Corporate Crisis Management: A Contemporary Best Practices Template

This paper seeks to re-envision the crisis management framework used by organizations in their day-to-day activities. In the modern world, with exponential technological advancements, the social media age, and the 24/7 news cycle, crises have worsened in severity. Despite this, most literature on the subject is more than a decade old. Incorporating past literature, this thesis demonstrates that society is in an “era of crises,” then defines and discusses the types and origins of these crises. It compares the topics of issues and crisis management before commentating on corporate and academic literature and ultimately previous 3-stage models for crisis management. Finally, it outlines a modern and modified framework for crisis management, drawing from other 3-stage models and the bevy of crises faced since the turn of the century. By dividing the crisis cycle into pre-crisis, crisis onset & duration, and post-crisis, it gives organizations a simple, yet effective guide to navigating these events before generating its own model that highlights each stage of the crisis, points to tangible steps that should be taken at those times and displays the inevitability of the crisis feedback loop that necessitates this continuous improvement

Corporate Crisis Management: A Contemporary Best Practices Template

This paper seeks to re-envision the crisis management framework used by organizations in their day-to-day activities. In the modern world, with exponential technological advancements, the social media age, and the 24/7 news cycle, crises have worsened in severity. Despite this, most literature on the subject is more than a decade old. Incorporating past literature, this thesis demonstrates that society is in an “era of crises,” then defines and discusses the types and origins of these crises. It compares the topics of issues and crisis management before commentating on corporate and academic literature and ultimately previous 3-stage models for crisis management. Finally, it outlines a modern and modified framework for crisis management, drawing from other 3-stage models and the bevy of crises faced since the turn of the century. By dividing the crisis cycle into pre-crisis, crisis onset & duration, and post-crisis, it gives organizations a simple, yet effective guide to navigating these events before generating its own model that highlights each stage of the crisis, points to tangible steps that should be taken at those times and displays the inevitability of the crisis feedback loop that necessitates this continuous improvement

A dynamic model of building electrification

A number of local governments and state governments in the USA have embraced building electrification and require all-electric equipment in newly constructed buildings. This paper builds a model of the dynamic process by which electrification in newly constructed buildings spreads to electrification in existing buildings. The key channel of spillover is the rising prices of piped gas resulting from a high share of fixed cost in operating a gas distribution system and a slowly declining customer base. The paper takes into account that there are heterogeneous fixed costs in electrifying existing buildings across households. We show that the resulting dynamics depend crucially on how building owners form expectations about the future price of natural gas. We model near rational expectations formation processes based on level-k thinking and show that the rising price of gas can substantially accelerate the rate of decline of gas throughput, aka speed up electrification of the full building stock. We calibrate the model with micro level data from the ResStock and ComStock databases provided by NREL and illustrate the resulting dynamics based on a random sample with detailed building level information in Washington DC

Higher prevalence of periodontal disease among patients with predialytic renal disease

Aim: Periodontal diseases can have a significant effect on the systemic health. Chronic systemic diseases such as renal disease may also influence progression of periodontal disease. The present study assessed the prevalence of periodontal disease among a group of patients with renal disease and compared their periodontal status to that of healthy controls. Methods: 77 patients with different forms of renal disease and 77 healthy controls were examined for oral hygiene status, gingival inflammation, probing pocket depth and clinical attachment loss. The subjects were grouped into three as no/mild, moderate and severe periodontitis. Results: All periodontal parameters were significantly elevated in the case group as compared to controls (p < 0.001). The prevalence and severity of periodontal disease was also significantly higher in the case group (p < 0.001). Conclusions: This study provides evidence for a greater prevalence and severity of periodontal disease among patients with renal disease. The periodontal health of all patients with renal disease needs to be carefully monitored.Aim: Periodontal diseases can have a significant effect on the systemic health. Chronic systemic diseases such as renal disease may also influence progression of periodontal disease. The present study assessed the prevalence of periodontal disease among a group of patients with renal disease and compared their periodontal status to that of healthy controls. Methods: 77 patients with different forms of renal disease and 77 healthy controls were examined for oral hygiene status, gingival inflammation, probing pocket depth and clinical attachment loss. The subjects were grouped into three as no/mild, moderate and severe periodontitis. Results: All periodontal parameters were significantly elevated in the case group as compared to controls (p < 0.001). The prevalence and severity of periodontal disease was also significantly higher in the case group (p < 0.001). Conclusions: This study provides evidence for a greater prevalence and severity of periodontal disease among patients with renal disease. The periodontal health of all patients with renal disease needs to be carefully monitored

Effect of Visio-Motor Ability on Performance

For children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), the acquisition and performance of everyday visual-motor activities such as buttoning, shoe tying, cutting with scissors or writing, presents a major challenge. Regardless of the activity considered, children with DCD are typically slower and less accurate than their peers. Given the well-acknowledged difficulties of children with DCD, it is surprising to find very few research studies systematically exploring visual-motor skill acquisition and performance in children with DCD Modulation of sensorimotor rhythms (SMR) was suggested as a control signal for brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Yet, there is a population of users estimated between 10 to 50% not able to achieve reliable control and only about 20% of users achieve high (80–100%) performance. Predicting performance prior to BCI use would facilitate selection of the most feasible system for an individual, thus constitute a practical benefit for the user, and increase our knowledge about the correlates of BCI control. Motor ability modulated the impact of task difficulty on visual-motor skill acquisition and task performance. Children with DCD were as fast and as accurate as their peers in their initial performance of the simple, well-learned task (mouse). However, they were slower and less accurate when performing the complex and novel visual-motor task

Incidence of Oral Mucosal Lesions in Patients Visiting A Private Dental Institution

Oral mucosal lesions act  as a protective  barrier against  various harmful  external agents. A wide variety of lesions and conditions either harmless or with serious complications may attack oral mucosa. Therefore, proper identification and treatment of these lesions play an important role in total oral health. It is a retrospective study. A total of 41439 patient records between January 2019 and December 2019 were evaluated in this study. Data such as age, gender, types of oral mucosal lesions were retrieved from the patient records of the private dental institution, Chennai. The data are then tabulated in Microsoft Excel and subsequently transferred to SPSS software for statistical analysis. Chi square test was done and the association between age and gender with types of oral mucosal lesions were found to be statistically significant. The incidence of oral mucosal lesions was 3.79 per 1000 per year. Overall, leukoplakia (27%) had the maximum predilection followed by smoker’s palate (23%). Patients in the age group of 41 to 50 years were having the highest predilection for oral mucosal lesions (27.7%). Out of the 5 categories of oral mucosal lesions, potentially malignant disorders (60%) were highly prevalent in our study. This can be attributed to the increase in various adverse habits such as smoking, chewing tobacco, tobacco products and many more. More awareness about tobacco and its harmful effects must be promoted in order to prevent the rising numbers in potentially malignant disorders and oral cancer

Quantum Gravity Correction to Co-bimaximal Neutrino Mixings

The quantum gravity may have strong consequence for neutrino oscillation phenemomenon. We found a significant modification of neutrino oscillation due to quantum gravity effects in specific case. We also assume that just above the electroweak scale, neutrino masses are degenerate and their mixing is co-bimaximal. Quantum gravity (Planck scale effects) leads to an effective SU(2)L × U(1) invariant dimension-5 Lagrangian involving, neutrino and Higgs fields. On symmetry breaking, this operator gives rise to correction to the neutrino masses and mixing. The gravitational interaction (MX=Mpl) demands that the element of this perturbation matrix should be independent of flavor indices. In this paper, we compute the deviation of the three neutrino mixing angles due to Planck scale effects in a co-bimaximal scheme. We found that the change in θ 12 can be as large as 3.15o &nbsp

Role of trans-cerebellar diameter in estimating gestational age in second and third trimester of pregnancy

Background: Uncertain gestational age is associated with higher perinatal mortality rates and an increased incidence of low birth weight and spontaneous preterm delivery. Errors in gestational age estimation can lead to iatrogenic neonatal morbidity from prematurity. Precise determination of gestational age antenatally is a boon to modern obstetrics in context with improved neonatal survival. The most effective way to date pregnancy is by sonography. Several parameters can be considered for estimation of gestational age trans-cerebellar diameter is one such parameter. The objective of this study was to study the role of fetal trans-cerebellar diameter in estimating the gestational age in second and third trimester of pregnancy and its correlation with gestational age, BPD, HC, AC and FL. The design of this study was to hospital based prospective cohort study conducted at department of obstetrics of Government medical College Nagpur, over a period of 1 year.Methods: 500 women with sure dates between 7 and 11 weeks of gestation were booked. First trimester USG using crown rump length for confirmation of gestational age was done. These patients were advised to come for follow up till 40 weeks of gestation and repeat USG was done in second and third trimester. Trans-cerebellar diameter was correlated with expected gestational age with CRL, BPD, HC, AC and FL in weeks.Results: 98.56% of variability in gestational age could be explained by variation in trans-cerebellar diameter (TCD) only. Addition of other variables did not make any significant difference indicating that TCD alone is the strong predictor of gestational age.Conclusions: Normative cerebellar measurements throughout pregnancy permit estimation of gestational age independent of the shape of fetal head and also offer potential for evaluating abnormal fetal growth and anomalous development of central nervous system

Initial Independent Outcomes from Focal Impulse and Rotor Modulation Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation: Multicenter FIRM Registry

Introduction The success of pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) for atrial fibrillation (AF) may be improved if stable AF sources identified by Focal Impulse and Rotor Mapping (FIRM) are also eliminated. The long-term results of this approach are unclear outside the centers where FIRM was developed; thus, we assessed outcomes of FIRM-guided AF ablation in the first cases at 10 experienced centers. Methods We prospectively enrolled n = 78 consecutive patients (61 ± 10 years) undergoing FIRM guided ablation for persistent (n = 48), longstanding persistent (n = 7), or paroxysmal (n = 23) AF. AF recordings from both atria with a 64-pole basket catheter were analyzed using a novel mapping system (Rhythm View™; Topera Inc., CA, USA). Identified rotors/focal sources were ablated, followed by PVI. Results Each institution recruited a median of 6 patients, each of whom showed 2.3 ± 0.9 AF rotors/focal sources in diverse locations. 25.3% of all sources were right atrial (RA), and 50.0% of patients had ≥1 RA source. Ablation of all sources required a total of 16.6 ± 11.7 minutes, followed by PVI. On >1 year follow-up with a 3-month blanking period, 1 patient lost to follow-up (median time to 1st recurrence: 245 days, IQR 145–354), single-procedure freedom from AF was 87.5% (patients without prior ablation; 35/40) and 80.5% (all patients; 62/77) and similar for persistent and paroxysmal AF (P = 0.89). Conclusions Elimination of patient-specific AF rotors/focal sources produced freedom-from-AF of ≈80% at 1 year at centers new to FIRM. FIRM-guided ablation has a rapid learning curve, yielding similar results to original FIRM reports in each center’s first cases