ABSTRACT
This unprecedented time of the COVID-19 outbreak challenged the status-quo whether it is on business operation, political leadership, scientific capability, engineering implementation, data analysis, and strategic thinking, in terms of resiliency, agility, and innovativeness. Due to some identified constraints, while addressing the issue of global health, human ingenuity has proven again that in times of crisis, it is our best asset. Constraints like limited testing capacity and lack of real-time information regarding the spread of the virus, are the highest priority in the mitigation process, aside from the development of vaccines and the pushing through of vaccination programs. Using the available Chest X-Ray Images dataset and an AI-Computer Vision Technique called Convolutional Neural Network, features of the images were extracted and classified as COVID-19 positive or not. This paper proposes the usage of the 18-layer Residual Neural Network (ResNet-18) as an architecture instead of other ResNet with a higher number of layers. The researcher achieves the highest validation accuracy of 99.26%. Moving forward, using this lower number of layers in training a model classifier, resolves the issue of device constraints such as storage capacity and computing resources while still assuring highly accurate outputs. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
According to the significant impacts of social media and the internet on all facets of our lives in general and the business world in particular, many business owners and entrepreneurs who are looking to expand their clientele or start their own ventures have moved to the virtual world, particularly when they want to advance their careers. For the reasons mentioned above, this article aims to ascertain how social media networks impact business operations, with a focus on how they affect entrepreneurship growth. Facebook and Instagram are the two most useful social media platforms. The findings indicate that Facebook and Instagram have a significant impact on increasing entrepreneurship and household income in Jordan. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a substantial impact on the tourism and hospitality sector. Public policies such as travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders had significantly affected tourist activities and service businesses' operations and profitability. It is essential to develop interpretable forecasting models to support managerial and organizational decision-making. We developed DemandNet, a novel deep learning framework for predicting time series data under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The DemandNet framework has the following unique characteristics. First, it selects the top static and dynamic features embedded in the time series data. Second, it includes a nonlinear model which can provide interpretable insight into the previously seen data. Third, a novel prediction model is developed to leverage the above characteristics to make robust long-term forecasts. We evaluated DemandNet using daily hotel demand and revenue data from eight cities in the US between 2013 and 2020. Our findings reveal that DemandNet outperforms the state-of-art models and can accurately predict the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on hotel demand and revenue. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 increased reliance on information communication technologies (ICTs) as public and private organizations altered standard business operations to adhere to public health guidance. Across most sectors, technology deployment was swift, which left organizations with little opportunity to assess corresponding impacts. This chapter highlights various technologies implemented during the pandemic within four key sectors, government, education, healthcare, and employment, and the purpose these technologies serve. Social implications of the widespread use of these technologies are discussed, emphasizing privacy, trust, ethics, and potential effects on socially vulnerable populations. Through the Company Information Privacy Orientation (CIPO) privacy framework, this chapter also presents factors that public and private organizations should consider in emergency technology deployment. The chapter closes with research considerations to further understand the role of ethics, privacy, and trust in using ICTs, to facilitate core functions of life, which will continue after the pandemic ebbs away. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
In recent years, the economic, technological, and sociocultural environments have been in constant change. Customers are more demanding and aware of market trends. Companies innovate their processes through the implementation of technologies that allow them to optimize operations and facilitate business-client interaction. However, many companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, face difficulties in adapting to new business models. There are even companies that are not willing to change the traditional way they carry out their daily business operations, which can present more challenges in today's market. The digital transformation has caused companies to restructure their business models in recent years. Currently, with the arrival of COVID-19, many businesses have been affected due to the lack of digitization in the processes. Small and medium-sized companies were forced to embark on E-Commerce in order to reach their customers and survive the competition. Still, not all companies have managed to properly implement a digital transformation strategy to redesign their structures and operations. In Panama there are still no studies focused on the degree of digitalization of small and medium-sized companies. This research aims to describe the degree of digitalization of local companies in the province of Chiriqui-Panama © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Cloud infrastructure enables individuals, organizations, and enterprises to offer scalable and elastic resources to support business operations remotely. The demand for digital transformation encourages communities and technical professionals to adopt cloud computing and automation platforms for facilitating their resource capacity, including operating systems, networks, and applications. Of cloud-based applications for social good, virtual education platforms play an important role to re-duce the cost and effort for trainees and trainers during practical courses, especially in the context of pandemics such as Covid-19. Nonetheless, the task of setting up practical environments with virtual machines, network elements, and software programs is the burden of the system that hosts many training courses with numerous trainees or resources. Hence, this research provides the mechanism for defining and automatically implementing the hands-on laboratory environments for information technology (IT) training. Specifically, we design and implement a concurrent scheme and local repository for deploying multiple environments with high performance in large virtual classrooms. The total time to finish environmental settings for learners is kept stable to meet the satisfaction of users in case of the remarkable growth in the number of environments and trainees. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The clinic operations of primary care physicians experienced an economic downturn affecting the delivery of healthcare services since the start of the pandemic. Thus, this research study determines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the clinic operations of primary care physicians in Southern Negros Occidental in terms of business operation and marketing viability. The study also intended to discover the opportunities and challenges in primary care facility operations. The descriptive-comparative research design was used. Research findings show that the COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on the clinic operations of primary care physicians. Moreover, age has a significant difference in the degree of impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the clinic operations in both business operations and marketing viability. The study essentially addresses the limited data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the clinic operations. The medical society may utilize this study to look for strategies to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on primary care physicians and maintain the delivery of health services in a non-hospital-based setting. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Technium Social Sciences Journal is the property of Technium Press Constanta and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
Cloud computing has become the infrastructure that supports people's daily activities, business operations, and education delivery around the world. Cloud computing-based education platforms have been widely applied to assist online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the impact and importance of cloud computing in remote learning and education. This study conducted multiple-case analyses of 22 online platforms of higher education in Chinese universities during the epidemic. A comparative analysis of the 22 platforms revealed that they applied different cloud computing models and tools based on their unique requirements and needs. The study results provide strategic insights to higher education institutions regarding effective approaches to applying cloud computing-based platforms for remote education, especially during crisis situations. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 outbreak has significantly hit and altered the way people live, socialise, and do business operations, causing many governments to step in with stimulus packages to help them survive. Major victims of this situation are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This breakup in society has a devastating effect on SMEs, causing economic disruption, uncertainty, and confusion. Simultaneously, as with every big crisis, fresh possibilities to reimagine business in a new light. This article presents a critical examination of the Malaysian government’s approach to the Covid-19 issue and its implications on spurring SMEs’ growth in e-commerce. It will look back on 2020 as the year that revolutionised everything for regular living, business activities, and healthcare systems. It is an analysis of discourse within a range of archival evidence. It is based on examining major publications and documented materials emanating from government reports, newspapers, and international reports from internet resources of the success stories of the Malaysia stimulus program. The government has implemented a comprehensive economic response to realise the full potential of the e-commerce ecosystem in terms of connecting people, driving change, and improving corporate outcomes. Furthermore, this study allows us to analyse the role of the government in assisting SMEs. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Electronic-commerce (e-commerce) has evolved since its inception in the nineties, and it is still evolving with the growth of new technological solutions [1]. Globally, e-commerce has revolutionized the trading industry [2]. However, in Namibia, the infiltration of e-commerce is still in the infancy stage [3]. The country is gradually moving into the fourth industrial revolution with pockets of businesses still unfamiliar with e-commerce. Pundits postulate that most companies will have to face e-commerce as the future of their businesses [4], especially now with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the nature of business operations globally. Moreover, in Namibia, there is a general lack of literature on the topic of e-commerce adoption, the challenges for adoption, and the influence of ecommerce knowledge on the adoption. This paper presents a case study conducted in a Namibian conglomerate that aimed to discover the challenges of e-commerce adoption unique to this Namibian organization focusing only on the aspect of buying and selling tangible products online. Quantitative data was collected through an online survey and interpreted using descriptive statistical data analysis. The findings show that there is no point of reference for the adoption of e-commerce, the challenge of decision-makers is congruent with knowledge of ecommerce and the ideology of supplying products that cannot be traded online. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The first COVID-19 is discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and rapidly spread to millions of people all over the world. COVID-19 heavily affects the industrial business and economy of many countries, including Thailand. This study aims at exploring the effects of COVID-19 on the targeted (S-Curve) industries of Thailand and investigating the ways to improve business operations with the utilization of the appropriate Industry 4.0 technologies. The paper presents (1) Industry 4.0 background and the First S-Curve and the New S-Curve industries of Thailand (2) Data collection and analysis (3) The effects of COVID-19 on business operations. The characteristics of each industry, the requirements of business and operator to cope with Industry 4.0, and the implementations of Industry 4.0 technologies during the situation of COVID-19 are analyzed by using a focus group, online questionnaires and interviews. Results show that customer behavior is a major issue on business operations and IoT is the most critical technology in supporting business operations and reducing the impacts of COVID-19. It has also been found that the functions of technologies depend on the characteristics of each industry. Results from this study can assist companies to obtain a better understanding of the critical functions of technologies that suit their characteristics best and develop operator's skills properly for increasing business competitiveness. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
In the past year, the global COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented impact on our lives. In manufacturing, strict lock-down due to the pandemic have also disrupted the business operations of manufacturing companies. From literature, there are limited studies that explore the impact of the pandemic towards manufacturing related companies in various aspects. This study attempts to answer what constitute the main challenge for these companies and the associated response strategies to overcome the challenge. A survey was conducted at a manufacturing trade exhibition that involved in-depth interviews with representatives from 22 manufacturing related companies. The outcomes of this study reveal that declining sales and marketing activities, difficulties in performing business meeting and lock-down measures are the top three challenges. Main response strategies for these companies are the adoption of ICT tools for virtual business processes, with proactive business change and diversification measures such as automation. The results of this study indicate the importance of automation and digitalization towards resilience and adaptability of manufacturing related companies against the impacts of the pandemic. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has influenced business operations all around the world, with the adoption of technology to sustain business operations and improve survival being on the rise across various sectors. This review was conducted to explore existing literature to uncover the effects that COVID-19 has had on Internet of Things (IoT) technology adoption, innovation, or research. The review was conducted through a search of literature sources detailing the impacts, the IoT technologies and solutions used as a result of the pandemic, and the various technologies and solutions that were invented before the pandemic but found higher demands because of the pandemic. The review reveals that COVID-19 has increased the adoption of IoT technology by more companies across diverse fields including healthcare, smart homes, smart offices, retail, airports, manufacturing, and hospitality. It also reveals that most businesses had plans for the gradual adoption of the IoT technologies that were already in existence before the pandemic but were pushed to procure and implement them as necessity arose. The review finally reveals that there are more IoT research and development efforts as a result of the pandemic. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The importance of software applications in organisations and society at large is well established, especially in the post Covid-19 period where IT systems plays an important role in the online mode of business operations and interaction with consumers that is being adopted across the board. Organisations use software applications for many purposes, including to generate revenues by increasing productivity and most importantly ensuring customer satisfaction. Society uses software applications to among others, enhance their day-to-day activities. Some of these software applications are used in life threatening situations, thus raising the need of building quality within these software applications throughout the development processes. The aim of this study is to assess the quality practices used in agile development methodology and how these are applied and measured to ensure that the final product meet the required quality. A quantitative approach was adopted for this research coupled with online survey design using google forms. The results of the study reveals that while some quality testing techniques and metrics are used in agile projects, majority of organisations do not follow a specific quality standard against which their practices are benchmarked. A set of factors are identified as major stumbling blocks that affect quality practices in these environments where emphasise is made on flexibility and fast delivery. Looking at testing component of Agile methodology, the TDD approach is mostly being used which allows testing to start from development by use of unit testing. In fact test packs are being prepare together with requirements analysis so that it will be easier for developer to develop unit tests. Even though the sprint cycle is very short but the use of automated testing ensures quality of software in term of functionality, usability and operability. Copyright © 2021 by Naudé Scribante. Permission granted to IAMOT to publish and use.