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Did Chinese cities whose public health departments are headed by medical professionals fare better in fighting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)?

The authors collected the professional background of the directors of the public health departments of 350 Chinese cities, which include 87% of the Chinese population. Excluding Wuhan, the epicenter of COVID-19, the authors analyzed the infection rates and death rates from COVID-19 between 131 Chinese cities whose public health departments are led by medical professionals and 218 cities whose public health departments are led by nonprofessionals. The authors employed a multivariate regression controlling for the number of people that traveled from Wuhan to each city, the local economic development and the number of hospital beds.

Chinese cities whose public health departments are led by medical professionals had 21 fewer confirmed cases per 10 million as of January 31, 2020 [95% CI, −40 to −3], 58 fewer cases per 10 million in the next 10 days [95% CI, −116 to 0], similar new cases between February 11 and February 20, 2020, and 3 fewer deaths per 10 million as of February 20, 2020 [95% CI, −7 to 0].

Association could not make a strong causal claim.

Local public health authorities are critical for combating a pandemic. The authors found that Chinese cities whose public health departments are headed by medical professionals were associated with lower infection rates and fewer death rates from COVID-19. The results were significant only at the start of the outbreak. This study’s results suggest that to better combat a pandemic, local public health authorities should be led by competent people who have a medical background.

The authors provide the first empirical evidence about the association between a local public health head's competence and the infection rate and death rate of COVID-19. The authors’ manually collected data also show that only 38% of the heads of the public health departments of Chinese cities have a medical background.

Applications of robotic systems in agriculture, forestry and high-altitude work will enter a new and huge stage in the near future. For these application fields, climbing robots have attracted much attention and have become one central topic in robotic research. The purpose of this paper is to propose an energy-optimal motion planning method for climbing robots that are applied in an outdoor environment.

First, a self-designed climbing robot named Climbot is briefly introduced. Then, an energy-optimal motion planning method is proposed for Climbot with simultaneous consideration of kinematic constraints and dynamic constraints. To decrease computing complexity, an acceleration continuous trajectory planner and a path planner based on spatial continuous curve are designed. Simulation and experimental results indicate that this method can search an energy-optimal path effectively.

Climbot can evidently reduce energy consumption when it moves along the energy-optimal path derived by the method used in this paper.

Only one step climbing motion planning is considered in this method.

With the proposed motion planning method, climbing robots applied in an outdoor environment can commit more missions with limit power supply. In addition, it is also proved that this motion planning method is effective in a complicated obstacle environment with collision-free constraint.

The main contribution of this paper is that it establishes a two-planner system to solve the complex motion planning problem with kinodynamic constraints.

This paper aims to investigate how chief executive officer (CEO) responsible leadership impacts corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organization performance by considering diverse organizational climates (including ethical, service and initiative climates) as mediators and CEO founder status as a moderator.

This study analyzed survey data from 212 service organizations in China with structural equation modeling.

The results clearly established that CEO responsible leadership played a crucial role in augmenting both CSR and organization performance by shaping positive organizational climates. Notably, CEO responsible leadership significantly fostered ethical, service and initiative climates. Furthermore, an ethical climate promoted CSR and organization performance, whereas service and initiative climates specifically enhanced organization performance. Additionally, responsible CEOs with founder status exhibited a higher propensity for enhancing ethical, service and initiative climates within service organizations.

Service organizations should take measures to build CEO responsible leadership, especially for CEOs with founder status. Furthermore, service organizations should motivate employees to reach consensus on ethical conducts, superior service and proactive approach to work.

First, the findings on CEO responsible leadership’s effects on CSR and organization performance extend the research on responsible leadership outcomes. Second, this paper adds to responsible leadership literature through exploring the mediating effects of ethical, service and initiative climates. Finally, the finding on the moderating role of founder CEOs offers a novel perspective regarding the boundary condition of the effects of CEO responsible leadership.

Online employee reviews have emerged as a crucial information source for business managers to evaluate employee behavior and firm performance. The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between employee personality traits, derived from online employee reviews and job satisfaction and turnover behavior at the individual level.

The authors apply text-mining techniques to extract personality traits from online employee reviews on Indeed.com based on the Big Five theory. They also apply a machine learning classification algorithm to demonstrate that incorporating personality traits can significantly enhance employee turnover prediction accuracy.

Personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness are positively associated with job satisfaction, while extraversion and neuroticism are negatively related to job satisfaction. Moreover, the impact of personality traits on overall job satisfaction is stronger for former employees than for current employees. Personality traits are significantly linked to employee turnover behavior, with a one-unit increase in the neuroticism score raising the probability of an employee becoming a former employee by 0.6%.

These findings have implications for firm managers looking to gain insights into employee online review behavior and improve firm performance. Online employee review websites are recommended to include the identified personality traits.

This study identifies employee personality traits from automated analysis of employee-generated data and verifies their relationship with employee satisfaction and employee turnover, providing new insights into the development of human resources in the era of big data.

Inland shipping has been extensively recognised as a sustainable, efficient and good alternative to rail and road modes of transportation. In recent years, various authorities and academic researchers have advocated shifting from road to other sustainable modes like inland waterway transport (IWT) or rail transport. Academic work on modernisation and technological innovations to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of waterborne transportation is becoming apparent as a growing body of literature caused by the need to achieve a sustainable transport system. Thus, it became apparent to explore the research trends on IWT.

A systematic and structured literature review study was employed in this paper to identify the challenges and concepts in modernising inland waterways for freight transportation. The review analysed 94 articles published in 54 journals from six well-known databases between 2010 and 2022.

The key findings of this review are that despite various challenges confronting the sector, there have been successful cases of technological advancement in the industry. The main interest among scholars is improving technical and economic performance, digitalisation, and safety and environmental issues. The review revealed that most of the literature is fragmented despite growing interest from practitioners and academic scholars. Academic research to address the strategic objectives, including strengthening competitiveness (shipbuilding, hydrodynamics, incorporating artificial intelligence into the decision-making process, adopting blockchain technology to ensure transparency and security in the transactions, new technologies for fleets adaptation to climate change, more effective handling, maintenance and rehabilitation technologies), matching growth and changing trade patterns (intermodal solutions and new logistics approaches) are major causes of concerns.

By employing the approach of reviewing previously available literature on IWT review papers, this review complements the existing body of literature in the field of IWT by providing in a single paper a consolidation of recent state-of-the-art research on technological developments and challenges for inland waterways freight transport in the intermodal supply chain that can act as a single resource to keep researchers up to date with the most recent advancements in research in the domain of inland waterway freight transport. Additionally, this review identified gaps in the literature that may inspire new research themes in the field of IWT.

The present study provides a comprehensive review of the advancements in five active heating modes for cold-proof clothing as of 2021. It aims to evaluate the current state of research for each heating mode and identify their limitations. Further, the study provides insights into the optimization of intelligent temperature control algorithms and design considerations for intelligent cold-proof clothing.

This article presents a classification of active heating systems based on five different heating principles: electric heating system, solar heating system, phase-change material (PCM) heating system, chemical heating system and fluid/air heating system. The systems are analyzed and evaluated in terms of heating principle, research advancement, scientific challenges and application potential in the field of cold-proof clothing.

The rational utilization of active heating modes enhances the thermal efficiency of cold-proof clothing, resulting in enhanced cold-resistance and reduced volume and weight. Despite progress in the development of the five prevalent heating modes, particularly with regard to the improvement and advancement of heating materials, the current integration of heating systems with cold-proof clothing is limited to the torso and limbs, lacking consideration of the thermal physiological requirements of the human body. Additionally, the heating modes of each system tend to be uniform and lack differentiation to meet the varying cold protection needs of various body parts.

The effective application of multiple heating modes helps the human body to maintain a constant body temperature and thermal equilibrium in a cold environment. The research of heating mode is the basis for realizing the temperature control of cold-proof clothing and provides an effective guarantee for the future development of the intelligent algorithms for temperature control of non-uniform heating of body segments.

The integration of multiple heating modes ensures the maintenance of a constant body temperature and thermal balance for the wearer in cold environments. The research of heating modes forms the foundation for the temperature regulation of cold-proof clothing and lays the groundwork for the development of intelligent algorithms for non-uniform heating control of different body segments.

The present article systematically reviews five active heating modes suitable for use in cold-proof clothing and offers guidance for the selection of heating systems in future smart cold-proof clothing. Furthermore, the findings of this research provide a basis for future research on non-uniform heating modes that are aligned with the thermal physiological needs of the human body, thus contributing to the development of cold-proof clothing that is better suited to meet the thermal needs of the human body.

A successful process of design concept evaluation has positive influence on subsequent processes. This study aims to consider the evaluation information at multiple stages and the interaction among evaluators and improve the credibility of evaluation results.

This paper proposes a multi-stage approach for design concept evaluation based on complex network and bounded confidence. First, a network is constructed according to the evaluation data. Depending on the consensus degree of evaluation opinions, the number of evaluation rounds is determined. Then, bounded confidence rules are applied for the modification of preference information. Last, a planning function is constructed to calculate the weight of each stage and aggregate information at multiple evaluation stages.

The results indicate that the opinions of the evaluators tend to be consistent after multiple stages of interactive adjustment, and the ordering of design concept alternatives tends to be stable with the progress of the evaluation.

Updating preferences according to the bounded confidence rules, only the opinions within the trust threshold are considered. The attribute information of the node itself is inadequately considered.

This method addresses the need for considering the evaluation information at each stage and minimizes the impact of disagreements within the evaluation group on the evaluation results.

Expert systems are computer-based systems that mimic the logical processes of human experts or organizations to give advice in a specific domain of knowledge. Fuzzy expert systems use fuzzy logic to handle uncertainties generated by imprecise, incomplete and/or vague information. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of the methods and applications in fuzzy expert systems.

The authors have carefully reviewed 281 journal publications and 149 conference proceedings published over the past 37 years since 1982. The authors grouped the journal publications and conference proceedings separately accordingly to the methods, application domains, tools and inference systems.

The authors have synthesized the findings and proposed useful suggestions for future research directions. The authors show that the most common use of fuzzy expert systems is in the medical field.

Fuzzy logic can be used to manage uncertainty in expert systems and solve problems that cannot be solved effectively with conventional methods. In this study, the authors present a comprehensive review of the methods and applications in fuzzy expert systems which could be useful for practicing managers developing expert systems under uncertainty.

Firms often struggle with opportunistic behavior from supply chain partners. Relying on Transaction Cost Economics and its extensions, this study developed a conceptual model theorizing the antecedence, consequences and conditional factors of opportunism within a buyer–supplier–supplier triadic relationship.

This study employed a cross-sectional survey data collected from 200 U.S. firms. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS and AMOS, the two statistical software, for reliability, validity, confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling.

First, opportunism negatively influences operational performance and business performance, and such an effect is fully mediated by relationship stability. Second, this study classified power asymmetry as asymmetrical power discrepancy and asymmetrical power advantage with these two forms playing different roles in influencing opportunism. Results indicate that asymmetrical power discrepancy induces opportunism while asymmetrical power advantage strengthens the negative influence that opportunism has on relationship stability. Additionally, the mediated moderating effect of asymmetrical power advantage by relationship stability is confirmed.

The results provide significant academic and managerial insights that can guide managerial efforts in distinguishing types of power asymmetry, controlling opportunism and further mitigating the consequences of opportunism within a triadic relationship.