An Outbreak of Covid-19 on an Aircraft Carrier Kasper, Matthew R; Geibe, Jesse R; Sears, Christine L ...
The New England journal of medicine,
12/2020, Letnik:
383, Številka:
25
Journal Article
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An outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) occurred on the U.S.S.
, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a crew of 4779 personnel.
We obtained clinical and demographic data for all crew ...members, including results of testing by real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR). All crew members were followed up for a minimum of 10 weeks, regardless of test results or the absence of symptoms.
The crew was predominantly young (mean age, 27 years) and was in general good health, meeting U.S. Navy standards for sea duty. Over the course of the outbreak, 1271 crew members (26.6% of the crew) tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection by rRT-PCR testing, and more than 1000 infections were identified within 5 weeks after the first laboratory-confirmed infection. An additional 60 crew members had suspected Covid-19 (i.e., illness that met Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists clinical criteria for Covid-19 without a positive test result). Among the crew members with laboratory-confirmed infection, 76.9% (978 of 1271) had no symptoms at the time that they tested positive and 55.0% had symptoms develop at any time during the clinical course. Among the 1331 crew members with suspected or confirmed Covid-19, 23 (1.7%) were hospitalized, 4 (0.3%) received intensive care, and 1 died. Crew members who worked in confined spaces appeared more likely to become infected.
SARS-CoV-2 spread quickly among the crew of the U.S.S.
. Transmission was facilitated by close-quarters conditions and by asymptomatic and presymptomatic infected crew members. Nearly half of those who tested positive for the virus never had symptoms.
In today's increasingly interconnected world, co‐opetition has emerged as a new business practice among many high‐tech firms. The boundaries between cooperation and competition becomes vague, and ...rivals engage in collaborative activities. This study develops an analytical model to investigate the dual sourcing decision of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the presence of a competitive supplier (i.e., frenemy) as well as a non‐competitive supplier who nevertheless suffers from unreliable production yield. We study the competitive supplier's dual channel decision if it prefers operating both component‐selling business and self‐branded business, and find that the OEM always prefers supplier diversification even though the additional non‐competitive supplier is unreliable. Interestingly, our results reveal that the non‐competitive supplier's expected profit is unimodal in its production technology level, which suggests the non‐competitive supplier may not have incentive to improve its production technology once it reaches a threshold. Furthermore, we analyze the credibility of the competitive supplier's threat to terminate the supply of the components to OEM as a response of OEM's engagement of a new supplier. We show that this termination of component‐selling business by competitive supplier is a non‐credible threat to prevent OEM from seeking the alternative supplier.
This study used institutional theory as a lens to understand the factors that enable the adoption of interorganizational systems. It posits that mimetic, coercive, and normative pressures existing in ...an institutionalized environment could influence organizational predisposition toward an information technology-based interorganizational linkage. Survey-based research was carried out to test this theory. Following questionnaire development, validation, and pretest with a pilot study, data were collected from the CEO, the CFO, and the CIO to measure the institutional pressures they faced and their intentions to adopt financial electronic data interchange (FEDI). A firm-level structural model was developed based on the CEO's, the CFO's, and the CIO's data. LISREL and PLS were used for testing the measurement and structural models respectively. Results showed that all three institutional pressuresmimetic pressures, coercive pressures, and normative pressures-had a significant influence on organizational intention to adopt FEDI. Except for perceived extent of adoption among suppliers, all other subconstructs were significant in the model. These results provide strong support for institutional-based variables as predictors of adoption intention for interorganizational linkages. These findings indicate that organizations are embedded in institutional networks and call for greater attention to be directed at understanding institutional pressures when investigating information technology innovations adoption.
Dimensionality reduction or Feature Selection (FS) is a multi-target optimization problem with two goals: improving the classification efficiency while simultaneously dropping the characteristics. ...Harris Hawk Optimization (HHO) is introduced recently to solve different demanding optimization tasks as a metaheuristic tool. The initial HHO is for addressing optimization problems in a continuous environment, but FS is an optimization task in binary space. Therefore, in this article, a Multi-Objective Quadratic Binary HHO (MOQBHHO) technique with K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) method as wrapper classifier is implemented for extracting the optimal feature subsets. Finally, this study uses the crowding distance (CD) value as a third criterion for picking the best one from the non-dominated solutions. Here, to estimate the performance of the proposed approach, twelve standard medical datasets are considered. The proposed MOQBHHO is compared with MOBHHO-S (using a sigmoid function), multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA), multi-objective ant lion optimization (MOALO), and NSGA-II. The experimental findings show that the proposed MOQBHHO finds a set of non-dominated feature subsets effectively in contrast to deep-based FS methods: Auto-encoder and Teacher-Student based FS (TSFS). The presented methodology is found superior in obtaining the best trade-off between two fitness assessment criteria compared to the other existing multi-objective techniques for recognizing relevant features.
•1. We proposed a Pareto based method for feature selection in medical data.•2. A novel multi-objective Harris hawk algorithm is presented.•3. The proposed method is compared with MOGA, MOALO, and NSGA-II.•4. Experimental results are also compared with deep based feature selection methods.•5. Validation is done on 12 standard medical datasets of different sizes.
PurposeDigitalization encourages the manufacturer to engage in inter-organizational technological activities (i.e. supplier IT integration and supply visibility) with its major supplier, which ...influences supply chain (SC) governance. This study tests a moderated mediation model that considers supplier IT integration and supply visibility as mediators between supply-side digitalization and supplier opportunism, and relational ties as a moderator in the relationship between inter-organizational technological activities and supplier opportunism.Design/methodology/approachOrdinary least square (OLS) regression is used to examine data from 200 firms in China describing their supply chain management (SCM) practices and perceived relationships with their major suppliers.FindingsSupply-side digitalization is positively related to supplier IT integration and supply visibility. Supply-side digitalization has a positive indirect effect on supplier opportunism through supplier IT integration but a negative indirect effect through supply visibility. Relational ties weaken the positive effect of supplier IT integration and the positive indirect effect of supply-side digitalization on supplier opportunism. Relational ties also weaken the negative effect of supply visibility and the negative indirect effect of supply-side digitalization on supplier opportunism.Originality/valueThis study enriches understanding of SC governance in the digital age by empirically confirming that digital transformation brings both challenges and opportunities to SC governance and by clarifying the interplay of relational governance and technological activities. In addition, this study contributes to the SC digitalization literature by empirically validating the role of digitalization in promoting inter-organizational technological activities, as well as by revealing its potential dark side.
Abstract The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conduct post-licensure vaccine safety monitoring using the Vaccine Adverse Event ...Reporting System (VAERS), a spontaneous (or passive) reporting system. This means that after a vaccine is approved, CDC and FDA continue to monitor safety while it is distributed in the marketplace for use by collecting and analyzing spontaneous reports of adverse events that occur in persons following vaccination. Various methods and statistical techniques are used to analyze VAERS data, which CDC and FDA use to guide further safety evaluations and inform decisions around vaccine recommendations and regulatory action. VAERS data must be interpreted with caution due to the inherent limitations of passive surveillance. VAERS is primarily a safety signal detection and hypothesis generating system. Generally, VAERS data cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused an adverse event. VAERS data interpreted alone or out of context can lead to erroneous conclusions about cause and effect as well as the risk of adverse events occurring following vaccination. CDC makes VAERS data available to the public and readily accessible online. We describe fundamental vaccine safety concepts, provide an overview of VAERS for healthcare professionals who provide vaccinations and might want to report or better understand a vaccine adverse event, and explain how CDC and FDA analyze VAERS data. We also describe strengths and limitations, and address common misconceptions about VAERS. Information in this review will be helpful for healthcare professionals counseling patients, parents, and others on vaccine safety and benefit-risk balance of vaccination.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how companies approach the management of cyber and information risks in their supply chain, what initiatives they adopt to this aim, and to what extent ...along the supply chain. In fact, the increasing level of connectivity is transforming supply chains, and it creates new opportunities but also new risks in the cyber space. Hence, cyber supply chain risk management (CSCRM) is emerging as a new management construct. The ultimate aim is to help organizations in understanding and improving the CSCRM process and cyber resilience in their supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
This research relied on a qualitative approach based on a comparative case study analysis involving five large multinational companies with headquarters, or branches, in the UK.
Findings
Results highlight the importance for CSCRM to shift the viewpoint from the traditional focus on companies’ internal information technology (IT) infrastructure, able to “firewall themselves” only, to the whole supply chain with a cross-functional approach; initiatives for CSCRM are mainly adopted to “respond” and “recover” without a well-rounded approach to supply chain resilience for a long-term capacity to adapt to changes according to an evolutionary approach. Initiatives are adopted at a firm/dyadic level, and a network perspective is missing.
Research limitations/implications
This paper extends the current theory on cyber and information risks in supply chains, as a combination of supply chain risk management and resilience, and information risk management. It provides an analysis and classification of cyber and information risks, sources of risks and initiatives to managing them according to a supply chain perspective, along with an investigation of their adoption across the supply chain. It also studies how the concept of resilience has been deployed in the CSCRM process by companies. By laying the first empirical foundations of the subject, this study stimulates further research on the challenges and drivers of initiatives and coordination mechanisms for CSCRM at a supply chain network level.
Practical implications
Results invite companies to break the “silos” of their activities in CSCRM, embracing the whole supply chain network for better resilience. The adoption of IT security initiatives should be combined with organisational ones and extended beyond the dyad. Where applicable, initiatives should be bi-directional to involve supply chain partners, remove the typical isolation in the CSCRM process and leverage the value of information. Decisions on investments in CSCRM should involve also supply chain managers according to a holistic approach.
Originality/value
A supply chain perspective in the existing scientific contributions is missing in the management of cyber and information risk. This is one of the first empirical studies dealing with this interdisciplinary subject, focusing on risks that are now very high in the companies’ agenda, but still overlooked. It contributes to theory on information risk because it addresses cyber and information risks in massively connected supply chains through a holistic approach that includes technology, people and processes at an extended level that goes beyond the dyad.
"Smart contracts" are decentralized agreements built in computer code and stored on a blockchain. Proponents imagine a future where commerce takes place exclusively using smart contracts, avoiding ...the high costs of contract drafting, judicial intervention, opportunistic behavior, and the inherent ambiguities of written language. These decentralized code-only contracts are part of a decades-long quest to eliminate supposed inefficiencies in traditional written agreements. Electronic data interchange (EDI), a contracting technology from the 1970s, was designed with the same goal and garnered similar fanfare. Commentators at the time imagined a revolution in the way firms transacted and a full shift away from anything resembling a paper contract. Ultimately EDI failed to achieve these goals—it empowered, rather than circumvented, human decisionmakers along with their "inefficient" way of forming agreements. In doing so, EDI successfully reduced some transaction cost while preserving efficient forms of contractual flexibility. Smart contracts are indeed more technologically sophisticated than EDI. Smart contract scripting languages offer a broader range of operations and greater scalability. Smart contracts are capable of seamlessly integrating with the operational and financial systems at the core of modern firms, whereas EDI transactions occurred in very early digital environments that required human intermediaries. Proponents of the smart contract revolution, therefore, do not describe the technology as a way to merely enhance human activity; they argue it can replace every stage of agreement formation and performance. From a purely technical standpoint, they might be right. However, shifting away from human-language contracts creates new inefficiencies. These stem from three features of smart contracts: automation, which requires that every agreement be formed from fully-defined terms; decentralization which conditions performance on verification by third parties; and anonymity, which eliminates the use of commercial context to give meaning to agreement terms. As a result, it is extremely costly to form smart contracts in a volatile environment or whenever there's a level of uncertainty surrounding the agreement. On the other hand, semantic contracts are flexible. They enable parties to use performance standards, generally-defined contract terms, to create an enforceable agreement without requiring complete knowledge of what might happen in the future. Standards also allow parties to responsively incorporate commercial customs into their agreement, circumventing the need for explicit but redundant negotiation. And once their agreement is formed and executed, the parties are nonetheless free to dynamically shape their relationship through informal modifications or by selectively enforcing breaches. These two forms of flexibility—linguistic ambiguity, and enforcement discretion—create important efficiencies in the contracting proces. By eliminating this flexibility, smart contracting will impose costs that are more severe and intractable than the ones it seeks to solve.
The wide adoption of electronic data interchange (EDI) has been argued to be important for the success of the technology. Past studies on EDI have focused mainly on large firms, as they were the ...major users at the time. With the advance of technology, however, EDI applications that used to require mainframe computers can be used on PCs at a much lower cost. At a result, small businesses are now able to enjoy the benefits of EDI. Using a technology–organization–environment framework, this study proposes a perception-based small business EDI adoption model that is tested against data collected from 575 small firms in Hong Kong. Six factors are tested using logistic regression and five are found to be significant in distinguishing adopter firms from non-adopter firms. The results suggest the perception-based model using a technology–organization–environment framework is a useful approach for examining factors affecting the adoption decision. For small businesses, while direct benefits are perceived to be higher by adopter firms than by non-adopter firms, indirect benefits are not perceived differently by either adopter firms or non-adopter firms, contrary to the findings in studies on large business. In addition, adopter firms perceive lower financial costs and higher technical competence than non-adopter firms do. Also, adopter firms perceive higher government pressure but lower industry pressure than non-adopter firms do. Implications of the findings and future research areas are discussed.
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