The Digital Revolution and COVID-19

We develop a simple model of digital markets to analyze the impact of Covid- 19 on the digital transformation of sectors. The lockdown due to Covid-19 is modeled as a shock that wipes out the physical market, temporarily leaving digital consumption as the only option. Under plausible assumptions on digital demand and supply, the model predicts that such temporary shock produces an irreversible rise of the digital markets. This happens for three distinct reasons. First, by temporarily eliminating the physical market, Covid-19 provides a strong incentive for rms to carry out the xed investments necessary to venture into the digital market (supply channel). Secondly, by forcing even the most reluctant consumers into the digital market, Covid-19 pushes them to familiarize with digital platforms, and this condence endures in the post-Covid era (demand channel). Finally, if consumerstaste for digitalization is a¤ected by the size of the digital market, a market may be entrapped into a low-digital equilibrium indenitely. In such context, the lockdown due to the pandemic is the shock that may unleash the forces of digitalization and tilt the entire sector towards a high-digital equilibrium (network externalities channel

Social Interactions vs Revisions, What is important for Promotion in Wikipedia?

In epistemic community, people are said to be selected on their knowledge contribution to the project (articles, codes, etc.) However, the socialization process is an important factor for inclusion, sustainability as a contributor, and promotion. Finally, what does matter to be promoted? being a good contributor? being a good animator? knowing the boss? We explore this question looking at the process of election for administrator in the English Wikipedia community. We modeled the candidates according to their revisions and/or social attributes. These attributes are used to construct a predictive model of promotion success, based on the candidates's past behavior, computed thanks to a random forest algorithm. Our model combining knowledge contribution variables and social networking variables successfully explain 78% of the results which is better than the former models. It also helps to refine the criterion for election. If the number of knowledge contributions is the most important element, social interactions come close second to explain the election. But being connected with the future peers (the admins) can make the difference between success and failure, making this epistemic community a very social community too

Common characteristics of open source software development and applicability for drug discovery: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Innovation through an open source model has proven to be successful for software development. This success has led many to speculate if open source can be applied to other industries with similar success. We attempt to provide an understanding of open source software development characteristics for researchers, business leaders and government officials who may be interested in utilizing open source innovation in other contexts and with an emphasis on drug discovery.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A systematic review was performed by searching relevant, multidisciplinary databases to extract empirical research regarding the common characteristics and barriers of initiating and maintaining an open source software development project.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Common characteristics to open source software development pertinent to open source drug discovery were extracted. The characteristics were then grouped into the areas of participant attraction, management of volunteers, control mechanisms, legal framework and physical constraints. Lastly, their applicability to drug discovery was examined.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We believe that the open source model is viable for drug discovery, although it is unlikely that it will exactly follow the form used in software development. Hybrids will likely develop that suit the unique characteristics of drug discovery. We suggest potential motivations for organizations to join an open source drug discovery project. We also examine specific differences between software and medicines, specifically how the need for laboratories and physical goods will impact the model as well as the effect of patents.</p

Território e territorialidade no contexto hospitalar: uma abordagem interdisciplinar

Este artigo trata o hospital como território de organização complexa, atravessado por múltiplos interesses, que ocupa lugar crítico na prestação de serviços de saúde, lugar de construção de identidades profissionais, com grande reconhecimento social. O objetivo diz respeito a compreender o hospital na perspectiva interdisciplinar. Para tanto, buscou-se o referencial teórico referente às concepções de território e territorialidade, oriundas da geografia e de outros campos do conhecimento, como a ciência da saúde e a filosofia. A partir da interação entre estas disciplinas aborda-se o hospital como território de produção de atos de saúde formado por segmentos e superfícies, agenciamentos entre profissionais e usuários que se entrecortam em um emaranhado de linhas de segmentaridade; nós, redes e malhas que revelam a produção territorial; poder e disciplinamento e o saber-poder que revelam as relações sociais, efetivadas entre os sujeitos e o objeto, ou seja, as relações que se concretizam no território e significam territorialidade. Concluiu-se, então, que o território hospitalar, como os demais territórios, é a expressão concreta e abstrata do espaço apropriado, produzido, formado em sua multidimensionalidade, pelos atores sociais que o (re)definem constantemente em suas cotidianidades, num campo de forças relacionalmente emaranhado por poderes nas mais variadas intensidades

Productive integration, economic recession and employment in Europe: an assessment based on vertically integrated sectors

The Covid-19 crisis has revamped the discussion about the redefinition of GVC. This paper contributes to the debate, analysing the productive relationships between European countries in four key manufacturing activities. In particular, the paper addresses two objectives. First, it maps the degree of productive integration in Europe, focusing on the generation of employment in the production of exported intermediate inputs and final goods. Second, it provides a preliminary assessment of the potential impact on employment that the current economic crisis will have on some manufacturing activities across Europe. The analysis is realised employing the concept of vertically integrated labour (Pasinetti 1973) which allows to account for the employment directly and indirectly involved in the production of final goods. The estimations are derived from Multi-Regional Input–Output tables to map the supply chain and to differentiate between the employment involved in the production of exported intermediate inputs and final goods. The results show that most of the employment involved in the production of final output of the activities studied in the paper is linked to international trade. Although Europe shows a high degree of productive links, there are important differences in the modality of insertion in the productive structure of European countries. Moreover, the impact on the level of employment due to the current economic crisis can be significant, affecting more than 1.3 million of people in Europe. These results are relevant to policy makers, who should consider carefully the high degree of linkages of the European economies when designing industrial policies and measure of support to the economy