Risk Mitigating Strategies in the Food Supply Chain

Food safety events in the recent past have generated significant media attention and resulted in increased concerns over the food on the plate. A recent study (Degeneffe et al., 2007) on consumer perceptions of bio-terrorism and food safety risks shows increasing concern over food safety and corresponding decreasing confidence in security of the U.S. food supply. While there are some mandated safety and security practices for the firms in the food supply chain the economic incentives for the firms to actively address food safety throughout the supply chain are less clear. Security practices often require significant investments in both within the firm and across the supply chain but do not show tangible returns. Also, higher investments in securing the firms’ processes and products do not necessarily make the food products more safe if the supply chain partners exhibit higher risks. However, a risk that is realized can potentially bankrupt the firm. Some high-profile cases of food safety outbreaks have had substantial economic consequences such as, lost sales, recall and compensation costs, damaged goodwill and hence impact on future markets. Such incidents can lead the firms out of business and the impact is not contained just at the firm level but also felt throughout the food supply chain. The issues of economic incentives and disincentives for risk mitigation strategies and investments, in a highly vulnerable area such as food sector, are an emerging area of concern both in private and public sector management as well as academic research. The research questions of interest that this paper addresses are: How much should the firm invest to address the security and safety risks that it faces? The optimum investment levels, among other things, are a function of the probabilities of contamination levels exceeding the maximum acceptable standards set. We consider a specification for the contamination levels follow gamma distribution as it exhibits the fat tail property which suggests that extreme events are more likely than predicted by the normal Gaussian form. Previous work by Mohtadi and Murshid(2007) has highlighted the fat-tail nature of extreme events for chemical, biological and radionuclear (CBRn) attacks, which are of intentional nature. However, for food safety risks of unintentional nature the fat-tail nature of the distribution though suggested, is not yet established in literature. The present model leaves less scope for analytical solutions but lends itself to numerical methods, which we employ to examine the firm strategies. Our preliminary model and its analysis suggest that infact for very low levels of risk exposure no investment in security is required! However, as the standards loosen and risk increases the optimum amount of investments also increase. Though the result here are intuitively consistent, they are largely dependent on the parametric specification of the model and their sensitivity to the parameter values is yet to be tested.Agribusiness, Risk and Uncertainty, L100, L800,

Comparative analysis of the clinical, functional and radiological outcomes of proximal femoral nail alone verses proximal femoral nail along with lateral wall plating in management of unstable intertrochanteric femur fracture, AO/OTA, type 31A2 fractures with deficient lateral wall

Background: The objective of the study was to compare the effectiveness in terms of clinical, functional and radiological outcomes of management of unstable intertrochanteric femur fracture, AO/OTA type 31A2 intertrochanteric fractures with deficient lateral wall with proximal femoral nail (PFN) alone verses PFN along with lateral wall plating. Methods: In our study 52 patients with intertrochanteric femur fractures, AO/OTA type 31A2 which met the selection criteria were divided into two groups, group A (PFN) with lateral wall plating and group B (PFN) alone by randomization and were analysed prospectively with no significant difference in terms of gender, age, side of injury, cause of injury, and combined medical diseases. The intraoperative time and blood loss, time to full weight-bearing and radiological union, varus collapse, functional outcome and postoperative complications were recorded and compared. Results: Comparatively, no significant difference was observed between both groups for the time for full weight bearing. However significant difference was observed between both the groups for HHS at 9 months, neck shaft angle and time for radiological union (in weeks). Statistically significant difference was observed between both the groups for neck shaft angle and HHS at 9 months. The incidence of complications was 30.77% in group B. The incidence of complications was around 26.92% in group A; with no significant difference. At 9 months after operation, the Harris scores of pain, function, malunion, range of motion, and total score in group A were significantly better than those in group B. Conclusions: For unstable intertrochanteric femur fracture with incomplete lateral wall, the incidence of varus collapse after augmentation of PFN fixation with lateral wall plating was lower, the time for radiological union was earlier and functional outcome was better

Forecasting the Anti-Rabies Vaccine Demand at Jawaharlal Medical College and Hospital, Ajmer, Rajasthan: A Comparative Analysis based on Time Series Model

Background: In India, high mortality and morbidity rates of human rabies is observed. Hence, a structured surveillance system is yet to be put in place for public health discussion. At the tertiary care hospital and all public health centres, requirement of anti-rabies vaccine is needed in advance to predict the upcoming months coverage so that wastage of vaccine is minimum. Objective: To find a suitable model for forecasting the appropriate stock of anti-rabies vaccines to avoid shortage and over-supply at anti rabies clinic. Methods and Material: This was a record based cross sectional study, conducted at anti rabies clinic of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, Ajmer. Data of used anti rabies vaccine was taken from immunization inventory during the period from 2017 to 2020. Time series analysis based on Holt-Winter and Box-Jenkins methods were carried out to predict the need of vaccine. Results: Study series was not stationary and stationarity was observed by taken difference in the observation between two consequent months. Residuals of the series were normally distributed and independent to each other. ARIMA(0, 1, 1) was the best model in comparison to Holt-Winter model for prediction because of low value of model selection criterion.  The forecasted value for anti-rabies vaccine was done for the year 2021. Conclusions: The following study concluded that time series can be used as a tool to forecast anti-rabies vaccine coverage and will help the policy makers to formulate appropriate plans and strategies and improve the management of vaccination resources and inventory

The contribution of planetary period oscillations towards circulation and mass loss in Saturn’s magnetosphere

Magnetic reconnection is a process during which magnetic energy is released as kinetic energy. It is considered a crucial driver of energy transport and mass loss within Saturn's magnetosphere. On long-term timescales, is thought to be predominantly driven by the rapid rotation of equatorially mass-loaded flux tubes (i.e., the Vasyliunas cycle), but there is some non-negligible driving from the solar wind as well (i.e., the Dungey cycle). In this study, we investigate an atmospheric driven phenomenon that modulates Saturn's magnetosphere every ∼10.6–10.8 hr, known as planetary period oscillations (PPOs), as an additional driver of magnetic reconnection at Saturn. Using an empirical model of PPO dynamics and Cassini magnetic field and plasma measurements, we find that PPO-driven magnetic reconnection is likely to occur in Saturn's magnetosphere, however, the occurrence of the phenomenon depends on temporally variable characteristics of the PPO systems and spatial asymmetries within Saturn's equatorial magnetosphere. Thus, it is not expected to be an on-going process. On year-long timescales, we find that PPOs are expected to be on par with the Dungey Cycle in driving circulation within Saturn's magnetosphere. However, on ∼1–2 weeks-long timescales, under specific conditions where PPO-driven reconnection is expected to be active, this phenomenon can become more significant than the Vasyliunas cycle, and thus dominate circulation within Saturn's magnetosphere. On year-long timescales, this process is estimated to remove upwards of ∼20% of the mass loaded into the magnetosphere by Enceladus

Security-Preparedness of Firms in U.S. Food Supply Chain

The growing interdependence of firms across the globe with seeming rise in the incidence of both intentional and unintentional security events (terrorism, food contamination, etc.), has exposed, and often contributed to, the vulnerabilities of many firms and their supply chain partners. It is increasingly imperative that the firms be prepared to be able to protect and defend themselves against such security threats. With this paper we attempt to understand this preparedness, which we consider an ex ante construct, specifically for the firms in the food industry, and find a way to measure it. The highlights of this paper are (1) the unique dataset on firms in the food supply chain across U.S. detailing their security practices, (2) a novel approach to analyzing this dataset using Latent Trait Analysis that allows us to uncover the underlying strength and weakness of firms in their security practices and (3) analysis with which we are able to relate firms' security practices with firm characteristics, such as market area, supply chain scope and firm size. Our preliminary analyses reveal some interesting results on what firms do and how firm characteristics bring about differences in firms' security preparedness, ex ante. We find four distinct latent factors for explaining different facets of security preparedness, two of which are supply chain collaboration and physical security preparedness. We then also analyze the influence of firm and respondent demographics on each of the dimensions of preparedness. Firm size, supply chain scope, market area and tax status of the firm are some of the variables that emerge as important characteristics that impact security preparedness in supply chains

Constraining the Temporal Variability of Neutral Winds in Saturn's Low‐Latitude Ionosphere Using Magnetic Field Measurements

The Cassini spacecraft completed 22 orbits around Saturn known as the “Grand Finale” over a 5 months interval, during which time the spacecraft traversed the previously unexplored region between Saturn and its equatorial rings near periapsis. The magnetic field observations reveal the presence of temporally variable low‐latitude field‐aligned currents which are thought to be driven by velocity shears in the neutral zonal winds at magnetically conjugate thermospheric latitudes. We consider atmospheric waves as a plausible driver of temporal variability in the low‐latitude thermosphere, and empirically constrain the region in which they perturb the zonal flows to be between ±25° latitude. By investigating an extensive range of hypothetical wind profiles, we present and analyze a timeseries of the modeled velocity shears in thermospheric zonal flows, with direct comparisons to empirically inferred angular velocity shears from the Bϕ observations. We determine the maximum temporal variability in the peak neutral zonal winds over the Grand Finale interval to be ∼350 m/s assuming steady‐state ionospheric Pedersen conductances. We further show that the ionospheric currents measured must be in steady‐state on ∼10 min timescales, and axisymmetric over ∼2 h of local time in the near‐equatorial ionosphere. Our study illustrates the potential to use of magnetospheric datasets to constrain atmospheric variability in the thermosphere region

Universal Intelligent Small Cell (UnISCell) for next generation cellular networks

Exploring innovative cellular architectures to achieve enhanced system capacity and good coverage has become a critical issue towards realizing the next generation of wireless communications. In this context, this paper proposes a novel concept of Universal Intelligent Small Cell (UnISCell) for enabling the densification of the next generation of cellular networks. The proposed novel concept envisions an integrated platform of providing a strong linkage between different stakeholders such as street lighting networks, landline telephone networks and future wireless networks, and is universal in nature being independent of the operating frequency bands and traffic types. The main motivating factors for the proposed small cell concept are the need of public infrastructure re-engineering, and the recent advances in several enabling technologies. First, we highlight the main concepts of the proposed UnISCell platform. Subsequently, we present two deployment scenarios for the proposed UnISCell concept considering infrastructure sharing and service sharing as important aspects. We then describe the key future technologies for enabling the proposed UnISCell concept and present a use case example with the help of numerical results. Finally, we conclude this article by providing some interesting future recommendations

Digital Chunk Processing with Orthogonal GFDM Doubles Wireless Channel Capacity

A novel physical layer (PHY) transmission technique for increasing the channel capacity of transmission, termed as Orthogonal Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (OGFDM), has been proposed, investigated and evaluated in this paper. A combination of the Digital Hilbert Filter (DHF) with Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM) has been shown to double wireless channel capacity for each transmitted frequency sub-carrier at acceptable Bit Error Rate (BER) limits. By making use of the great properties of Hilbert transforms, orthogonality is achieved between the traditionally non-orthogonal GDFM subcarriers improving the BER and wireless channel capacity of the transmission. The OGFDM seems to combine the attributes of GFDM and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) in one sustainable system. The proposed solution achieves orthogonality between the filters of adjacent frequencies of subcarriers instead of between the frequencies of subcarriers themselves. Also, an OGFDM system model is presented, based on which, the relation between the main filter parameters and the system BER and channel capacity performance is specified in a wireless electrical back-to-back transmission system. Finally, by means of simulations, the impact of applying the proposed advanced filters on the aggregated system performance of the BER and channel capacity is shown in an Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) wireless channel