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Wildlife is an essential component of biodiversity and provides people with multiple social and economic benefits. However, a resurgence of epidemics over the past two decades has highlighted wildlife's role as a potential source of dangerous pathogens for humans and livestock, with devastating consequences worldwide. Simultaneously, numerous reports have indicated that wildlife populations are declining at an alarming rate due to human and livestock pathogens, predation, and competition. An integrated approach to managing wildlife, human, and domestic animal health is therefore clearly needed. Yet this integration often fails to materialize due to a lack of wildlife health standards and know-how. Here, we present an operational framework that follows a step-by-step approach: i) a holistic definition of human health is adapted to the context of other-than-human animals, including wildlife; then, ii) different categories of wildlife living within a landscape or a country are defined based on the management systems under which they live. For each wildlife category, the type (natural vs. anthropogenic) of habitat, the nature of the interface of wildlife with humans and/or livestock, and the level of sanitary control are defined; and finally, iii) the holistic definition of wildlife health is considered in relation to each wildlife category to define health challenges and the domains of expertise required to address them. This framework can assist national and international agencies, including veterinary and wildlife authorities and policy makers, in defining wildlife health priorities, responsibilities, policies and capacity building strategies. The extensive interdisciplinary collaboration needed to manage the many different aspects of wildlife health calls for a more integrated One Health approach.

BACKGROUND. Cassava is an important crop for the survival of smallholder farmers in Cameroon. However, the cassava sector has a low production per unit area compared to the technological potential in this country. In this context, breeders have developed varieties based mainly on their potential in terms of yield and disease resistance. These varieties have been widely disseminated in Cameroon within the framework of development projects. However, these releases have not achieved the expected adoption and yield levels at the national level. Therefore, it appears important to rethink the determinants of dissemination with a broader examination of the cassava production system. RESULTS. This paper analyses varietal complementarity as a key strategy in support of optimizing the experimental and continuous use of cassava varieties by farmers in the Central and Eastern regions of Cameroon. These two regions account for 50% of the country's production. A total of 111 semi-structured interviews were conducted with farmers selected through purposive sampling in four villages in Central and Eastern Cameroon where improved varieties have been disseminated. The research revealed four types of complementarity, related to use, crop management, risk management and cultural complementarity. CONCLUSION. Our results argue for considering varietal complementarities practiced by farmers, within research and development programs to develop more effective breeding and dissemination approaches. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

The pig sector in Corsica is based by a wide range of farming systems, mainly characterized on traditional extensive practices, which favor contacts between domestic and wild individuals. These contacts are suspected to influence the maintenance and the transmission of shared infectious diseases between both populations. Therefore, it is important to develop methods that allow to understand and anticipate their occurrence. Modeling these interactions requires accurate data on the presence, location and use of land on pig farms and farming practices, but such data are often unavailable, incomplete or outdated. In this study, we suggest a method to collect and analyze pig farming information that combines approaches from social sciences and epidemiology and enables a spatial representation of an index of potential interaction (IPI) between wild and domestic pigs at municipality level in the Corsican territory. As a first step of the process, interviews were conducted to gather information from 103 pig farms. Then, using hierarchical clustering, we identified five different clusters of pig farming practices which were evaluated and validated by local experts using participatory tools. The five pig farming clusters with their respective estimated levels of direct and indirect interactions with wild boars were combined in a linear equation with pig density to estimate a hypothetical index of potential interaction (IPI) in 155 municipalities. Our results revealed the diversity of pig farming practices across the island of Corsica and pointed out potential hotspots of interaction. Our method proved to be an effective way to collect and update information on the presence and typology of pig farms which has the potential to update official livestock production statistics. The spatial representation of an IPI between wild boars and domestic pigs in the Corsican territory could help design regional disease management strategies and policies to improve the control of certain sh

In response to high population density, the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria, becomes gregarious and forms swarms that can cause significant damage to crops and pastures, threatening food security of human populations from western Africa to India. This switch from solitary to gregarious populations is highly dependent on favorable weather conditions. Climate change, which has been hypothesized to shift conditions towards increasing risks of gregarization, is therefore likely to have significant impacts on the spatial distribution and likelihood of outbreak events. However, the desert locust is intensely managed at large scales, which possibly counteracts any increased risk of outbreaks due to a more favorable climate. Consequently, understanding the changes in risks in the future involves teasing out the effects of climate change and management actions. Here we studied the dynamics of gregarization at the very early stages of potential outbreaks, in parallel with trends in climate and management, between 1985 and 2018 in western Africa. We used three different spatial scales, with the goal to have a better understanding of the potential effects of climate change per se while controlling for management. Our first approach was to look at a regional scale, where we observed an overall decrease in gregarization events. However, this scale includes very heterogeneous environments and management efforts. To consider this heterogeneity, we divided the area into a grid of 0.5° cells. For each cell, a climate analysis was performed for rainfall and temperature, with trends obtained by a harmonic decomposition model on monthly data. Analyses of gregarization showed only a few significant trends, both positive and negative, mainly found in western Mauritania where management effort has increased. To improve the statistical power, these cells were then grouped into larger homogeneous climatic clusters, i.e. groups of cells with similar climatic conditions and similar climat

Russian resource developers operating in the remote parts of the Arctic have demonstrated during the past several years that it is feasible to extract natural resources throughout the year, and ship large quantities of raw materials with regular intervals from the Arctic to international markets. This is despite very difficult operational conditions in the Arctic during both winter and spring. Several resource extraction projects are being implemented or planned. This study examines how the extractive companies have build-up enhanced supply chain resilience and transport reliability to mitigate common Arctic risks. The companies have taking control over their supply chains and adopted several precautionary and innovative infrastructure and logistics measures designed to prevent or mitigate disruption to their supply chains. Preferred logistical solutions for all extraction projects developed into large package deals, where long-term production and transport arrangements of commodities, icebreaking services, and state support were all included. Western sanctions on Russia as the result of the war in Ukraine, will slow down the pace of future Russian projects in the Arctic, at least in the short to medium-term. But the sanctions are likely to increase the future significance of export terminals on the NSR, as the preferred departure points for Russian Arctic commodities on their way to selective market destinations.

In Madagascar, rabies is a significant public health challenge. However, due to the underreporting of many cases and a lack of awareness about post-exposure prophylaxis, the number of rabies cases is likely underestimated. To address this issue, focus groups were conducted following successive awareness- raising sessions about rabies. The main aim of this study was to gain insight into how communities perceive the global goal of eliminating rabies-related human fatalities by 2030. This understanding would help identify effective strategies for addressing the problem. As part of these focus groups, a video in the local language (Malagasy) was presented to all participants, explaining key information about rabies, including its symptoms and what to do in case of animal bites. This video allowed participants to share their own experiences, express their perspectives on rabies surveillance, and suggest practical actions to achieve zero human deaths from rabies by 2030, within their communities. The suggested actions can be summarized into themes (topics), which include improving access to medical care, educating relevant stakeholders, managing the local dog population, fostering collaboration among different stakeholders, reducing the number of stray dogs, implementing vaccination programs, enacting and enforcing relevant laws and regulations, managing dog bites and rabies cases, allocating and utilizing financial resources effectively, and examining local customs. The discussions typically framed these themes in terms of existing deficiencies or inadequacies. According to the insights gathered from these community-driven discussions, activities such as stakeholder education, awareness campaigns, and training should start promptly and continue over a long-term period. In this perspective on tackle rabies, issues related to financial resources were viewed as having a cross-cutting nature, offering potential solutions for short, medium, and long-term challenges. This stud

Land artificialization is a serious problem of civilization. Urban planning and natural risk management are aimed to improve it. In France, these practices operate the Local Land Plans (PLU – Plan Local d'Urbanisme) and the Natural risk prevention plans (PPRn – Plan de Prévention des Risques naturels) containing land use rules. To facilitate automatic extraction of the rules, we manually annotated a number of those documents concerning Montpellier, a rapidly evolving agglomeration exposed to natural risks. We defined a format for labeled examples in which each entry includes title and subtitle. In addition, we proposed a hierarchical representation of class labels to generalize the use of our corpus. Our corpus, consisting of 1934 textual segments, each of which labeled by one of the 4 classes (Verifiable, Non-verifiable, Informative and Not pertinent) is the first corpus in the French language in the fields of urban planning and natural risk management. Along with presenting the corpus, we tested a state-of-the-art approach for text classification to demonstrate its usability for automatic rule extraction.

Ticks are amongst the most important zoonotic disease vectors affecting human and animal health worldwide. Tick-borne diseases (TBDs) are rapidly expanding geographically and in incidence, most notably in temperate regions of Europe where ticks are considered the principal zoonotic vector of Public Health relevance, as well as a major health and economic preoccupation in agriculture and equine industries. Tick-borne pathogen (TBP) transmission is contingent on complex, interlinked vector-pathogen-host dynamics, environmental and ecological conditions and human behavior. Tackling TBD therefore requires a better understanding of the interconnected social and ecological variables (i.e., the social-ecological system) that favor disease (re)-emergence. The One Health paradigm recognizes the interdependence of human, animal and environmental health and proposes an integrated approach to manage TBD. However, One Health interventions are limited by significant gaps in our understanding of the complex, systemic nature of TBD risk, in addition to a lack of effective, universally accepted and environmentally conscious tick control measures. Today individual prevention gestures are the most effective strategy to manage TBDs in humans and animals, making local communities important actors in TBD detection, prevention and management. Yet, how they engage and collaborate within a multi-actor TBD network has not yet been explored. Here, we argue that transdisciplinary collaborations that go beyond research, political and medical stakeholders, and extend to local community actors can aid in identifying relevant social-ecological risk indicators key for informing multi-level TBD detection, prevention and management measures. This article proposes a transdisciplinary social-ecological systems framework, based on participatory research approaches, to better understand the necessary conditions for local actor engagement to improve TBD risk. We conclude with perspectives for implementing

Locusts are among the most feared agricultural pests. Spatiotemporal forecasting is a key process in their management. The present review aims to 1) set a common language on the subject, 2) evaluate the current methodologies, and 3) identify opportunities to improve forecasting tools. Forecasts can be used to provide reliable predictions on locust presence, reproduction events, gregarization areas, population outbreaks, and potential impacts on agriculture. Statistical approaches are used for the first four objectives, whereas mechanistic approaches are used for the latter. We advocate 1) to build reliable and reproducible spatiotemporal forecasting systems for the impacts on agriculture, 2) to turn scientific studies into operational forecasting systems, and 3) to evaluate the performance of these systems.

Disease emergence in livestock is a product of environment, epidemiology and economic forces. The environmental factors contributing to novel pathogen emergence in humans have been studied extensively, but the two-way relationship between farm microeconomics and outbreak risk has received comparably little attention. We introduce a game-theoretic model where farmers produce and sell two goods, one of which (e.g. pigs, poultry) is susceptible to infection by a pathogen. We model market and epidemiological effects at both the individual farm level and the community level. We find that in the case of low demand elasticity for livestock meat, the presence of an animal pathogen causing production losses can lead to a bistable system where two outcomes are possible: (i) successful disease control or (ii) maintained disease circulation, where farmers slaughter their animals at a low rate, face substantial production losses, but maintain large herds because of the appeal of high meat prices. Our observations point to the potentially critical effect of price elasticity of demand for livestock products on the success or failure of livestock disease control policies. We show the potential epidemiological benefits of (i) policies aimed at stabilizing livestock product prices, (ii) subsidies for alternative agricultural activities during epidemics, and (iii) diversifying agricultural production and sources of proteins available to consumers.

Human pressure on the environment is increasing the frequency, diversity, and spatial extent of disease outbreaks. Despite international recognition, the interconnection between the health of the environment, animals, and humans has been historically overlooked. Past and current initiatives have often neglected prevention under the One Health preparedness cycle, largely focusing on post-spillover stages. We argue that pandemic prevention initiatives have yet to produce actionable targets and indicators, connected to overarching goals, like it has been done for biodiversity loss and climate change. We show how the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework, already employed by the Convention on Biological Diversity, can be repurposed to operationalize pandemic prevention. Global responses for pandemic prevention should strive for complementarity and synergies among initiatives, better articulating prevention under One Health. Without agreed-upon goals underpinning specific targets and interventions, current global efforts are unlikely to function at the speed and scale necessary to decrease the risk of disease outbreaks that might lead to pandemics. Threats to the environment are not always abatable, but decreasing the likelihood that environmental pressure leads to pandemics, and developing strategies to mitigate these impacts, are both attainable goals.

La conduite automobile constitue une activité qui requiert un haut niveau de compréhension et une capacité d’improvisation que seul l’humain arrive à atteindre. Depuis l’essor de l’intelligence artificielle, la recherche sur la planification de la conduite par la machine produit des résultats intéressants. Cette recherche décompose le problème de la planification en 3 modules, soit la planification de mission, la prise de décisions et la planification locale. La solution proposée répond aux sous problèmes des deux derniers blocs. On propose une approche déterministe pour la prise de décision basée sur un automate fini, ou finite state machine (FSM), pour identifier les états desquels découlent les comportements et on utilise une technique basée sur l’optimisation pour déterminer la forme des chemins locaux que le planificateur local doit produire. On ajoute un système d’abstraction de la scène pour que le FSM puisse prendre des décisions logiques et on ajoute un horizon de prédiction pour évaluer le risque que les obstacles représentent. Les métriques du risque utilisées sont le temps avant collision (Time-To-Collision, TTC), une probabilité de collision (CP) qui se mesure depuis les obstacles dans les voies adjacentes dans le cas où l’ego véhicule déciderait de changer de voie. Le problème global est segmenté en scénarios et l’objectif consiste à vérifier que la solution proposée performe adéquatement dans le maximum de scénarios possible. On segmente donc les résultats en scénarios. Parmi les scénarios à valider, on obtient des résultats pour le suivi de voie, pour le feu de circulation, pour le virage à une intersection et pour le changement de voie. Les simulations sont effectuées sur le simulateur Carla. Quelques scénarios ont été validés où l’autopilote de Carla contrôlait le véhicule et où le planificateur devait prédire les comportements que l’autopilote adopte. Les simulations montrent que la solution proposée arrive à prédire exactement les comportements a

Le présent article introduit une évaluation du risque dans la planification des systèmes manufacturiers, impliquant différents acteurs travaillant séquentiellement pour réaliser un produit. Nous considérons ici un environnement dynamique virtuel, où différentes firmes soumissionnent pour des taches précises. L’approche traditionnelle est d’assigner des firmes à des taches pour minimiser les coûts d’utilisation de la chaîne. Cette approche néglige ainsi la notion de fiabilité et de risque. L’objectif de cet article est de proposer une façon d’incorporer la notion de risque au processus de planification de la chaîne. Nous avons identifié le risque comme une combinaison de trois principaux intrants, et nous l’évaluons grâce à une approche dérivée de la logique floue. Nous décrivons comment fonctionne notre programme, et comment le risque évalué est utilisé pour établir quelles firmes choisir afin d’optimiser le compromis coût-risque., This paper introduces elements of risk into supply-chain manufacturing systems that involve various actors acting sequentially to achieve an end-result. We consider a virtual dynamic environment, where different firms bid on sequential tasks. The traditional approach has been to assign tasks to firms, in order to realize production as cost-effective chains of activities. This approach neglects elements of risk, which we show how to incorporate. We have identified risk as a combination of three inputs, using a fuzzy logic approach. We show how a fuzzy controller can measure the risk involved in a supply-chain, which is constructed on an order-contract basis. We use this measure of risk to build a decision support environment that helps isolate alternative supply-chains that are potentially interesting from a cost perspective and compares them from a risk minimization stand point., 0

This article has three objectives: 1) identify the determinants of success that may affect new product development projects (NPD); (2) illustrate the impact of the types of risk on the success rate of NPD projects; and 3) make suggestions to better understand the issues and challenges faced by firms when they engage in projects of NPD. Its major contribution to the advancement of knowledge is twofold. Firstly, it incorporates the contributions of the three main trends of literature dedicated to the management of NPD: 1) research that is interested in the determinants of performance in the context of NPD projects management; 2) that which is related to the identification of the success and failure factors of the NPD projects; and 3) that which deals with the identification and management of risk in NPD projects. Secondly, this article considers, as its unit of analysis, SMEs that are rarely empirically studied in the literature on innovation management. The results of this study are based on a survey by questionnaire of 158 innovative manufacturing firms in the region of Quebec and Chaudière-Appalaches (Canada). They are based on the estimation of a model of binary logistic regression linking the propensity of SMEs to NPD failure, and several explanatory variables derived from these three streams of literature. The results of the estimation of this model showed that the propensity of SMEs to fail in their projects of NPD grows with the increase of the importance attached by firms to success factors related to human resources, to the match between clients and products, to the framework of the NPD project, and to organizational climate and support. However, this probability decreases with the increase of the importance attached by firms to success factors related to the escalation of commitment of the project leader and his team, to the risks related to the NPD projects including those related to the underestimation of resources and communication within the project tea

Background: Anthrax is a zoonotic disease that causes frequent outbreaks in livestock and fatal human cases in Burkina Faso. Effective surveillance of this disease calls for the establishment of an integrated surveillance system, in line with the One Health concept. However, despite a strong technical and financial support from international partners, surveillance is still poorly conducted within an integrated approach. Based on stakeholder perspectives, the study has for objective to deepen our understanding of the anthrax surveillance system and to identify the obstacles and levers towards a more integrated approach to anthrax surveillance in Burkina Faso. Methods: The data was collected from a literature review and interviews with surveillance stakeholders. We first conducted a qualitative descriptive analysis of the data to characterize the surveillance system (programmes, actors, collaboration). In a second step, we conducted a thematic analysis of the informants' discourse in order to identify what represents an obstacle or, conversely, a lever for a more integrated approach to anthrax surveillance. Results: The surveillance system of anthrax in Burkina Faso includes three programmes (in the livestock, wildlife and human sectors), which involves 30 actors. These sectoral programmes operate almost independently from one another, although some collaborations are existing for the governance and implementation of surveillance activities. Analysis of the discourse of key stakeholders led to the identification of four categories of factors that may influence the implementation of an integrated surveillance system in the country: knowledge; technical, organizational and social capacities; motivation; intersectoral governance. Conclusions: This study highlights the difficulty of translating One Health governance to the national level and the need to better articulate the visions of all categories of stakeholders. This study also reveals the need to develop specific ev

Background: Echinococcosis is a parasitic zoonotic disease that threatens human health and economic development. In China, 370 counties are endemic for echinococcosis. Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has the most patients and people at risk. Therefore, analyzing the societal factors related to susceptibility to the disease is critical for efficient prevention and control of echinococcosis. Methods: The demographic characteristics and lifestyle of echinococcosis cases were clustered using K-means cluster analysis to determine the main factors of risk of echinococcosis. Results: Middle-aged and young people as well as those with a low education level and herdsmen are at risk of contracting echinococcosis. Nomadism, domestic and feral dogs in the surrounding environment, and drinking heavily polluted natural surface water are the main behavioral risk factors. The cystic echinococcosis (CE) and alveolar echinococcosis (AE) cluster analysis focused on female, middle-aged, and young people, winter settlement and summer nomadism, and domestic and feral dogs in the surrounding environment. There were significant differences in lifestyle between Qinghai-Tibet Plateau cases and non-Qinghai-Tibet-Plateau cases. Conclusion: According to the distribution of cases and CE and AE, this study identified the factors of risk of echinococcosis in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and non-Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Adapted control techniques appropriate for the various epidemic areas should be established to serve as a reference for echinococcosis prevention.

Production of cereals (maize, sorghum, millet) in southern Mali is challenged by several hazards that affect yield and yield variability. The research aims to inform decision making towards effective risk management by quantifying cereal yield losses at field level due to production hazards under different management strategies. Five hazards relevant for farmers were analysed: late onset of rains, insufficient total rainfall, dry spells, low fertiliser quality and sudden lack of labour. The frequency and impact on yield of these hazards were assessed by combining a long term weather database (1965–2019) with outputs of the DSSAT crop model (baseline and optimised variety, fertiliser rates and sowing dates), and visualised in a risk matrix. The prevalence of the weather hazards was common, with all of them occurring at least once every five years. Frequency of non-weather hazards were perceived to occur once every five years (labour hazards) and once every ten years (fertiliser hazards). Under baseline conditions maize (3.39 t / ha) outperformed sorghum (1.74 t / ha) and millet (1.33 t / ha), except in cases of fertiliser hazard when sorghum yielded more than maize. Maize responded relatively well to N application, and sorghum performed relatively well without N application. The benefit of millet resided in low yield variability, and lower sensitivity to the weather hazards. Changing management to optimise yields generally involved early sowing (22 days, 2 days and 27 days after onset for maize, sorghum and millet), increased N applications (66 kg N / ha, 27 kg N / ha and 111 kg N / ha for maize, sorghum and millet), and using short duration varieties. For millet the long duration variety was more beneficial. For maize there was opportunity to increase the yield without affecting the risk of yield loss, while for sorghum there was a synergy and for millet a trade-off between yield and risk. The different interactions between hazards and management for the three cerea