ABSTRACT
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 saw a growing interest in starting own business: as per the Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics, the number of applications to form new businesses filed in the U.S. was the highest compared to any other year on record, reaching the total of 5.4 million (Economic Innovation Group, 2022), while in the EU, after an initial downward trend recorded in the first and second quarters of 2020, the number of new business registrations grew again in the third quarter of that year, and this upward trend continued throughout 2021 (Eurostat, 2022). Of course, as a result of Russia's invasion on Ukraine and related economic crisis, a downward tendency could be observed, but business registration levels in the EU in the first quarter of 2022 were still higher than during the pre-COVID 19 pandemic period (2015-2019) (Eurostat, 2022) and online searches indicating and intent to open a business spiked by 76% from 2018 to 2022 (Search Engine Journal, 2022). This shows that despite many external impediments, people are still tempted to start their own business, and many influencers, motivational speakers and coaches, as well as various popular TV shows broadcast worldwide (like the Apprentice, Dragons' Den, Shark Tank or Planet of the Apps) encourage them to do so. Becoming an entrepreneur has become a goal many people, especially 20-, 30- and 40-year-olds, strive to achieve. However, many of those people fail to realise that the very entry in the business register does not automatically make them entrepreneurs or their business successful. Neither does a good (or even excellent and innovative) business idea that attracts customers, as it was in Kodak's, Blockbuster's, or Ask Jeeves' case. What is required, is the ability to stay attractive to existing and prospective customers, i.e., the ability to win and retain customers, and to adapt to the changing demands, trends and economic conditions. All this can be achieved thanks to a meticulously designed and regularly reviewed and updated business model. The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the learning process of acquiring and building competences in the area of business models with the use of different innovative tools. The results presented and discussed in this article come from surveys as well as face-to-face and on-line meetings conducted in the ProBM 2 ERASMUS+ project (Understanding and Developing Business Models in the Era of Globalisation), in which the total of 261 respondents from seven (7) European countries, i.e. Poland, Italy, Greece, Romania, Portugal, Malta, and Switzerland, took part between 2019 and 2022. From the meetings and surveys it follows that much more awareness of business models needs to be encouraged and developed, particularly as regards improving competences helping future business owners and their employees assess profitability and efficiency of their operations and ensure that the business will be a going concern. © 2022 Authors. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
During the first quarter of 2020, the world encountered a crucial and unprecedented health crisis. The global transmission of COVID-19 poses a significant challenging situation for Oil and Gas industry, particularly in the absence of standardized procedures and recognized methods. Like many other countries worldwide, Saudi Arabia implemented the lockdown for utmost public and private services and controlled population movement through curfew. With the execution of these tight mitigation requirements, Halliburton Saudi Arabia has been able to maintain business continuity by looking at the basic approach of health, safety, and environmental (HSE) processes through crisis management decision making and utilizing digital solutions. The purpose of this paper is to showcase how Halliburton Saudi Arabia developed sustainable adjustable process and methods that reduced exposure and the pandemic-related potential risks associated with working in offices, rig sites, workshops, and laboratories while maintaining business continuity in operation, manufacturing, and technology. Halliburton Saudi Arabia preformed risk analysis, tracking systems, exposure modification methodologies, communication strategies and management decisions that helped the company overcome challenges during the pandemic. The implementation of risk assessments, adaptable safety procedures and utilizing more than 5 digital platforms, served Halliburton employees and its work force throughout 2021 and into 2032. In this paper, we share lessons learned during the pandemic, how we overcame the unprecedented health crisis and how we continue to deal with the pandemic impact. Copyright © 2022, International Petroleum Technology Conference.
ABSTRACT
Textile and clothing exports from Egypt shot up by 36.4% in 2021. The rise represented a recovery after exports had declined by 13.4% in 2020—reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were increases in exports in 2021 to most of Egypt's major markets, including Algeria, Canada, China, the EU, India, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the UAE, the UK and the USA. Furthermore, strong growth was recorded in 2022 in sales of Egyptian textiles and clothing in the EU import market in the first half of the year and in the US import market in the first nine months of the year. Textile and clothing exports from Morocco rose by 25.9% in 2021 following a 17.3% fall in 2020. The rise in 2021 reflected increases in exports to almost all of Morocco's major markets, including the EU, Mauritania, Senegal, Tunisia, Turkey, the UK and the USA. Furthermore, in 2022 there was strong growth in sales of Moroccan clothing in the EU import market in the first half of the year and in the US import market in the first nine months of the year. Textile and clothing production in Morocco rose significantly in 2021 after declining in 2020. It was down in the first quarter of 2022 but was up sharply in the second quarter of 2022. Textile and clothing exports from Tunisia increased by 12.0% in 2021 following a 7.3% decline in 2020, and during January-July 2022 they were up by 20.8%. The increases in 2021 and during January-July 2022 reflected, primarily, trends in clothing exports while, geographically, they reflected trends in sales in the EU, UK and US markets. Production by Tunisian textile, clothing and fur manufacturers, meanwhile, rose by 10.8% in 2021 and during January-September 2022 it was up by 18.5%. Textile and clothing exports from Turkey rose by 26.1% in 2021 and during January-September 2022 they were up by 6.4%. The rise in 2021 reflected increases in exports to almost all of Turkey's major markets, including Belarus, Egypt, the EU, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, the UAE, the UK, Ukraine and the USA. Furthermore, in 2022 there was strong growth in sales of Turkish clothing in the EU import market in the first half of the year, although growth in sales in the US import market slowed to just 0.8% in the first nine months of the year. Clothing production in Turkey rose by 24.0% in 2021 and was up by 33.4% during January-September 2022. Textile production, meanwhile, increased by 20.5% in 2021 but during January-September 2022 it inched down by 0.1%. © Textiles Intelligence Limited 2022.
ABSTRACT
The world is witnessing a pandemic of SARS-CoV2 infection since the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Ever since the first case was reported in Wuhan city of China in December 2019, the virus has spread over 223 countries. Understanding and predicting the dynamics of COVID-19 spread through data analysis will empower our administrations with insights for better planning and response against the burden inflicted on our health care infrastructure and economy. The aim of the study was to analyze and predict COVID-19 spread in Ernakulam district of Kerala. Data was extracted from lab data management system (LDMS), a government portal to enter all the COVID-19 testing details. Using the EpiModel package of R-mathematical modeling of infectious disease dynamics, the predictive analysis for hospitalization rate, percentage of patients requiring oxygen and ICU admission, percentage of patients getting admitted, duration of hospital stay, case fatality rate, age group and gender-wise fatality rate, and hospitalization rate were computed. While calculating the above-said variables, the percentage of vaccinated population, breakthrough infections, and percentage of hospitalization among the vaccinated was also taken into consideration. The time trend of patients in ICU showed men outnumbered women. Positive cases were more among 20–30 years, while 61–70 years age group had more risk for ICU admission. An increase in CFR with advancing age and also a higher CFR among males were seen. Conclusions: Analyzing and predicting the trend of COVID-19 would help the governments to better utilize their limited healthcare resources and adopt timely measures to contain the virus. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Share market is a chaotic and ever-changing place for making predictions, as there is no defined procedure to evaluate or forecast the value of a share of a company. Methods like time series, technical, statistical and fundamental analysis are used to predict the price of a share. However, these methods have not proven to be very consistent and precise for making predictions. COVID-19 has further deteriorated the chances to find such a tool as the markets have taken a huge hit in the first quarter of 2020. In this paper, support vector machine and multiple regression algorithms will be implemented for predicting stock market prices. Our aim is to find the machine learning algorithm which can predict the stock prices most accurately before and during the pandemic. The accuracy for every algorithm will be compared and the algorithm which is the most accurate would be considered ideal. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
In December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was alerted to an increase in cases of pneumonia in the city of Wuhan in China, confirming that it was a respiratory infection caused by a new strain of coronavirus, previously unknown in humans. COVID-19, a disease caused by the coronavirus-SARS-CoV2, was declared pandemic by the WHO in March 2020, due to its rapid worldwide spread. The form of transmission of the disease occurs through droplets disseminated in the air, orally-fecally or by fomites. Studies show that the nosocomial spread of the virus may be responsible for the increase in the number of cases in some countries, which makes the use of individual protection equipment the measure of greater control of nosocomial infection. However, the increase in the consumption of these inputs in an indiscriminate manner can cause an unsustainable financial impact for hospital institutions. The purpose of this study is to show the partial results of the analysis of the costs of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in a philanthropic hospital in the inland city of Bahia, after the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The results drew attention to the 33.13% increase in the hospital cost with personal protective equipment in the first quarter of 2020, which raises a concern regarding the institution's financial difficulty in maintaining the supply of these supplies. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
At the end of first quarter of 2020 it was seen in most countries statistics the beginning of an imminent second wave of pandemic. On January of 2021 it was seen in the data a rapid growth of new infections. In this paper, a geometry-based scheme is presented. In concrete the rectangle and trapezoid shapes are analyzed. From this, a relation between both geometries is extracted in terms of polynomial functions. The resulting characterization of a pandemic in terms of geometric variables is presented. Thus the present model is confronted with official data of USA and India. From the results of this paper, it is strongly believed that entropy might be behind of a global pandemic dynamics. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Textile and clothing exports from Egypt fell by 13.4% in 2020, reflecting the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy and on world trade. There were declines in exports to Algeria, Canada, China, India, the EU, Turkey, the UK and the USA, although there were increases in exports to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia. In 2021, however, there were sharp recoveries in sales of Egyptian textiles and clothing in the EU import market in the first half of the year and in the US import market in the first nine months of the year. Clothing exports from Morocco declined by 22.3% in 2020, reflecting falls in sales of Moroccan clothing in the EU and US import markets. In 2021, however, there were sharp recoveries in sales of Moroccan clothing in the EU import market in the first half of the year and in the US import market in the first nine months of the year. Textile production in Morocco was down in 2020 but it edged up in the first quarter of 2021 and was up sharply in the second quarter of 2021 while clothing production was down in 2020 and during the first quarter of 2021 but it surged in the second quarter of 2021. Textile and clothing exports from Tunisia fell by 11.9% in 2020 but during January-August 2021 they were up by 15.5%. The fall in 2020 and rise during January-August 2021 reflected, primarily, trends in clothing exports while, geographically, they reflected trends in sales in the EU and US import markets. Production by Tunisian textile, clothing and fur manufacturers, meanwhile, fell by 16.8% in 2020 but during January-June 2020 it was up by 16.7%. Textile and clothing exports from Turkey fell by 4.4% in 2020 but during January-August 2021 they were up by 33.9%. These trends reflected trends in sales of Turkish textiles and clothing in the EU—the country’s largest market. In the USA, however, sales rose in 2020 and soared during January-September 2021. As a result, Turkey’s share of US textile and clothing imports from all sources rose significantly in 2020 and it was also up significantly during January-August 2021. Clothing production in Turkey fell by 6.6% in 2020 but textile production edged up by 0.8%. And during January-April 2021 textile and clothing production in Turkey was up significantly. © Textiles Intelligence Limited 2021.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on coastal shipping in the Mediterranean and Black Sea with emphasis on short sea bulk and general cargoes. Semi-structured interviews were with shipowners, and shipbrokers to enhance the qualitiative methodology and to gather more detailed responses. The result of the study shows that in the first quarter of 2020 shipowners and charterers signficantly reduced sailing with some ceasing operations altogether, due to the efect of COVID – 19. Trade stopped, factories shut down, ports slowed down and yet port congestion still occured. Shipyards and scrapyards also faced similar reduction in operations. Freight rates declined to new record lows (for a brief period of time) causing some shipowners to lay-up vessels. Crew change problems were faced and still continuing creatign more disruption in managing the human element of the maritime industry. By the third-quarter of 2020, as demand for raw materials and finished good inventories increased, so did the demand for charters. Fortunately for charterers, the increase in demand also caused an increase in freight rates. © 2021 21st Annual General Assembly, IAMU AGA 2021 - Proceedings of the International Association of Maritime Universities ,IAMU Conference. All rights reserved.