Guest editorial: Resilience of Networks

In recent years, the complex dynamics of local as well as global transport networks have attracted ever increasing attention due to reports of their multiple failures and deleterious impacts, which have often occurred during disruptive events. Not only have hazards recently increased in complexity and intensity but their impacts are also no longer confined within the local boundaries of specific transport operations, and instead more widely affect global connections and accessibility. The above mentioned merge of characteristics within transport systems has compelled scholars and practitioners to place great emphasis on exploring transport systems from different perspectives of resilience and vulnerability. Research findings from the analyses on the various dimensions of transport resilience and vulnerability now allow us to better understand the similarities and differences in systems, but more importantly, they have opened the way for researchers to relate concepts of resilience and vulnerability with those of interdependency and connectivity/accessibility. From this stand point, it seems necessary to reflect on the relevance of transport network resilience and vulnerability by exploring definitions, interpretations and applications from different methodological/empirical angles and perspectives. This is the platform which has paved the way to this Special Issue (SI)

An analysis of shipping agreements: The Cooperative Container Network

The recent economic downturn has intensified the need for cooperation among carriers in the container shipping industry. Indeed, carriers join inter-firm networks for several reasons such as achieving economies of scale, scope, and the search for new markets. In this paper we apply network analysis and construct the Cooperative Container Network in order to study how shipping companies integrate and coordinate their activities and to investigate the topology and hierarchical structure of inter-carrier relationships. Our data set is comprised of 65 carriers that provide 603 container services. The results indicate that the Cooperative Container Network (CCN) belongs to the family of small world networks. This finding suggests that the most cooperative companies are small-to-medium-size carriers that engage in commercial agreements in order to reduce costs and, when in partnership with larger carriers, these cooperative companies are able to compete, especially against the largest carriers. However shipping companies with high capacity engage in cooperation with other carriers by merely looking for local partners in order to increase their local and specialized market penetration

Measuring the scope of inter-firm agreements in the container shipping industry: an empirical assessment

In container shipping industry inter-firm agreements are becoming progressively popular as ship-owners share their slot capacity with commercial partners in order to have fully loaded container ships and reduce financial risk. This manuscript focuses on the cooperative agreements among shipping firms, i.e., vessel sharing and slot charter agreements within consortia and strategic alliances. Through a quantitative approach based on network and OLS regression analysis, we scrutinise the propensity to cooperate, the geographic extent and ‘leveraging effect’ generated by this commercial practise on the container-shipping industry. Results show that carriers, usually regarded as independent, are instead fairly cooperative, especially when involved in trade lanes originating from the Far East. Finally, we show that carriers increase their commercial objectives by leveraging the operated fleet capacity. We conclude with some implications for managers and practitioners as well as a discussion on limitations and future extensions of this study

Safety profile and causes of withdrawal due to adverse events in systemic lupus erythematosus patients treated long-term with cyclosporine A

Several case reports and uncontrolled trials have established the use of cyclosporine A (CsA) in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) but some concerns have been raised because of its kidney damaging effects. We here report the results of a retrospective follow-up study designed to assess the safety profile and causes of discontinuation due to adverse events in SLE patients treated with CsA. We treated 56 SLE patients with oral CsA at doses of 3-5 mg/kg for an average of 26 months. Adverse events not leading to the discontinuation of therapy were observed in 62.5% of the patients, the most frequent being hypertrichosis. CsA was slopped because of the occurrence of side effects in 9/56 (16%) of the patients. The most common were nephrotoxicity (3/9) and the occurrence of tremors (3/9). These effects were always reversible within three months of CsA withdrawal. The patients who were older than 40 y had a significant slightly increased risk of stopping CsA therapy for any adverse events (RR 1.08; CI 95% 1.03-1.14). In comparison with previous studies, this study involved a larger cohort of SLE patients who were evaluated for a longer period of follow-up, and confirmed the good tolerability of CsA in these subjects