ABSTRACT
Purpose: The COVID-19 wave spread all over the global market, affecting all industries. This paper aims to develop the understanding of how service systems can enhance their viability when facing rapid systemic changes. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use data from Reddit, and particularly the subreddit r/coronavirus, to identify posts that discuss the impact of coronavirus on business. The authors use an algorithm to scrape the data with business-related search terms and elaborate relevant posts. Findings: The findings show key topics and related sentiments on the impact of COVID-19 on business. Service systems can enhance viability by identifying alternative paths for emerging opportunities (by being creative), seize opportunities offered by the changing environment (by being opportunistic), not compromise conditions for internal balance (by being resilient), focus attention on critical purposes (by being essential) and perform nonharmful actions (by being responsible). Originality/value: This paper proposes a framework depicting five possible key enhancers of viability to face a systemic crisis. In brief, companies need to ensure that they are creative, opportunistic, resilient, essential and responsible. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.
ABSTRACT
Purpose The COVID-19 wave spread all over the global market, affecting all industries. This paper aims to develop the understanding of how service systems can enhance their viability when facing rapid systemic changes. Design/methodology/approach The authors use data from Reddit, and particularly the subreddit r/coronavirus, to identify posts that discuss the impact of coronavirus on business. The authors use an algorithm to scrape the data with business-related search terms and elaborate relevant posts. Findings The findings show key topics and related sentiments on the impact of COVID-19 on business. Service systems can enhance viability by identifying alternative paths for emerging opportunities (by being creative), seize opportunities offered by the changing environment (by being opportunistic), not compromise conditions for internal balance (by being resilient), focus attention on critical purposes (by being essential) and perform nonharmful actions (by being responsible). Originality/value This paper proposes a framework depicting five possible key enhancers of viability to face a systemic crisis. In brief, companies need to ensure that they are creative, opportunistic, resilient, essential and responsible.
ABSTRACT
Lipid-based nanoparticles for RNA delivery (LNP-RNA) are revolutionizing the nanomedicine field, with one approved gene therapy formulation and two approved vaccines against COVID-19, as well as multiple ongoing clinical trials. As for other innovative nanopharmaceuticals (NPhs), the advancement of robust methods to assess their quality and safety profiles-in line with regulatory needs-is critical for facilitating their development and clinical translation. Asymmetric-flow field-flow fractionation coupled to multiple online optical detectors (MD-AF4) is considered a very versatile and robust approach for the physical characterisation of nanocarriers, and has been used successfully for measuring particle size, polydispersity and physical stability of lipid-based systems, including liposomes and solid lipid nanoparticles. However, the unique core structure of LNP-RNA, composed of ionizable lipids electrostatically complexed with RNA, and the relatively labile lipid-monolayer coating, is more prone to destabilization during focusing in MD-AF4 than previously characterised nanoparticles, resulting in particle aggregation and sample loss. Hence characterisation of LNP-RNA by MD-AF4 needs significant adaptation of the methods developed for liposomes. To improve the performance of MD-AF4 applied to LNP-RNA in a systematic and comprehensive manner, we have explored the use of the frit-inlet channel where, differently from the standard AF4 channel, the particles are relaxed hydrodynamically as they are injected. The absence of a focusing step minimizes contact between the particle and the membrane, reducing artefacts (e.g. sample loss, particle aggregation). Separation in a frit-inlet channel enables satisfactory reproducibility and acceptable sample recovery in the commercially available MD-AF4 instruments. In addition to slice-by-slice measurements of particle size, MD-AF4 also allows to determine particle concentration and the particle size distribution, demonstrating enhanced versatility beyond standard sizing measurements.
Subject(s)
Drug Carriers/chemistry , Lipids/chemistry , Nanoparticles/chemistry , RNA/administration & dosage , RNA/chemistry , Fractionation, Field Flow/methods , Humans , Nanomedicine/methods , Particle Size , Pharmaceutical Preparations/administration & dosage , Pharmaceutical Preparations/chemistryABSTRACT
The increasing fluidity of social and business configurations made possible by the opportunities provided by the World Wide Web and the new technologies is questioning the validity of consolidated business models and managerial approaches. New rules are emerging and multiple changes are required to both individuals and organizations engaged in dynamic and unpredictable paths. In such a scenario, the paper aims at describing the potential role of big data and artificial intelligence in the path toward a collective approach to knowledge management. Thanks to the interpretative lens provided by systems thinking, a framework able to explain human-machine interaction is depicted and its contribution to the definition of a collective approach to knowledge management in unpredictable environment is traced. Reflections herein are briefly discussed with reference to the Chinese governmental approach for managing COVID-19 spread to emphasise the support that a technology-based collective approach to knowledge management can provide to decision-making processes in unpredictable environments. © 2020, The Author(s).