Operating Strategy for Semiconductor Industry During COVID 19: Pandemic Working Model

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt across various industries around the world, including the semiconductor industry. The semiconductor industry was boosted by pandemic restrictions as changing consumer habits—driven by the rise in remote work, distance learning, gaming, entertainment, and internet shopping—significantly increased demand for consumer electronic devices to the point that demand for semiconductors far outpaced production. Given the globality and complexity of the semiconductor supply chain, many companies are exploring ways to permanently change workplace collaboration for their employees. In this paper, the Hierarchical Decision Modeling (HDM) method is used to evaluate four possible pandemic semiconductor industry working models - Fully Remote, Hybrid, Fully Onsite & Satellite Workspaces. Experts from the industry evaluated the model to determine the most important criteria, sub-criteria and ultimately select the most desirable alternative. The results from the evaluation show that Hybrid option received the highest score. In this paper, we explore the motivation behind this study, the methodology behind the HDM model, the evaluation of the model, analysis and interpretation of the results, limitations of the study, scope for future research, and conclusions

Gender-specific differences and the impact of family integration on time trends in age-stratified Swiss suicide rates

Suicide has become one of the leading causes of death of Swiss males aged between 15 and 44 years, whose age-standardized rates are about three times higher than those for females. We compared age-stratified suicide rates of Swiss men and women aged 15–79 years and analysed gender-specific differences from 1950 to 2007. Furthermore, we explored whether changes in measures of family integration can explain changes in suicide trends. The use of multivariate age–period–cohort models avoids age aggregation and allows the exploration of heterogeneous time trends across age, period and birth cohort. In addition, explanatory variables can be included. We found strong gender-specific differences in suicide mortality. Although the same risk factors may act on age and overdispersion, there was no significant correlation between gender-specific cohort effects. Family integration had an effect on Swiss suicide risk but only partially explained the underlying trends over time