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Given that a prerequisite for COVID-19 transmission is the interaction between individuals, it is reasonable to suspect that transportation networks may have contributed to the spread of COVID-19. This study uses the air transportation network to quantify the risk of COVID-19 spread in the United States. The proposed model is applied at the county level and identifies the risk of importing COVID-19-infected passengers into a given county. We also undertake an examination of the factors influencing the spread of COVID-19 in relation to air travel. Utilizing an extensive dataset encompassing various socioeconomic, demographic, and healthcare-related variables, our results indicate a positive relationship between these factors and the relative risk of COVID-19 spread, highlighting the pronounced impact of population density, air travel volume, and larger household sizes on increasing travel-related risk. Conversely, greater healthcare capacity, particularly in terms of hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) beds, is associated with reduced risk. We provide estimates of expected relative risk for each county and a ranking that can be useful for informing public health policies to stem the spread of the virus by devoting resources such as screening and enhanced travel protocols to airports located in at-risk counties.

This study aims to optimize the manufacturing process to improve the manufacturing quality, costs and delivering time with the help of multiscale multiphysics modelling and simulation. Multiscale multiphysics-based modelling and simulations are receiving more and more interest by research community and the industry particularly in the context of increasing demands for manufacturing high precision complex products and understanding the intrinsic complexity in associated manufacturing processes.

In this paper, some modelling and analysis techniques using multiscale multiphysics modelling are presented and discussed.

Furthermore, the possibility of adopting the multiscale multiphysics modelling and simulation to develop the virtual machining system is evaluated, and further supported with an industrial case study on abrasive flow machining (AFM) of integrally bladed rotors using the techniques and system developed.

With the development of multiscale multiphysics-based modelling and simulation, it will enable effective and efficient optimisation of manufacturing processes and further improvement of manufacturing quality, costs, delivery time and the overall competitiveness.

Evaluates the mechanical properties of 60 different shirting materials: fabric extensibility, formability, shear rigidity, bending rigidity, relaxation shrinkage, and hygral expansion by the adoption of the fabric assurance by simple testing (FAST) system. Investigates manufacturing processes comprising spreading, cutting, sewing, handling, pressing and packaging and correlates the measured properties of the shirting fabric with their actual performance during making up. Claims this overall evaluation of respective fabric performance enables manufacturers to identify the range of mechanical properties ideal for high‐quality shirt production. Adds that specific manufacturing instructions can be prepared, based on the results of fabric property evaluation, for fabrics which tend to present difficulties in production. Points out that these can considerably expedite the manufacture of garments, avoiding the alternative – expensive “trial and error” – solution to problems.

Every employee embodies manifestations of every demographic that attach to him or her different minority and majority statuses at the same time. As these statuses are often related to organizational hierarchies, employees frequently hold positions of dominance and subordination at the same time. Thus, a given individual’s coping strategies (or coping behavior) in terms of minority stress due to organizational processes of hierarchization, marginalization, and discrimination, are very often a simultaneous coping in terms of more than one demographic. Research on minority stress mostly focuses on single demographics representing only single facets of workforce diversity. By integrating the demographics of age, disability status, nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and religion into one framework, the intersectional model proposed in this chapter broadens the perspective on minorities and related minority stress in the workplace. It is shown that coping with minority stress because of one demographic must always be interpreted in relation to the other demographics. The manifestation of one demographic can limit or broaden one’s coping resources for coping with minority stress because of another dimension. Thus, the manifestation of one demographic can determine the coping opportunities and coping behavior one applies to situations because of the minority status of another demographic. This coping behavior can include disclosure decisions about invisible demographics. Therefore, organizational interventions aiming to create a supportive workplace environment and equal opportunities for every employee (e.g., diversity management approaches) should include more demographics instead of focusing only on few.

Research examining the experiences of women in the workplace has, to a large extent, neglected the unique stressors pregnant employees may experience. Stress during pregnancy has been shown consistently to lead to detrimental consequences for the mother and her baby. Using job stress theories, we develop an expanded theoretical model of experienced stress during pregnancy and the potential detrimental health outcomes for the mother and her baby. Our theoretical model includes factors from multiple levels (i.e., individual, interpersonal, sociocultural, and community) and the role they play on the health and well-being of the pregnant employee and her baby. In order to gain a deeper understanding of job stress during pregnancy, we examine three pregnancy-specific organizational stressors (i.e., perceived pregnancy discrimination, pregnancy disclosure, and identity-role conflict) that are unique to pregnant employees. These stressors are argued to be over and above the normal job stressors experienced and they are proposed to result in elevated levels of experienced stress leading to detrimental health outcomes for the mother and baby. The role of resilience resources and learning in reducing some of the negative outcomes from job stressors is also explored.

Purpose: Despite the significance of filial piety in intergenerational relationships and its important influence on parental health and well-being, few studies have explored the personal meaning of filial piety to older parents. This qualitative study aims to address this question.

Design: Responses to an open-ended question of “What makes a filial child in your view?” from a sample of 432 older parents in a rural Chinese county were collected face-to-face and analyzed using content analysis.

Findings: The personal meaning of filial piety varies. Seven broad themes emerged. These include widely persistent traditional filial piety beliefs (Be obedient, Respect, and Maintain frequent contact and show emotional care), filial piety values similar to filial obligations described in Western cultures (Help older parents when in times of need and Be a good citizen and take good care of themselves and their families), and traditional filial piety norms in the absolute form (Take care of every aspect of the parents’ life and Provide financial and material support to parents). Themes were also compared with dimensions of the intergenerational solidarity model.

Originality: Findings reflect the coexistence of traditional and modern filial values in relation to participants’ interpretation of filial piety, indicating that traditional filial piety beliefs are fading even in one of the least developed areas in China. Implications for interventions enhancing offspring’s filial performance are discussed.

Research limitations: Future studies on the understanding of filial piety from the perspective of offspring are warranted to draw a holistic picture of this topic.

An investigational study is carried out with an objective to have a preliminary understanding on the properties of washed silk fabric by varying the enzyme dosage level and treatment time. From the existing results, it is recommended that the dosage level of the enzyme should be carefully controlled if the industry want to adopt this technology. Otherwise the tensile strength will become too low.

Effective leadership is critical in driving innovation and success in organisations, particularly in today’s rapidly changing environment. However, achieving effective leadership at all levels of the organisation can be challenging. This chapter argues that understanding how the brain functions is essential for innovation leaders to achieve positive results and higher rates of success in their projects. By analysing relevant research on neuroscientific functioning patterns and developing interventions based on these foundations, this chapter establishes that the brain’s self-organising ability and cognitive processing systems offer valuable insights for effective innovation leadership. Based on neuroscientific evidence this chapter concludes that effective innovation leadership should focus on inviting others to engaged co-creation, rather than directing others to perform specific tasks as if they were ‘a prolonged arm’. Additionally, effective innovation leadership integrates insights from information processing in the brain by providing behavioural-oriented impulses that activate the brain, enabling individuals to maintain focus, restore motivation or emotional stability, enhance mood and confidence, and increase cognitive flexibility. Evidence-based interventions range from structured breaks to powernapping and walking. The importance of self-leadership is stressed throughout the chapter. By deriving solutions from an understanding of how the brain functions, interventions that may have been known for a long time can become evidence-based and optimised for use in organisations. Future research could explore the intersection of neuro- and behavioural science with leadership to further innovate organisational principles.

A regression kink design (RKD or RK design) can be used to identify casual effects in settings where the regressor of interest is a kinked function of an assignment variable. In this chapter, we apply an RKD approach to study the effect of unemployment benefits on the duration of joblessness in Austria, and discuss implementation issues that may arise in similar settings, including the use of bandwidth selection algorithms and bias-correction procedures. Although recent developments in nonparametric estimation (Calonico, Cattaneo, & Farrell, 2014; Imbens & Kalyanaraman, 2012) are sometimes interpreted by practitioners as pointing to a default estimation procedure, we show that in any given application different procedures may perform better or worse. In particular, Monte Carlo simulations based on data-generating processes that closely resemble the data from our application show that some asymptotically dominant procedures may actually perform worse than “sub-optimal” alternatives in a given empirical application.