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The purpose of this paper, a point prevalence study, is to quantify the incidence of isolation and identify the type of communicable diseases in isolation. The paper evaluates isolation precaution communication, availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) as well as other equipment necessary for maintaining isolation precautions.

A standardised audit tool was developed in accordance with the National Standards for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infections (May 2009). Data were collected from 14 March 2017 to 16 March 2017, through observation of occupied isolation rooms in an academic hospital in Dublin, Ireland. The data were subsequently used for additional analysis and discussion.

In total, 14 per cent (125/869) of the total inpatient population was isolated at the time of the study. The most common isolation precaution was contact precautions (96.0 per cent). In all, 88 per cent of known contact precautions were due to multi-drug resistant organisms. Furthermore, 96 per cent of patients requiring isolation were isolated, 92.0 per cent of rooms had signage, 90.8 per cent had appropriate signs and 93.0 per cent of rooms had PPE available. Finally, 31 per cent of rooms had patient-dedicated and single-use equipment and 2.4 per cent had alcohol wipes available.

The audit tool can be used to identify key areas of noncompliance associated with isolation and inform continuous improvement and education.

Currently, the rate of isolation is unknown in Ireland and standard guidelines are not established for the evaluation of isolation rooms. This audit tool can be used as an assessment for isolation room compliance.

The comparatively high salaries of professional players during their active athletic career should allow them to accumulate an adequate level of precautionary savings for a financially autonomous post-sport career. However, not all players succeed in accumulating sustainable financial assets. Therefore, the question arises how professional players' financial precaution within the social setting football is shaped. As no empirical analyses have yet been carried out on this issue, the study study examines football players' precautionary practices and motives.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 German (former) professional football players. The authors used qualitative content analysis to analyse the data, expanding the analysis to include reconstructive elements to create different precautionary types.

The results reveal that players deal with both career-specific as well as precaution-related risks quite heterogeneously. Accordingly, three precautionary types characterised by distinct forms of precautionary saving practices are identified. The authors also find that although the players are aware of the uncertainties and risks related to their professional football careers, it does not say much about the concrete implementation of adequate precautionary practices.

The findings contribute to a better understanding of precautionary saving practices among football players.

Moreover, the findings contribute to a better understanding of precautionary saving practices not only specifically among (former) football players, but generally among individuals that face high occupational career risks and earn high salaries to develop preventative concepts and approaches to sustainable financial planning.

This paper is the first empirical study that analyses precautionary savings practices of the specific population of elite athletes in high income sports professional football.

The COVID-19 virus pandemic has strongly influenced consumer behaviour worldwide. This paper aims to investigate how risk perceptions and precautions related to COVID-19 virus influence consumer eating habits and consequently, behaviour during shopping for food. Also, research tends to identify changes in consumer eating habits resulting from the current pandemic situation.

In total, 237 consumers from Serbia were online surveyed during November 2020. Starting from the methodology of the SOR model (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974), the questionnaire consists of seven-point Likert scale statements that measure risk perceptions and precautions as stimulus (S), eating habits as an organism (O) and food choice, precautions during shopping for food and food purchasing patterns as a response (S).

Research results confirm the difference in consumers' eating habits during and before a pandemic. Also, results indicate that perceived risk and precautions related to the COVID-19 virus have a statistically significant influence on consumers' eating habits which have changed during a pandemic, finally resulting in significant effects on consumers' food shopping behaviour.

The main limitations of this study are observing only a few aspects related to COVID-19 virus pandemic and consumer food shopping behaviour, as well as measuring precautions, perceived risk and food shopping behaviour at one point in time besides the fact that pandemic situation constantly changes.

The study indicates that food manufacturers should pay attention to the consumers' eating habits and food shopping behaviour changes under the circumstances of COVID-19 virus pandemic. Identified changes can be used as opportunities to gain a competitive advantage on the market.

Farmers' exposure to pesticides is high in developing countries. As a result many farmers suffer from ill‐health, both short and long term. Deaths are not uncommon. Seeks to address this issue.

Field survey data from Sri Lanka are used to estimate farmers' expenditure on defensive behaviour (DE) and to determine factors that influence DE. The avertive behaviour approach is used to estimate the costs. Tobit regression analysis is used to determine factors that influence DE.

Field survey data show that farmers' expenditures on DE are low. This is inversely related to high incidence of ill health among farmers using pesticides.

The results of this study are useful, not only for Sri Lanka, but also for many countries in South Asia, Africa and Latin America in reducing the current high levels of direct exposure to pesticides among farmers and farm workers using hand sprayers. Farmers' exposure to pesticides is a major occupational health hazard in these countries.

The area of consumer safety is focused on, with regard to food manufacturers′ and retailers′ responsibilities. A number of judgments in court cases concerning contraventions of the Food and Drugs Acts, Consumer Safety Acts and Trade Descriptions Act are described together with their implications for food manufacturers and retailers. Some of the most significant provisions of the new Food Safety Act are addressed.

Purpose – New genetically modified (GM) crops are novel but risky interventions, offering a variety of potential benefits but also the possibility of serious unintended consequences. I address the regulatory framework for GM crops, seeking protection from disproportionate risks without unduly stifling innovation.

Approach – Conditions that may justify precautionary interventions are identified, and an idealized regulatory protocol (screening, pre-release testing, and post-release surveillance, STS) is developed to provide protection, encourage research and learning, and focus-in quickly on the cases that pose serious threats of harm. This protocol is adapted to the case of GM crops, and compared with current regulatory practice in the United States, the EU, and Canada, as well as international agreements exemplified by the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Two real-world cases are considered, Starlink® corn and Roundup-Ready® canola, and some speculations are offered as to how the stylized protocol might have handled them.

Findings for policy – Pre-release, US regulatory practice is more fragmented and incomplete than the stylized protocol; EU practice is more systematic and streamlined, but some critics perceive over-regulation; and Canadian regulatory practice is more consistent with the protocol. Only the EU performs systematic post-release surveillance. International agreements have various weaknesses, beginning with fragmentation: for example, food safety and biosafety are regulated separately.

Implications for further research – Embracing the STS framework opens a broad new avenue of research about to how the mix of pre-release testing and post-release surveillance might be streamlined to provide adequate protection while reducing further the costs and delays entailed.

There is widespread concern about the fact that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seem to be particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks. This is perhaps because smaller businesses lack sufficient situational awareness to make informed decisions in this space, or because they lack the resources to implement security controls and precautions.

In this paper, Endsley’s theory of situation awareness was extended to propose a model of SMEs’ cyber situational awareness, and the extent to which this awareness triggers the implementation of cyber security measures. Empirical data were collected through an online survey of 361 UK-based SMEs; subsequently, the authors used partial least squares modeling to validate the model.

The results show that heightened situational awareness, as well as resource availability, significantly affects SMEs’ implementation of cyber precautions and controls.

While resource limitations are undoubtedly a problem for SMEs, their lack of cyber situational awareness seems to be the area requiring most attention.

The findings of this study are reported and recommendations were made that can help to improve situational awareness, which will have the effect of encouraging the implementation of cyber security measures.

This is the first study to apply the situational awareness theory to understand why SMEs do not implement cyber security best practice measures.

Purpose: While COVID-19 has upended lives, it has also catalyzed innovation with potential to advance health delivery. Yet, we know little about how the delivery system, and primary care in particular, has responded and how this has impacted vulnerable patients. We aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on primary care practice sites and their vulnerable patients and to identify explanations for variation. Approach: We developed and administered a survey to practice managers and physician leaders from 173 primary care practice sites, October-November 2020. We report and graphically depict results from univariate analysis and examine potential explanations for variation in practices' process innovations in response to COVID-19 by assessing bivariate relationships between seven dependent variables and four independent variables. Findings: Among 96 (55.5%) respondents, primary care practice sites on average took more safety (8.5 of 12) than financial (2.5 of 17) precautions in response to COVID-19. Practice sites varied in their efforts to protect patients with vulnerabilities, providing care initially postponed, and experience with virtual visits. Financial risk, practice size, practitioner age, and emergency preparedness explained variation in primary care practices' process innovations. Many practice sites plan to sustain virtual visits, dependent mostly on patient and provider preference and continued reimbursement. Value: While findings indicate rapid and substantial innovation, conditions must enable primary care practice sites to build on and sustain innovations, to support care for vulnerable populations, including those with multiple chronic conditions and socio-economic barriers to health, and to prepare primary care for future emergencies.

The paper suggests overcoming the polarization of today's debate on peer‐to‐peer (P2P) systems by defining a fair balance between the principle of precaution and the principle of openness. Threats arising from these file sharing applications‐systems should not be a pretext to limit freedom of research, speech or the right “freely to participate in the cultural life of the community”, as granted by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. The paper aims to take sides in today's debate.

The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach, including network theory, law and ethics. The method draws on both theoretical and empirical material so as to stress the paradox of the principle of precaution applied to P2P systems and why the burden of proof should fall on the party proposing that one refrain from action.

Censors and opponents of P2P systems who propose to apply the principle of precaution to this case deny the premise upon which that principle rests. “Levels of evidence” required by the precautionary principle show that – in many cases in which the outcomes of technology are ignored – another principle is needed for orienting action, namely, the principle of openness.

Alarm about how P2P systems undermine crucial elements of the societies often led to the ban of this technology. The paper illustrates why it should not be the case: rather than shutting these networks down, they should be further developed.

The paper provides the comprehensive picture of a far too often fragmented debate.

THE need for serious attention to fire precautions is becoming increasingly important in satisfying the demand for improved overall flight safety. The need arises from a number of considerations, of which the following are typical: