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This paper enhances the agent model of ordinary individuals by incorporating the roles of places in the transmission, prevention, and control in the process, establishing a fundamental connection between these two types of agents through individual travel rules. The impact of real-world prevention and control measures on regional epidemic transmission is studied based on this model. Firstly, based on the analysis of place elements in typical cases of major infectious diseases, we give the classification of places. Secondly, the resident agent and the place agent are constructed and rules are established to form an agent-based major infectious disease transmission model considering the place. Then, the simulation process is established and an ideal regional environment is constructed to simulate overall changes in major infectious disease scale and spread speed. Additionally, evolutionary simulations are conducted for individual isolation intensity and place control time during emergency management stages to compare infection outcomes, and we analyze different roles and application scenarios of specific prevention and control measures. Finally, simulation results from real major infectious disease cases in Yangzhou, China, validate the effectiveness of this model in predicting major infectious disease development trends as well as evaluating prevention and control measure effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2016, UOW Library staff have been engaged in developing a culture of agility, strong digital literacy, and experimental exploration as part of the Future-Ready Library and the Thriving Digital Library strategies. This culture enabled the trial and implementation of a proactive chat widget at University of Wollongong Library prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative and quantitative data show how valuable proactive chat was to the students and staff at UOW during a period of high uncertainty. Pro-active chat achieved the goal of equitable provision of resources to library users at a time when visitor and travel rules restricted physical access to UOW Library buildings and on-site staff. The pandemic has been declared over, however, UOW Library continues to utilise proactive chat and to build upon and expand its functionality. The lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that to withstand and succeed in the face of continued change to the provision of services in the GLAM sector, the attributes of agility and flexibility as well as strong and ongoing growth in digital literacy skills are vital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moving Target Defense (MTD) is a security technique for Software Defined Networks (SDN) to change the attack surface constantly. Although MTD is an effective technique, it makes the digital forensics procedure challenging due to high transitions in the system state. There is an ever-increasing requirement for SDN forensics due to the increasing number of cyberattacks and the adoption of SDN by large-scale cloud service providers, telecommunication operators, and internet service providers. In this paper, we have proposed a digital forensics scheme for MTD-based SDN to record every movement of the MTD for collecting attack-related evidence, especially the attacker (attack source), to augment the forensics investigation. The proposed technique consists of a three-level logging mechanism. The first one is the native logging technique of ONOS. The second is a Java-based logging application called "Java ONOS Logs Collector (JOLC)", developed to capture MTD-based SDN logs. Lastly, we utilized the Fluentd unified logging tool to dig out evidential data from MTD logs. The experimental testbed comprises an ONOS SDN controller, Mininet, and an event-based MTD application running over SDN using JSON FlowRule scripts on the ONOS controller while using sflow-rt to detect the level of attack/number of packets sent by the attacker. The native ONOS logging mechanism provides initial-level artifacts. The developed JOLC application creates separate files for ONOS and Mininet/host machine logs stored with the current timestamp. Fluentd generates a single file for the SDN controller, Mininet, and host machine logs, along with the flow rule entry into the SDN controller. Experimental results confirmed that our proposed multi-level forensics technique successfully collected all the relevant records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced cooperative vehicle fleet technology has shown potential for improving safety and efficiency near freeway bottlenecks. This study focuses on resolution strategies for cooperative vehicle fleets for reducing rear-end collision risks near recurrent bottlenecks. Based on different vehicle types and time requirements and intentions, different resolution strategies are proposed to determine the travel rules and sequence of vehicle flows when a cooperative vehicle fleet needs to change its original fixed formation. Then, a series of experimental scenarios is designed by setting different vehicle types (conventional vehicles and connected and automated vehicles), requirements and intentions in different areas of multilane freeways. The experimental scenarios are simulated based on the MATLAB platform to test the proposed strategy. The results show that the proposed strategy can effectively reduce vehicle rear-end collisions, and the average cost savings of the conflict resolution process is 25.71%. The proposed strategies in this research provide autonomous resolutions for vehicle conflicts in different scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic records of a patient's health history are often shared among healthcare providers, and patient data must be kept secure to maintain the privacy of patients. One way of doing this is through data hiding, and this paper demonstrates a scheme to achieve this. This paper proposes a capacity-raising reversible data-hiding scheme using an empirical rules table in dual images. The aim of this research is to avoid drawing awareness to the transmission of information by providing a steganographic technique capable of embedding high-capacity data into an image while maintaining the good quality of the image. To hide the secret message(s), a rules table containing 13 entries is presented. This rules table is extendable to a table of up to 262,133 entries (with each entry containing one distinct character) that are related to the 13 entries in terms of the rules. The rules of this table are used during the embedding and extraction procedures. In the proposed method, 512 × 512 images are divided into 1 × 2 blocks where adjacent pixels are represented using x and y for both embedding and extraction, respectively. Recovery of the cover image from the stego image is also achievable during the extraction process. Conducted experiments show that the proposed method has an average pixel-to-signal noise ratio of 52.65 dB, which is higher than that achieved with the methods discussed in this paper. Additionally, the proposed method can embed a wider range of characters (depending on the image size) as compared to the rest of the methods, hence its high embedding capacity of 4.25 bpp. The proposed method can also withstand security attacks such as RS, pixel value difference, entropy, and chi-square attacks. The proposed method is also undetectable under visual attack analyses such as the difference histogram, pixel difference histogram, and visual inspection. Based on the higher embedding capacity, pixel-to-signal noise ratio, the ability of this method to be undetected under visual attack analysis, and the ability of this method to withstand security attacks, it can be concluded that the proposed method is superior to the other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High penetration of renewable energy in the power grid causes serious frequency deviations. Large-scale integrations of electric vehicles (EVs) in the power grid provide considerable vehicle-to-grid potential for frequency regulation. Existing frequency regulation strategies with aggregated EVs realize accurate power control that relies on complete information interaction between the EV aggregator and individual EVs. However, the data collection for all EV parameters is not applicable due to privacy protection and the limited communication environment. Considering the limited data collection from grid-connected EVs, this paper provides a novel frequency regulation strategy and tends to address the uncertain influence from EV users' charging requirements, the EV aggregator's power regulation, and the frequency regulation performance. Firstly, considering the influence of the limited data collection by EVs on the users' requirement of traveling and regulation preference, a probabilistic evaluation model for the available regulation capacity of the EV aggregator and the probabilistic control method for EVs are developed. Then, a frequency regulation strategy with error correction control and progressive regulation recovery is developed to simultaneously guarantee the system frequency regulation performance and the regulation requirements of EV users. Finally, case studies are carried out to validate the effectiveness of frequency regulation strategy for decreasing the uncertain influence from the limited data collection, ensuring the EV users' requirements, and improving the system frequency stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was undertaken to identify stakeholder needs and wants in relation to an Infant and Young Child Feeding, Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) strategy for the 16 Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states during Covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions. A rapid-assessment mixed-methods approach using qualitative and quantitative studies was adopted. Secondary data sources supported in-field findings. Setting/Subjects: Qualitative approaches included 17 key informant interviews from 7 SADC member states. Quantitative methods of an online survey elicited feedback from 61 participants from 11 SADC member states. Outcome measures: More strategic, best practice, infant and young child feeding SBCC programmes are recommended in SADC. Programme challenges included increased demands on health systems from Covid-19, poor attitudes and beliefs toward IYCF behaviours, the dual burden of undernutrition and overnutrition, and financial and human resource capacity challenges to implement and evaluate SBCC campaigns at scale. Opportunities were also identified for improved detection, better meeting IYCF nutritional needs from locally sourced foods, training and capacity building for greater engagement of front-line field staff, effective policy development to support parent-friendly hospitals and workplaces, and improved regional integration. The needs assessment demonstrated that priority programme planning can continue while the health sector deals with a pandemic threat. The adaptation to virtual support provided a variety of learnings for research designs, data collection and analysis, albeit over an extended timeframe of six months. A number of innovative approaches were identified in the resultant SBCC strategy for SADC along with opportunities for regional efficiencies in adapting existing, best practice SBCC creative and programming approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unprecedented spread of SARS-CoV-2 has pushed governmental bodies to undertake stringent actions like travel regulations, localized curfews, curb activity participation, etc. These restrictions assisted in controlling the proliferation of the virus; however, they severely affected major economies. This compels policymakers and planners to devise strategies that restrain virus spread as well as operationalize economic activities. In this context, we discuss some of the potential implications of seat inventory management in long-distance passenger trains and create a balance between operators' operational efficiency and passengers' safety. The paper introduces a novel seat assignment policy that aims to mitigate virus diffusion risk among passengers by reducing interaction among them. A mixed-integer linear programming problem has been formulated that concomitantly maximizes the operator's revenue and minimizes virus diffusion. The validity of the model has been tested using real-life data obtained from Indian Railways. The computational results show that a mere 50% capacity utilization may distress operators' economics and prove ineffectual in controlling SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The proposed model produces encouraging results in restricting virus diffusion and improving revenue even under 100% capacity utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) require all the header matching rules to be reported which is termed as multi-match packet classification. Ternary content-addressable memories (TCAMs) are the preferred choice for performing hardware-based multi-match packet classification in speed critical applications. However, TCAMs cannot deliver multi-match results directly due to in-built priority encoder. Prior research focused on this drawback and have come up with solutions for yielding multi-match results from the TCAMs. However, prior works have not laid enough emphasis on exploiting the structural properties of real-world NIDS header rule databases for optimizing the key TCAM parameters. In the first part of this work, the existing designs in the literature are classified based on the design approach, and the performance of all the designs is summarized with respect to crucial performance metrics. In the second part, a rule entry compression mechanism based on layered encoding is proposed, which can yield reduced TCAM entry size. The proposed compression approach makes use of the structural properties present in real-world Snort header rule databases. Assuming commercially available TCAM configurations, the proposed compression reduced the overall TCAM bits required for accommodating the classifier by 50 % . Simulation results showed that, by integrating the existing TCAM-based multi-match designs with the proposed compression, the improvement in the TCAM energy and delay per packet has, respectively, ranged between 46.23 - 35.16 % and 29.04 - 1.64 % when tested upon latest real-world Snort databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• International travel enables the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and its viral variants • The antigen test showed a sensitivity of 100% with respect to in vitro infectivity • An antigen test following quarantine effectively detects infectious travellers • Travel regulations rely heavily on test quality and compliance International travel poses the risk of importing SARS-CoV-2 infections and introducing new viral variants into the country of destination. Established measures include mandatory quarantine with the opportunity to abbreviate it with a negative rapid antigen test (RAT). A total of 1,488 returnees were tested for SARS-CoV-2 with both PCR and RAT no earlier than 5 days after arrival. We assessed the sensitivity and specificity of the RAT. Positive samples were evaluated for infectivity in vitro in a cell culture outgrowth assay. We tracked if participants who tested negative were reported positive within 2 weeks of the initial test. Potential infectiousness was determined based on symptom onset analysis, resulting in a sensitivity of the antigen test of 89% in terms of infectivity. The specificity was 100%. All positive outgrowth assays were preceded by a positive RAT, indicating that all participants with proven in vitro infectivity were correctly identified. None of the negative participants tested positive during the follow-up. RAT no earlier than the 5th day after arrival was a reliable method for detecting infectious travellers and can be recommended as an appropriate method for managing SARS-CoV-2 travel restrictions. Compliance to the regulations and a high standard of test quality must be ensured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since modern times, western countries had influenced the formulation of rules for travelling China through a series of gunboat diplomacy and a series of unequal treaties, and promoted the formation of three major peregrination routes, namely south China centered on Guangzhou and Shanghai, southwest China centered on the Yangtze River and Chengdu, and north China centered on Beijing and the Great Wall. Overpopulation, lack of curiosity and knowledge, difficulties in board and lodging, good onlookers, beauty of exotic scenery, and intensive farming were the common perceptions of the collective impression of China by the three types of peregrinators coming to China. These perceptions were the historical map for the west to construct the image of modern China, and had a profound influence on the formation of China's image of "the inferior other". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since early March 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic across the United Kingdom has led to a range of social distancing policies, which resulted in changes to mobility across different regions. An understanding of how these policies impacted travel patterns over time and at different spatial scales is important for designing effective strategies, future pandemic planning and in providing broader insights on the population geography of the country. Crowd level data on mobile phone usage can be used as a proxy for population mobility patterns and provide a way of quantifying in near-real time the impact of social distancing measures on changes in mobility. Methods: Here we explore patterns of change in densities, domestic and international flows and co-location of Facebook users in the UK from March 2020 to March 2021. Results: We find substantial heterogeneities across time and region, with large changes observed compared to pre-pademic patterns. The impacts of periods of lockdown on distances travelled and flow volumes are evident, with each showing variations, but some significant reductions in co-location rates. Clear differences in multiple metrics of mobility are seen in central London compared to the rest of the UK, with each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland showing significant deviations from England at times. Moreover, the impacts of rapid changes in rules on international travel to and from the UK are seen in substantial fluctuations in traveller volumes by destination. Conclusions: While questions remain about the representativeness of the Facebook data, previous studies have shown strong correspondence with census-based data and alternative mobility measures, suggesting that findings here are valuable for guiding strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restriction of mobility between countries is an important regulatory measure to combat pandemics such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Currently, PCR testing is required to enter the Libyan borders. However, no post-travel quarantine is employed. In this report, we briefly discuss travel regulations in Libya during the COVID-19 pandemic and disease importation by travelers. The results showed that almost half of the sample travel because of health care and therapy reasons. Tunisia was the most visited destination mainly for trading and business and receiving healthcare. Importantly, 13% of asymptomatic travelers were SARS-CoV-2 positive. Issues regarding repeated testing among very frequent travelers and variant importation needs to be addressed in a more efficient manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 has affected various sectors and one of them has been the tourism sector worldwide. Therefore, the objective of this article is to summarize the protocols that have been applied to the tourism sector in Chile, considering the situation of the pandemic. To do this, first, a characterization of Covid-19 is carried out, secondly, an analysis of the tourism sector is carried out, in accordance with the provisions of the World Tourism Organization. Subsequently, a schematic representation is presented that brings together the fundamental tourist elements considering the Covid-19. It is concluded that covid-19 is a virus that will be present for several years and that the tourism sector must adapt its business model for its sustainability over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With a focus on building global citizens, a U.S. and Norwegian academic collaborative partnership fostered clinical learning experiences addressing cultural and health care comparisons. High-impact educational practices integrated into international clinical experiences, combined with virtual global learning classrooms, highlighted the Sustainable Development Goals. Problem: Given nursing education's requirements, devising innovative strategies expanded global learning in brief but transformative experiences while integrating nontraveling students, especially relevant considering current pandemic-related travel restrictions. Approach: We developed an educational experience pairing U.S. students (17 in person; 64 through web conference) and Norwegian students (50 in person; 3 for web conference) in population health experiences, providing required clinical hours and a shared cultural exchange. Integration of nontraveling students in joint virtual global experiences broadened the global learning opportunity for all. Conclusion: This work offers insight into how faculty used a virtual global learning experience as a synergistic tool with traditional study abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On a certain orthodox Kantian view, when states violate migrants' rights to enter a foreign country , citizens of that country must comply with the laws and refrain from helping them gain access. After all, (i) philanthropic efforts are strictly subordinated to questions of right, and (ii) an important precondition of right is recognition of the state's authority to determine what counts as right in practice. Moreover, because the state has a mandate to control its borders, fixing rules for entry lies squarely within its jurisdiction. If its determination is unjust by some substantive standard, citizens ought to protest and campaign against it. But they may not violate it. Against this, I argue that the best understanding of Kantian political principles does not entail these conclusions. Rather, citizens may resist the state's pronouncements on matters like this and aid refugees in gaining entry to their target country, as long as they can do so without (a) compromising the stability of the state or (b) violating their neighbors' rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the position of regional airports in the countries of Central Europe, with a focus on the airports of the Visegrád Group, especially the airports in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The authors explain the financing of the airports and provision of state aid to these entities according to European legislation. This article reports differences in the national implementation processes of the same Europeans rules in the V4 Member State and compares the regime of financing of the regional airports. Subsequently, we analyse the economic situation of regional airports and their state based on financial indicators. In general, the current COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated their situation. Many countries still adhere to strict regulations or international travel bans so as not to spread the virus. The sharp decline in the number of passengers and flights has begun to have an impact on the financial viability of regional airports; therefore, financial assistance for regional airports will be more than necessary in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the cross-border movement of people. As governments begin to reopen their borders and cautiously restart travel, their attention is shifting to border procedures that could facilitate travel while protecting the homeland from travelers who may be infected. This is not the first time in recent memory that border management has had to be rethought under the pressure of large external forces. This article examines parallels between the current situation and the early 2000s, when the September 11, 2001, attacks on US targets caused a seismic shift in managing borders. We find echoes of today's responses in the initial fragmentation and chaos of two decades ago, which eventually gave way to a coordinated international system. We also analyze the implications of the emerging border health infrastructure for other migration challenges--particularly addressing irregular crossings and the border "crises" they create. Because the aftershocks of the pandemic on all aspects of people on the move could be felt for decades, immigration, mobility management, and public health priorities must be considered alongside one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formal and informal institutions govern fisheries around the world. Yucatan's sea cucumber fishery is not an exemption, the sudden and fast development of the fishery in 2010 has motivated the creation of informal and illegal forms of organization. The prices, buyers' interest and the fishing effort substantially increased, being followed by illegal fishing-fishers and traders, creating informal fishing-trade channels and severe social and biological concerns. This article aims to give account of the emergence and dynamics of the informal institutions which currently dominate this fishery. It was sought to identify the extent to which rules and regulations are not being respected and how they are affecting fish resources and coastal communities. We considered the case of the port of Sisal, Yucatan, Mexico to illustrate our argument and here we applied a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methodologies including informal and in-depth interviews applied to 17 key informants, a questionnaire applied to 47 fishers and an estimation of the degree of compliance from three of the main management measures. Socio-biological negative impacts were identified in Yucatan's coastal communities and its fisheries. Foreign buyers and local middlemen exert high pressure on fishers to exceed the quota and catch the highest possible volumes facilitating the fisheries decline. This and the growing economic interest motivated the development of strong informal institutions supporting illegal fishing and informal trade. Social problems emerged and women were particularly affected. The economic power of the fishery is likely to overcome any type of governance structure. The enforcement of entry rules was not effective, so the governance base was around informality and illegal actions. Local and foreign buyers are exerting pressure to increase the catch volume thus it is recommended that rules and regulations be directed at buyers and exporting companies rather than at fishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traveling waves are commonly observed across the brain. While previous studies have suggested the role of traveling waves in learning, the mechanism remains unclear. We adopted a computational approach to investigate the effect of traveling waves on synaptic plasticity. Our results indicate that traveling waves facilitate the learning of poly-synaptic network paths when combined with a reward-dependent local synaptic plasticity rule. We also demonstrate that traveling waves expedite finding the shortest paths and learning nonlinear input/output mapping, such as exclusive or (XOR) function. Author summary: There are approximately 1011 neurons with 1014 connections in the human brain. Information transmission among neurons in this large network is considered crucial for our behavior. To achieve this, multiple synaptic connections along a poly-synaptic network path must be adjusted coherently during learning. Because the previously proposed reward-dependent synaptic plasticity rule requires coactivation of presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons, learning can fail if a subset of neurons along a distant network path is inactive at the beginning of learning. We suggest that traveling waves that are initiated at an information source can mitigate this problem. We performed computer simulations of spiking neural networks with reward-dependent local synaptic plasticity rules and traveling waves. Our results show that this combination facilitates the learning and refinement of synaptic network paths. We argue that these features are a general biological strategy for maintaining and optimizing our brain function. Our research provides new insights into how complex neural networks in the brain form during learning and memory consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China in recent years, the rental housing market has boomed, but insufficient attention has been paid to microsubject tenants in the market, and there is a lack of research results on tenants' decision-making processes. In keeping with the characteristics of China's accommodation-renting population, this study takes as its research object graduating students, who form an important group in the housing rental market, and focuses on the information retrieval process underlying prospective tenants' rental decisions. First, it investigates tenants' concerns during the renting process by means of questionnaires. Second, using eye-tracking experiments, the real online renting process is simulated and tenants' web listings are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. In the process of information search, the characteristics and rules of browsing the entry search page, the listings page, and the details page are obtained, and the factors that prospective tenants pay attention to in their search for rental information are obtained. The research results show that initial alphabetical sorting of the term search page can improve the subjects' efficiency in locating the target keywords, the text information display area of the listings page receives more attention than others, and the real concern factors of the tenants on the page listing details are generally consistent with their selected factors but deviate slightly. Finally, the layout and display of web page information affect how subjects' attention is distributed, and web page information presents a significant difference in attention between upper and lower pages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks into the plight of migrants and refugees during the COVID-pandemic. Topics discussed are forced immobility of migrants and refugees as a result of worldwide lockdowns and travel restrictions, increase in smuggling and human trafficking, confinement of forced migrants and refugees in camps with limited public health services, basic sanitation and clean water, dispersal of asylum seekers and refugees among the general population, and outbreak of xenophobia.

In the time since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, several states have closed their borders and imposed travel restrictions to contain the proliferation of the disease, which, in turn, has left hundreds of thousands of people unable to return to their countries of nationality or residence. This Article analyzes the compatibility of these measures with the right to return to one's country and the right to family and private life, to the extent that these rights may obligate states to allow a person to reenter a country. Part I analyzes who is entitled to claim said rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European and American Conventions on Human Rights, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. After this delimitation, this Part further assesses how international travel restrictions adopted in response to the pandemic interfere with these rights, as well as what obligations states have to secure them. Part II evaluates whether these interferences might qualify as lawful limitations and derogations under human rights law and concludes that they most likely do not. The satisfaction of the requirement of necessity, indispensable for lawful limitations and derogations, is disputable, since the scientific evidence available does not seem to support the efficiency of travel bans in containing the spread of disease. Moreover, there are several cases of persons stranded for long periods or in dire material conditions, putting into question the proportionality of these measures. There is thus a strong case for invoking state responsibility in these situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Participating in scientific meetings offers value to physician trainees and faculty. In 2012, the U.S. Government (including the Department of Defense) instituted restrictions on conference travel, requiring central approval to attend. Hence, our objective was to determine the academic impact of research presented at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Armed Forces District Meeting and the effect of this federally mandated policy change on attendance and the quality and quantity of research.Materials and Methods: Attendance logs and meeting programs were reviewed for the 3 years immediately before and after institution of travel regulations. A PubMed search of each abstract was performed to determine if it resulted in publication and the mean duration in months from presentation to publication was calculated and compared between oral and poster presentations. The top journals accepting manuscripts were noted along with the corresponding impact factor.Results: The overall meeting publication rate was 22%. Oral presentations were significantly more likely than posters to achieve publication (P < 0.001). Following implementation of travel regulations, mean faculty attendance declined from 130 per year to 105 (P < 0.05). Declines in resident attendance and publication rates were not statistically significant. The top journals publishing investigations included Obstetrics and Gynecology (n = 15), Military Medicine (n = 12), and Fertility and Sterility and Gynecologic Oncology (tied, both n = 11).Conclusion: Approximately one in five presentations at the ACOG Armed Forces District Meeting are published, many in high impact journals within the specialty. Implementation of stricter travel regulations adversely impacted faculty physician attendance, but not trainee participation or the publication rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of civilization competition between the East and the West, different foreign travel rules have been gradually established. From the 16th to the 19th century, the Chinese government gradually lost the motivation and willingness to travel abroad. In the process of promoting the development of modern civilization in the western world, through the practice of grand tour, the travel rules with equal communication as the main feature are established, and an open, innovative and enterprising image of western group countries was constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared micromobility, in the form of e‐scooter sharing systems, was introduced to New Zealand (NZ) in late 2018 without a consistent national regulatory framework. This article reflects on the relationship between potential scooter‐share regulations and ridership. Examples of scooter‐share regulations overseas and existing research into similar bicycle‐ and moped‐sharing systems were synthesised into a framework for analysis. Results from an online survey in NZ suggested that regulations governing user behaviour have a negative effect on scooter‐share usage. They also indicated that micromobility technology in the right regulatory environment may offer social, environmental, and transport equity benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In 2018, the Maister Library, held by the University of Maribor library (UKM), became a cultural monument of national importance. It is a comprehensive book heritage, which has been in the possession of the University Library of Maribor since 1998, when a gift agreement was signed with the heirs of General Maister. With the proclamation, the UKM undertook to make a proper inventory of the library materials from Maister's estate. As this is an extremely personal library, the UKM has endeavored to preserve the original layout as far as possible, both in the layout and in the inventory. This is important not only from the point of view of the preservation and protection of the material itself, but above all for the inventory and presentation of the book legacy of the Maister Library-M maisteriana's personal book collection as a cultural monument. This preserves the library collection as a whole, and also preserves the principle of provenance and its original arrangement, but with visibility in a reciprocal computer catalog. Methodology/approach: This is a chronological overview of the gradual steps from acquisition to proclamation. In the absence of general instructions or recommendations on how to incorporate original signatures into COBISS, this is an inventory of the processes and decisions that led to the adaptations adopted. This treatment of personal libraries is the exception rather than the rule in this country, as the library profession has not yet recognized the importance of the comprehensive treatment and preservation of personal libraries as cultural and historical assets. Results: The solutions presented for the signing, inventorying and equipping of the material, as well as the incorporation of the existing original layout into the COBISS system in the way required by the rules on the entry of holding data, including the setting of local code lists, show that the incorporation of the original layout is not as simple as it seems at first sight. It brings with it peculiarities that are not quite compatible with the 'transfer' to COBISS and its legalities, so the solution presented here is the one that seemed to be the most acceptable in the UKM inventory. The Maister Library at UKM is thus becoming visible in COBIB, while retaining its authentic layout and exceptional character. Research limitations: Personal libraries are a mirror of the individual, not only in terms of their content but also in terms of their classification. These specificities can prove burdensome when trying to transfer the original layout and labelling to an existing inventory system. The latter does not allow all the specificities to be included. Originality/practical implications: The paper presents the organization of work and the inventory procedures, and in particular, explains the structure of the layout and signatures in more detail. The solutions presented may be of help to other personal library administrators who aim to promote the content of the Slovenian mutual catalog more widely through inventorying. The Maister Library at the UKM is an example of systematic treatment of personal library collections. It preserves its authenticity while keeping pace with today's library profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, assessing food and nutrient intake for research and surveillance purposes is difficult due to the lack of comprehensive, country-specific food and nutrient databases and/or a dietary analysis software program. In this case study, we describe the approach used to adapt a United States (US) dietary analysis software and nutrient database (Nutrition Data System for Research [NDSR]) for use in analyzing 24-hour dietary recalls collected for the Brazil Kids Nutrition and Health Study (KNHS). A team of experts that included individuals knowledgeable about Brazil and US eating traditions was assembled to devise solutions for between-country differences in eating habits, food supply, food nomenclature, and language. Solutions devised relied on several key resources, including the Brazilian Food Composition Table (TBCA) and a list of 200 foods commonly consumed in Brazil. These solutions included creating data entry rules that specified how each reported food should be entered into NDSR, creation of User Recipes for foods lacking a close nutritionally matching food in the NDSR database, and adjustment for food fortification differences as part of the analysis of study data. This case study illustrates that NDSR can be adapted for use outside of the United States through a structured process. • NDSR can be adapted for software assisted dietary assessment outside the US. • NDSR was successfully used for dietary assessment in children in Brazil. • Dietary data collection and entry protocols facilitate adaptation of NDSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the struggle of scientists against discrimination and harassment, as well as the U.S. government's alleged disregard for civil rights and scientific freedom as a result of travel restrictions and national security policies in the early Cold War. It considers scientists' passport denials as a government strategy to control international flows of scientific-technological knowledge and discusses the connection of restriction of passports and visas with border security, as well as the fears and suspicions of Communist espionage that caused scientists' passport problems. Provisions of the Neutrality Act of 1937, War Time Passport Act of 1918 and Espionage Act that aimed to fight espionage are discussed.

Background: Travel restrictions were implemented on an unprecedented scale in 2015 in Sierra Leone to contain and eliminate Ebola virus disease. However, the impact of epidemic travel restrictions on mobility itself remains difficult to measure with traditional methods. New 'big data' approaches using mobile phone data can provide, in near real-time, the type of information needed to guide and evaluate control measures.Methods: We analysed anonymous mobile phone call detail records (CDRs) from a leading operator in Sierra Leone between 20 March and 1 July in 2015. We used an anomaly detection algorithm to assess changes in travel during a national 'stay at home' lockdown from 27 to 29 March. To measure the magnitude of these changes and to assess effect modification by region and historical Ebola burden, we performed a time series analysis and a crossover analysis.Results: Routinely collected mobile phone data revealed a dramatic reduction in human mobility during a 3-day lockdown in Sierra Leone. The number of individuals relocating between chiefdoms decreased by 31% within 15 km, by 46% for 15-30 km and by 76% for distances greater than 30 km. This effect was highly heterogeneous in space, with higher impact in regions with higher Ebola incidence. Travel quickly returned to normal patterns after the restrictions were lifted.Conclusions: The effects of travel restrictions on mobility can be large, targeted and measurable in near real-time. With appropriate anonymization protocols, mobile phone data should play a central role in guiding and monitoring interventions for epidemic containment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR)[1] govern how 196 countries and WHO collectively address the global spread of disease and avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade. We - 16 global health law scholars - came to this conclusion after applying the interpretive framework of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties[3] and reaching a jurisprudential consensus on the legal meaning of IHR Article 43 (panel). 3 A State Party implementing additional health measures referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article which significantly interfere with international traffic shall provide to WHO the public health rationale and relevant scientific information for it. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines how South Korean policy field in the 1990s adopted Western style place-marketing strategies, and put them into practice as cultural revitalization programs of different Korean cities. The emergence of place marketing in Korea as a new paradigm for local growth stems from Korea’s transition from a developmental to a post-developmental system, which was a conjunctural outcome of democratization, neoliberalization and administrative decentralization of the early 1990s. This paper interrogates how place marketing traveled from the West to Korea in this context. In particular, it attends to how critical urbanists in Korea became a vanguard in mobilizing and developing place marketing for different local governments, perceiving it as a progressive alternative to the authoritarian, economy-centric developmentalist urban paradigm of the previous decades, despite its entanglement in the neoliberal urban paradigm of the West. The paper also examines the contradictions and conflicts that place-marketing policies have generated across different places in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To estimate the long-term association between Israeli-imposed restrictions on travel for medical care in the occupied Palestinian territory and health status in adulthood. Methods. Using event history calendar methods, we collected annual data from 1987 to 2011 from a representative sample of 1778 Palestinians aged 32 to 43 years and analyzed the subsample of whomever had a serious medical condition and needed to travel for medical care (n = 246; contributing 1163 person-years). We used ordered logistic regression with person-year data to test the association between movement restrictions from 1987 to 2011 and health status in 2011. Results. Two thirds (65%; n = 161) of participants reported travel restrictions, and 38% (n = 92) reported ever being barred from travel for medical care. Compared with study participants who experienced no travel restrictions in a year (n = 559 person-years), those who were barred from travel in that same year (n = 122 person-years) reported worse self-rated health (57% vs 22% reported bad or very bad self-rated health; P < .05) and greater limits on daily functioning caused by physical health (41% vs 16% reported regular limits; P < .05). Conclusions. Being barred from travel for medical care was associated with poor health as long as 25 years later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Medical Tourism" is the travel of patients from a home country to a destination country for the primary purpose of receiving health care. "Circumvention Tourism" is a sub-type of such travel where the motivation is circumventing a domestic prohibition on accessing a medical service. This Article focuses on such circumvention tourism for cutting-edge medicine. I use the recently reported case of travel to Mexico for Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy as a springboard for examining the legal and ethical issues raised by the practice and to discuss restrictive regulation in place in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]