking, moral values, historical consciousness, and ethical development. America's educational and business institutions are mutually dependent and require commitment on both parts. (MSE)

Generating global political priority for urban health: the role of the urban health epistemic community

PubMed Central

Shawar, Yusra Ribhi; Crane, Lani G

2017-01-01

Abstract Over the past decade there has been much discussion of the challenges posed by rapid urbanization in the developing world; yet the health of the urban poor, and especially those residing in low- and middle-income countries, continues to receive little political priority in most developing countries and at the global level. This research applies social science scholarship and a public policy analytical framework to assess the factors that have challenged efforts to make health in urban poor settings a priority. We conducted 19 semi-structured phone interviews with key urban health proponents and experts representing agencies that shape opinions and manage resources in global health. We also conducted a literature review, which included published scholarly literature and reports from organizations involved in urban health provision and advocacy. Utilizing a process-tracing method, we triangulated among these sources of data to create a historical narrative and analyse the factors that shape the global level of attention to and resources for urban health. The urban health agenda continues to be challenged by six factors, three of which concern the political context or characteristics of the issue: long-standing competition with the dominant development agenda that is rural health oriented; limited data and measurement tools that can effectively gauge the extent of the problem; and lack of evidence on how to best to address the issue. The other three factors are directly under the control of the urban health community: the community’s ineffective governance; little common understanding among its members of the problem and how to address it; and an unconvincing framing of the issue to the public. The study offers suggestions as to what advocates can do to secure greater attention and resources in order to help address the health needs of the urban poor. PMID:28582532

Generating global political priority for urban health: the role of the urban health epistemic community.

PubMed

Shawar, Yusra Ribhi; Crane, Lani G

2017-10-01

Over the past decade there has been much discussion of the challenges posed by rapid urbanization in the developing world; yet the health of the urban poor, and especially those residing in low- and middle-income countries, continues to receive little political priority in most developing countries and at the global level. This research applies social science scholarship and a public policy analytical framework to assess the factors that have challenged efforts to make health in urban poor settings a priority. We conducted 19 semi-structured phone interviews with key urban health proponents and experts representing agencies that shape opinions and manage resources in global health. We also conducted a literature review, which included published scholarly literature and reports from organizations involved in urban health provision and advocacy. Utilizing a process-tracing method, we triangulated among these sources of data to create a historical narrative and analyse the factors that shape the global level of attention to and resources for urban health. The urban health agenda continues to be challenged by six factors, three of which concern the political context or characteristics of the issue: long-standing competition with the dominant development agenda that is rural health oriented; limited data and measurement tools that can effectively gauge the extent of the problem; and lack of evidence on how to best to address the issue. The other three factors are directly under the control of the urban health community: the community's ineffective governance; little common understanding among its members of the problem and how to address it; and an unconvincing framing of the issue to the public. The study offers suggestions as to what advocates can do to secure greater attention and resources in order to help address the health needs of the urban poor. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

How Academies use science to enhance global security and well-being.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boright, John

2017-01-01

Science academies were originally created to facilitate science communication and later to recognize excellence. But in the last 20 years some 150 academies of science, engineering,and medicine around the world have united to cooperate in contributing to human welfare, by: 1. Providing evidence-based inputs to national, regional, and global policies addressing human needs, and 2. Conducting cooperative programs to increase the capacity of academies to provide such advice, and to better connect academies to publics and to policy makers. Examples: At the global level, 112 academies of science produce brief common statements on major global issues. They have also created an organization to provide in-depth reports on major issues such as a transition to sustainable energy systems, boosting agricultural productivity in Africa, and a guide to responsible conduct in the global research enterprise. Regional networks of those academies, in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe conduct program on topics such as water, energy, engagement of women in science, and science education. They also help and mentor new academies.

Common Elements in Rare Kidney Diseases: Conclusions from a Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Controversies Conference.

PubMed

Aymé, Ségolène; Bockenhauer, Detlef; Day, Simon; Devuyst, Olivier; Guay-Woodford, Lisa M; Ingelfinger, Julie R; Klein, Jon B; Knoers, Nine V A M; Perrone, Ronald D; Roberts, Julia; Schaefer, Franz; Torres, Vicente E; Cheung, Michael; Wheeler, David C; Winkelmayer, Wolfgang C

2017-10-01

Rare kidney diseases encompass at least 150 different conditions, most of which are inherited. Although individual rare kidney diseases raise specific issues, as a group these rare diseases can have overlapping challenges in diagnosis and treatment. These challenges include small numbers of affected patients, unidentified causes of disease, lack of biomarkers for monitoring disease progression, and need for complex care. To address common clinical and patient issues among rare kidney diseases, the KDIGO Controversies Conference entitled, Common Elements in Rare Kidney Diseases, brought together a panel of multidisciplinary clinical providers and patient advocates to address five central issues for rare kidney diseases. These issues encompassed diagnostic challenges, management of kidney functional decline and progression of chronic kidney disease, challenges in clinical study design, translation of advances in research to clinical care, and provision of practical and integrated patient support. Thus, by a process of consensus, guidance for addressing these challenges was developed and is presented here. Copyright © 2017 International Society of Nephrology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Global and the Local: Health in Latin American Indigenous Women.

PubMed

Valeggia, Claudia

2016-01-01

All over Latin America, indigenous populations are rapidly changing their lifestyle. This work elaborates on the complex experience of indigenous people in transition. Poverty, discrimination, marginalization, and endurance are defining characteristics of their everyday life. Global health programs represent excellent opportunities for addressing these issues. These initiatives, however, are at risk of being short-sighted, ethnocentric, and paradigmcentric. Global health programs would be increasingly more successful if they break disciplinary boundaries and invite actors with different perspectives to a dialogue that does not emphasize biology over culture or academic over community expertise.

Global report on preterm birth and stillbirth (5 of 7): advocacy barriers and opportunities.

PubMed

Sather, Megan; Fajon, Anne-Véronique; Zaentz, Rachel; Rubens, Craig E

2010-02-23

Efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to improve maternal and child health can be accelerated by addressing preterm birth and stillbirth. However, most global health stakeholders are unaware of the inextricable connections of these adverse pregnancy outcomes to maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH). Improved visibility of preterm births and stillbirths will help fuel investments and strengthen commitments in the discovery, development and delivery of low-cost solutions globally. This article addresses potential barriers and opportunities to increasing global awareness and understanding. Qualitative research was conducted to analyze current knowledge, attitudes and commitments toward preterm birth and stillbirth; identify advocacy challenges; and learn more about examples of programs that successfully advocate for research and appropriate interventions. Forty-one individuals from 14 countries on six continents were interviewed. They included maternal, newborn, and child health advocates and implementers, United Nations agency representatives, policymakers, researchers, and private and government donors. A common recognition of three advocacy challenges with regard to preterm birth and stillbirth emerged from these interviews: (1) lack of data about the magnitude and impact; (2) lack of awareness and understanding; and (3) lack of low-cost, effective and scalable interventions. Participants also identified advocacy opportunities. The first of these opportunities involves linking preterm birth and stillbirth to the MDGs, adding these outcomes to broader global health discussions and advocacy efforts, and presenting a united voice among advocates in the context of broader MNCH issues when addressing preterm birth and stillbirth. Another key opportunity is putting a human face to these tragedies--such as a parent who can speak to the personal impact on the family. Lastly, several interviewees suggested identifying and engaging champions to garner additional visibility and strengthen efforts. Ideal champions will work collaboratively with these and other maternal, newborn and child health issues. Advocacy efforts to add preterm births and stillbirths to broader MNCH goals, such as the MDGs, and to identify champions for these issues, will accelerate interdisciplinary efforts to reduce these adverse outcomes. The next article in this report presents an overview of related ethical considerations.

Advances Made in the Next Generation of Satellite Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bhasin, Kul B.

1999-01-01

Because of the unique networking characteristics of communications satellites, global satellite networks are moving to the forefront in enhancing national and global information infrastructures. Simultaneously, broadband data services, which are emerging as the major market driver for future satellite and terrestrial networks, are being widely acknowledged as the foundation for an efficient global information infrastructure. In the past 2 years, various task forces and working groups around the globe have identified pivotal topics and key issues to address if we are to realize such networks in a timely fashion. In response, industry, government, and academia undertook efforts to address these topics and issues. A workshop was organized to provide a forum to assess the current state-of-the-art, identify key issues, and highlight the emerging trends in the next-generation architectures, data protocol development, communication interoperability, and applications. The Satellite Networks: Architectures, Applications, and Technologies Workshop was hosted by the Space Communication Program at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Nearly 300 executives and technical experts from academia, industry, and government, representing the United States and eight other countries, attended the event (June 2 to 4, 1998). The program included seven panels and invited sessions and nine breakout sessions in which 42 speakers presented on technical topics. The proceedings covers a wide range of topics: access technology and protocols, architectures and network simulations, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) over satellite networks, Internet over satellite networks, interoperability experiments and applications, multicasting, NASA interoperability experiment programs, NASA mission applications, and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) over satellite: issues, relevance, and experience.

Trauma is a public health issue.

PubMed

Magruder, Kathryn M; McLaughlin, Katie A; Elmore Borbon, Diane L

2017-01-01

Exposure to trauma is pervasive in societies worldwide and is associated with substantial costs to the individual and society, making it a significant global public health concern. We present evidence for trauma as a public health issue by highlighting the role of characteristics operating at multiple levels of influence - individual, relationship, community, and society - as explanatory factors in both the occurrence of trauma and its sequelae. Within the context of this multi-level framework, we highlight targets for prevention of trauma and its downstream consequences and provide examples of where public health approaches to prevention have met with success. Finally, we describe the essential role of public health policies in addressing trauma as a global public health issue, including key challenges for global mental health and next steps for developing and implementing a trauma-informed public health policy agenda. A public health framework is critical for understanding risk and protective factors for trauma and its aftermath operating at multiple levels of influence and generating opportunities for prevention.

Patient mobility in the global marketplace: a multidisciplinary perspective

PubMed Central

Lunt, Neil; Mannion, Russell

2014-01-01

There is a growing global market in healthcare and patients. And while there is a small body of evidence emerging around this phenomenon commonly known as medical tourism there remain significant unanswered policy and research questions which need to be addressed. We outline some of the key issues set against the six key disciplinary preoccupations of the journal: epidemiology, health economics, health policy ethics, politics of health, health management, and health policy. PMID:24847479

An ethics curriculum for short-term global health trainees.

PubMed

DeCamp, Matthew; Rodriguez, Joce; Hecht, Shelby; Barry, Michele; Sugarman, Jeremy

2013-02-14

Interest in short-term global health training and service programs continues to grow, yet they can be associated with a variety of ethical issues for which trainees or others with limited global health experience may not be prepared to address. Therefore, there is a clear need for educational interventions concerning these ethical issues. We developed and evaluated an introductory curriculum, "Ethical Challenges in Short-term Global Health Training." The curriculum was developed through solicitation of actual ethical issues experienced by trainees and program leaders; content drafting; and external content review. It was then evaluated from November 1, 2011, through July 1, 2012, by analyzing web usage data and by conducting user surveys. The survey included basic demographic data; prior experience in global health and global health ethics; and assessment of cases within the curriculum. The ten case curriculum is freely available at http://ethicsandglobalhealth.org. An average of 238 unique visitors accessed the site each month (standard deviation, 19). Of users who had been abroad before for global health training or service, only 31% reported prior ethics training related to short-term work. Most users (62%) reported accessing the site via personal referral or their training program; however, a significant number (28%) reported finding the site via web search, and 8% discovered it via web links. Users represented different fields: medicine (46%), public health (15%), and nursing (11%) were most common. All cases in the curriculum were evaluated favorably. The curriculum is meeting a critical need for an introduction to the ethical issues in short-term global health training. Future work will integrate this curriculum within more comprehensive curricula for global health and evaluate specific knowledge and behavioral effects, including at training sites abroad.

An ethics curriculum for short-term global health trainees

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Interest in short-term global health training and service programs continues to grow, yet they can be associated with a variety of ethical issues for which trainees or others with limited global health experience may not be prepared to address. Therefore, there is a clear need for educational interventions concerning these ethical issues. Methods We developed and evaluated an introductory curriculum, “Ethical Challenges in Short-term Global Health Training.” The curriculum was developed through solicitation of actual ethical issues experienced by trainees and program leaders; content drafting; and external content review. It was then evaluated from November 1, 2011, through July 1, 2012, by analyzing web usage data and by conducting user surveys. The survey included basic demographic data; prior experience in global health and global health ethics; and assessment of cases within the curriculum. Results The ten case curriculum is freely available at http://ethicsandglobalhealth.org. An average of 238 unique visitors accessed the site each month (standard deviation, 19). Of users who had been abroad before for global health training or service, only 31% reported prior ethics training related to short-term work. Most users (62%) reported accessing the site via personal referral or their training program; however, a significant number (28%) reported finding the site via web search, and 8% discovered it via web links. Users represented different fields: medicine (46%), public health (15%), and nursing (11%) were most common. All cases in the curriculum were evaluated favorably. Conclusions The curriculum is meeting a critical need for an introduction to the ethical issues in short-term global health training. Future work will integrate this curriculum within more comprehensive curricula for global health and evaluate specific knowledge and behavioral effects, including at training sites abroad. PMID:23410089

The Changing Debate on Internationalisation of Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Teichler, Ulrich

2004-01-01

"Internationalisation", the growing border-crossing activities between national systems of higher education is losing ground to "globalisation", increasing border-crossing activities of blurred national systems which is often employed to depict world-wide trends and growing global competition. This article addresses recent issues of knowledge…

Globalization and the Diplomacy of Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Makhema, Joseph

2010-01-01

The closing keynote address given by Dr. Joseph Makhema highlights the important issues that need to be understood in international research collaborations. Dr. Makhema uses his extensive experience in international research collaborations to illustrate the various challenges that collaborating partners in international research may face. He…

EXPLAINING FOREST COMPOSITION AND BIOMASS ACROSS MULTIPLE BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

EPA Science Inventory

Current scientific concerns regarding the impacts of global change include the responses of forest composition and biomass to rapid changes in climate, and forest gap models, have often been used to address this issue. These models reflect the concept that forest composition and...

Infrastructure for the Global Village.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gore, Al

1991-01-01

Technologies that enhance the ability to create and understand information have led to changes in the traditional legal concepts of property, ownership, originality, privacy, and intellectual freedom. The importance of government addressing such issues and investing in development of a high-capacity computer network is discussed. (KR)

Research in geosciences policy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brunner, Ronald D.

1992-01-01

The general task was to look beyond the adverse physical impacts and to defining the policy problem. In order for policy actions to be effective, they must address the right policy problems, which will be different from and broader than the physical problems. We will work on defining the policy problems with a view to indicating how practical solutions might be implemented. In particular, public officials need advice on what should be said, and done, and for what purposes. That advice needs to be based on systematic analysis of: (1) the scholarly literature in the social sciences, and related disciplines; (2) the charging content of the policy debate at the center of attention; and (3) how citizens perceive and understand issues related to global change. We will conduct this analysis. Chapter 1 and 2 each reports work on defining the policy problem and analyzing the scholarly literature. Chapters 3 and 4, respectively, address the policy debate and citizen viewpoints in issues related to global change.

Biofuels and the role of space in sustainable innovation journeys☆

PubMed Central

Raman, Sujatha; Mohr, Alison

2014-01-01

This paper aims to identify the lessons that should be learnt from how biofuels have been envisioned from the aftermath of the oil shocks of the 1970s to the present, and how these visions compare with biofuel production networks emerging in the 2000s. Working at the interface of sustainable innovation journey research and geographical theories on the spatial unevenness of sustainability transition projects, we show how the biofuels controversy is linked to characteristics of globalised industrial agricultural systems. The legitimacy problems of biofuels cannot be addressed by sustainability indicators or new technologies alone since they arise from the spatial ordering of biofuel production. In the 1970–80s, promoters of bioenergy anticipated current concerns about food security implications but envisioned bioenergy production to be territorially embedded at national or local scales where these issues would be managed. Where the territorial and scalar vision was breached, it was to imagine poorer countries exporting higher-value biofuel to the North rather than the raw material as in the controversial global biomass commodity chains of today. However, controversy now extends to the global impacts of national biofuel systems on food security and greenhouse gas emissions, and to their local impacts becoming more widely known. South/South and North/North trade conflicts are also emerging as are questions over biodegradable wastes and agricultural residues as global commodities. As assumptions of a food-versus-fuel conflict have come to be challenged, legitimacy questions over global agri-business and trade are spotlighted even further. In this context, visions of biofuel development that address these broader issues might be promising. These include large-scale biomass-for-fuel models in Europe that would transform global trade rules to allow small farmers in the global South to compete, and small-scale biofuel systems developed to address local energy needs in the South. PMID:24748726

Biofuels and the role of space in sustainable innovation journeys.

PubMed

Raman, Sujatha; Mohr, Alison

2014-02-15

This paper aims to identify the lessons that should be learnt from how biofuels have been envisioned from the aftermath of the oil shocks of the 1970s to the present, and how these visions compare with biofuel production networks emerging in the 2000s. Working at the interface of sustainable innovation journey research and geographical theories on the spatial unevenness of sustainability transition projects, we show how the biofuels controversy is linked to characteristics of globalised industrial agricultural systems. The legitimacy problems of biofuels cannot be addressed by sustainability indicators or new technologies alone since they arise from the spatial ordering of biofuel production. In the 1970-80s, promoters of bioenergy anticipated current concerns about food security implications but envisioned bioenergy production to be territorially embedded at national or local scales where these issues would be managed. Where the territorial and scalar vision was breached, it was to imagine poorer countries exporting higher-value biofuel to the North rather than the raw material as in the controversial global biomass commodity chains of today. However, controversy now extends to the global impacts of national biofuel systems on food security and greenhouse gas emissions, and to their local impacts becoming more widely known. South/South and North/North trade conflicts are also emerging as are questions over biodegradable wastes and agricultural residues as global commodities. As assumptions of a food-versus-fuel conflict have come to be challenged, legitimacy questions over global agri-business and trade are spotlighted even further. In this context, visions of biofuel development that address these broader issues might be promising. These include large-scale biomass-for-fuel models in Europe that would transform global trade rules to allow small farmers in the global South to compete, and small-scale biofuel systems developed to address local energy needs in the South.

UN resolution on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases: an opportunity for global action.

PubMed

Mamudu, Hadii M; Yang, Joshua S; Novotny, Thomas E

2011-01-01

In May 2010, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that called for high-level meetings to address the global burden of NCDs. This paper highlights the growing global burden of NCDs (cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and diabetes), provides a brief historical background on the adoption of the UN NCDs resolution and argues that the resolution provides a remarkable new opportunity for improved international collaboration to address NCDs. Additionally, the paper argues that while the existing World Health Organisation programme on NCDs be continued and expanded, the UN can provide the expanded political leadership that is necessary for multi-sectoral collaboration and can serve as a respected forum for dealing with the issue across numerous key UN agencies.

HIV/AIDS: global trends, global funds and delivery bottlenecks

PubMed Central

Coovadia, Hoosen M; Hadingham, Jacqui

2005-01-01

Globalisation affects all facets of human life, including health and well being. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has highlighted the global nature of human health and welfare and globalisation has given rise to a trend toward finding common solutions to global health challenges. Numerous international funds have been set up in recent times to address global health challenges such as HIV. However, despite increasingly large amounts of funding for health initiatives being made available to poorer regions of the world, HIV infection rates and prevalence continue to increase world wide. As a result, the AIDS epidemic is expanding and intensifying globally. Worst affected are undoubtedly the poorer regions of the world as combinations of poverty, disease, famine, political and economic instability and weak health infrastructure exacerbate the severe and far-reaching impacts of the epidemic. One of the major reasons for the apparent ineffectiveness of global interventions is historical weaknesses in the health systems of underdeveloped countries, which contribute to bottlenecks in the distribution and utilisation of funds. Strengthening these health systems, although a vital component in addressing the global epidemic, must however be accompanied by mitigation of other determinants as well. These are intrinsically complex and include social and environmental factors, sexual behaviour, issues of human rights and biological factors, all of which contribute to HIV transmission, progression and mortality. An equally important factor is ensuring an equitable balance between prevention and treatment programmes in order to holistically address the challenges presented by the epidemic. PMID:16060961

Receptive Audiences for Climate Change Education: Understanding Attitudes and Barriers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kelly, L. D.; Luebke, J. F.; Clayton, S.; Saunders, C. D.; Matiasek, J.; Grajal, A.

2012-12-01

Much effort has been devoted to finding ways to explain climate change to uninterested audiences and encourage mitigation behaviors among dismissive audiences. Most approaches have focused on conveying information about climate change processes or threats. Here we report the results of a national survey designed to characterize the readiness of zoo and aquarium visitors to engage with the issue of climate change. Two survey forms, one focused primarily on attitudes (N=3,594) and another on behaviors (N=3,588), were administered concurrently in summer 2011 at 15 Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited institutions. The attitudes survey used Global Warming's Six Americas segmentation protocols (climatechangecommunication.org) to compare climate change attitudes of zoo and aquarium visitors with the American public (Leiserowitz et al., 2011). Our results reveal that visitors are receptive audiences for climate change education and want to do more to address climate change. Even these favorable audiences, however, perceive barriers to engaging in the issue, signifying the importance of meeting the learning needs of those who acknowledge anthropogenic climate change, and not only of climate change 'deniers.' While 39% of the general public is 'concerned' or 'alarmed' about global warming, 64% of zoo and aquarium visitors fall into these two "Six Americas" segments. Visitors also differ from the national sample in key attitudinal characteristics related to global warming. For example, nearly two-thirds believe human actions are related to global warming, versus less than one-half of the general public; and approximately 60% think global warming will harm them personally, moderately or a great deal, versus less than 30% of the general public. Moreover, 69% of visitors would like to do more to address climate change. Despite zoo and aquarium visitors' awareness of climate change and motivation to address it, survey results indicate they experience barriers to engagement including (1) pessimism—50% of visitors are uncertain whether people will do what is needed to address global warming, and 30% think it is unlikely; (2) low self-efficacy—almost one-half of visitors believe they can personally have little to no impact on addressing climate change; and (3) perceived obstacles—when asked what is standing in their way of doing more to address climate change, over 90% of visitors reported at least one obstacle. The most frequently selected obstacles were lack of knowledge about which actions would be effective and concern about the cost of actions. Nevertheless, zoo visitors are slightly more optimistic about humans' capability to reduce global warming than the general public. Importantly, results also indicate that visitors' concern about climate change and participation in behaviors to address it vary with their sense of connection with animals and nature. Thus, this study offers guidance for the development of educational resources that meet visitors' needs while building on their emotional connections with animals. Our data suggest these resources will be more effective if they support social interactions that reinforce a person's inclination to address climate change, demonstrate the collective impact of individual actions, and aid informed decision-making about effective actions to address climate change.

The Benefits of Past and Current Regional Hydroclimate Projects to the Third Pole Environment (TPE) Water and Energy Exchanges Studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benedict, Sam; van Oevelen, Peter

2014-05-01

To improve understanding of the various processes at work on spatial and temporal scales from regional to global the Regional Hydroclimate Projects (RHP's) are established as part of the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX)Project to link the regional observations and process understanding to the global scale. This is done through exchange of observations, data, modeling, transferability studies etc. In this presentation the series of RHP's that were underway over North and South America, Europe and Asia continuously from the early 1990's up to the present will be examined, the reasons they were established, how they evolved and how they are evolving or are likely to evolve in the future, with an emphasis on where they can and should benefit similar work proposed for the TPE. The results will be presented in the context of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Grand Challenge related to the development of a water strategy that addresses the issue of past and future changes in Water, in general, and the GEWEX science question on global water resource systems, in particular. This material will address issues associated with how changes in land surface and hydrology influence past and future changes in water availability and security, how new observations lead to improvements in water management and how models become better in global and regional climate predictions and projections of precipitation and how these outcomes relate to the TPE Water and Energy Exchanges Studies.

Global report on preterm birth and stillbirth (6 of 7): ethical considerations

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Introduction Despite the substantial global burden of preterm and stillbirth, little attention has been given to the ethical considerations related to research and interventions in the global context. Ethical dilemmas surrounding reproductive decisions and the care of preterm newborns impact the delivery of interventions, and are not well understood in low-resource settings. Issues such as how to address the moral and cultural attitudes surrounding stillbirths, have cross-cutting implications for global visibility of the disease burden. This analysis identifies ethical issues impacting definitions, discovery, development, and delivery of effective interventions to decrease the global burden of preterm birth and stillbirth. Methods This review is based on a comprehensive literature review; an ethical analysis of other articles within this global report; and discussions with GAPPS's Scientific Advisory Council, team of international investigators, and a community of international experts on maternal, newborn, and child health and bioethics from the 2009 International Conference on Prematurity and Stillbirth. The literature review includes articles in PubMed, Academic Search Complete (EBSCO), and Philosopher's Index with a range of 1995-2008. Results Advancements in discovery science relating to preterm birth and stillbirth require careful consideration in the design and use of repositories containing maternal specimens and data. Equally important is the need to improve clinical translation from basic science research to delivery of interventions, and to ensure global needs inform discovery science agenda-setting. Ethical issues in the development of interventions include a need to balance immediate versus long-term impacts—such as caring for preterm newborns rather than preventing preterm births. The delivery of interventions must address: women's health disparities as determinants of preterm birth and stillbirth; improving measurements of impact on equity in coverage; balancing maternal and newborn outcomes in choosing interventions; and understanding the personal and cross-cultural experiences of preterm birth and stillbirth among women, families and communities. Conclusion Efforts to improve visibility, funding, research and the successful delivery of interventions for preterm birth and stillbirth face a number of ethical concerns. Thoughtful input from those in health policy, bioethics and international research ethics helped shape an interdisciplinary global action agenda to prevent preterm birth and stillbirth. PMID:20233387

Innovative Research Strategies for Business Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Connor, Bridget N.

2007-01-01

An internal, ongoing debate that all professional areas of study have is how to understand the impact of shifting economies, demographics, technologies, and globalization. Much business education research focuses on describing current practices. To this end, issues are often addressed by using surveys that are analyzed using descriptive analysis…

Hierarchical fameworks for distributional and life history data: Implementation of a new ecoinformatics tool

EPA Science Inventory

Background/Questions/Methods Threats to marine and estuarine species operate over many spatial scales, from nutrient enrichment at the watershed/estuary scale to climate change at a global scale. To address this range of environmental issues, we developed a hierarchical framewor...

Embedding Context in Teaching Engineering Design

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neumeyer, Xaver; Chen, Wei; McKenna, Ann F.

2013-01-01

Understanding the global, societal, environmental and economic (GSEE) context of a product, process or system is critical to an engineer's ability to design and innovate. The already packed curricula in engineering programs provide few occasions to offer meaningful experiences to address this issue, and most departments delegate this requirement…

Payment Services for Global Online Systems Including Internet.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seebeck, Bill; And Others

1995-01-01

A panel of four conference presenters address issues related to paying for services provided through online systems. Discussion includes the following topics: metering devices; electronic/digital cash; working within existing banking/credit card structures; provision of payment mechanisms in countries without extensive credit card usage; and…

Framing health and foreign policy: lessons for global health diplomacy.

PubMed

Labonté, Ronald; Gagnon, Michelle L

2010-08-22

Global health financing has increased dramatically in recent years, indicative of a rise in health as a foreign policy issue. Several governments have issued specific foreign policy statements on global health and a new term, global health diplomacy, has been coined to describe the processes by which state and non-state actors engage to position health issues more prominently in foreign policy decision-making. Their ability to do so is important to advancing international cooperation in health. In this paper we review the arguments for health in foreign policy that inform global health diplomacy. These are organized into six policy frames: security, development, global public goods, trade, human rights and ethical/moral reasoning. Each of these frames has implications for how global health as a foreign policy issue is conceptualized. Differing arguments within and between these policy frames, while overlapping, can also be contradictory. This raises an important question about which arguments prevail in actual state decision-making. This question is addressed through an analysis of policy or policy-related documents and academic literature pertinent to each policy framing with some assessment of policy practice. The reference point for this analysis is the explicit goal of improving global health equity. This goal has increasing national traction within national public health discourse and decision-making and, through the Millennium Development Goals and other multilateral reports and declarations, is entering global health policy discussion. Initial findings support conventional international relations theory that most states, even when committed to health as a foreign policy goal, still make decisions primarily on the basis of the 'high politics' of national security and economic material interests. Development, human rights and ethical/moral arguments for global health assistance, the traditional 'low politics' of foreign policy, are present in discourse but do not appear to dominate practice. While political momentum for health as a foreign policy goal persists, the framing of this goal remains a contested issue. The analysis offered in this article may prove helpful to those engaged in global health diplomacy or in efforts to have global governance across a range of sectoral interests pay more attention to health equity impacts.

Framing health and foreign policy: lessons for global health diplomacy

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Global health financing has increased dramatically in recent years, indicative of a rise in health as a foreign policy issue. Several governments have issued specific foreign policy statements on global health and a new term, global health diplomacy, has been coined to describe the processes by which state and non-state actors engage to position health issues more prominently in foreign policy decision-making. Their ability to do so is important to advancing international cooperation in health. In this paper we review the arguments for health in foreign policy that inform global health diplomacy. These are organized into six policy frames: security, development, global public goods, trade, human rights and ethical/moral reasoning. Each of these frames has implications for how global health as a foreign policy issue is conceptualized. Differing arguments within and between these policy frames, while overlapping, can also be contradictory. This raises an important question about which arguments prevail in actual state decision-making. This question is addressed through an analysis of policy or policy-related documents and academic literature pertinent to each policy framing with some assessment of policy practice. The reference point for this analysis is the explicit goal of improving global health equity. This goal has increasing national traction within national public health discourse and decision-making and, through the Millennium Development Goals and other multilateral reports and declarations, is entering global health policy discussion. Initial findings support conventional international relations theory that most states, even when committed to health as a foreign policy goal, still make decisions primarily on the basis of the 'high politics' of national security and economic material interests. Development, human rights and ethical/moral arguments for global health assistance, the traditional 'low politics' of foreign policy, are present in discourse but do not appear to dominate practice. While political momentum for health as a foreign policy goal persists, the framing of this goal remains a contested issue. The analysis offered in this article may prove helpful to those engaged in global health diplomacy or in efforts to have global governance across a range of sectoral interests pay more attention to health equity impacts. PMID:20727211

Real-time artificial intelligence issues in the development of the adaptive tactical navigator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Green, Peter E.; Glasson, Douglas P.; Pomarede, Jean-Michel L.; Acharya, Narayan A.

1987-01-01

Adaptive Tactical Navigation (ATN) is a laboratory prototype of a knowledge based system to provide navigation system management and decision aiding in the next generation of tactical aircraft. ATN's purpose is to manage a set of multimode navigation equipment, dynamically selecting the best equipment to use in accordance with mission goals and phase, threat environment, equipment malfunction status, and battle damage. ATN encompasses functions as diverse as sensor data interpretation, diagnosis, and planning. Real time issues that were identified in ATN and the approaches used to address them are addressed. Functional requirements and a global architecture for the ATN system are described. Decision making with time constraints are discussed. Two subproblems are identified; making decisions with incomplete information and with limited resources. Approaches used in ATN to address real time performance are described and simulation results are discussed.

Advancing drug availability-experiences from Africa.

PubMed

Powell, Richard A; Kaye, Richard Mugula; Ddungu, Henry; Mwangi-Powell, Faith

2010-07-01

International health and drug regulatory authorities acknowledge that analgesics (especially opioids) are insufficiently available for pain management in many countries. In Africa, reported morphine consumption is far below the global mean, with multiple factors hampering opioid supply. Since 2006, the African Palliative Care Association has hosted three regional drug availability workshops across the continent to address this issue. Using an interactive format, the workshops have identified country-specific barriers to opioid and other essential medication accessibility before supporting participants to develop action plans to address recognized impediments. Despite multiple challenges, a number of successes have arisen from the implementation of the plans. However, key issues remain, including the introduction of supportive policy environments, effective educational initiatives, and measures to address supply-chain obstacles impeding drug availability. Copyright 2010 U.S. Cancer Pain Relief Committee. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A common agenda of global challenges. Japan and U.S. pool resources to tackle global issues including population and HIV / AIDS.

PubMed

1998-05-01

The Common Agenda for Cooperation in Global Perspective is a bilateral partnership established in 1993 between the US and Japan to address important global challenges of the 21st century such as global health and human development, including population and HIV/AIDS, global stability, protection of the global environment, and the advancement of science and technology. On the fifth anniversary of the agenda, representatives of the Japan and the US governments, international organizations, and private sectors discussed ways to further promote US-Japan cooperation under the agenda at a meeting held in Tokyo during March 12-13. Participants of the Common Agenda Open Forum also reviewed efforts made by Japan and the US under the agenda to address population and the environment. Forum participants focused upon developing new ideas for future cooperation between the governments, the private sector, and other nations, especially in the areas of health and the environment. The meeting was jointly organized by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US Department of State. Attention was also given during talks to diminishing international assistance budgets worldwide.

Defining a Communications Satellite Policy System for the 21st Century: A Model for a International Legal Framework and A New _Code of Conduct_

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pelton, Joseph N.

1996-02-01

This paper addresses the changing international communications environment and explores the key elements of a new policy framework for the 21st Century. It addresses the issues related to changing markets, trade considerations, standards, regulatory changes and international institutions and law. The most important aspects will related to new international policy and regulatory frameworks and in particular to a new international code of ethics and behavior in the field of satellite communications. A new communications satellite policy framework requires systematically addressing the following points: • Multi-lateral agreements at the nation state and the operating entity level • Systematic means to access both private and public capital • Meshing ITU regulations with regional and national policy guidelines including • landing rights" and national allocation procedures. • Systematic approach to local partnerships • Resolving the issue of the relative standing of various satellite systems (i.e. GEO, MEO, and LEO systems) • Resolving the rights, duties, and priorities of satellite facility providers versus types of service prviders. Beyond this policy framework and generalized legal infrastructure there is also another need. This is a need that arises from both increased globalism and competitive international markets. This is what might quite simply be called a "code of reasonable conduct:" To provide global and international communications services effectively and well in the 21st Century will require more than meeting minimum international legal requirements. A new "code of conduct" for global satellite communications will thus likely need to address: • Privacy and surveillance • Ethics of transborder data flow • Censorship and moral values • Cultural and linguistic sensitivity • Freedom of the press and respect for journalistic standards As expanding global information and telecommunications systems grow and impact every aspect of modern life, the need for new international policy and especially new suitable standards of conduct in the field of satellite communications become ever more apparent and necessary.

Global Trends and Future Warfare (Strategic Insights. Special Issue, October 2011)

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-10-01

CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7. PERFORMING ...cyberspace are constructed .33 In the early 1970s Daniel Bell in The Coming of Post- Industrial Society predicted something like this when he wrote of...ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) Naval Postgraduate School,Center on Contemporary Conflict,Monterey,CA,93943 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT

Western Hemisphere Conference on Persons with Disabilities. Conference Proceedings (Washington, D.C., March 14-18, 1993) = Conferencia Hemisferica Occidental sobre Personas con Discapacidades. Actas de la Conferencia. (Washington, D.C., 14 al 18 de Marzo de 1993).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kelley, Jerry D., Ed.; And Others

This document presents the proceedings of a conference which brought together delegates and First Ladies representing western hemisphere nations to address needs and issues affecting people with disabilities in the Americas. It presents the texts of two keynote addresses: "Small Triumphs, Big Victories: A Global View of Persons with…

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Shales, J.

Scientists from all over the world are currently attempting to evaluate the impact of both manmade and natural phenomena on climate change, including such issues as the role of oceans as sinks in absorbing CO{sub 2}, the role of sunspots, the absorptive capacity of different tree species, the impact of nitrous oxide and non- CO{sub 2} greenhouse gases, the length of time carbon remains in the atmosphere, the impact of ocean currents and innumerable other issues. Understanding these phenomena, and their interaction will be critical to properly addressing the issue which has tremendous importance for both the US and themore » world economic future development. The climate change issue has the potential to become the vehicle which will link developing countries to the rest of the world, since, embodies in the global climate debate are several of the social issues that the U.N. has attempted to address over the last two decades: hunger, overpopulation, environment, technology, and development. The climate change issue has the potential to test new international institutions, relationships between developed and developing counties and between traditional trading partners.« less

Ocean Acidification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ludwig, Claudia; Orellana, Mónica V.; DeVault, Megan; Simon, Zac; Baliga, Nitin

2015-01-01

The curriculum module described in this article addresses the global issue of ocean acidification (OA) (Feely 2009; Figure 1). OA is a harmful consequence of excess carbon dioxide (CO[subscript 2]) in the atmosphere and poses a threat to marine life, both algae and animal. This module seeks to teach and help students master the cross-disciplinary…

Subtractive Schooling and Betrayal

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Valenzuela, Angela

2008-01-01

To address the theme of this special issue--namely, the major challenges faced by teacher education in an increasing global society--the author finds herself returning to her earlier work. This return-intellectual-migration gives depth and meaning to the experience of immigration and speaks to the sensibilities (or lack thereof) that many teachers…

Zeitschrift fur erziehungs--und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung (Journal for Education and Social Sciences Research), 1984-1988 (11 issues).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zeitschrift fur erziehungs--und socialwissenschaftliche Forschung (Journal for Education and Social Sciences Research), 1984

1984-01-01

Recognizing a growing globalization of nations and cultures, "Zeitschrift fur erziehungs--und sozialwissenchaftliche Forschung" brings together educational and social science research topics that address the interactions between education and society in their pedagogical, social, physical, economic, legal, and administrative dimensions.…

Facing the Globalisation Challenge in the Realm of English Language Teaching.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sifakis, Nicos C.; Sougari, Areti-Maria

2003-01-01

Addresses the challenge of globalization with respect to English language teaching and particularly teaching English to speakers of foreign languages. Argues that some of the primary issues involved concern the increasing role of technology and communication in modern societies and the looming conflict between local communities and the…

The Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Apple, Michael W., Ed.; Ball, Stephen J., Ed.; Gandin, Luis Armando, Ed.

2009-01-01

This collection brings together many of the world's leading sociologists of education to explore and address key issues and concerns within the discipline. The thirty-seven newly commissioned chapters draw upon theory and research to provide new accounts of contemporary educational processes, global trends, and changing and enduring forms of…

Youth and Violent Conflict. Study Guide for Teachers and Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

United States Institute of Peace, 2006

2006-01-01

The objectives of this study guide are: (1) to increase student understanding of the prevalence of youth participation in violent conflict and the challenges to addressing this global issue; (2) to familiarize students with strategies for conflict prevention, management, and resolution; (3) to develop students' analytical reading, writing, and…

Cultural Penetration in Latin America through Multinational Advertising Agencies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Del Toro, Wanda

Few studies have addressed the issue of cultural penetration of Latin American countries by multinational corporations (MNCs) and multinational advertising agencies (MAAs). Whether they are considered multinational or transnational, MAAs have expanded as a form of international communication in the global market, forming the backbone of MNCs.…

Kids Can Make a Difference! Environmental Science Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dashefsky, H. Steven

This book of more than 160 environmental science activities is designed to help students understand environmental issues, ask questions, and find solutions to the problems. Introductory sections address: (1) the nature of major global problems and a history of environmental concern; (2) basic environmental science terminology and scientific study…

World National Parks Congress. Recommendations. (Bali, Indonesia, October 11-22, 1982).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Morges, (Switzerland).

Recommendations of the World National Parks Congress, which met in Bali, Indonesia, are provided in this document. These recommendations address issues related to: information on protected areas; global system of representative terrestrial protected areas; marine and coastal protected areas; Antarctica; the role of protected areas in sustainable…

Human Rights and Teaching for Social Justice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Landorf, Hilary

2010-01-01

According to the author, teaching for social justice entails the acquisition of the following learning outcomes: (1) knowledge of the meaning, historical development, and application of human rights; (2) ability to analyze human rights from multiple perspectives; and (3) willingness to address human rights issues in local, global, intercultural,…

The Global Common Good and the Future of Academic Professionals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shaker, Genevieve G.

2016-01-01

Can the higher education faculty sustain itself as a profession? And why does this question matter as much as more frequently asked questions regarding access, costs, quality, governance, and competitiveness? This special issue of "Higher Learning Research Communications" seeks to address these questions by posing as a unifying concept…

A keyword approach to finding common ground in community-based definitions of human well-being

EPA Science Inventory

Ecosystem-based management involves the integration of ecosystem services and their human beneficiaries into decision making. This can occur at multiple scales; addressing global issues such as climate change down to local problems such as flood protection and maintaining water q...

Population Growth and Global Security: Toward an American Strategic Commitment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mumford, Steven

1981-01-01

Addresses the world population problem by highlighting three crucial areas: the relationship between population growth control and national security issues, the role of American leadership in resolving the problem, and the barriers to effective action. One barrier discussed in detail is the Roman Catholic Church's stand on abortion and…

Population and Development Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cohen, Sharon; Garran, Christopher

1998-01-01

Describes a unit on demographics for a high school world-history course that addresses questions of uneven population growth and the "problem of global overpopulation." Provides a detailed outline of the two-day unit including unit and daily goals and objectives, daily activities and questions, and ideas for further student research. (DSK)

Underserved Gifted Populations: Responding to Their Needs and Abilities. Perspectives on Creativity Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smutny, Joan Franklin, Ed.

Twenty-five papers address issues of the underserved gifted, including environmental influences, multicultural and global factors, special learning problems, and the highly gifted and creatively gifted. The papers are: "Twenty-five Teaching Strategies that Promote Learning Success for Underserved Gifted Populations" (Jerry Flack); "The Invisible…

Current frontiers and future directions of telecoupling research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, J.

2016-12-01

The world has been increasingly interconnected over long distances though processes such as international trade, migration, telecommunication, and disease spread. However, previous studies often focused on socioeconomic or environmental issues of distant processes. While these studies have generated useful information for individual disciplines, integrating socioeconomic and environmental information is essential for holistic understanding of complex global challenges and unbiased decision making to address the challenges. To advance integrated research, the framework of telecoupling (socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances) has been developed to explicitly address both socioeconomic and environmental issues simultaneously. Although the framework is relatively new, it has already been applied to tackle a variety of globally important issues, such as food security, water resources, energy sustainability, land use, international trade (e.g., food, forest products, energy, wildlife, industrial products), species invasion, investment, ecosystem services, conservation, information dissemination, and tourism. These applications have identified many important research gaps (e.g. spillover systems) and hidden linkages (e.g. feedbacks) among distant areas of the world with profound implications for sustainable development, ecosystem health, and human well-being. While working with telecoupling presents more challenges than focusing only on disciplinary issues, support from funding agencies has helped accelerate research on telecoupling and more efforts are being aimed at framework quantification and operationalization. The presenter will provide an overview of the current frontiers, discuss future research directions, and highlight emerging opportunities and challenges in telecoupling research and governance.

Global Design Optimization for Aerodynamics and Rocket Propulsion Components

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shyy, Wei; Papila, Nilay; Vaidyanathan, Rajkumar; Tucker, Kevin; Turner, James E. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Modern computational and experimental tools for aerodynamics and propulsion applications have matured to a stage where they can provide substantial insight into engineering processes involving fluid flows, and can be fruitfully utilized to help improve the design of practical devices. In particular, rapid and continuous development in aerospace engineering demands that new design concepts be regularly proposed to meet goals for increased performance, robustness and safety while concurrently decreasing cost. To date, the majority of the effort in design optimization of fluid dynamics has relied on gradient-based search algorithms. Global optimization methods can utilize the information collected from various sources and by different tools. These methods offer multi-criterion optimization, handle the existence of multiple design points and trade-offs via insight into the entire design space, can easily perform tasks in parallel, and are often effective in filtering the noise intrinsic to numerical and experimental data. However, a successful application of the global optimization method needs to address issues related to data requirements with an increase in the number of design variables, and methods for predicting the model performance. In this article, we review recent progress made in establishing suitable global optimization techniques employing neural network and polynomial-based response surface methodologies. Issues addressed include techniques for construction of the response surface, design of experiment techniques for supplying information in an economical manner, optimization procedures and multi-level techniques, and assessment of relative performance between polynomials and neural networks. Examples drawn from wing aerodynamics, turbulent diffuser flows, gas-gas injectors, and supersonic turbines are employed to help demonstrate the issues involved in an engineering design context. Both the usefulness of the existing knowledge to aid current design practices and the need for future research are identified.

Global change technology architecture trade study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Garrett, L. Bernard (Editor); Hypes, Warren D. (Editor); Wright, Robert L. (Editor)

1991-01-01

Described here is an architecture trade study conducted by the Langley Research Center to develop a representative mix of advanced space science instrumentation, spacecraft, and mission orbits to assist in the technology selection processes. The analyses concentrated on the highest priority classes of global change measurements which are the global climate changes. Issues addressed in the tradeoffs includes assessments of the economics of scale of large platforms with multiple instruments relative to smaller spacecraft; the influences of current and possible future launch vehicles on payload sizes, and on-orbit assembly decisions; and the respective roles of low-Earth versus geostationary Earth orbiting systems.

Carbon sequestration and its role in the global carbon cycle

USGS Publications Warehouse

McPherson, Brian J.; Sundquist, Eric T.

2009-01-01

For carbon sequestration the issues of monitoring, risk assessment, and verification of carbon content and storage efficacy are perhaps the most uncertain. Yet these issues are also the most critical challenges facing the broader context of carbon sequestration as a means for addressing climate change. In response to these challenges, Carbon Sequestration and Its Role in the Global Carbon Cycle presents current perspectives and research that combine five major areas: • The global carbon cycle and verification and assessment of global carbon sources and sinks • Potential capacity and temporal/spatial scales of terrestrial, oceanic, and geologic carbon storage • Assessing risks and benefits associated with terrestrial, oceanic, and geologic carbon storage • Predicting, monitoring, and verifying effectiveness of different forms of carbon storage • Suggested new CO2 sequestration research and management paradigms for the future. The volume is based on a Chapman Conference and will appeal to the rapidly growing group of scientists and engineers examining methods for deliberate carbon sequestration through storage in plants, soils, the oceans, and geological repositories.

Cancers of the Brain and CNS: Global Patterns and Trends in Incidence.

PubMed

Mortazavi, S M J; Mortazavi, S A R; Paknahad, M

2018-03-01

Miranda-Filho et al. in their recently published paper entitled "Cancers of the brain and CNS: global patterns and trends in incidence" provided a global status report of the geographic and temporal variations in the incidence of brain and CNS cancers in different countries across continents worldwide. While the authors confirm the role of genetic risk factors and ionizing radiation exposures, they claimed that no firm conclusion could be drawn about the role of exposure to non-ionizing radiation. The paper authored by Miranda-Filho et al. not only addresses a challenging issue, it can be considered as a good contribution in the field of brain and CNS cancers. However, our correspondence addresses a basic shortcoming of this paper about the role of electromagnetic fields and cancers and provides evidence showing that exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), at least at high levels and long durations, can increases the risk of cancer.

Quality improvement and emerging global health priorities

PubMed Central

Mensah Abrampah, Nana; Syed, Shamsuzzoha Babar; Hirschhorn, Lisa R; Nambiar, Bejoy; Iqbal, Usman; Garcia-Elorrio, Ezequiel; Chattu, Vijay Kumar; Devnani, Mahesh; Kelley, Edward

2018-01-01

Abstract Quality improvement approaches can strengthen action on a range of global health priorities. Quality improvement efforts are uniquely placed to reorient care delivery systems towards integrated people-centred health services and strengthen health systems to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This article makes the case for addressing shortfalls of previous agendas by articulating the critical role of quality improvement in the Sustainable Development Goal era. Quality improvement can stimulate convergence between health security and health systems; address global health security priorities through participatory quality improvement approaches; and improve health outcomes at all levels of the health system. Entry points for action include the linkage with antimicrobial resistance and the contentious issue of the health of migrants. The work required includes focussed attention on the continuum of national quality policy formulation, implementation and learning; alongside strengthening the measurement-improvement linkage. Quality improvement plays a key role in strengthening health systems to achieve UHC. PMID:29873793

Progress and challenges to the global waste management system.

PubMed

Singh, Jagdeep; Laurenti, Rafael; Sinha, Rajib; Frostell, Björn

2014-09-01

Rapid economic growth, urbanization and increasing population have caused (materially intensive) resource consumption to increase, and consequently the release of large amounts of waste to the environment. From a global perspective, current waste and resource management lacks a holistic approach covering the whole chain of product design, raw material extraction, production, consumption, recycling and waste management. In this article, progress and different sustainability challenges facing the global waste management system are presented and discussed. The study leads to the conclusion that the current, rather isolated efforts, in different systems for waste management, waste reduction and resource management are indeed not sufficient in a long term sustainability perspective. In the future, to manage resources and wastes sustainably, waste management requires a more systems-oriented approach that addresses the root causes for the problems. A specific issue to address is the development of improved feedback information (statistics) on how waste generation is linked to consumption. © The Author(s) 2014.

A Visual Dashboard for Moving Health Technologies From “Lab to Village”

PubMed Central

Singer, Peter A

2007-01-01

New technologies are an important way of addressing global health challenges and human development. However, the road for new technologies from “lab to village” is neither simple nor straightforward. Until recently, there has been no conceptual framework for analyzing and addressing the myriad forces and issues involved in moving health technologies from the lab to those who need them. Recently, based on empirical research, we published such a model. In this paper, we focus on extending the model into a dashboard and examine how this dashboard can be used to manage the information related to the path from lab to village. The next step will be for groups interested in global health, and even the public via the Internet, to use the tool to help guide technologies down this tricky path to improve global health and foster human development. PMID:17951216

Pneumonia’s second wind? A case study of the global health network for childhood pneumonia

PubMed Central

Berlan, David

2016-01-01

Advocacy, policy, research and intervention efforts against childhood pneumonia have lagged behind other health issues, including malaria, measles and tuberculosis. Accelerating progress on the issue began in 2008, following decades of efforts by individuals and organizations to address the leading cause of childhood mortality and establish a global health network. This article traces the history of this network’s formation and evolution to identify lessons for other global health issues. Through document review and interviews with current, former and potential network members, this case study identifies five distinct eras of activity against childhood pneumonia: a period of isolation (post WWII to 1984), the duration of WHO’s Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) Programme (1984–1995), Integrated Management of Childhood illness’s (IMCI) early years (1995–2003), a brief period of network re-emergence (2003–2008) and recent accelerating progress (2008 on). Analysis of these eras reveals the critical importance of building a shared identity in order to form an effective network and take advantage of emerging opportunities. During the ARI era, an initial network formed around a relatively narrow shared identity focused on community-level care. The shift to IMCI led to the partial dissolution of this network, stalled progress on addressing pneumonia in communities and missed opportunities. Frustrated with lack of progress on the issue, actors began forming a network and shared identity that included a broad spectrum of those whose interests overlap with pneumonia. As the network coalesced and expanded, its members coordinated and collaborated on conducting and sharing research on severity and tractability, crafting comprehensive strategies and conducting advocacy. These network activities exerted indirect influence leading to increased attention, funding, policies and some implementation. PMID:26438780

Pneumonia's second wind? A case study of the global health network for childhood pneumonia.

PubMed

Berlan, David

2016-04-01

Advocacy, policy, research and intervention efforts against childhood pneumonia have lagged behind other health issues, including malaria, measles and tuberculosis. Accelerating progress on the issue began in 2008, following decades of efforts by individuals and organizations to address the leading cause of childhood mortality and establish a global health network. This article traces the history of this network's formation and evolution to identify lessons for other global health issues. Through document review and interviews with current, former and potential network members, this case study identifies five distinct eras of activity against childhood pneumonia: a period of isolation (post WWII to 1984), the duration of WHO's Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) Programme (1984-1995), Integrated Management of Childhood illness's (IMCI) early years (1995-2003), a brief period of network re-emergence (2003-2008) and recent accelerating progress (2008 on). Analysis of these eras reveals the critical importance of building a shared identity in order to form an effective network and take advantage of emerging opportunities. During the ARI era, an initial network formed around a relatively narrow shared identity focused on community-level care. The shift to IMCI led to the partial dissolution of this network, stalled progress on addressing pneumonia in communities and missed opportunities. Frustrated with lack of progress on the issue, actors began forming a network and shared identity that included a broad spectrum of those whose interests overlap with pneumonia. As the network coalesced and expanded, its members coordinated and collaborated on conducting and sharing research on severity and tractability, crafting comprehensive strategies and conducting advocacy. These network activities exerted indirect influence leading to increased attention, funding, policies and some implementation. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine © The Author 2015; all rights reserved.

Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome and C3 glomerulopathy: conclusions from a "Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes" (KDIGO) Controversies Conference.

PubMed

Goodship, Timothy H J; Cook, H Terence; Fakhouri, Fadi; Fervenza, Fernando C; Frémeaux-Bacchi, Véronique; Kavanagh, David; Nester, Carla M; Noris, Marina; Pickering, Matthew C; Rodríguez de Córdoba, Santiago; Roumenina, Lubka T; Sethi, Sanjeev; Smith, Richard J H

2017-03-01

In both atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) and C3 glomerulopathy (C3G) complement plays a primary role in disease pathogenesis. Herein we report the outcome of a 2015 Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Controversies Conference where key issues in the management of these 2 diseases were considered by a global panel of experts. Areas addressed included renal pathology, clinical phenotype and assessment, genetic drivers of disease, acquired drivers of disease, and treatment strategies. In order to help guide clinicians who are caring for such patients, recommendations for best treatment strategies were discussed at length, providing the evidence base underpinning current treatment options. Knowledge gaps were identified and a prioritized research agenda was proposed to resolve outstanding controversial issues. Copyright © 2016 International Society of Nephrology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Preparing for Themis Controlled Global Mars Mosaics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Archinal, B. A.; Weller, L.; Sides, S.; Cushing, G.; Kirk, R. L.; Soderblom, L. A.; Duxbury, T. C.

2004-01-01

We have begun work to prepare for producing controlled 2001 Mars Odyssey THEMIS infrared (IR) and visible (VIS) global mosaics of Mars. This effort is being coordinated with colleagues from Arizona State University and on the THEMIS team who plan to address radiometric issues in making such mosaics. We are concentrating on geometric issues. Several areas of investigation are now in progress, including: a) characterizing the absolute pointing accuracy of THEMIS images; b) investigating whether automatic tie point matching algorithms could be used to provide connections between overlapping THEMIS images; c) developing algorithms to allow for the photogrammetric (bundle) adjustment of the THEMIS IR (line scanner) camera images. Our primary goal in this pilot study effort will be to make several test control THEMIS mosaics and better determine which methods could be used, which require development, and what level of effort is required, in order to make large regional or global controlled THEMIS mosaics.

Political priority of global oral health: an analysis of reasons for international neglect.

PubMed

Benzian, Habib; Hobdell, Martin; Holmgren, Christopher; Yee, Robert; Monse, Bella; Barnard, Johannes T; van Palenstein Helderman, Wim

2011-06-01

Global Oral Health suffers from a lack of political attention, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This paper analyses the reasons for this political neglect through the lens of four areas of political power: the power of the ideas, the power of the issue, the power of the actors, and the power of the political context (using a modified Political Power Framework by Shiffman and Smith. Lancet370 [2007] 1370). The analysis reveals that political priority for global oral health is low, resulting from a set of complex issues deeply rooted in the current global oral health sector, its stakeholders and their remit, the lack of coherence and coalescence; as well as the lack of agreement on the problem, its portrayal and possible solutions. The shortcomings and weaknesses demonstrated in the analysis range from rather basic matters, such as defining the issue in an agreed way, to complex and multi-levelled issues concerning appropriate data collection and agreement on adequate solutions. The political priority of Global Oral Health can only be improved by addressing the underlying reasons that resulted in the wide disconnection between the international health discourse and the small sector of Global Oral Health. We hope that this analysis may serve as a starting point for a long overdue, broad and candid international analysis of political, social, cultural, communication, financial and other factors related to better prioritisation of oral health. Without such an analysis and the resulting concerted action the inequities in Global Oral Health will grow and increasingly impact on health systems, development and, most importantly, human lives. © 2011 FDI World Dental Federation.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission: An Overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kummerow. Christian; Hong, Ye

1999-01-01

The importance of quantitative knowledge of tropical rainfall, its associated latent heating and variability is summarized in the context of the global hydrologic cycle. Much of the tropics is covered by oceans. What land exists, is covered largely by rainforests that are only thinly populated. The only way to adequately measure the global tropical rainfall for climate and general circulation models is from space. To address these issues, the TRMM satellite was launched in Nov. 1997. It has been operating successfully ever since.

Contentious issues in research on trafficked women working in the sex industry: study design, ethics, and methodology.

PubMed

Cwikel, Julie; Hoban, Elizabeth

2005-11-01

The trafficking of women and children for work in the globalized sex industry is a global social problem. Quality data is needed to provide a basis for legislation, policy, and programs, but first, numerous research design, ethical, and methodological problems must be addressed. Research design issues in studying women trafficked for sex work (WTSW) include how to (a) develop coalitions to fund and support research, (b) maintain a critical stance on prostitution, and therefore WTSW (c) use multiple paradigms and methods to accurately reflect WTSW's reality, (d) present the purpose of the study, and (e) protect respondents' identities. Ethical issues include (a) complications with informed consent procedures, (b) problematic access to WTSW (c) loss of WTSW to follow-up, (d) inability to intervene in illegal acts or human rights violations, and (e) the need to maintain trustworthiness as researchers. Methodological issues include (a) constructing representative samples, (b) managing media interest, and (c) handling incriminating materials about law enforcement and immigration.

Recent global trends in structural materials research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murakami, Hideyuki; Ohmura, Takahito; Nishimura, Toshiyuki

2013-02-01

Structural materials support the basis of global society, such as infrastructure and transportation facilities, and are therefore essential for everyday life. The optimization of such materials allows people to overcome environmental, energy and resource depletion issues on a global scale. The creation and manufacture of structural materials make a large contribution to economies around the world every year. The use of strong, resistant materials can also have profound social effects, providing a better quality of life at both local and national levels. The Great East Japan Earthquake of 11 March 2011 caused significant structural damage in the Tohoku and Kanto regions of Japan. On a global scale, accidents caused by the ageing and failure of structural materials occur on a daily basis. Therefore, the provision and inspection of structural reliability, safety of nuclear power facilities and construction of a secure and safe society hold primary importance for researchers and engineers across the world. Clearly, structural materials need to evolve further to address both existing problems and prepare for new challenges that may be faced in the future. With this in mind, the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) organized the 'NIMS Conference 2012' to host an extensive discussion on a variety of global issues related to the future development of structural materials. Ranging from reconstruction following natural disasters, verification of structural reliability, energy-saving materials to fundamental problems accompanying the development of materials for high safety standards, the conference covered many key issues in the materials industry today. All the above topics are reflected in this focus issue of STAM, which introduces recent global trends in structural materials research with contributions from world-leading researchers in this field. This issue covers the development of novel alloys, current methodologies in the characterization of structural materials and fundamental research on structure-property relationships. We are grateful to the authors who contributed to cover these issues, and sincerely hope that our readers will expand their knowledge of emerging international research within the field of structural materials.

The 3^rd International Conference on Women in Physics: Global Perspectives, Common Concerns, Worldwide Views

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zastavker, Yevgeniya V.

2009-03-01

The 3^rd International Conference on Women in Physics (ICWIP), held in Seoul, Korea, in October 2008, brought together 300 participants from 57 countries, including a diverse 22-member U.S. Delegation, for a 3-day summit of stimulating discussions, thought-provoking presentations, inspirational posters, and networking. Held under the auspices of the Working Group on Women in Physics of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), this meeting built on the successes of the 1^st (Paris, 2002) and 2^nd (Rio de Janeiro, 2005) Conferences and further clarified the importance of diversifying the field of physics worldwide. Although considerable progress has been made since 2002, it was clear that the global scientific workforce is still under-utilizing a large percentage of the available female talent pool. If human society is to benefit to its fullest from various contributions that the field of physics can offer in addressing global issues of economic crisis, energy, environment, water, health, poverty, and hunger, women of all races and nationalities need to become fully included and engaged in the national and international physical community. To address these and many other issues, the ICWIP unanimously approved a five-part resolution to IUPAP recommending actions to promote the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in physics and related fields.

Satellites as Sentinels for Health

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Maynard, Nancy G.; Yland, Jan-Marcus

2001-01-01

Remotely-sensed data and observations are providing powerful new tools for addressing the human health aspects of sustainability by enabling improved understanding of the relationships and linkages between health-related environmental parameters and society as well as techniques for early warning of potential health problems. Remote sensing, geographic information systems, improved computational capabilities, and interdisciplinary research between the Earth and health science communities are being combined in rich collaborative efforts resulting in more rapid problem-solving, early warning, and prevention in global health issues. This paper provides a number of recent examples of applications of these technologies to health issues related to the following: infectious and vector-borne diseases; urban, regional and global air pollution; heat stress; UV radiation; water-borne disease; extreme weather; contaminant pathways (ocean, atmosphere, ice).

Ethical considerations in industry-sponsored multiregional clinical trials.

PubMed

Ibia, Ekopimo; Binkowitz, Bruce; Saillot, Jean-Louis; Talerico, Steven; Koerner, Chin; Ferreira, Irene; Agarwal, Anupam; Metz, Craig; Maman, Marianne

2010-01-01

During the last several decades, the scientific and ethics communities have addressed important ethical issues in medical research, resulting in the elaboration and adoption of concepts, guidelines, and codes. Ethical issues in the conduct of Multiregional Clinical Trials have attracted significant attention mainly in the last two decades. With the globalization of clinical research and the rapid expansion to countries with a limited tradition of biomedical research, sponsors must proactively address local ethical issues, the adequacy of oversight as well as the applicability and validity of data, and scientific conclusions drawn from diverse patient populations. This paper highlights some core ethical principles and milestones in medical research, and, from an industry perspective, it discusses ethical issues that the clinical trial team may face when conducting Multiregional Clinical Trials (MRCT, clinical trials conducted at sites located across multiple geographic regions of the world). This paper further highlights the areas of consensus and controversies and proposes points to consider. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Global issues in volatile substance misuse.

PubMed

Dell, Colleen Anne; Gust, Steven W; MacLean, Sarah

2011-01-01

This special issue of Substance Use & Misuse addresses the public health issue of volatile substance misuse (VSM), the inhalation of gases or vapors for psychoactive effects, assessing the similarities and differences in the products misused, patterns, prevalence, etiologies, and impacts of VSM by examining it through sociocultural epidemiology, neuroscience, and interventions research. The Canadian, US, and Australian guest editors contend that, when compared with other drugs used at a similar prevalence, VSM has attracted relatively little research effort. The authors and editors call for further research to develop evidence-based policies and comprehensive interventions that respect culture and context-specific knowledge.

Asia's changing role in global climate change.

PubMed

Siddiqi, Toufiq A

2008-10-01

Asia's role in global climate change has evolved significantly from the time when the Kyoto Protocol was being negotiated. Emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, from energy use in Asian countries now exceed those from the European Union or North America. Three of the top five emitters-China, India, and Japan, are Asian countries. Any meaningful global effort to address global climate change requires the active cooperation of these and other large Asian countries, if it is to succeed. Issues of equity between countries, within countries, and between generations, need to be tackled. Some quantitative current and historic data to illustrate the difficulties involved are provided, and one approach to making progress is suggested.

Monitoring ethical, legal, and social issues in developing population genetic databases.

PubMed

Austin, Melissa A; Harding, Sarah E; McElroy, Courtney E

2003-01-01

To characterize ethical, legal, and social issues unique to population genetic database research and to determine the relevance of international recommendations and guidelines for addressing these issues in the development of "genebank" projects globally. Building on our previous description of eight international genebanks, we conducted a comprehensive electronic search and literature review of relevant publications and consulted national and international documents applicable to genebank research. We identified and characterized five categories of ethical, legal, and social issues unique to genebank development: sponsorship and benefit-sharing, neutrality and regulatory power of ethics committees, public engagement, consent, and data protection. We illustrate these issues with examples from specific genebanks. Not all of the issues are addressed in current international guidelines, many of which are nonspecific and unenforceable. The trend of genebank development promises to provide new discoveries to the field of medical science and to greatly improve public health. However, there is a growing need for more explicit, enforceable, and coordinated international guidelines relevant to the development and implementation of genebanks. By comparing ethical, legal and social issues as they arise in genebanks, researchers can better evaluate how to best use these projects to improve public health while protecting participating populations.

VLBI Digital-Backend Intercomparison Test Report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Whitney, Alan; Beaudoin, Christopher; Cappallo, Roger; Niell, Arthur; Petrachenko, Bill; Ruszczyk, Chester A.; Titus, Mike

2013-01-01

Issues related to digital-backend (DBE) systems can be difficult to evaluate in either local tests or actual VLBI experiments. The 2nd DBE intercomparison workshop at Haystack Observatory on 25-26 October 2012 provided a forum to explicitly address validation and interoperability issues among independent global developers of DBE equipment. This special report discusses the workshop. It identifies DBE systems that were tested at the workshop, describes the test objectives and procedures, and reports and discusses the results of the testing.

Registered Apprenticeship: Stepping up to the President's Challenge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oates, Jane; Ladd, John V.

2009-01-01

In President Obama's inaugural address to Congress, he spoke about the role the workforce and education systems and Registered Apprenticeship will play in preparing U.S. workers to succeed in today's global market. The president issued the following challenge to all Americans: "And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one…

The Nature of Sustainability as Viewed by European Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lockley, John; Jarrath, Martin

2013-01-01

Sustainability as a concept, though well understood in general terms, is often politically captured by interest groups and as such expressed through issues like concern for global climate change or the need to develop more efficient energy sources, to address regional, national or international priorities. Education for sustainability as a concept…

Sustainability Knowledge and Behaviors of Apparel and Textile Undergraduates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hiller Connell, Kim Y.; Kozar, Joy M.

2012-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze changes in undergraduate student knowledge of issues of sustainability relevant to the apparel and textiles industry. Assessment occurred prior to and upon completion of a course that addressed topics specific to the global production and distribution of apparel and textile goods. The study also…

Technology-Enabled Curriculum for Transnational Education in Art History and Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clarke, Angela; Sharp, Kristen; Tai, Mikala

2017-01-01

The landscape of tertiary education has significantly changed in recent years with increasing pressure on universities to "globalize" and expand their reach internationally. In this context, there are a range of pedagogical and cultural issues to consider when designing curriculum to address the needs of students taking courses in…

Global Citizenship and National (Re)formations: Analysis of Citizenship Education Reform in Spain

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Engel, Laura C.

2014-01-01

In recent years, many European education systems have embarked on a process of education policy and curriculum reform related to citizenship education. This article explores citizenship education reform in the context of Spain. It considers how and to what extent Spain's 2006 citizenship education addressed issues of national and global…

An Introduction to Solar Cells

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feldman, Bernard J.

2010-01-01

Most likely, solar cells will play a significant role in this country's strategy to address the two interrelated issues of global warming and dependence on imported oil. The purpose of this paper is to present an explanation of how solar cells work at an introductory high school, college, or university physics course level. The treatment presented…

Engineers of the Future: The Colorado School of Mines' McBride Honors Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olds, Barbara M.

1988-01-01

More educators argue that science and technology students must be more liberally educated. The McBride Honors Program at Colorado School of Mines addresses the needs of a global society by preparing engineers to be technically competent, with strong communication skills, and knowledge of societal issues. (MLW)

The Impact of Writing Assignments in Business Education: Toward a Competitive Advantage in the Workplace

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Washington, Melvin C.

2014-01-01

Twenty-first century organizations are increasingly becoming global information networks where the emphasis on written communication is growing exponentially. Effective writing skills are becoming more essential to workplace success and thus a central focus in business programs across the country. This article addresses writing issues in business…

Using Population Data to Address the Human Dimensions of Environmental Change

Treesearch

D.M. Mageean; J.G. Bartlett

1999-01-01

In recent years researchers and policy makers have identified population-environment interactions as crucial to issues of ecology, economic development, and human welfare. It seems clear that human populations and demands on the environment are driving ecological change in such areas as global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation, biodiversity loss, land degradation...

Financing American Higher Education in the Era of Globalization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zumeta, William; Breneman, David W.; Callan, Patrick M.; Finney, Joni E.

2012-01-01

This ambitious book grows out of the realization that a convergence of economic, demographic, and political forces in the early twenty-first century requires a fundamental reexamination of the financing of American higher education. The authors identify and address basic issues and trends that cut across the sectors of higher education, focusing…

Corporations' Resistance to Innovation: The Adoption of the Internet Protocol Version 6

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pazdrowski, Tomasz

2013-01-01

Computer networks that brought unprecedented growth in global communication have been using Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) as a standard for routing. The exponential increase in the use of the networks caused an acute shortage of available identification numbers (IP addresses). The shortage and other network communication issues are…

Teacher Learning that Matters: International Perspectives. Routledge Research in Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kooy, Mary, Ed.; van Veen, Klaas, Ed.

2011-01-01

In the continuing global call for educational reforms and change, the contributors in this edited collection address the critical issue of teacher learning from diverse national contexts and perspectives. They define "teacher learning that matters" as it shapes and directs pedagogical practices with the goal of improving student learning. Student…

Less Pain, More Gain: Rapid Skill Development Using "Old Way New Way"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baxter, Paul; Lyndon, Harry; Dole, Shelley; Battistutta, Diana

2004-01-01

This study addresses an issue of global concern in skills training, namely, the rapid and permanent eradication of persistent habit errors, and bad or unsafe working practices. This article offers an alternative human factors explanation for the profound difficulties and low transfer of training experienced during error pattern retraining, and the…

Integrated Planning for Education and Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Persaud, Amlata

2017-01-01

This article addresses the issue of integrated planning for education in a post-2015 international development paradigm. It argues that there has been a growth in the opportunity space for education stakeholders at both global and local levels to pay greater attention to the links between education and other development sectors. It uses a…

Community Schools: A Vehicle for Educational Equity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Honda, Michael; Liu, Carol

2015-01-01

The impacts of poverty in this country cast a long shadow over the issues of education, social mobility, and global competitiveness. Although national conversations regarding income inequality have increased, the topic of poverty in America has not had as much attention. We seem to be at a loss about specific solutions that could address this…

The Place of Social Justice in Higher Education and Social Change Discourses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singh, Mala

2011-01-01

A familiar discourse about higher education and social change today relates to higher education's socio-economic role within knowledge societies in a globalizing world. This paper addresses how issues of social justice feature in such discourses; whether social justice in higher education has been appropriated into a neo-liberal strategy for…

Forest management for mitigation and adaptation: insights from long-term silvicultural experiments

Treesearch

Anthony W. D' Amato; John B. Bradford; Shawn Fraver; Brian J. Palik

2011-01-01

Developing management strategies for addressing global climate change has become an increasingly important issue influencing forest management around the globe. Currently, management approaches are being proposed that intend to (1) mitigate climate change by enhancing forest carbon stores and (2) foster adaptation by maintaining compositionally and structurally complex...

Ergonomics and sustainability: towards an embrace of complexity and emergence.

PubMed

Dekker, Sidney W A; Hancock, Peter A; Wilkin, Peter

2013-01-01

Technology offers a promising route to a sustainable future, and ergonomics can serve a vital role. The argument of this article is that the lasting success of sustainability initiatives in ergonomics hinges on an examination of ergonomics' own epistemology and ethics. The epistemology of ergonomics is fundamentally empiricist and positivist. This places practical constraints on its ability to address important issues such as sustainability, emergence and complexity. The implicit ethical position of ergonomics is one of neutrality, and its positivist epistemology generally puts value-laden questions outside the parameters of what it sees as scientific practice. We argue, by contrast, that a discipline that deals with both technology and human beings cannot avoid engaging with questions of complexity and emergence and seeking innovative ways of addressing these issues. Ergonomics has largely modelled its research on a reductive science, studying parts and problems to fix. In sustainability efforts, this can lead to mere local adaptations with a negative effect on global sustainability. Ergonomics must consider quality of life globally, appreciating complexity and emergent effects of local relationships.

A vision for an ultra-high resolution integrated water cycle observation and prediction system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Houser, P. R.

2013-05-01

Society's welfare, progress, and sustainable economic growth—and life itself—depend on the abundance and vigorous cycling and replenishing of water throughout the global environment. The water cycle operates on a continuum of time and space scales and exchanges large amounts of energy as water undergoes phase changes and is moved from one part of the Earth system to another. We must move toward an integrated observation and prediction paradigm that addresses broad local-to-global science and application issues by realizing synergies associated with multiple, coordinated observations and prediction systems. A central challenge of a future water and energy cycle observation strategy is to progress from single variable water-cycle instruments to multivariable integrated instruments in electromagnetic-band families. The microwave range in the electromagnetic spectrum is ideally suited for sensing the state and abundance of water because of water's dielectric properties. Eventually, a dedicated high-resolution water-cycle microwave-based satellite mission may be possible based on large-aperture antenna technology that can harvest the synergy that would be afforded by simultaneous multichannel active and passive microwave measurements. A partial demonstration of these ideas can even be realized with existing microwave satellite observations to support advanced multivariate retrieval methods that can exploit the totality of the microwave spectral information. The simultaneous multichannel active and passive microwave retrieval would allow improved-accuracy retrievals that are not possible with isolated measurements. Furthermore, the simultaneous monitoring of several of the land, atmospheric, oceanic, and cryospheric states brings synergies that will substantially enhance understanding of the global water and energy cycle as a system. The multichannel approach also affords advantages to some constituent retrievals—for instance, simultaneous retrieval of vegetation biomass would improve soil-moisture retrieval by avoiding the need for auxiliary vegetation information. This multivariable water-cycle observation system must be integrated with high-resolution, application relevant prediction systems to optimize their information content and utility is addressing critical water cycle issues. One such vision is a real-time ultra-high resolution locally-moasiced global land modeling and assimilation system, that overlays regional high-fidelity information over a baseline global land prediction system. Such a system would provide the best possible local information for use in applications, while integrating and sharing information globally for diagnosing larger water cycle variability. In a sense, this would constitute a hydrologic telecommunication system, where the best local in-situ gage, Doppler radar, and weather station can be shared internationally, and integrated in a consistent manner with global observation platforms like the multivariable water cycle mission. To realize such a vision, large issues must be addressed, such as international data sharing policy, model-observation integration approaches that maintain local extremes while achieving global consistency, and methods for establishing error estimates and uncertainty.

The global health network on alcohol control: successes and limits of evidence-based advocacy

PubMed Central

Schmitz, Hans Peter

2016-01-01

Global efforts to address alcohol harm have significantly increased since the mid-1990s. By 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) had adopted the non-binding Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol. This study investigates the role of a global health network, anchored by the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance (GAPA), which has used scientific evidence on harm and effective interventions to advocate for greater global public health efforts to reduce alcohol harm. The study uses process-tracing methodology and expert interviews to evaluate the accomplishments and limitations of this network. The study documents how network members have not only contributed to greater global awareness about alcohol harm, but also advanced a public health approach to addressing this issue at the global level. Although the current network represents an expanding global coalition of like-minded individuals, it faces considerable challenges in advancing its cause towards successful implementation of effective alcohol control policies across many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The analysis reveals a need to transform the network into a formal coalition of regional and national organizations that represent a broader variety of constituents, including the medical community, consumer groups and development-focused non-governmental organizations. Considering the growing harm of alcohol abuse in LMICs and the availability of proven and cost-effective public health interventions, alcohol control represents an excellent ‘buy’ for donors interested in addressing non-communicable diseases. Alcohol control has broad beneficial effects for human development, including promoting road safety and reducing domestic violence and health care costs across a wide variety of illnesses caused by alcohol consumption. PMID:26276763

The global health network on alcohol control: successes and limits of evidence-based advocacy.

PubMed

Schmitz, Hans Peter

2016-04-01

Global efforts to address alcohol harm have significantly increased since the mid-1990 s. By 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) had adopted the non-binding Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol. This study investigates the role of a global health network, anchored by the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance (GAPA), which has used scientific evidence on harm and effective interventions to advocate for greater global public health efforts to reduce alcohol harm. The study uses process-tracing methodology and expert interviews to evaluate the accomplishments and limitations of this network. The study documents how network members have not only contributed to greater global awareness about alcohol harm, but also advanced a public health approach to addressing this issue at the global level. Although the current network represents an expanding global coalition of like-minded individuals, it faces considerable challenges in advancing its cause towards successful implementation of effective alcohol control policies across many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The analysis reveals a need to transform the network into a formal coalition of regional and national organizations that represent a broader variety of constituents, including the medical community, consumer groups and development-focused non-governmental organizations. Considering the growing harm of alcohol abuse in LMICs and the availability of proven and cost-effective public health interventions, alcohol control represents an excellent 'buy' for donors interested in addressing non-communicable diseases. Alcohol control has broad beneficial effects for human development, including promoting road safety and reducing domestic violence and health care costs across a wide variety of illnesses caused by alcohol consumption. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine © The Author 2015; all rights reserved.

State of Science: ergonomics and global issues.

PubMed

Thatcher, Andrew; Waterson, Patrick; Todd, Andrew; Moray, Neville

2018-02-01

In his 1993 IEA keynote address, Neville Moray urged the ergonomics discipline to face up to the global problems facing humanity and consider how ergonomics might help find some of the solutions. In this State of Science article we critically evaluate what the ergonomics discipline has achieved in the last two and a half decades to help create a secure future for humanity. Moray's challenges for ergonomics included deriving a value structure that moves us beyond a Westernised view of worker-organisation-technology fit, taking a multidisciplinary approach which engages with other social and biological sciences, considering the gross cross-cultural factors that determine how different societies function, paying more attention to mindful consumption, and embracing the complexity of our interconnected world. This article takes a socio-historical approach by considering the factors that influence what has been achieved since Moray's keynote address. We conclude with our own set of predictions for the future and priorities for addressing the challenges that we are likely to face. Practitioner Summary: We critically reflect on what has been achieved by the ergonomics profession in addressing the global challenges raised by Moray's 1993 keynote address to the International Ergonomics Association. Apart from healthcare, the response has largely been weak and disorganised. We make suggestions for priority research and practice that is required to facilitate a sustainable future for humanity.

Four Challenges That Global Health Networks Face

PubMed Central

Shiffman, Jeremy

2017-01-01

Global health networks, webs of individuals and organizations with a shared concern for a particular condition, have proliferated over the past quarter century. They differ in their effectiveness, a factor that may help explain why resource allocations vary across health conditions and do not correspond closely with disease burden. Drawing on findings from recently concluded studies of eight global health networks—addressing alcohol harm, early childhood development (ECD), maternal mortality, neonatal mortality, pneumonia, surgically-treatable conditions, tobacco use, and tuberculosis—I identify four challenges that networks face in generating attention and resources for the conditions that concern them. The first is problem definition: generating consensus on what the problem is and how it should be addressed. The second is positioning: portraying the issue in ways that inspire external audiences to act. The third is coalition-building: forging alliances with these external actors, particularly ones outside the health sector. The fourth is governance: establishing institutions to facilitate collective action. Research indicates that global health networks that effectively tackle these challenges are more likely to garner support to address the conditions that concern them. In addition to the effectiveness of networks, I also consider their legitimacy, identifying reasons both to affirm and to question their right to exert power. PMID:28812801

Project delivery in HIV/AIDS and TB in Southern Africa: the cross-cultural management imperative.

PubMed

Claeyé, Frederik; Jackson, Terence

2011-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a broad-based study that initially investigated a possible gap in global inputs into the fight against HIV/AIDS and TB co-infection, and outputs in terms of results achieved. It is proposed that such a gap may be hypothesized to be due, at least in part, to inappropriate management regimes within the global health governance structure. The research does not simply question the effectiveness of the management of programs and projects, but rather the inappropriateness resulting from the lack of addressing cross-cultural issues. The factors facilitating or hampering project service delivery were examined, by looking at 12 case studies in Botswana and South Africa. These data were complemented with seven semi-structured interviews with donor organizations and NGOs, conducted in the North. Cultural interactions were investigated by using the concept of "interfaces". The results suggest that there is a disjuncture between the global and local level that affects project delivery. The main issues hampering project outcomes can be summarized as systemic, structural and cultural. The article's main contributions are both theoretical, looking at global project delivery from a cross-cultural management perspective, as well as to development praxis by highlighting the need to focus more critically on cross-cultural management issues within the global health governance structure, and indeed within international development as a whole.

Global Equity and Justice Issues for Young People During the First Three Decades of Life.

PubMed

Petersen, Anne; Koller, Silvia H; Motti-Stefanidi, Frosso; Verma, Suman

This chapter takes a global perspective on equity and justice during development from childhood into adulthood. Globally, the population of young people is booming with the most rapid growth among young people in the poorest countries. While already faced with significant issues related to development and thriving, this population boom also exacerbates equity and justice for these children. Given this urgent situation, this chapter builds from the large body of minority world research, as well as the emergent majority world research, to argue that in order to turn the youth bulge into a demographic dividend, researchers must utilize a positive development framing rather than the more dominant problem-focused framing in studying these issues. The structural challenges confronting young people growing up in contexts marked by poverty; weak systems and institutions, especially those serving education, health, and justice; weak political and governance systems; and continual conflict must also be addressed by global and national governmental bodies. This chapter will emphasize the strengths and opportunities of the majority world, highlighting some of the strong, emergent examples of programs that support and develop the strengths of young people. We conclude with a discussion of appropriate support required from the minority and majority worlds that would further strengthen young people globally and enable them to become leaders of a more just, equitable world. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The political economy of emergency and essential surgery in global health.

PubMed

Hedges, Jeremy P; Mock, Charles N; Cherian, Meena N

2010-09-01

Emergency and essential surgery (EES) remains a low priority on global health agendas even though a growing body of evidence demonstrates that EES is a cost-effective public health intervention and that it holds the potential to prevent a sizable number of deaths and disabilities. The inferior status of EES should be considered, in part, a political problem and subject to political analysis. This type of political economy examination has been used for other important global health issues but has not been applied to EES. By addressing political concerns and prospects, EES can be better positioned on international agendas, thus improving surgical care delivered to the poor.

The eHealth agenda for developing countries.

PubMed

Drury, Peter

2005-01-01

Delivering eHealth in developing countries faces different health and socio-economic challenges to the developed one. But, if a global health infrastructure is to evolve, then developing countries need to play their part. So, whilst the context may differ, the localization-globalization of content issues needs to be jointly addressed. In providing robust and affordable connectivity, particularly to rural areas, developing countries can fully exploit the potential of handheld computers and wireless connectivity. Over such an infrastructure new ways of building capacity, both locally and globally, can be supported. Finally, an eHealth infrastructure can support the delivery of healthcare in communities, thereby supporting individuals and community development.

National Renewable Energy Policy in a Global World

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jeong, Minji

Increasing trade of renewable energy products has significantly contributed to reducing the costs of renewable energy sources, but at the same time, it has generated protectionist policies, which may negatively affect the trend of the cost reduction. Although a few recent studies examined the rise of renewable energy protectionism and trade disputes, they are limited in addressing the conflict between the original goal of traditional renewable energy policies and the new protectionist policies under the globalized renewable energy industry. To fill this gap, this dissertation explores how the globalized renewable energy industry has changed national renewable energy policies. Through three analyses, three aspects of the globalized renewable energy industry are examined: the rise of multinational corporations, international interactions among actors, and the changes of the global and domestic market conditions. First analysis investigates how multinational renewable energy corporations have affected national policies. A content analysis of the annual reports of 15 solar photovoltaic multinational corporation shows that solar multinationals have been influenced by national policies and have adapted to the changes rather than having attempted to change national policies. Second analysis examines how diverse actors have framed renewable energy trade issues through a network analysis of the Chinese solar panel issue in the United States. The result shows that the Chinese solar panel issue was framed differently from the traditional environmental frame of renewable energy, being dominated by multinational corporations headquartered in other countries. Third analysis explores what has caused the increasing diversity in national renewable energy policies through the case studies of the U.S. and South Korea. The result reveals that the globalization of solar industry has affected the diversification of solar policies in two countries by generating both challenges, which needed to be addressed by new and additional policies, and opportunities, which strengthened the political power of domestic solar industries. The three analyses show that the globalized renewable energy industry has led to the diversification of national renewable energy policies by increasing international interactions between actors and by introducing both challenges and opportunities to domestic renewable energy industries. This research contributes to the literature on trade and the environment by analyzing a new pattern of the conflicts between traditional environmental policies and "green" protectionist policies. It also contributes to the literature on protectionism by adding an empirical case of green protectionism, one of the forms of "murky" protectionism that has risen after the global financial crisis.

Visions for a sustainable world: A conference on science, technology and social responsibility. Conference report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

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This report summarizes the organization, activities, and outcomes of Student Pugwash USA`s 1992 International Conference, Visions for a Sustainable World: A Conference on Science, Technology and Social Responsibility. The conference was held June 14--20, 1992 at Emory University, and brought together 94 students and over 65 experts from industry, academe, and government. The conference addressed issues ranging from global environmental cooperation to the social impacts of the Human Genome Project to minority concerns in the sciences. It provided a valuable forum for talented students and professionals to engage in critical dialogue on many interdisciplinary issues at the juncture of science,more » technology and society. The conference challenged students -- the world`s future scientists, engineers, and political leaders -- to think broadly about global problems and to devise policy options that are viable and innovative. The success of the conference in stimulating interest, understanding, and enthusiasm about interdisciplinary global issues is clearly evident from both the participants` feedback and their continued involvement in Student Pugwash USA programs. Six working groups met each morning. The working group themes included: environmental challenges for developing countries; energy options: their social and environmental impact; health care in developing countries; changing dynamics of peace and global security; educating for the socially responsible use of technology; ethics and the use of genetic information. The conference was specifically designed to include mechanisms for ensuring its long-term impact. Participants were encouraged to focus on their individual role in helping resolve global issues. This was achieved through each participant`s development of a Personal Plan of Action, a plan which mapped out activities the student could undertake after the conference to continue the dialogue and work towards the resolution of global and local problems.« less

Addressing global change challenges for Central Asian socio-ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qi, Jiaguo; Bobushev, Temirbek S.; Kulmatov, Rashid; Groisman, Pavel; Gutman, Garik

2012-06-01

Central Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions on the planet earth to global climate change, depending on very fragile natural resources. The Soviet legacy has left the five countries (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) with a highly integrated system but they are facing great challenges with tensions that hinder regional coordination of food and water resources. With increasing climate variability and warming trend in the region, food and water security issues become even more crucial now and, if not addressed properly, could affect the regional stability. The long-term drivers of these two most critical elements, food and water, are climate change; the immediate and probably more drastic factors affecting the food and water security are land uses driven by institutional change and economic incentives. As a feedback, changes in land use and land cover have directly implications on water uses, food production, and lifestyles of the rural community in the region. Regional and international efforts have been made to holistically understand the cause, extent, rate and societal implications of land use changes in the region. Much of these have been understood, or under investigation by various projects, but solutions or research effort to develop solutions, to these urgent regional issues are lacking. This article, serves as an introduction to the special issue, provides a brief overview of the challenges facing the Central Asian countries and various international efforts in place that resulted in the publications of this special issue.

Sustainable Development Goals for Monitoring Action to Improve Global Health.

PubMed

Cesario, Sandra K

2016-01-01

Women and children compose the largest segment of the more than 1 billion people worldwide who are unable to access needed health care services. To address this and other global health issues, the United Nations brought together world leaders to address growing health inequities, first by establishing the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and more recently establishing Sustainable Development Goals, which are an intergovernmental set of 17 goals consisting of 169 targets with 304 indicators to measure compliance; they were designed to be applicable to all countries. Goal number 3, "Good Health and Well-Being: Ensure Heathy Lives and Promote Well-Being for All at All Ages," includes targets to improve the health of women and newborns. © 2016 AWHONN, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.

Globalization: grasping the concept within the context of nursing.

PubMed

Keighley, Tom

2013-03-01

Globalization is a phenomenon traceable historically from the beginning of time as clans and tribes migrated and learnt from each other. The article in this issue of INR by Grootjans and Newman 'Globalization and nursing: a concept analysis' (pp. 78-85) makes the case for nurses to be educated about globalization as it applies to modern health care. The concept is complex and requires insight not only into health care itself but also fields such as human migration, economics, the significance of English as a universal language and the use and availability of information technology. Writings on the impact of global technology and social capital are also important. In addressing globalization, nurses need to access research and writings well beyond the standard healthcare oeuvre. © 2013 The Author. International Nursing Review © 2013 International Council of Nurses.

A case-based, problem-based learning approach to prepare master of public health candidates for the complexities of global health.

PubMed

Leon, Juan S; Winskell, Kate; McFarland, Deborah A; del Rio, Carlos

2015-03-01

Global health is a dynamic, emerging, and interdisciplinary field. To address current and emerging global health challenges, we need a public health workforce with adaptable and collaborative problem-solving skills. In the 2013-2014 academic year, the Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health-Emory University launched an innovative required core course for its first-year Master of Public Health students in the global health track. The course uses a case-based, problem-based learning approach to develop global health competencies. Small teams of students propose solutions to these problems by identifying learning issues and critically analyzing and synthesizing new information. We describe the course structure and logistics used to apply this approach in the context of a large class and share lessons learned.

Addressing Barriers to the Development and Adoption of Rapid Diagnostic Tests in Global Health.

PubMed

Miller, Eric; Sikes, Hadley D

Immunochromatographic rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have demonstrated significant potential for use as point-of-care diagnostic tests in resource-limited settings. Most notably, RDTs for malaria have reached an unparalleled level of technological maturity and market penetration, and are now considered an important complement to standard microscopic methods of malaria diagnosis. However, the technical development of RDTs for other infectious diseases, and their uptake within the global health community as a core diagnostic modality, has been hindered by a number of extant challenges. These range from technical and biological issues, such as the need for better affinity agents and biomarkers of disease, to social, infrastructural, regulatory and economic barriers, which have all served to slow their adoption and diminish their impact. In order for the immunochromatographic RDT format to be successfully adapted to other disease targets, to see widespread distribution, and to improve clinical outcomes for patients on a global scale, these challenges must be identified and addressed, and the global health community must be engaged in championing the broader use of RDTs.

Addressing Barriers to the Development and Adoption of Rapid Diagnostic Tests in Global Health

PubMed Central

Miller, Eric; Sikes, Hadley D.

2015-01-01

Immunochromatographic rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have demonstrated significant potential for use as point-of-care diagnostic tests in resource-limited settings. Most notably, RDTs for malaria have reached an unparalleled level of technological maturity and market penetration, and are now considered an important complement to standard microscopic methods of malaria diagnosis. However, the technical development of RDTs for other infectious diseases, and their uptake within the global health community as a core diagnostic modality, has been hindered by a number of extant challenges. These range from technical and biological issues, such as the need for better affinity agents and biomarkers of disease, to social, infrastructural, regulatory and economic barriers, which have all served to slow their adoption and diminish their impact. In order for the immunochromatographic RDT format to be successfully adapted to other disease targets, to see widespread distribution, and to improve clinical outcomes for patients on a global scale, these challenges must be identified and addressed, and the global health community must be engaged in championing the broader use of RDTs. PMID:26594252

Moving life science ethics debates beyond national borders: some empirical observations.

PubMed

Bezuidenhout, Louise

2014-06-01

The life sciences are increasingly being called on to produce "socially robust" knowledge that honors the social contract between science and society. This has resulted in the emergence of a number of "broad social issues" that reflect the ethical tensions in these social contracts. These issues are framed in a variety of ways around the world, evidenced by differences in regulations addressing them. It is important to question whether these variations are simply regulatory variations or in fact reflect a contextual approach to ethics that brings into question the existence of a system of "global scientific ethics". Nonetheless, within ethics education for scientists these broad social issues are often presented using this scheme of global ethics due to legacies of science ethics pedagogy. This paper suggests this may present barriers to fostering international discourse between communities of scientists, and may cause difficulties in harmonizing (and transporting) national regulations for the governance of these issues. Reinterpreting these variations according to how the content of ethical principles is attributed by communities is proposed as crucial for developing a robust international discourse. To illustrate this, the paper offers some empirical fieldwork data that considers how the concept of dual-use (as a broad social issue) was discussed within African and UK laboratories. Demonstrating that African scientists reshaped the concept of dual-use according to their own research environmental pressures and ascribed alternative content to the principles that underpin it, suggests that the limitations of a "global scientific ethics" system for these issues cannot be ignored.

Planning for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)

USGS Publications Warehouse

Christian, E.

2005-01-01

The Group on Earth Observations was established to promote comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observations. Its mandate is to implement the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) in accord with the GEOSS 10-Year Implementation Plan and Reference Document. During the months over which the GEOSS Implementation Plan was developed, many issues surfaced and were addressed. This article discusses several of the more interesting or challenging of those issues-e.g. fitting in with existing organizations and securing stable funding - some of which have yet to be resolved fully as of this writing. Despite the relatively short period over which the Implementation Plan had to be developed, there is a good chance that the work undertaken will be influential for decades to come. ?? 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Regulating the helping hand: improving legal preparedness for cross-border disaster medicine.

PubMed

Fisher, David

2010-01-01

Medical care is a highly regulated field in nearly every country. Therefore, it is not surprising that legal issues regularly arise in cross-border disaster operations that have with the potential to profoundly impact the effectiveness of international assistance. Little attention has been paid to preparing for and addressing these kinds of issues. This paper will report on research by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on International Disaster Response Law, and discuss new developments in the international legal framework for addressing these issues. For seven years, the IFRC has studied legal issues in cross-border disaster assistance. Its activities have included several dozen case studies, a global survey of governments and humanitarian stakeholders, and a series of meetings and high-level conferences. The IFRC has found a consistent set of regulatory problems in major disaster relief operations related to the entry and regulation of international relief. These include some issues specific to the health field, such as the regulation of drug donations and the recognition of foreign medical qualifications. To address the gaps in domestic and international regulatory structures, the IFRC spearheaded the development of new international guidelines. The legal risks for international health providers in disaster settings are real and should be better integrated into program planning. Governments must become more proactive in ensuring that legal frameworks are flexible enough to mitigate these problems.

Addressing overuse of health services in health systems: a critical interpretive synthesis.

PubMed

Ellen, Moriah E; Wilson, Michael G; Vélez, Marcela; Shach, Ruth; Lavis, John N; Grimshaw, Jeremy M; Moat, Kaelan A

2018-06-15

Health systems are increasingly focusing on the issue of 'overuse' of health services and how to address it. We developed a framework focused on (1) the rationale and context for health systems prioritising addressing overuse, (2) elements of a comprehensive process and approach to reduce overuse and (3) implementation considerations for addressing overuse. We conducted a critical interpretive synthesis informed by a stakeholder-engagement process. The synthesis identified relevant empirical and non-empirical articles about system-level overuse. Two reviewers independently screened records, assessed for inclusion and conceptually mapped included articles. From these, we selected a purposive sample, created structured summaries of key findings and thematically synthesised the results. Our search identified 3545 references, from which we included 251. Most articles (76%; n = 192) were published within 5 years of conducting the review and addressed processes for addressing overuse (63%; n = 158) or political and health system context (60%; n = 151). Besides negative outcomes at the patient, system and global level, there were various contextual factors to addressing service overuse that seem to be key issue drivers. Processes for addressing overuse can be grouped into three elements comprising a comprehensive approach, including (1) approaches to identify overused health services, (2) stakeholder- or patient-led approaches and (3) government-led initiatives. Key implementation considerations include the need to develop 'buy in' from stakeholders and citizens. Health systems want to ensure the use of high-value services to keep citizens healthy and avoid harm. Our synthesis can be used by policy-makers, stakeholders and researchers to understand how the issue has been prioritised, what approaches have been used to address it and implementation considerations. PROSPERO CRD42014013204 .

Commentary: Explicit Attention to Age and Gender Disparities is Key to Understanding Adolescent Experiences and Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blanc, Ann K.; Bruce, Judith

2013-01-01

This special issue addresses an ambitious set of concerns around the experience of adolescents in the majority world: expanded models of development, successful models of intervention, and the impact of globalization. The papers, which vary widely in both substance and methodology, make a substantial contribution to pushing forward the boundaries…

Promotion of Youth-Led Enterprises in Off-Grid Renewable Energy. Youth Employment Summit. Final Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Education Development Center, Inc, 2004

2004-01-01

The focus of this project was to address global climate change and, in the same context, analyze how proposed solutions could simultaneously enhance employment opportunities for youth. The outcomes of the project include: (1) greater awareness and engagement of youth in climate change issues, including the need to promote renewable energy…

Civilization, Big History, and Human Survival

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodrigue, Barry H.

2010-01-01

A problem that history teachers in the United States face is that they lack an appropriate reference point from which to address many of today's global issues. The source of this problem is an antiquated model of society, still taught in the universities, that largely reflects the society that existed a century ago. For the last decade, the author…

Educational Development and Reformation in the Malaysian Education System: Challenges in the New Millennium.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

bin Zakaria, Haji Azmi

2000-01-01

Development of the education system in Malaysia is tied to the National Development Policy. Malaysia will address issues related to equity, access, and democratization of education, education quality, efficiency, and values education as the country responds to the demands of being part of the global village while ensuring domestic growth and…

A Hybrid Model of Mathematics Support for Science Students Emphasizing Basic Skills and Discipline Relevance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jackson, Deborah C.; Johnson, Elizabeth D.

2013-01-01

The problem of students entering university lacking basic mathematical skills is a critical issue in the Australian higher-education sector and relevant globally. The Maths Skills programme at La Trobe University has been developed to address under preparation in the first-year science cohort in the absence of an institutional mathematics support…

Cross Gender Mentoring in the Era of Globalization: Implications for Mentoring the Organizational Women of India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ghosh, Rajashi; Haynes, Ray K.

2008-01-01

This paper addresses gender specific issues in mentoring through a focused review of mentoring literature. It highlights the relevance of cross gender mentoring in the context of women's career growth in Indian business organizations. The paper concludes by recommending relationship constellations as an innovative solution to the problems…

GlobePort Faces Global Business Challenges--Assessing the Organizational Side of Information Systems Projects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ghosh, Biswadip

2011-01-01

Published studies have reported that Information System (IS) projects succeed or fail based on how effectively the organizational issues were understood and addressed in the specification, development and implementation stages of the project. This is particularly true in the design and delivery of Inter-Organizational Systems (IOS) that can affect…

Groundwater Resources Assessment under the Pressures of Humanity and Climate Changes

Treesearch

Bret Bruce; Diana Allen; Henrique Chaves; Gordon Grant; Gualbert Oude Essink; Henk Kooi; Ian White; Jason Gurdak; Jay Famiglietti; Jose Luis Martin-Bordes; Kevin Hiscock; Matthew Rodell; Neno Kukuric; Peter B. McMahon; Richard Taylor; Timothy Green; Yoseph Yechieli

2008-01-01

Given the vision and mission statements for GRAPHIC above, this document provides an updated framework for the GRAPHIC program. The approach to addressing global issues under the GRAPHIC umbrella involves case studies designed to cover a broad range of the identified Subjects, Methods, and Regions. Interdependencies of factors and processes affecting subsurface water...

Improving the Quality of Higher Education in Central Europe: Approach Based on GAP Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hrnciar, Miroslav; Madzík, Peter

2013-01-01

A growing social pressure on addressing the issues of quality in administration of educational institutions has resulted in various national and international initiatives focused on development of recommendations and procedures for assurance of quality of education. The topic is getting more urgent in the period of global recession when the…

The Emergence of Bilingual Education Discourse in Brazil: Bilingualisms, Language Policies, and Globalizing Circumstances

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fortes, Laura

2017-01-01

This paper discusses the social and political implications of the emergence of Portuguese-English bilingual education discourse in Brazil, which has been widely disseminated since the 1990s. Initially, a discursive analysis of prestige bilingualism concepts will be presented. Second, the issue of language policies will be addressed through the…

"Thank You for Being Republican": Negotiating Science and Political Identities in Climate Change Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walsh, Elizabeth M.; Tsurusaki, Blakely K.

2018-01-01

When engaging with socioscientific issues, learners act at the intersection of scientific, school, and other societal communities, drawing on knowledge, practices, and identities from both in and out of the classroom to address problems as national or global citizens. We present three case studies of high school students whose classroom…

An Analysis of the Return on Investment of Navy Enterprise Resource Planning as Implemented Navy-Wide FY04-FY15

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-06-01

companies led the way for companies to move to ERP in order to address potential Y2K issues. As it became clear that the date turnover from December...customer responsiveness, integration, standardization, cost reduction, flexibility, globalization, Y2K , business performance, and supply/demand chain

Experiences of Cultural Diversity in the Context of an Emergent Transnationalism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rizvi, Fazal

2011-01-01

In this article, the author argues that despite wide-ranging appeal of the discourses of globalization, our modes of thinking and ways of addressing issues of cultural diversity remain trapped within a national framework. The dominant constructions of cultural diversity often overlook the ways in which experiences of diversity now take place in…

An Investigation on the Elementary Teachers' Knowledge about Air Pollution Issues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yilmaz-Tuzun, Ozgul; Tuncer, Gaye Teksoz; Aydemir, Murat

2008-01-01

The aim of this study was to determine the elementary teachers' knowledge about air pollution. Ozone depletion, global warming, acid rain, and renewable energy were also addressed in this study to get holistic picture about air pollution. A total of 183 teachers from the 91 schools in Ankara participated to the study. The data obtained were…

A Holistic View of English Education through the Lens of Sustainability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Mary F.; Wright, Brenda

2010-01-01

There is a growing movement in education to address concepts of sustainability across the curriculum. The English Language Arts curriculum is about reading the word and the world (Freire, 1993) and therefore is a natural place to begin reading, writing and discussing issues of global importance. A holistic view of English education through the…

International Registry of Counsellor Education Programs: CACREP's Contribution to the Development of Counseling as a Global Profession

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stanard, Rebecca Powell

2013-01-01

This article addresses the issues and challenges involved in the development of the counseling profession internationally and the role that quality assurance plays in its development. It chronicles the development of the International Registry for Counsellor Education Programs and its contributions, a critical analysis of the strengths and…

Balancing Act: Bridging the Traditional and Technological Aspects of Culture through Art Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawton, Pamela Harris

2007-01-01

This paper addresses the benefits of connecting and balancing education in the visual arts and in technology through discussion of actual examples. This balanced connection accomplishes three goals: to further advance and enhance quality of life, to cultivate humane and ethical behaviors, and to initiate global dialogue on issues that matter among…

Environmental governance in China: Interactions between the state and "nonstate actors".

PubMed

Guttman, Dan; Young, Oran; Jing, Yijia; Bramble, Barbara; Bu, Maoliang; Chen, Carmen; Furst, Kathinka; Hu, Tao; Li, Yifei; Logan, Kate; Liu, Lingxuan; Price, Lydia; Spencer, Michael; Suh, Sangwon; Sun, Xiaopu; Tan, Bowen; Wang, Harold; Wang, Xin; Zhang, Juan; Zhang, Xinxin; Zeidan, Rodrigo

2018-08-15

In the West, limited government capacity to solve environmental problems has triggered the rise of a variety of "nonstate actors" to supplement government efforts or provide alternative mechanisms for addressing environmental issues. How does this development - along with our efforts to understand it - map onto environmental governance processes in China? China's efforts to address environmental issues reflect institutionalized governance processes that differ from parallel western processes in ways that have major consequences for domestic environmental governance practices and the governance of China "going abroad." China's governance processes blur the distinction between the state and other actors; the "shadow of the state" is a major factor in all efforts to address environmental issues. The space occupied by nonstate actors in western systems is occupied by shiye danwei ("public service units"), she hui tuanti ("social associations") and e-platforms, all of which have close links to the state. Meanwhile, international NGOs and multinational corporations are also significant players in China. As a result, the mechanisms of influence that produce effects in China differ in important ways from mechanisms familiar from the western experience. This conclusion has far-reaching implications for those seeking to address global environmental concerns, given the importance of China's growing economy and burgeoning network of trade relationships. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Proceedings of the Mars Global Network Mission Workshop

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sturms, Francis M., Jr. (Editor)

1990-01-01

A workshop on the Mars Global Network Mission held at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on February 6 and 7, 1990, was attended by 68 people from JPL, National Aeronautics and Space Administration centers, universities, national laboratories, and industry. Three working sessions on science and exploration objectives, mission and system design concepts, and subsystem technology readiness each addressed three specific questions on implementation concepts for the mission. The workshop generated conclusions for each of the nine questions and also recommended several important science and engineering issues to be studied subsequent to the workshop.

A new model for yaw attitude of Global Positioning System satellites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bar-Sever, Y. E.

1995-01-01

Proper modeling of the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite yaw attitude is important in high-precision applications. A new model for the GPS satellite yaw attitude is introduced that constitutes a significant improvement over the previously available model in terms of efficiency, flexibility, and portability. The model is described in detail, and implementation issues, including the proper estimation strategy, are addressed. The performance of the new model is analyzed, and an error budget is presented. This is the first self-contained description of the GPS yaw attitude model.

Forest carbon sink: A potential forest investment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zheng, Chaocheng; Zhang, Yi; Cheng, Dongxiang

2017-01-01

A major problem being confronted to our human society currently is that the global temperature is undoubtedly considered to be rising significantly year by year due to abundant human factors releasing carbon dioxide to around atmosphere. The problem of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide can be addressed in a number of ways. One of these is forestry and forest management. Hence, this paper investigates a number of current issues related to mitigating the global warming problem from the point of forestry view previous to discussion on ongoing real-world activities utilizing forestry specifically to sequester carbon.

Drinking water and health research: a look to the future in the United States and globally.

PubMed

Sobsey, Mark D

2006-01-01

Drinking water supplies continue to be a major source of human disease and death globally because many of them remain unsafe and vulnerable. Greater efforts are needed to address the key issues and questions which influence the provision of safe drinking water. Efforts are needed to re-evaluate and set new and better priorities for drinking water research and practice. More stakeholders need to be included in the processes of identifying key issues and setting priorities for safe drinking water. The overall approach to drinking water research and the provision of safe drinking water needs to become more rational and scientific, and become more visionary and anticipatory of the ever-present and emerging risks to drinking water safety. Collectively, we need to do a better job of making safe water available, accessible and affordable for all. One such approach to safe water for all is household water treatment and safe storage, which is being promoted globally by the World Health Organization and many other stakeholders and partners to reduce the global burden of waterborne disease.

Looking beyond first-world problems: an emerging global workplace is encouraging more biomedical engineers to address the health issues of the developing world.

PubMed

Tucker, Lindsay

2014-01-01

Each year, the developed world is flooded with complex new medical technologies, from robotic prosthetics to remote-controlled aspirin implants. Meanwhile, only about 10% of health research funds are spent addressing the pressing problems of developing nations, although these countries make up 93% of the worldwide burden of disease. In short, while a small fraction of the world pops brand-name pharmaceuticals, the majority suffers from poor sanitation, contaminated drinking water, preventable disease, and child mortality.

Future-proofing global health: Governance of priorities.

PubMed

Bennett, Belinda; Cohen, I Glenn; Davies, Sara E; Gostin, Lawrence O; Hill, Peter S; Mankad, Aditi; Phelan, Alexandra L

2018-05-01

The year 2015 was a significant anniversary for global health: 15 years since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals and the creation of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, followed two years later by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. 2015 was also the 10-year anniversary of the adoption of the International Health Regulations (May 2005) and the formal entering into force of the Framework Convention on the Tobacco Control (February 2005). The anniversary of these frameworks and institutions illustrates the growth and contribution of 'global' health diplomacy. Each initiative has also revealed on-going issues with compliance, sustainable funding and equitable attention in global health governance. In this paper, we present four thematic challenges that will continue to challenge prioritisation within global health governance into the future unless addressed: framing and prioritising within global health governance; identifying stakeholders of the global health community; understanding the relationship between health and behaviour; and the role of governance and regulation in supporting global health.

EDITORIAL: Dialog on Science and Policy to Address the Climate Crisis to conclude the International Association of Research Universities Climate Congress, Copenhagen, Denmark Dialog on Science and Policy to Address the Climate Crisis to conclude the International Association of Research Universities Climate Congress, Copenhagen, Denmark

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baer, Paul; Kammen, Daniel M.

2009-06-01

This is not the usual Editor-in-Chief letter, namely one that focuses on the accomplishments of the journal—and for ERL they have been numerous this year—but a recognition of the critical time that we are now in when it comes to addressing not only global climate change, but also the dialog between science and politics. In recognition of the many 'tipping points' that we now confront—ideally some of them positive social moments—as well as the clear scientific conclusion that environmental tipping points are points of long-lasting disruption, this paper takes a different form than I might have otherwise written. While the scientific body of knowledge around global environmental change mounts, so too, do the hopeful signs that change can happen. The election of Barack Obama is unquestionably one such sign, witnessed by the exceptional interest that his story has brought not only to US politics, but also to global views of the potential of the United States, as well as to the potential role of science and investigation in addressing pressing issues. In light of these inter-related issues, reproduced here—largely due to the efforts of Paul Baer to transcribe a remarkable conversation—is a dialog not only on the science of global warming and the potential set of means to address this issue, but also on the interaction between research, science and the political process. The dialog itself is sufficiently important that I will dispense with the usual discussion of the exciting recognition that ERL has received with an ISI rating (a factor rapidly increasing), the high levels of downloads of our papers (for some articles over 5000 and counting), and the many news and scientific publications picking up ERL articles (in recent days alone Science, Environmental Science and Technology, and The Economist). This conversation was the concluding plenary session of the 10-12 March International Association of Research Universities (IARU) Conference on Climate Change (http://climatecongress.ku.dk/). Conference Chair Professor Katherine Richardson began the panel by reading the 'key messages'. She then she asked the panelists—Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor Will Steffen, Lord Nicholas Stern, and Professor Dan Kammen to respond. After that, she invited the Danish Prime Minister, Mr Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to respond to the messages. Next there was a dialogue between the panelists and the Prime Minister, with closing remarks from the Prime Minister.

Introduction to a Special Issue of the Journal of Immunological Methods: Building global resource programs to support HIV/AIDS clinical trial studies.

PubMed

Sanchez, Ana M; Denny, Thomas N; O'Gorman, Maurice

2014-07-01

This Special Issue of the Journal of Immunological Methods includes 16 manuscripts describing quality assurance activities related to virologic and immunologic monitoring of six global laboratory resource programs that support international HIV/AIDS clinical trial studies: Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD); Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI); External Quality Assurance Program Oversight Laboratory (EQAPOL); HIV Vaccine Trial Network (HVTN); International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI); and Immunology Quality Assessment (IQA). The reports from these programs address the many components required to develop comprehensive quality control activities and subsequent quality assurance programs for immune monitoring in global clinical trials including: all aspects of processing, storing, and quality assessment of PBMC preparations used ubiquitously in HIV clinical trials, the development and optimization of assays for CD8 HIV responses and HIV neutralization, a comprehensive global HIV virus repository, and reports on the development and execution of novel external proficiency testing programs for immunophenotyping, intracellular cytokine staining, ELISPOT and luminex based cytokine measurements. In addition, there are articles describing the implementation of Good Clinical Laboratory Practices (GCLP) in a large quality assurance laboratory, the development of statistical methods specific for external proficiency testing assessment, a discussion on the ability to set objective thresholds for measuring rare events by flow cytometry, and finally, a manuscript which addresses a framework for the structured reporting of T cell immune function based assays. It is anticipated that this series of manuscripts covering a wide range of quality assurance activities associated with the conduct of global clinical trials will provide a resource for individuals and programs involved in improving the harmonization, standardization, accuracy, and sensitivity of virologic and immunologic testing. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tackling NCD in LMIC: Achievements and Lessons Learned From the NHLBI-UnitedHealth Global Health Centers of Excellence Program.

PubMed

Engelgau, Michael M; Sampson, Uchechukwu K; Rabadan-Diehl, Cristina; Smith, Richard; Miranda, Jaime; Bloomfield, Gerald S; Belis, Deshiree; Narayan, K M Venkat

2016-03-01

Effectively tackling the growing noncommunicable disease (NCD) burden in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) is a major challenge. To address research needs in this setting for NCDs, in 2009, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and UnitedHealth Group (UHG) engaged in a public-private partnership that supported a network of 11 LMIC-based research centers and created the NHLBI-UnitedHealth Global Health Centers of Excellence (COE) Program. The Program's overall goal was to contribute to reducing the cardiovascular and lung disease burdens by catalyzing in-country research institutions to develop a global network of biomedical research centers. Key elements of the Program included team science and collaborative approaches, developing research and training platforms for future investigators, and creating a data commons. This Program embraced a strategic approach for tackling NCDs in LMICs and will provide capacity for locally driven research efforts that can identify and address priority health issues in specific countries' settings. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Prioritizing environmental issues around the world: opinions from an international Central and Eastern European environmental health conference.

PubMed

Craft, Elena S; Donnelly, Kirby C; Neamtiu, Iulia; McCarty, Kathleen M; Bruce, Erica; Surkova, Irina; Kim, David; Uhnakova, Iveta; Gyorffy, Erika; Tesarova, Eva; Anderson, Beth

2006-12-01

As the next generation of scientists enters the field of environmental health, it is imperative that they view their contributions in the context of global environmental stewardship. In this commentary, a group of international graduate students facilitated by three experienced environmental health scientists present their views on what they consider to be the global environmental health concerns of today. This group convened initially in October 2004 at an international health conference in Prague, Czech Republic. In this report we identify perceived environmental health concerns that exist around the world, with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Additionally, we address these perceived problems and offers some potential solutions. At the meeting, students were invited to participate in two panel discussions. One group of young international scientists identified several significant global environmental health concerns, including air pollution, occupational hazards, and risk factors that may exacerbate current environmental health issues. The second panel determined that communication, education, and regulation were the mechanisms for addressing current environmental challenges. In this commentary we expand on the views presented at the meeting and represent the concerns of young investigators from nine different countries. We provide ideas about and support the exchange of information between developed and developing countries on how to handle the environmental health challenges that face the world today.

Legal Support for Palliative Care Patients.

PubMed

Ezer, Tamar; Burke-Shyne, Naomi; Hepford, Kiera

2018-02-01

Palliative care patients face legal issues that impact their quality of life. Legal support, embedded in holistic palliative care services, has developed globally over the last decade to address this. This article aims to trace the origins of legal support for palliative care patients, detail models of legal support, and describe achievements and challenges. The article draws on years of work in this area and the available literature. Common legal issues include disposing of property and drafting wills, planning for children, dealing with debt and securing social benefits, and addressing discrimination. Diverse approaches to integrating legal support include developing paralegal skills, accessing skilled legal advice, empowering patients and families, and building awareness of rights among health care workers. There is robust and growing acceptance of legal support as a key component of holistic palliative care, and many palliative care professionals are identifying and addressing the legal needs they encounter through mediation, guidance on basic rights, or referrals to a lawyer. Addressing legal problems can contribute to peace of mind, well-being, and the health of patients. Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Curriculum Development around Parenting Strategies to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Program Collaboration Between Families Matter! and Global Dialogues

PubMed Central

Miller, Kim S.; Winskell, Kate; Pruitt, Kaitlyn L.; Saul, Janet

2016-01-01

Despite widespread recognition of child sexual abuse (CSA) as a serious problem in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), few far-reaching programmatic interventions addressing CSA in this setting are currently available, and those interventions that do exist tend to focus on response rather than prevention. Parents are in a unique position to engage their children in dialogues about sexuality-related issues and thereby both help prevent CSA and take swift action to stop CSA, address trauma, and minimize harm, in the event CSA does occur. The Families Matter! Program (FMP) is an evidence-based intervention for parents and caregivers of 9-12 year-olds in sub-Saharan African countries that promotes positive parenting practices and effective parent-child communication about sex-related issues and sexual risk reduction. This paper describes the enhancement of a new FMP session on CSA, drawing on authentic narratives contributed by young people to the Global Dialogues/Scenarios from Africa (GD/SfA) youth scriptwriting competition. The GD/SfA data permitted incorporation of young Africans’ voices and resulted in an interactive curriculum that is grounded in contextually-relevant and emotionally-compelling scenarios and adapted to the needs of low-literacy adult learners in SSA. Experiences are shared with a view to informing the development of interventions addressing CSA in SSA. PMID:26701277

Ethics-sensitivity of the Ghana national integrated strategic response plan for pandemic influenza.

PubMed

Laar, Amos; DeBruin, Debra

2015-05-07

Many commentators call for a more ethical approach to planning for influenza pandemics. In the developed world, some pandemic preparedness plans have already been examined from an ethical viewpoint. This paper assesses the attention given to ethics issues by the Ghana National Integrated Strategic Plan for Pandemic Influenza (NISPPI). We critically analyzed the Ghana NISPPI's sensitivity to ethics issues to determine how well it reflects ethical commitments and principles identified in our review of global pandemic preparedness literature, existing pandemic plans, and relevant ethics frameworks. This paper reveals that important ethical issues have not been addressed in the Ghana NISPPI. Several important ethical issues are unanticipated, unacknowledged, and unplanned for. These include guidelines on allocation of scarce resources, the duties of healthcare workers, ethics-sensitive operational guidelines/protocols, and compensation programs. The NISPPI also pays scant attention to use of vaccines and antivirals, border issues and cooperation with neighboring countries, justification for delineated actions, and outbreak simulations. Feedback and communication plans are nebulous, while leadership, coordination, and budgeting are quite detailed. With respect to presentation, the NISPPI's text is organized around five thematic areas. While each area implicates ethical issues, NISPPI treatment of these areas consistently fails to address them. Our analysis reveals a lack of consideration of ethics by the NISPPI. We contend that, while the plan's content and fundamental assumptions provide support for implementation of the delineated public health actions, its consideration of ethical issues is poor. Deficiencies include a failure to incorporate guidelines that ensure fair distribution of scarce resources and a lack of justification for delineated procedures. Until these deficiencies are recognized and addressed, Ghana runs the risk of rolling out unjust and ethically indefensible actions with real negative effects in the event of a pandemic. Soliciting inputs from the public and consultation with ethicists during the next revision of the NISPPI will be useful in addressing these issues.

Capacity building for global nursing leaders: challenges and experiences.

PubMed

Shin, S; Han, J; Cha, C

2016-12-01

The aim of this article is to describe our experience in operating a capacity-building programme, the Korea International Cooperation Project, for global nursing leaders from developing countries, held during the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Conference in 2015 in Seoul, Korea. Globalization points to the importance of global leadership among nursing leaders. In accordance with the theme of 'Global Citizen, Global Nursing' at the ICN conference in 2015, a capacity-building programme for nursing leaders of developing countries was implemented. The global nursing leadership programme shared experiences during the preparation and operation of the conference. To prepare the programme, this paper describes selecting participants, working with invitation lists from 30 countries, and recruiting and training volunteers. The operation of the programme, orientation, organizing tailored programmes for participant groups, addressing unexpected issues and evaluating the programme are described. ICN could implement capacity-building programmes for nursing leaders of developing countries during its ICN conference for the nursing society. A programme tailored for each continent with similar sociocultural backgrounds and health issues would provide chances for collaboration and networking. A policy to compile global nursing indicators should be developed. This would allow nursing leaders to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of global nursing and provide evidence for collaboration. The programme was successful in introducing and broadening global perspectives of participants on health and education as well as building a network among leaders and next-generation leaders in participating countries for future cooperation and collaboration. © 2016 International Council of Nurses.

Global paradigm shift in medical education: issues of concern for Africa.

PubMed

Gukas, Isaac D

2007-11-01

When medical education became established in Africa, many curricula were adopted from the West so as to achieve comparable standards in training. Over the last half a century however, major global pedagogical shifts have occurred in medical education without African keeping pace. This article reviews key pedagogical changes and other innovations in medical education that have occurred over the last half a century as reported in the literature and identifies some of the issues that need to be addressed in Africa. Socioeconomic and political instability, failure to rapidly overcome the inertia for change by substituting the old curriculum with a more problem, system and student-based one and redefining the goals of medical education are some of the issues of concern for Africa, and its ability to keep up in the dynamic world of medical education. There are only few faculty and school managers with effective medical education backgrounds to initiate, evaluate and sustain these changes. African medical academics, national governments and the international community need to come together to assist Africa to rise up to these challenges to ensure attainment and sustenance of global standards in medical training.

2013 White Paper on recent issues in bioanalysis: 'hybrid'--the best of LBA and LCMS.

PubMed

Stevenson, Lauren; Garofolo, Fabio; DeSilva, Binodh; Dumont, Isabelle; Martinez, Suzanne; Rocci, Mario; Amaravadi, Lakshmi; Brudny-Kloeppel, Margarete; Musuku, Adrien; Booth, Brian; Dicaire, Catherine; Wright, Laura; Mayrand-Provencher, Laurence; Losauro, Mike; Gouty, Dominique; Arnold, Mark; Bansal, Surendra; Dudal, Sherri; Dufield, Dawn; Duggan, Jeff; Evans, Christopher; Fluhler, Eric; Fraser, Stephanie; Gorovits, Boris; Haidar, Sam; Hayes, Roger; Ho, Stacy; Houghton, Richard; Islam, Rafiqul; Jenkins, Rand; Katori, Noriko; Kaur, Surinder; Kelley, Marian; Knutsson, Magnus; Lee, Jean; Liu, Hanlan; Lowes, Steve; Ma, Mark; Mikulskis, Alvydas; Myler, Heather; Nicholson, Bob; Olah, Timothy; Ormsby, Eric; Patel, Shefali; Pucci, Vincenzo; Ray, Chad; Schultz, Gary; Shih, Judy; Shoup, Ronald; Simon, Craig; Song, An; Neto, João Tavares; Theobald, Valerie; Thway, Theingi; Wakelin-Smith, Jason; Wang, Jian; Wang, Laixin; Welink, Jan; Whale, Emma; Woolf, Eric; Xu, Raymond

2013-12-01

The 2013 7th Workshop on Recent Issues in Bioanalysis was held in Long Beach, California, USA, where close to 500 professionals from pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, CROs and regulatory agencies convened to discuss current topics of interest in bioanalysis. These 'hot' topics, which covered both small and large molecules, were the starting point for fruitful exchanges of knowledge, and sharing of ideas among speakers, panelists and attendees. The discussions led to specific recommendations pertinent to bioanalytical science. Such as the previous editions, this 2013 White Paper addresses important bioanalytical issues and provides practical answers to the topics presented, discussed and agreed upon by the global bioanalytical community attending the 7th Workshop on Recent Issues in Bioanalysis.

What would it take to prevent stunted growth in children in sub-Saharan Africa?

PubMed

Lartey, Anna

2015-11-01

There is increasing agreement among the nutrition community about the use of length/height-for-age as the indicator to monitor the long-term impact of chronic nutritional deficiencies. Stunting, an indicator of linear growth failure, has both long- and short-term consequences affecting growth and development and adult work potential. The number of stunted children in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase by 2025 if the current trends remain. Stunting among African children peaks during the complementary feeding period, which coincides with the period when children are no longer on exclusive breastfeeding and infections are frequent. Addressing stunting has become the focus of global efforts. The World Health Assembly in 2012 set a 40 % reduction in the number of stunted children by 2025. To effectively address the issues of stunting in sub-Saharan Africa is it appropriate to examine the issue of what it takes. The WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS) conducted in several regions of the world, including Africa has lessons on what it would take to prevent in African children. The children in the MGRS had good socioeconomic background characteristics reflected by years of maternal education and availability of basic amenities, such as potable water and sanitary conditions. The prescription of exclusive breastfeeding, high-quality diversified diets and attention to care were critical factors contributing to healthy growth for the African children. Preventing stunting in sub-Saharan Africa is possible. It requires governments to put in place policies that would create the conducive environment needed. The complex and multiple causes of stunting offer the opportunity to address stunting in a multisectoral and within a food systems approach. The global resolve to make food systems deliver on healthy diet requires all stakeholders to work together to achieve the global goal of reducing stunting. This review highlights the key elements contributing to adequate growth in the Africa cohort of the WHO-MGRS and how these provide lessons for addressing stunting in children in sub-Saharan Africa.

A Case-Based, Problem-Based Learning Approach to Prepare Master of Public Health Candidates for the Complexities of Global Health

PubMed Central

Winskell, Kate; McFarland, Deborah A.; del Rio, Carlos

2015-01-01

Global health is a dynamic, emerging, and interdisciplinary field. To address current and emerging global health challenges, we need a public health workforce with adaptable and collaborative problem-solving skills. In the 2013–2014 academic year, the Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health–Emory University launched an innovative required core course for its first-year Master of Public Health students in the global health track. The course uses a case-based, problem-based learning approach to develop global health competencies. Small teams of students propose solutions to these problems by identifying learning issues and critically analyzing and synthesizing new information. We describe the course structure and logistics used to apply this approach in the context of a large class and share lessons learned. PMID:25706029

Communicating climate change and health in the media.

PubMed

Depoux, Anneliese; Hémono, Mathieu; Puig-Malet, Sophie; Pédron, Romain; Flahault, Antoine

2017-01-01

The translation of science from research to real-world change is a central goal of public health. Communication has an essential role to play in provoking a response to climate change. It must first raise awareness, make people feel involved and ultimately motivate them to take action. The goal of this research is to understand how the information related to this issue is being addressed and disseminated to different audiences-public citizens, politicians and key climate change stakeholders. Initial results show that the scientific voice struggles to globally highlight this issue to a general audience and that messages that address the topic do not meet the challenges, going from a dramatic framing to a basic adaptation framing. Communication experts can help inform scientists and policy makers on how to best share information about climate change in an engaging and motivating way. This study gives an insight about the key role of the media and communications in addressing themes relating to climate change and transmitting information to the public in order to take action.

Space Applications and Global Information Infrastructure: a Global Approach against Epidemics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bastos, C. R.

2002-01-01

Brazilian space expenditures correspond to a low-middle rank among the space-faring nations. In this regard, international partnerships have opened doors for the country to take part in a wider range of projects than it would be possible if carried out on its own. Within the above framework, this paper will address a concept in which countries join efforts in pursuit of common objectives and needs in the field of health, countries whose similarities tend to make them face the same types of health problems. Exactly for this reason, such countries can get together and share the costs, risks and ultimately the benefits of their joint efforts. Infectious diseases are mankind's leading causes of death. And their agents travel around the world by the action of their vectors: insects, birds, winds, infected individuals, and others. The ways how Global Information Infrastructure and Space applications can be very helpful in the detection, identification, tracking and fighting migratory diseases will then be discussed. A concept for an international cooperative initiative is presented, addressing its composition, its implementation, the international coordination requirements, the financial and funding issues related to its implementation and sustainability, and the roles to be played by such an organization. The funding issue deserves a closer attention, since many good ideas are killed by financial problems in their early implementation stages. Finally, a conclusion drives the audience's attention towards the potential advantages of space-based assets in covering large portions of the Earth, and consequently being suitable for global initiatives for the benefit of mankind.

The concept of governance in dual-use research.

PubMed

Dubov, Alex

2014-08-01

The rapid advance of life science within the context of increased international concern over the potential misuse of findings has resulted in the lack of agreement on the issues of responsibility, control and collaboration. This progress of knowledge outpaces the efforts of creating moral and legal guidelines for the detection and minimization of the risks in the research process. There is a need to identify and address normative aspects of dual-use research. This paper focuses on the issues of safety and global collaboration in life science research by highlighting the importance of openness, enabling policies and cooperative governance. These safeguards are believed to reduce the risks related to the misuse of science while enabling the important research to move forward. The paper addresses the need for a better definition of dual use concept and, based on the historical precedents, explores the moral concerns and governmental strategies of dual-use research. The three necessary moves in addressing the issue of security in life sciences are suggested: the move from constraining to enabling types of policies, the move from secrecy to openness, and the move from segregation to integration of the public voice.

Usefulness and limitations of global flood risk models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ward, Philip; Jongman, Brenden; Salamon, Peter; Simpson, Alanna; Bates, Paul; De Groeve, Tom; Muis, Sanne; Coughlan de Perez, Erin; Rudari, Roberto; Mark, Trigg; Winsemius, Hessel

2016-04-01

Global flood risk models are now a reality. Initially, their development was driven by a demand from users for first-order global assessments to identify risk hotspots. Relentless upward trends in flood damage over the last decade have enhanced interest in such assessments. The adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change Impacts have made these efforts even more essential. As a result, global flood risk models are being used more and more in practice, by an increasingly large number of practitioners and decision-makers. However, they clearly have their limits compared to local models. To address these issues, a team of scientists and practitioners recently came together at the Global Flood Partnership meeting to critically assess the question 'What can('t) we do with global flood risk models?'. The results of this dialogue (Ward et al., 2013) will be presented, opening a discussion on similar broader initiatives at the science-policy interface in other natural hazards. In this contribution, examples are provided of successful applications of global flood risk models in practice (for example together with the World Bank, Red Cross, and UNISDR), and limitations and gaps between user 'wish-lists' and model capabilities are discussed. Finally, a research agenda is presented for addressing these limitations and reducing the gaps. Ward et al., 2015. Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate2742

Making School Safe for Girls: Combating Gender-Based Violence in Benin

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wible, Brent

2004-01-01

Gender-based violence is a global problem that causes more poor health and death than a host of other physical and psychological maladies combined, but it is only slowly being addressed by national public health policies and actions. Even more difficult to bring to the forefront is the issue of gender-based violence and sexual harassment in the…

Internal Staff Allocation and the Changing Workload of Japanese Professoriate: A Multilevel Statistical Analysis with Simulations. Research & Occasional Paper Series: CSHE.1.13

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watanabe, Satoshi; Murasawa, Masataka; Abe, Yasumi

2013-01-01

The increasingly competitive and globalizing environment of today's higher education market has compelled many colleges and universities around the world to revamp their academic programs and organizational structures by responsively addressing various contemporary issues raised by internal as well as external stakeholders. It is no exception that…

Roles for Educators in Helping the USA Form a Real Global Society

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gentry, Ruben

2013-01-01

By not properly addressing economic issues, health care, and educational needs, the United States of America was on the verge of financial collapse and people had to choose between having food or medicine. President Barack Obama emerged with a broad-based plan of change for the country which impacts every major sector of society. He wants peace to…

A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Academies Press, 2012

2012-01-01

Science, engineering, and technology permeate nearly every facet of modern life and hold the key to solving many of humanity's most pressing current and future challenges. The United States' position in the global economy is declining, in part because U.S. workers lack fundamental knowledge in these fields. To address the critical issues of U.S.…

Proceedings of the third international symposium on fire economics, planning, and policy: common problems and approaches

Treesearch

Armando González-Cabán

2009-01-01

These proceedings summarize the results of a symposium designed to address current issues of agencies with wildland fire protection responsibility at the federal and state levels in the United States as well as agencies in the international community. The topics discussed at the symposium included regional, national, and global vision of forest fires: common problems...

Providing System Compliance Training to Accountants of a Global Pharmaceutical Company: The Switzerland Case

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leschinsky, Maribeth; Messemer, Jonathan E.

2010-01-01

On July 30, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 into law. The legislation was crafted by the United States Congress to address issues related to accounting improprieties which came to light during the Enron scandal. The specific purpose of the legislation was "To protect investors by improving the accuracy and…

A Promising Partnership: Uncovering the Middle Ground between Social Innovation and Social Work: Response to Dr. Marilyn L. Flynn's Remarks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sensoy Bahar, Ozge

2017-01-01

This response article discusses opportunities to bridge social work and social innovation as a promising partnership to address the issues impacting vulnerable populations across the global context. It starts by revisiting the conceptualization of innovation in social work and continues by considering factors that contribute to the growing…

Technology and the Educational Workplace: Understanding Fiscal Impacts. Eighteenth Annual Yearbook of the American Education Finance Association.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westbrook, Kathleen C., Ed.

This yearbook focuses on technology, its power to improve education from within and without its boundaries, and its fiscal impacts. Eleven chapters are organized in three major sections that address: policy changes facing the global village (chapters 1-3); national and state issues (chapters 4-6); and curriculum, training, and local development…

National Cultures, Performance Appraisal Practices, and Organizational Absenteeism and Turnover: A Study across 21 Countries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peretz, Hilla; Fried, Yitzhak

2012-01-01

Performance appraisal (PA) is a key human resource activity in organizations. However, in this global economy, we know little about how societal cultures affect PA practices. In this study, we address this gap by focusing on 2 complementary issues: (a) the influence of societal (national) cultural practices on PA practices adopted by organizations…

"Permission to Speak": A Postcolonial View on Racialized Bodies and PE in the Current Context of Globalization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Azzarito, Laura

2016-01-01

The current neoliberal context of schools presents difficult challenges in addressing persistent issues of social inequalities. In this article, first, I argue that because of today's market-driven education, the rise of fitness testing in school physical education (PE) can be seriously detrimental to young people in general and to ethnic-minority…

Study abroad programs: Using alumni and graduate students as affiliate faculty.

PubMed

Palmer, Sheri; Wing, Debra; Miles, Leslie; Heaston, Sondra; de la Cruz, Karen

2013-01-01

To expand student appreciation of global health and diversity, many schools of nursing offer study abroad programs. However, this type of labor-intensive program can be difficult in light of faculty shortages and constrained resources. The authors discuss how these issues were addressed using alumni and graduate students as affiliate teachers in 3 clinical study abroad settings.

Proceedings of the second international symposium on fire economics, planning, and policy: a global view

Treesearch

Armando González-Cabán

2008-01-01

hese proceedings summarize the results of a symposium designed to address current issues of agencies with wildland fire protection responsibility at the federal and state levels in the United States as well as agencies in the international community. The topics discussed at the symposium included fire economics, theoretical and methodological approaches to strategic...

Life Designing: A Paradigm for Career Construction in the 21st Century

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Savickas, Mark L.; Nota, Laura; Rossier, Jerome; Dauwalder, Jean-Pierre; Duarte, Maria Eduarda; Guichard, Jean; Soresi, Salvatore; Van Esbroeck, Raoul; van Vianen, Annelies E. M.

2009-01-01

At the beginning of the 21st century, a new social arrangement of work poses a series of questions and challenges to scholars who aim to help people develop their working lives. Given the globalization of career counseling, we decided to address these issues and then to formulate potentially innovative responses in an international forum. We used…

One Health: From theory to practice

PubMed Central

Little, Adam

2012-01-01

One Health approaches to human and veterinary medicine are critical to professionals addressing global issues of food security and disease prevention. However, we have yet to develop a sufficient strategy to translate our theoretical understanding to practical application. This paper will explore the current shortcomings of One Health, within both the medical and veterinary communities, and highlight solutions to overcome these challenges. PMID:23024395

Agenda setting for maternal survival: the power of global health networks and norms

PubMed Central

Smith, Stephanie L; Rodriguez, Mariela A

2016-01-01

Nearly 300 000 women—almost all poor women in low-income countries—died from pregnancy-related complications in 2010. This represents a decline since the 1980s, when an estimated half million women died each year, but is still far higher than the aims set in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the turn of the century. The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s witnessed a shift from near complete neglect of the issue to emergence of a network of individuals and organizations with a shared concern for reducing maternal deaths and growth in the number of organizations and governments with maternal health strategies and programmes. Maternal health experienced a marked change in agenda status in the 2000s, attracting significantly higher level attention (e.g. from world leaders) and greater resource commitments (e.g. as one issue addressed by US$40 billion in pledges to the 2010 Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health) than ever before. Several differences between network and actor features, issue characteristics and the policy environment pre- and post-2000 help to explain the change in agenda status for global maternal mortality reduction. Significantly, a strong poverty reduction norm emerged at the turn of the century; represented by the United Nations MDGs framework, the norm set unusually strong expectations for international development actors to advance included issues. As the norm grew, it drew policy attention to the maternal health goal (MDG 5). Seeking to advance the goals agenda, world leaders launched initiatives addressing maternal and child health. New network governance and framing strategies that closely linked maternal, newborn and child health shaped the initiatives. Diverse network composition—expanding beyond a relatively narrowly focused and technically oriented group to encompass allies and leaders that brought additional resources to bear on the problem—was crucial to maternal health’s rise on the agenda in the 2000s. PMID:26273062

Stratigraphic and morphologic signatures of continental shelves, IGC 2016, Cape Town: an introduction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Green, A. N.; Cooper, J. A. G.

2018-02-01

This special issue of Geo-Marine Letters comprises seven contributions to the session "Stratigraphic and morphologic signatures of continental shelves" of the 35th International Geological Congress held in Cape Town (Republic of South Africa) on 27 August-4 September 2016. There is an additional article not presented at the conference but falling into the same general theme. The guest editors are A.N. Green and J.A.G. Cooper. The eight articles address several contemporary themes in continental shelf geology. They include the role of antecedent conditioning on the development of shelf stratigraphy and geomorphology; erosion of submerged shorelines and their preservation during (stepped) postglacial sea-level rise; the role of glacial processes (e.g. iceberg scouring during ice-sheet retreat); and the utility of archival data in addressing contemporary issues such as Holocene climate change and global oceanographic circulation systems. The continental shelf holds important information for understanding past and present global circulation and earth-ice-atmosphere interactions including sea-level change. It is hoped that these themes will spur further research that is slowly coming to the fore in several new and innovative mapping and exploration programmes emerging from an increasing number of coastal nations.

Environmental Lessons from China: Finding Promising Policies 
in Unlikely Places

PubMed Central

Zhang, Junfeng

2011-01-01

Background: Alongside the major health risks posed by environmental pollution in China are recent achievements on several environmental issues that have affluent Western nations racing to catch up. The country has propelled itself to a position of leadership in clean energy and efficiency, for instance, with important consequences for public health. Objectives: We comment on China’s challenges and recent accomplishments in addressing environmental problems from domestic pollution to global climate change. We compare China’s commitment to clean energy technology with that of other leading nations and discuss key achievements in other areas, including vehicle efficiency standards and transportation policy. Discussion: We discuss policy directions that would secure much-needed improvements to environmental quality and health in China, along with actions that could motivate global action on issues of energy conservation and pollution reduction. Conclusions: A comprehensive regulatory and institutional framework for environmental policy is within reach in China but will require addressing major hurdles such as the lack of an independent monitoring mechanism and the need for greater transparency and enforcement in environmental matters. Meanwhile, China can continue to set important examples by investing in renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and limiting greenhouse gas emissions. PMID:21402514

How does living with HIV impact on women's mental health? Voices from a global survey.

PubMed

Orza, Luisa; Bewley, Susan; Logie, Carmen H; Crone, Elizabeth Tyler; Moroz, Svetlana; Strachan, Sophie; Vazquez, Marijo; Welbourn, Alice

2015-01-01

Women living with HIV experience a disproportionate burden of mental health issues. To date, global guidelines contain insufficient guidance on mental health support, particularly regarding perinatal care. The aim of this article is to describe the extent and impact of mental health issues as experienced by women living with HIV on their sexual and reproductive health and human rights (SRH&HR). A global, mixed-methods, user-led and designed survey on SRH&HR of women living with HIV was conducted using snowball sampling, containing an optional section exploring mental health issues. Statistical quantitative data analysis included descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple linear regression analysis for the mental health responses. Thematic analysis of open free-text responses was performed for qualitative data. A total of 832 respondents from 94 countries participated in the online survey with 489 responses to the optional mental health section. Of the respondents, 82% reported depression symptoms and 78% rejection. One-fifth reported mental health issues before HIV diagnosis. Respondents reported experiencing a 3.5-fold higher number of mental health issues after diagnosis (8.71 vs 2.48, t[488]=23.00, p<0.001). Nearly half (n=224; 45.8%) had multiple socially disadvantaged identities (SDIs). The number of SDIs was positively correlated with experiencing mental health issues (p<0.05). Women described how mental health issues affected their ability to enjoy their right to sexual and reproductive health and to access services. These included depression, rejection and social exclusion, sleep problems, intersectional stigma, challenges with sexual and intimate relationships, substance use and sexual risk, reproductive health barriers and human rights (HR) violations. Respondents recommended that policymakers and clinicians provide psychological support and counselling, funding for peer support and interventions to challenge gender-based violence and to promote HR. Interventions addressing intersecting stigmas and any especial impacts of diagnosis during pregnancy are required to ensure women's SRH&HR. Global policy guidelines regarding women living with HIV must incorporate mental health considerations.

Improving Access to Essential Medicines: How Health Concerns can be Prioritised in the Global Governance System

PubMed Central

Sridhar, Devi

2008-01-01

This paper discusses the politics of access to essential medicines and identifies ‘space’ in the current system where health concerns can be strengthened relative to trade. This issue is addressed from a global governance perspective focusing on the main actors who can have the greatest impact. These include developing country coalitions and citizens in developed countries though participation in civil society organisations. These actors have combined forces to tackle this issue successfully, resulting in the 2001 Doha Declaration on Public Health. The collaboration has been so powerful due to the assistance of the media as well as the decision to compromise with pharmaceutical companies and their host countries. To improve access to essential medicines, six C's are needed: coalitions, civil society, citizenship, compromise, communication and collaboration. PMID:19461853

Toward an understanding of global change: Initial priorities for US contributions to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1988-01-01

A limited number of high-priority research initiatives are recommended for early implementation as part of the U.S. contribution to the preparatory phase of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program. The recommendations are based on the committee's analysis of the most critical gaps in the scientific knowledge needed to understand the changes that are occurring in the earth system not being addressed by existing programs. The report articulates a number of important key issues and interactions that characterize global change in the geosphere-biosphere system on time scales of decades to centuries; identifies the knowledge that is the most urgently needed to improve understanding of those issues and interactions; and formulates initial priorities for initial U.S. contributions to the IGBP, recognizing the contributions of other ongoing and proposed programs.

Applying Antonio Gramsci's philosophy to postcolonial feminist social and political activism in nursing.

PubMed

Racine, Louise

2009-07-01

Through its social and political activism goals, postcolonial feminist theoretical approaches not only focus on individual issues that affect health but encompass the examination of the complex interplay between neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and globalization, in mediating the health of non-Western immigrants and refugees. Postcolonial feminism holds the promise to influence nursing research and practice in the 21st century where health remains a goal to achieve and a commitment for humanity. This is especially relevant for nurses, who act as global citizens and as voices for the voiceless. The commitment of nursing to social justice must be further strengthened by relying on postcolonial theories to address issues of health inequities that arise from marginalization and racialization. In using postcolonial feminist theories, nurse researchers locate the inquiry process within a Gramscian philosophy of praxis that represents knowledge in action.

Global Health in the Anthropocene: Moving Beyond Resilience and Capitalism

PubMed Central

van de Pas, Remco

2017-01-01

There has been much reflection on the need for a new understanding of global health and the urgency of a paradigm shift to address global health issues. A crucial question is whether this is still possible in current modes of global governance based on capitalist values. Four reflections are provided. (1) Ecological –centered values must become central in any future global health framework. (2) The objectives of ‘sustainability’ and ‘economic growth’ present a profound contradiction. (3) The resilience discourse maintains a gridlock in the functioning of the global health system. (4) The legitimacy of multi-stakeholder governance arrangements in global health requires urgent attention. A dual track approach is suggested. It must be aimed to transform capitalism into something better for global health while in parallel there is an urgent need to imagine a future and pathways to a different world order rooted in the principles of social justice, protecting the commons and a central role for the preservation of ecology. PMID:28812849

Strongly-motivated positive affects induce faster responses to local than global information of visual stimuli: an approach using large-size Navon letters.

PubMed

Noguchi, Yasuki; Tomoike, Kouta

2016-01-12

Recent studies argue that strongly-motivated positive emotions (e.g. desire) narrow a scope of attention. This argument is mainly based on an observation that, while humans normally respond faster to global than local information of a visual stimulus (global advantage), positive affects eliminated the global advantage by selectively speeding responses to local (but not global) information. In other words, narrowing of attentional scope was indirectly evidenced by the elimination of global advantage (the same speed of processing between global and local information). No study has directly shown that strongly-motivated positive affects induce faster responses to local than global information while excluding a bias for global information (global advantage) in a baseline (emotionally-neutral) condition. In the present study, we addressed this issue by eliminating the global advantage in a baseline (neutral) state. Induction of positive affects under this state resulted in faster responses to local than global information. Our results provided direct evidence that positive affects in high motivational intensity narrow a scope of attention.

Perspectives, issues, and politics in materials technology

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Promisel, N.E.

1985-01-01

The lecture first traces the history of materials 1) to show the global geographic scope in which materials and society have interacted, and 2) to emphasize the antigravity of materials as such and their impact on society as it existed in different eras. He then discusses the beginnings of materials science and engineering, after which he briefly addresses national materials issues - pointing out that, in spite of various crises throughout this century, it is only in the past decade or so that Congress has given this problem the serious attention it deserves. Next, the economic impacts of materials inmore » the US economy - about 8% of the GNP - and the benefits to employment, scale of living, and social comforts are recounted. Finally, the role of the federal government in the interplay between materials and society is addressed.« less

"The expectation gap": a look at the Sybil Palmer Bellos lecture by Ruth B. Freeman, 1970.

PubMed

Abrams, Sarah E

2005-01-01

Ruth B. Freeman was an outstanding public health nurse leader of her time. Born in 1906, Freeman earned a doctorate and became an educator at Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and a prolific author in the field of public health nursing. She spoke elegantly and forthrightly about the issues of public health, placing nursing on a par with other professions working toward the improvement of health on a global level. A year before her retirement, she was invited to give the Sybil Palmer Bellos lecture, an annual event that continues today at the Yale University School of Nursing. Selected excerpts from this lecture are reprinted in this analysis of Freeman's address. The entirety of the address was printed in Public Health Nursing, Volume 1, Issue 1, in 1984.

Generation of political priority for global surgery: a qualitative policy analysis.

PubMed

Shawar, Yusra Ribhi; Shiffman, Jeremy; Spiegel, David A

2015-08-01

Despite the high burden of surgical conditions, the provision of surgical services has been a low global health priority. We examined factors that have shaped priority for global surgical care. We undertook semi-structured interviews by telephone with members of global surgical networks and ministries of health to explore the challenges and opportunities surgeons, anaesthesiologists, and other proponents face in increasing global priority for surgery. We did a literature review and collected information from reports from organisations involved in surgery. We used a policy framework consisting of four categories-actor power, ideas, political contexts, and characteristics of the issue itself-to analyse factors that have shaped global political priority for surgery. We did a thematic analysis on the collected information. Several factors hinder the acquisition of attention and resources for global surgery. With respect to actor power, the global surgery community is fragmented, does not have unifying leadership, and is missing guiding institutions. Regarding ideas, community members disagree on how to address and publicly position the problem. With respect to political contexts, the community has made insufficient efforts to capitalise on political opportunities such as the Millennium Development Goals. Regarding issue characteristics, data on the burden of surgical diseases are limited and public misperceptions surrounding the cost and complexity of surgery are widespread. However, the community has several strengths that portend well for the acquisition of political support. These include the existence of networks deeply committed to the cause, the potential to link with global health priorities, and emerging research on the cost-effectiveness of some procedures. To improve global priority for surgery, proponents will need to create an effective governance structure that facilitates achievement of collective goals, generate consensus on solutions, and find an effective public positioning of the issue that attracts political support. None. Copyright © 2015 Shawar et al. Open Access article distributed under the terms of CC BY-NC-ND. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

An Evolving Worldview: Making Open Source Easy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rice, Z.

2017-12-01

NASA Worldview is an interactive interface for browsing full-resolution, global satellite imagery. Worldview supports an open data policy so that academia, private industries and the general public can use NASA's satellite data to address Earth science related issues. Worldview was open sourced in 2014. By shifting to an open source approach, the Worldview application has evolved to better serve end-users. Project developers are able to have discussions with end-users and community developers to understand issues and develop new features. Community developers are able to track upcoming features, collaborate on them and make their own contributions. Developers who discover issues are able to address those issues and submit a fix. This reduces the time it takes for a project developer to reproduce an issue or develop a new feature. Getting new developers to contribute to the project has been one of the most important and difficult aspects of open sourcing Worldview. After witnessing potential outside contributors struggle, a focus has been made on making the installation of Worldview simple to reduce the initial learning curve and make contributing code easy. One way we have addressed this is through a simplified setup process. Our setup documentation includes a set of prerequisites and a set of straightforward commands to clone, configure, install and run. This presentation will emphasize our focus to simplify and standardize Worldview's open source code so that more people are able to contribute. The more people who contribute, the better the application will become over time.

Moving lips versus moving policy: Can scientists figure out how to do both?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gleick, P. H.

2009-12-01

Global environmental issues are, well, global. Their complexity and scope make them among the most important issues of our time. Yet they are also among the most difficult to evaluate analytically and to communicate effectively. Scientists, when they choose to communicate with the public or policy makers at all, often find that their messages are often misunderstood, ignored, or simply marginalized, making public communications a less-than rewarding experience. Some methods, however, can prove more effective than others, and in the area of water resources and climate change, two approaches have proven especially effective. The first is to focus on “success stories” as a way to move the discussion from problems to solutions; the second is to focus on regional issues as a way to engage policy makers and the public, for whom the global scope of the challenges may be overwhelming. One additional complexity is how to deal with intentional efforts to obfuscate or misrepresent science. In the climate area, especially, this has long been a challenge, but successful approaches include refusing to let such efforts derail rational policy debates. This requires that scientists understand how science can be misrepresented or misused, and calling attention to such efforts. This presentation will summarize some successful communications efforts in the areas of climate and water from the experience of the Pacific Institute, a leading independent research group addressing these issues.

Achieving development goals for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa through integrated antenatal care: barriers and challenges.

PubMed

Fowkes, Freya J I; Draper, Bridget L; Hellard, Margaret; Stoové, Mark

2016-12-12

The global health community is currently transitioning from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unfortunately, progress towards maternal, newborn and infant health MDGs has lagged significantly behind other key health goals, demanding a renewed global effort in this key health area. The World Health Organization and other institutions heralded integrated antenatal care (ANC) as the best way to address the inter-related health issues of HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria in the high risk groups of pregnant women and infants; integrated ANC services also offer a mechanism to address slow progress towards improved maternal health. There is remarkably limited evidence on best practice approaches of program implementation, acceptability and effectiveness for integrated ANC models targeting multiple diseases. Here, we discuss current integrated ANC global guidelines and the limited literature describing integrated ANC implementation and evidence for their role in addressing HIV, malaria and TB during pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa. We highlight the paucity of data on the effectiveness of integrated ANC models and identify significant structural barriers in the health system (funding, infrastructure, distribution, human resources), the adoption system (limited buy-in from implementers, leadership, governance) and, in the broader context, patient-centred barriers (fear, stigma, personal burdens) and barriers in funding structures. We highlight recommendations for action and discuss avenues for the global health community to develop systems to integrate multiple disease programs into ANC models of care that better address these three priority infectious diseases. With the current transition to the SDGs and concerns regarding the failure to meet maternal health MDGs, the global health community, researchers, implementers and funding bodies must work together to ensure the establishment of quality operational and implementation research to inform integrated ANC models. It is imperative that the global health community engages in a timely discussion about such implementation innovations and instigates appropriate actions to ensure advances in maternal health are sufficient to meet applicable SDGs.

Current Needs and Future Directions of Occupational Safety and Heath in a Globalized World

PubMed Central

Perera, Frederica P.; Li, TY; Lin, C; Tang, Deliang; Gilbert, Steven G.; Kang, Seong-Kyu; Aschner, Michael

2011-01-01

This summary provides a synopsis of talks included in a symposium entitled “Current Needs and Future Directions of Occupational Safety and Heath in a Globalized World”. The purpose of the symposium was to (1) highlight national and international agencies with occupational health related activities; (2) address electronic (e-)waste issues in developing countries where exposures are secondary to the handling and scavenging of scrap; and (3) discuss the effects of hazardous materials, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and tobacco smoke on child intelligence quotient (IQ) in developing countries. PMID:22037493

Climate Change, Climate Justice, and Environmental Health: Implications for the Nursing Profession.

PubMed

Nicholas, Patrice K; Breakey, Suellen

2017-11-01

Climate change is an emerging challenge linked to negative outcomes for the environment and human health. Since the 1960s, there has been a growing recognition of the need to address climate change and the impact of greenhouse gas emissions implicated in the warming of our planet. There are also deleterious health outcomes linked to complex climate changes that are emerging in the 21st century. This article addresses the social justice issues associated with climate change and human health and discussion of climate justice. Discussion paper. A literature search of electronic databases was conducted for articles, texts, and documents related to climate change, climate justice, and human health. The literature suggests that those who contribute least to global warming are those who will disproportionately be affected by the negative health outcomes of climate change. The concept of climate justice and the role of the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice are discussed within a framework of nursing's professional responsibility and the importance of social justice for the world's people. The nursing profession must take a leadership role in engaging in policy and advocacy discussions in addressing the looming problems associated with climate change. Nursing organizations have adopted resolutions and engaged in leadership roles to address climate change at the local, regional, national, and global level. It is essential that nurses embrace concepts related to social justice and engage in the policy debate regarding the deleterious effects on human health related to global warming and climate change. Nursing's commitment to social justice offers an opportunity to offer significant global leadership in addressing the health implications related to climate change. Recognizing the negative impacts of climate change on well-being and the underlying socioeconomic reasons for their disproportionate and inequitable distribution can expand and optimize the profession's role in education, practice, research, and policy-making efforts to address climate change. © 2017 Sigma Theta Tau International.

Teaching global bioethics.

PubMed

Dwyer, James

2003-10-01

We live in a world with enormous disparities in health. The life expectancy in Japan is 80 years; in Malawi, 40 years. The under-five mortality in Norway is 4/1000; in Sierra Leone, 316/1000. The situation is actually worse than these figures suggest because average rates tend to mask inequalities within a country. Several presidents of the IAB have urged bioethicists to attend to global disparities and to broaden the scope of bioethics. For the last six years I have tried to do just that. In this paper, I report and reflect on my attempts to teach bioethics in ways that address global health and justice. I then discuss ways to address key ethical issues in global health: the problem of inequalities; the nature of the duty to assist; the importance of the duty not to harm; the difference between a cosmopolitan and a political view of justice. I also discuss how teaching about global health may help to shift the emphasis in bioethics--from sensational cases to everyday matters, from autonomy and justice, and from access to healthcare to the social determinants of health. At the end of my paper, I reflect on questions that I have not resolved: how to delineate the scope of bioethics, whether my approach over-politicises bioethics, and how to understand the responsibilities of bioethicists.

Coordinating Multi-Rover Systems: Evaluation Functions for Dynamic and Noisy Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Turner, Kagan; Agogino, Adrian

2005-01-01

This paper addresses the evolution of control strategies for a collective: a set of entities that collectively strives to maximize a global evaluation function that rates the performance of the full system. Directly addressing such problems by having a population of collectives and applying the evolutionary algorithm to that population is appealing, but the search space is prohibitively large in most cases. Instead, we focus on evolving control policies for each member of the collective. The fundamental issue in this approach is how to create an evaluation function for each member of the collective that is both aligned with the global evaluation function and is sensitive to the fitness changes of the member, while relatively insensitive to the fitness changes of other members. We show how to construct evaluation functions in dynamic, noisy and communication-limited collective environments. On a rover coordination problem, a control policy evolved using aligned and member-sensitive evaluations outperfoms global evaluation methods by up to 400%. More notably, in the presence of a larger number of rovers or rovers with noisy and communication limited sensors, the proposed method outperforms global evaluation by a higher percentage than in noise-free conditions with a small number of rovers.

Health equity impact assessment.

PubMed

Povall, Susan L; Haigh, Fiona A; Abrahams, Debbie; Scott-Samuel, Alex

2014-12-01

The World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health has called for 'health equity impact assessments' of all economic agreements, market regulation and public policies. We carried out an international study to clarify if existing health impact assessment (HIA) methods are adequate for the task of global health equity assessments. We triangulated data from a scoping review of the international literature, in-depth interviews with health equity and HIA experts and an international stakeholder workshop. We found that equity is not addressed adequately in HIAs for a variety of reasons, including inadequate guidance, absence of definitions, poor data and evidence, perceived lack of methods and tools and practitioner unwillingness or inability to address values like fairness and social justice. Current methods can address immediate, 'downstream' factors, but not the root causes of inequity. Extending HIAs to cover macro policy and global equity issues will require new tools to address macroeconomic policies, historical roots of inequities and upstream causes like power imbalances. More sensitive, participatory methods are also required. There is, however, no need for the development of a completely new methodology. © The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Unheard Voices: The Need for HIV Research and Prevention Priorities for YMSM in the Global Context.

PubMed

Hall, Casey D; Murdock, Daniel; Nehl, Eric J; Wong, Frank Y

2016-06-01

This commentary considers the AIDS Education and Prevention special issue (volume 28, number 3) entitled "Behavioral HIV Prevention Interventions for Diverse Young Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM)." The research presented in this special issue highlights the importance of addressing sub-populations of young MSM in order to better understand the unique realities and risk-factors affecting HIV epidemics and intervention needs. Here, we focus on several broad topics raised in this special issue and comment on their implications for HIV research and practice targeting young MSM in low- and middle-income countries. We consider issues relevant to reaching hidden populations, tailoring interventions, and integrating new communications and bio-medical technologies in research and practice in low-resource settings.

Global and Mediterranean climate change: a short summary.

PubMed

Ciardini, Virginia; Contessa, Gian Marco; Falsaperla, Rosaria; Gómez-Amo, José Luis; Meloni, Daniela; Monteleone, Francesco; Pace, Giandomenico; Piacentino, Salvatore; Sferlazzo, Damiano; di Sarra, Alcide

2016-01-01

Observed changes at the global scale. An increase of the annual mean global temperature and changes of other climate parameters have been observed in the last century. The global temperature and the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases are changing at a very fast pace compared to those found in palaeoclimate records. Changes in the Mediterranean. Variations of some climate change indicators can be much larger at the local than at the global scale, and the Mediterranean has been indicated among the regions most sensitive to climate change, also due to the increasing anthropogenic pressure. Model projections for the Mediterranean foresee further warming, droughts, and long-lasting modifications. Regional climate changes impact health and ecosystems, creating new risks, determined not only by weather events, but also by changing exposures and vulnerabilities. These issues, and in particular those regarding occupational safety, have not been sufficiently addressed to date.

USGS global change research

USGS Publications Warehouse

,

1995-01-01

The Earth's global environment--its interrelated climate, land, oceans, fresh water, atmospheric and ecological systems-has changed continually throughout Earth history. Human activities are having ever-increasing effects on these systems. Sustaining our environment as population and demands for resources increase requires a sound understanding of the causes and cycles of natural change and the effects of human activities on the Earth's environmental systems. The U.S. Global Change Research Program was authorized by Congress in 1989 to provide the scientific understanding necessary to develop national and international policies concerning global environmental issues, particularly global climate change. The program addresses questions such as: what factors determine global climate; have humans already begun to change the global climate; will the climate of the future be very different; what will be the effects of climate change; and how much confidence do we have in our predictions? Through understanding, we can improve our capability to predict change, reduce the adverse effects of human activities, and plan strategies for adapting to natural and human-induced environmental change.

Non-Preemptive Time Warp Scheduling Algorithms

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-06-01

conducted in the Applied Technology Program of the Arroyo Center. Questions involving technical issues should be addressed to Dr. ,Jed Marti. Project...emphasizing mid- to long- terin problents. Its research is carried out in five programs : Policy and Strategy Studies: Force Development and Employment...various system parameters to reduce the global program execution time. Because we wanted to scale the system up, we did not allow interprocessor

President Obama Wants Change--How Educators Can Help to Form a Real Global Society

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gentry, Ruben

2009-01-01

"Do nothing and all things will be done," or "Wait, time heals all wounds" may have been sound advice of the past for some distant, sparsely populated island. But failing to address economic issues and not providing health care for the sick were putting America on the verge of financial collapse and making it a land where people had to choose…

Transformational Leadership and its Relationship to Employee Job Motivation at the TACOM LCMC

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-05-25

69 Figure 27 – Q12: Exemplifies a leader with high ethical values (Inspirational) .......................... 69 Figure 28 – Q13...must adapt their leadership styles to address these emerging global issues . Leaders must sufficiently manage the expectations of different...organization’s senior leadership must not only manage its organization’s business matters, but it must also transform the organization for the future

Sexual health needs and the LGBT community.

PubMed

Campbell, Sue

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) individuals have particular vulnerabilities to sexually transmitted infections and HIV infection. Globally, reasons for this include physiological factors, discrimination and poor understanding of their sexual health needs. In many countries LGBT individuals are not able to exercise fully their rights to health care. This raises public health concerns for the LGBT community and the wider population. This article explores these issues, and makes recommendations for the healthcare profession to address health inequalities and promote improved health outcomes for LGBT populations. This article aims to promote an evidence-based approach that focuses on rights and public health issues.

Creating XML/PHP Interface for BAN Interoperability.

PubMed

Fragkos, Vasileios; Katzis, Konstantinos; Despotou, Georgios

2017-01-01

Recent advances in medical and electronic technologies have introduced the use of Body Area Networks as a part of e-health, for constant and accurate monitoring of patients and the transmission as well as processing of the data to develop a holistic Electronic Health Record. The rising global population, different BAN manufacturers and a variety of medical systems pose the issue of interoperability between BANs and systems as well as the proper way to propagate medical data in an organized and efficient manner. In this paper, we describe BANs and propose the use of certain web technologies to address this issue.

Global oral health inequalities: task group--periodontal disease.

PubMed

Jin, L J; Armitage, G C; Klinge, B; Lang, N P; Tonetti, M; Williams, R C

2011-05-01

Periodontal diseases constitute one of the major global oral health burdens, and periodontitis remains a major cause of tooth loss in adults worldwide. The World Health Organization recently reported that severe periodontitis exists in 5-20% of adult populations, and most children and adolescents exhibit signs of gingivitis. Likely reasons to account for these prevalent diseases include genetic, epigenetic, and environmental risk factors, as well as individual and socio-economic determinants. Currently, there are fundamental gaps in knowledge of such fundamental issues as the mechanisms of initiation and progression of periodontal diseases, which are undefined; inability to identify high-risk forms of gingivitis that progress to periodontitis; lack of evidence on how to prevent the diseases effectively; inability to detect disease activity and predict treatment efficacy; and limited information on the effects of integration of periodontal health as a part of the health care program designed to promote general health and prevent chronic diseases. In the present report, 12 basic, translational, and applied research areas have been proposed to address the issue of global periodontal health inequality. We believe that the oral health burden caused by periodontal diseases could be relieved significantly in the near future through an effective global collaboration.

Standardization of the Definitions of Vertical Resolution and Uncertainty in the NDACC-archived Ozone and Temperature Lidar Measurements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leblanc, T.; Godin-Beekmann, S.; Payen, Godin-Beekmann; Gabarrot, Franck; vanGijsel, Anne; Bandoro, J.; Sica, R.; Trickl, T.

2012-01-01

The international Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) is a global network of high-quality, remote-sensing research stations for observing and understanding the physical and chemical state of the Earth atmosphere. As part of NDACC, over 20 ground-based lidar instruments are dedicated to the long-term monitoring of atmospheric composition and to the validation of space-borne measurements of the atmosphere from environmental satellites such as Aura and ENVISAT. One caveat of large networks such as NDACC is the difficulty to archive measurement and analysis information consistently from one research group (or instrument) to another [1][2][3]. Yet the need for consistent definitions has strengthened as datasets of various origin (e.g., satellite and ground-based) are increasingly used for intercomparisons, validation, and ingested together in global assimilation systems.In the framework of the 2010 Call for Proposals by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) located in Bern, Switzerland, a Team of lidar experts was created to address existing issues in three critical aspects of the NDACC lidar ozone and temperature data retrievals: signal filtering and the vertical filtering of the retrieved profiles, the quantification and propagation of the uncertainties, and the consistent definition and reporting of filtering and uncertainties in the NDACC- archived products. Additional experts from the satellite and global data standards communities complement the team to help address issues specific to the latter aspect.

Innovating healthcare delivery to address noncommunicable diseases in low-income settings: the example of hypertension.

PubMed

Piot, Peter; Aerts, Ann; Wood, David A; Lamptey, Peter; Oti, Samuel; Connell, Kenneth; Dorairaj, Prabhakaran; Boufford, Jo I; Caldwell, Aya; Perel, Pablo

2016-07-01

London Dialogue event, The Hospital Club, 24 Endell St, London, WC2H 9HQ, London, UK, 1 December 2015 Hypertension is a global health issue causing almost 10 million deaths annually, with a disproportionate number occurring in low- and middle-income countries. The condition can be managed effectively, but there is a need for innovation in healthcare delivery to alleviate its burden. This paper presents a number of innovative delivery models from a number of different countries, including Kenya, Ghana, Barbados and India. These models were presented at the London Dialogue event, which was cohosted by the Novartis Foundation and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Centre for Global Noncommunicable Diseases on 1 December 2015. It is argued that these models are applicable not only to hypertension, but provide valuable lessons to address other noncommunicable diseases.

Learning among nursing faculty: insights from a participatory action research project about teaching international students.

PubMed

Del Fabbro, Letitia; Mitchell, Creina; Shaw, Julie

2015-03-01

It is imperative that nursing education addresses the issues arising from globalization. The adjustment challenges faced by international nursing students globally highlight the need to understand how nursing faculty experience and teach nursing classes with a mix of domestic and foreign students. This article reports on a participatory action research (PAR) study to examine and enhance the scholarly teaching of international nursing students. The overarching research question for this PAR was: How did participation in a PAR study contribute to shared learning and professional development of nursing faculty teaching international students? Five major themes were identified across the PAR: creating sharing spaces, recognizing and respecting diversity, developing and acknowledging teaching capabilities, utilizing precious time, and valuing the research. In summary, PAR was a useful approach to engage faculty in research by providing a process and a space to address concerns about the teaching and learning of international students. Copyright 2015, SLACK Incorporated.

The NASA Ames Fatigue Countermeasures Program: The Next Generation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosekind, Mark R.; Neri, David F.; Miller, Donna L.; Gregory, Kevin B.; Webbon, Lissa L.; Oyung, Ray L.

1997-01-01

Twenty-four hour, global aviation operations pose unique challenges to humans. Physiological requirements related to sleep, the internal circadian clock, and human fatigue are critical factors that are known to affect safety, performance, and productivity. Understanding the human operators' physiological capabilities, and limitations, will be important to address these issues as global demand for aviation activities continues to increase. In 1980, in response to a Congressional request, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center initiated a Fatigue/Jet Lag Program to examine the role of fatigue in flight operations. Originally established by Dr. John K. Lauber and Dr. Charles E. Billings, the Program was designed to address three objectives: (1) determine the extent of fatigue, sleep loss, and circadian disruption in flight operations; (2) determine how fatigue affected flight crew performance; and (3) develop strategies to maximize performance and alertness during flight operations.

Integrated Strategies to Address Maternal and Child Health and Survival in Low-Income Settings: Implications for Haiti

PubMed Central

Bhutta, Zulfiqar A

2016-01-01

The Millennium Development Goals for improving maternal and child health globally were agreed on in 2000, and several monitoring and evaluation strategies were put in place, including “Countdown to 2015” for monitoring progress and intervention coverage to reach the goals. However, progress in achieving the goals has been slow, with only 13 of the 75 participating Countdown countries on track to reach the targets for reducing child mortality. An overview of child mortality rates in low-income countries is presented, followed by a discussion of evidenced-based interventions that can bridge the equity gaps in global health. Finally, comments are included on the companion article in this issue, “Addressing the Child and Maternal Mortality Crisis in Haiti through a Central Referral Hospital Providing Countrywide Care” (page 59), and what is needed for that new project to succeed. PMID:27065474

DEVELOPING A HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED PROGRAM FOR TUBERCULOSIS CONTROL IN GEORGIAN PRISONS

PubMed Central

Gegia, Medea; Kalandadze, Iagor; Madzgharashvili, Mikheil; Furin, Jennifer

2013-01-01

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading infectious killers of adults globally. Incarcerated individuals represent a vulnerable population when it comes to TB exposure, development of disease, and poor treatment outcomes. The TB pandemic in prisons is a serious human rights issue, and multiple global organizations have called for human rights-based strategies to address it. There are, however, few countries implementing such programs on the ground. Georgia, a former Soviet republic located in the Caucasus Mountains, has high rates of TB and a large prison population. This paper describes a needs assessment carried out in one prison in Georgia and the human rights-based strategy being implemented by the Georgian National TB Program to address TB control in the prison setting. It is hoped that the proposed program can serve as a model for other countries with high rates of TB among incarcerated individuals. PMID:22773034

The globalization of tobacco use: 21 challenges for the 21st century.

PubMed

Glynn, Thomas; Seffrin, John R; Brawley, Otis W; Grey, Nathan; Ross, Hana

2010-01-01

The globalization of tobacco began more than 500 years ago, but the public health response to the death, disease, and economic disruption that it has caused is fewer than 50 years old. In this report, the authors briefly trace the history of tobacco use and commerce as it moved from the Americas in the late 15th century and then eastward. They then discuss the wide range of issues that must be addressed, and the equally wide range of expertise that is needed if the global health community is to be successful in reducing, and eventually eliminating, the rising tide of tobacco use, particularly in the low- and middle-income nations that are the target of the multinational tobacco industry.

The Medical School Admissions Process and Meeting the Public's Health Care Needs: Never the Twain Shall Meet?

PubMed

Cleland, Jennifer

2017-12-19

Medical schools typically assess how good their selection process is using metrics such as students' assessment performance and the academic success of alumni on later indicators of academic ability and clinical competence, such as Royal College of Physicians or specialty board examinations. To address global issues with the maldistribution of doctors and increasing numbers of new medical school graduates choosing not to work in a clinical context requires different measurements of medical school admissions processes, like those related to graduates' career outcomes (e.g., working in underserved regions and/or working in certain specialties). This shift in focus is not straightforward. Medical education is a complex social system where, intentionally or not, medical schools focus on reproducing cultural, historical, and social norms. Simple solutions are often proposed but they are insufficient to address these complex drivers. Instead it is time to step back and think very differently about medical school admissions. In this Invited Commentary, the author proposes new solutions to address these issues, including: bringing in to the medical school selection process the perspectives of other key stakeholders; increasing collaboration and dialogue across these stakeholder groups; changing the performance metrics by which medical schools are assessed in the global education marketplace; and developing and evaluating new selection processes and tools. Medical schools must engage more reflectively and collaboratively in debates about how to align medical school admissions and meeting the health care needs of the public.

Experiences and difficulties encountered during a course on veterinary public health with students of different nationalities.

PubMed

De Rosa, Mauro; de Balogh, Katinka K I M

2005-01-01

Veterinary public health (VPH) issues have received increased attention over the last few years as a result of the rising threat of emerging zoonoses (i.e., those due to globalized trade in animal and animal products and to changes in livestock production systems and the environment). The international dimension of VPH is gradually becoming recognized, and there is a growing need for veterinarians with experience in this field. In order to familiarize (future) veterinarians with the international dimension of VPH, the Department of Public Health and Food Safety of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, has been organizing a course in Veterinary Public Health and Animal Production for over the last 10 years. This course has been intended for Dutch as well as foreign final-year veterinary students and recent veterinary graduates. By bringing together participants from different countries, the course reinforces the international dimension of the issues addressed through the exchange of experiences by the participants themselves. The present article provides information about this course on Veterinary Public Health (VPH): it discusses logistics, didactical approaches, the course program, and the use of information and communication technology (ICT). Special attention is given to the intercultural aspects of higher education, all of which play an important role in the efficient exchange of knowledge between lecturers and students. International courses are an important tool to enable participants to interact in a multicultural environment and address issues that demand international cooperation and a global public health focus.

Investigation into the impact of agility on conceptual fighter design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Engelbeck, R. M.

1995-01-01

The Agility Design Study was performed by the Boeing Defense and Space Group for the NASA Langley Research Center. The objective of the study was to assess the impact of agility requirements on new fighter configurations. Global trade issues investigated were the level of agility, the mission role of the aircraft (air-to-ground, multi-role, or air-to-air), and whether the customer is Air force, Navy, or joint service. Mission profiles and design objectives were supplied by NASA. An extensive technology assessment was conducted to establish the available technologies to industry for the aircraft. Conceptual level methodology is presented to assess the five NASA-supplied agility metrics. Twelve configurations were developed to address the global trade issues. Three-view drawings, inboard profiles, and performance estimates were made and are included in the report. A critical assessment and lessons learned from the study are also presented.

The Prevention of Global Chronic Disease: Academic Public Health's New Frontier

PubMed Central

Raymond, Susan U.; Leeder, Stephen R.

2011-01-01

A confluence of stimuli is propelling academic public health to embrace the prevention of chronic disease in developing countries as its new frontier. These stimuli are a growing recognition of the epidemic, academia's call to reestablish public health as a mover of societal tectonics rather than a handmaiden to medicine's focus on the individual, and the turmoil in the US health system that makes change permissible. To enable graduating professionals to participate in the assault on chronic diseases, schools of public health must allocate budgets and other resources to this effort. The barriers to chronic disease prevention and risk factor modulation are cultural and political; confronting them will require public health to work with a wide variety of disciplines. Chronic disease will likely become the dominant global public health issue soon. In addressing this issue, academia needs to lead, not follow. PMID:21680924

Hydrothermal impacts on trace element and isotope ocean biogeochemistry.

PubMed

German, C R; Casciotti, K A; Dutay, J-C; Heimbürger, L E; Jenkins, W J; Measures, C I; Mills, R A; Obata, H; Schlitzer, R; Tagliabue, A; Turner, D R; Whitby, H

2016-11-28

Hydrothermal activity occurs in all ocean basins, releasing high concentrations of key trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) into the oceans. Importantly, the calculated rate of entrainment of the entire ocean volume through turbulently mixing buoyant hydrothermal plumes is so vigorous as to be comparable to that of deep-ocean thermohaline circulation. Consequently, biogeochemical processes active within deep-ocean hydrothermal plumes have long been known to have the potential to impact global-scale biogeochemical cycles. More recently, new results from GEOTRACES have revealed that plumes rich in dissolved Fe, an important micronutrient that is limiting to productivity in some areas, are widespread above mid-ocean ridges and extend out into the deep-ocean interior. While Fe is only one element among the full suite of TEIs of interest to GEOTRACES, these preliminary results are important because they illustrate how inputs from seafloor venting might impact the global biogeochemical budgets of many other TEIs. To determine the global impact of seafloor venting, however, requires two key questions to be addressed: (i) What processes are active close to vent sites that regulate the initial high-temperature hydrothermal fluxes for the full suite of TEIs that are dispersed through non-buoyant hydrothermal plumes? (ii) How do those processes vary, globally, in response to changing geologic settings at the seafloor and/or the geochemistry of the overlying ocean water? In this paper, we review key findings from recent work in this realm, highlight a series of key hypotheses arising from that research and propose a series of new GEOTRACES modelling, section and process studies that could be implemented, nationally and internationally, to address these issues.This article is part of the themed issue 'Biological and climatic impacts of ocean trace element chemistry'. © 2015 The Authors.

Hydrothermal impacts on trace element and isotope ocean biogeochemistry

PubMed Central

Dutay, J.-C.; Heimbürger, L. E.; Jenkins, W. J.; Measures, C. I.; Mills, R. A.; Obata, H.; Turner, D. R.; Whitby, H.

2016-01-01

Hydrothermal activity occurs in all ocean basins, releasing high concentrations of key trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) into the oceans. Importantly, the calculated rate of entrainment of the entire ocean volume through turbulently mixing buoyant hydrothermal plumes is so vigorous as to be comparable to that of deep-ocean thermohaline circulation. Consequently, biogeochemical processes active within deep-ocean hydrothermal plumes have long been known to have the potential to impact global-scale biogeochemical cycles. More recently, new results from GEOTRACES have revealed that plumes rich in dissolved Fe, an important micronutrient that is limiting to productivity in some areas, are widespread above mid-ocean ridges and extend out into the deep-ocean interior. While Fe is only one element among the full suite of TEIs of interest to GEOTRACES, these preliminary results are important because they illustrate how inputs from seafloor venting might impact the global biogeochemical budgets of many other TEIs. To determine the global impact of seafloor venting, however, requires two key questions to be addressed: (i) What processes are active close to vent sites that regulate the initial high-temperature hydrothermal fluxes for the full suite of TEIs that are dispersed through non-buoyant hydrothermal plumes? (ii) How do those processes vary, globally, in response to changing geologic settings at the seafloor and/or the geochemistry of the overlying ocean water? In this paper, we review key findings from recent work in this realm, highlight a series of key hypotheses arising from that research and propose a series of new GEOTRACES modelling, section and process studies that could be implemented, nationally and internationally, to address these issues. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Biological and climatic impacts of ocean trace element chemistry’. PMID:29035265

How agro-ecological research helps to address food security issues under new IPM and pesticide reduction policies for global crop production systems.

PubMed

E Birch, A Nicholas; Begg, Graham S; Squire, Geoffrey R

2011-06-01

Drivers behind food security and crop protection issues are discussed in relation to food losses caused by pests. Pests globally consume food estimated to feed an additional one billion people. Key drivers include rapid human population increase, climate change, loss of beneficial on-farm biodiversity, reduction in per capita cropped land, water shortages, and EU pesticide withdrawals under policies relating to 91/414 EEC. IPM (Integrated Pest Management) will be compulsory for all EU agriculture by 2014 and is also being widely adopted globally. IPM offers a 'toolbox' of complementary crop- and region-specific crop protection solutions to address these rising pressures. IPM aims for more sustainable solutions by using complementary technologies. The applied research challenge now is to reduce selection pressure on single solution strategies, by creating additive/synergistic interactions between IPM components. IPM is compatible with organic, conventional, and GM cropping systems and is flexible, allowing regional fine-tuning. It reduces pests below economic thresholds utilizing key 'ecological services', particularly biocontrol. A recent global review demonstrates that IPM can reduce pesticide use and increase yields of most of the major crops studied. Landscape scale 'ecological engineering', together with genetic improvement of new crop varieties, will enhance the durability of pest-resistant cultivars (conventional and GM). IPM will also promote compatibility with semiochemicals, biopesticides, precision pest monitoring tools, and rapid diagnostics. These combined strategies are urgently needed and are best achieved via multi-disciplinary research, including complex spatio-temporal modelling at farm and landscape scales. Integrative and synergistic use of existing and new IPM technologies will help meet future food production needs more sustainably in developed and developing countries, in an era of reduced pesticide availability. Current IPM research gaps are identified and discussed.

International perspectives on the ethics and regulation of human cell and tissue transplantation.

PubMed

Schulz-Baldes, Annette; Biller-Andorno, Nikola; Capron, Alexander Morgan

2007-12-01

The transplantation of human cells and tissues has become a global enterprise for both life-saving and life-enhancing purposes. Yet current practices raise numerous ethical and policy issues relating to informed consent for donation, profit-making, and quality and safety in the procurement, processing, distribution, and international circulation of human cells and tissues. This paper reports on recent developments in the international debate surrounding these issues, and in particular on the attention cell and tissue transplantation has received in WHO's ongoing process of updating its 1991 Guiding principles on human organ transplantation. Several of the organizers of an international working group of stakeholders from a wide range of backgrounds that convened in Zurich in July 2006 summarize the areas of normative agreement and disagreement, and identify open questions regarding facts and fundamental concepts of potential normative significance. These issues must be addressed through development of common medical, scientific, legal and ethical requirements for human cell and tissue transplantation on a global basis. While guidance must accommodate the distinct ethical issues raised by activities involving human cells and tissues, consistency with normative frameworks for organ transplantation remains a prime objective.

Making the link between health and productivity at the workplace--a global perspective.

PubMed

Kirsten, Wolf

2010-01-01

This paper discusses the relationship between health and productivity at the workplace by providing a global perspective of the current status of the fields of workplace health promotion and health management. The prevailing chronic disease trends coupled with economic pressures have proven a significant challenge for employers and employees alike. While a global growth trend in workplace health promotion can be observed the number of companies which take a proactive and integrated approach to workplace health remains small. Workplace health promotion programs in the United States typically focus on the individual health risks of employees while their European counterparts target work-related hazards, physical and, more recently, psychosocial. A number of specific tools and programs for integrated health management are described, such as self-report instruments to measure presenteeism. The analysis suggests that existing occupational health services strategies are insufficient to address the current challenges. Improved employee health can only be achieved in a sustainable manner when integrating all health-related services within an enterprise and addressing psychosocial and organizational factors as well as individual health issues.

GPHMM: an integrated hidden Markov model for identification of copy number alteration and loss of heterozygosity in complex tumor samples using whole genome SNP arrays

PubMed Central

Li, Ao; Liu, Zongzhi; Lezon-Geyda, Kimberly; Sarkar, Sudipa; Lannin, Donald; Schulz, Vincent; Krop, Ian; Winer, Eric; Harris, Lyndsay; Tuck, David

2011-01-01

There is an increasing interest in using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping arrays for profiling chromosomal rearrangements in tumors, as they allow simultaneous detection of copy number and loss of heterozygosity with high resolution. Critical issues such as signal baseline shift due to aneuploidy, normal cell contamination, and the presence of GC content bias have been reported to dramatically alter SNP array signals and complicate accurate identification of aberrations in cancer genomes. To address these issues, we propose a novel Global Parameter Hidden Markov Model (GPHMM) to unravel tangled genotyping data generated from tumor samples. In contrast to other HMM methods, a distinct feature of GPHMM is that the issues mentioned above are quantitatively modeled by global parameters and integrated within the statistical framework. We developed an efficient EM algorithm for parameter estimation. We evaluated performance on three data sets and show that GPHMM can correctly identify chromosomal aberrations in tumor samples containing as few as 10% cancer cells. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the estimation of global parameters in GPHMM provides information about the biological characteristics of tumor samples and the quality of genotyping signal from SNP array experiments, which is helpful for data quality control and outlier detection in cohort studies. PMID:21398628

Globalization and social determinants of health: Promoting health equity in global governance (part 3 of 3).

PubMed

Labonté, Ronald; Schrecker, Ted

2007-06-19

This article is the third in a three-part review of research on globalization and the social determinants of health (SDH). In the first article of the series, we identified and defended an economically oriented definition of globalization and addressed a number of important conceptual and metholodogical issues. In the second article, we identified and described seven key clusters of pathways relevant to globalization's influence on SDH. This discussion provided the basis for the premise from which we begin this article: interventions to reduce health inequities by way of SDH are inextricably linked with social protection, economic management and development strategy. Reflecting this insight, and against the background of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we focus on the asymmetrical distribution of gains, losses and power that is characteristic of globalization in its current form and identify a number of areas for innovation on the part of the international community: making more resources available for health systems, as part of the more general task of expanding and improving development assistance; expanding debt relief and taking poverty reduction more seriously; reforming the international trade regime; considering the implications of health as a human right; and protecting the policy space available to national governments to address social determinants of health, notably with respect to the hypermobility of financial capital. We conclude by suggesting that responses to globalization's effects on social determinants of health can be classified with reference to two contrasting visions of the future, reflecting quite distinct values.

What can'(t) we do with global flood risk models?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ward, P.; Jongman, B.; Salamon, P.; Simpson, A.; Bates, P. D.; de Groeve, T.; Muis, S.; Coughlan, E.; Rudari, R.; Trigg, M. A.; Winsemius, H.

2015-12-01

Global flood risk models are now a reality. Initially, their development was driven by a demand from users for first-order global assessments to identify risk hotspots. Relentless upward trends in flood damage over the last decade have enhanced interest in such assessments. The adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change Impacts have made these efforts even more essential. As a result, global flood risk models are being used more and more in practice, by an increasingly large number of practitioners and decision-makers. However, they clearly have their limits compared to local models. To address these issues, a team of scientists and practitioners recently came together at the Global Flood Partnership meeting to critically assess the question 'What can('t) we do with global flood risk models?'. The results of this dialogue (Ward et al., 2013) will be presented, opening a discussion on similar broader initiatives at the science-policy interface in other natural hazards. In this contribution, examples are provided of successful applications of global flood risk models in practice (for example together with the World Bank, Red Cross, and UNISDR), and limitations and gaps between user 'wish-lists' and model capabilities are discussed. Finally, a research agenda is presented for addressing these limitations and reducing the gaps. Ward, P.J. et al., 2015. Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate2742.

Concerning the Importance of Ontological Issues for Cultural Psychology: a Reply to Comments.

PubMed

Mironenko, Irina A

2017-09-01

The paper continues the "ontological" discussion in IBPS, addressing the question of the importance of ontological issues for contemporary development of cultural psychology. The language psychological science speaks is considered as an ontological issue and a most topical one for cultural psychology, aiming at "constructing a psychology that is universal while being culture-inclusive" (Valsiner 2009, p.2). Ontological issues could stay implicit and neglected, as long as the 'etant, "the mode of being", "the particularities" were discussed within the circle of adherents of one and the same school, who implicitly had in mind the same 'entre. However, as soon as the discussion involves representatives of different schools, ontological issues become crucial for mutual understanding and meanings of the words have to be explicated. Same words like "psyche", "subjectivity", "social", "culture", etc., - often mean different things when they are pronounces or written by representatives of different theoretical trends. The discussion of the 'etant without clear indicating of the 'entre under consideration is likely to turn into a Babel. Global modernity requires constant efforts and insistent desire for mutual understanding across the diversified global scientific community. Thus, creative collaboration in epistemological developments has to ground on clear comprehension of the ontological stances of the debaters.

Accounts from the field: a public relations perspective on global AIDS/HIV.

PubMed

Bardhan, Nilanjana R

2002-01-01

This study is a theoretical as well as empirical exploration of the power and cultural differentials that mark and construct various intersecting discourses, specifically media discourse, on global AIDS/HIV. It applies the language and concepts of public relations to understand how the press coverage of the pandemic is associated with the variables that impact the newsmaking process as well as the public and policy implications of macro news frames generated over time. Theoretical work in the areas of agenda setting and news framing also instruct the conceptual framework of this analysis. Narrative analysis is used as a methodology to qualitatively analyze three pools of accounts-from people either living with AIDS/HIV, involved in AIDS/HIV work, or discursively engaged in the media construction of the pandemic; from transnational wire service journalists who cover the issue at global and regional levels; and policy shapers and communicators who are active at the global level. These three communities of respondents represent important stakeholders in the AIDS/HIV issue. The findings are analyzed from a public relations standpoint. Perhaps the most important finding of this study is that the public relations approaches used to address AIDS/HIV related issues need to be grounded in context-specific research and communicative practices that bring out the lived realities of AIDS/HIV at grassroots levels. The findings also posit that those situated at critical junctions between various stakeholders need to cultivate a finely balanced understanding of the etic and emic intersections and subjectivities of global/local AIDS/HIV.

Evaluation and Selection of Predicaments in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain using AHP under Fuzzy Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nikhil, E. V. S.; Sai Ram, V.; Charan Yadav, V.; Kiran Kumar, Kalla; Nagaraju, Dega

2017-05-01

Pharmaceutical sector plays an important role in the medical and health system. Due to the globalization of the business, increasing demand and supply for drugs, growing regulatory requirements, all stages of the pharmaceutical supply chain (SC) are facing numerous predicaments. The traditional way of selection and evaluation of these predicaments is customarily done using technical information. This approach lacks the ability to project the burning issue that to be addressed first. Hence, a computing method of selecting the crucial issue from the existing issues is essential in a pharmaceutical supply chain. This paper considers seven different predicaments as criteria and five sub-criteria under each main predicament of a pharmaceutical supply chain. The intention of this project is to manifest the process of assessing and selecting the issue that to be addressed first by using multi-criteria decision making technique (MCDM), i.e., fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP). The criteria and sub-criteria weights are calculated and priority assessment of the predicaments is done by using FAHP. Finally, from the findings of this work, the predicaments are ranked from most important to least important. This gives information to the decision maker (DM) to solve the issue that is affecting the SC the most with respect to the others.

2016 White Paper on recent issues in bioanalysis: focus on biomarker assay validation (BAV): (Part 3 - LBA, biomarkers and immunogenicity).

PubMed

Richards, Susan; Amaravadi, Lakshmi; Pillutla, Renuka; Birnboeck, Herbert; Torri, Albert; Cowan, Kyra J; Papadimitriou, Apollon; Garofolo, Fabio; Satterwhite, Christina; Piccoli, Steven; Wu, Bonnie; Krinos-Fiorotti, Corinna; Allinson, John; Berisha, Flora; Cocea, Laurent; Croft, Stephanie; Fraser, Stephanie; Galliccia, Fabrizio; Gorovits, Boris; Gupta, Swati; Gupta, Vinita; Haidar, Sam; Hottenstein, Charles; Ishii-Watabe, Akiko; Jani, Darshana; Kadavil, John; Kamerud, John; Kramer, Daniel; Litwin, Virginia; Lima Santos, Gustavo Mendes; Nelson, Robert; Ni, Yan; Pedras-Vasconcelos, João; Qiu, Yongchang; Rhyne, Paul; Safavi, Afshin; Saito, Yoshiro; Savoie, Natasha; Scheibner, Kara; Schick, Eginhard; Siguenza, Patricia Y; Smeraglia, John; Staack, Roland F; Subramanyam, Meena; Sumner, Giane; Thway, Theingi; Uhlinger, David; Ullmann, Martin; Vitaliti, Alessandra; Welink, Jan; Whiting, Chan C; Xue, Li; Zeng, Rong

2016-12-01

The 2016 10th Workshop on Recent Issues in Bioanalysis (10th WRIB) took place in Orlando, Florida with participation of close to 700 professionals from pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, contract research organizations, and regulatory agencies worldwide. WRIB was once again a weeklong event - A Full Immersion Week of Bioanalysis for PK, Biomarkers and Immunogenicity. As usual, it is specifically designed to facilitate sharing, reviewing, discussing and agreeing on approaches to address the most current issues of interest including both small and large molecules involving LCMS, hybrid LBA/LCMS, and LBA approaches, with the focus on PK, biomarkers and immunogenicity. This 2016 White Paper encompasses recommendations emerging from the extensive discussions held during the workshop, and is aimed to provide the bioanalytical community with key information and practical solutions on topics and issues addressed, in an effort to enable advances in scientific excellence, improved quality and better regulatory compliance. This White Paper is published in 3 parts due to length. This part (Part 3) discusses the recommendations for large molecule bioanalysis using LBA, biomarkers and immunogenicity. Parts 1 (small molecule bioanalysis using LCMS) and Part 2 (Hybrid LBA/LCMS and regulatory inputs from major global health authorities) have been published in the Bioanalysis journal, issues 22 and 23, respectively.

The globalization of epidemiology: introductory remarks.

PubMed

Pearce, Neil

2004-10-01

We are all living in the era of globalization, and like it or not, it is going to change the way we practice epidemiology, the kinds of questions we ask, and the methods we use to answer them. Increasingly, pubic health problems are being shifted from rich countries to poor countries and from rich to poor populations within Western countries. There is increasing interest and concern about the situation in non-Western populations on the part of Western epidemiologists, with regards to collaborative research, skills transfer, and 'volunteerism' to enable the 'benefits' of Western approaches to epidemiology to be shared by the non-Western world. However, most existing collaborations benefit Western epidemiologists rather than the countries in which the research is conducted. Even when research in non-Western populations is conducted as a genuine collaboration, it can too often 'export failure' from the West. On the other hand, non-Western epidemiologists are increasingly developing new and innovative approaches to health research that are more appropriate to the global public health issues they are addressing. These include recognition of the importance of context and the importance of diversity and local knowledge, and a problem-based approach to addressing the major public health problems using appropriate technology. These debates formed the background for a plenary session on 'International Epidemiology and International Health' at the recent International Epidemiological Association (IEA) meeting in Montreal, and the papers from this session are presented here. The development of a truly global epidemiology can not only better address the public health problems in non-Western populations, but can shed light on the current limitations of epidemiology in addressing the major public health problems in the West.

Global water dynamics: issues for the 21st century.

PubMed

Simonovic, Slobodan P

2002-01-01

The WorldWater system dynamics model has been developed for modeling the global world water balance and capturing the dynamic character of the main variables affecting water availability and use in the future. Despite not being a novel approach, system dynamics offers a new way of addressing complex systems. WorldWater simulations are clearly demonstrating the strong feedback relation between water availability and different aspects of world development. Results of numerous simulations are contradictory to the assumption made by many global modelers that water is not an issue on the global scale. Two major observations can be made from early simulations: (a) the use of clean water for dilution and transport of wastewater, if not dealt with in other ways, imposes a major stress on the global world water balance; and (b) water use by different sectors is demonstrating quite different dynamics than predicted by classical forecasting tools and other water-models. Inherent linkages between water quantity and quality sectors with food, industry, persistent pollution, technology, and non-renewable resources sectors of the model create shoot and collapse behavior in water use dynamics. This paper discusses a number of different water-related scenarios and their implications on the global water balance. In particular, two extreme scenarios (business as usual - named "Chaos", and unlimited desalination - named "Ocean") are presented in the paper. Based on the conclusions derived from these two extreme cases a set of more moderate and realistic scenarios (named "Conservation") is proposed and their consequences on the global water balance are evaluated.

Moving Life Science Ethics Debates Beyond National Borders: Some Empirical Observations

PubMed Central

Bezuidenhout, Louise

2016-01-01

The life sciences are increasingly being called on to produce “socially robust” knowledge that honors the social contract between science and society. This has resulted in the emergence of a number of “broad social issues” that reflect the ethical tensions in these social contracts. These issues are framed in a variety of ways around the world, evidenced by differences in regulations addressing them. It is important to question whether these variations are simply regulatory variations or in fact reflect a contextual approach to ethics that brings into question the existence of a system of “global scientific ethics”. Nonetheless, within ethics education for scientists these broad social issues are often presented using this scheme of global ethics due to legacies of science ethics pedagogy. This paper suggests this may present barriers to fostering international discourse between communities of scientists, and may cause difficulties in harmonizing (and transporting) national regulations for the governance of these issues. Reinterpreting these variations according to how the content of ethical principles is attributed by communities is proposed as crucial for developing a robust international discourse. To illustrate this, the paper offers some empirical fieldwork data that considers how the concept of dual-use (as a broad social issue) was discussed within African and UK laboratories. Demonstrating that African scientists reshaped the concept of dual-use according to their own research environmental pressures and ascribed alternative content to the principles that underpin it, suggests that the limitations of a “global scientific ethics” system for these issues cannot be ignored. PMID:24046220

Potential SSP Perfluorooctanoic Acid Related Fluoropolymer Materials Obsolescence

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Segars, Matt G.

2006-01-01

The Shuttle Environmental Assurance Initiative (SEA) has identified a potential for the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) to incur materials obsolescence issues due to agreements between the fluoro-chemical industry and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to participate in a Global Stewardship Program for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). This presentation will include discussions of the chemistry, regulatory drivers, affected types of fluoropolymer and fluoroelastomer products, timeline for reformulations, and methodology for addressing the issue. It will cover the coordination of assessment efforts with the International Space Station and Head Quarters Air Force Space Command, along with some examples of impacted materials. The presentation is directed at all members of the international aerospace community concerned with identifying potential environmentally driven materials obsolescence issues.

The Management, Storage, Utilization of Astronomical Data in the 21st Century Version 1.00

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hanisch, Bob; Quinn, Peter; Lawrence, Andy; Hanisch, Bob

2004-03-01

The costs and resources associated with the development of forefront astronomical research capabilities often greatly exceed the funding capacities of individual universities, research organizations, and nations (e.g., Atacama Large Millimeter Array [ALMA], The Square Kilometre Array [SKA], and Extremely Large (optical) Telescopes in the 30m-100m class [ELTs]). Collaborative alliances of organizations and nations are therefore being formed to build new, facility-class astronomical observatories across the globe. This expansion and globalization of the astronomical research effort raises a number of major issues that need to be confronted and solved by astronomers, research funding bodies, and governments. Some of these issues are being met by other sciences and some are unique to the research diversity inherent in exploring the Universe through multiple, complementary wavelength windows. In all cases, the challenges of managing, maximally utilizing, and collaboratively sharing the huge volume of digital information flowing from these new observatories is focusing and leading the discussion of critical issues for success. This discussion paper seeks to identify a number of these major issues, to highlight a new vision for a common research infrastructure that will enable some of these issues to be addressed, and further, to identify some of the practical and policy issues associated with long term solutions and the maximal return on a global research investments.

MO-FG-BRB-01: Investing to Address the Global Cancer Challenge

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Atun, R.

2015-06-15

The global burden of cancer is growing rapidly with an estimated 15 million new cases per year worldwide in 2015, growing to 19 million by 2025 and 24 million by 2035. The largest component of this growth will occur in low-to-middle income countries (LMICs). About half of these cases will require radiation treatment. The gap for available cancer treatment, including radiation therapy, between high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs is enormous. Accurate data and quantitative models to project the needs and the benefits of cancer treatment are a critical first step in closing the large cancer divide between LMICs and HICs.more » In this context, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) has developed a Global Task Force on Radiotherapy for Cancer Control (GTFRCC) with a charge to answer the question as to what it will take to close the gap between what exists today and reasonable access to radiation therapy globally by 2035 and what the potential clinical and economic benefits are for doing this. The Task Force has determined the projections of cancer incidence and the infrastructure required to provide access to radiation therapy globally. Furthermore it has shown that appropriate investment not only yields improved clinical outcomes for millions of patients but that it also provides an overall economic gain throughout all the income settings where this investment is made. This symposium will summarize the facets associated with this global cancer challenge by reviewing the cancer burden, looking at the requirements for radiation therapy, reviewing the benefits of providing such therapy both from a clinical and economic perspective and finally by looking at what approaches can be used to aid in the alleviation of this global cancer challenge. The speakers are world renowned experts in global public health issues (R. Atun), medical physics (D. Jaffray) and radiation oncology (N. Coleman). Learning Objectives: To describe the global cancer challenge and the corresponding potential benefits of addressing this challenge. To describe what radiation therapy infrastructure, in terms of facilities, equipment and personnel, will be required to address this challenge. To describe models of addressing personnel and infrastructure mobilization and capacity building within regions where significant cancer treatment disparities exist.« less

A position statement on mental health in the post-2015 development agenda

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background The Millennium Development Goals have guided development co-operation in the 15 years up to 2015, achieving some significant progress in the priorities on which they focused. As the framework for the post-2015 development agenda is negotiated, this article reviews the evidence for the place of mental health in broader development issues that have already been outlined in the run-up to 2015. Discussion If mental health is going to be recognised as having an essential role in development, there needs to be a consensus on priorities for advocacy. Various key issues emerged from a survey of stakeholders in the Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH), leading to a Position Statement, which is now available for use by advocates. The priorities that emerged were increasing access to mental health services, and addressing human rights abuse, stigma, and exclusion. Summary Mental health is a cross-cutting issue, and including it in frameworks for action will increase the likelihood of achieving global priorities for development such as poverty reduction, economic development, improved health, and ensuring the most vulnerable in society are not left behind. PMID:25050137

Global knowledge, local implications: a community college's response

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valentin, Marjorie R.; Stroup, Margaret H.; Donnelly, Judith F.

2005-10-01

Three Rivers Community College (TRCC), with federal funding, provided a customized laser program for Joining Technologies in Connecticut, which offers world-class resources for welding and joining applications. This program addresses the shortage of skilled labor in the laser arena, lack of knowledge of fundamental science of applied light, and an increase in nonperforming product. Hiring and retraining a skilled workforce are important and costly issues facing today's small manufacturing companies.

Quantifying multiple telecouplings using an integrated suite of spatially-explicit tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tonini, F.; Liu, J.

2016-12-01

Telecoupling is an interdisciplinary research umbrella concept that enables natural and social scientists to understand and generate information for managing how humans and nature can sustainably coexist worldwide. To systematically study telecoupling, it is essential to build a comprehensive set of spatially-explicit tools for describing and quantifying multiple reciprocal socioeconomic and environmental interactions between a focal area and other areas. Here we introduce the Telecoupling Toolbox, a new free and open-source set of tools developed to map and identify the five major interrelated components of the telecoupling framework: systems, flows, agents, causes, and effects. The modular design of the toolbox allows the integration of existing tools and software (e.g. InVEST) to assess synergies and tradeoffs associated with policies and other local to global interventions. We show applications of the toolbox using a number of representative studies that address a variety of scientific and management issues related to telecouplings throughout the world. The results suggest that the toolbox can thoroughly map and quantify multiple telecouplings under various contexts while providing users with an easy-to-use interface. It provides a powerful platform to address globally important issues, such as land use and land cover change, species invasion, migration, flows of ecosystem services, and international trade of goods and products.

ULR Re-analysed Global GPS Solution for Vertical Land Motion Correction at Tide Gauges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Letetrel, C.; Wöppelmann, G.; Bouin, M.; Altamimi, Z.; Martine, F.; Santamaria, A.

2007-12-01

The presentation will review the recent results published by Wöppelmann et al. (2007) in Global and Planetary Change. Geocentric sea-level trend estimates were derived from the global GPS analyses conducted at ULR consortium to correct a set of relevant tide gauges from the vertical motion of the land upon which they are settled. The exercise proved worthwhile. The results showed a reduced dispersion of the estimated sea level trends, either regionally or globally, after application of the GPS corrections compared to the corrections derived from the glacio-isostatic adjustment models of Peltier (2004). Here we will focus on two important issues that were not addressed in Wöppelmann et al. (2007). The first issue concerns the noise content of our GPS solutions. Previous works have shown that GPS coordinate time series are subject to significant time-correlated (coloured) noise, with a large predominance of flicker noise (Zhang et al. 1997, Mao et al. 1999, Williams et al. 2004). The presence of coloured noise in a time series has a significant effect on the rate uncertainty, which may otherwise be underestimated by as much as an order of magnitude. We therefore carefully investigate the now 10-year long data set of reanalysed GPS solutions for noise content using the Allan variance technique (Feissel et al. 2007). Preliminary results show that the reanalysed solutions at ULR exhibit far less flicker noise than any other solution published so far in the literature available to us. The percentage of stations with flicker noise drops to only about 20%. These encouraging results advocate for a comprehensive reanalysis strategy with full coherent models over the entire observation data span. Moreover, the noise level reaches the best levels of other geodetic results recently published, namely the VLBI level in the horizontal component and the SLR level in the vertical component (Feissel et al. 2007). The second issue that we would like to address in the presentation relates to the reference frame realisation. This is indeed a long standing key issue in achieving the accuracy goal required by long term sea level studies from tide gauges. We investigate the impact of the recent transition from ITRF2000 to ITRF2005 in our previous and current sea level trend estimates.

Challenges and outlook for the UICC-Asian Regional Office.

PubMed

Akaza, Hideyuki

2013-01-01

At the United Nations High-level Meeting on Non-communicable Disease Prevention and Control in 2011 the link between health and socioeconomic issues was raised, becoming a global political issue. Health equity is one challenge that has hitherto not been addressed directly, although there is a growing shared recognition that cancer in Asia is an urgent social issue. At the UICC-ARO we are working to promote and widen networks of individuals and organizations in Asia and involve them in cooperation for this purpose. As part of our current activities, we are addressing the question of the "Economic burden of cancer in Asian countries: How should we face the current situation? " from a variety of angles and seeking to bring together a wealth of multidisciplinary knowledge about cancer in Asia and its related socioeconomic factors. It is essential to ensure that the real picture of cancer in Asia, which is currently not accurately understood, is conveyed clearly to all concerned, and also that the differences between cancer in Asia and in the West are highlighted.

Augmenting Usability: Cultural Elicitation in HCI

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Camara, Souleymane Boundaouda; Oyugi, Cecilia; Abdelnour-Nocera, José; Smith, Andy

This paper offers context and culture elicitation in an inter-cultural and multi-disciplinary setting of ICT design. Localised usability evaluation (LUE) is augmented with a socio-technical evaluation tool (STEM) as a methodological approach to expose and address issues in a collaborative ICT design within the Village e-Science for Life (VeSeL) project in rural Kenya. The paper argues that designers need to locally identify context and culture in situ and further explicate their implications through the design process and at the global level. Stakeholders' context, culture, decisions, agendas, expectations, disciplines and requirements need to be locally identified and globally evaluated to ensure a fit for purpose solution.

Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Core Spacecraft Systems Engineering Challenges

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bundas, David J.; ONeill, Deborah; Field, Thomas; Meadows, Gary; Patterson, Peter

2006-01-01

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission is a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and other US and international partners, with the goal of monitoring the diurnal and seasonal variations in precipitation over the surface of the earth. These measurements will be used to improve current climate models and weather forecasting, and enable improved storm and flood warnings. This paper gives an overview of the mission architecture and addresses the status of some key trade studies, including the geolocation budgeting, design considerations for spacecraft charging, and design issues related to the mitigation of orbital debris.

Global Precipitation Measurement Mission: Architecture and Mission Concept

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bundas, David

2005-01-01

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission is a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and other partners, with the goal of monitoring the diurnal and seasonal variations in precipitation over the surface of the earth. These measurements will be used to improve current climate models and weather forecasting, and enable improved storm and flood warnings. This paper gives an overview of the mission architecture and addresses some of the key trades that have been completed, including the selection of the Core Observatory s orbit, orbit maintenance trades, and design issues related to meeting orbital debris requirements.

Global pharmaceutical development and access: critical issues of ethics and equity.

PubMed

Lage, Agustín

2011-07-01

The article presents global data on access to pharmaceuticals and discusses underlying barriers. Two are highly visible: pricing policies and intellectual property rights; two are less recognized: the regulatory environment and scientific and technological capacities. Two ongoing transitions influence and even distort the problem of universal access to medications: the epidemiologic transition to an increasing burden of chronic non-communicable diseases; and the growing role of biotechnology products (especially immunobiologicals) in the pharmacopeia. Examples from Cuba and Brazil are used to explore what can and should be done to address commercial, regulatory, and technological aspects of assuring universal access to medications.

Global precipitation measurement (GPM) mission core spacecraft systems engineering challenges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bundas, David J.; O'Neill, Deborah; Rhee, Michael; Feild, Thomas; Meadows, Gary; Patterson, Peter

2006-09-01

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission is a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and other US and international partners, with the goal of monitoring the diurnal and seasonal variations in precipitation over the surface of the earth. These measurements will be used to improve current climate models and weather forecasting, and enable improved storm and flood warnings. This paper gives an overview of the mission architecture and addresses the status of some key trade studies, including the geolocation budgeting, design considerations for spacecraft charging, and design issues related to the mitigation of orbital debris.

World Health Organization and Its Initiative for Ear and Hearing Care.

PubMed

Chadha, Shelly; Cieza, Alarcos

2018-06-01

The World Health Organization (WHO) addresses ear diseases and hearing loss through its program on prevention of deafness and hearing loss. Recently, the World Health Assembly called for action at global and national levels to tackle the rising prevalence and adverse impact of unaddressed hearing loss. Following a public health approach toward this issue, WHO is focusing on i) raising awareness among policymakers and civil society; and ii) providing technical support to countries for promoting hearing care. Meeting this challenge requires a coordinated global effort with all stakeholders working together to make ear and hearing care accessible to all. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Extraction to Renewal: A Global Campaign for Healthy Energy.

PubMed

Wang, Jennifer S; Euripidou, Rico; Armstrong, Fiona; Jensen, Génon K; Karliner, Josh; Guinto, Renzo R; Zhao, Ang; Narayanan, Divya; Orris, Peter

2016-02-01

A global movement is emerging in the health sector to engage in discourse and advocacy on the health impacts and health costs of energy choices--specifically the health harms of extractive, climate-disrupting energy sources such as coal and gas. Individuals and organizations in the health sector have begun to address climate and energy issues at multiple levels of engagement, including with others in the health sector, with pollution-affected communities, with policy makers, and with the media. We present recent examples of health sector advocacy and leadership on the health impacts of energy choices and opportunities for broadening and deepening the movement. © The Author(s) 2016.

Energy-economic policy modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sanstad, Alan H.

2018-01-01

Computational models based on economic principles and methods are powerful tools for understanding and analyzing problems in energy and the environment and for designing policies to address them. Among their other features, some current models of this type incorporate information on sustainable energy technologies and can be used to examine their potential role in addressing the problem of global climate change. The underlying principles and the characteristics of the models are summarized, and examples of this class of model and their applications are presented. Modeling epistemology and related issues are discussed, as well as critiques of the models. The paper concludes with remarks on the evolution of the models and possibilities for their continued development.

Keeping Hawai’i’s forest birds one step ahead of avian diseases in a warming world: a focus on Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge. A case study from the National Conservation and Training Center Structured Decision Making Workshop

USGS Publications Warehouse

Paxton, Eben H.; Burgett, Jeff; McDonald-Fadden, Eve; Bean, Ellen; Atkinson, Carter T.; Ball, Donna; Cole, Colleen; Crampton, Lisa H.; Kraus, Jim; LaPointe, Dennis A.; Mehrhoff, Loyal; Samuel, Michael D.; Brewer, Donna; Converse, Sarah J.; Morey, Steve

2011-01-01

This report is a product of a one-week workshop on using Structured Decision Making to identify and prioritize conservation actions to address the threat of climate change on Hawaii‟s native forest bird community. Specifically, t his report addresses the issue of global warming ‟s likely role in increasing disease prevalence in upper elevation forests of Hawaii, negatively impacting native bird populations susceptible to the disease but currently disease - free because of the cooler temperatures at high elevations. 

Lessons for the anthropocene from the recent past: Tobacco use, HIV/AIDS, and social transformation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Travis, Charles; Holm, Poul

2017-09-01

In light of the dilemma of global climate change that we have presented ourselves with in the twenty-first century and beyond, many researchers express despair at the ability of humans and societies to change behavior. The paper identifies how global humanity at individual, institutional, and governmental levels have addressed life-threatening dangers in the recent past and begun processes of long-term corrective action. The paper thus discusses global social transformations from the recent past in regards to tobacco use and HIV/AIDS, to think about how Hannah Arendt's concept of the Polis detailed in The Human Condition (1958) may be engaged to address the human dimensions of climate change. As an output of the Andrew W. Mellon European Observatory of the New Human Condition, this paper's focus is commensurate with the thrust of this special issue of Global and Planetary Change which considers climate change to be more of a crisis in the human condition than an environmental problem. Arendt's concept of the Polis provides a framework for a better understanding of change in behavior, preference and motivation. We argue that her perspectives are central to developing multi and inter-disciplinary humanities, social science, science and business perspectives to mobilize collective human action towards adapting to and mitigating the social and environmental threats of global climate change.

The globalisation strategies of five Asian tobacco companies: An analytical framework

PubMed Central

Lee, Kelley; Eckhardt, Jappe

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT With 30% of the world’s smokers, two million deaths annually from tobacco use, and rising levels of tobacco consumption, the Asian region is recognised as central to the future of global tobacco control. There is less understanding, however, of how Asian tobacco companies with regional and global aspirations are contributing to the global burden of tobacco-related disease and death. This introductory article sets out the background and rationale for this special issue on ‘The Emergence of Asian Tobacco Companies: Implications for Global Health Governance’. The article discusses the core questions to be addressed and presents an analytical framework for assessing the globalisation strategies of Asian tobacco firms. The article also discusses the selection of the five case studies, namely as independent companies in Asia which have demonstrated concerted ambitions to be a major player in the world market. PMID:27884083

Japan's efforts to promote global health using satellite remote sensing data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for prediction of infectious diseases and air quality.

PubMed

Igarashi, Tamotsu; Kuze, Akihiko; Sobue, Shinichi; Yamamoto, Aya; Yamamoto, Kazuhide; Oyoshi, Kei; Imaoka, Keiji; Fukuda, Toru

2014-12-01

In this paper we review the status of new applications research of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for global health promotion using information derived from Earth observation data by satellites in cooperation with inter-disciplinary collaborators. Current research effort at JAXA to promote global public health is focused primarily on the use of remote sensing to address two themes: (i) prediction models for malaria and cholera in Kenya, Africa; and (ii) air quality assessment of small, particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3). Respiratory and cardivascular diseases constitute cross-boundary public health risk issues on a global scale. The authors report here on results of current of a collaborative research to call attention to the need to take preventive measures against threats to public health using newly arising remote sensing information from space.

The globalisation strategies of five Asian tobacco companies: An analytical framework.

PubMed

Lee, Kelley; Eckhardt, Jappe

2017-03-01

With 30% of the world’s smokers, two million deaths annually from tobacco use, and rising levels of tobacco consumption, the Asian region is recognised as central to the future of global tobacco control. There is less understanding, however, of how Asian tobacco companies with regional and global aspirations are contributing to the global burden of tobacco-related disease and death. This introductory article sets out the background and rationale for this special issue on ‘The Emergence of Asian Tobacco Companies: Implications for Global Health Governance’. The article discusses the core questions to be addressed and presents an analytical framework for assessing the globalisation strategies of Asian tobacco firms. The article also discusses the selection of the five case studies, namely as independent companies in Asia which have demonstrated concerted ambitions to be a major player in the world market.

The role of clouds and oceans in global greenhouse warming. Final report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hoffert, M.I.

1996-10-01

This research focuses on assessing connections between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and global climatic change. it has been supported since the early 1990s in part by the DOE ``Quantitative Links`` Program (QLP). A three-year effort was originally proposed to the QLP to investigate effects f global cloudiness on global climate and its implications for cloud feedback; and to continue the development and application of climate/ocean models, with emphasis on coupled effects of greenhouse warming and feedbacks by clouds and oceans. It is well-known that cloud and ocean processes are major sources of uncertainty in the ability to predict climatic changemore » from humankind`s greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions. And it has always been the objective to develop timely and useful analytical tools for addressing real world policy issues stemming from anthropogenic climate change.« less

Facial transplants: current situation and ethical issues.

PubMed

Petrini, C

2015-01-01

The first transplantation of a face from a cadaver was performed in 2005, since when about thirty have been performed globally. The technique is now beginning to appear in Italy. Face transplants are performed exclusively on persons who have suffered devastating lesions to the face. The ethical problems involved are very considerable, particularly where personal identity is concerned. The case records reveal surprisingly positive outcomes regarding both clinical follow-up and functional recovery, as well as psychological aspects and social integration. Thus, while early documents addressing the ethical issues involved in facial transplants were somewhat cautious or even unfavourable on the subject of this technique, a positive approach is now more prevalent.

Large system change challenges: addressing complex critical issues in linked physical and social domains

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Waddell, Steve; Cornell, Sarah; Hsueh, Joe; Ozer, Ceren; McLachlan, Milla; Birney, Anna

2015-04-01

Most action to address contemporary complex challenges, including the urgent issues of global sustainability, occurs piecemeal and without meaningful guidance from leading complex change knowledge and methods. The potential benefit of using such knowledge is greater efficacy of effort and investment. However, this knowledge and its associated tools and methods are under-utilized because understanding about them is low, fragmented between diverse knowledge traditions, and often requires shifts in mindsets and skills from expert-led to participant-based action. We have been engaged in diverse action-oriented research efforts in Large System Change for sustainability. For us, "large" systems can be characterized as large-scale systems - up to global - with many components, of many kinds (physical, biological, institutional, cultural/conceptual), operating at multiple levels, driven by multiple forces, and presenting major challenges for people involved. We see change of such systems as complex challenges, in contrast with simple or complicated problems, or chaotic situations. In other words, issues and sub-systems have unclear boundaries, interact with each other, and are often contradictory; dynamics are non-linear; issues are not "controllable", and "solutions" are "emergent" and often paradoxical. Since choices are opportunity-, power- and value-driven, these social, institutional and cultural factors need to be made explicit in any actionable theory of change. Our emerging network is sharing and building a knowledge base of experience, heuristics, and theories of change from multiple disciplines and practice domains. We will present our views on focal issues for the development of the field of large system change, which include processes of goal-setting and alignment; leverage of systemic transitions and transformation; and the role of choice in influencing critical change processes, when only some sub-systems or levels of the system behave in purposeful ways, while others are undeniably and unavoidably deterministic.

Agenda setting for maternal survival: the power of global health networks and norms.

PubMed

Smith, Stephanie L; Rodriguez, Mariela A

2016-04-01

Nearly 300,000 women--almost all poor women in low-income countries--died from pregnancy-related complications in 2010. This represents a decline since the 1980s, when an estimated half million women died each year, but is still far higher than the aims set in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the turn of the century. The 1970s, 1980s and 1990 s witnessed a shift from near complete neglect of the issue to emergence of a network of individuals and organizations with a shared concern for reducing maternal deaths and growth in the number of organizations and governments with maternal health strategies and programmes. Maternal health experienced a marked change in agenda status in the 2000s, attracting significantly higher level attention (e.g. from world leaders) and greater resource commitments (e.g. as one issue addressed by US$40 billion in pledges to the 2010 Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health) than ever before. Several differences between network and actor features, issue characteristics and the policy environment pre- and post-2000 help to explain the change in agenda status for global maternal mortality reduction. Significantly, a strong poverty reduction norm emerged at the turn of the century; represented by the United Nations MDGs framework, the norm set unusually strong expectations for international development actors to advance included issues. As the norm grew, it drew policy attention to the maternal health goal (MDG 5). Seeking to advance the goals agenda, world leaders launched initiatives addressing maternal and child health. New network governance and framing strategies that closely linked maternal, newborn and child health shaped the initiatives. Diverse network composition--expanding beyond a relatively narrowly focused and technically oriented group to encompass allies and leaders that brought additional resources to bear on the problem--was crucial to maternal health's rise on the agenda in the 2000s. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine © The Author 2014; all rights reserved.

CMMI Interpretive Guidance Project: What We Learned

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-10-01

Figure 20: Global Issues Q1: Adequacy of CMMI.....................................................39 Figure 21: Global Issues Q4a: Leveraging Earlier...Investments................................40 Figure 22: Global Issues Q4b: Adequacy of Training, Etc.........................................40...Figure 23: Global Issues Q4c: Appraisals ................................................................41 Figure 24: Global Issues Q4d: Cost

MO-FG-BRB-03: Addressing the Cancer Challenge: International Cancer Experts Corps

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Coleman, N.

The global burden of cancer is growing rapidly with an estimated 15 million new cases per year worldwide in 2015, growing to 19 million by 2025 and 24 million by 2035. The largest component of this growth will occur in low-to-middle income countries (LMICs). About half of these cases will require radiation treatment. The gap for available cancer treatment, including radiation therapy, between high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs is enormous. Accurate data and quantitative models to project the needs and the benefits of cancer treatment are a critical first step in closing the large cancer divide between LMICs and HICs.more » In this context, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) has developed a Global Task Force on Radiotherapy for Cancer Control (GTFRCC) with a charge to answer the question as to what it will take to close the gap between what exists today and reasonable access to radiation therapy globally by 2035 and what the potential clinical and economic benefits are for doing this. The Task Force has determined the projections of cancer incidence and the infrastructure required to provide access to radiation therapy globally. Furthermore it has shown that appropriate investment not only yields improved clinical outcomes for millions of patients but that it also provides an overall economic gain throughout all the income settings where this investment is made. This symposium will summarize the facets associated with this global cancer challenge by reviewing the cancer burden, looking at the requirements for radiation therapy, reviewing the benefits of providing such therapy both from a clinical and economic perspective and finally by looking at what approaches can be used to aid in the alleviation of this global cancer challenge. The speakers are world renowned experts in global public health issues (R. Atun), medical physics (D. Jaffray) and radiation oncology (N. Coleman). Learning Objectives: To describe the global cancer challenge and the corresponding potential benefits of addressing this challenge. To describe what radiation therapy infrastructure, in terms of facilities, equipment and personnel, will be required to address this challenge. To describe models of addressing personnel and infrastructure mobilization and capacity building within regions where significant cancer treatment disparities exist.« less

How ground-based observations can support satellite greenhouse gas retrievals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Butler, J. H.; Tans, P. P.; Sweeney, C.; Dlugokencky, E. J.

2012-04-01

Global society will eventually accelerate efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a variety of ways. These would likely involve international treaties, national policies, and regional strategies that will affect a number of economic, social, and environmental sectors. Some strategies will work better than others and some will not work at all. Because trillions of dollars will be involved in pursuing greenhouse gas emission reductions - through realignment of energy production, improvement of efficiencies, institution of taxes, implementation of carbon trading markets, and use of offsets - it is imperative that society be given all the tools at its disposal to ensure the ultimate success of these efforts. Providing independent, globally coherent information on the success of these efforts will give considerable strength to treaties, policies, and strategies. Doing this will require greenhouse gas observations greatly expanded from what we have today. Satellite measurements may ultimately be indispensable in achieving global coverage, but the requirements for accuracy and continuity of measurements over time are demanding if the data are to be relevant. Issues such as those associated with sensor drift, aging electronics, and retrieval artifacts present challenges that can be addressed in part by close coordination with ground-based and in situ systems. This presentation identifies the information that ground-based systems provide very well, but it also looks at what would be deficient even in a greatly expanded surface system, where satellites can fill these gaps, and how on-going, ground and in situ measurements can aid in addressing issues associated with accuracy, long-term continuity, and retrieval artifacts.

A history of the science and politics of climate change: the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bolin, B.

2007-11-15

In response to growing concern about human-induced global climate change, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988. Written by its first Chairman, this book is a unique overview of the history of the IPCC. It describes and evaluates the intricate interplay between key factors in the science and politics of climate change, the strategy that has been followed, and the regretfully slow pace in getting to grips with the uncertainties that have prevented earlier action being taken. The book also highlights the emerging conflict between establishing a sustainable global energy system and preventing a seriousmore » change in global climate. Contents are: Part I. The Early History of the Climate Change Issue: 1. Nineteenth century discoveries; 2. The natural carbon cycle and life on earth; 3. Global research initiatives in meteorology and climatology; 4. Early international assessments of climate change; Part II. The Climate Change Issue Becomes One of Global Concern: 5. Setting the stage; 6. The scientific basis for a climate convention; 7. Serving the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee; 8. The Second IPP Assessment Report; 9. In the aftermath of the IPCC Second Assessment; 10. The Kyoto Protocol is agreed and a third assessment begun; 11. A decade of hesitance and slow progress; Part III. A Turning Point in Addressing Climate Change?: 12. Key scientific finding of prime political relevance; 13. Climate change and the future global energy supply system; Concluding remarks. 9 figs.« less

The global counterfeit drug trade: patient safety and public health risks.

PubMed

Mackey, Tim K; Liang, Bryan A

2011-11-01

Counterfeit drugs are a global problem with significant and well-documented consequences for global health and patient safety, including drug resistance and patient deaths. This multibillion-dollar industry does not respect geopolitical borders, and threatens public health in both rich and resource-poor nations alike. The epidemiology of counterfeits is also wide in breadth and scope, including thousands of counterfeit incidents per year, encompassing all types of therapeutic classes, and employing a complex global supply chain network enabling this illegal activity. In addition, information technologies available through the Internet and sales via online pharmacies have allowed the criminal element to thrive in an unregulated environment of anonymity, deception, and lack of adequate enforcement. Though recent global enforcement efforts have led to arrests of online counterfeit sellers, such actions have not stemmed supplies from illegal online sellers or kept up with their creativity in illegally selling their products. To address this issue, we propose a global policy framework utilizing public-private partnership models with centralized surveillance reporting that would enable cooperation and coordination to combat this global health crisis. Copyright © 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

World Materials Summit (3rd). Held in Washington, DC on 9-12 October, 2011

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-05-23

It focused on the critical links among materials research, energy, and sustainable development on a global scale. Abundant clean energy supplies and...reliable energy storage systems are needed to address many critical societal issues in development and developed countries. On a broader scale, access...Houle of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory spoke next about "Energy Critical Elements," focusing on the well-known shortage of rare earth (RE

The Internet and Global Telecommunications: Exploring the Boundaries of International Coordination. A Report of the Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on International Telecommunications (4th, Shonan Village Center, Japan, September 21-24, 1998).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kleeman, Michael J.

The goals of the Fourth Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on International Telecommunications were: to address procedural and substantive solutions for international coordination of Internet policy issues; to suggest different models for dispute resolution and policy coordination that might be employed in the various contexts of Internet usage;…

Plagiarism in Student Research: Responsibility of the Supervisors and Suggestions to Ensure Plagiarism Free Research.

PubMed

Krishan, Kewal; Kanchan, Tanuj; Baryah, Neha; Mukhra, Richa

2017-08-01

Plagiarism is a serious threat plaguing the research in publication of science globally. There is an increasing need to address the issue of plagiarism especially among young researchers in the developing part of the world. Plagiarism needs to be earnestly discouraged to ensure a plagiarism free research environment. We provide further suggestions to combat student plagiarism at Master's level and the regulations/guidelines regarding plagiarism in India.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS): Addressing the Regulatory Issues for National Airspace System (NAS) Integration

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-04-01

terms of IFR operations or passenger enplanements. The configuration of each Class B airspace area is individually tailored and consists of a surface...are serviced by a radar approach control, and that have a certain number of IFR operations or passenger enplanements. Although the configuration of...ft MSL Figure 3 depicts DoD UASs operating in their respective NAS classifications: Global Hawk Predator B Transponder See & Avoid DME IFR

Globalization and social determinants of health: Promoting health equity in global governance (part 3 of 3)

PubMed Central

Labonté, Ronald; Schrecker, Ted

2007-01-01

This article is the third in a three-part review of research on globalization and the social determinants of health (SDH). In the first article of the series, we identified and defended an economically oriented definition of globalization and addressed a number of important conceptual and metholodogical issues. In the second article, we identified and described seven key clusters of pathways relevant to globalization's influence on SDH. This discussion provided the basis for the premise from which we begin this article: interventions to reduce health inequities by way of SDH are inextricably linked with social protection, economic management and development strategy. Reflecting this insight, and against the background of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we focus on the asymmetrical distribution of gains, losses and power that is characteristic of globalization in its current form and identify a number of areas for innovation on the part of the international community: making more resources available for health systems, as part of the more general task of expanding and improving development assistance; expanding debt relief and taking poverty reduction more seriously; reforming the international trade regime; considering the implications of health as a human right; and protecting the policy space available to national governments to address social determinants of health, notably with respect to the hypermobility of financial capital. We conclude by suggesting that responses to globalization's effects on social determinants of health can be classified with reference to two contrasting visions of the future, reflecting quite distinct values. PMID:17578570

Global Design Optimization for Fluid Machinery Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shyy, Wei; Papila, Nilay; Tucker, Kevin; Vaidyanathan, Raj; Griffin, Lisa

2000-01-01

Recent experiences in utilizing the global optimization methodology, based on polynomial and neural network techniques for fluid machinery design are summarized. Global optimization methods can utilize the information collected from various sources and by different tools. These methods offer multi-criterion optimization, handle the existence of multiple design points and trade-offs via insight into the entire design space can easily perform tasks in parallel, and are often effective in filtering the noise intrinsic to numerical and experimental data. Another advantage is that these methods do not need to calculate the sensitivity of each design variable locally. However, a successful application of the global optimization method needs to address issues related to data requirements with an increase in the number of design variables and methods for predicting the model performance. Examples of applications selected from rocket propulsion components including a supersonic turbine and an injector element and a turbulent flow diffuser are used to illustrate the usefulness of the global optimization method.

The global burden of diagnostic errors in primary care

PubMed Central

Singh, Hardeep; Schiff, Gordon D; Graber, Mark L; Onakpoya, Igho; Thompson, Matthew J

2017-01-01

Diagnosis is one of the most important tasks performed by primary care physicians. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently prioritized patient safety areas in primary care, and included diagnostic errors as a high-priority problem. In addition, a recent report from the Institute of Medicine in the USA, ‘Improving Diagnosis in Health Care’, concluded that most people will likely experience a diagnostic error in their lifetime. In this narrative review, we discuss the global significance, burden and contributory factors related to diagnostic errors in primary care. We synthesize available literature to discuss the types of presenting symptoms and conditions most commonly affected. We then summarize interventions based on available data and suggest next steps to reduce the global burden of diagnostic errors. Research suggests that we are unlikely to find a ‘magic bullet’ and confirms the need for a multifaceted approach to understand and address the many systems and cognitive issues involved in diagnostic error. Because errors involve many common conditions and are prevalent across all countries, the WHO’s leadership at a global level will be instrumental to address the problem. Based on our review, we recommend that the WHO consider bringing together primary care leaders, practicing frontline clinicians, safety experts, policymakers, the health IT community, medical education and accreditation organizations, researchers from multiple disciplines, patient advocates, and funding bodies among others, to address the many common challenges and opportunities to reduce diagnostic error. This could lead to prioritization of practice changes needed to improve primary care as well as setting research priorities for intervention development to reduce diagnostic error. PMID:27530239

Geoethics in the Years of Living Dangerously

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmitt, J.

2014-12-01

The geosciences lag behind the ecologic and atmospheric sciences in addressing the major scientific and societal ethical issues facing the inhabitants of planet Earth. Regardless, major emerging ethical issues at the interface of the earth system with society demand geoscientist engagement. These include climate change, extinction and biodiversity decline, transformation of terrestrial landscapes and related impacts on ocean ecosystems, and the consequential resonance of these changes on human health, economic and environmental justice, and political stability. The societal factors driving these issues derive from a world view founded on speciesism (human dominion), utilitarian use of resources, unquestioned population and economic growth, and human difficulty in perceiving deep time and large spatial scale. Accommodation of the supernatural, mythical, and political realms with science has led to widespread conflation of scientific consensus with opinion, driving denial of both climate change and evolution. Future success in rationally addressing these ethical conundrums requires geoscientist engagement across the social, political, economic, ethical, philosophical, and historical realms of inquiry. Geoscientists must be well-versed in earth system science principles and the major geologic concepts relevant to understanding anthropogenic change including deep time, the fossil record of evolution, and changes across multiple spatial and temporal scales that transcend human experience. They must also: 1) confront the global population issue, using the archaeological and historical record of its recent rapidly accelerated growth, especially as it impacts resource consumption and earth system function, 2) forcefully address the effects of agriculture on the atmosphere, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, disease, urbanization, and political instability, 3) apply the synthetic principles of conservation biology, including ecosystem science, geoecology, and major advances in understanding the cognitive abilities and social dimensions of non-human animals to address ethical issues involving humanity's impact on the Earth's biota, and 4) work to end the accommodation of belief systems with science that invariably leads to denialism and historical confabulation.

The challenges for global harmonisation of food safety norms and regulations: issues for India.

PubMed

Prakash, Jamuna

2014-08-01

Safe and adequate food is a human right, safety being a prime quality attribute without which food is unfit for consumption. Food safety regulations are framed to exercise control over all types of food produced, processed and sold so that the customer is assured that the food consumed will not cause any harm. From the Indian perspective, global harmonisation of food regulations is needed to improve food and nutrition security, the food trade and delivery of safe ready-to-eat (RTE) foods at all places and at all times. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) put forward to transform developing societies incorporate many food safety issues. The success of the MDGs, including that of poverty reduction, will in part depend on an effective reduction of food-borne diseases, particularly among the vulnerable group, which includes women and children. Food- and water-borne illnesses can be a serious health hazard, being responsible for high incidences of morbidity and mortality across all age groups of people. Global harmonisation of food regulations would assist in facilitating food trade within and outside India through better compliance, ensuring the safety of RTE catered foods, as well as addressing issues related to the environment. At the same time, regulations need to be optimum, as overregulation may have undue negative effects on the food trade. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.

Tackling corruption in the pharmaceutical systems worldwide with courage and conviction.

PubMed

Cohen, J C; Mrazek, M; Hawkins, L

2007-03-01

Poor drug access continues to be one of the main global health problems. Global inequalities in access to pharmaceuticals are caused by a number of variables including poverty, high drug prices, poor health infrastructure, and fraud and corruption--the latter being the subject of this article. There is growing recognition among policy makers that corruption in the pharmaceutical system can waste valuable resources allocated to pharmaceutical products and services. This, in turn, denies those most in need from life-saving or life-enhancing medicines. As a result, international organizations, including the World Health Organization and the World Bank are beginning to address the issue of corruption in the health sector broadly and the pharmaceutical system specifically. This is encouraging news for improving drug access for the global poor who are most harmed by corruption as they tend to purchase less expensive drugs from unqualified or illegal drug sellers selling counterfeit or sub-standard drugs. In our paper, we illuminate what are the core issues that relate to corruption in the pharmaceutical sector. We argue that corruption in the pharmaceutical system can be detrimental to a country's ability to improve the health of its population. Moreover, unless policy makers deal with the issue of corruption, funding allocated to the pharmaceutical system to treat health conditions may simply be wasted and the inequality between rich and poor in access to health and pharmaceutical products will be aggravated.

Developing Information Services and Tools to Access and Evaluate Data Quality in Global Satellite-based Precipitation Products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Z.; Shie, C. L.; Meyer, D. J.

2017-12-01

Global satellite-based precipitation products have been widely used in research and applications around the world. Compared to ground-based observations, satellite-based measurements provide precipitation data on a global scale, especially in remote continents and over oceans. Over the years, satellite-based precipitation products have evolved from single sensor and single algorithm to multi-sensors and multi-algorithms. As a result, many satellite-based precipitation products have been enhanced such as spatial and temporal coverages. With inclusion of ground-based measurements, biases of satellite-based precipitation products have been significantly reduced. However, data quality issues still exist and can be caused by many factors such as observations, satellite platform anomaly, algorithms, production, calibration, validation, data services, etc. The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) is home to NASA global precipitation product archives including the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), as well as other global and regional precipitation products. Precipitation is one of the top downloaded and accessed parameters in the GES DISC data archive. Meanwhile, users want to easily locate and obtain data quality information at regional and global scales to better understand how precipitation products perform and how reliable they are. As data service providers, it is necessary to provide an easy access to data quality information, however, such information normally is not available, and when it is available, it is not in one place and difficult to locate. In this presentation, we will present challenges and activities at the GES DISC to address precipitation data quality issues.

Globalization and social determinants of health: The role of the global marketplace (part 2 of 3)

PubMed Central

Labonté, Ronald; Schrecker, Ted

2007-01-01

Globalization is a key context for the study of social determinants of health (SDH): broadly stated, SDH are the conditions in which people live and work, and that affect their opportunities to lead healthy lives. In the first article in this three part series, we described the origins of the series in work conducted for the Globalization Knowledge Network of the World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health and in the Commission's specific concern with health equity. We identified and defended a definition of globalization that gives primacy to the drivers and effects of transnational economic integration, and addressed a number of important conceptual and methodological issues in studying globalization's effects on SDH and their distribution, emphasizing the need for transdisciplinary approaches that reflect the complexity of the topic. In this second article, we identify and describe several, often interacting clusters of pathways leading from globalization to changes in SDH that are relevant to health equity. These involve: trade liberalization; the global reorganization of production and labour markets; debt crises and economic restructuring; financial liberalization; urban settings; influences that operate by way of the physical environment; and health systems changed by the global marketplace. PMID:17578569

Globalization and social determinants of health: The role of the global marketplace (part 2 of 3).

PubMed

Labonté, Ronald; Schrecker, Ted

2007-06-19

Globalization is a key context for the study of social determinants of health (SDH): broadly stated, SDH are the conditions in which people live and work, and that affect their opportunities to lead healthy lives. In the first article in this three part series, we described the origins of the series in work conducted for the Globalization Knowledge Network of the World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health and in the Commission's specific concern with health equity. We identified and defended a definition of globalization that gives primacy to the drivers and effects of transnational economic integration, and addressed a number of important conceptual and methodological issues in studying globalization's effects on SDH and their distribution, emphasizing the need for transdisciplinary approaches that reflect the complexity of the topic. In this second article, we identify and describe several, often interacting clusters of pathways leading from globalization to changes in SDH that are relevant to health equity. These involve: trade liberalization; the global reorganization of production and labour markets; debt crises and economic restructuring; financial liberalization; urban settings; influences that operate by way of the physical environment; and health systems changed by the global marketplace.

Emerging issues in occupational safety and health.

PubMed

Schulte, Paul A

2006-01-01

In developed countries, changes in the nature of work and the workforce may necessitate recalibrating the vision of occupational safety and health (OSH) researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to increase the focus on the most important issues. New methods of organizing the workplace, extensive labor contracting, expansion of service and knowledge sectors, increase in small business, aging and immigrant workers, and the continued existence of traditional hazards in high-risk sectors such as construction, mining, agriculture, health care, and transportation support the need to address: 1) broader consideration of the role and impact of work, 2) relationship between work and psychological dysfunction, 3) increased surveillance basis for research and intervention, 4) overcoming barriers to the conduct and use of epidemiologic research, 5) information and knowledge transfer and application, 6) economic issues in prevention, and 7) the global interconnectedness of OSH. These issues are offered to spur thinking as new national research agendas for OSH are considered for developed countries.

Emerging issues in biodiversity & conservation management: The need for a palaeoecological perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Froyd, C. A.; Willis, K. J.

2008-09-01

The study of Quaternary environmental change is directly applicable to on-going issues of global conservation. Palaeoecological research techniques provide the tools to address some of the key questions presently being asked by conservation ecologists and land management organizations. But is this type of analysis currently being utilized to its full potential? Are the results of palaeoenvironmental analyses routinely applied to practical issues of natural resource management, and if not what can be done to expand the application of this research within the conservation community? This paper reviews recent developments in the application of the analysis of late Quaternary environmental change to key environmental issues of biodiversity and conservation management and examines areas which could be strengthened in the future including: (i) determination of baselines and natural ecosystem variability; (ii) understanding ecological thresholds and resilience; (iii) climate change conservation strategies; (iv) biological invasions; and (v) conservation and culture.

Integrated Approaches to Address the Social Determinants of Health for Reducing Health Inequity

PubMed Central

Mitlin, Diana; Mulholland, Catherine; Hardoy, Ana; Stern, Ruth

2007-01-01

The social and physical environments have long since been recognized as important determinants of health. People in urban settings are exposed to a variety of health hazards that are interconnected with their health effects. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have underlined the multidimensional nature of poverty and the connections between health and social conditions and present an opportunity to move beyond narrow sectoral interventions and to develop comprehensive social responses and participatory processes that address the root causes of health inequity. Considering the complexity and magnitude of health, poverty, and environmental issues in cities, it is clear that improvements in health and health equity demand not only changes in the physical and social environment of cities, but also an integrated approach that takes into account the wider socioeconomic and contextual factors affecting health. Integrated or multilevel approaches should address not only the immediate, but also the underlying and particularly the fundamental causes at societal level of related health issues. The political and legal organization of the policy-making process has been identified as a major determinant of urban and global health, as a result of the role it plays in creating possibilities for participation, empowerment, and its influence on the content of public policies and the distribution of scarce resources. This paper argues that it is essential to adopt a long-term multisectoral approach to address the social determinants of health in urban settings. For comprehensive approaches to address the social determinants of health effectively and at multiple levels, they need explicitly to tackle issues of participation, governance, and the politics of power, decision making, and empowerment. PMID:17393340

Global Collaborations - Prospects and Problems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Corbett, Ian

2005-04-01

International collaboration has long been a feature of science. Collaborative investments in joint facilities and projects have grown considerably over the past 20-40 years, and many projects have been multinational from the start. This has been particularly true in Europe, where intergovernmental organizations such as CERN, ESA, and ESO have enabled European countries to carry out forefront science with state-of-art facilites which would have been beyond the capabilities of any one country. A brief survey of these organizations, their structure, and the possible reasons behind their success is given. The transition from regional to global creates new problems. Global scale projects face a range of generic issues which must be addressed and overcome if the project is to be a success. Each project has its own specific boundary conditions and each adopts an approach best fitted to its own objectives and constraints. Experience with billion dollar projects such as the SSC, LHC, and ITER shows the key problem areas and demonstrates the importance of preparatory work in the early stages to settle issues such as schedule, funding, location, legal and managerial structure, and oversight. A range of current and proposed intercontinental or global projects - so- called ``Megascience Projects" - is reviewed. Such projects, originally a feature of space and particle physics, are now becoming more common, and very large projects in astronomy, for example ALMA and 50 - 100m telescopes, and other areas of physics now fall into the `global' category. These projects are on such a large scale, from any scientific, managerial, financial or political perspective, and have such global importance, that they have necessarily been conceived as international from the outset. Increasing financial pressures on governments and funding agencies in the developed countries place additional demands on the project planning. The contrasting approaches, problems faced, and progress made in various projects will be analyzed and possible lessions drawn out. The role which can be played in the early stages by bodies such as the OECD Global Science Forum and G-8 Carnegie Meetings, where science policy makers meet, is examined. Experience shows that these valuable `scene setting' discussions have to be informed by coordinated input from the scientific community and must be followed up by more detailed discussions between funding agencies or their equivalent, because decision making requires the development of a consensus amongst the participants. This process can be illustrated most effectively by the care with which the ideas for the International Linear Collider have been and are being developed. Agreement on building and operating a facility is not the end of the story. The legitimate desire of scientists in all other countries to be able to participate in exploiting a major new facility has to be taken into account, and that introduces a range of proprietary and sociological issues over data access and rights, and now, with the explosion in computing and storage powers, in data archiving support. These are issues which can be addressed within the scientific community and taken to the political arena via such bodies as the OECD Global Science Forum.

2016 White Paper on recent issues in bioanalysis: focus on biomarker assay validation (BAV): (Part 2 - Hybrid LBA/LCMS and input from regulatory agencies).

PubMed

Song, An; Lee, Anita; Garofolo, Fabio; Kaur, Surinder; Duggan, Jeff; Evans, Christopher; Palandra, Joe; Donato, Lorella Di; Xu, Keyang; Bauer, Ronald; Bustard, Mark; Chen, Linzhi; Cocea, Laurent; Croft, Stephanie; Galliccia, Fabrizio; Haidar, Sam; Hughes, Nicola; Ishii-Watabe, Akiko; Islam, Rafiqul; Jones, Barry; Kadavil, John; Krantz, Carsten; Lima Santos, Gustavo Mendes; Olah, Timothy; Pedras-Vasconcelos, João; Staelens, Ludovicus; Saito, Yoshiro; Savoie, Natasha; Scheibner, Kara; Spitz, Susan; Tampal, Nilufer; Thomas, Eric; Vinter, Stephen; Wakelin-Smith, Jason; Welink, Jan; Zeng, Jianing; Zhou, Shaolian

2016-12-01

The 2016 10th Workshop on Recent Issues in Bioanalysis (10 th WRIB) took place in Orlando, Florida with participation of close to 700 professionals from pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, contract research organizations, and regulatory agencies worldwide. WRIB was once again a 5-day, weeklong event - A Full Immersion Week of Bioanalysis including Biomarkers and Immunogenicity. As usual, it is specifically designed to facilitate sharing, reviewing, discussing and agreeing on approaches to address the most current issues of interest including both small and large molecules involving LCMS, hybrid LBA/LCMS, and LBA approaches, with the focus on biomarkers and immunogenicity. This 2016 White Paper encompasses recommendations emerging from the extensive discussions held during the workshop, and is aimed to provide the bioanalytical community with key information and practical solutions on topics and issues addressed, in an effort to enable advances in scientific excellence, improved quality and better regulatory compliance. This White Paper is published in 3 parts due to length. This part (Part 2) discusses the recommendations for Hybrid LBA/LCMS and regulatory inputs from major global health authorities. Parts 1 (small molecule bioanalysis using LCMS) and Part 3 (large molecule bioanalysis using LBA, biomarkers and immunogenicity) have been published in the Bioanalysis journal, issues 22 and 23, respectively.

2016 White Paper on recent issues in bioanalysis: focus on biomarker assay validation (BAV) (Part 1 - small molecules, peptides and small molecule biomarkers by LCMS).

PubMed

Yang, Eric; Welink, Jan; Cape, Stephanie; Woolf, Eric; Sydor, Jens; James, Christopher; Goykhman, Dina; Arnold, Mark; Addock, Neil; Bauer, Ronald; Buonarati, Michael; Ciccimaro, Eugene; Dodda, Raj; Evans, Christopher; Garofolo, Fabio; Hughes, Nicola; Islam, Rafiq; Nehls, Corey; Wilson, Amanda; Briscoe, Chad; Bustard, Mark; Coppola, Laura; Croft, Stephanie; Drexler, Dieter; Ferrari, Luca; Fraier, Daniela; Jenkins, Rand; Kadavil, John; King, Lloyd; Li, Wenkui; Lima Santos, Gustavo Mendes; Musuku, Adrien; Ramanathan, Ragu; Saito, Yoshiro; Savoie, Natasha; Summerfield, Scott; Sun, Rachel; Tampal, Nilufer; Vinter, Steve; Wakelin-Smith, Jason; Yue, Qin

2016-10-07

The 2016 10 th Workshop on Recent Issues in Bioanalysis (10 th WRIB) took place in Orlando, Florida with participation of close to 700 professionals from pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, contract research organizations, and regulatory agencies worldwide. WRIB was once again a 5-day, weeklong event - A Full Immersion Week of Bioanalysis including Biomarkers and Immunogenicity. As usual, it was specifically designed to facilitate sharing, reviewing, discussing and agreeing on approaches to address the most current issues of interest including both small and large molecule analysis involving LCMS, hybrid LBA/LCMS, and LBA approaches, with the focus on biomarkers and immunogenicity. This 2016 White Paper encompasses recommendations emerging from the extensive discussions held during the workshop, and is aimed to provide the bioanalytical community with key information and practical solutions on topics and issues addressed, in an effort to enable advances in scientific excellence, improved quality and better regulatory compliance. This white paper is published in 3 parts due to length. This part (Part 1) discusses the recommendations for small molecules, peptides and small molecule biomarkers by LCMS. Part 2 (Hybrid LBA/LCMS and regulatory inputs from major global health authorities) and Part 3 (large molecule bioanalysis using LBA, biomarkers and immunogenicity) will be published in the Bioanalysis journal, issue 23.

Issues in cervical cancer incidence and treatment in HIV.

PubMed

Einstein, Mark H; Phaëton, Rébécca

2010-09-01

Cervical disease burden continues to be especially high in HIV-infected women, even in the era of effective antiretroviral medications. This review discusses the multiple issues surrounding HIV-associated cervical cancer. Also, the unique treatment-related issues in HIV-associated cervical cancer are addressed. The incidence of invasive cervical cancer has remained stable in industrialized nations; however, it is only estimated in developing countries secondary to a relative lack of data collection and registries. Trends in HIV-associated cervical cancer have changed in the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) era. Recent molecular pathways suggest that the natural progression of human papillomavirus infection, the causal agent in all cervical cancers, may be related to immune system dysfunction as well as HIV/human papillomavirus synergistic mechanisms. When highly active retroviral therapies are used, invasive cervical cancer treatments are impacted by concomitant drug toxicities that could potentially limit therapeutic benefit of either HAART or the standard of care treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer, concomitant chemoradiotherapy. The significance and care of the patient with invasive cervical cancer is becoming a geographically relevant phenomenon such that it may be time to re-address the global definition. Further studies in treatment issues and drug-drug interactions with cervical cancer treatments in the setting of HIV are paramount.

Accessing global data from accelerator devices

DOEpatents

Bertolli, Carlo; O'Brien, John K.; Sallenave, Olivier H.; Sura, Zehra N.

2016-12-06

An aspect includes a table of contents (TOC) that was generated by a compiler being received at an accelerator device. The TOC includes an address of global data in a host memory space. The global data is copied from the address in the host memory space to an address in the device memory space. The address in the host memory space is obtained from the received TOC. The received TOC is updated to indicate that global data is stored at the address in the device memory space. A kernel that accesses the global data from the address in the device memory space is executed. The address in the device memory space is obtained based on contents of the updated TOC. When the executing is completed, the global data from the address in the device memory space is copied to the address in the host memory space.

Accessing global data from accelerator devices

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bertolli, Carlo; O'Brien, John K.; Sallenave, Olivier H.

2016-12-06

An aspect includes a table of contents (TOC) that was generated by a compiler being received at an accelerator device. The TOC includes an address of global data in a host memory space. The global data is copied from the address in the host memory space to an address in the device memory space. The address in the host memory space is obtained from the received TOC. The received TOC is updated to indicate that global data is stored at the address in the device memory space. A kernel that accesses the global data from the address in the devicemore » memory space is executed. The address in the device memory space is obtained based on contents of the updated TOC. When the executing is completed, the global data from the address in the device memory space is copied to the address in the host memory space.« less

Millennium development goals and eye health.

PubMed

Faal, Hannah B

2012-01-01

In September 2000, world leaders made a commitment to build a more equitable, prosperous and safer world by 2015 and launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In the previous year, the World Health Organization and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness in partnership launched the global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020-VISION 2020 the Right to Sight. It has focused on the prevention of a disability-blindness and recognized a health issue-sight as a human right. Both global initiatives have made considerable progress with synergy especially on MDG 1-the reduction of poverty and the reduction in numbers of the blind. A review of the MDGs has identified the need to address disparities within and between countries, quality, and disability. Noncommunicable diseases are emerging as a challenge to the MDGs and Vision 2020:0 the Right to Sight. For the future, up to and beyond 2015, there will be need for both initiatives to continue to work in synergy to address present and emerging challenges.

Social Identities in a Globalized World: Challenges and Opportunities for Collective Action.

PubMed

Rosenmann, Amir; Reese, Gerhard; Cameron, James E

2016-03-01

Globalization-the increasing interconnectedness of societies, economies, and cultures-is a defining feature of contemporary social life. Paradoxically, it underlies both the dynamics of global crises (e.g., rising inequality, climate change) and the possibilities for ameliorating them. In this review, we introduce globalization as a multifaceted process and elaborate its psychological effects with respect to identity, culture, and collective action. Using a social identity approach, we discuss three foci of identification: local culture, globalized Western culture, and humanity in its entirety. Each source of identification is analyzed in terms of its psychological meaning and position vis-à-vis the global power structure. Globalized Western culture forms the basis for an exclusive globalized identity, which privileges only some cultures and ways of life. We conceptualize reactions to its core values in terms of cultural identification and rejection and acceptance of, or opposition to, its global social order. Opposition to this inequitable global order is central to inclusive globalized identities (e.g., identification with humanity). These identities may encourage globally minded collective action, even as more research is needed to address their potential caveats. We consider possibilities for social change and action and conclude that a focused application of psychological science to the study of these issues is overdue. © The Author(s) 2016.

An Assessment of the Potential Predictability of Drought Over the United States Based on Climate Model Simulations with Specified SST

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schubert, Siegfried; Wang, Hailan; Suarez, Max; Koster, Randal

2010-01-01

The USCLIV AR working group on drought recently initiated a series of global climate model simulations forced with idealized SST anomaly patterns, designed to address a number of uncertainties regarding the impact of SST forcing and the role of land-atmosphere feedbacks on regional drought. The runs were done with several global atmospheric models including NASA/NSIPP-l, NCEP/GFS, GFDLlAM2, and NCAR CCM3 and CAM3.5. Specific questions that the runs are designed to address include: What are mechanisms that maintain drought across the seasonal cycle and from one year to the next. To what extent can droughts develop independently of ocean variability due to year-to-year memory that may be inherent to the land. What is the role of the different ocean basins? Here we focus on the potential predictability of drought conditions over the United States. Specific issues addressed include the seasonality and regionality of the signal-to-noise ratios associated with Pacific and Atlantic SST forcing, and the sensitivity of the results to the climatological stationary waves simulated by the different AGCMs.

Perceptions of Geography Students in the USA and Egypt on Global Issues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saleh, Edrees Sultan; Gandy, S. Kay

2015-01-01

The study aimed to compare the perceptions of Egyptian and US students on global issues. The authors developed a survey of global issues and administered it to sample of 321 Geography students in the USA and Egypt. The survey tapped five issues: global citizenship, cultural diversity, global conflicts, nuclear arms race, and global warming. The…

HIV/STI interventions targeting women who experience forced sex: A systematic review of global literature.

PubMed

Deming, Michelle E; Bhochhibhoya, Amir; Ingram, LaDrea; Stafford, Crystal; Li, Xiaoming

2018-04-12

Women are disproportionately affected by HIV in many regions of the world and they represent the fastest growing demographic in the HIV epidemic. In addition, sexual violence against women is a global public health issue which increases women's vulnerability of HIV/STI acquisition. However, the relationship between sexual violence and HIV/STI risk are complex and contribute to the growing epidemic of women infected with HIV/STIs. Our purpose for this review is to examine existing HIV/STI interventions that target women who experience forced sex. Interventions designed to address women's unique needs in HIV/STI prevention are critical in reducing women's vulnerability to HIV/STIs.

[[The global significance of the Cairo conference: the new program of action of the International Conference on Population and Development

PubMed

Atoh, M

1994-10-01

"The [1994] International Conference on Population and Development was held in Cairo, Egypt.... In this essay I briefly described global population trends and [their] economic and ecological implications, stated the temporal progress from arguments in the three Preparatory Committees toward the achievement of consensus at the end of the Cairo Conference, summarized and commented [on] each chapter of the Programme of Action, clarified the major characteristics of the Cairo document compared to the documents in Bucharest and Mexico City, and finally discussed the effectiveness of the strategy suggested in the Cairo document for addressing population and development issues in the context of sustainability." (SUMMARY IN ENG) excerpt

Human behavioral contributions to climate change: psychological and contextual drivers.

PubMed

Swim, Janet K; Clayton, Susan; Howard, George S

2011-01-01

We are facing rapid changes in the global climate, and these changes are attributable to human behavior. Humans produce this global impact through our use of natural resources, multiplied by the vast increase in population seen in the past 50 to 100 years. Our goal in this article is to examine the underlying psychosocial causes of human impact, primarily through patterns of reproduction and consumption. We identify and distinguish individual, societal, and behavioral predictors of environmental impact. Relevant research in these areas (as well as areas that would be aided by greater attention by psychologists) are reviewed. We conclude by highlighting ethical issues that emerge when considering how to address human behavioral contributions to climate change.

Globalization of pediatric transplantation: The risk of tuberculosis or not tuberculosis.

PubMed

McCulloch, Mignon; Lin, Philana Ling

2017-05-01

The risk of TB among pediatric SOT recipients increases as the globalization of medical care continues to broaden. Unlike adults, children and especially infants are more susceptible to TB as a complication after transplantation. Little data exist regarding the true incidence of TB and the optimal risk-based management of this very vulnerable population. Here, we highlight the theoretical and practical issues that complicate the management of these patients and pose some questions that should be addressed when managing these patients. More data are needed to provide optimal guidance of the best diagnostic and management practices to this unique population. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The global forum on environment and development

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

1990-01-01

The first Global Conference of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival was held in Oxford, England not to discuss world issues, but to test the ability of 100 spiritual leaders and 100 parliamentarians to work together in a world which has preferred to separate church and state. This conference, held in Moscow, attracted more than 1,000 people. The main purpose was to find common solutions to environmental quality, economic development, and human survival as citizens of planet Earth. Notable addresses were heard from Javier Perez de Cuellar, Senator Albert Gore, Carl Sagan, Lester Brown, Nafis Sadik, Evguenij Velikhov, andmore » Mikhail Gorbachev who advocated an International Green Cross.« less

Meeting Report: Long Term Monitoring of Global Vegetation using Moderate Resolution Satellites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morisette, Jeffrey; Heinsch, Fath Ann; Running, Steven W.

2006-01-01

The international community has long recognized the need to coordinate observations of Earth from space. In 1984, this situation provided the impetus for creating the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), an international coordinating mechanism charged with coordinating international civil spaceborne missions designed to observe and study planet Earth. Within CEOS, its Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV) is tasked with coordinating satellite-based global observations of vegetation. Currently, several international organizations are focusing on the requirements for Earth observation from space to address key science questions and societal benefits related to our terrestrial environment. The Global Vegetation Workshop, sponsored by the WGCV and held in Missoula, Montana, 7-10 August, 2006, was organized to establish a framework to understand the inter-relationships among multiple, global vegetation products and identify opportunities for: 1) Increasing knowledge through combined products, 2) Realizing efficiency by avoiding redundancy, and 3) Developing near- and long-term plans to avoid gaps in our understanding of critical global vegetation information. The Global Vegetation Workshop brought together 135 researchers from 25 states and 14 countries to advance these themes and formulate recommendations for CEOS members and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). The eighteen oral presentations and most of the 74 posters presented at the meeting can be downloaded from the meeting website (www.ntsg.umt.edu/VEGMTG/). Meeting attendees were given a copy of the July 2006 IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing Special Issue on Global Land Product Validation, coordinated by the CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV). This issue contains 29 articles focusing on validation products from several of the sensors discussed during the workshop.

Government and Industry Issues for Expanding Commercial Markets into Space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smitherman, David V., Jr.

2003-01-01

In 2002, the Foresight and Governance Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C, organized a "Global Foresight Workshop" in partnership with NASA and in cooperation with other Federal Agencies to provide integrated consideration of broad challenges for the 2lst century. Many long-range goals for the nation were discussed and selected, among them were space related goals of interest to NASA. During much of the Agency's history, NASA advanced studies have focused consistently on the challenges of science-driven space exploration and operations. However, workshop findings indicate little interest in these goals unless they can also solve national and global issues. Many technologies and space development studies indicate great potential to enable new, important commercial markets in space that could address the many global challenges facing America in this century. But communication of these ideas are lacking. In conclusion, it appears that the commercial development of space could have broad implications on many impending problems, including energy resources, environmental impact, and climate changes. The challenge will be to develop a consistent coordinated effort among the many industries and Agencies that should be involved in opening this new frontier for these new commercial markets.

Health advocacy for refugees

PubMed Central

Pottie, Kevin; Hostland, Sara

2007-01-01

PROBLEM BEING ADDRESSED Canadian family physicians serve a patient population that is increasingly diverse, both culturally and linguistically. Family medicine needs to take a leadership role in developing social accountability and cultural sensitivity among physicians. OBJECTIVE OF PROGRAM To train medical students to work with newly arriving refugees, to foster competence in handling cultural issues, to raise awareness of global health, and to engage medical students in work with underserviced populations in primary care. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION The program is composed of an Internet-based training module and a self-assessment quiz focused on global and refugee health, a workshop to increase competence in cultural matters, an experience working with at least 1 refugee family at a shelter for newly arriving refugees, family physician mentorship, and a debriefing workshop at the end of the experience. Students who complete this program are eligible for further electives at a refugee health clinic. CONCLUSION The program has been received enthusiastically by students, refugees, and family physicians. Working with refugees provides a powerful introduction to issues related to global health and competence in cultural matters. The program also provides an opportunity for medical students to work alongside family physicians and nurtures their interest in working with disadvantaged populations. PMID:18000269

Sustainable occupational responses to climate change through lifestyle choices.

PubMed

Hocking, Clare; Kroksmark, Ulla

2013-03-01

Abstract Occupational therapists and occupational scientists are increasingly aware of the relationship between occupation and global climate change, with some working to raise awareness of the issues and others proposing that an occupational perspective can make a valuable contribution to understanding and addressing the issues. In this discussion paper the United Nations Global Survey on Sustainable Lifestyles ( 1 ), which reports young adults' beliefs about everyday occupations that have a substantial impact on the environment (food, housekeeping, and transportation) is introduced. The authors argue that the survey findings are a valuable resource for occupational therapists who are concerned about global climate change and work with young adults (age 18-35), providing valuable insights into their concerns and preferences in relation to sustainability. To illustrate the insights contained in the reports, findings from four countries are presented: New Zealand and Sweden, the authors' countries of origin, and the Philippines and Lebanon which have people living in New Zealand and Sweden. Application to individual and community-based interventions to promote more sustainable lifestyles is suggested, along with studies to examine the perspectives of young adults with a disability, as their concerns and sustainability preferences might differ due to the barriers that limit their participation in educational and vocational occupations.

Potential safety issues and other factors that may affect the introduction and uptake of rotavirus vaccines

PubMed Central

Aliabadi, N.; Tate, J.E.; Parashar, U.D.

2018-01-01

Rotavirus vaccines have demonstrated significant impact in reducing the burden of morbidity and mortality from childhood diarrhoea in countries that have implemented routine vaccination to date. Despite this success, in many countries, rotavirus vaccine coverage remains lower than that of other routine childhood vaccines. Several issues may potentially affect vaccine uptake, namely safety concerns related to intussusception with consequent age restrictions on rotavirus vaccination, contamination with porcine circovirus, vaccine-derived reassortant strains and hospitalization in newborn nurseries at time of administration of live oral rotavirus vaccine. In addition to these safety concerns, other factors may also affect uptake, including lower vaccine efficacy in the developing world, potential emergence of strains escaping from vaccine protection resulting in lower overall impact of a vaccination programme and sustainable vaccine financing. Although further work is needed to address some of these concerns, global policy bodies have reaffirmed that the benefits of rotavirus vaccination outweigh the risks, and vaccine use is recommended globally. PMID:27129416

The globalization of ayahuasca: harm reduction or benefit maximization?

PubMed

Tupper, Kenneth W

2008-08-01

Ayahuasca is a tea made from two plants native to the Amazon, Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis, which, respectively, contain the psychoactive chemicals harmala alkaloids and dimethyltryptamine. The tea has been used by indigenous peoples in countries such as Brazil, Ecuador and Peru for medicinal, spiritual and cultural purposes since pre-Columbian times. In the 20th century, ayahuasca spread beyond its native habitat and has been incorporated into syncretistic practices that are being adopted by non-indigenous peoples in modern Western contexts. Ayahuasca's globalization in the past few decades has led to a number of legal cases which pit religious freedom against national drug control laws. This paper explores some of the philosophical and policy implications of contemporary ayahuasca use. It addresses the issue of the social construction of ayahuasca as a medicine, a sacrament and a "plant teacher." Issues of harm reduction with respect to ayahuasca use are explored, but so too is the corollary notion of "benefit maximization."

Global health issues and challenges.

PubMed

Dickenson-Hazard, Nancy

2004-01-01

To describe issues, challenges and potential strategies in achieving nursing's global preferred future, focused on promoting healthy communities worldwide. Three sets of Arista conferences, a total of 7 conferences, were sponsored by Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. Arista2 and Arista3--the focus of this report--were held in different world regions. A total of 109 invited multi-disciplinary participants identified conditions that affect nursing and health care, strategic actions to address those conditions, and recommendations for the nursing profession. Reports from each conference are synthesized in this executive summary. Both common and unique themes were identified in various world regions. Key components of the preferred future were professional restructuring and the delivery of holistic, human, and culturally appropriate care. Participants in all regional conferences recommended strategic actions regarding: student-centered educational systems, environments in which nurses practice, the way nurses lead, the knowledge nurses need, the settings in which nurses work, the conditions under which the profession operates, the influence of nurses, and the ways nurses learn.

Potential safety issues and other factors that may affect the introduction and uptake of rotavirus vaccines.

PubMed

Aliabadi, N; Tate, J E; Parashar, U D

2016-12-01

Rotavirus vaccines have demonstrated significant impact in reducing the burden of morbidity and mortality from childhood diarrhoea in countries that have implemented routine vaccination to date. Despite this success, in many countries, rotavirus vaccine coverage remains lower than that of other routine childhood vaccines. Several issues may potentially affect vaccine uptake, namely safety concerns related to intussusception with consequent age restrictions on rotavirus vaccination, contamination with porcine circovirus, vaccine-derived reassortant strains and hospitalization in newborn nurseries at time of administration of live oral rotavirus vaccine. In addition to these safety concerns, other factors may also affect uptake, including lower vaccine efficacy in the developing world, potential emergence of strains escaping from vaccine protection resulting in lower overall impact of a vaccination programme and sustainable vaccine financing. Although further work is needed to address some of these concerns, global policy bodies have reaffirmed that the benefits of rotavirus vaccination outweigh the risks, and vaccine use is recommended globally. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

The global burden of cancer is growing rapidly with an estimated 15 million new cases per year worldwide in 2015, growing to 19 million by 2025 and 24 million by 2035. The largest component of this growth will occur in low-to-middle income countries (LMICs). About half of these cases will require radiation treatment. The gap for available cancer treatment, including radiation therapy, between high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs is enormous. Accurate data and quantitative models to project the needs and the benefits of cancer treatment are a critical first step in closing the large cancer divide between LMICs and HICs.more » In this context, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) has developed a Global Task Force on Radiotherapy for Cancer Control (GTFRCC) with a charge to answer the question as to what it will take to close the gap between what exists today and reasonable access to radiation therapy globally by 2035 and what the potential clinical and economic benefits are for doing this. The Task Force has determined the projections of cancer incidence and the infrastructure required to provide access to radiation therapy globally. Furthermore it has shown that appropriate investment not only yields improved clinical outcomes for millions of patients but that it also provides an overall economic gain throughout all the income settings where this investment is made. This symposium will summarize the facets associated with this global cancer challenge by reviewing the cancer burden, looking at the requirements for radiation therapy, reviewing the benefits of providing such therapy both from a clinical and economic perspective and finally by looking at what approaches can be used to aid in the alleviation of this global cancer challenge. The speakers are world renowned experts in global public health issues (R. Atun), medical physics (D. Jaffray) and radiation oncology (N. Coleman). Learning Objectives: To describe the global cancer challenge and the corresponding potential benefits of addressing this challenge. To describe what radiation therapy infrastructure, in terms of facilities, equipment and personnel, will be required to address this challenge. To describe models of addressing personnel and infrastructure mobilization and capacity building within regions where significant cancer treatment disparities exist.« less

Steps to overcome the North-South divide in research relevant to climate change policy and practice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blicharska, Malgorzata; Smithers, Richard J.; Kuchler, Magdalena; Agrawal, Ganesh K.; Gutiérrez, José M.; Hassanali, Ahmed; Huq, Saleemul; Koller, Silvia H.; Marjit, Sugata; Mshinda, Hassan M.; Masjuki, Hj Hassan; Solomons, Noel W.; Staden, Johannes Van; Mikusiński, Grzegorz

2017-01-01

A global North-South divide in research, and its negative consequences, has been highlighted in various scientific disciplines. Northern domination of science relevant to climate change policy and practice, and limited research led by Southern researchers in Southern countries, may hinder further development and implementation of global climate change agreements and nationally appropriate actions. Despite efforts to address the North-South divide, progress has been slow. In this Perspective, we illustrate the extent of the divide, review underlying issues and analyse their consequences for climate change policy development and implementation. We propose a set of practical steps in both Northern and Southern countries that a wide range of actors should take at global, regional and national scales to span the North-South divide, with examples of some actions already being implemented.

[Health and globalization in the San Diego-Tijuana region].

PubMed

Villa-Caballero, Leonel; Caballero-Solano, Víctor Manuel; Andrade-Barreto, Olga Alicia

2008-01-01

The international process of trading goods and services with significant reduction in barriers known as globalization is clearly observed at the San Diego-Tijuana region. This essay addresses issues arising at this unique geographical area associated with the globalization process and its public health consequences. Social, cultural and political aspects have very important implications on the health status of the U.S-Mexican population and in the health care systems on both sides of the border. One of the most powerful world economies borders a developing country resulting in a dramatic comparison that has negative outcomes such as health disparities, high prevalence of chronic diseases and new epidemiological risks. Poverty and migration are a few of the contributing factors triggering this asymmetrical relationship. Challenges in border health require a comprehensive binational participation and the solutions are yet to be determined.

Environmental Progression: The Psychological Justification for Reframing Climate Change and Global Warming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Veldey, S. H.

2016-12-01

On-going research in climate science communication through environmental media has uncovered critical barriers to reducing denial and increasing agency in addressing the threat of climate change. Similar to framing of our changing environment as "global warming", the term "climate change" also fails to properly frame the most critical challenge our species has faced. In a set of preliminary studies, significant changes in climate crisis denial, both positive and negative, have resulted from different media messaging. Continuation of this research utilizes social judgement theory (SJT) to classify a broader spectrum of effective avenues for environmental communication. The specificity of the terms global warming and climate change limit inclusion of issues critical to understanding their impacts. Now that the masses know what climate change is, it's time to teach them what it means.

Needed: Global Collaboration for Comparative Research on Cities and Health

PubMed Central

Gusmano, Michael K.; Rodwin, Victor G.

2016-01-01

Over half of the world’s population lives in cities and United Nations (UN) demographers project an increase of 2.5 billion more urban dwellers by 2050. Yet there is too little systematic comparative research on the practice of urban health policy and management (HPAM), particularly in the megacities of middle-income and developing nations. We make a case for creating a global database on cities, population health and healthcare systems. The expenses involved in data collection would be difficult to justify without some review of previous work, some agreement on indicators worth measuring, conceptual and methodological considerations to guide the construction of the global database, and a set of research questions and hypotheses to test. We, therefore, address these issues in a manner that we hope will stimulate further discussion and collaboration. PMID:27694667

Needed: Global Collaboration for Comparative Research on Cities and Health.

PubMed

Gusmano, Michael K; Rodwin, Victor G

2016-04-16

Over half of the world's population lives in cities and United Nations (UN) demographers project an increase of 2.5 billion more urban dwellers by 2050. Yet there is too little systematic comparative research on the practice of urban health policy and management (HPAM), particularly in the megacities of middle-income and developing nations. We make a case for creating a global database on cities, population health and healthcare systems. The expenses involved in data collection would be difficult to justify without some review of previous work, some agreement on indicators worth measuring, conceptual and methodological considerations to guide the construction of the global database, and a set of research questions and hypotheses to test. We, therefore, address these issues in a manner that we hope will stimulate further discussion and collaboration. © 2016 by Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

International Perspectives on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Contextual Considerations for Advancing Global Discourse.

PubMed

Dolbin-MacNab, Megan L; Yancura, Loriena A

2018-01-01

Globally, it is common for grandparents to serve as surrogate parents to their grandchildren, often in response to family crises and other challenges such as poverty, disease epidemics, and migration. Despite the global nature of this intergenerational caregiving arrangement, there have been few contextually focused examinations of how grandparents' surrogate parenting roles are enacted across countries and cultures. This analytic review addresses this issue by exploring demographic and cultural contexts, needs and experiences, and formal and informal supports for grandparents raising grandchildren in four diverse countries: China, New Zealand, Romania, and South Africa. We conclude our analysis by discussing key contextual factors, and their associated interrelationships, from which future research may elucidate how cultural, historical, and sociopolitical factors uniquely shape grandparents' experiences. We also make recommendations for contextually informed policies and practice.

Pursuit of proteomic excellence and the excitement in Košice, Slovakia, at the 11th Central and Eastern European Proteomic Conference (CEEPC).

PubMed

Gadher, Suresh; Bhide, Mangesh; Kovarova, Hana

2018-05-01

The Central and Eastern European Proteomic Conference (CEEPC) successfully launched its second decade of proteomics in Košice, Slovakia with a program of systems biology, cellular, clinical, veterinary and sports proteomics. Whilst many conferences are struggling to attract participants, CEEPC with its outstanding track record and unique 'family - feel' packaged with excellent ambiance is thriving and bringing together proteomics experts from academia, industry, scientific specialties, clinics and precision medicine communities interested in resolving mysteries about protein functionalities in health and disease. CEEPC is also renowned for addressing humanitarian global healthcare issues, may it be ageing, chronic diseases or global epidemics. This year CEEPC intertwined with Košice Peace Marathon's pursuit of excellence in sports and initiatives including sports medicine and global peace.

Plastic surgery and global health: how plastic surgery impacts the global burden of surgical disease.

PubMed

Semer, Nadine B; Sullivan, Stephen R; Meara, John G

2010-08-01

The global burden of surgical disease is estimated as being 11% of the total global burden of disease. In this article we discuss the portion of this burden which could be ameliorated with plastic surgical expertise. Although not necessarily seen as a major player in issues related to global health, plastic surgeons are uniquely qualified to decrease the burden of surgical disease afflicting people in the developing world. Burns, traumatic injuries, and congenital anomalies are some of the areas where the presence of plastic surgical expertise can make a significant difference in patient outcomes and thereby decrease the years of life lost due to disability due to these highly treatable conditions. In light of the severe shortage of plastic surgeons throughout the developing world, it falls to those concentrated in the developed world to harness their skills and address the vast unmet needs of the developing world so as to enhance global health. Copyright 2009 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A graph-based watershed merging using fuzzy C-means and simulated annealing for image segmentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vadiveloo, Mogana; Abdullah, Rosni; Rajeswari, Mandava

2015-12-01

In this paper, we have addressed the issue of over-segmented regions produced in watershed by merging the regions using global feature. The global feature information is obtained from clustering the image in its feature space using Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering. The over-segmented regions produced by performing watershed on the gradient of the image are then mapped to this global information in the feature space. Further to this, the global feature information is optimized using Simulated Annealing (SA). The optimal global feature information is used to derive the similarity criterion to merge the over-segmented watershed regions which are represented by the region adjacency graph (RAG). The proposed method has been tested on digital brain phantom simulated dataset to segment white matter (WM), gray matter (GM) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) soft tissues regions. The experiments showed that the proposed method performs statistically better, with average of 95.242% regions are merged, than the immersion watershed and average accuracy improvement of 8.850% in comparison with RAG-based immersion watershed merging using global and local features.

Early Intervention and AAC: What a Difference 30 Years Makes.

PubMed

Romski, MaryAnn; Sevcik, Rose A; Barton-Hulsey, Andrea; Whitmore, Ani S

2015-01-01

This article provides an overview of early intervention and AAC over the 30-year period since the founding of the journal Augmentative and Alternative Communication in 1985. It discusses the global context for early intervention and addresses issues pertaining to young children from birth to 6 years of age. It provides a narrative review and synthesis of the evidence base in AAC and early intervention. Finally, it provides implications for practice and future research directions.

Swarm: robust and fast clustering method for amplicon-based studies.

PubMed

Mahé, Frédéric; Rognes, Torbjørn; Quince, Christopher; de Vargas, Colomban; Dunthorn, Micah

2014-01-01

Popular de novo amplicon clustering methods suffer from two fundamental flaws: arbitrary global clustering thresholds, and input-order dependency induced by centroid selection. Swarm was developed to address these issues by first clustering nearly identical amplicons iteratively using a local threshold, and then by using clusters' internal structure and amplicon abundances to refine its results. This fast, scalable, and input-order independent approach reduces the influence of clustering parameters and produces robust operational taxonomic units.

Swarm: robust and fast clustering method for amplicon-based studies

PubMed Central

Rognes, Torbjørn; Quince, Christopher; de Vargas, Colomban; Dunthorn, Micah

2014-01-01

Popular de novo amplicon clustering methods suffer from two fundamental flaws: arbitrary global clustering thresholds, and input-order dependency induced by centroid selection. Swarm was developed to address these issues by first clustering nearly identical amplicons iteratively using a local threshold, and then by using clusters’ internal structure and amplicon abundances to refine its results. This fast, scalable, and input-order independent approach reduces the influence of clustering parameters and produces robust operational taxonomic units. PMID:25276506

How Nation-States Craft National Security Strategy Documents

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-10-01

state, civil society, and the individual. In the 21st century, the overall security concept is being looked at to en - compass a “country’s society as a...were very rigorous in their efforts to en - sure that the military operated within its fiscal means. Owing to the fact that the global financial crisis...institutions like think tanks or academic bodies that address issues such as human rights, democracy, and governance; civil society en - gagement; small arms

Ethics Certification of Health Information Professionals.

PubMed

Kluge, Eike-Henner; Lacroix, Paulette; Ruotsalainen, Pekka

2018-04-22

 To provide a model for ensuring the ethical acceptability of the provisions that characterize the interjurisdictional use of eHealth, telemedicine, and associated modalities of health care deliveiy that are currently in place.  Following the approach initiated in their Global Protection of Health Data project within the Security in Health Information Systems (SiHIS) working group of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), the authors analyze and evaluate relevant privacy and security approaches that are intended to stem the erosion of patients' trustworthiness in the handling of their sensitive information by health care and informatics professionals in the international context.  The authors found that while the majority of guidelines and ethical codes essentially focus on the role and functioning of the institutions that use EHRs and information technologies, little if any attention has been paid to the qualifications of the health informatics professionals (HIPs) who actualize and operate information systems to deal with or address relevant ethical issues.  The apparent failure to address this matter indicates that the ethical qualification of HIPs remains an important security issue and that the Global Protection of Health Data project initiated by the SiHIS working group in 2015 should be expanded to develop into an internationally viable method of certification. An initial model to this effect is sketched and discussed. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

The Impact of Socioscientific Issues Based Curriculum Involving Environmental Outdoor Education for Fourth Grade Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burek, Karey J.

There is a divide between what students are being taught within the science classroom and what they experience out in the real world. This study sought to explore possible relationships between a socioscientific issues embedded curriculum and outcome variables addressing environmental attitude and knowledge, oral and written argumentation and critical thinking skills. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to examine both within and between class differences as well as individual differences between the beginning and end of a semester of elementary school. Results indicated that socioscientific issues assist students in developing their critical thinking skills while also providing students the opportunity to be exposed to and participate in local and global environmental issues influencing the community at large. Statistical significance was found between groups in regards to attitude toward the environment, the qualitative interviews did indicate that some students provided more advanced argumentation skills by articulating alternate viewpoints on controversial environmental topics. Theoretical implications regarding the use of socioscientific issues in the classroom are presented.

Toward Impactful Collaborations on Computing and Mental Health

PubMed Central

Dinakar, Karthik; Picard, Rosalind; Christensen, Helen; Torous, John

2018-01-01

We describe an initiative to bring mental health researchers, computer scientists, human-computer interaction researchers, and other communities together to address the challenges of the global mental ill health epidemic. Two face-to-face events and one special issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research were organized. The works presented in these events and publication reflect key state-of-the-art research in this interdisciplinary collaboration. We summarize the special issue articles and contextualize them to present a picture of the most recent research. In addition, we describe a series of collaborative activities held during the second symposium and where the community identified 5 challenges and their possible solutions. PMID:29426812

Social workers' role in disease management.

PubMed

Claiborne, N; Vandenburgh, H

2001-11-01

This article discusses social work's participation in a new paradigm for health care delivery, disease management. Attempts to improve health care quality havefocused on evidence-based methods of evaluating health care outcomes as well as quality of life issues with which social workers have been traditionally concerned. The fit between social work's ecological perspective and disease management and the needfor social workers to participate as patient case managers on interdisciplinary disease management teams are discussed. Quality and cost benefits can occur when social workers address such issues as adherence, psychosocialfactors, and depression in terms of the patient's global recovery and concurrent enhancement of quality of life. Potential barriers to disease management implementation with social work participation are discussed.

Building a Global Ocean Science Education Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scowcroft, G. A.; Tuddenham, P. T.; Pizziconi, R.

2016-02-01

It is imperative for ocean science education to be closely linked to ocean science research. This is especially important for research that addresses global concerns that cross national boundaries, including climate related issues. The results of research on these critical topics must find its way to the public, educators, and students of all ages around the globe. To facilitate this, opportunities are needed for ocean scientists and educators to convene and identify priorities and strategies for ocean science education. On June 26 and 27, 2015 the first Global Ocean Science Education (GOSE) Workshop was convened in the United States at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. The workshop, sponsored by the Consortium for Ocean Science Exploration and Engagement (COSEE) and the College of Exploration, had over 75 participants representing 15 nations. The workshop addressed critical global ocean science topics, current ocean science research and education priorities, advanced communication technologies, and leveraging international ocean research technologies. In addition, panels discussed elementary, secondary, undergraduate, graduate, and public education across the ocean basins with emphasis on opportunities for international collaboration. Special presentation topics included advancements in tropical cyclone forecasting, collaborations among Pacific Islands, ocean science for coastal resiliency, and trans-Atlantic collaboration. This presentation will focus on workshop outcomes as well as activities for growing a global ocean science education network. A summary of the workshop report will also be provided. The dates and location for the 2016 GOES Workshop will be announced. See http://www.coexploration.net/gose/index.html

Global Issues and Environmental Education. ERIC/CSMEE Digest.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trisler, Carmen E.

An action of an individual or a societal action that has an impact on other societies constitutes a "global issue." Global climate change, airborne toxins, ozone depletion, and solid waste management are a few of the global issues concerning the environment. This digest discusses methods by which students learn about global issues and…

Japanese experience of evolving nurses' roles in changing social contexts.

PubMed

Kanbara, S; Yamamoto, Y; Sugishita, T; Nakasa, T; Moriguchi, I

2017-06-01

To discuss the evolving roles of Japanese nurses in meeting the goals and concerns of ongoing global sustainable development. Japanese nurses' roles have evolved as the needs of the country and the communities they served, changed over time. The comprehensive public healthcare services in Japan were provided by the cooperation of hospitals and public health nurses. The nursing profession is exploring ways to identify and systemize nursing skills and competencies that address global health initiatives for sustainable development goals. This paper is based on the summary of a symposium, (part of the 2015 annual meeting of the Japan Association for International Health) with panel members including experts from Japan's Official Development Assistance. The evolving role of nurses in response to national and international needs is illustrated by nursing practices from Japan. Japanese public health nurses have also assisted overseas healthcare plans. In recent catastrophes, Japanese nurses assumed the roles of community health coordinators for restoration and maintenance of public health. The Japanese experience shows that nursing professionals are best placed to work with community health issues, high-risk situations and vulnerable communities. Their cooperation can address current social needs and help global communities to transform our world. Nurses have tremendous potential to make transformative changes in health and bring about the necessary paradigm shift. They must be involved in global sustainable development goals, health policies and disaster risk management. A mutual understanding of global citizen and nurses will help to renew and strengthen their capacities. Nursing professionals can contribute effectively to achieve national and global health goals and make transformative changes. © 2017 International Council of Nurses.

Vulnerability of waterborne diseases to climate change in Canada: a review.

PubMed

Charron, Dominique; Thomas, M; Waltner-Toews, David; Aramini, Jeffery; Edge, Tom; Kent, Robert; Maarouf, Abdel; Wilson, Jeff

This project addresses two important issues relevant to the health of Canadians: the risk of waterborne illness and the health impacts of global climate change. The Canadian health burden from waterborne illness is unknown, although it presumably accounts for a significant proportion of enteric illness. Recently, large outbreaks with severe consequences produced by E. coli O157:H7 and Cryptosporidium have alarmed Canadians and brought demands for political action. A concurrent need to understand the health impacts of global climate changes and to develop strategies to prevent or prepare for these has also been recognized. There is mounting evidence that weather is often a factor in triggering waterborne disease outbreaks. A recent study of precipitation and waterborne illness in the United States found that more than half the waterborne disease outbreaks in the United States during the last half century followed a period of extreme rainfall. Projections of international global climate change scenarios suggest that, under conditions of global warming most of Canada may expect longer summers, milder winters, increased summer drought, and more extreme precipitation. Excess precipitation, floods, high temperatures, and drought could affect the risk of waterborne illness in Canada. The existing scientific information regarding most weather-related adverse health impacts and on the impacts of global climate change on health in Canada is insufficient for informed decision making. The results of this project address this need through the investigation of the complex systemic interrelationships between disease incidence, weather parameters, and water quality and quantity, and by projecting the potential impact of global climate change on those relationships.

All Health Is Global Health, All Medicine Is Social Medicine: Integrating the Social Sciences Into the Preclinical Curriculum.

PubMed

Kasper, Jennifer; Greene, Jeremy A; Farmer, Paul E; Jones, David S

2016-05-01

As physicians work to achieve optimal health outcomes for their patients, they often struggle to address the issues that arise outside the clinic. Social, economic, and political factors influence patients' burden of disease, access to treatment, and health outcomes. This challenge has motivated recent calls for increased attention to the social determinants of health. At the same time, advocates have called for increased attention to global health. Each year, more U.S. medical students participate in global health experiences. Yet, the global health training that is available varies widely. The discipline of social medicine, which attends to the social determinants of disease, social meanings of disease, and social responses to disease, offers a solution to both challenges. The analyses and techniques of social medicine provide an invaluable toolkit for providing health care in the United States and abroad.In 2007, Harvard Medical School implemented a new course, required for all first-year students, that teaches social medicine in a way that integrates global health. In this article, the authors argue for the importance of including social medicine and global health in the preclinical curriculum; describe Harvard Medical School's innovative, integrated approach to teaching these disciplines, which can be used at other medical schools; and explore the barriers that educators may face in implementing such a curriculum, including resistance from students. Such a course can equip medical students with the knowledge and tools that they will need to address complex health problems in the United States and abroad.

Localized past, globalized future: towards an effective bioethical framework using examples from population genetics and medical tourism.

PubMed

Widdows, Heather

2011-02-01

This paper suggests that many of the pressing dilemmas of bioethics are global and structural in nature. Accordingly, global ethical frameworks are required which recognize the ethically significant factors of all global actors. To this end, ethical frameworks must recognize the rights and interests of both individuals and groups (and the interrelation of these). The paper suggests that the current dominant bioethical framework is inadequate to this task as it is over-individualist and therefore unable to give significant weight to the ethical demands of groups (and by extension communal and public goods). It will explore this theme by considering the inadequacy of informed consent (the 'global standard' of bioethics) to address two pressing global bioethical issues: medical tourism and population genetics. Using these examples it will show why consent is inadequate to address all the significant features of these ethical dilemmas. Four key failures will be explored, namely, • That the rights and interests of those related (and therefore affected) are neglected; • That consent fails to take account of the context and commitments of individuals which may constitute inducement and coercion; • That consent alone does not have the ethical weight to negate exploitation or make an unjust action just ('the fallacy of sufficiency'); • That consent is a single one-off act which is inappropriate for the types of decision being made. It will conclude by suggesting that more appropriate models are emerging, particularly in population genetics, which can supplement consent. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of adolescents.

PubMed

Chung, Richard J; English, Abigail

2015-08-01

This review describes the current state of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of adolescents in the United States and globally, the legal and health implications of this severe form of abuse, and the roles that pediatric and adolescent healthcare providers can play in addressing this issue. Although this form of exploitation and abuse is shrouded in secrecy, pediatric and adolescent healthcare providers are well positioned to respond when it arises. However, awareness and understanding of the issue are generally lacking among healthcare professionals, currently limiting their effectiveness in combating this problem. Although the empirical evidence base available to guide clinical care of victims of trafficking remains limited given the secretive nature of the abuse, important contributions to the multidisciplinary literature on this issue have been made in recent years, including the Institute of Medicine's landmark report in the United States. Commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of adolescents represent a human rights tragedy that remains inadequately addressed. As preeminent advocates for the health and well-being of adolescents, pediatric and adolescent healthcare providers can play a crucial role in advancing efforts not only to intervene but also to prevent further victimization of vulnerable youth.

Building the foundations of an informatics agenda for global health - 2011 workshop report.

PubMed

Mirza, Muzna; Kratz, Mary; Medeiros, Donna; Pina, Jamie; Richards, Janise; Zhang, Xiaohui; Fraser, Hamish; Bailey, Christopher; Krishnamurthy, Ramesh

2012-01-01

Strengthening the capacity of public health systems to protect and promote the health of the global population continues to be essential in an increasingly connected world. Informatics practices and principles can play an important role for improving global health response capacity. A critical step is to develop an informatics agenda for global health so that efforts can be prioritized and important global health issues addressed. With the aim of building a foundation for this agenda, the authors developed a workshop to examine the evidence in this domain, recognize the gaps, and document evidence-based recommendations. On 21 August 2011, at the 2011 Public Health Informatics Conference in Atlanta, GA, USA, a four-hour interactive workshop was conducted with 85 participants from 15 countries representing governmental organizations, private sector companies, academia, and non-governmental organizations. The workshop discussion followed an agenda of a plenary session - planning and agenda setting - and four tracks: Policy and governance; knowledge management, collaborative networks and global partnerships; capacity building; and globally reusable resources: metrics, tools, processes, templates, and digital assets. Track discussions examined the evidence base and the participants' experience to gather information about the current status, compelling and potential benefits, challenges, barriers, and gaps for global health informatics as well as document opportunities and recommendations. This report provides a summary of the discussions and key recommendations as a first step towards building an informatics agenda for global health. Attention to the identified topics and issues is expected to lead to measurable improvements in health equity, health outcomes, and impacts on population health. We propose the workshop report be used as a foundation for the development of the full agenda and a detailed roadmap for global health informatics activities based on further contribution from key stakeholders. The global health informatics agenda and roadmap can provide guidance to countries for developing and enhancing their individual and regional agendas.

Building the Foundations of an Informatics Agenda for Global Health - 2011 Workshop Report

PubMed Central

Mirza, Muzna; Kratz, Mary; Medeiros, Donna; Pina, Jamie; Richards, Janise; Zhang, Xiaohui; Fraser, Hamish; Bailey, Christopher; Krishnamurthy, Ramesh

2012-01-01

Strengthening the capacity of public health systems to protect and promote the health of the global population continues to be essential in an increasingly connected world. Informatics practices and principles can play an important role for improving global health response capacity. A critical step is to develop an informatics agenda for global health so that efforts can be prioritized and important global health issues addressed. With the aim of building a foundation for this agenda, the authors developed a workshop to examine the evidence in this domain, recognize the gaps, and document evidence-based recommendations. On 21 August 2011, at the 2011 Public Health Informatics Conference in Atlanta, GA, USA, a four-hour interactive workshop was conducted with 85 participants from 15 countries representing governmental organizations, private sector companies, academia, and non-governmental organizations. The workshop discussion followed an agenda of a plenary session - planning and agenda setting - and four tracks: Policy and governance; knowledge management, collaborative networks and global partnerships; capacity building; and globally reusable resources: metrics, tools, processes, templates, and digital assets. Track discussions examined the evidence base and the participants’ experience to gather information about the current status, compelling and potential benefits, challenges, barriers, and gaps for global health informatics as well as document opportunities and recommendations. This report provides a summary of the discussions and key recommendations as a first step towards building an informatics agenda for global health. Attention to the identified topics and issues is expected to lead to measurable improvements in health equity, health outcomes, and impacts on population health. We propose the workshop report be used as a foundation for the development of the full agenda and a detailed roadmap for global health informatics activities based on further contribution from key stakeholders. The global health informatics agenda and roadmap can provide guidance to countries for developing and enhancing their individual and regional agendas. PMID:23569628

Stakeholders understanding of the concept of benefit sharing in health research in Kenya: a qualitative study.

PubMed

Lairumbi, Geoffrey M; Parker, Michael; Fitzpatrick, Raymond; Mike, English C

2011-10-03

The concept of benefit sharing to enhance the social value of global health research in resource poor settings is now a key strategy for addressing moral issues of relevance to individuals, communities and host countries in resource poor settings when they participate in international collaborative health research.The influence of benefit sharing framework on the conduct of collaborative health research is for instance evidenced by the number of publications and research ethics guidelines that require prior engagement between stakeholders to determine the social value of research to the host communities. While such efforts as the production of international guidance on how to promote the social value of research through such strategies as benefit sharing have been made, the extent to which these ideas and guidelines have been absorbed by those engaged in global health research especially in resource poor settings remains unclear. We examine this awareness among stakeholders involved in health related research in Kenya. We conducted in-depth interviews with key informants drawn from within the broader health research system in Kenya including researchers from the mainstream health research institutions, networks and universities, teaching hospitals, policy makers, institutional review boards, civil society organisations and community representative groups. Our study suggests that although people have a sense of justice and the moral aspects of research, this was not articulated in terms used in the literature and the guidelines on the ethics of global health research. This study demonstrates that while in theory several efforts can be made to address the moral issues of concern to research participants and their communities in resource poor settings, quick fixes such as benefit sharing are not going to be straightforward. We suggest a need to pay closer attention to the processes through which ethical principles are enacted in practice and distil lessons on how best to involve individuals and communities in promoting ethical conduct of global health research in resource poor settings.

Stakeholders understanding of the concept of benefit sharing in health research in Kenya: a qualitative study

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background The concept of benefit sharing to enhance the social value of global health research in resource poor settings is now a key strategy for addressing moral issues of relevance to individuals, communities and host countries in resource poor settings when they participate in international collaborative health research. The influence of benefit sharing framework on the conduct of collaborative health research is for instance evidenced by the number of publications and research ethics guidelines that require prior engagement between stakeholders to determine the social value of research to the host communities. While such efforts as the production of international guidance on how to promote the social value of research through such strategies as benefit sharing have been made, the extent to which these ideas and guidelines have been absorbed by those engaged in global health research especially in resource poor settings remains unclear. We examine this awareness among stakeholders involved in health related research in Kenya. Methods We conducted in-depth interviews with key informants drawn from within the broader health research system in Kenya including researchers from the mainstream health research institutions, networks and universities, teaching hospitals, policy makers, institutional review boards, civil society organisations and community representative groups. Results Our study suggests that although people have a sense of justice and the moral aspects of research, this was not articulated in terms used in the literature and the guidelines on the ethics of global health research. Conclusion This study demonstrates that while in theory several efforts can be made to address the moral issues of concern to research participants and their communities in resource poor settings, quick fixes such as benefit sharing are not going to be straightforward. We suggest a need to pay closer attention to the processes through which ethical principles are enacted in practice and distil lessons on how best to involve individuals and communities in promoting ethical conduct of global health research in resource poor settings. PMID:21961798

Tobacco industry globalization and global health governance: towards an interdisciplinary research agenda

PubMed Central

Lee, Kelley; Eckhardt, Jappe; Holden, Chris

2016-01-01

Shifting patterns of tobacco production and consumption, and the resultant disease burden worldwide since the late twentieth century, prompted efforts to strengthen global health governance through adoption of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. While the treaty is rightfully considered an important achievement, to address a neglected public health issue through collective action, evidence suggests that tobacco industry globalization continues apace. In this article, we provide a systematic review of the public health literature and reveal definitional and measurement imprecision, ahistorical timeframes, transnational tobacco companies and the state as the primary units and levels of analysis, and a strong emphasis on agency as opposed to structural power. Drawing on the study of globalization in international political economy and business studies, we identify opportunities to expand analysis along each of these dimensions. We conclude that this expanded and interdisciplinary research agenda provides the potential for fuller understanding of the dual and dynamic relationship between the tobacco industry and globalization. Deeper analysis of how the industry has adapted to globalization over time, as well as how the industry has influenced the nature and trajectory of globalization, is essential for building effective global governance responses. This article is published as part of a thematic collection dedicated to global governance. PMID:28458910

Tobacco industry globalization and global health governance: towards an interdisciplinary research agenda.

PubMed

Lee, Kelley; Eckhardt, Jappe; Holden, Chris

2016-01-01

Shifting patterns of tobacco production and consumption, and the resultant disease burden worldwide since the late twentieth century, prompted efforts to strengthen global health governance through adoption of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. While the treaty is rightfully considered an important achievement, to address a neglected public health issue through collective action, evidence suggests that tobacco industry globalization continues apace. In this article, we provide a systematic review of the public health literature and reveal definitional and measurement imprecision, ahistorical timeframes, transnational tobacco companies and the state as the primary units and levels of analysis, and a strong emphasis on agency as opposed to structural power. Drawing on the study of globalization in international political economy and business studies, we identify opportunities to expand analysis along each of these dimensions. We conclude that this expanded and interdisciplinary research agenda provides the potential for fuller understanding of the dual and dynamic relationship between the tobacco industry and globalization. Deeper analysis of how the industry has adapted to globalization over time, as well as how the industry has influenced the nature and trajectory of globalization, is essential for building effective global governance responses. This article is published as part of a thematic collection dedicated to global governance.

Hemispheric specialization for global and local processing: A direct comparison of linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli.

PubMed

Brederoo, Sanne G; Nieuwenstein, Mark R; Lorist, Monicque M; Cornelissen, Frans W

2017-12-01

It is often assumed that the human brain processes the global and local properties of visual stimuli in a lateralized fashion, with a left hemisphere (LH) specialization for local detail, and a right hemisphere (RH) specialization for global form. However, the evidence for such global-local lateralization stems predominantly from studies using linguistic stimuli, the processing of which has shown to be LH lateralized in itself. In addition, some studies have reported a reversal of global-local lateralization when using non-linguistic stimuli. Accordingly, it remains unclear whether global-local lateralization may in fact be stimulus-specific. To address this issue, we asked participants to respond to linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli that were presented in the right and left visual fields, allowing for first access by the LH and RH, respectively. The results showed global-RH and local-LH advantages for both stimulus types, but the global lateralization effect was larger for linguistic stimuli. Furthermore, this pattern of results was found to be robust, as it was observed regardless of two other task manipulations. We conclude that the instantiation and direction of global and local lateralization is not stimulus-specific. However, the magnitude of global,-but not local-, lateralization is dependent on stimulus type. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A statistical inference approach for the retrieval of the atmospheric ozone profile from simulated satellite measurements of solar backscattered ultraviolet radiation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bonavito, N. L.; Gordon, C. L.; Inguva, R.; Serafino, G. N.; Barnes, R. A.

1994-01-01

NASA's Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) will address important interdisciplinary and environmental issues such as global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation, acid rain, and the like with its long term satellite observations of the Earth and with its comprehensive Data and Information System. Extensive sets of satellite observations supporting MTPE will be provided by the Earth Observing System (EOS), while more specific process related observations will be provided by smaller Earth Probes. MTPE will use data from ground and airborne scientific investigations to supplement and validate the global observations obtained from satellite imagery, while the EOS satellites will support interdisciplinary research and model development. This is important for understanding the processes that control the global environment and for improving the prediction of events. In this paper we illustrate the potential for powerful artificial intelligence (AI) techniques when used in the analysis of the formidable problems that exist in the NASA Earth Science programs and of those to be encountered in the future MTPE and EOS programs. These techniques, based on the logical and probabilistic reasoning aspects of plausible inference, strongly emphasize the synergetic relation between data and information. As such, they are ideally suited for the analysis of the massive data streams to be provided by both MTPE and EOS. To demonstrate this, we address both the satellite imagery and model enhancement issues for the problem of ozone profile retrieval through a method based on plausible scientific inferencing. Since in the retrieval problem, the atmospheric ozone profile that is consistent with a given set of measured radiances may not be unique, an optimum statistical method is used to estimate a 'best' profile solution from the radiances and from additional a priori information.

Connecting Alaskan Youth, Elders, and Scientists in Climate Change Research and Community Resilience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Spellman, K.; Sparrow, E.

2017-12-01

Integrated science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) solutions and effective, relevant learning processes are required to address the challenges that a changing climate presents to many Arctic communities. Learning that can both enhance a community's understanding and generate new knowledge about climate change impacts at both local and continental scales are needed to efficiently build the capacity to navigate these changes. The Arctic and Earth STEM Integrating GLOBE and NASA (SIGNs) program is developing a learning model to engage Alaskan rural and indigenous communities in climate change learning, research and action. Youth, elders, educators, community leaders and scientists collaborate to address a pressing local climate change concern. The program trains teams of educators and long-time community members on climate change concepts and environmental observing protocols in face-to-face or online workshops together with Arctic and NASA subject matter experts. Community teams return to their community to identify local data or information needs that align with their student's interests and the observations of local elders. They deepen their understanding of the subject through culturally responsive curriculum materials, and collaborate with a scientist to develop an investigation with their students to address the identified need. Youth make observations using GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) protocols that best fit the issue, analyze the data they have collected, and utilize indigenous or knowledge, and NASA data to address the issue. The use of GLOBE protocols allow for communities to engage in climate change research at both local and global scales, as over 110 nations worldwide are using these standardized protocols. Teams work to communicate their investigation results back to their community and other scientists, and apply their results to local stewardship action or climate adaptation projects. In this presentation, we report the progress of community teams currently engaged in this program from throughout Alaska.

The global burden of diagnostic errors in primary care.

PubMed

Singh, Hardeep; Schiff, Gordon D; Graber, Mark L; Onakpoya, Igho; Thompson, Matthew J

2017-06-01

Diagnosis is one of the most important tasks performed by primary care physicians. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently prioritized patient safety areas in primary care, and included diagnostic errors as a high-priority problem. In addition, a recent report from the Institute of Medicine in the USA, 'Improving Diagnosis in Health Care ', concluded that most people will likely experience a diagnostic error in their lifetime. In this narrative review, we discuss the global significance, burden and contributory factors related to diagnostic errors in primary care. We synthesize available literature to discuss the types of presenting symptoms and conditions most commonly affected. We then summarize interventions based on available data and suggest next steps to reduce the global burden of diagnostic errors. Research suggests that we are unlikely to find a 'magic bullet' and confirms the need for a multifaceted approach to understand and address the many systems and cognitive issues involved in diagnostic error. Because errors involve many common conditions and are prevalent across all countries, the WHO's leadership at a global level will be instrumental to address the problem. Based on our review, we recommend that the WHO consider bringing together primary care leaders, practicing frontline clinicians, safety experts, policymakers, the health IT community, medical education and accreditation organizations, researchers from multiple disciplines, patient advocates, and funding bodies among others, to address the many common challenges and opportunities to reduce diagnostic error. This could lead to prioritization of practice changes needed to improve primary care as well as setting research priorities for intervention development to reduce diagnostic error. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

The global health concept of the German government: strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.

PubMed

Bozorgmehr, Kayvan; Bruchhausen, Walter; Hein, Wolfgang; Knipper, Michael; Korte, Rolf; Razum, Oliver; Tinnemann, Peter

2014-01-01

Recognising global health as a rapidly emerging policy field, the German federal government recently released a national concept note for global health politics (July 10, 2013). As the German government could have a significant impact on health globally by making a coherent, evidence-informed, and long-term commitment in this field, we offer an initial appraisal of the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for development recognised in this document. We conclude that the national concept is an important first step towards the implementation of a coherent global health policy. However, important gaps were identified in the areas of intellectual property rights and access to medicines. In addition, global health determinants such as trade, economic crises, and liberalisation as well as European Union issues such as the health of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are not adequately addressed. Furthermore, little information is provided about the establishment of instruments to ensure an effective inter-ministerial cooperation. Finally, because implementation aspects for the national concept are critical for the success of this initiative, we call upon the newly elected 2013 German government to formulate a global health strategy, which includes a concrete plan of action, a time scale, and measurable goals.

The global health concept of the German government: strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities

PubMed Central

Bozorgmehr, Kayvan; Bruchhausen, Walter; Hein, Wolfgang; Knipper, Michael; Korte, Rolf; Razum, Oliver; Tinnemann, Peter

2014-01-01

Recognising global health as a rapidly emerging policy field, the German federal government recently released a national concept note for global health politics (July 10, 2013). As the German government could have a significant impact on health globally by making a coherent, evidence-informed, and long-term commitment in this field, we offer an initial appraisal of the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for development recognised in this document. We conclude that the national concept is an important first step towards the implementation of a coherent global health policy. However, important gaps were identified in the areas of intellectual property rights and access to medicines. In addition, global health determinants such as trade, economic crises, and liberalisation as well as European Union issues such as the health of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are not adequately addressed. Furthermore, little information is provided about the establishment of instruments to ensure an effective inter-ministerial cooperation. Finally, because implementation aspects for the national concept are critical for the success of this initiative, we call upon the newly elected 2013 German government to formulate a global health strategy, which includes a concrete plan of action, a time scale, and measurable goals. PMID:24560258

The future of energy security in the 21st Century

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gupta, Rajan

2006-10-01

Energy is essential for modern life and is a critical resource that we take for granted. Economies and security of nations depend on reliable and cost-effective access. As the world transitions from conventional oil and natural gas to nuclear, renewables, and unconventional sources we are increasingly confronted by many unsettling questions. Will there be enough cheap oil and gas for preserve the standard of living in the developed world and allow the industrializing world to develop? Will renewable sources provide a significant fraction of our energy needs in the near future? Is global warming already happening as a result of our consumption of fossil fuels? If there is a resource crunch before new sources come on line, will there be conflict or global cooperation? This talk will attempt to answer these questions by examining the global oil and gas resources, geopolitics, and key science and technology issues that need to be addressed by the global community with cooperation and a sense of urgency.

Energy supplies and future engines for land, sea, and air.

PubMed

Hidy, George M; Chow, Judith C; England, Glen C; Legge, Alan H; Lloyd, Alan C; Watson, John G

2012-11-01

The 2012 Critical Review Discussion complements Wilson, (2012), provides pointers to more detailed treatments of different topics and adds additional dimensions to the area of "energy". These include broader aspects of technologies driven by fuel resources and environmental issues, the concept of energy technology innovation, evolution in transportation resources, and complexities of energy policies addressing carbon taxes or carbon trading. National and global energy data bases are identified and evaluated and conversion factors are given to allow their comparability.

Science for the changing Great Basin

USGS Publications Warehouse

Beever, Erik; Pyke, David A.

2004-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with its multidisciplinary structure and role as a federal science organization, is well suited to provide integrated science in the Great Basin of the western United States. A research strategy developed by the USGS and collaborating partners addresses critical management issues in the basin, including invasive species, status and trends of wildlife populations and communities, wildfire, global climate change, and riparian and wetland habitats. Information obtained through implementation of this strategy will be important for decision-making by natural-resource managers.

Blue Marble Space Institute essay contest

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wendel, JoAnna

2014-04-01

The Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, based in Seattle, Wash., is inviting college students to participate in its essay contest. Essays need to address the question, "In the next 100 years, how can human civilization prepare for the long-term changes to the Earth system that will occur over the coming millennium?" According to the institute, the purpose of the contest is "to stimulate creative thinking relating to space exploration and global issues by exploring how changes in the Earth system will affect humanity's future."

Matching safety to access: global actors and pharmacogovernance in Kenya- a case study.

PubMed

Moscou, Kathy; Kohler, Jillian C

2017-03-23

The Kenyan government has sought to address inadequacies in its National Pharmaceutical Policy and the Pharmacy and Poisons Board's (PPB) medicines governance by engaging with global actors (e.g. the World Health Organization). Policy actors have influenced the way pharmacovigilance is defined, how challenges are understood and which norms are requisite to address drug safety issues. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between specific modes of engagement among global (exogenous) and domestic actors at the national and sub-national level to identify the positive or negative effect on pharmacovigilance and pharmacogovernance in Kenya. Pharmacogovernance is defined as the manner in which governing structures; policy instruments; institutional authority (e.g., ability to act, implement and enforce norms, policies and processes) and resources are managed to promote societal interests for patient safety and protection from adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Qualitative research methods that included key informant interviews and document analysis, were employed to investigate the relationship between global actors' patterns of engagement with national actors and pharmacogovernance in Kenya. Global actors' influence on pharmacogovernance and pharmacovigilance priorities in Kenya (e.g., legislation and adverse drug reaction surveillance) was positively perceived by key informants. We found that global actors' engagement with state actors produced positive and negative outcomes. Engagement with the PPB and Ministry of Health (MOH) that was characterized as dependent (advocacy, empowerment, delegated) or interdependent (collaborative, cooperative, consultative) was mostly associated with positive outcomes e.g., capacity building; strengthening legislation and stakeholder coordination. Fragmentation (independent engagement) hindered risk communication between public, private, and NGO health programs. A framework for assessing pharmacogovernance would support policy makers' evidence-based decision making regarding investments to strengthen capacity for pharmacovigilance and guide policies regarding the state and exogenous actor relationship pertaining to pharmacogovernance. Ideally, dependency on exogenous actors should be reduced while retaining consultative, collaborative, and cooperative engagement when inter-dependency is appropriate. The use of global actors to address Kenya's pharmacovigilance inadequacies leaves the country vulnerable to 1) ad hoc drug surveillance; 2) pharmacovigilance fragmentation; 3) shifting priorities; and 4) cross purpose interests.

Relative arrival-time upper-mantle tomography and the elusive background mean

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bastow, Ian D.

2012-08-01

The interpretation of seismic tomographic images of upper-mantle seismic wave speed structure is often a matter of considerable debate because the observations can usually be explained by a range of hypotheses, including variable temperature, composition, anisotropy, and the presence of partial melt. An additional problem, often overlooked in tomographic studies using relative as opposed to absolute arrival-times, is the issue of the resulting velocity model's zero mean. In shield areas, for example, relative arrival-time analysis strips off a background mean velocity structure that is markedly fast compared to the global average. Conversely, in active areas, the background mean is often markedly slow compared to the global average. Appreciation of this issue is vital when interpreting seismic tomographic images: 'high' and 'low' velocity anomalies should not necessarily be interpreted, respectively, as 'fast' and 'slow' compared to 'normal mantle'. This issue has been discussed in the seismological literature in detail over the years, yet subsequent tomography studies have still fallen into the trap of mis-interpreting their velocity models. I highlight here some recent examples of this and provide a simple strategy to address the problem using constraints from a recent global tomographic model, and insights from catalogues of absolute traveltime anomalies. Consultation of such absolute measures of seismic wave speed should be routine during regional tomographic studies, if only for the benefit of the broader Earth Science community, who readily follow the red = hot and slow, blue = cold and fast rule of thumb when interpreting the images for themselves.

Human rights-based approach to unintentional injury prevention.

PubMed

MacKay, J Morag; Ryan, Mark Andrew

2018-06-01

Unintentional injury remains an important global public health issue, and efforts to address it are often hampered by a lack of visibility, leadership, funding, infrastructure, capacity and evidence of effective solutions. The growing support for a socioecological model and a systems approach to prevention-along with the acknowledgement that injury prevention can be a byproduct of salutogenic design and activities-has increased opportunities to integrate unintentional injury prevention into other health promotion and disease prevention agendas. It has also helped to integrate it into the broader human development agenda through the Sustainable Development Goals. This growing support provides new opportunities to use a human rights-based approach to address the issue. The human rights-based approach is based on the idea that all members of society have social, economic and cultural rights and that governments are responsible and accountable for upholding those rights. It incorporates a systems approach, addresses inequity and places an emphasis on the most vulnerable corners of humanity. It also leverages legal statutes and provides organisations with the opportunity to build existing international goals and benchmarks into their monitoring efforts. This paper describes the approach and highlights how it can leverage attention and investment to address current challenges for unintentional injury. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Regional Seminars to Address Current Nuclear Export Control Issues

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Killinger, Mark H.

2002-07-01

The control of nuclear-related exports, a critical component of the nonproliferation regime, is facing several opportunities and challenges. As countries sign and ratify the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards Additional Protocol (AP), they will begin to report far more export information, including exports of a list of items similar to the Nuclear Supplier Group's Trigger List that existed when the AP was developed in the mid-1990s. This positive development contrasts with challenges such as globalization, transshipments, and tracking of end-uses. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is proposing that the US Department of Energy (DOE) develop regional seminars that address thesemore » types of issues related to export/import controls. The DOE seminars would be designed to supplement regional seminars sponsored by the IAEA and member states on topics related to the Additional Protocol (referred to as "IAEA seminars"). The topic of nuclear export/import controls is not thoroughly addressed in the IAEA seminars. The proposed DOE seminars would therefore have two objectives: familiarizing countries with the export/import provisions of the Additional Protocol, and addressing challenges such as those noted above. The seminars would be directed particularly at countries that have not ratified the AP, and at regions where export-related problems are particularly prevalent. The intent is to encourage governments to implement more effective nuclear export control systems that meet the challenges of the 21st century.« less

Global water fluoridation: what is holding us back?

PubMed

Botchey, Sally-Ann; Ouyang, Jing; Vivekanantham, Sayinthen

2015-01-01

Artificial water fluoridation was introduced more than 60 y ago as a public health intervention to control dental caries. Despite wide recommendations for its use from the World Health Organization (WHO) and studies showing the benefits of water fluoridation, many countries have opted out. Currently, only 25 countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia have schemes for artificial water fluoridation. The issues faced in efforts to promote the global uptake of water fluoridation and the factors that affect the decision to implement it are unique in both developed and developing countries and must be explored. This article addresses the benefits and challenges of artificial water fluoridation. Further, it tackles the complexities faced with uptake of water fluoridation globally, such as ethical and political controversies and the use of alternative fluoride therapies. Potential future strategies to encourage the uptake of artificial water fluoridation are also discussed.

Cardiovascular health in the Americas: facts, priorities and the UN high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases.

PubMed

Ordúñez, Pedro

2011-10-01

Population aging, smoking, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity, in the context of globalization and unregulated urbanization, explain the high prevalences of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes in the Americas, making cardiovascular diseases the main cause of death. Moreover, cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors disproportionately affect the poorest people, obstructing antipoverty efforts and further deepening health and other inequities. The global crisis of chronic non-communicable diseases has reached such proportions that the UN General Assembly called a high-level meeting in September 2011 to address the issue as one of human development, aiming to stimulate political commitment to a concerted global effort to stem the pandemic. In reference to the Americas, this article reviews the burden of cardiovascular diseases and describes priorities for strategies and action in the region and their relation to the results of the UN meeting.

Global Optimization Ensemble Model for Classification Methods

PubMed Central

Anwar, Hina; Qamar, Usman; Muzaffar Qureshi, Abdul Wahab

2014-01-01

Supervised learning is the process of data mining for deducing rules from training datasets. A broad array of supervised learning algorithms exists, every one of them with its own advantages and drawbacks. There are some basic issues that affect the accuracy of classifier while solving a supervised learning problem, like bias-variance tradeoff, dimensionality of input space, and noise in the input data space. All these problems affect the accuracy of classifier and are the reason that there is no global optimal method for classification. There is not any generalized improvement method that can increase the accuracy of any classifier while addressing all the problems stated above. This paper proposes a global optimization ensemble model for classification methods (GMC) that can improve the overall accuracy for supervised learning problems. The experimental results on various public datasets showed that the proposed model improved the accuracy of the classification models from 1% to 30% depending upon the algorithm complexity. PMID:24883382

The Global Drivers of Photosynthesis and Light Use Efficiency Seasonality: A Granger Frequency Causality Analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nemani, Ramakrishna R.

2016-01-01

Photosynthesis and light use efficiency (LUE) are major factors in the evolution of the continental carbon cycle due to their contribution to gross primary production (GPP). However, while the drivers of photosynthesis and LUE on a plant or canopy scale can often be identified, significant uncertainties exist when modeling these on a global scale. This is due to sparse observations in regions such as the tropics and the lack of a direct global observation dataset. Although others have attempted to address this issue using correlations (Beer, 2010) or calculating GPP from vegetation indices (Running, 2004), in this study we take a new approach. We combine the statistical method of Granger frequency causality and partial Granger frequency causality with remote sensing data products (including sun-induced fluorescence used as a proxy for GPP) to determine the main environmental drivers of GPP across the globe.

2017 White Paper on recent issues in bioanalysis: a global perspective on immunogenicity guidelines & biomarker assay performance (Part 3 - LBA: immunogenicity, biomarkers and PK assays).

PubMed

Gupta, Shalini; Richards, Susan; Amaravadi, Lakshmi; Piccoli, Steven; Desilva, Binodh; Pillutla, Renuka; Stevenson, Lauren; Mehta, Devangi; Carrasco-Triguero, Montserrat; Neely, Robert; Partridge, Michael; Staack, Roland F; Zhao, Xuemei; Gorovits, Boris; Kolaitis, Gerry; Sumner, Giane; Stubenrauch, Kay-Gunnar; Zou, Linglong; Amur, Shashi; Beaver, Chris; Berger, Isabella; Berisha, Flora; Birnboeck, Herbert; Bower, Joe; Cho, Seongeun Julia; Cludts, Isabelle; Cocea, Laurent; Donato, Lorella Di; Fischer, Saloumeh; Fraser, Stephanie; Garofolo, Fabio; Haidar, Sam; Haulenbeek, Jonathan; Hottenstein, Charles; Hu, Jenny; Ishii-Watabe, Akiko; Islam, Rafiq; Jani, Darshana; Kadavil, John; Kamerud, John; Kramer, Daniel; Kurki, Pekka; MacMannis, Stephen; McNally, Jim; Mullan, Ashley; Papadimitriou, Apollon; Pedras-Vasconcelos, João; Ray, Soma; Safavi, Afshin; Saito, Yoshiro; Savoie, Natasha; Fjording, Marianne Scheel; Scheibner, Kara; Smeraglia, John; Song, An; Stouffer, Bruce; Tampal, Nilufer; der Strate, Barry van; Verch, Thorsten; Welink, Jan; Xu, Yuanxin; Yang, Tong-Yuan; Yengi, Lilian; Zeng, Jianing; Zhang, Yan; Zhang, Yanhua; Zoog, Stephen

2017-12-01

The 2017 11th Workshop on Recent Issues in Bioanalysis took place in Los Angeles/Universal City, California, on 3-7 April 2017 with participation of close to 750 professionals from pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, contract research organizations and regulatory agencies worldwide. WRIB was once again a 5-day, week-long event - a full immersion week of bioanalysis, biomarkers and immunogenicity. As usual, it was specifically designed to facilitate sharing, reviewing, discussing and agreeing on approaches to address the most current issues of interest including both small- and large-molecule analysis involving LC-MS, hybrid ligand-binding assay (LBA)/LC-MS and LBA approaches. This 2017 White Paper encompasses recommendations emerging from the extensive discussions held during the workshop, and is aimed to provide the bioanalytical community with key information and practical solutions on topics and issues addressed, in an effort to enable advances in scientific excellence, improved quality and better regulatory compliance. Due to its length, the 2017 edition of this comprehensive White Paper has been divided into three parts for editorial reasons. This publication (Part 3) covers the recommendations for large-molecule bioanalysis, biomarkers and immunogenicity using LBA. Part 1 (LC-MS for small molecules, peptides and small molecule biomarkers) and Part 2 (hybrid LBA/LC-MS for biotherapeutics and regulatory agencies' inputs) are published in volume 9 of Bioanalysis, issues 22 and 23 (2017), respectively.

Linear control of oscillator and amplifier flows*

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmid, Peter J.; Sipp, Denis

2016-08-01

Linear control applied to fluid systems near an equilibrium point has important applications for many flows of industrial or fundamental interest. In this article we give an exposition of tools and approaches for the design of control strategies for globally stable or unstable flows. For unstable oscillator flows a feedback configuration and a model-based approach is proposed, while for stable noise-amplifier flows a feedforward setup and an approach based on system identification is advocated. Model reduction and robustness issues are addressed for the oscillator case; statistical learning techniques are emphasized for the amplifier case. Effective suppression of global and convective instabilities could be demonstrated for either case, even though the system-identification approach results in a superior robustness to off-design conditions.

Health policy and systems research in access to medicines: a prioritized agenda for low- and middle-income countries.

PubMed

Bigdeli, Maryam; Javadi, Dena; Hoebert, Joelle; Laing, Richard; Ranson, Kent

2013-10-14

To identify priority policy issues in access to medicines (ATM) relevant for low- and middle-income countries, to identify research questions that would help address these policy issues, and to prioritize these research questions in a health policy and systems research (HPSR) agenda. The study involved i) country- and regional-level priority-setting exercises performed in 17 countries across five regions, with a desk review of relevant grey and published literature combined with mapping and interviews of national and regional stakeholders; ii) interviews with global-level stakeholders; iii) a scoping of published literature; and iv) a consensus building exercise with global stakeholders which resulted in the formulation and ranking of HPSR questions in the field of ATM. A list of 18 priority policy issues was established following analysis of country-, regional-, and global-level exercises. Eighteen research questions were formulated during the global stakeholders' meeting and ranked according to four ranking criteria (innovation, impact on health and health systems, equity, and lack of research). The top three research questions were: i) In risk protection schemes, which innovations and policies improve equitable access to and appropriate use of medicines, sustainability of the insurance system, and financial impact on the insured? ii) How can stakeholders use the information available in the system, e.g., price, availability, quality, utilization, registration, procurement, in a transparent way towards improving access and use of medicines? and iii) How do policies and other interventions into private markets, such as information, subsidies, price controls, donation, regulatory mechanisms, promotion practices, etc., impact on access to and appropriate use of medicines? Our HPSR agenda adopts a health systems perspective and will guide relevant, innovative research, likely to bear an impact on health, health systems and equity.

MO-FG-BRB-04: Panel discussion [Global burden of cancer

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Van Dyk, J.

2015-06-15

The global burden of cancer is growing rapidly with an estimated 15 million new cases per year worldwide in 2015, growing to 19 million by 2025 and 24 million by 2035. The largest component of this growth will occur in low-to-middle income countries (LMICs). About half of these cases will require radiation treatment. The gap for available cancer treatment, including radiation therapy, between high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs is enormous. Accurate data and quantitative models to project the needs and the benefits of cancer treatment are a critical first step in closing the large cancer divide between LMICs and HICs.more » In this context, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) has developed a Global Task Force on Radiotherapy for Cancer Control (GTFRCC) with a charge to answer the question as to what it will take to close the gap between what exists today and reasonable access to radiation therapy globally by 2035 and what the potential clinical and economic benefits are for doing this. The Task Force has determined the projections of cancer incidence and the infrastructure required to provide access to radiation therapy globally. Furthermore it has shown that appropriate investment not only yields improved clinical outcomes for millions of patients but that it also provides an overall economic gain throughout all the income settings where this investment is made. This symposium will summarize the facets associated with this global cancer challenge by reviewing the cancer burden, looking at the requirements for radiation therapy, reviewing the benefits of providing such therapy both from a clinical and economic perspective and finally by looking at what approaches can be used to aid in the alleviation of this global cancer challenge. The speakers are world renowned experts in global public health issues (R. Atun), medical physics (D. Jaffray) and radiation oncology (N. Coleman). Learning Objectives: To describe the global cancer challenge and the corresponding potential benefits of addressing this challenge. To describe what radiation therapy infrastructure, in terms of facilities, equipment and personnel, will be required to address this challenge. To describe models of addressing personnel and infrastructure mobilization and capacity building within regions where significant cancer treatment disparities exist.« less

MO-FG-BRB-02: Uniform Access to Radiation Therapy by 2035: Global Task Force on Radiotherapy for Cancer Control

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jaffray, D.

The global burden of cancer is growing rapidly with an estimated 15 million new cases per year worldwide in 2015, growing to 19 million by 2025 and 24 million by 2035. The largest component of this growth will occur in low-to-middle income countries (LMICs). About half of these cases will require radiation treatment. The gap for available cancer treatment, including radiation therapy, between high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs is enormous. Accurate data and quantitative models to project the needs and the benefits of cancer treatment are a critical first step in closing the large cancer divide between LMICs and HICs.more » In this context, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) has developed a Global Task Force on Radiotherapy for Cancer Control (GTFRCC) with a charge to answer the question as to what it will take to close the gap between what exists today and reasonable access to radiation therapy globally by 2035 and what the potential clinical and economic benefits are for doing this. The Task Force has determined the projections of cancer incidence and the infrastructure required to provide access to radiation therapy globally. Furthermore it has shown that appropriate investment not only yields improved clinical outcomes for millions of patients but that it also provides an overall economic gain throughout all the income settings where this investment is made. This symposium will summarize the facets associated with this global cancer challenge by reviewing the cancer burden, looking at the requirements for radiation therapy, reviewing the benefits of providing such therapy both from a clinical and economic perspective and finally by looking at what approaches can be used to aid in the alleviation of this global cancer challenge. The speakers are world renowned experts in global public health issues (R. Atun), medical physics (D. Jaffray) and radiation oncology (N. Coleman). Learning Objectives: To describe the global cancer challenge and the corresponding potential benefits of addressing this challenge. To describe what radiation therapy infrastructure, in terms of facilities, equipment and personnel, will be required to address this challenge. To describe models of addressing personnel and infrastructure mobilization and capacity building within regions where significant cancer treatment disparities exist.« less

Customizing NASA's Earth Science Research Products for addressing MENA Water Challenges

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Habib, Shahid

2012-01-01

As projected by IPCC 2007 report, by the end of this century the Middle East North Mrica (MENA) region is projected to experience an increase of 3 C to 5 C rise in mean temperatures and a 20% decline in precipitation. This poses a serious problem for this geographic zone especially when majority of the hydrological consumption is for the agriculture sector and the remaining amount is for domestic consumption. In late 2011, the World Bank, USAID and NASA have joined hands to establishing integrated, modem, up to date NASA developed capabilities for various countries in the MENA region for addressing water resource issues and adapting to climate change impacts for improved decision making for societal benefits. The main focus of this undertaking is to address the most pressing societal issues which can be modeled and solved by utilizing NASA Earth Science remote sensing data products and hydrological models. The remote sensing data from space is one of the best ways to study such complex issues and further feed into the decision support systems. NASA's fleet of Earth Observing satellites offer a great vantage point from space to look at the globe and provide vital signs necessary to maintain healthy and sustainable ecosystem. NASA has over fifteen satellites and thirty instruments operating on these space borne platforms and generating over 2000 different science products on a daily basis. Some of these products are soil moisture, global precipitation, aerosols, cloud cover, normalized difference vegetation index, land cover/use, ocean altimetry, ocean salinity, sea surface winds, sea surface temperature, ozone and atmospheric gasses, ice and snow measurements, and many more. All of the data products, models and research results are distributed via the Internet freely through out the world. This project will utilize several NASA models such as global Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) to generate hydrological states and fluxes in near real time. These LDAS products will then be further compared with other NASA satellite observations (MODIS, VIIRS, TRMM, etc.) and other discrete models to compare and optimize evapotranspiration, soil moisture and crop irrigation, drought assessment and water balance. The floods being a critical disaster in many of the MENA countries, NASA's global flood mapping and modeling framework (CREST) will be customized for country specific needs and delivered to the remote sensing organizations for their future use. Training is an important component under this activity and adequate level of training will be offered to build basic capacity to work with NASA provided data products, models for their future use. This paper provides a comprehensive introduction to NASA's Earth Science mission for understanding the behavior of our home Planet, projecting its health for future generations and applying research results solving societal issues.

Global land ice measurements from space (GLIMS): remote sensing and GIS investigations of the Earth's cryosphere

USGS Publications Warehouse

Bishop, Michael P.; Olsenholler, Jeffrey A.; Shroder, John F.; Barry, Roger G.; Rasup, Bruce H.; Bush, Andrew B. G.; Copland, Luke; Dwyer, John L.; Fountain, Andrew G.; Haeberli, Wilfried; Kääb, Andreas; Paul, Frank; Hall, Dorothy K.; Kargel, Jeffrey S.; Molnia, Bruce F.; Trabant, Dennis C.; Wessels, Rick L.

2004-01-01

Concerns over greenhouse‐gas forcing and global temperatures have initiated research into understanding climate forcing and associated Earth‐system responses. A significant component is the Earth's cryosphere, as glacier‐related, feedback mechanisms govern atmospheric, hydrospheric and lithospheric response. Predicting the human and natural dimensions of climate‐induced environmental change requires global, regional and local information about ice‐mass distribution, volumes, and fluctuations. The Global Land‐Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) project is specifically designed to produce and augment baseline information to facilitate glacier‐change studies. This requires addressing numerous issues, including the generation of topographic information, anisotropic‐reflectance correction of satellite imagery, data fusion and spatial analysis, and GIS‐based modeling. Field and satellite investigations indicate that many small glaciers and glaciers in temperate regions are downwasting and retreating, although detailed mapping and assessment are still required to ascertain regional and global patterns of ice‐mass variations. Such remote sensing/GIS studies, coupled with field investigations, are vital for producing baseline information on glacier changes, and improving our understanding of the complex linkages between atmospheric, lithospheric, and glaciological processes.

Anger and globalization among young people in India.

PubMed

Suchday, Sonia

2015-01-01

This article addresses the challenges faced by youth in developing countries. Using India as an example of a fast-globalizing country, this article highlights the experience and challenges faced by adolescents and emerging adults as they search for their interpersonal and professional identities. The difficulties of defining identity in the context of rapid globalization where people are exposed to diverse cultural forces that may conflict with each other are particularly salient when dealing with anger. Anger frequently results from thwarted wants and needs. In globalizing developing economies, young people often face inequitable access and opportunities that may be cause for distress-anger and depression. However, the skills to deal with anger are frequently culturally determined and may not be effective in situations where multiple cultural rules are operational. For example, India being a collectivist culture traditionally encourages the suppression of anger. However, situations and rules of conduct in a global economic order require the assertive expression of anger and the confrontation of conflict. Research that is methodologically and culturally appropriate is needed in exploring these issues and ameliorating distress associated with inequity, conflicts, and challenges. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Ecological network analysis on global virtual water trade.

PubMed

Yang, Zhifeng; Mao, Xufeng; Zhao, Xu; Chen, Bin

2012-02-07

Global water interdependencies are likely to increase with growing virtual water trade. To address the issues of the indirect effects of water trade through the global economic circulation, we use ecological network analysis (ENA) to shed insight into the complicated system interactions. A global model of virtual water flow among agriculture and livestock production trade in 1995-1999 is also built as the basis for network analysis. Control analysis is used to identify the quantitative control or dependency relations. The utility analysis provides more indicators for describing the mutual relationship between two regions/countries by imitating the interactions in the ecosystem and distinguishes the beneficiary and the contributor of virtual water trade system. Results show control and utility relations can well depict the mutual relation in trade system, and direct observable relations differ from integral ones with indirect interactions considered. This paper offers a new way to depict the interrelations between trade components and can serve as a meaningful start as we continue to use ENA in providing more valuable implications for freshwater study on a global scale.

Why a Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA)?

PubMed

Hempel, Gotthilf; Daler, Dag

2004-02-01

Why GIWA? Six years ago several people had their doubts as to whether a Global International Waters Assessment would be worth the money and effort. Nowadays, it is no longer necessary to justify the creation of GIWA. On the contrary, we will show how important it was that the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and UNEP, constituted GIWA. Countless water-related assessments focus on specific regions and/or specific issues. But GIWA is unique in its global and holistic policy-oriented approach applying a common methodology to address the major problems in all parts of the global hydrosphere. One major achievement of GIWA will be the GIWA publications which provide advice to GEF and other decision-making organizations. Further assets include the network of regional focal points and teams. GIWA encompasses marine, surface freshwater, and groundwater systems, following the flow of water from the sources in the mountains through the rivers and estuaries into the coastal waters and the shelf seas. GIWA studies the physical, chemical and biological properties of those waterbodies and living resources in relation to the human activities, combining ecological and socioeconomic considerations.

Mathematical Modelling of Plankton-Oxygen Dynamics Under the Climate Change.

PubMed

Sekerci, Yadigar; Petrovskii, Sergei

2015-12-01

Ocean dynamics is known to have a strong effect on the global climate change and on the composition of the atmosphere. In particular, it is estimated that about 70% of the atmospheric oxygen is produced in the oceans due to the photosynthetic activity of phytoplankton. However, the rate of oxygen production depends on water temperature and hence can be affected by the global warming. In this paper, we address this issue theoretically by considering a model of a coupled plankton-oxygen dynamics where the rate of oxygen production slowly changes with time to account for the ocean warming. We show that a sustainable oxygen production is only possible in an intermediate range of the production rate. If, in the course of time, the oxygen production rate becomes too low or too high, the system's dynamics changes abruptly, resulting in the oxygen depletion and plankton extinction. Our results indicate that the depletion of atmospheric oxygen on global scale (which, if happens, obviously can kill most of life on Earth) is another possible catastrophic consequence of the global warming, a global ecological disaster that has been overlooked.

Care ethics and the global practice of commercial surrogacy.

PubMed

Parks, Jennifer A

2010-09-01

This essay will focus on the moral issues relating to surrogacy in the global context, and will critique the liberal arguments that have been offered in support of it. Liberal arguments hold sway concerning reproductive arrangements made between commissioning couples from wealthy nations and the surrogates from socioeconomically weak backgrounds that they hire to do their reproductive labor. My argument in this paper is motivated by a concern for controlling harms by putting the practice of globalized commercial surrogacy into the context of care ethics. As I will argue, the unstable situations into which children of global surrogacy arrangements are born is symbolic of the crisis of care that the practice raises. Using the Baby Manji case as my touch point, I will suggest that liberalism cannot address the harms experienced by Manji and children like her who are created through the global practice of assisted reproductive technology. I will argue that, if commissioning couples consider their proposed surrogacy contracts from a care ethics point of view, they will begin to think relationally about their actions, considering the practice from an ethical lens, not just an economic or contractual one.

Factors affecting food security and contribution of modern technologies in food sustainability.

PubMed

Premanandh, Jagadeesan

2011-12-01

The concept of food insecurity is complex and goes beyond the simplistic idea of a country's inability to feed its population. The global food situation is redefined by many driving forces such as population growth, availability of arable lands, water resources, climate change and food availability, accessibility and loss. The combined effect of these factors has undeniably impacted global food production and security. This article reviews the key factors influencing global food insecurity and emphasises the need to adapt science-based technological innovations to address the issue. Although anticipated benefits of modern technologies suggest a level of food production that will sustain the global population, both political will and sufficient investments in modern agriculture are needed to alleviate the food crisis in developing countries. In this globalised era of the 21st century, many determinants of food security are trans-boundary and require multilateral agreements and actions for an effective solution. Food security and hunger alleviation on a global scale are within reach provided that technological innovations are accepted and implemented at all levels. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry.

Learning the Rhythm of the Seasons in the Face of Global Change: Phenological Research in the 21st Century

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morisette, Jeffrey T.; Richardson, Andrew D.; Knapp, Alan K.; Fisher, Jeremy I.; Graham, Eric A.; Abatzoglou, John; Wilson, Bruce E.; Breshears, David D.; Hanebry, Geoffrey M.; Hanes, Jonathan M.;

Assessment of acculturation in minority health research

PubMed Central

Fox, Molly; Thayer, Zaneta; Wadhwa, Pathik D.

2017-01-01

Acculturation represents an important construct in the context of health disparities. Although several studies have reported relationships between various aspects of acculturation and health in minority populations, crucial inconsistencies remain. One likely reason for these inconsistencies may relate to limitations in the conceptualization and operationalization of acculturation, particularly in the context of health research. The acculturation construct underwent major conceptual and operational change when it was adapted from anthropology to psychology, and we argue another major shift is now required for use of this construct in health research. Issues include determining whether acculturation measures should focus on an individual’s internal attitudes or overt behaviors; whether they should characterize cultural orientation status at a given point in time or change over time; whether measures should be culture-specific or more global in nature; how the issue of multiculturalism should be addressed; how measures can optimally incorporate multiple dimensions of acculturation; and whether proxy measures should be used. These issues are important in the context of health research because of their implications for determining the direct and indirect effects of cultural change on health-related biological and behavioral processes. We elaborate on and address each of these issues from a perspective that spans multiple disciplines across the biological and social sciences, and offer concrete recommendations with the ultimate goal of achieving a better understanding of the role of acculturation in minority health and health disparities. PMID:28135691

Design of a multisensor data fusion system for target detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thomopoulos, Stelios C.; Okello, Nickens N.; Kadar, Ivan; Lovas, Louis A.

1993-09-01

The objective of this paper is to discuss the issues that are involved in the design of a multisensor fusion system and provide a systematic analysis and synthesis methodology for the design of the fusion system. The system under consideration consists of multifrequency (similar) radar sensors. However, the fusion design must be flexible to accommodate additional dissimilar sensors such as IR, EO, ESM, and Ladar. The motivation for the system design is the proof of the fusion concept for enhancing the detectability of small targets in clutter. In the context of down-selecting the proper configuration for multisensor (similar and dissimilar, and centralized vs. distributed) data fusion, the issues of data modeling, fusion approaches, and fusion architectures need to be addressed for the particular application being considered. Although the study of different approaches may proceed in parallel, the interplay among them is crucial in selecting a fusion configuration for a given application. The natural sequence for addressing the three different issues is to begin from the data modeling, in order to determine the information content of the data. This information will dictate the appropriate fusion approach. This, in turn, will lead to a global fusion architecture. Both distributed and centralized fusion architectures are used to illustrate the design issues along with Monte-Carlo simulation performance comparison of a single sensor versus a multisensor centrally fused system.