Mitigating Epidemics through Mobile Micro-measures

Epidemics of infectious diseases are among the largest threats to the quality of life and the economic and social well-being of developing countries. The arsenal of measures against such epidemics is well-established, but costly and insufficient to mitigate their impact. In this paper, we argue that mobile technology adds a powerful weapon to this arsenal, because (a) mobile devices endow us with the unprecedented ability to measure and model the detailed behavioral patterns of the affected population, and (b) they enable the delivery of personalized behavioral recommendations to individuals in real time. We combine these two ideas and propose several strategies to generate such recommendations from mobility patterns. The goal of each strategy is a large reduction in infections, with a small impact on the normal course of daily life. We evaluate these strategies over the Orange D4D dataset and show the benefit of mobile micro-measures, even if only a fraction of the population participates. These preliminary results demonstrate the potential of mobile technology to complement other measures like vaccination and quarantines against disease epidemics.Comment: Presented at NetMob 2013, Bosto

Tackling post-harvest cereal losses in sub-Saharan Africa

Post-harvest loss reduction raises food availability without increasing the use of land, water and agricultural inputs. This article refers to the case of grain to show the hurdles that farmers have to clear in taking measures to reduce losses and suggests ways that post-harvest practitioners can target mitigating actions in sub-Saharan Africa

A Government Decision Model for Invasive Species: Choosing the Most Efficient Government Program for the Management of Livestock Diseases

The impact of invasive species has grown substantially in recent years as evident by the trends in government expenditures in response to outbreaks. In this paper, authors analyze advantages and disadvantages of current government compensation measures for invasive species. The conceptual models are built to describe the relationship between producers’ utility and the effect of adoption of different measures under different observability condition. As a case study, a survey is designed to analyze producer behavior in mitigating AI & END outbreaks.Agricultural and Food Policy, invasive species, indemnification programs, insurance programs, tiered indemnification,

Pacific Island food security: situation, challenges and opportunities

In recent years, there have been large and rapid increases in the prices of basic foods worldwide. Pacific island countries have not been isolated from the global food 'crisis'. This article shows that there are substantial differences in the impacts within and between Pacific island countries. To be effective and not counterproductive, policy and donor responses need to be tailored accordingly. This article recommends a combination of measures directed at mitigating the threats and empowering rural people to take advantage of the opportunities

Management of wolf and lynx conflicts with human interests

In many areas viable populations of large carnivores are political goals. One of the most important factors in order to achieve viable large carnivore populations is human tolerance for presence of large carnivores. Thus, management of large carnivore populations in multi use landscapes will involve mitigating conflicts with human interests. In order to mitigate conflicts in a effective way, managers need tools for predicting likelihood of large carnivore occurrence, knowledge on which conflicts are considered as most important by humans in different areas, and the most efficient ways of mitigating the experienced problems. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to some parts of this toolbox for large carnivore managers. A habitat suitability model, with density of roads and built up areas as the most important variables, classified 79% of Scandinavia outside the reindeer husbandry area as suitable wolf habitat. Human tolerance towards wolves was lowest inside wolf territories and slowly increased amongst residents living up to 200 km from the nearest wolf territory. Human tolerance towards wolves may however be affected by mitigation measures such as subsidising electric fences in order to reduce the risk of wolf depredation on livestock. Management actions as subsidies for pro active measures or predator control should be targeting specific areas or individuals in order to be effective. It is also important to use the “right” management actions at the right time. Therefore it is, among other things, important to know if a reported bold wolf is acting in a way that most wolves would not, given the same circumstances. Wolves moved away from an approaching human on average at a distance of about 100 m. Wind velocity and wind direction influenced the distance heavily and humans may come as close to wolves as 17 meters before the wolves become aware of the human and react

Measures aimed at mitigating pro cyclical effects of the Capital Requirements Framework: counter cyclical capital buffer proposals

As well as highlighting the importance of introducing counter cyclical capital buffers, this paper draws attention to the need for greater focus on “more forward looking provisions”, as well as provisions which are aimed at addressing losses and unforeseen problems attributed to “maturity transformation of short-term deposits into long term loans.” Whilst the need for forward looking provisioning has been echoed by some authorities on the literature, the paper also adds weight to the argument through its attempt to link such an argument to the ever increasing prominence assumed by liquidity risks – since liquidity also contributes to pro cyclicality. “The complex response of financial institutions to deteriorating market conditions - which to a large extent, is attributed to liquidity shortfalls which reflected on and off balance sheet maturity mismatches and excessive levels of leverage, has resulted in an increasingly important role for liquidity provided by central banks in the funding of bank balance sheets.” Owing to such increased importance of liquidity risks, this paper also attempts to highlight why the Basel Committee’s Counter Cyclical Buffer Proposal – a response to the recent financial crisis (which to a significant extent, focuses on banking sector capital requirements), should also take greater account of more forward looking provisions. In so doing, it draws attention to the importance of coupling forward looking provisions (as well as other measures) with counter cyclical charges and why this provides a better alternative to the mere introduction of counter cyclical capital charges.counter cyclical buffers; liquidity risks; pro cyclicality; capital; loan loss provisions; financial crises; bank; regulation

A structural model for mitigation measures of critical cost overrun factors in highway projects in sindh province

Construction industry plays a major role in improving the socio-economic growth of any country. However, this industry is facing a serious problem of cost overrun globally and particular in Pakistan. Rapid growth in the construction sector in Pakistan has been observed along with many challenges, especially in highway projects. The most critical issues in highway projects are the cost overrun and lack of their mitigation measures. Hence, the objective of this research is to determine the critical factors of cost overrun, its significant mitigation measures and to develop a structural model of significant mitigation measures for critical cost overrun factors. The preliminary survey helped in identifying the critical factors of cost overrun in highway projects. In total, 64 common factors for cost overrun were identified from the literature review. Based on the common factors, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among the 30 selected experts to determine the critical factors of cost overrun. Out of 64 common factors, 24 were reported critical. The pilot study was carried out by developing a semi-structured questionnaire which was distributed among the same 30 construction experts for the purpose of determining the mitigation measures, which resulted in 113 measures. These mitigation measures along with the relevant 24 factors helped in the development of the final questionnaire to further narrow down the significant measures. This finalized questionnaire was distributed among 350 construction experts of highway projects to identify the significant mitigation measures for critical factors of cost overrun. The collected data was further used to develop a structural model for mitigation measures of critical factors of cost overrun by Smart PLS. Performance of the model has moderate explaining power as the predictive relevancy value is greater than 0.13. Significant mitigation measures of these critical factors were determined from the power loading of mitigations measures. This research would be helpful for construction managers in mitigating the relative risk to the project. Thus, it will directly benefit the construction community and contribute in raising the economy of the country