Covid-19 and child criminal exploitation in the UK: implications of the pandemic for county lines

In March 2020, the UK was placed in lockdown following the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Just as legitimate workplaces made changes to enable their employees to work from home, the illicit drugs trade also made alternative arrangements, adapting its supply models to ensure continuity of operations. Based upon qualitative interviews with 46 practitioners, this paper assesses how front-line professionals have experienced and perceived the impact of Covid-19 on child criminal exploitation and County Lines drug supply in the UK. Throughout the paper, we highlight perceived adaptations to the County Lines supply model, the impact of lockdown restrictions on detection and law enforcement activities aimed at County Lines, and on efforts to safeguard children and young people from criminal exploitation. Our participants generally believed that the pandemic had induced shifts to County Lines that reflected an ongoing evolution of the drug supply model and changes in understanding or attention because of Covid-19 restrictions, rather than a complete reconstitution of the model itself. Practitioners perceived that Covid-19 has had, and continues to have, a significant impact on some young people’s vulnerability to exploitation, on the way in which police and frontline practitioners respond to County Lines and child criminal exploitation, and on the way illegal drugs are being moved and sold.

Unbending the Winding Path of a Low-Income Country’s Energy Sector amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from Malawi

This paper discusses the impact of COVID-19’s vulnerability context on Malawi’s Energy Sector and outlines mechanisms for enhancing Malawi’s energy-sector resilience based on experiences from a range of stakeholders. The investigation was conducted online by inviting purposively selected stakeholders to create presentations responding to thematic questions. The final sample had 19 stakeholders with representation from policy-makers, regulatory bodies, national grid supply players, off-grid players, development agencies, bankers, professional bodies, civil society, and women’s rights bodies. The presentations from the stakeholders highlighted how COVID-19 affects the operation costs of energy systems and implementation of energy systems projects in areas that require stimulus packages to contain energy system delivery costs and prevent disruption of essential services amid the COVID-19 pandemic. These services include stakeholder responses to COVID-19 in the energy sector, the role of digital payments particularly when purchasing electricity units, and the state of third-party service providers such as banks and mobile network operators to enhance preparedness and continuity of operations for the energy sector. Based on the findings in these thematic areas and an application of systems thinking in the analysis, the paper finally makes recommendations on how Malawi and similar low-income countries can strategise to enhance energy systems resilience.

Installation resilience in cold regions using energy storage systems

Electrical energy storage (EES) has emerged as a key enabler for access to electricity in remote environments and in those environments where other external factors challenge access to reliable electricity. In cold climates, energy storage technologies face challenging conditions that can inhibit their performance and utility to provide electricity. Use of available energy storage technologies has the potential to improve Army installation resilience by providing more consistent and reliable power to critical infrastructure and, potentially, to broader infrastructure and operations. Sustainable power, whether for long durations under normal operating conditions or for enhancing operational resilience, improves an installation’s ability to maintain continuity of operations for both on- and off-installation missions. Therefore, this work assesses the maturity of energy storage technologies to provide energy stability for Army installations in cold regions, especially to meet critical power demands. The information summarized in this technical report provides a reference for considering various energy storage technologies to support specific applications at Army installations, especially those installations in cold regions.

Next-generation EUMETSAT satellite missions: key features, improvement to meteorological forecasting, and user preparation

<p>Starting in 2022, EUMETSAT is launching its next generation satellites Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) and EUMETSAT Polar System – Second Generation (EPS-SG) as a follow on to its current operational Meteosat and EPS programmes. Data from these new missions will provide enhancement to operational forecasters as well as offer great research potential for better characterising convection, clouds, aerosols, atmospheric chemistry, and other parameters. Meteorological applications based on nowcasting and NWP are expected to benefit significantly.</p><p>EUMETSAT is supporting users in operational services as well as in research and academia in their preparation for next-generation satellite data through the MTG User Preparation (MTGUP) and EPS-SG User Preparation (EPS-SG UP) projects. The main objective are to ensure an early uptake of data from the heritage instruments of MTG and EPS-SG thus ensuring a smooth transition and continuity of operations for the National Meteorological Services. A second objective of the UP projects is to support the users in their preparation to gain advantage from the enhanced capabilities of the heritage missions and novel missions that are part of MTG and EPS-SG.  These projects also provide a platform for the user communities to share their experiences and cross-fertilise their user preparation activities.  The User preparation activities are centered around five core themes: Science support, Test data and format support, User information and communication, training and data access support. </p><p>This paper will highlight key features of the next-generation operational EUMETSAT missions, cover the achievements of the user preparation projects over the last two years and the plans for the period 2021-2025. EUMETSAT joins hands with partners and Member States, particularly in national meteorological and hydrological services, in the user preparation activities.</p>

Assessing the Energy Resilience of Office Buildings: Development and Testing of a Simplified Metric for Real Estate Stakeholders

Increasing concern over higher frequency extreme weather events is driving a push towards a more resilient built environment. In recent years there has been growing interest in understanding how to evaluate, measure, and improve building energy resilience, i.e., the ability of a building to provide energy-related services in the event of a local or regional power outage. In addition to human health and safety, many stakeholders are keenly interested in the ability of a building to allow continuity of operations and minimize business disruption. Office buildings are subject to significant economic losses when building operations are disrupted due to a power outage. We propose “occupant hours lost” (OHL) as a means to measure the business productivity lost as the result of a power outage in office buildings. OHL is determined based on indoor conditions in each space for each hour during a power outage, and then aggregated spatially and temporally to determine the whole building OHL. We used quasi-Monte Carlo parametric energy simulations to demonstrate how the OHL metric varies due to different building characteristics across different climate zones and seasons. The simulation dataset was then used to develop simple regression models for assessing the impact of ten key building characteristics on OHL. The most impactful were window-to-wall ratio and window characteristics. The regression models show promise as a simple means to assess and screen for resilience using basic building characteristics, especially for non-critical facilities where it may not be viable to conduct detailed engineering analysis.

Pursuing Data Modernization in Cancer Surveillance by Developing a Cloud-Based Computing Platform: Real-Time Cancer Case Collection

Cancer surveillance is a field focused on collection of data to evaluate the burden of cancer and apply public health strategies to prevent and control cancer in the community. A key challenge facing the cancer surveillance community is the number of manual tasks required to collect cancer surveillance data, thereby resulting in possible delays in analysis and use of the information. To modernize and automate cancer data collection and reporting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning, developing, and piloting a cancer surveillance cloud-based computing platform (CS-CBCP) with standardized electronic reporting from laboratories and health-care providers. With this system, automation of the cancer case collection process and access to real-time cancer case data can be achieved, which could not be done before. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of continuity of operations plans, and the CS-CBCP has the potential to provide such a platform suitable for remote operations of central cancer registries.

An economic analysis of the impact of "grand challenges" on sustainability and business continuity of economic entities

Subject. "Grand challenges", creating risks and threats to economic development, are an important factor to assess new opportunities and reserves for business entities' development, which provide for business continuity. To manage business entities in the face of "grand challenges", it is necessary to devise accounting and analytical support and a system of indicators to ensure the sustainability of development and the continuity of operations. Objectives. The aim is to substantiate a model characterizing "grand challenges" and to determine quantitative and qualitative indicators that describe the sustainability of development and business continuity of economic entities at various hierarchical levels. Methods. The methodology of the study rests on the resource-oriented approach. We developed and tested it through the economic analysis of sustainable development of economic entities. Results. We present a model, describing "grand challenges", identify prerequisites for their emergence, on the basis of which a system of indicators is developed. We also identify indicators, characterizing the sustainable development and ensuring the business continuity at various hierarchical levels, and threshold levels of indicators of sustainable development in the face of "grand challenges". Conclusions. The developed model will enable to expand the methodology for economic analysis and build a system of indicators that help determine the reserves and new conditions for the functioning of business entities during the transition to a new stage of development.