AGI's Framework on Addressing Equity in the Geoscience Societies and the Challenge of Defining Success

<p>The American Geosciences Institute in cooperation with its member societies has developed the Framework for Addressing Racial and Ethnic Equity in Geosciences Professional Societies.  The geoscience societies are a pivotal area to influence the culture of the geosciences, and in response to the events of June 2020, many societies determined they needed to directly act on the issue of equity in the geosciences. Being birthed from a federation of US-centric organizations, the Framework has clear US-aligned approaches and boundaries.  However, the baseline proposed actions are fundamentally universal and meet the goal of the authoring committee to provide a framework from which we hope geoscience organizations of all types would use it to craft their own specific action plan and policies.   A critical component of this framework for the committee was to ensure definable actions were included.   Some of these suggested actions and their intended extensions will be discussed.  Additionally, ongoing conversations among the societies, with the US National Academy of Sciences Board on Earth Science and Resources, and other science organizations have begun to examine what the path forward looks like.   One area that AGI particularly is concerned about is the process of measuring progress.   Understanding and recognizing the impacts of efforts like this is critical to ensure agile responses for success.   But with AGI's intimate knowledge of much of the U.S. federal data, some of the ambiguities and definitional challenges within the US system complicates the ability to directly measure progress and for which further discussion of what success looks like is critically needed.  </p>

US Federal Data Policy: An Update on The Federal Data Strategy and The Evidence Act

IntroductionThe US federal data landscape is evolving through the implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 and the 2020 Action Plan of the Federal Data Strategy (FDS). The Act and Plan seek better data governance; making data accessible and useful for the American public, businesses, and researchers; and improving how the government uses data to make decisions and for program oversight. Objectives and ApproachThis paper provides a brief overview of the Evidence Act, describing what has already been implemented and what is forthcoming and how it involves population data linkages. We will also describe the FDS, using the Five Safes framework to categorize its priorities for federal agencies. ResultsWe explain how the Evidence Act established new roles for Chief Data, Evaluation, and Statistical Officials. We describe efforts to set learning agendas and data inventories in agencies. We point to some successes, such as new repositories for tools and metadata, and progress on forming an advisory committee to explore how the US could build a National Secure Data Service. We tie the FDS action plan to these Evidence Act efforts, showing how agencies and communities of practice are expected to develop over time. We focus on the ten actions that involve shared solutions across government that focus on ethics, privacy, tools and standards. Conclusion / ImplicationsThis paper shares updates on US federal data policy that started with the 2016 Commission for Evidence-based Policymaking, up through the current administration’s efforts to leverage data as a strategic asset. We highlight accomplishments, opportunities, and challenges for federal policy, noting how political will and funding ultimately affect progress.

PROSPECTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEDERAL DATA BANK «FIRE SAFETY AND RESCUE OPERATION FACILITIES»

Представлены этапы создания и модернизации федерального банка данных «Средства обеспечения пожарной безопасности и ведения аварийно-спасательных работ». Описаны основные сведения, содержащиеся в базах данных «Изготовители» и «Поставщики». Отражено использование информации, находящейся в ФБД ПБ, и дальнейшее развитие на современном этапе. The stages of creation and modernization of the federal data bank «Fire safety and rescue operation facilities» is presented. The basic information in the databases «Manufacturers» and «Suppliers» are described. Both the use of information in the FBD PB and its further development at the present stage are presented.

Possibilities of comparing the average annual effective doses of medical personnel in Russia and some foreign countries

The analysis of published data on the average annual effective doses to personnel of Russia, Germany, Switzerland, France and Canada in dynamics for 2013-2017 was performed. It was established that in the countries under consideration there are significant differences in the processing of primary measurement information, the calculation on its basis of individual effective doses, as well as ways of averaging the data obtained and their presentation. Factors that may lead to different interpretations of the results are considered: – taking into account background doses due to natural radiation; – use in processing the results of various (in different countries) values of the minimum level of registration; – dose averaging in the absence of activity periods (loss of a dosimeter / vacation), and when registering unexpectedly high doses. These differences exist between the data of foreign countries, but the data presented by the Russian Joint state system of control and accounting of the individual doses of the citizens are especially different. It is shown that the data on average annual effective doses to personnel presented in the Federal Data Base of personnel exposure doses within the framework of the Russian Joint state system of control and accounting of the individual doses is 3-4 times higher than in foreign countries. It is shown that such a difference is caused not by actually high doses, but by the method of processing primary information and averaging data during generalization. It should be noted that such differences occur only for extremely small doses of technogenic exposure to personnel, and do not lead to a significant impact on the overall assessment of the state of radiation safety in the country, but when comparing with other countries, it is necessary to understand the reasons for such differences. The purpose of this work was to identify the causes of these discrepancies and to develop a method for processing primary measurement information and averaging the data when summarizing the results, which allows them to be significantly reduced. Such a method should ensure that the effective doses of personnel closest to the conditionally true values are obtained in the entire range of values, and can be used to summarize the data contained in the Federal Data Base of personnel exposure doses. Since the conversion of the data contained in the Federal Data Base of personnel exposure doses was not the task of the authors of this article, in order to achieve this goal, an attempt was made to process and summarize the measurement results (total 23 204) of the quarterly values of the individual dose equivalent Hp (10) obtained in the Laboratory of Radiation Control of Saint-Petersburg Research Institute of the Radiation Hygiene after Professor P.V. Ramzaev. Such processing has been performed. The subsequent comparison showed that the average annual effective doses to the personnel of medical organizations of St.-Petersburg, in which individual dosimetric control was carried out in the Laboratory of Radiation Control, transformed according to the developed algorithm, are much better consistent with similar data from foreign countries.