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The recent outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has posed serious threats and challenges to global supply chain management (GSCM). To survive the crisis, it is critical to rethink the proper setting of global supply chains and reform many related operational strategies. We hence attempt to reform the GSCM from both supply and demand sides considering different pandemic stages (i.e., pre, during, and post-pandemic stages). In this research paper, we combine a careful literature review with real-world case studies to examine the impacts and specific challenges brought by the pandemic to global supply chains. We first classify the related literature from the demand and supply sides. Based on the insights obtained, we search publicly available information and report real practices of GSCM under COVID-19 in nine top global enterprises. To achieve responsiveness, resilience, and restoration (3Rs), we then propose the "GREAT-3Rs” framework, which shows the critical issues and measures for reforming GSCM under the three pandemic stages. In particular, the "GREAT” part of the framework includes five critical domains, namely, "government proactive policies and measures,” "redesigning global supply chains,” "economic and financing strategies under risk,” "adjustment of operations,” and "technology adoption,” to help global enterprises to survive the pandemic;"3Rs” are the outputs that can be achieved after using the "GREAT” strategies under the three pandemic stages. Finally, we establish a future research agenda from five aspects. © 2022 Production and Operations Management Society.
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For the past few years, the world has seen a paradigm shift in the way of life. Daily activities of working, learning, etc. were shifted to an online mode so that the spread of the covid virus can be contained. During this time, usage of social media apps was at an all-time high since it was the only way people could socialize. The clubhouse was one such social media app that gained popularity during the lockdown and showed exponential growth in terms of user engagement. But, it was observed that from the survey conducted among 33 users, almost 82% of users showed reluctance in using Clubhouse over time. 84.8% of users welcomed the need for a better User Experience for the platform. An average of 64.2% of users reported different User Experience (UX) related issues in the app. In this paper, the UX side of the app is studied and discussed. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Passengers significantly affect airport terminal energy consumption and indoor environmental quality. Accurate passenger forecasting provides important insights for airport terminals to optimize their operation and management. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly increased the uncertainty in airport passenger since 2020. There are insufficient studies to investigate which pandemic-related variables should be considered in forecasting airport passenger trends under the impact of COVID-19 outbreaks. In this study, the interrelationship between COVID-19 pandemic trends and passenger traffic at a major airport terminal in China was analyzed on a day-by-day basis. During COVID-19 outbreaks, three stages of passenger change were identified and characterized, i.e., the decline stage, the stabilization stage, and the recovery stage. A typical "sudden drop and slow recovery” pattern of passenger traffic was identified. A LightGBM model including pandemic variables was developed to forecast short-term daily passenger traffic at the airport terminal. The SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values was used to quantify the contribution of input pandemic variables. Results indicated the inclusion of pandemic variables reduced the model error by 27.7% compared to a baseline model. The cumulative numbers of COVID-19 cases in previous weeks were found to be stronger predictors of future passenger traffic than daily COVID-19 cases in the most recent week. In addition, the impact of pandemic control policies and passengers' travel behavior was discussed. Our empirical findings provide important implications for airport terminal operations in response to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022
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The study looked into how COVID-19 affected the digital competence of a group of preservice teacher education students at a higher education institution in the Sultanate of Oman. The paper examined students' digital profile in five areas namely information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety and problem solving. Data from 32 undergraduate students was collected by utilizing DigComp, a European Commission digital skills self-assessment tool and findings from a survey. The digital competence framework measures the set of skills, knowledge and attitudes that describes what it means to be digitally competent. These skills are important for students to be effective global citizens in the 21st century. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the students scored Level 3 (Intermediate) in their self-assessment competency test score. The majority of the students perceived that their digital competence improved significantly as the result of online learning which was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The rationale of this investigation is that it helps educators understand the students' level of digital competence and the students' perspectives on ICT skills. In turn, it informs us the ways to monitor the students' digital progress and the next steps in developing their digital competency © 2023, International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications.All Rights Reserved.
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Previous research on travel behavior has concentrated on the behavior of traveling by cars, especially by private vehicles, while the research on cycling has focused on cycling infrastructure, the built environment, and the natural environment. Furthermore, the studies conducted during pandemics are mostly based on behavioral changes in motorized transportation. The present research tries to identify and evaluate the variables influencing cyclist behavior during covid-19 pandemic. In this research, the sample size retrieved from a survey of 375 participants was checked with Cronbach's alpha standard and estimated using confirmatory factor analysis. Results show that the variables related to health protocols can greatly impact knowing the behavior of cyclists in the time of Covid-19. Furthermore, the results show that the health issues of shared bikes can be an obstacle for people to use them more. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Intelligent Transportation Systems Japan.
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The contemporary political situation has been characterized, in recent years, by the emergence of multiple forms of populism. Since populist discourses have often used migrants and migrations instrumentally, one should clarify what populism, souverainism and the ‘spatialization of fear' actually mean. In this sense, many European states have ambiguously wavered between the rejection of supranational entities (as in the case of the United Kingdom with the Brexit, or the first version of Marine Le Pen's Front National) and the desire to strengthen European borders, considered culturally homogeneous, against the ‘threat' of foreigners arriving from Africa and Asia. Ever since the coronavirus emergency exploded, populism has been similarly ambiguous with regard to cities, which are sometimes considered the receptacle for all evil (and all diseases), while at other times they are a political model (with obvious reference to the Greek polis) to be defended, once again, in the clash of civilizations that characterizes our era. If, in fact, there are many studies on the construction of the populist discourse at the national or supranational scale, less attention has been paid to the urban scale, which also plays a key role in the articulation between identity rhetoric, practices of confinement and spatial imagery. In this turbulent context, Palermo has also experienced some episodes, albeit not very well known, of populist anti-migrant rhetoric. Since the prevailing narrative for now, due to Covid-19, focuses on security obsessions, migrants have been linked to a stigma that configures them as carriers of dangerous diseases, not only at the national scale but also and especially at the urban level. By building on the existing scientific literature on populism, and through the use of a qualitative methodology based on critical discourse analysis, this contribution aims to outline the links between migration, populism and health emergencies, starting from a theoretical framework and then describing the specific case of Palermo, still subject to rapid changes. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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In this article, we analysed the situation during the pandemics of COVID-19 virus in the Slovak Republic. We summarized measures within transport system, that Slovak Republic took in an attempt to soften the impact of the virus and to minimize its spread. We found out that these measures and the swiftness of their adoption had strong influence on flattening the curve of virus spreading. The main contribution of this article is in deeper look into possibilities of a smart transport system, aimed to identify, what more could the smart transport system offer to help in a fight of the country against spreading virus. For this purpose, we need to remind our previous work, where we described concept Smart City, concept Safe City, and their systems. One of these systems is system smart transport, and its description in previous work was the base ground for our design of additional solutions, improving safety in the time of pandemics. Therefore, this article will start with description of system Safe City and system smart transport, followed by examination of the case, evaluation of adopted measures, and proposal of additional measures. The focus of proposed measures will be given to the original design of mass transport system. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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COVID-19 pandemic affects 213 countries and regions around the world. Which the number of people infected with the virus exceeded 26 millions infected and more than 870 thousand deaths until september 04, 2020, in the world, and Peru among the countries most affected by this pandemic. So we proposed a mathematical model describes the dynamics of spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. The optimal control strategy based on the model is proposed, and several reasonable and suitable control strategies are suggested to the prevention and reduce the spread COVID-19 virus, by conducting awareness campaigns and quarantine with treatment. coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Pontryagin's maximum principle is used to characterize the optimal controls and the optimality system is solved by an iterative method. Finally, some numerical simulations are performed to verify the theoretical analysis using Matlab. © 2022
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The resilience of a new national healthcare waste management protocol was compared in hospital and community settings in Ethiopia during the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. The aim was also to evaluate the flexibility and implementation status of the guidelines for healthcare waste management in the context of a pandemic. The study was performed in a cross-sectional design by using a structured questionnaire and checklists and through a systematic review. Primary and secondary data were collected, including those from municipal sites, Yekatit 12 Hospital and other relevant stakeholders. Furthermore, the data were analysed and compared to the global practices and standards. The study revealed there was a comparable difference in the level of care taken in healthcare waste management between healthcare institutions and in the community in Addis Ababa city. The provision of awareness training to waste handlers in both the clinical and municipal setting was significantly deficient, which has to be addressed together with many other variables, starting with the formulation of a resilient waste management protocol. Furthermore, waste management protocols have to be expert-revised periodically. © 2023 ICE Publishing. All rights reserved.
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This paper documents co‐participatory research with children in six primary schools in Ireland during the COVID‐19 pandemic. It explores the use of what we term digital dialogues with diverse groups of children aged 9–10 years as members of Child Research Advisory Groups. The paper conceptualises the digital dialogues as sites of resistance as well as constraint, empowering children to articulate their voices in relation to schooling and the pandemic, whilst mediated by power dynamics—between adults and children, and between children, in the articulation of those voices.
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Over the past two decades, different drivers have prompted institutional players to adopt digital innovations in healthcare systems. Telemedicine represents a digital innovation solution to guaranteeing the continuity of care, and patient and personnel safety. However, despite its potential benefits (such as improving care access in rural areas, reduction in hospitalization stay, and saving time for patients and healthcare professionals) and its rapid acceleration in use during the Covid-19 pandemic, the diffusion of telemedicine services remains limited and uneven across Europe. Adopting an explorative approach, this paper analyzes the implementation of telemedicine projects, investigating not only the factors but also the ways in which the analyzed organizations, in order to move from the design to implementation phase, managed the change needed to overcome barriers and to leverage enabling factors. Our research focus is on Southern Italy;a disadvantaged area in comparison to other Italian and European regions. The goal of the paper is to shed light on the characterization of leverages and barriers, as well as the related managerial actions for change implemented in a context whereby the diffusion of telemedicine remains limited. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
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There has long been evidence of the benefit of a modal shift toward cycling can bring to meeting several pressing urban challenges including ill-health, climate change, and poor air quality. In the wake of COVID-19, policy-makers have identified a modal shift toward cycling as part of the solution to mobility challenges introduced by social distancing measures. However, beyond exemplar areas, cycling has been largely characterized by a stubbornly-low modal share. In this paper, we use the ‘ordinary city'–in cycling terms–of Liverpool as a case study to understand this. We apply practice theory in doing so, finding the provision of materials for cycling is the key factor in supporting a modal shift. Not only do they provide the means to support the practice of cycling in the city, but they also have a key role in shaping individuals perceptions of, and the skills required to cycle. We then reflect upon the utility of practice theory in understanding the patterns of everyday life, finding it was particularly well suited in understanding the interactions between different factors which influence modal choice. We go on to identify practical challenges in its application within our analysis raising questions around an inconsistent analysis of influential factors including ‘driver behavior' and ‘political commitment'. We suggest how this might be overcome, through the isolation of such factors within a category of ‘action of others', this we argue means the findings in this paper have broad relevance to researchers and policy-makers alike. © 2021 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
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One of the main impacts of technologies in the tourism sector is traveler empowerment. Technology has allowed travelers to be a lot more informed and to take a proactive role in organizing their own trip. Now, tourists are much more demanding, have several options to choose, and have more bargaining power. Tourist has also become not just a mere visitor, but a content generator sharing their experience with other travelers. This research intends to identify the adoption of technologies in the hotel and restaurant sector and secondly to identify smart technologies that can help to eradicate the virus and normalize the hospitality business. The research question is: How COVID-19 could be a trigger for the adoption of new technologies in the hospitality sector? The objectives are: (i) to identify new technologies already adopted in the hotel and restaurant areas, (ii) to pinpoint how new technologies could help in health and cleanness protocols, and (iii) to categorize changes in operational areas after the consecutive lockdowns. To achieve these goals, several case studies were collected to show and explain best practices for the future. The results are expected to help identify outcomes to build a survey to apply to hospitality professionals. Also, those outcomes will be useful in improving professionals' tools, resources, and procedures to help to eradicate the COVID-19 virus. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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OBJECTIVE: - This paper sought to explore the value of case reports in diagnostic radiography with regards to current usage, relevance to evidence-based radiography, and educational benefits. KEY FINDINGS: Case reports are short accounts of novel pathologies, trauma or treatment with a critical review of relevant literature. Examples within diagnostic radiography include the appearances of COVID-19 alongside examination-level scenarios involving image artefacts, equipment failure and patient incidents in radiology. With greatest risk of bias and lowest generalisability, they are considered as low-quality evidence with generally poor citation rates. Despite this, there are examples of significant discoveries or developments initiated with case reports with important patient care implications. Furthermore, they offer educational development for both reader and author alike. Whereas the former learns about an unusual clinical scenario, the latter develops scholarly writing skills, reflective practice and may generate further, more complex, research. Radiography-specific case reports could capture the diverse imaging skills and technological expertise currently under-represented in traditional case reports. Potential avenues for cases are broad and may include any imaging modality where patient care or safety of other persons may illicit a teaching point. This encapsulates all stages of the imaging process, before, during and after patient interaction. CONCLUSION: Despite being low-quality evidence, case reports contribute to evidence-based radiography, add to the knowledge base, and foster a research culture. However, this is contingent upon rigorous peer-review and adherence to ethical treatment of patient data. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: With the drive to increase research engagement and output at all levels in radiography (student to consultant), case reports may act as a realistic grass-root activity for a burdened workforce with limited time and resources.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has urged the government of Malaysia to implement Movement Control Order (MCO) which forces working people to work from home while students to study from home. People's satisfaction on work from home is crucial in determining their work productivity and efficiency whereas student's satisfaction on study from home is important for their learning effectiveness. There is no work has been done yet for exploring data mining techniques to build a model for predicting work or study from home satisfaction using Malaysia as a case study. This paper aimed to identify the best data mining model for predicting the work or study from home satisfaction. The prediction model is learned by analyzing the demographic, the personality traits, and the work from home experience collected from a group of Malaysia people. This study attempts to investigate four data mining techniques that are the decision tree, linear kernel support vector machine, polynomial support vector machine, and radial basis support vector machine. Experiment results show that the radial basis support vector machine outperformed other techniques in predicting the work or study from home satisfaction of Malaysia's community. © 2022 IEEE.
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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, rethinking lifestyle and quality of life through the appropriate use of public space is necessary. This study aims to verify the measures of social distancing in Chapinero Centro, which, according to the mobility survey 2019 of Bogota, has an average of 4,633 trips on foot between 10 and 20 minutes according to the travel patterns in the areas of transportation analysis studied. Despite having great social and economic dynamics, this area has small sidewalks that hinder compliance with social distancing, which is necessary to mitigate the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, geographic analysis of this area was performed using data provided by the vulnerability map of the Coronavirus web in Colombia by the National Planning Department, the Institute for Health Technology Assessment, and the National Administrative Department of Statistics. This geographic analysis made it possible to calculate the variables of population indicator per block, maximum population per sidewalk, and the criterion of compliance with social distancing. When developing the vulnerability and social distancing maps, it became evident that 37% of the sidewalks do not comply with the 2 meters of social distancing between people, so we propose extending them to 3.5 meters and reducing this same value in the vehicular space to design an effective social distancing map. We concluded that the widening of the sidewalks allows flexible use of the streets oriented to a healthy distance, which could be complemented with an accessibility study and a study of vehicular traffic to measure the impact of this intervention. © 2022, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. All rights reserved.
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Simulations incorporating economic input/output models have been applied recently to assess the extent of labor shocks from COVID 19 and their impact on supply chains at the macro level. Research is being done to extend these simulations for application to other scenarios of economic shocks beyond what was triggered through COVID related labor reductions. The problem of foreign supply chain dependency is of particular concern to localized regions as a significant portion of their economy is dependent on supplies from overseas. The extended simulation approach proposed here aims to optimize the degree to which the increased inventory supply targets allow for improved economic productivity and the ideal allocation per industry which most efficiently achieves this mitigation. This paper considers the application of the proposed simulation framework to study the regional dependence on the Asian supply chain. The case study presented in this paper demonstrates the economic insight that can be obtained through simulation analysis to support regional government decision making for the state of Alabama. © 2022 Society for Modeling & Simulation International (SCS)
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Our case study explored a Local Resilience Forum's (LRF) civil contingency response to COVID‐19 in the United Kingdom. We undertook 19 semistructured ethnographic longitudinal interviews, between March 25, 2020 and February 17, 2021, with a Director of a Civil Contingencies Unit and a Chief Fire Officer who both played key roles within their LRF. Within these interviews, we focused on their strategic level decision‐making and how their relationship with national government impacted on local processes and outcomes. Using a form of grounded theory, our data describe the chronological evolution of an increasingly effective localized approach toward outbreak control and a growing resilience in dealing with concurrent emergency incidents. However, we also highlight how national government organizations imposed central control on aspects of the response in ways that undermined or misaligned with local preparedness. Thus, during emergencies, central governments can undermine the principle of subsidiarity and damage the ways in which LRFs can help scaffold local resilience. Our work contributes to the theoretical understanding of the social psychological factors that can shape the behaviour of responder agencies during a prolonged crisis. In particular, the implications of our analysis for advancing our conceptual understanding of strategic decision‐making during emergencies are discussed.
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Student engagement with content, each other, lecturers and artefacts is a fundamental aspect of an active learning ethic. Covid era remote teaching revealed particular challenges in enabling, sustaining and cultivating forms of engagement. This paper presents a conceptual framework for considering the dimensions of online engagement based on a case study from a research-intensive institution in South Africa. The focus is on a second-year large-class Material Science course with a broad range of content requiring 600 + pages of reading, projects and practicals. The course has seen several innovations over the years. This paper examines forms of student engagement in established, structured online forums pre- and during the Covid era of teaching, and presents an analysis of engagement patterns drawing on a synthesis of learning typologies from a range of educational theories intended to inform possible affordances of online engagement. The data produced by the classification of forum posts under the proposed scheme can highlight their overall structure, monitor changes in posting behaviour over time, and potentially contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the role of online forums in student learning, © 2022 IEEE.
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PurposeThe purpose of this study is to provide a polemic on the evolution of universities and business schools over the past two decades. During this period, universities have increasingly adopted a self-interested stance using business-like practices and behaviours to justify their transformation. The authors provide recommendations aimed at enhancing universities' contributions and relevance to society, increasing their sustainability broadly defined and better positioning them to help solve wicked problems in a post-COVID-19 world.Design/methodology/approachThis polemic analyses prior literature relating to the evolution of universities and uses this to generate a framework for ways forward for their improvement.FindingsThe authors argue that the evolution of universities into entities with missions and operations designed to mimic business and commercial imperatives has yielded undesirable outcomes including the muddling of the core mission of universities, alienation of key stakeholders and an excessive focus on income growth. Business schools face a tension between forging their own, unique identities and simultaneously striving to meet university university objectives. We term this "the Business School identity paradox”. The authors contend that the way forward requires senior management to re-discover the essence of what it means to be a university, re-establish collegial decision-making within universities that includes built-in feedback loops and a fundamental emphasis on developing graduates with an enlightened perspective that goes beyond technical skills.Originality/valueThis paper is novel in that it analyses the evolution of the "Enterprise University” some 20 years after this term was first coined and in a radically changed environment following the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis is also forward-looking as the authors re-imagine universities and business schools by identifying opportunities for renewal and improvement in their focus and societal impact. The authors also develop a schema that identifies major influences on universities and business schools, the impact of COVID-19 and strategies for them post-COVID-19.