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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.

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.

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:

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the perceptions of risk from specific crimes held by tourists at the start of their vacation in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The paper describes findings from Phase 1 of a two-phase research programme, during which 210 arrivals at the Ataturk airport were asked about their perceptions of their safety from crime while in the city and their intentions vis-à-vis the adoption (or otherwise) of basic safety precautions, using a 32-question self-completion questionnaire.

The findings confirm those of earlier studies that tourists, unlike citizens in general, tend to have low expectations of their vulnerability to crime. However, variables associated with fear in conventional surveys were not generally related to the perceptions of risk. The clearest association was between prior knowledge of crime in Istanbul and perceptions of risk. The lack of any strong relationship between perceptions of risk and intent to adopt safety precautions is then discussed.

The study is limited to visitors to one city and to English-speaking tourists.

The implication here is that if tourist centres wish to reduce crime it is not sufficient to focus on “educating” tourists on the dangers, but that more emphasis should be placed on crime prevention methods that put the onus on the host environment.

From a criminological perspective, two points appear particularly important. First, the relationship between fear (in all its manifestations) and risk is not constant. It may differ in different physical and social contexts. Second, if, following routine activity theory, policy makers wish to focus on changing people’s behaviour in order to maximise their safety, in different contexts different publics may vary in their willingness or resistance to change.

This study is original as it focusses on tourists to a specific destination at the beginning of their holiday.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate with examples the prudence of using or not using ample precautions before launching a strategy or plan of foresight.

A series of practical episodes illustrate the effects of predetermined care and precaution, or their absence, in different fields of human endeavour.

With foresight and determination, pondered safeguards may spell out beforehand the success or failure of an undertaking.

According to the span and scope of available historical experience, getting the future right often seems more difficult than getting it wrong,

Planners, strategists and designers should profit from the types of cases reviewed to ensure the solidity of their procedural foresight today for its implementation tomorrow.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss incentive mechanisms and procedures for cost internalization by both potential defendants and plaintiffs.

The approach taken is to rely on the concepts of liability, negligence, precaution and methodologies for estimation of compensatory damages in conjunction with the Coase theorem.

The paper finds that the decision to internalize and minimize cost depends upon marginal precautionary costs and marginal expected harms.

Research needs to be conducted from a law and economic perspective on developing procedures for estimating precautionary costs and expected harms.

This paper calls upon business firms and their stakeholders (primarily employees and customers) to use and pro‐actively manage their precautionary responsibilities and further refine the existing formulas. More specifically, it aims to help law and economics students as well as practitioners in law and regulation to better understand the implications of marginal precautionary costs and marginal expected harms in the process of cost internalization.

In exploring the precautionary responsibilities of firms and their stakeholders, this paper contributes to a better understanding of liability and negligence issues and, as a result, to the important intersection of law and microeconomics.

Despite the increasingly sophisticated fire precautions required by legislation, and a heightened public awareness of its dangers, fire remains one of the main causes of death and serious injury in the community. Since the majority of these accidents occur in the home, fire service information concentrates very much on the domestic aspect of fire.