ABSTRACT
During the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, Istat performed the quick survey "Situation and perspectives of Italian enterprises during the COVID-19 health emergency,” with the aim of assessing the economic situation and the specific actions adopted by businesses to reduce the economic impacts of the emergency. To ensure the continuity in the information flow and to analyze the temporal evolution of the observed phenomena, the survey has been repeated in three different waves. The outcomes of each wave was released just after 2 months from the launch of the survey. The present work analyses the characteristics of the sampling strategy and describes the complexity of the data editing process, in the case of a survey planned to produce estimates able to ensure an acceptable level of accuracy in the maximum timeliness. © 2023 The Authors. Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
ABSTRACT
In Indonesia, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) cover nearly 90% of the business entities and become the backbone of national economic growth. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, they encountered challenges in their marketing, which impacted their sales volume. Jember Regency has the highest number of MSMEs in East Java, Indonesia, and is renowned for agro-industry products such as peanut cookies (Kue Kacang). However, most MSMEs in Jember are lacking in applying digital marketing. It is not in line with the acceleration and development of the technology and information flows in 4.0, which has required MSMEs to adapt to these developments in their business. The purpose of this study was to reveal the implementation of digital marketing and the obstacles encountered in improving their sales performance. This study applied a qualitative approach. The research data was collected through semistructured in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation. The informants involved in this study are business owners of peanut cookie MSMEs in Jember. This study found that they use the owner's private account on Facebook and WhatsApp as their primary digital marketing platforms, while others used Instagram and TikTok. Surprisingly, none of them used e-commerce platforms such as due to their cluelessness with the system. In addition, the shortage of input production during the peak season has been a recurring issue for decades. Further, the result discovered that digital marketing makes it easier for MSMEs owners to communicate with consumers, provide information, and expand the market during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
This study analyzes the efficiency of the crude palm oil (CPO) futures market by conducting a variance ratio test and comparing it to the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures market. We discover that the weak-form efficient market hypothesis holds for both the CPO and WTI futures markets despite the significant difference in their liquidity. Using a scaling exponent, we investigate speculative trading activities and find that trading CPO futures in expectation of significant returns does not strongly involve a high level of risk unlike WTI futures. Our findings regarding market efficiency of the two futures markets are supported by the significant integration of the two with similar level of information flow from each market to the other. To explore the role of speculation in their market integration, we introduce a natural experimental setting using the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which caused a sudden decrease in the demand for fuel. The bidirectional information flow between the two markets is intensified after the COVID-19 pandemic due to lower level of speculation. The findings suggest that (i) stakeholders in the CPO market need to pay attention to the crude oil markets to anticipate its price changes, (ii) investors can use WTI futures as a hedging tool against CPO futures as long as there is mutual information flow, and (iii) regulators should carefully implement new CPO futures market policy, as either asymmetric changes in speculation or unbalanced regulation with the WTI futures market can create market distortion and regulatory arbitrage. © 2022 The Authors
ABSTRACT
This article presents the results of an applied study of information flows representing the activities of vaccination opponents in the Russian segment of the new media. Based on a combination of modern methods and tools of social media predictive analytics, the authors conclude that a full-fledged network movement of "anti-vaxxers" was formed during the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia. The authors formulate the main motivations for the digital activity of anti-vaccination opponents, describe the scale and nature of the new network movement, and determine the dominant structure and management models of anti-vaxx networks. The results of the study highlight the key risks of the development of information flows of the Russian anti-vaccinationists and substantiate the need to effectively counter the movement through the formation of a constructive media agenda.
ABSTRACT
With the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of digitally-recorded and connected health data poses a challenge for analysing the situation. Virus outbreaks, such as the current pandemic, allow for the optimisation and reuse of data, which can be beneficial in managing future outbreaks. However, there is a general lack of knowledge about the actual flow of information in health facilities, which is also the case in Uganda. In Uganda, where this case study was conducted, there is no comprehensive knowledge about what type of data is collected or how it is collected along the journey of a patient through a health facility. This study investigates information flows of clinical patient data in health facilities in Uganda. The study found that almost all health facilities in Uganda store patient information in paper files on shelves. Hospitals in Uganda are provided with paper tools, such as reporting forms, registers and manuals, in which district data is collected as aggregate data and submitted in the form of digital reports to the Ministry of Health Resource Center. These reporting forms are not digitised and, thus, not machine-actionable. Hence, it is not easy for health facilities, researchers, and others to find and access patient and research data. It is also not easy to reuse and connect this data with other digital health data worldwide, leading to the incorrect conclusion that there is less health data in Uganda. The a FAIR architecture has the potential to solve such problems and facilitate the transition from paper to digital records in the Uganda health system. © 2022 Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
ABSTRACT
This study finds asymmetric information flow from the crude palm oil (CPO) futures to the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures market despite the CPO futures market's low liquidity and small market capitalization. Our finding is robust regardless of the 2019 Coronavirus outbreak and the asymmetric information flow becomes even unilateral considering the exchange rate risk on the Malaysian Ringgit. Finally, we explain the asymmetric information flow from the CPO futures to WTI futures market given that the impact of speculation on market efficiency crowds out that of liquidity. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.
ABSTRACT
We present an empirical study exploring how privacy influences the acceptance of vaccination certificate (VC) deployments across different realistic usage scenarios. The study employed the privacy framework of Contextual Integrity, which has been shown to be particularly effective in capturing people's privacy expectations across different contexts. We use a vignette methodology, where we selectively manipulate salient contextual parameters to learn whether and how they affect people's attitudes towards VCs. We surveyed 890 participants from a demographically-stratified sample of the US population to gauge the acceptance and overall attitudes towards possible VC deployments to enforce vaccination mandates and the different information flows VCs might entail. Analysis of results collected as part of this study is used to derive general normative observations about different possible VC practices and to provide guidance for the possible deployments of VCs in different contexts. © 2022 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
The rapid movement of information flows in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the FinTech revolution. In order not to lag behind in such conditions, banks need to gain customer confidence by studying customer demand, accelerating the remote organization of banking services, risk management in the remote organization of banking services, creating transparent and online platforms. After all, the introduction of modern FinTech products in the banking system will allow banks to attract customers, dramatically increase future revenues and reduce costs. In addition to the implementation of digital transformation of banks, the article presents the author's approaches to risk management and its impact on the existing ecosystem, the types of risks in the electronic banking system in recent years and these characteristics, as well as risk management related to remote banking services. © 2021 ACM.
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the platformization of education in the time of a global pandemic in order to better understand the potential privacy implications for the teachers who had first-hand experience with this rapid digital transition. We have developed a case study of Bulgarian secondary education including eleven in-depth interviews aiming to grasp the main context-specific concerns, values, and norms related to privacy in the sector. On the basis of this data, we argue that educational technology (edtech) should be governed with the communities it serves in mind while respecting the appropriateness and the integrity of the information flows. Potential disruptions should be renegotiated with all affected parties before settling for a certain digital solution to be used in class. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
One of the most significant and rapidly developing works in the field of data analysis is information flow management. Within the analysis targeted and stochastic dissemination patterns are studied. The solving of such problems is relevant due to the global growth in the amount of information and its availability for a wide range of users. The paper presents a study of dissemination of information messages in open networks on the example of COVID-19. The study was conducted with the use of visual analytics. Informational messages from the largest world and Russian information services, social networks and instant messengers were used as sources of information. Due to the large amount of information on the topic, the authors proposed a pattern of the wave-like dissemination of information on the example of topic clusters on the connection of COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine and 5G. The developed methods can be scaled up to analyze information events of various topics. © 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has become a global pandemic affecting billions of people. Its impact on societies worldwide will be felt for years to come. The purpose of this research is to examine information flows about COVID-19 to understand the information-specific underpinnings that are shaping understandings of this crisis. As a starting point, this research analyzes information about COVID-19 from a selection of information sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China (NHCPRC), and three news outlets with vast global coverage. The analysis reveals some distinctive information underpinnings about COVID-19, including (a) flows of information becoming regular and larger around certain dates, (b) preponderance of information imperfections such as incomplete information, misinformation, and disinformation, and (c) absence of information about some key turning points. The implications of these information imperfections in that they create information failures and, hence, ineffective approaches to dealing with this crisis warrant further investigation.