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In March 2019, a group of global health leaders with expertise in influenza, vaccinology and pandemic preparedness was convened for a meeting titled "Shaping Meeting to explore the value of a coordinated work plan for epidemic and pandemic influenza vaccine preparedness." Influenza epidemics occur annually in every country in the world, resulting in significant global burden of illness and deaths. While every country is effected, most deaths and severe disease occur in low- and lower middle-income countries (LIC and LMIC). Influenza immunization programs that limit the burden of disease, deaths, and reduce economic impact are a fundamental public health intervention for seasonal epidemics. In addition, they provide the experience, systems and infrastructure for the timely and efficient use of vaccines and other medical countermeasures critical for effective pandemic responses. Pandemic influenza response activities, including vaccination efforts, will be most effective if used and practiced regularly. Consequently, countries with seasonal influenza prevention and control programs should be better prepared for, and have more effective pandemic responses than countries without such programs. A decade after the 2009 pandemic, despite ongoing prevention efforts, most LICs and LMICs still lack access to robust seasonal influenza immunization programs. Given this current state, meeting participants concluded that there is critical need to advance the expansion and strengthening of seasonal influenza immunization programs in LICs and LMICs not only to reduce the economic and public health effects of annual influenza epidemics, but also to increase preparedness to mitigate the threat of future pandemics and improve global heath security. Many government and private sectors, in a whole of government approach, need to be working together to support and advance countries' epidemic and pandemic influenza capacities preparedness objectives. Accomplishment of these objectives can be achieved with a coordinated work plan developed and guided by an alliance of international stakeholders, to include, among others, government, and nongovernment organization representation, civil society representatives, vaccine manufacturers, international organizations, and health security and influenza experts.

Summary Background The spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria poses a substantial threat to morbidity and mortality worldwide. Due to its large public health and societal implications, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis has been long regarded by WHO as a global priority for investment in new drugs. In 2016, WHO was requested by member states to create a priority list of other antibiotic-resistant bacteria to support research and development of effective drugs. Methods We used a multicriteria decision analysis method to prioritise antibiotic-resistant bacteria; this method involved the identification of relevant criteria to assess priority against which each antibiotic-resistant bacterium was rated. The final priority ranking of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria was established after a preference-based survey was used to obtain expert weighting of criteria. Findings We selected 20 bacterial species with 25 patterns of acquired resistance and ten criteria to assess priority: mortality, health-care burden, community burden, prevalence of resistance, 10-year trend of resistance, transmissibility, preventability in the community setting, preventability in the health-care setting, treatability, and pipeline. We stratified the priority list into three tiers (critical, high, and medium priority), using the 33rd percentile of the bacterium's total scores as the cutoff. Critical-priority bacteria included carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa , and carbapenem-resistant and third-generation cephalosporin-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. The highest ranked Gram-positive bacteria (high priority) were vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium and meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus . Of the bacteria typically responsible for community-acquired infections, clarithromycin-resistant Helicobacter pylori , and fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter spp, Neisseria gonorrhoeae , and Salmonella typhi were included in the high-priority tier. Interpretation Future development strategies should focus on antibiotics that are active against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and Gram-negative bacteria. The global strategy should include antibiotic-resistant bacteria responsible for community-acquired infections such as Salmonella spp, Campylobacter spp, N gonorrhoeae , and H pylori . Funding World Health Organization.

With the increasing connectedness of traditionally isolated devices, such as those found in Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks, comes the increasingly complex challenge of providing appropriate cybersecurity controls. SCADA networks present a number of challenges in their differences from more traditional IT systems as they tend to prioritize availability over other concerns such as confidentiality or integrity. Identifying appropriate technologies to provide the necessary level of protection on Internet-facing SCADA networks is difficult not only because of these differences, but also the wide variety of products available. The Technology Matching Tool (TMT) was developed to assist users in determining appropriate, best-fit technologies for securing SCADA networks by empowering the user to define priorities for specific product feature sets as dictated by the specific environment to be protected. TMT has been developed into a web-based tool, giving the user a great deal of flexibility in defining cybersecurity priorities, as well as insight into suitable products or technology categories.

Maintaining confidentiality of data is critical, particularly in need-to-know environments. Dissemination of classified data must be controlled according to user clearance, and rests on the proper tagging of data to ensure appropriate access. The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) provides opportunity for tagging through its extensibility, and as a standard format for data storage, processing, and transmission. Its widespread usage covers a broad range of applications, especially in productivity software such as the Microsoft Office suite. This paper describes the UI Tags Project which presents a strategy for imposing security tags within Office Open XML (OOXML) format documents used with productivity suites. Leveraging the underlying XML of these document types enforces mandatory and attribute-based access control policies. Project development goals include a comprehensive system based on a native XML database which allows users to upload new documents as well as read, edit, or delete existing documents, and controls for derivative classification.

Security tagging schemes are known as promising mechanisms for providing security features in computer systems. Tags carry information about the tagged data throughout the system to be used in access control and other security mechanisms. This paper discusses several different uses of security tags related to different security policies, highlighting appropriate uses of the tags. The evaluation of the use of tags is presented in the summary of three security tagging application domains. One domain, using hardware-based tagging to prevent high-level attacks, was not found to be feasible. A project to use hardware-based tagging for OS security enhancement and a project that uses software-based tagging for multi-level secure document management were successful.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), produced by almost all tumor cells, affects the ability of hemopoietic progenitor cells (HPC) to differentiate into functional dendritic cells (DC) during the early stages of their maturation. In this study we demonstrate specific binding of VEGF to HPC. This binding was efficiently competed by placenta growth factor (PlGF), a ligand reportedly specific for the Flt-1 receptor. The number of binding sites for VEGF decreased during DC maturation in vitro associated with decreased levels of mRNA for Flt-1. VEGF significantly inhibited nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB)-dependent activation of reporter gene transcription during the first 24 h in culture. The presence of VEGF significantly decreased the specific DNA binding of NF-κB as early as 30 min after induction with TNF-α. This was followed on days 7 to 10 by decreases in the mRNA for RelB and c-Rel, two subunits of NF-κB. Blockade of NF-κB activity in HPC at early stages of differentiation with an adenovirus expressing a dominant IκB inhibitor of NF-κB reproduced the pattern of effects observed with VEGF. Thus, NF-κB plays an important role in maturation of HPCs to DC, and VEGF activation of the Flt-1 receptor is able to block the activation of NF-κB in this system. Blockade of NF-κB activation in HPCs by tumor-derived factors may therefore be a mechanism by which tumor cells can directly down-modulate the ability of the immune system to generate effective antitumor immune responses.

The high performance standards required of an Olympic athlete can only be attained by a totally healthy individual. Optimal dental health is a necessary element. The universality of dental disease can be altered by modern prevention modalities and self-administered hygiene. Nonetheless, any dental or medical program of care should be prepared for the treatment of dental disease and trauma. Suggested is a program of prevention and treatment grounded in modern basic science and dealing with the overlay of the sociopsychological phenomena, which is an essential part of effective health care.