Capitalizing on Opportunities during the Covid-19 Pandemic Business Transitions among Chinese Immigrant Entrepreneurs in France

This article analyses business transitions among Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in France during the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on a historical overview of the development of ethnic Chinese businesses over the last century and an empirical study carried out in five different industrial sectors (import and export, retail, catering, hotel, and tobacco) of the French economy, we examine what challenges these entrepreneurs have faced during the pandemic, what strategies they have adopted in response to these challenges, and what has enabled them to shift business patterns and commercial practices in this unprecedented situation. Our findings show that the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition of Chinese immigrant entrepreneurship in France, from offline operations to digital business. However, the pandemic may not be the direct cause of this business transition;rather, it has created unique conditions which facilitate the transition. Before the pandemic, some Chinese entrepreneurs had already made or partially made the transition to "integrating online and offline businesses," "hiring beyond Chinese ethnic networks," and "paying attention to the local country's policy directions," which helped them greatly reduce the negative impacts of the pandemic. During the pandemic, two unprecedented business opportunities were opened up: "fostering local production" and "seeking low-risk sectors," which some Chinese entrepreneurs have proactively pursued since April/May 2020. These may be the new trends for Chinese entrepreneurs in France in the future. Theoretically, our study suggests that business transitions among Chinese entrepreneurs in France need to be examined beyond the framework of pure economic rationality, taking into consideration the intersection of new dynamics of Chinese migration into host country and the cross-cultural, cross-institutional, cross-thinking, and cross-border social engagement of the entrepreneurs themselves before, during, and after the pandemic.

Flocking for Multiple Subgroups of Multi-Agents With Different Social Distancing

In this paper, considering the difference in social distancing among individuals, according to the extent of social distancing, a group composed of N mobile agents is divided into multiple different subgroups. Especially, from the perspective of differential game theory, the flocking problem of different subgroups can be regarded as collision avoidance between neighboring agents, or obstacle avoidance between agents and virtual static/dynamic obstacles. To explore the internal mechanism of this interesting problem, a novel flocking algorithm with multiple virtual leaders is designed. The proposed algorithm is a modified version of the traditional flocking and semi-flocking algorithms. Based on the Lyapunov stability theorem and LaSalle's invariance principle, the stability analysis of the proposed algorithm is then proven. Furthermore, considering the complex environment that swarm robots or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may face when performing military missions such as surveillance, reconnaissance, and rescue, etc., we also investigate the flocking problem of multi-agents in both virtual static and dynamic obstacles environment. Finally, three kinds of simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed results.

Evolutionary game analysis of online collective behaviour with the introduction of the degree of psychological identity

This article takes frequent online collective behaviour in the context of the outbreak of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus as its research background. Under the perspective of game theory, based on the Evolutionary Game Model and with the improvement of the model's original parameter as well as the introduction of a new parameter, i.e. the degree of psychological identity netizens have on opinion leaders, this article constructs an evolutionary game model between opinion leaders and netizens, and applies numerical simulation to this model with MATLAB for further analysis. It is found that the decision of both opinion leaders and netizens is influenced by the following factors: the probability of a gloom-monger being punished by the government and the punishment intensity;the cost of investigation and evidence collection paid by opinion leaders and netizens;the degree to which netizens approve of opinion leaders' statements with negative guidance;the extra profit earned by opinion leaders when statements with negative guidance are approved of and the total profit gained by netizens approving of statements released by opinion leaders. Conclusions can be applied as theories and decision-making references of the government when it comes to dealing with similar online collective behaviour in the future.

Retrospective Analysis of 61 Cases of Children Died of Viral Pneumonia.

ABSTRACT: Objective To retrospectively analyze the forensic pathological postmortem examination and clinical data of children who died of viral pneumonia in identification of cause of death cases and to discuss the clinical characteristics and pathological features of viral pneumonia in children, in order to provide reference to pathological diagnosis of viral pneumonia in children caused by 2019 novel coronavirus （2019-nCoV） infection. Methods Postmortem examination data from 61 cases of children whose causes of death were identified as viral pneumonia in recent years were collected from the Center of Forensic Identification, Southern Medical University. The gender, age, clinical symptoms and pathological features were comparatively analyzed. Results Among the 61 cases of children who died of viral pneumonia, most were within 2 years old （83.61%）, and a large proportion died within 2 weeks after the onset of the disease （91.80%）. Gross changes in postmortem examination included respiratory mucosal hyperemia, pleural effusion, pulmonary swelling, variegated pulmonary pleura and serosa, as well as focal pulmonary hemorrhage and pulmonary edema. A large proportion of sick children had enlarged mesenteric lymph nodes （83.61%） and thymic dysplasia （21.31%）. Histopathological changes included edema of alveoli and interstitial substance, pneumorrhagia，shedding of alveolar epithelial cells, serous and （or） fibrous exudation in the alveoli, formation of viral inclusions, formation of transparent membranes, infiltration of inflammatory cells that mainly consisted of macrophages and lymphocytes in interstitial substance and alveoli. Viral infections often affected the heart and gastrointestinal tract. Conclusion The clinical symptoms of children with viral pneumonia are difficult to notice, and because the immune systems of children are not fully developed and they have poor immunity, they can easily become severely ill and even die. Analyzing the forensic autopsies and the histopathological characteristics could provide reference for pathological diagnosis of viral pneumonia.