Mapping the Forest Fire Risk Zones Using Artificial Intelligence with Risk Factors Data

Geographical information system data has been used in forest fire risk zone mapping studies commonly. However, forest fires are caused by many factors, which cannot be explained only by geographical and meteorological reasons. Human-induced factors also play an important role in occurrence of forest fires and these factors depend on various social and economic conditions. This article aims to prepare a fire risk zone map by using a data set consisting of nine human-induced factors, three natural factors, and a temperature factor causing forest fires. Moreover, an artificial intelligence method, k-means, clustering algorithm was employed in preparation of the fire risk zone map. Turkey was selected as the study area as there are social and economic varieties among its zones. Therefore, the forestry zones in Turkey were separated into three groups as low, moderate, and high-risk categories and a map was provided for these risk zones. The map reveals that the forestry zones on the west coast of Turkey are under high risk of forest fire while the moderate risk zones mostly exist in the southeastern zones. The zones located in the interior parts, in the east, and on the north coast of Turkey have comparatively lower forest fire risks.

Standard Precautions among HealthCare Workers in a Tertiary Health Facility in Enugu Metropolis, South-East Nigeria

BackgroundThe work environment of Health Care Workers (HCWs) can be described as a potential risk zone due to numerous hazards endemic to the environment. The hospital is not just only a place where the sick people recover from their illness, but also where the healthy get infected.ObjectivesTo assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of Standard Precautions (SP) among HCWs in a tertiary government health facility in Enugu Metropolis, Nigeria.MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional design that used mixed method approach. Qualitative data was collected using an in-depth interview. The quantitative data instrument was a semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire. Manual content analysis was done for the qualitative data. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS version 22.ResultsSixty-four (32.0%), 131(65.5%) and 5(2.5%) had good, fair and poor knowledge of SP respectively while 117(58.5%), 70(35.0%) and 13(6.5%) had good, fair and poor attitude to SP respectively. Fifty-nine (29.5%), 140(70.0%) and 1(0.5%) had good, fair and poor practice of SP respectively.ConclusionThere was fair knowledge and practice of SP among the studied HCWs while attitude was good.Rwanda J Med Health Sci 2021;4(3):366-378

Forest Fire Risk Zone Mapping of Eravikulam National Park in India

Forest fire is one of the most common natural hazards occurring in the Western Ghats region of Kerala and is one of the reasons for forest degradation. This natural disaster causes considerable damage to the biodiversity of this region during the dry fire season. The area selected for the present study, Eravikulam National Park, which is predominantly of grassland vegetation, is also prone to forest fires. This study aims to delineate the forest fire risk zones in Eravikulam National Park using remote sensing (RS) data and geographic information system (GIS) techniques. In the present study, methods such as Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Frequency Ratio (FR) were used to derive the weights, and the results were compared. We have used seven factors, i.e. land cover types, normalized difference vegetation index, normalized difference water index, slope angle, slope aspect, distance from the settlement, and distance from the road to prepare the fire risk zone map. The area of the prepared risk zone maps is divided into three zones, namely low, moderate, and high. From the study, it was found that the fire occurring in this area is due to natural as well as anthropogenic factors. The prepared forest fire risk zone maps are validated using the fire incidence data for the period from January 2003 to June 2019 collected from the records of the Forest Survey of India. The investigation revealed that 72% and 24% of the fire incidences occurred in the high risk zone of the maps prepared using the AHP and FR methods, respectively, which ascertained the superiority of the AHP method over the FR method for forest fire risk zone mapping. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis gives an area under the ROC curve (AUC) value of 0.767 and 0.567 for the AHP and FR methods, respectively. The risk zone maps will be useful for staff of the forest department, planners, and officials of the disaster management department to take effective preventive and mitigation measures.

ASSESSMENT OF THE PROSPECTS FOR RESTORING THE FINANCIAL SECURITY OF THE STATE

In the modern period of economic governance, the assessment of the financial security of the state takes place in different directions, different groups of indicators, different methods. Mainly in scientific works, there is a desire for bringing the various components of the assessment of financial security to an integral indicator, taking into account the normalized values of individual indicators, which requires an assessment of their weight and always contains certain subjectivity through the involvement of experts in this process. Considering that the financial system of any country is the basis for the functioning of the economy, and Ukraine has a complex of accumulated socio-economic problems that constantly accompany it, this predetermines the high relevance of this area of research in recent decades. Considering approaches to assessing the level of financial and economic security, it is necessary to refer to the Methodological Recommendations for calculating the level of economic security of Ukraine, in which for this purpose the method of reconciling their estimates with individual systems of advantages that are not publicly available was used. Therefore, in this study, when forming this system of preferences, which affects the direction of the formation of the national strategy of financial and economic security, it is proposed to use the existing cause-and-effect relationships between its components. Taking into account these cause-and-effect relationships and according to the introduced symbols, a matrix of paired comparisons was done by expert means, which determines the direct impact of some components of the country’s financial security on others. The analysis which is made in the article it possible to assess the dynamics in all areas of financial security on the basis of group indicators and identify the most problematic indicators. On the other hand, such an assessment does not give an idea of which risk zone certain indicators belong to, since each of them has its own limits of acceptable values, which is indicated in the article. This direction requires further research and will help determine whether the current state of the state’s financial security belongs to a particular risk zone. Keywords: assessment of financial security, financial system, integral indicator, budget security, currency security. JEL Classіfіcatіon G17, E22, E66 Formulas: 2; fig.: 0; tabl.: 3; bibl.: 20.

Risk analysis of landslide as a basis of mitigation plan: a case study of Mangunan Village, Bantul, Indonesia

When rainy season comes, in Mangunan Village, landslide occurs frequently. Mangunan is one of the villages in Bantul District that possesses high intensity of landslide events. Located in a contoured hilly area on the eastern region of Bantul District is one of the reasons. This study aims to analyze the risk of landslide in Mangunan by detailing the risk map, which constitutes a general risk map, and to identify the number of households that are currently residing in each risk-zone area. In this study, we applied a descriptive method that combined both qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to generate a good depiction of settlements in each risk-zone area. The data of this study can be classified into two categories, primary and secondary data. Primary data were obtained from field activities such as interviews and field documentation. Meanwhile, secondary data were obtained from archives, notes, or reports from related agencies. The results of this study are: 1) the number of settlements that are located in high- and medium-vulnerability areas are 143 and 12, respectively; 2) Mangunan Village possesses high hazard level, medium to high vulnerability level, and high-capacity level which means the village has medium to high risk level; 3) Recommendations of infrastructure development for landslide mitigation.