Integrating Operational and Organizational Aspects in Interdependent Infrastructure Network Recovery

Managing risk in infrastructure systems implies dealing with interdependent physical networks and their relationships with the natural and societal contexts. Computational tools are often used to support operational decisions aimed at improving resilience, whereas economics‐related tools tend to be used to address broader societal and policy issues in infrastructure management. We propose an optimization‐based framework for infrastructure resilience analysis that incorporates organizational and socioeconomic aspects into operational problems, allowing to understand relationships between decisions at the policy level (e.g., regulation) and the technical level (e.g., optimal infrastructure restoration). We focus on three issues that arise when integrating such levels. First, optimal restoration strategies driven by financial and operational factors evolve differently compared to those driven by socioeconomic and humanitarian factors. Second, regulatory aspects have a significant impact on recovery dynamics (e.g., effective recovery is most challenging in societies with weak institutions and regulation, where individual interests may compromise societal well‐being). And third, the decision space (i.e., available actions) in postdisaster phases is strongly determined by predisaster decisions (e.g., resource allocation). The proposed optimization framework addresses these issues by using: (1) parametric analyses to test the influence of operational and socioeconomic factors on optimization outcomes, (2) regulatory constraints to model and assess the cost and benefit (for a variety of actors) of enforcing specific policy‐related conditions for the recovery process, and (3) sensitivity analyses to capture the effect of predisaster decisions on recovery. We illustrate our methodology with an example regarding the recovery of interdependent water, power, and gas networks in Shelby County, TN (USA), with exposure to natural hazards.     

Applying kaizen to the schedule in a concurrent environment

Not only ETO (Engineering to Order), but even serial production industry should know how to deal with projects and their schedule: plant commissioning, shutdown, introducing new products and similar circumstances should be managed with adequate planning and resource allocation techniques to create a schedule useful in decision making during the execution. The current complex reality, with evolving technologies and fierce pressure to reach the market as soon as possible, pushes the project managers to use more advanced techniques than waterfall planning, such as agile or lean. It also requires them to take a holistic view and manage concurrent tasks in complex projects. The contributions of this paper are two: the proposal to control specific parallel groups of waterfall activities under uncertain environments, which can lead to iterations and reworks, as a single concurrent Activity Managed by Kanban Methods (AMKM). This activity can be subsequently embedded into traditional scheduling approaches as CPM-PERT. The second contribution is the feasibility of its application in industrial environments due to the affordability of simulation software. Two use cases are shown as evidence. It is not a disruptive proposal, but a kaizen action based on very mature technologies. Finally, it is suggested some improvements to be implemented in Project Management Software due to this ‘kaizen’ proposal.     

Measuring operational excellence: an operational excellence profitability (OEP) approach

The pursuit of operational excellence in the manufacturing industry is at rise but its measurement still lacks of appropriate indicators to determine its financial benefits. The ambiguity is due to the impact arisen from manufacturing fluctuations such as price and cost, production mix and direct and indirect parameters variations. Manufacturing fluctuations distort the cost benefit of operational excellence. This paper, therefore, proposes the OEP (Operational Excellence Profitability) indicators to isolate the impact of manufacturing fluctuation and distinctly identify the payback of operational excellence strategies and initiatives through cost benefits of achieving higher efficiency and yield. The paper presents the conceptual and mathematical development of the proposed OEP indicators and the formulas used for their calculation. Hypothetical and industrial-based investigations and applications of the OEP indicators are conducted for their validation. The results obtained from the hypothetical exercise and industrial case suggest that OEP indicators can provide an effective cost-benefit analysis of operational excellence. This would contribute in providing manufacturing organizations with more complete information regarding the performance of their processes, which will allow their directors and managers to take better decisions related to the management and improvement of their processes.     

External knowledge search,absorptive capacity and radical innovation in high-technology firms

Open innovation and absorptive capacity are two concepts based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally to improve their innovation performance. The aim of this paper is to analyse the joint effect of open innovation and absorptive capacity on a firm's radical innovation. Open innovation is expressed in terms of external search breadth and depth strategies and absorptive capacity is described by distinguishing between potential and realized absorptive capacity. In order to test our hypotheses, we carried out empirical research in firms operating in high-technology industries. The results indicate that internal routines and processes for absorbing external knowledge help explain radical innovation as they show a significant effect of potential and realized absorptive capacity. Also, there is a moderating effect of absorptive capacity on open innovation. Specifically, potential absorptive capacity exerts a positive effect on the relationship between external search breadth and depth and radical innovation. Realized absorptive capacity moderates the influence of external search breadth. These findings confirm the complementary nature of absorptive capacity and open innovation search strategies on radical innovation.     

Work overload and intimidation: The moderating role of resilience

Work overload is a critical but understudied stressor at work, particularly for boundary-spanning positions. Recent studies have highlighted the need for more research on the identification of different predictors of the use of intimidation, a type of assertive impression management tactic. Relying on Lazarus's transactional theory, this study hypothesized and investigated a mediated moderation model that includes resilience, work overload, and its outcomes.This paper contributes to the organizational literature by examining the use of intimidation by salespeople as a reaction to stressful circumstances and the association between this tactic and salespeople's performance. The information provided by 248 employee–supervisor dyads confirmed the proposed model. Work overload has a positive association with intimidation, and the direct effect of work overload on intimidation depends on the level of an employee's resilience. Finally, the use of intimidation has a negative association with supervisor-rated performance.     

Immigrant Occupational Mobility: Longitudinal Evidence from Spain

This article examines the occupational mobility of immigrants between their countries of origin and Spain on the basis of one of the few surveys available internationally with longitudinal information on immigrant employment in home and host countries. The evidence shows that the occupational status of immigrants in the Spanish labour market is, in general, substantially worse than in their countries of origin. The severe loss of occupational status experienced by immigrants is explained by the combined effect of the intense initial downgrading they experience when entering the Spanish labour market and their very slow occupational progress during their stay in Spain. These findings are more in line with the segmented assimilation theory, which suggests a limited or blocked immigrant occupational mobility, than with the assimilation theory, which predicts a U shaped evolution in the occupational status of immigrants between their home and host countries. As a result, the Spanish case contrasts sharply with previous evidence for other advanced countries, which tends to support the assimilation perspective. Finally, the empirical evidence suggests that one of the elements impeding the occupational mobility of immigrants in Spain is the significant size of the secondary segment of the labour market, which restricts immigrants’ opportunities mainly to low-status occupations.     

Work as a cure for mental illnesses? Opportunism and seeking ways in psychology and psychiatry in the first decades of state socialism in Hungary

ABSTRACT

In Hungary, until the end of the 1940s, there were two main established methods of occupying the mentally ill who were fit for work. From the end of the nineteenth century, a lesser number of patients underwent work therapy in mental asylums, whereas the others were treated with so-called family therapy (otherwise known as the heterofamilial system), exploiting the capacities of families in the countryside. As an important part of this, the mentally ill helped in housekeeping and agricultural work. However, following the political and ideological turn of 1948, the latter form of treatment became debated, and then it was gradually superseded. Parallel to this process, work therapy came to be the most popular type of treatment for mental illnesses, as work formed the basis of the ideology of the communist state, and thus, healing through work harmonized with the general tendencies of the era. This article examines texts related to work therapy published in neurological–psychiatric and psychological journals and monographs between 1954 and 1964. However, although work therapy appeared to be the “handmaiden of ideology,” and even though it was supposed to fulfil a particular role, in reality, the role and perception of work therapy were a lot more complicated.     

An Ecological Model for Quantitative Risk Assessment for Schistosomiasis: The Case of a Patchy Environment in the Coastal Tropical Area of Northeastern Brazil

We developed a stochastic model for quantitative risk assessment for the Schistosoma mansoni (SM) parasite, which causes an endemic disease of public concern. The model provides answers in a useful format for public health decisions, uses data and expert opinion, and can be applied to any landscape where the snail Biomphalaria glabrata is the main intermediate host (South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa). It incorporates several realistic and case‐specific features: stage‐structured parasite populations, periodic praziquantel (PZQ) drug treatment for humans, density dependence, extreme events (prolonged rainfall), site‐specific sanitation quality, environmental stochasticity, monthly rainfall variation, uncertainty in parameters, and spatial dynamics. We parameterize the model through a real‐world application in the district of Porto de Galinhas (PG), one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil, where previous studies identified four parasite populations within the metapopulation. The results provide a good approximation of the dynamics of the system and are in agreement with our field observations, i.e., the lack of basic infrastructure (sanitation level and health programs) makes PG a suitable habitat for the persistence and growth of a parasite metapopulation. We quantify the risk of SM metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction and the time to metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction. We evaluate the sensitivity of the results under varying scenarios of future periodic PZQ treatment (based on the Brazilian Ministry of Health's plan) and sanitation quality. We conclude that the plan might be useful to slow SM metapopulation growth but not to control it. Additional investments in better sanitation are necessary.