Botswana is developing its eHealth capacity using a National eHealth Strategy. However, that Strategy overlooks telemedicine, a potential solution for many healthcare challenges. For telemedicine to benefit Botswana, a telemedicine-specific strategy is required. While establishing a national strategy is a sovereign responsibility, guidance and recommendations can be provided. Using published resources specific to Botswana, key health-related issues were identified. These issues were matched with suitable telemedicine activities and delivery approaches. Recommendations were then derived from these for use in an effective telemedicine-specific strategy for Botswana. From 28 health-related issues, six were prioritised. Three telemedicine activities were identified (clinical services, education, and behaviour change), and one delivery approach was chosen (store-and-forward) because they align well with current needs, infrastructure, and mobile phone user capabilities. Since telemedicine has been proven to be effective, efficient, and cost-effective when implemented correctly this knowledge and experience, plus a recognised strategy development framework, has led to evidence-based recommendations. Specific telemedicine options were identified as examples. As confidence grows, telemedicine options can be expanded to address additional clinical needs and explore alternative activities and delivery options. The recommendations can help the Government develop a telemedicine-specific strategy that aligns with the National eHealth Strategy while actively promoting and supporting the adoption and system integration of straightforward telemedicine interventions. This foundation will facilitate the future expansion of telemedicine initiatives for the benefit of all Batswana.

With the increased liberation of trade and fierce competition in the automotive industry, Proton needs to embark on a strategic reform to survive and remain relevant in the challenging market. This case study aims to explain the effectiveness of the Post Geely acquisition's ten years master plan to enhance Proton's self-reliance and global competitiveness. This case suggests that while the company's ten-year Master Plan is holistic and shows positive results in the early years, there is a need for a new business strategy, given the challenges imposed by climate change's impact on the automotive industry moving forward. The potentials of the Electric Vehicles (EVs) market and the Internet of Things (IoT) to develop the necessary long-term competitive advantage. A market strategy integrating the 4Ps and 4Cs framework suggests a two-dimensional convergence of the market mix, incorporating the organization's market strategy with a more consumer expectations-centric and user experience. Strategic integration of Geely's technological assets in developing Proton's technical know-how can address Proton's challenges and opportunities ahead.

This article uses strategy metaphors consisting of a plan, a home and a game to study government programme formation in Finland. The strategy approach both contradicts and complements the traditional political science approach to government formation. The government programme has been strategic in the sense of separating the formulation and implementation parts of the strategy. The most important function of the metaphor of plan is to hold coalition parties together. The adopted austerity policy provides a meagre contribution to the expansion of services and the increase in government spending. Consequently, the home metaphor in the government programme appears in the distant future and in combating external threats. The game metaphor is apparent in the goal of making contracts with social partners. The vocabulary change from politics to strategy alters the government programme’s position in terms of catering to the needs of civil servants, citizens and stakeholders. The strategy perspective might be instrumental in shifting open democratic debates to closed and secretive policy formations.

Wastewater management in Bogor, Indonesia, faces significant challenges to achieving a sustainable state. The growth of self-help settlements which are sporadic, unplanned, unorganized, and very dense, has an impact on the government's difficulties in providing sustainable wastewater management services. The research aims to examine fast-growing areas of self-help settlements, identify critical elements as a basis for strategy, and map the roles and influence of stakeholders in managing fast-growing areas in self-help settlements based on domestic wastewater management. This research uses a case study approach. Data were collected through observation, interviews, and focus group discussions. Data in this study were analyzed using Mactor software. The result showed knowledge and understanding of the correct management of domestic wastewater are the basis for achieving the actors' goals. In an implementation, social capital is needed to increase community participation by providing incentives that can affect the management of domestic wastewater, and it is necessary to increase the capacity of actors to assist the community in managing domestic wastewater. Ease of implementation at the community level must be based on community-based planning with government assistance so that the community itself carries out the decision on the type of domestic wastewater management by considering the advantages and disadvantages of each wastewater management system.

The research study examines the Digital government strategies of different countries and compare it with the Digital Pakistan Policy 2018. Different countries focus on the different factors/themes as per requirement of their countries and need of their citizens. Therefore, a requirement for re-search that compares the different digital government strategies has been identified. Secondary data on eGovernment strategies of different governments have been examined to investigate best practices in other countries. The qualitative data analysis software program NVivo has been used to facilitate code-based analysis of different digital government strategies. The findings and recommendations can be successfully utilized for the improvement of digital government strate-gies and its alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030.

The high consumption of firewood in Honduras requires the search for alternatives that reduce its negative effects on health, economy, and the environment. One of these alternatives has been the promotion of improved cooking stoves, which achieve a large reduction in firewood consumption. This paper shows a cost-benefit analysis for an improved cooking stove adoption strategy for Honduras. The methodology uses the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning System, LEAP, a tool globally used in the analysis and formulation of energy policies and strategies. The energy model considers the demand for firewood as well as the gradual introduction of improved cooking stoves, according to premises of a National Strategy. Hence, it is demonstrated that the costs of implementing this adoption strategy are lower than the costs of not implementing it, taking into consideration various scenarios up to and including the year 2030.

We evaluated epidemiological evolution and economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic in the European Union (EU) and worldwide, and the effects of control strategies on them. We collected incidence, mortality, and gross domestic product (GDP) data between the first quarter of 2020 and of 2023. Then, we reviewed the effectiveness of the mitigation and zero-COVID control strategies. The statistical analysis was done calculating the incidence rate ratio (IRR) of two rates and its 95% confidence interval (CI). In the EU, COVID-19 presented six epidemic waves. The sixth one at the beginning of 2022 was the biggest. Globally, the biggest wave occurred at the beginning of 2023. Highest mortality rates were observed in the EU during 2020-2021 and globally at the beginning of 2021. In mitigation countries, mortality was much higher than in zero-COVID countries (IRR= 6.82; CI:6.14-7.60; p<0.001). A GDP reduction was observed worldwide, except in Asia. None of the eight zero-COVID countries presented a GDP growth percentage lower than the EU percentage in 2020, and 3/8 in 2022 (p=0.054). COVID-19 pandemic caused epidemic waves with high mortality rates and a negative impact on GDP. The zero-COVID strategy was more effective in avoiding mortality and potentially had less impact on GDP.

HIV diagnosis and management have often caused disruptions to the everyday life and imagined futures of people living with HIV, both at individual and social levels. This has been conceptualised, in a rather dystopian way, as ‘biographical disruption’. This paper attempts to re-cast data from interviews with 40 men living with HIV (MLHIV) in Yogyakarta and Belu, Indonesia, in a slightly more positive light. Our analysis uses the concepts of additive and subtractive resilience strategies and we show how, rather than having a purely disrupted biography, participants talked about their experiences of ‘biographical reinvention'. Study participants were recruited using the snowball sampling technique, starting from two HIV clinics in the settings. Data were collected using one-on-one in-depth interviews, and a qualitative framework analysis was used to guide step-by-step data analysis. The findings showed that despite the disruptions in their everyday life (i.e., mental health condition, work, activities, social relationships, etc.) following the HIV diagnosis and management, MLHIV in our study managed to utilise their internal assets or traits (i.e., hope, optimism, resilience) and mobilised external resources (i.e., support from families, friends and healthcare professionals) to cope with the disruptions. An interweaving of these internal assets and external resources enabled them to take on new activities and roles (additive resilience strategies) and give up health compromising behaviours (subtractive resilience strategies). These were effective for most MLHIV in our study not only to cope with the HIV repercussions and improve their physical and mental health conditions, but to think or work on a ‘reinvented’ biography which encompassed resilience, hope and optimism for better health, life and future. The findings indicate the need for HIV interventions and healthcare systems that provide appropriate support for the development and maintenance of internal assets of PLHIV to enable them to cope with the repercussions of HIV and work on a ‘reinvented’ biography.

This paper introduces a theory for the evolution of corporates in which the growth and sustainability strategies are developed simultaneously. Since the introduction of corporate sustainability, it has been an extra cost for risk mitigation and making ‘compensating’ positive impact. The world has reached a tipping point of volatility, mainly due to climate change but also by emergence of COVID-19, so that the applicability of existing corporate structures is under question and these poses high risk to the existence of our planet. On the other hand, the technology cost for sustainable investment has reached a parity in comparison with non-sustainable alternatives. Therefore, our proposed Organic Grow Theory introduces a step-by-step approach so that corporates can grow and be profitable without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. It is concluded that, a new structure for corporate, called Founcorp, would be needed to direct corporates to evolve being a responsible legal entity.

As a prominent organizational issue there was limited evidence in the literature about the relationship between organizational strategy, workplace health, safety, and wellbeing, and performance measurement that demonstrate a measurable impact on organizational performance. Whilst the literature reports numerous studies into the relationship between employee engagement and performance, they hardly incorporate workplace health, safety, and well-being within this relationship. This mixed-methods study investigated the relationship between organizational strategy, workplace health, safety, and wellbeing strategy, employee engagement, and strategy efficacy from a corporate perspective. Findings from Phase two, the online survey, revealed a seven-factor HSW Strategy framework. The workplace health, safety, and wellbeing strategy framework provide empirical evidence towards a suitable and valuable framework for high-risk businesses to improve individual and organizational performance.

Vaccination has been the most effective way to control the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. The numbers and types of vaccines have reached considerable proportions, even if the question of vaccine procedures and frequency still needs to be resolved. We learn the necessity of defining a vaccination distribution strategies with regard to Covid that could be used for any future pandemics of similar gravity. In fact, vaccine monitoring implies the existence of a strategy that should be measurable in terms of input and output, based on a mathematical model, including death rates, spread of infections, symptoms, hospitalization and so on. This paper addresses the issue of vaccine diffusion and strategies for monitoring the pandemic. It provides a description of the importance and take up of vaccines and the links between procedures and the containment of Covid variants, as well as the long-term effects. Finally, the paper focuses on the global scenario in a world undergoing profound social and political change, with particular attention on current and future health provision. This contribution would represent an example of vaccination experiences which can be useful in other pandemic or epidemiological contexts.

Fibrosis is a prevalent and detrimental condition associated with various diseases with a high impact on global morbidity and mortality rates. Despite its diverse causes and affected organs, common underlying mechanisms drive the development and progression of the disease. These mechanisms include an exaggerated inflammatory response, excessive activation of fibroblasts, and abnormal tissue remodeling following severe or repetitive tissue injury. Although significant advancements have been achieved to enhance our understanding of fibrosis, there is still a gap between identifying potential antifibrotic targets and successfully translating them into effective clinical interventions. Novel approaches that target specific cellular and molecular processes involved in fibrosis hold promise for reducing the pathological consequences of the disease. Understanding the pathogenesis and clinical implications of fibrotic diseases is crucial for developing effective therapeutic strategies and improving patient outcomes. In this review, we introduce the concept of fibrosis, discuss the mechanisms by which it arises, and explore existing and emerging therapeutic approaches in development.

The paper investigates experimentally the influence of the Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) pre-processing strategy on the tribological properties of parts made of PEI (polyetherimide), investigating the difference in the weight loss of the samples caused by abrasive wear before and after the test. The samples were tested for abrasive wear resistance on a tribometer constructed according to ASTM G65/16 (dry sand). Two types of specimen printing orientation along X-axis (lengthwise) and along Z-axis (heightwise) were tested in the study. Three types of path generation strategies were used for manufacturing "X" and "Z" specimens and totally 18 samples were made and tested. Path deposition strategy was carried out with path deposition width of 0.5mm and parallel paths in all slicing layers. In order to reduce the voids in volume, deposition path axes in subsequent layers were shifted by 0.25mm offset. Garnet abrasive Fe3Al2(SiO4)3 was used for this test. The analysis of the experimental data shows the relationship between the samples building direction (X, Z), applied deposition strategies (1X - 3X and 1Z - 3Z) on the resulting resistance to abrasive wear.Keywords: PEI, FFF, path generation strategy, abrasive wear

From the perspective of network attackers, finding attack sequences that can make significant damage on network controllability is an important task, which also helps defenders improve the robustness during network constructions. Therefore, developing effective attack strategies is a key aspect of research on network controllability and its robustness. In this paper, we propose a Leaf Node Neighbor-based Attack (LNNA) strategy that can effectively disrupt the controllability of undirected networks. The LNNA strategy targets the neighbors of leaf nodes, and when there are no leaf nodes in the network, the strategy attacks the neighbors of nodes with a higher degree to produce the leaf nodes. Results from simulations on synthetic and real-world networks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. In particular, our findings suggest that removing neighbors of low-degree nodes (i.e., nodes with degree 1 or 2) can significantly reduce the controllability robustness of networks. Thus, protecting such low-degree nodes and their neighbors during network construction can lead to networks with improved controllability robustness.

Strategic management sets the direction of a company for several years ahead. Managers and business owners who create strategy must anticipate and have the ability to see systemically—the paper deals with creating a logistics strategy for a company operating in the industrial sector. The first section summarises the theoretical background for strategy and logistics and current trends affecting logistics processes. The second chapter analyses the current state of the art in logistics strategy development and summarizes its problem areas. The central part of the paper is the proposal of a methodology for logistics strategy development in the industrial area by a progressive approach. The methodology is divided into 5 phases - preparatory, analytical, formulation, implementation, and evaluation and control phases. The methodology is partially validated. The created variants of the logistics strategy include the introduction of such elements that will lead to the gradual development of the Industry 4.0 trend in the given company. This is mainly the first variant called "automation," which includes the introduction of an automatic tractor for material import, the introduction of an automatic system for transport and storage of work in progress, and the introduction of a new logistics information system that will make greater use of already established barcodes (transparency, data in real-time).

South Africa has an abundant heritage of valuable indigenous plants with recognized medicinal value. The reported critical over-harvesting of wild populations is considered an urgent issue for biodiversity conservation. Growing demand for therapeutic products from indigenous medicinal plants have led to increased interest in its cultivation. Cultivation of these indigenous medicinal plants represent a viable option for improving smallholder farmers’ livelihoods, as well as sustaining the availability of these resources for future generations. Serious bottlenecks however exists for subsistent farmers in the cultivation of these valuable plants. It was pertinent to probe whether the cultivation of medicinal plants provide feasible solutions to rural poverty, while effectively conserving threatened indigenous biodiversity. The paper employed a comprehensive review of existing literature to explore relevant issues constraining smallholder farmers from involvement in a potentially lucrative medicinal plants value-chain. Findings indicate challenges such as inadequate domestication of valuable plants species, continued over-harvesting from wild populations, poor knowledge of required agronomic practices, low efficacy perception regarding derivatives from cultivated plants, among a multitude of others. These constraints exists alongside the conservation-oriented strategy driven by international conservation agencies and wholly adopted by the South African government. Recommendations to improve smallholder involvement in the cultivation of medicinal plants include support to research and extension, targeted inducement to smallholders, contracting and off-take agreements, aimed at promoting an alternative poverty-alleviation-focused economic development strategy. The review adds to the conceptual discourse related to plant diversity, resource conservation, poverty alleviation and economic development within the medicinal plants value-chain.

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) is one of the curative immunotherapeutic approaches that exploit the antigen specificity and cytotoxicity function of potent immune cells against cancers. Neuroblastoma, the most common extracranial pediatric solid tumors with diverse comportment, could be a promising candidate for using CARs therapies. Several methods harness CARs modified cells in neuroblastoma to increase therapeutic efficiency, albeit the assessment has still been less successful. Regarding the improvement of CARs, various trials have been launched to overcome insufficient capacity. However, the reason behind the inadequate response against neuroblastoma of CARs modified cells are still not well understood. It is essential to update the present reveal of comprehension of CARs to improve the efficiency of CARs therapies. This review summarizes the crucial features of CARs and its design for neuroblastoma, discusses challenges that impact the outcomes of the immunotherapeutic competence, and focuses on devising strategies currently investigated to improve the efficacy of CARs for neuroblastoma immunotherapy.

Prior to lockdown the spread of COVID-19 in UK is found to be exponential, with an exponent α=0.207 In case of COVID-19 this spreading patterns is quantitatively better described with mobility-driven SIR-SEIR model [2] rather than the homogenous mixing models Lockdown has dramatically slowed down the spread of COVID-19 in UK, and even more significantly has changed the growth in the total number of infected from exponential to quadratic. This significant change is due a transition from a mobility-driven epidemic spreading to a spatial epidemic which is dominated by slow growth of spatially isolated clusters of infected population. Our results strongly indicated that, to avoid a return to exponential growth of COVID-19 (also known as “second wave”) mobility restrictions should not be prematurely lifted. Instead mobility should be kept restricted while new measures, such as wearing mask and contact tracing, get implemented in order to allow a safe exit from lockdown.

Vaccination has proven to be one of the most effective strategies against the COVID 19 pandemic. Several studies have evaluated and confirmed its effectiveness in different populations, particularly in reducing severe outcomes such as hospitalization and death. However, the potential of vaccination to protect against infection itself has been overlooked. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the booster dose in a sample of Colombian patients during the fourth wave of COVID-19 pandemic, which was associated with the emergence and predominance of the Omicron variant. A cross-sectional study was conducted on individuals who underwent RT-PCR testing for COVID-19 detection in a dedicated laboratory in Bogotá, Colombia, between December 30th 2021 and February 7th 2022. A total of 1,468 subjects were included in the study. The comparison between fully vaccinated individuals with a booster dose and those without the booster dose revealed a 28% reduction in the odds of infection (OR = 0.719 CI 0.531 - 0.971). Age (OR = 1,009 CI 1,001 - 1,018) and low economic status (OR= 1,812 CI 1,416- 2,319) were associated with an increased risk of infection.These findings suggest the need for booster vaccination in the general population to improve the prevention rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection and mitigate severe outcomes.

The energy stored in an electric vehicle's battery would be drawn and distributed to the electrical grid to better drive energy consumption within a microgrid that includes a renewable generator(s) managed by a specific energy management strategy. This concept, known as vehicle-to-grid technology: V2G, makes the energy stored in the electric vehicle's battery more beneficial by discharging it to the public grid during periods of high demand. In this study, we will consider a vehicle system connected to a microgrid, which includes a photovoltaic generator reported from the <<PROPRE.MA>> project in the city of Tangier. We will elaborate the study of a strategy of the car connected to this V2G network. This allows electricity to be stored when rates are low (off-peak hours) and then used when prices rise (peak hours). Otherwise, the solar energy will cover the owner's needs, and the surplus will be injected into the distribution network. This strategy will manage the solar power, the load power, the state of charge of the EV battery, the time of day and the driving scenario. Using two driving profiles, we will show the performance of the proposed energy management strategy and the percentage contribution of the photovoltaic array of the <<PROPRE.MA>> project in the city of Tangier.

Digital transformation of companies is often referred to as a future track and a strategic path towards ensuring the survival and sustainability of companies. In this paper, we aim to outline this transformation process in Tunisian companies and identify its driving factors and finally explain its key success factors. To this end, we examine a sample of 70 companies operating in all economic sectors. The results indicate that such a digital strategy has a significant and a positive effect on the success of digital transformation of companies. Leadership has an effect at a low level of digital maturity. On the other hand, corporate culture does not have a significant effect on digital transformation. These results contribute to explaining this emerging phenomenon by focusing on the driving factors as well as the factors that contribute to its success.

A proxy war, between a coalition of countries, BLUE and a country, RED, is considered. RED wants to increase the size of the RED territory. BLUE wants to involve more regions in trade and other types of cooperation. GREEN is a small and independent nation that wants to become a member of BLUE. RED attacks GREEN and tries to invade. BLUE decides to give optimal arms support to GREEN. This support can help GREEN in the war against RED and simultaneously reduce the military power of RED, which is valuable to BLUE, also outside this proxy war, since RED may confront BLUE also in other regions. The optimal control problem of dynamic arms support, from the BLUE perspective, is defined in general form. The objective function is a weighted sum of the present value of the free GREEN territory and the present value to BLUE of the net loss of military resources in the RED army. The net loss of RED at a particular point in time is a function of the location of the front line and the size of the mobile GREEN forces behind the RED line. First, it is assumed that the expected net loss is proportional to the force ratio behind the red front line. It is proved that the net loss function is a strictly concave quadratic function of x, the location of the front line. It is also proved that the unique maximum of the net loss function occurs at the same front location, also if the net loss function is proportional to the strength ratio behind the RED lines, raised to any strictly positive exponent. From the BLUE perspective, there is an optimal position of the front. This position is a function of the weights in the objective function and all other parameters. Optimal control theory is used to determine the optimal dynamic BLUE strategy, conditional on a RED strategy, which is observed by BLUE military intelligence. The optimal arms support strategy for BLUE is to initially send a large volume of arms support to GREEN, to rapidly move the front to the optimal position. Then, the support should be almost constant during most of the war, keeping the war front location stationary. In the final part of the conflict, when RED will have almost no military resources left and tries to retire from the GREEN territory, BLUE should strongly increase the arms support and make sure that GREEN rapidly can regain the complete territory and end the war

The term fuzzy refers to things that are unclear or vague. In the real world, we often encounter a situation where we cannot determine whether the state is true or false, and fuzzy logic allows for more flexible reasoning. This is a form of multivalued logic where the truth values ​​of variables can be any real number between 0 and 1, as opposed to Boolean logic where the logical values ​​can only be 0 or 1. Fuzzy logic is therefore a problem-solving technique used to evaluate all available information and thus make the best decisions. When applied to marketing, fuzzy logic allows treating customers in an individual and personalized way, instead of being fully identified within a particular market segment. Fuzzy marketing considers the degree to which a customer belongs to certain segments and subsequently allows them to be targeted with messages that engage them emotionally. To better understand the application and importance of fuzzy logic in marketing strategy, we developed a systematic review of the bibliometric literature (LRSB). It was possible to create a connection between these concepts, marketing and fuzzy logic, to increase the efforts of marketing professionals to achieve competitiveness in the unpredictable business environment.

Existing research has focused on discussing various issues in isolation, e.g., climate change or deglobalisation, without capturing the geo-political, legal, socio-economic, and technological implications in a holistic manner, especially in China and Southeast Asia. This has hindered the derivation of clear guidelines to navigate the business environment in the next decade, thus leaving the business world with fragmented theories and concepts that are hard to amalgamate and turn into tangible business strategies. Thus, this study illustrates the key challenges that are likely to influence the stability and sustainability of the global business environment by 2030, as well as suggests the main business strategies to leverage to mitigate them. This contribution, for the first time, proposes an alternative holistic approach by highlighting the key threats to global business in the next decade, as well as suggesting clear action points to account for the main ones from geo-political, legal, socio-economic, and technological standpoints in a unified theory. Local and more tailored strategies are described and discussed as referred to various industries to help in navigating a deglobalised and more competitive market by 2030.

This paper presents the behavior of decision makers, the possible choices and the strategies 1 resulting from the uncertainties related to the integration of renewable energies. Its uncertainties 2 are the risks associated with the volatility of renewable sources, the dynamics of energy production 3 as well as the planning and operation of the electricity grid. The goal is to model the risk-averse 4 decision-maker’s behavior and the choice of integrating renewable energies into the electrical system. 5 Following a bibliographic approach, we expose a methodology to model the decision-maker’s 6 behavior(risk aversion and predilection for risk) to risk taking. The risk-averse decision maker may 7 adopt nonlinear utility functions. Risk aversion is a behavior that reflects the desire to avoid risk 8 decisions and thus reduces the risk of adverse consequences. A decision support tool is provided to 9 the decision-maker to choose a best-fit strategy based on his preferences. The rational and risk-averse 10 decision-maker would seek to maximize a concave utility function instead of seeking to minimize its 11 cost. Taste or aversion to risk can be modeled by a thematic function of utility.

Appropriate diagnostic testing to identify persons infected with SARS-COV-2 is a vital part of a health system’s ability to control the global pandemic of COVID-19 disease. The primary purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the mass testing strategy implemented throughout the UAE and the overall impact it has made on containing and controlling the spread of the disease. This study describes the mass testing strategy and capacity of the UAE during the pandemic of the new coronavirus SARS-COV-2. The UAE has conducted 15 million polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to SARS-COV-2, as of 15 November 2020. The number of tests per day varied from 10,000 by the end of March to 120,000 tests per day in November 2020. The mass testing initiative across the entire UAE forms an integral part of a bigger strategy focusing on testing, tracing contacts and isolating positive cases.

The business planning process can be considered as a strategic phase of any business. Given that the business plan is a management accounting tool, there are countless approaches that can be adopted to prepare it since there is no legal requirement, as opposed to obligations relating to financial accounting. However, in general, every business plan consists of a numerical part (budget) and a narrative part. In this research, the author highlights, on the basis of experiences and commonly used theories, a standard process that can be adaptable to the business plan of any type of activity. The use of big data is highlighted as an essential part of feeding the data of almost all the steps of the budget. The author then manages to determine a generally applicable standard process, indicating all the data necessary to prepare an accurate and reliable business plan. A case study will provide adequate support to the demonstration of the immediate applicability of the proposed model.

Firms are increasingly organized around the client. At the same time, there is customer pressure on green and sustainable organizations. The purpose of this paper is to map the current state of the research in the domain of customer-centric organizations from a sustainable perspective. We conducted a bibliometric analysis from published documents between 1990 and 2020. Key findings indicate that research on customer centricity and sustainability has increased in recent years and that the topic is structured into 3 clusters: (1) Sustainability; (2) Customer-Centric Perspective, and Sustainable Development; and (3) Customer Experience and Sales. Moreover, new concepts and technologies have been introduced during the last three years. The implementation of a bibliometric methodology and the focus given to the definition, the relationships, and the evolution of the three main clusters within the topic are the characteristics that differentiate our study from other publications or reviews in the field of research. This paper is beneficial for practitioners who aim to deploy the customer centricity approach in their firms from a sustainable perspective.

The outburst of the CoVid-19 pandemic has raised several questions leading to a complex system in terms of modeling. Indeed, the modeling of the epidemic, at the level of a country, needs considering each of the different sources of contamination as well as the public health authorities' strategy, in a specific way. With this in mind, in the present paper, we develop a mathematical model of the CoVid-19 epidemic in Senegal. In the model, the population is subdivided into five compartments: susceptible, infected but asymptomatic, symptomatic, quarantined, and recovered immune people. In addition, due to its important impact on the propagation of the disease, we add one more variable: the number of infected objects. %\vspace{1mm} Therefore, the model corresponds to a system of six non-linear ordinary differential equations we submit to an analytical study to prove the relevancy of the model, simulate the evolution of the epidemic, and retrieve epidemiological parameters, namely the infection rate and the basic reproduction number, ${\cal R}_0$. Based on the senegalese territory CoVid-19 data, we simulate various scenarios as for the evolution of the epidemic in the country, in order to predict the peak and its magnitude with regard to the application of barrier measures. We also explore the option of collective immunity with special protection for vulnerable people. In doing so, non-available parameters are identified using some mathematical identification technics.

Objectives: In December 2019 a novel human-infecting coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has emerged. The WHO has stated the epidemic as a “public health emergency of international concern”. A dramatic situation has emerged with thousands of deaths, occurring mainly in the aged and very ill people. Epidemiological studies suggest that immune system function is impaired in elderly individuals and these subjects often present a severe deficiency in nutrients as fatsoluble and hydrosoluble vitamins. Design: In this second part of the review about Cov2 in aged people, we searched for studies describing the possible efficacy of vitamins A, D, E and C in improving the immune system function and their possible activities against viruses. Results: Vitamins may shift the proinflammatory Th17 mediated immune-response arising in the autoimmune diseases towards a T-cell regulatory phenotype. These diseases may serve as a paradigm for the study of CRS emerging in the course of SARS CoV-2 infection. Conclusion: This review discusses about the possible activity of Vitamin A, D, E and C in restoring normal antiviral Immune System function or the potential therapeutic role of these micronutrients as a part of a multi-treatment strategy against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Taking an existing public building as an example, on the basis of the measured data, the mathematical model of each equipment module of the chilled station and the TRNSYS custom module are established. The mathematical model of “chilled station cooling capacity—equipment power” is proposed and established. The full-frequency control strategy based on device contribution rate is proposed and established to set up the Matlab control module of the chilled station. The TRNSYS simulation platform is used to simulate a public building chilled station in cooling season. The result shows that the season energy efficiency rate of the public building air-conditioning system is 2.15 times the original after applying the new control strategy.

Real-time strategy (RTS) game has proposed many challenges for AI research for its large state spaces, enormous branch factors, limited decision time and dynamic adversarial environment. To tackle above problems, the method called Adversarial Hierarchical Task Network planning (AHTN) has been proposed and achieves favorable performance. However, the HTN description it used cannot express complex relationships among tasks and impacts of environment on tasks. Moreover, the AHTN cannot handle task failures during plan execution. In this paper, we propose a modified AHTN planning algorithm named AHTNR. The algorithm introduces three elements essential task, phase and exit condition to extend the HTN description. To deal with possible task failures, the AHTNR first uses the extended HTN description to identify failed tasks. And then a novel task repair strategy is proposed based on historical information to maintain the validity of previous plan. Finally, empirical results are presented for the μRTS game, comparing AHTNR to the state-of-the-art search algorithms for RTS games.

Background and Objectives: Proper use of oral anticoagulants is crucial in the management of non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF) patients. Left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) may be considered for stroke prevention in patients with AF and contraindications for long-term anticoagulant treatment. We aimed to assess the anticoagulation status and LAAC indications in patients with AF from HECMOS (Hellenic Cardiorenal Morbidity Snapshot) survey. Materials and Methods: HECMOS was a nationwide snapshot survey of cardiorenal morbidity in hospitalized cardiology patients. HECMOS used an electronic platform to collect demographic and clinically relevant information from all patients hospitalized on March 3, 2022, in 55 different cardiology departments. In this substudy, we included patients with known AF without mechanical prosthetic valves and moderate to severe mitral valve stenosis. Patients with prior stroke, previous major bleeding, poor adherence to anticoagulants, and end-stage renal disease were considered candidates for LAAC. Results: Two hundred fifty-six patients (mean age 76.6±11.7, 148 males) were included in our analysis. Most of them (n=159; 62%) suffered from persistent AF. Mean CHA2DS2-VASc score was 4.28±1.7, while mean HAS-BLED score was 1.47±0.9. Three out of 3 patients with a CHA2DS2-VASc 0 or 1 (female) received improperly anticoagulants. Sixteen out of 18 patients with a CHA2DS2-VASc 1 or 2 (female) received anticoagulants. Thirty-three out of 235 patients with a CHA2DS2-VASc &gt; 1 or 2 (for female) did not receive improperly anticoagulants. Among 221 under anticoagulant therapy, 191 (86.4%) received non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs) and 30 (13.6%) received vitamin K antagonists. Relative indications for LAAC were present in 64 patients with NVAF (60 had only one risk factor and 2 had two concurrent risk factors). In detail, 36 had a prior stroke, 17 patients had a history of major bleeding, 15 patients reported poor or no adherence to the anticoagulant therapy and 5 had eGFR&lt; 15 ml/min/1.73m2. Moreover, 33 had a HAS-BLED score ≥3. No LAAC treatment was recorded. Conclusions: Anticoagulation status was nearly optimal in a high thromboembolic risk population of cardiology patients, mainly treated with NOACs. One out of four AF patients should be screened for LAAC.

Evolutionary algorithms find applicability in the reinforcement learning of neural networks due to their independence from gradient-based methods. To achieve successful training of neural networks using evolutionary algorithms, careful considerations must be made to select appropriate algorithms due to the availability of various algorithmic variations. The author previously reported experimental evaluations on Evolution Strategy for reinforcement learning of neural networks, utilizing the pendulum control task. In this study, the Acrobot control task is adopted as another task. Experimental results demonstrate that ES successfully trained a Multi-Layer Perceptron to achieve a remarkable height of 99.85% concerning the maximum height. However, the trained MLP failed to maintain the chain end in an upright position throughout an episode. In this study, it was observed that employing 8 hidden units in the neural network yielded better results with statistical significance compared to using 4, 16, or 32 hidden units. Furthermore, the findings indicate that a larger population size in ES led to a more extensive exploration of potential solutions over a greater number of generations, which aligns with the previous study.

Without doubt, the social and environmental business impact will become more important as the governments cannot take care about these problems. Thus, launching the EU Green deal rules, World Global Sustainable Development Goals, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and strategies are part of this global commitment. Additionally, CSR is strongly connected to the exploration of (social) market awareness and technology development and application as it focusses on social, environmental and economic business impact. The main goal of the paper is to verify that contemporary greener CSR strategies are beneficiary activity for high-tech companies because of better competitive advantages acquisition through management of corporate reputation risk and patenting innovative technologies. The structure of the paper is the next: 1. Introduction – explanation the previous researches that explore the relation: CSR strategy – high-tech company competitiveness; 2. State of art – exploring the corporate reputation and patent rights as factors in CSR strategy; 3. Patent monopoly and CSR – research the connection between reputation risks of patents rights and CSR strategy; 4. Business performance and CSR reporting – briefly research methodology is presented as some results from Bulgarian companies; 5. Discussion and conclusions – summarizing a methodology for patent rights and reputation risk management for better CSR effects.

This paper sheds light on how crisis management affects post-disaster re-covery. Based on the study of the management of a major environmental disaster, hurricane IRMA, we consider how post-disaster recovery is impacted by crisis management strategies. The perspectives of local stakeholders from the islands of St Martin and St Barthélémy will be shared. We analyze how territories exposed to the same natural phenomena have different outcomes and consider some of the possible reasons. This study reveals underlying risk drivers, to address governance reorganization with a view to better managing socio-economic recovery.

Battery Management System helps to improve the transient performance and life of electro-chemical rechargeable batteries like a Li-ion, lead–acid, etc. The investigation here was focused on the crucial part of the Battery Management System that is, Cell balancing, State of charge of the battery, etc. By analyzing the different control strategies a new optimal control strategy is developed to improve the battery performance according to application. The Control strategy is developed using an active and passive cell balancing model with the help of AVL Cruise and MATLAB/SIMULINK software. For the active cell balancing technique, a switched capacitor technique is chosen. To have longer battery life, the time required for the cell balancing must be as low as possible for which many control logics have been defined. The effect of these cell balancing techniques on the performance of battery packs is investigated and it is observed to produce a promising result.

Two-stage surgery is unintentionally necessary when total tumor removal cannot be accomplished in the first surgery, although, it has not yet been established how to leave the tumor for the next surgery. There is a risk of postoperative hemorrhage in the residual tumor, especially in hypervascular tumors. We report a case of hypervascular choroid plexus papilloma in which preservation of intratumoral venous drainage was considered important to avoid hemorrhagic complications during a two-stage surgery. In hypervascular tumor resection, to prevent postoperative hemorrhage associated with a residual tumor, it may be important to preserve venous drainage of the tumor.

This paper presents a comprehensive study and the analysis of a topology of a no isolated DC-DC intituled Double Quadratic Boost converter with high static gain. This converter has the main advantage of high static gain and low voltage stress on its switches. The article will first present the theoretical analysis of the converter operating in an open loop. The objective of the work is the mathematical modeling and the control strategy of the converter, as well as the validation through closed-loop experimental results. Besides, we presented the practice test results to demonstrate the operation of the converter, such as the static gain experimental curve, the practice efficiency of the converter, and the control of the output voltage, as well as the capacitor voltage balance control. The authors designed a prototype for 1 kW, with a switching frequency of fs=50kHz, with FPGA-based command and modulation.

Chemical safety is related to public health, safety and environmental concerns, and the dangerous chemicals safety problem is becoming the one that people commonly pay attention to. Strengthening chemical safety supervision not only involves safe production, but also is an important link to maintain social safety. Most related studies focus on chemical safety under normal regulation, this paper addresses the perspective of ‘special rectification’ and ‘normal regulation’, and establishes an evolutionary game model between chemical enterprises and government supervision departments under different supervision modes. Based on the evolutionary game theory, this paper studies the evolution process of the two game players' strategy choices, and compares and analyzes the evolution, stability and equilibrium between the chemical safety and the behavior strategies of government regulatory departments. The model is effectively analyzed based on numerical simulation, and the results show that: Under the ‘special rectification’ mode, the strategic choice of chemical enterprises engaging in safety without investment depends on the difference between the benefits and costs of safety without investment; In the ‘normal regulation’ mode, the choice of its safety non-investment strategy depends on the difference between the cost of engaging in safety investment and the cost of safety non-investment; Increasing the government's punishment will encourage chemical enterprises to take safety investment behavior under the two supervision modes. Increasing the punishment has a significant impact on the safety investment behavior of chemical enterprises under the ‘normal regulation’ mode, but it has no significant impact on the behavior of chemical enterprises under the ‘special rectification’ mode. At the same time, increasing the punishment will inhibit the strict supervision behavior of the government. The research conclusion provides important decision support for government departments to effectively supervise the safety production of chemical enterprises.

Based on the analysis of the working principle, circuit design and working loss of the common charger DC/DC converter, this paper designs a ZVS half-bridge three-level DC/DC converter based on non-phase-shift control mode, and proposes a multi-stage constant current and voltage limiting charging control strategy based on modulation wave selection control. The simulation results show that the proposed method and control strategy have faster voltage regulation ability and wider stability margin, and can achieve stable current sharing control in the charging process.

The sudden onset of the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the modern multi-national interconnected society and led the countries and societies to enforce unprecedented restrictions on movement. Among myriad containment measures, the policy of trace and quarantine found universal adoption among countries; the swift adoption of the policy was soon met with widespread criticism and opposition activists who questioned the utility and the risk associated with such a large scale collection of data and infringement on the movement of individuals. Consequently, one often tends to be either pro- or anti-trace and quarantine; the ensuing polarizing and politicized left little room for nuance. In this work, we undertake a methodology study to understand the nuances of the impact of different implementations of trace and quarantine. To this end, we design a user-friendly and intuitive tool that can be employed by experts to model the disease dynamics and societal structure. We focus on the study of the cost of policy with respect to quarantine degree, which captures the distance between the person required to quarantine after a person is detected to be infected. Our study results in a surprising conclusion: the cost is not necessarily monotone with respect to the degree of quarantine. Our analysis indicates that governments must curb the urge to adopt simplistic policy and the optimal policy of trace and quarantine for a country strongly depends on its societal structure and disease dynamics.

The European Bioeconomy Strategy aims to strengthen and boost biobased sectors, unlocking investments and markets while rapidly deploying local bioeconomies across Europe and improving compliance with environmental and social sustainability goals. Current biomass provision structures and infrastructure might not be able to tap the sustainable potential of forestry-, agricultural residues and biogenic waste envisaged forming the biogenic feedstock base of the Circular Bioeconomy of tomorrow. Therefore, for the present paper, we assess mobilization strategies, their current status, opportunities, and barriers for local low value and heterogenous biomass resources. Based on discussions with bioenergy supply chain experts, we cluster mobilization measures into three assessment levels; the legislative framework, market structures and technological innovation. Scientific literature research on the respective keywords is performed, the European policy landscape mapped, and the results are enriched with anecdotal evidence, especially for recent and running projects and market developments that lack in published track records. We can identify research needs on all three assessment levels. Still, technological development and legislative frameworks are providing support for heterogeneous biomass mobilization. Market creation, however, represents a bottleneck. We provide novel perspectives, how physical- and virtual bio-hubs and crediting stake- and shareholder variety could create added-value based on sustainable primary economic activities and their cascading activities.

The pharmaceutical industry is facing the pressure of a global economy, loss of value in local markets and the highly intense innovation that characterizes this sector. This has a heavy impact, particularly in smaller economies. With this investigation, we intend to identify the determinants of internationalization as levers for sustainability in the pharmaceutical export sector of a small economy. Data was collected from a sample representing 63% of the total universe, Portuguese pharmaceutical organizations with exporting activity. Contextualization of the sector and a bibliographic review were previously carried out, which laid the groundwork for the empirical framework. This study revealed a deeply internationalized sector conditioned by a few shortcomings, namely a certain lack of sustainable competitive advantages, relatively low investment in research and development (R&D), insufficient innovation in internationalization strategies as well as scarce institutional support. Our findings may help pave the way for a more complete understanding of the dynamics of internationalization in highly competitive sectors.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has been the core area of sustainable manufacturing commonly recognized for its high efficiency in enabling cost-effective production towards sustainability. There are three models this research constituted: In Collection-Recycling-Manufacturing (CRM) model, technologies and processes are benchmarked followed by Business model that evaluates industrial key criteria. However, these are insufficient for AM to effectively play dominant role as the realization requires human factors such as multi-entities authorities, policy making and AM society to initiate and execute the plan. Strategy control model focuses on human-centric approaches such as demography, population control, policy, regulations, and management. It investigates each nation’s demography, and enables strategy, plan and control to relocate overcrowding population to rural areas. It also produces robust workforce to support AM and materials recycling through the appropriate applications. Through the construction of AM and materials recycling, strategy control model creates job opportunities for those unemployed people. It further builds infrastructure for the livelihood of new residents and supports AM home-based business (HBB).

This paper analyses the EU’s policies for energy and climate, using Börzel's (2002) theoretical framework on Europeanisation, and examines member states’ Green Deal responses, strategies, and compliance. As expressed in their final NECPs, although member states’ responses vary, most of the critical components were partially addressed, while the others were largely addressed. We observe a considerable variation in Member State’s strategies. Member States classified as foot-dragging beforehand are fence-sitting now, while those previously categorised as fence-sitting are now either foot-dragging or pace-setting. The root cause of these classification changes for the member states within the EU can be traced back to their internal environments in which the involved stakeholders each have a different response pace regarding environment, climate, and energy. We present and analyse our theoretical context, discuss the EU’s energy policies and the NECPs, examine member states’ responses and compliance with this new framework, and propose several challenges.

Around 14% of the global population does not have access to electricity. About 95% of those are living in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Often in these regions, diesel generators are the only source of electricity. The operating cost of these diesel generators is high. However, solar and wind energy are available in most of African countries. This study presents the analysis of designing an off-grid hybrid system with a wind turbine, PV, diesel generator, and battery to power a hospital, school, and 200 household village in four locations across Somalia. The research investigated the availability of wind-solar resources in selected locations. Designing of the system and economic-technical calculations were performed using HOMER. The selection of the optimum design was based on the Cost of Electricity and Net Present Cost. The results show that for Kabaal and Ceel Buur, a WT-PV-DG-Battery is the optimal system as the wind resource in these regions is high. For Saakov and Baki, a PV-DG-Battery system proves to be optimum as the wind resource is limited here. The study also evaluated the control strategy and proved that combined dispatch was the most cost-effective for these locations. The study concluded that hybrid systems are more economical than diesel systems.

This paper presents a practical case illustrating how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda have been designed and articulated in the context of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Even though there is a widespread formal adherence of universities to the SDGs, there is a lack of solid commitment to go beyond the compartmentalization of their implementation and to contribute to a holistic approach. The EHUagenda 2030 is a roadmap to move towards an integrated, verifiable and pragmatic contribution to this international agenda. It describes the UPV/EHU's contribution to 12 of the 17 SDGs, with the addition of its own commitment to linguistic and cultural diversity (SDG 17 + 1), along with the three sectoral plans: the Equality Campus, the Inclusion Campus and the Planet Campus. It also describes the refocus of its education model IKD i3; i3 is ikaskuntza x ikerketa x iraunkortasuna, Basque for learning x research x sustainability. Additionally, it includes the UPV/EHU’s Panel of Sustainable Development Indicators, which addresses the technical aspects of monitoring the implementation of the SDGs. The systematic methodology used in this process (mapping; mainstreaming; diagnosis and definition and, finally, estimation) and presented in this paper could be replicated in other universities yet to embark on this integration. The steps and findings presented here can also be applied to other organizations and help the integration process.

This study presents an in–depth analysis and strategic planning techniques for approaching a situation or achieving progress related to information technology services of Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology, particularly the San Isidro Campus. As an educational organization and one in the region excellence providers in education, the University has so much vital information to manage and services to offer to provide the student's needs through the Management Information System department, application of IT services as a competing instrument to combat tedious tasks such as online admission, grade release, enrollment information, and online learning, university announcement, and possible students’ internship. The objective of this study is to determine the influence of information technology in day–to–day activities of the organization and strategy applied to streamline processes more conveniently. The researchers develop a conceptual model that would analyze the IT services' impact by identifying its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and cleverly act on it using the TOWS Matrix in generating strategic decisions. The overall results were beneficial to the University and MIS as a basis for formulating competitive strategies and integrating it in an extended development plan.

The application of Virtual Reality in a driving simulation is not novel, yet little is known about the use of this technology by senior populations. The effects of age, sex, control device (joystick or handlebar), and task type on wayfinding proficiency using a virtual reality (VR) driving simulation were explored. The driving experimental model involved 96 randomly recruited participants, including 48 young people and 48 seniors (split evenly by gender in each group). The experimental results and statistical analyses indicate that in a VR driving scenario task type significantly affected VR driving performance. Navigational scores were significantly higher for the straight (easy) task than for the curved (difficult) task. The aging effect was the main reason for significant and interacting effects of sex and control device. It was found that interactions between age and sex difference indicated that the young group exhibited better wayfinding performance than the senior group, and in the young group males had better performance than females. Similarly, interactions between age and control device indicated that the handlebar control device type resulted in better performance than the joystick device in the young group, but no difference was found in the senior group due to age or learning effects. Findings provide an understanding of the evaluation of the interface designs of navigational support systems, taking into consideration any effects of age, sex, control device, and task type within three-dimensional VR games and driving systems. With a VR driving simulator, seniors can test drive inaccessible products, such as electric bicycles or cars, using a computer at home.

A decade after environmental scientists integrated high-throughput sequencing technologies in their toolbox, the genomics-based monitoring of anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems is yet to be implemented by regulatory frameworks. Despite the broadly acknowledged potential of environmental DNA and RNA to cost-efficiently and accurately monitor biodiversity, technical limitations and conceptual issues still stand in the way of its routine application by end-users. In addition, the multiplicity of potential implementation strategies may contribute to a perception of the methodology as being premature or “in development”, hence restraining regulators from binding these tools into legal frameworks. This review focuses on the strengths and limitations of genomics-based strategies that have emerged over the past ten years and have been classified for this purpose into three broad strategies: (A) Taxonomy-based approaches that focus on known bio-indicators or the diversity of taxonomically described taxa, (B) De novo approaches that do not require well-established taxonomy, and (C) Function-based approaches that rely on community-wide metrics, where taxa are interchangeable, or on functional profiles instead of compositional turnovers. We finally propose a roadmap for the implementation of environmental genomics into routine monitoring programs that leverage recent analytical advancements, upon which some critical limitations are alleviated.

The long term sustainability and longevity of the business life cycle depends on correct understanding of the contextual constituents, triggers and dynamics, pre-startup planning, strategy and financial forecasting where business plans are developed to understand and forecast project viability, pitch ideas and secure funding. At the same time there is a lack of one page startup business model. Identifying this need, a ‘startup business strategy frame’ has been developed through learnings and encompassing design thinking, the business canvas and other strategy models and approaches. It provides a logical sequential flow and connects value drivers on environmental, strategic including operational and financial levels of proposed startup in a sequential format. To arrive at the frame as a logical conclusion a website www.strategizestartup.com is developed to build startup business model and plans in a time and cost effective process. The website assists the startups at each stage through a work and guidebook. The website takes the user from creative ideation by charting the context to build the strategy and measuring the financial impact. This startup strategy model will alleviate the problems for the first and second stage entrepreneurs to ideate creatively and strategizing. It also eradicates the issues related to reading and understanding long plans which could be an exhaustive and cumbersome process.

This article uses a contemporary and revelatory case study to explore the relationship between three conversations in the innovation literature: design thinking, creativity in strategy and, the emerging area of art-thinking. Businesses are increasingly operating in a VUCA environment where they need to design better experiences for their customers and better outcomes for their firm and the Arts are no exception. Innovation, or more correctly growth through innovation, is a top priority for business and although there is no single, unifying blueprint for success at innovation, design thinking is the process that is receiving most attention and getting most traction. Design thinking teaches businesses to think with the creativity and intuition of a designer; to show a deep understanding of; and have empathy with the user. But design thinking has limitations. By placing the consumer at the very heart of the innovation process, design thinking can often lead to more incremental than radical ideas. Now there is a new perspective emerging, art-thinking, in which the objective is not to design a journey from current scenario; A to improved position: B. Art thinking requires the creation of B and spends more time in the open ended, problem space, staking out possibilities and looking for uncontested space. In Dublin, we examine a case of the oldest, largest and most prestigious fine art gallery and studio where most of the country’s best-known and successful visual artists both make, exhibit and sell their art. Graphic Studio Dublin is primarily a printmaking studio, established by artists over 60 years ago. It has facilities for woodblock, lino-print, silkscreen, intaglio and carborundum etching spread over four floors of a centrally located studio where the artists have access 24/7. But two years ago it found itself on the brink of collapse having borrowed heavily to invest in new facilities during the period of Ireland’s economic collapse. Its loans were sold to a vulture-fund who were about to foreclose in a move that would have seen a generation of Irish Artists displaced. A new board of directors was empaneled and they introduced some art thinking principles to bring the organisation back from the brink. They used an art-thinking mindset and design thinking tools to restore the fortunes of this venerable, artist-led institution and it worked.

An adaptive operation strategy for on-demand control of DMFC system is proposed as an alternative method to enhance the voltage stability. Based on a single-cell DMFC stack, a newly simplified semi-empirical model is developed from the uniform-designed experimental results to describe the I-V relationship. Integrated with this model, the multi-objective optimization method is utilized to develop an adaptive operation strategy. Although the voltage instability is frequently encountered in unoptimized operations, the voltage deviation is successfully decreased to a required level by adaptive operations with operational adjustments. Moreover, the adaptive operations are also found to be able to extend the range of operating current density or to decrease the voltage deviation according to ones requirements. Numerical simulations are implemented to investigate the underlying mechanisms of the proposed adaptive operation strategy, and experimental adaptive operations are also performed on another DMFC system to validate the adaptive operation strategy. Preliminary experimental study shows a rapid response of DMFC system to the operational adjustment, which further validates the effectiveness and feasibility of the adaptive operation strategy in practical applications. The proposed strategy contributes to a guideline for the better control of output voltage from operating DMFC systems.

An optimal withdrawal strategy beginning at age 65 provides a lifetime income from a portfolio, adjusted annually for inflation, while reducing the probability of living in financial ruin to an ac-ceptable level. This paper analyzes the probability of living in financial ruin, potentially for multiple years, rather than just the event of ruin. A stochastic Excel model was developed to simulate the effect of varying investment returns on a portfolio with two asset classes; large company stocks and long-term government bonds. A stochastic model is also applied to retiree mortality. The following variables were analyzed to determine their relative impact on withdrawal strategies: • Withdrawing a constant percentage of the portfolio, • Gender, • Initial asset allocation, • Asset allocation rebalancing methods, and • Low investment return environments. For both genders and most withdrawal rates, an approximately equal initial asset allocation of stocks and bonds, combined with a level rebalancing function, provided the lowest probability of living in financial ruin. Because each investment return followed its own probability distribution function, some retirees experienced financial ruin even in the most conservative simulations.

This theoretical article reviews the model describing processes in social systems based on the analysis of their resource base. Application of the system theory can help to explain why some systems are aimed at prevention of type I errors, while other seek to decrease quantity of type II errors. Such differences are manifested in investment of resources either into deep interaction or into wide coverage. Some examples of such strategies in economic, market and production systems are provided in the article. The article introduces some provisions of the system theory in the context of the resource flows. The main indicators that are considered in this article are the characteristics of the sources of the exchanging flows of resources. Their relative frequency and quality are investigated, on the basis of which the most effective strategy of the system is derived, as a mechanism for redistributing resources. The rigor of the system's strategy depends on the magnitude of the difference in characteristics. It is explained how exactly it influences the exchange processes, that in reality systems do not interact simultaneously, and one of the opposite resource flows is always delayed. It is shown how the system strategy depends on the risks linked with interactions. Also, there are grounds for the need to accumulate resources, including in the situation of their surplus. The model helps also explain shift of economic centers throughout history. Additionally, there is an analogy between systems strategies and the competitive strategies described by M. Porter, and outsourcing versus integration.

Background: Implantation of an endovascular device disrupts the homeostatic CD31:CD31 interactions among quiescent endothelial cells, platelets, and circulating leukocytes. The aim of this study was to mask endovascu-lar stents with peptides imitating CD31, to mimic the device's surface to resemble that of a healthy vascular endothelium. Methods: Peptide design relied on established trans-homophilic sequences found within domains 1 and 2 of CD31. Subsequently, synthetic peptides were immobilized onto flat CoCr and nitinol discs and their impact on the primary human arterial endothelial cell phenotype was evaluated in vitro. Following this, clinical-grade CoCr and nitinol endovascular devices were coated with one of the peptides that demonstrated the capability to induce a pro-physiologic endothelial phenotype, implanted in the arteries of rabbits, and compared to un-coated controls. Results: Membrane-distal CD31 domains 1 and 2 peptides exhibited a distinct capability to foster a healthy endothelial phenotype in vitro. By day 7 post-aortic implantation, CoCr stents were evenly covered by whole-some endothelial cells, devoid of thrombo-inflammatory signs, in contrast to both bare metal and drug-eluting stents. At day 60, nitinol-coated flow diverters demonstrated enhanced performance in comparison to the control groups for excluding experimental carotid aneurysms, facilitating the formation of a seamless "neo-arterial" wall. Conclusion: Membrane-distal CD31 biomimetic peptides effectively camouflage the device surface, prevent-ing local reactions and promoting rapid and seamless endovascular integration.

The solar cell industry is a part of the green energy sector, and effectively combining the patents of various manufacturers within the supply chain to collectively create sustainable patent market value is of paramount importance. This study aimed to establish a business strategy framework for Project-based licensing through the analysis of solar cell patents and the integration of supply chain manufacturers' patents, with the goal of collectively creating market value for patents sustainably. The research methodology included literature analysis and focus group discussions. Initially, the study analyzed solar cell industry patents from the past decade using the WIPS Global Patent database to identify projects with the highest patent count. Subsequently, through the use of focus group discussions, the feasibility of a patent pool strategy within the supply chain was explored. Finally, a strategy framework was proposed for Project-based patent pool licensing, focusing on the top 15 projects with the highest count of 5,579 patents. The results indicated that adopting this strategy framework for supply chain manufacturer patents can result in higher commercial patent value.

Traditional lithium-ion batteries cannot meet the high flexibility and bendability requirements of modern flexible electronic devices due to the limitations of their electrode materials. Therefore, the development of high-performance flexible energy storage devices is of great significance for promoting flexible electronics. In recent years, one-dimensional flexible fiber lithium-ion batteries have been rapidly developed due to the advantages of high flexibility and bendability. However, it is still a big challenge to realize 1D flexible fiber lithium-ion batteries with excellent electro-chemical properties and good mechanical performance. In this work, a reduced graphene ox-ide-based printing ink is proposed to fabricate flexible Li4Ti5O12/graphene fiber electrodes through a 3D printing assembly strategy. It is noteworthy that the green reducing agent vitamin C was used to reduce graphene oxide in one step, which improved the conductivity of the fiber elec-trode. Furthermore, a 3D conductive network is constructed inside the fiber electrodes due to the high specific surface area of reduced graphene oxide, which enhances the electronic conductivity and ion mobility. The fiber electrode not only has good mechanical performance, but also has ex-cellent electrochemical properties. Equally important, the method is simple and efficient, and the working environment is flexible. It can precisely control the shape, size and structure of the one-dimensional fiber flexible electrode, which is of great significance for the development of fu-ture flexible electronic devices.

The host-guest inclusion strategy has potential to surpass the limitations of energy density and suboptimal performances of single explosives. The guest molecules can not only enhance the detonation performance of host explosives but can also enhance their stability. Therefore, the deeply analysis the role of guest influence on the pyrolysis decomposition of the host-guest explosive is necessary. The whole decomposition reaction stage of CL-20/H2O, CL-20/CO2, CL-20/N2O, CL-20/NH2OH was calculated by ReaxFF-MD. The incorporation of CO2, N2O and NH2OH significantly increase the energy levels of CL-20. However, different guest has little influence on the initial decomposition paths of CL-20. The Ea1 and Ea2 values of CL-20/CO2, CL-20/N2O, CL-20/NH2OH systems are higher than the CL-20/H2O system. Clearly, incorporation of CO2, N2O, NH2OH can inhibit the initial decomposition and intermediate decomposition stage of CL-20/H2O. Guest molecules get heavily involved in the reaction and influence on the reaction rate. k1 of CL-20/N2O and CL-20/NH2OH systems are significantly larger than that of CL-20/H2O at high temperatures. k1 of CL-20/CO2 system is much complex, which can be affected deeply by temperatures. k2 of CL-20/CO2, CL-20/N2O system is significantly smaller than that of CL-20/H2O at high temperatures. k2 of CL-20/NH2OH system is little difference at high temperatures. For the CL-20/CO2 system, the k3 value of CO2 is slight higher than that for CL-20/H2O, CL-20/N2O, CL-20/NH2OH systems, while the k3 values of N2 and H2O are slight smaller than that for CL-20/H2O, CL-20/N2O, CL-20/NH2OH systems. For the CL-20/N2O system, the k3 value of CO2 is slight smaller than that for CL-20/H2O, CL-20/CO2, CL-20/NH2OH systems. For the CL-20/NH2OH system, the k3 value of H2O is slight larger than that for CL-20/H2O, CL-20/CO2, CL-20/N2O systems. These mechanisms revealed that CO2, N2O and NH2OH molecules inhibit the early stages of the initial decomposition of CL-20, and play an important role for the decomposition subsequently.

When designing rule-based dialogue systems, the need for elaborate design by the designer is a challenge for dialogue systems. One way to reduce the cost of creating content is to generate utterances from data collected in an objective and reproducible manner. This study focuses on rule-based dialogue systems using survey data, and more specifically on opinion dialogue where the system models the user. In opinion dialogue, there has not been much study of topic transition methods for modeling users while maintaining their motivation for dialogue. To model them, we adopted information content. Our contribution includes the design of a rule-based dialogue system that does not require elaborate design. We also reported an appropriate topic transition method based on information content. This is confirmed by the influence of the user's personality characteristics. The content of questions can give the user a sense of the system's intention to understand them. We also reported the possibility that the system's rational intention contributes to the user's motivation for dialogue with the system.

The paper deals with the design of a systematic procedure for implementing strategy changes into internal business processes for a project-oriented production type of organization. In the first part of the contribution, a summary of the theoretical starting points for the field of strategic management and change management is presented. In the second part, the contribution deals with the analysis of the current situation in the area of the impact of the change of strategy on the management of business processes. In the last part, the proposal of the procedure for implementing strategy changes into internal business processes and the verification results are presented. The proposed procedure includes steps where the selection and verification of key performance indicators at individual levels of management plus the quantification of the impact of the change in strategy on the processes takes place. The management can thus monitor and evaluate the chosen processes in accordance with the fulfilment of the chosen strategy of the company. The last chapter presents the verification of the proposal for the systematic introduction of changes into the processes.

The aim was to analyze the coping strategies used by primary health care (PHC) professionals. A cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical study was conducted with professionals working in primary health care units in São José do Rio Preto, a large city in the interior of São Paulo, Brazil. For data collection we used an instrument developed by the researchers, containing sociodemographic and professional variables, as well as the Problem Coping Modes Scale (EMEP). We evaluated 333 PHC professionals. A difference was observed between the scores of the four coping strategies (p<0.001), with the highest score for the problem-focused strategy (3.8) and the lowest score for the emotion-focused strategy (2.4). Physicians had the lowest scores in coping strategies focused on religious practices/fantastical thinking (p<0.001) and pursuit of social support (p=0.045), while community health agents had the highest scores in these coping strategies). Professionals working in PHC have different coping strategies for the problems and stressful situations experienced in the work environment. These strategies can involve more positive attitudes focused on confrontation and problem solving, to emotional responses that involve attitudes of avoidance and denial that involve attitudes of avoidance and denial of the problem.

Proper management of solar energy, as an effective renewable source, is of high importance toward sustainable energy harvesting. This paper offers a novel sophisticated method for predicting solar irradiance (SIr) from environmental conditions. To this end, an efficient metaheuristic technique, namely electromagnetic field optimization (EFO) is employed for optimizing a neural network. This algorithm quickly mines a publicly available dataset for non-linearly tuning the network parameters. To suggest an optimal configuration, five influential parameters of the EFO (i.e., N_Pop, R_rate, Ps_rate, P_field, and N_field) are optimized by an extensive trial and error practice. Analyzing the results showed that the proposed model can learn the SIr pattern and predict it for unseen conditions with high accuracy. Furthermore, it provided about 10% and 16% higher accuracy compared to two benchmark optimizers, namely shuffled complex evolution and shuffled frog leaping algorithm. Hence, the EFO-supervised neural network can be a promising tool for the early prediction of SIr in practice. The findings of this research may shed light on the use of advanced intelligent models for efficient energy development.

With the arrival of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, a new stage of the pandemic commenced, with new challenges ahead. During the coming months, countries will be implementing their COVID-19 vaccination programs depending on their implementation of vaccine availability and its prescription on risk stratification. Although children will not benefit from active immunization programs, now, with the beginning of the era of the anti-COVID19 vaccines, the suffering of children can no longer be ethically tolerated or neglected. The time has come to provide specific lasting strategies for children living in the COVID-19 era. Here we propose a child-focused indirect COVID-19 vaccination strategy.For better or worse, children depend on their natural caregivers (adults) and the rest of society for their well-being and achieving their full potential. We believe that including in the priority categories also those adults in close contact with children could ensure a safety net of child protection.A child-focused vaccination strategy would allow the faster return to "normality" for children and their families. Such an approach would not only enable the reopening and continuity of essential services for children but also would allow adults to return to their routine economic/productive activities.

Nowadays, the wasting of resources is one of the fundamental challenges of the industrial sector. The rectangle packing problem can be very effective in this context. Practical applications of this issue in the timing and designing of the industries and businesses are very remarkable. The purpose of this issue is to arrange a set of rectangles with specific dimensions in a rectangular page with a specific width and unlimited height without overlapping. The fundamental challenge in this issue is that this is an NP-complete issue. Therefore, it is difficult to achieve the best arrangement, which has the maximum rate of resource utilization and also has a linear running time. Many algorithms have been presented to estimate a practical solution for this issue. In the past decades, the best fit method has been one of the most useful methods for this purpose. This study presents a combinatorial algorithm based on two algorithms, including the lowest front-line strategy and the best-fit algorithm. The running results indicate that the suggested algorithm performs well, despite its simplicity. The time complexity of the suggested algorithm is O(nm), in which n is the number of input rectangles and m is the number of the created front lines.

Historically, 2020 will be remembered as the year of COVID-19 pandemic, that limited people move and their social habits. This virus, becomes the first daily tracked public health burden that leads to more than 1,2 million deaths in the World by the end of October 2020, and until now no countries' best control strategies are cited as the example of long term success.Since March 2^nd, 2020, date of the first SARS-COV-2 detected case in Morocco; many decisions were adopted as COVID-19 control strategies. If the first period of COVID-19 noticed a few numbers of cases and deaths, the second half from July is marked with an exponential increase of the number of cases and a spread in almost all provinces with more intensive care needs and more deaths. The policy analysis approach was followed as a method to define the pitfalls themes and to compare with the updated available international information any significant similarities or divergences. Thus, this report has the aim to present an overview of how the COVID-19 pandemic was dealt in Morocco during these 200 days, by highlighting some discrepancies with corrective advice provided in the first version of the manuscript to be confronted by a Moroccan health policymaker’s community, then to notice the decisions adopted during another one month by the MoH to get better future control results against COVID-19.Unfortunately, despite the MoH decision to increase the diagnostic facilities for molecular tests, the overall number of laboratory tests do not go further than 21000 tests per day. The actual insidious transmission is a dangerous blind threat that dissipates the collaborating efforts, due to this limited number of confirmation and follows up tests.Accurate, standardised and up to ten times per day tests of molecular biology represented by RT-qPCR, to interpret results following the time progress of cycle quantification values is the primary action to be done to enhance the overall control strategy.

Demand responsive transport (DRT) is operated according to flexible routes, dispatch intervals, and dynamic demand, is attracting a lot of attention. The biggest characteristic of DRT service is that the vehicle routes and schedules are operated optimally based on real-time travel requests of using passengers without fixed operating schedules. Today, the smart-city era has arrived, particularly because of progress in the wireless communications technology and technology related to location information service and real-time passenger demands and requests, and services that change the vehicles’ operating schedules in real-time according to dynamic demand have attracted more attention. In this study, we analyze the effects of the DRT system to solve the first mile/last mile problem based on a proposed DRT routing algorithm considering real-time travel behavior. The algorithm is modified from the dynamic vehicle routing problem (DVRP), in which a DRT-based routing algorithm tends to minimize users’ cost and providers’ operation cost. So far, the DVRP has only been able to serve a single request per vehicle at a time. However, this needs to be extended for the purpose of DRT, wherein several passengers board a vehicle at the same time. The routing algorithm can serve multiple requests at a time and schedule picks ups, drop offs, and rides according to the requests and as calculated by the dispatch algorithm. The basic principle of routing is as follows. The DRT vehicle moves on an attractive path and picks up a passenger if boarding is requested, but it does not simply hang around as a DVRP would. In this step, if another DRT vehicle is present near another passenger, the vehicle that would minimize that passenger’s total travel time picks up the passenger. The optimal routing algorithm developed in this study is applied to the activity-based model; that is, a microscopic traffic demand estimation method is implemented through an activity-based model by using an open-source, activity-based model package called Multi-Agent Transport Simulation (MATSim). MATSim is used for the simulation, because it combines a multi-modal traffic flow simulation with a scoring model for agents, and it provides co-evolutionary algorithms that can alter agents’ daily routines. This process is applied to a type of mode choice and route choice repeatedly over several iterations until some form of user equilibrium has been reached. This study analyzed the feasibility of implementing the DRT service by analyzing the benefits for the users and cost of the operator from the effects of increasing public transportation use and providing personalized mobility service based on DRT implementation by the introduction of DRT will be analyzed according to the scale of DRT supply. Through the simulation, the DRT is expected to provide convenient, fast, and cost-effective mobility services to customers; provide an optimal vehicle scale to providers; and, ultimately, achieve a safe and efficient transportation system.

This paper outlines a new methodology for developing strategy for supply chain integration of Autonomous Electrical Vehicles (AEV) to the Internet of Things (IoT). The methodology consists of external architecture and internal design that anticipates the business strategy in the development process. The methodology is designed to anticipate the impact of developments in new road transport technologies, such as Tesla Truck or Tesla Pickup. Since the methodology is designed to anticipate the impact of non-existing technologies, it represents green-field analysis. Green-field is defined as a new and non-existent operation. Green-field strategy architecture in this paper is presented as a process of accepting the world and acting upon that version of the world. The results of the analysis are presented as pathways and outcomes, emerging from the interrelated relationship between AEV and IoT. The emerging methodology is applied through two case studies to evaluate the impact to environment, performance and operationalisation. The methodology proposes architecture and design for integrating AEV and IoT in the supply chain strategy, and a set of new evaluation criteria that promote acceptance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the design process. The main contribution to knowledge is a new methodology for integrating AEV and the IoT to the supply chains. The paper applies interplay between inductive and deductive case study and grounded theory approach to build upon the concept of supply chain architecture and contribute to knowledge to the topic of formulating green-field integrated AEV- IoT supply chain strategy.

This study explores the effect of seasonality on soil carbon efflux and pasture growth based on field and lysimeter experiments during summer-fall and winter-spring in two years. Focus is also pointed on irrigation strategies to alleviate the crop response to seasonal fluctuations in precipitation and surface temperatures. Soil respiration, soil and air temperature, leaf photosynthesis, plant dry weight and leaf area index were quantified and analyzed. It has been found significant differences in the CO₂ efflux between the two growing season. Emission of soil CO₂ allowed to characterize and to prioritize the temperature and rain influence in seasonal brachiaria response. During the seasons, the transient variation of CO₂ efflux was highly correlated with rainfall (r = 0.87, P < 0.05), and poorly correlated with soil temperatures (r = 0.5, P < 0.05). The CO₂ efflux and plant response to different level of reposition of evapotranspiration demonstrated that irrigation during fall mitigates the reduction of growth conditioned by drying soil and the lower temperatures. The lower temperatures are limiting only when the soil moisture is below 32% of the field capacity. Thus, we propose to keep the soil moisture around 50% during the fall as a key practices for mitigating the effect of seasonality and its intensification with the climate change, even more if added to management routine practices the soil and water conservation.

The need to alleviate the difficulties of abstraction and improve students’ achievement in Physical Geography informed this research. This study investigated the Effects of Mastery Learning Strategy and Learning Retention on Senior Secondary School Students’ Achievement in Physical Geography. The study adopted the quasi experimental non-equivalent pre-test, post-test control group design. The Multi-stage sampling technique at four levels was used to select four co-educational secondary schools in Ganye Educational Zone in Nigeria. The sample for the study was 218 Senior Secondary School two (SS II) students offering Geography from four intact classes in the four selected secondary schools. The instrument used for data collection was “Physical Geography Achievement and Retention Test” (PGART). The reliability of the instrument was established using Kendall tau b statistic. This gave a reliability index of 0.74. Data collected were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U and t-Test. The results showed that Mastery Learning Strategy has the potentials to improve students’ learning outcomes, retention and achievement in all spheres of cognitive domain in Physical Geography better than the Conventional Method. Hence the need to incorporate this teaching strategy during instruction so that learners would be guided to learn meaningfully and be assisted to retain content learnt in Geography.

The potency and challenges of sorghum development in tidal swamplands in Indonesia have yet to be well studied. Our research was the first to evaluate land suitability, economic performance, and strategies for developing sorghum in tidal swamplands in Central Kalimantan. The assessment methods for the potency and utilization of sorghum used the land suitability evaluation method, gross margin and profit analysis, break-even, and competitive analysis. As a tool for decision-making, we used SWOT followed by the quantitative strategic planning matrix (QSPM) analysis. The results showed that the potency of arable land suitable for sorghum development was 578,511 ha. Economically, sorghum farming can generate an IDR 12,894,000 per ha with a revenue-cost ratio of 1.72; the break-even price was IDR 2,447 per kg, around 42% lower than the current market price. Sorghum was also more competitive than cassava, sweet potato, and soybeans (Q values of 0.76, 0.58, and 0.61, respectively) and less competitive than maize (Q = 1.33). Based on the QSPM, there were five alternative strategies for developing sorghum in tidal swamplands, i.e., (1) Optimization of productivity, (2) Improving the quality of human resources of farmers, (3) Facilitation of partnership cooperation, (4) Application of site-specific technology, and (5) Optimization of waste utilization. Those strategies show the potential expansion of sorghum planting in the tidal swamplands and the economic value enhancement for the community.

Currently, major e-commerce platforms are competing to improve their return services, while merchants are experiencing abuse of return policies by consumers. The effectiveness of lenient return policies is examined in helping e-commerce platforms gain a competitive advantage in this paper. A dual oligopoly model is established consisting of one platform that offers a lenient return policy with services like Instant Refunds and the other does not provide similar ones. The scenario where consumers are single-homing, while merchants are partial multi-homing is analyzed. In the scenario, many factors are examined to assess their impact on the scale of the bilateral user base and the profits for both platforms, including the proportion of consumer abusing return policies, the benefits derived from abusive returns, penalties. and costs. The findings indicate that: (1) With an increasing proportion of consumer abusing return policies, the multi-homing merchants on platform that offer lenient return service will choose to be exclusively affiliated with rival platform, accounting for a decrease in consumer base and lower platform profits compared to competitors. (2) Platform that provides lenient return policies should restrict the amount of returns to mitigate the impact of consumer abusing return policies on its profits. (3) When the proportion of consumers abusing return policies is relatively low, platform should choose moderate levels of penalty to increase the scale of both sides of users without excessively increasing costs. However. when this proportion is high, platforms should cease to offer lenient return and refund services.

The energy production market based on hydrogen technologies is to be an innovative solution that will allow the industry to achieve climate neutrality in the future in Poland and in the world. The paper presents the idea of using hydrogen as a modern energy carrier, and devices that, in cooperation with renewable energy sources, produce the so-called green hydrogen and the applicable legal acts that allow for the implementation of the new technology were analysed. Energy transformation is inevitable, and according to reports on good practices in European Union countries, hydrogen and the hydrogen value chain (production, transport and transmission, storage, use in transport and energy) have a wide potential. Thanks to joint projects and subsidies from the EU, initiatives supporting hydrogen technologies are created, such as: hydrogen clusters, hydrogen valleys, and EU and national strategic programs set the main goals. As noted in this article, Poland is one of the leaders in hydrogen production both in the world and in Europe. Domestic tycoons from the energy, refining and chemical industries are involved in the projects. Eight hydrogen valleys that have recently been created in Poland successfully implement the assumptions of the "Polish Hydrogen Strategy until 2030 with a perspective until 2040", "Energy Policy of Poland until 2040", which are in line with the assumptions of the most important legal acts of the EU , including: the European Union's energy and climate policy, the Green Deal, the Fit for 55 Package.

The contemporary discourse focuses on the fourth industrial revolution and its impact on compa-nies. An explicative, quantitative, questionnaire survey was conducted with managers of 101 companies in Hungary and 54 in Austria. Our study focused on assessing their preparedness for Industry 4.0 and the key factors they take into account when implementing Industry 4.0 initiatives. We also examined whether there is a correlation between the areas in which companies have made improvements to support Industry 4.0. To complement our quantitative analysis, we conducted a series of four semi-structured interviews with two Hungarian and two Austrian companies. The aim of the interviews was to further investigate the digital readiness of companies and to formulate recommendations for companies venturing into the field of digitalisation. A particular focus was put on comparing the digital maturity of these two neighbouring Central European countries, given the significant differences in their digital maturity as shown by the macro indicators of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). Therefore, we conducted a micro-level analysis to investigate the extent to which DESI scores correspond to the digital performance of companies at the orga-nisational level.

To solve the problem of low efficiency of source seeking in implicit information field, this paper presents an autonomous souring method based on balanced searching strategy is enlighten by biological homing behaviors. At the beginning of the research, the source seeking task come down to a multi-objective convergence issue. By taking the feasibility search behaviors as the individual sample of the evolutionary population drawing on the thought of evolutionary algorithms, then combine motion searching with population evolution, so the carrier can be guide to complete source seeking task by solving the multi-objective problem. Furthermore, the distribution entropy is also considerated d to measure the searching bias in the process of source seeking. Combined with the demand of the source seeking process, a new source seeking method of balanced searching strategy is designed. Ultimately, through theoretical analysis and simulation verification confirm the effectiveness and rationality of the proposed method.

Recent empirical work has revealed that drivers have different lane change strategies. These strategies help to understand driver heterogeneity and decision stochasticity, which are both often lacking in microscopic models. In this paper we generalize the lane change strategies in a theory for social interactions. The theory introduces a mechanism by which two new driver traits, ego-speed sensitivity and socio-speed sensitivity, endogenously influence other driver traits that govern lane change behaviour such as desired speed, desired headway and lane change desire. A key concept in this mechanism is that drivers are not just affected by what happens in front of them, but also by what they observe in their rear-view mirrors. The idea is that drivers reduce their headways to exert (social) pressure onto leading drivers (on the same or adjacent lanes), which may force them to increase speed, change lanes, or conversely, to refrain from changing lanes. We refer to this reduction of the headway as tailgating. Through an example implementation of the theory, we demonstrate that these social interactions may have a profound impact on several key (mesoscopic) traffic flow characteristics. Our results show that these new driver interactions influence the number of lane changes, platoon lengths, and headway variance. As such, the theory improves our description and understanding of traffic flow and consequently it paves the path for more realistic traffic models.

Background: The uptake of COVID-19 booster vaccines has been significantly low. Therefore, it is questionable whether combining the COVID-19 booster vaccines with Influenza vaccines can increase the population's interest in taking such vaccines and manage the health pandemic effectively. Methodology: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, a synthesis of the findings and summary of a total of 30 research articles based on the topic, ‘combining influenza and COVID-19 booster vaccination strategy’ was undertaken. The research articles were identified from three databases, namely, PubMed, Cochran Library, and Google Scholar using specific keywords and inclusion criteria. However, research articles that were not peer-reviewed and not published in English were excluded from the systematic review and meta-analysis. The average risk ratio of the included articles was 0.78% based on a 95% CI. On the other hand, the heterogeneity between such studies was I² = 35%, while the statistical significance of their findings occurred at p < 0.05. The average p-value of the included research studies was p = 0.62, implying that the null hypothesis was not rejected in almost all the studies. Results: A synthesis of the chosen research articles revealed that when influenza and COVID-19 booster vaccines are combined, there is potential for an increase in the uptake of the latter, mainly because many populations have already been accustomed to taking influenza vaccines on an annual basis. Conclusions: In this way, through such findings, medical health experts can make informed decisions to increase the population's willingness to receive the COVID-19 booster vaccines.

Background: Enterovirus infections affect people around the world, causing a range of illnesses, from mild fevers to severe, potentially fatal conditions. There are no approved vaccines or treatments for enterovirus infections. Methods: We have tested our library of broad-spectrum antiviral agents (BSAs) against echovirus 1 (EV1) in human adenocarcinoma alveolar basal epithelial A549 cells. We also tested combinations of the most active compounds against EV1 in A549 and human immortalized retinal pigment epithelium RPE cells. Results: We confirmed anti-enteroviral activities of pleconaril, rupintrivir, cycloheximide, vemurafenib, remdesivir, emetine, and anisomycin and identified novel synergistic rupintrivir-vemurafenib, vemurafenib-pleconaril and rupintrivir-pleconaril combinations against EV1 infection. Conclusions: Because rupintrivir, vemurafenib, and pleconaril require lower concentrations to inhibit enterovirus replication in vitro when combined, their combinations may have fewer side effects in vivo and therefore should be further studied in pre- and clinical trials.

Background: Some viruses cause outbreaks which require immediate attention. Neutralizing antibodies could be developed for viral outbreak management. However, development of monoclonal antibodies is often long, laborious, and unprofitable. Here we report a Norwegian platform for development of chicken polyclonal neutralizing antibodies with powerful therapeutic potential. Methods: Layers were immunized twice with 14-day interval using purified RBD of SARS-CoV-2. Eggs were harvested 14 days after the second immunization. Polyclonal IgY antibodies were extracted. Binding of anti-RBD IgY to RBD was measured by indirect ELISA. Neutralization capacity of anti-RBD IgYs was measured in Vero-E6 cells infected with SARS-CoV-2-mCherry strain using fluorescence and cell viability assay. In addition, the effect of IgYs on the expression of SARS-CoV-2 and host cytokine genes in lungs of Syrian Golden hamsters was examined using qRT-PCR. Results: Anti-RBD IgYs efficiently bind RBD of S protein of SARS-CoV-2 in situ, neutralize the virus in vitro, and lower viral RNA amplification without significant alteration of virus-mediated immune gene expression in vivo. Conclusions: Altogether, our results indicated that chicken polyclonal IgYs can be attractive targets for pre-clinical and clinical development for rapid management of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging viruses.

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have become a powerful tool to generate various kinds of cell types comprising the human body. Recently, organoid technology emerged as a platform to build a physiologically relevant tissue-like structure from the PSCs, which provides a more relevant three-dimensional microenvironment to the actual human body than the conventional monolayer culture system for transplantation, disease modeling, and drug development. Although it holds so many advantages, the organoid culture system still has various problems related to culture methods, which became a challenge to get similar physiological properties to their original tissue counterparts. Here, we discuss the current development of organoid culture methods, including the problem that may arise from the currently available culture systems as well as the possible approach to overcoming the current limitation and improving their optimum utilization for translational application purposes.

The present study measured household hunger in South-East Nigeria amidst COVID-19 lockdown. A total of 1209 households (urban and rural locations) were sampled. Household hunger was determined using Radimer/Cornel hunger scale, while Chi-square test was done with significance of P<0.05. Results of this study revealed 82.7% prevalence of hunger among households before Covid-19 pandemic, while during Covid-19 lockdown, hunger prevalence rose to 98.6%. It was also observed that covid-19 lockdown significantly affected food prices.The major coping strategy employed by households was relying on less expensive foods (81.14%). High household hunger was identified as a short term cost of Covid-19 lockdown in Southeast Nigeria. Only few households benefited from the food aid programs and other forms of palliatives by Government. It is recommended that the Government should setup a formidable unit which will develop physical and digital plans for effective implemention during Covid-19 lockdown situation or other emergencies.

. 1) Background: Intersectionality contests that individuals have multiple characteristics in their identity that cannot be siloed or deemed exclusive to each other. Understanding and utilising an intersectional lens in organisations can increase inclusion of individuals and organisational performance. An educational package known as the Intersectionality Walk (IW) was developed by the authors, piloted, and evaluated in order to break down the commonly held descriptors of diversity silos that fragments inclusion, and to understand how various identity characteristics compound disadvantage. The paper outlines the need to transition from siloed views of diversity to a more intrinsic view of identity to achieve inclusivity. 2) Methods: The IW was developed and trialled with a series of work-based scenarios and realistic multifaceted personas. Data collection occurred pre- and post- IW utilising a mixed methods approach. Responses to Likert scale surveys and open-ended questions were captured and analysed via inductive and ground theory perspectives. 3) Results: An improved awareness and understanding of individual knowledge, reflectivity and positionality relating to intersectionality and intersectional approaches was reported on completion of the IW. Further, responses reported how and why organisations can approach and improve inclusivity via using intersectional approaches. 4) Conclusions: The IW as an educational package has a positive impact and is a key linkage for all employers to build an inclusive culture and to harness the talent of all employees. Further research will occur to measure the implemented change in organisations following the IW.

Frequent employee resistance to innovation is one of the main barriers of change failure in a health care organization and one of the negative stimuli of employment relationships. Identifying the reasons of resistance is a topical issue for every organization, as the speed of change can affect their competitiveness. Consequently, it is helpful not only to know the causes of potential resistance but also to be ready to control any implicit opposition. The organizational climate and the attitude of the staff play an important role in understanding and accepting innovation. Purpose of the study is to develop a model, which would facilitate the choice of an appropriate strategy necessary to enable the health care organization to eliminate or at least to reduce resistance to often essential innovative changes. The article analyses the root causes of resistance and identifies strategies that help to mitigate or eliminate staff resistance for innovation. Use of suggested model can make easier reducing staff resistance to change processes and thus speed up the implementation of innovations. This methodology can be used to eliminate the reasons for staff resistance to change in health care institutions of different countries, but it was tested in Lithuania and achieved good enough results.

Change orders have received considerable attention from researchers thus far, but none have considered pricing strategies of change orders through the interaction between general contractors and subcontractors. Previous studies found that contractors’ opportunistic bidding considering beyond-contractual reward (BCR) in the execution stage can be reduced by improving the construction management system and strengthening the supervision of contractors’ performance. However, the BCR remains in ecology of construction engineering. This study proposes an integrated evolutionary game theory-system dynamics model (ET-SD model) and simulates the pricing strategy of change orders between general contractors and subcontractors to explore the root cause of BCR phenomenon. Sensitivity analysis on the evolutionary dynamics of payoff is explored. Results reveal that change orders with BCR maintain Nash equilibrium and evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) unless changing the payoff structure between general and subcontractors’ pricing strategies. This study presents important managerial insights from the evolutionary game perspectives, nature of change orders, and payoff of the alternative.

The commonly used words ‘transformation’ and ‘transition’ tend to lose their edge when used for any significant change process as is rather often the case. Partners and wider stakeholders in initiatives related to ‘sustainability transitions’ therefore often entertain different perspectives on what the strategic orientation of an initiative is or is meant to be. Common planning and design processes such as situation analysis and theories of change, however, often do not sufficiently cater to this dynamic. As a result, different actors may be pulling the initiative in different directions, undermining the overall partnership efforts. In this short contribution a strategic scoping canvas and an associated facilitation process are presented as a way of addressing such situations. Illustrations are provided of initial application in three cases related to food system transitions in Peru, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, exploring the connectivity with approaches commonly used in the context of system transformations, including the Multi-Level Perspective on sustainability transitions, the Leverage Points approach, Capability Approach, and the theory of Large System Change. We conclude that the canvas and associated facilitation approach has proved useful in different contexts, offering opportunities for complementing existing methodologies, and potentially enhancing their efficacy in facilitated multi-stakeholder processes.

A numerical model was developed for predicting the bead geometry and microstructure in Laser Beam Welding of 2 mm thickness Inconel 718 sheets. The experiments were carried out with a 1 kW maximum power fiber laser coupled with a galvanometric scanner. Wobble strategy was employed for sweeping 1 mm wide circular areas for creating the weld seams and a specific tooling was manufactured for supplying protective Argon gas during the welding process. The numerical model takes into account both the laser beam absorption and the melt-pool fluid movement along the bead section, resulting in a weld geometry that depends on the process input parameters, such as feed rate and laser power. The microstructure of the beads was also estimated based on the cooling rate of the material. Features as bead upper and bottom final shapes, weld penetration and dendritic arm spacing were numerically and experimentally analyzed and discussed. The results given by the numerical analysis agree with the tests, making the model a robust predictive tool.

The move towards a new Circular Economy (CE) economic model has been advocated and supported in Portugal, however, there is limited research on this topic. To address this gap, a quantitative research based on an online survey was carried out among 99 Portuguese organizations, encompassing a wide range of sectors and sizes. The results show that CE is regarded as a strategic and relevant issue for profitability and value creation. Furthermore, the perception that it requires the adoption of new business models in addition to the classical “reduce, reuse, and recycle” approach is growing. Moreover, based on the hypotheses raised, results suggest that the level of CE adoption is positively impacted by the status of the EMS (Environmental Management System) certification and the willingness to improve the environmental performance and achieve a sustainable business model. However, CE activities are still relatively modest and a friendlier context (fiscal, legal, organizational, etc.) and the stronger support from supply chain agents and consumers are required. Future research should focus on how to design and shape the transition from a linear to a CE economy, and to ascertain if the positive attitude towards CE is materialized in changing the way business is done.

The current generation of nuclear reactors are evolutionary in design, mostly based on the technology originally designed to power submarines, and dominated by Light Water Reactors. The aims of the GenIV consortium are driven by sustainability, safety and reliability, economics, and proliferation resistance. The aims are extended here to encompass the ultimate and universal vision for strategic development of energy production, the ‘perpetuum mobile’ – at least as close as possible. We propose to rethink nuclear reactor design with the mission to develop a system which uses no fresh resources and produces no fresh waste during operation as well as generates power safe and reliably in economic way. The results of the innovative simulations presented here demonstrate that, from a theoretical perspective, it is feasible to fulfil the mission through the reuse of spent nuclear fuel from currently operating reactors as the fuel for a new reactor. The produced waste is less burdensome than current spent nuclear fuel which is used as feed to the system. However, safety, reliability and operational economics will need to be demonstrated to create the basis for the long term success of nuclear reactors as a major carbon free, sustainable, and applied highly reliable energy source.

Proposed study aims to investigate the digital transformation of Greek small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with a particular focus on their digital maturity and the strategic and organizational factors contributing to digital transformation. The research issue of digital transformation is attracting considerable interest among academics and business practicians since COVID-19 accelerated the procedure of implementing Industry’s 4.0 principles all over global economies. Quantitative research on 147 Greek SMEs revealed most important issues on how these businesses implement digital transformation, factors accelerating or decelerating the process, barriers and expected outcomes. Research enlights how SMEs face the transition to digital business and reveals the factors that can facilitate the whole process. Results can be valuable for stakeholders enabled to digital transformation process from both business and academic point of view, while there exist aspects that can contribute to policy makers / motivation developers in state’s level as well.

This study aims to investigate how the adoption of an online to offline (O2O) transition strategy impacts the sales volume of Kampoeng Merdeka Clothing. The O2O strategy includes various components, such as establishing O2O platforms, delivering personalized services, ensuring secure transactions, and engaging in offline business activities. The research employs a quantitative approach, focusing on consumers who have made clothing purchases from Kampoeng Merdeka Clothing in Macassar. The sample size comprises 83 respondents, deliberately selected using the Slovin approach. The data analysis and methodology involve the application of Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural equation modeling to assess both the external and internal models. The findings of this study emphasize the significant and positive influence of the variables "Build O2O Network Platform," "Provide Personalized Experience," "Safeguard Transactions Security," and "Offline Business" on driving the sales growth of Kampoeng Merdeka Clothing. These results indicate that the O2O transition strategy has a substantial impact on the brand's sales performance, with the establishment of O2O platforms and personalized services playing crucial roles. Additionally, ensuring secure transactions and engaging in offline business activities further contribute to the overall success of Kampoeng Merdeka Clothing in the market. This research sheds light on the effectiveness of the O2O approach in boosting sales for clothing brands and underscores the importance of integrating online and offline elements to maximize business outcomes.

In this paper, we consider a pursuit-evasion game of inertial players, where pursuer’s control is subject to integral constraint, and evader’s control is subject to geometric constraint. In the pursuit problem, the main tool is the strategy of parallel pursuit. Sufficient conditions are obtained for the solvability of pursuit-evasion problems. Also, the main lemma describing the monotonicity of an attainability domain of the evader is proved and an explicit analytical formula for this domain is given. As one of the important results of our paper, the Isaacs Life-line game is solved for a special case.

The aims of this paper are 1) to explore the type of industry of SMEs that can survive for more than 5 years in ASEAN, and 2) to analyze the success factors of SMEs in ASEAN to be able to survive for more than 5 years. This paper employs a qualitative method, with a literature review and meta-analysis. From 2007 to 2017, data was extracted from Google Scholar, Emerald Insight, Sage Pub, and EBSCO databases. There are 14 factors that influence the success of SMEs in the main sectors, 20 factors in the manufacturing sectors, and 14 factors in the service sectors, depending on the type of industry. For instance: eCommerce, technology, and social media, international oriented, good management system, government support, working condition /environment, skill and competency labour/owner, market penetration/selection, policy, organizational performance, and characteristics, networking with government /supplier / customer, networking with government /supplier /customer, planned /strategy (business /market /operational /organizational). The findings of this literature review reveal several important factors that are critical to the success of SMEs in competing with other industries and can be developed for a longer period.

With the global outbreak of COVID-19, the panic buying incidents triggered by the variants of the Omicron strain have severely affected the normal social order. This paper considers the complex interest game and interactive relationship among multiple subjects in the mass panic buying event caused by rumors and constructs a three-party evolution game model of local government, rumor-monger, and public. Based on the theory of evolution game, the evolutionary process of the strategy selection of game subjects is studied, and the strategy selection of the three-game subjects under different scenarios is compared and analyzed. Taking the example of the montmorillonite powder panic buying caused by the XBB virus strain rumor in China, the evolutionary game model constructed in this study is simulated and analyzed. The study shows that: the evolution process of the mass panic buying event is characterized by six stages: the initial stage E1(0,0,0); the outbreak stage E3(0,1,0);the spread stage E7(0,1,1);the climax stage E8(1,1,1);the relief stage E5(1,1,0);and the recovery stage E4(1,0,0); there are four stable points in the evolutionary game of the three game subjects, namely (no intervention, no rumor, no panic buying), (no intervention, rumor, no panic buying), (intervention, no rumor, no panic buying), and (intervention, rumor, no panic buying), and the strategy of government intervention will be adjusted according to the strategy selection of the public and the rumor-monger; under the mechanism of reward and punishment of the higher-level government, increasing the punishment and reward intensity of the higher-level government will promote the local government to intervene in the rumor-mongering event faster, but increasing the reward intensity has a more significant impact on the intervention behavior of the local government than punishment, and increasing punishment intensity has a more significant impact on the non-rumor-mongering behavior of the rumor-monger than reward; the parameters of social risk-bearing cost, risk transmission coefficient, rumor-mongering income and cost, and public drug purchase cost have different degrees of influence on the evolutionary behavior of game subjects. This study provides new ideas for effectively responding to mass panic buying events in the context of public emergencies.

The bridge crane is often used in a complex environment, often subject to interference of all loads. Some uncertainties factors often have an inevitable impact on its swing. So the force situation of the bridge crane during a working cycle is analyzed, and a three-dimensional dynamic mathematical model of the bridge crane is built. Through the simulation analysis of the model under the action of driving force and wind load, the change law of the swing angle of the bridge crane is studied. Then, the fuzzy control theory is used to determine the control parameter in the anti sway control process. The position, swing angle deviation and deviation rate of the bridge crane are taken as the input, and the parameter correction is obtained after the fuzzification by using the center of gravity method, the anti sway fuzzy control system of the bridge crane is designed and simulated. The research results show that the fuzzy PID anti sway controller can not only improve the adaptability of the control system, but also overcome the large overshoot, quickly restrain the swing, and effectively realize the anti sway function of the bridge crane.

Proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers (PEMWEs) for water electrolysis have received tremendous attention due to their immediate response, high proton conductivity, low ohmic losses and gas crossover rate. However, design high activity, economical and long-term durable electrocatalysts in an acidic environment is still the bottleneck to realize the large-scale commercialization of PEMWEs. Iridium-based materials represent one of the most promising classes of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts due to their intrinsic stability in acid media over ruthenium-based counterparts. However, only a few innovative approaches have been developed to synthesizing iridium-based catalysts (IBCs) in the past decade, mainly due to achieving high activity may deteriorate the stability of IBCs. Accordingly, various engineering strategies of optimizing IBCs have been proposed to address this issue, including doping engineering, morphology engineering, crystal phase engineering and support engineering. Herein, a critical overview focusing on various synthesis and modulation strategies of IBCs is presented, based on an in-depth understanding of the relationship between electronic structures, charge redistribution and activity as well as stability of the electrocatalysts. In addition, the unprecedented achievements in PEMWEs are summarized. The reaction mechanisms and future perspectives are critically discussed to inspire more rational design of IBCs toward practical applications.

Reasonable trajectory planning is the precondition for the parafoil airdrop system to achieve autonomous accurate homing and safe landing. In order to successfully realize the self-homing of the parafoil airdrop system, a new trajectory optimization design scheme is proposed in this paper. The scheme is based on the parafoil's unique flight and control characteristics and adopts a segmented homing design. Compared with the current common trajectory design method, its core feature is to avoid the problem that the straight-line flight distance before landing is limited by the radius of the height-reducing area and ensure landing accuracy and safety. Firstly, the different starting states of the parafoil airdrop system and the landing requirements were comprehensively considered, and the homing trajectory is reasonably segmented. Based on the requirements of energy control, stable flight, and landing accuracy, the optimal objective function of the trajectory was established, and the trajectory parameters, calculation methods, and constraints were given. Secondly, the cuckoo search algorithm was applied to optimize the objective function to obtain the final home trajectory. Finally, the trajectory planning under different airdrop conditions was simulated and verified. The results showed that the planned trajectories could reach the target point accurately and meet the flight direction requirements, proving the proposed scheme's correctness and feasibility.

Parts produced by laser or electron-beam powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing are prone to residual stresses, deformations, and other defects linked to non-uniform temperature distribution during the manufacturing process. Several researchers have highlighted the important role scan sequence plays in achieving uniform temperature distribution in PBF. However, scan sequence continues to be determined offline based on trial-and-error or heuristics, which are neither optimal nor generalizable. To address these weaknesses, we have articulated a vision for an intelligent online scan sequence optimization approach to achieve uniform temperature distribution, hence reduced residual stresses and deformations, in PBF using physics-based and data-driven thermal models. This paper proposes SmartScan, our first attempt towards achieving our vision using a simplified physics-based thermal model. The conduction and convection dynamics of a single layer of the PBF process are modeled using the finite difference method and radial basis functions. Using the model, the next best feature (e.g., stripe or island) that minimizes a thermal uniformity metric is found using control theory. Simulations and experiments involving laser marking of a stainless steel plate are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of SmartScan in comparison to existing heuristic scan sequences for stripe and island scan patterns. In experiments, SmartScan yields up to 43% improvement in average thermal uniformity and 47% reduction in deformations (i.e., warpage) compared to existing heuristic approaches. It is also shown to be robust, and computationally efficient enough for online implementation.

The emergence of existing and novel vector-borne disease pathogens is highly unpredictable because there are so many possible causal factors of sociological, ecological, biological, behavioral and political origin. Traditional data-driven forecasting tools have limited use in circumstances featuring low-probability crises for which trend data is unreliable and non-predictive. Commercial and security sectors have been quick to adopt various forms of wargames to address this gap and provide intelligent insights on possible outcomes in the short, mid and long term future. The lack of commitment and action against vector-borne diseases by governments and local authorities requires a new approach that presents risk in terms of potential actions, possible outcomes and resulting consequences.

The dynamics involving market competition and the challenges of dealing with empowered customers, means that creating and delivering relevant customer experience (CX) of service, is as important as creating product or services. Several studies have treated customer experience as though a front-desk, sales-point affair with the customer in the retailing environment, negating the critical role of organization-wide efforts in the overall customer experience management sequence. This review, however, adopts customer-centricity, as a theoretical lens to underscore the [re]configuration of organizational-level factors that are critical to adopting a high customer-experienced centred organization. Based on the review, we highlight conditions for adopting high customer experience management organization: (1) developing an integrated CX strategy, (2) CX-based knowledge management, (3) organizational re-design that supports CX-management, (4) top management commitment, (5) integrated CX IT systems, and (6) CX-oriented HR policies. These practices are only necessary conditions, but not sufficient, for creating, delivering, relevant and sustainable customer experience. However, more robust empirical studies are needed to advance the application of organization-wide customer experience management, which vary across industry, products/services, and sector.