The Impact of COVID-19 on the GCC Construction Industry

The Coronavirus pandemic has badly affected everyone on the earth. Apart from losing thousands of lives, businesses and individuals are going to be affected by the long-lasting financial effects due to an expected global recession. The impact of the financial crises can, however, be reduced if proper measured are put in place. This article aims to investigate the impact of Coronavirus on the construction industry in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries and provide recommendations to help the industry to sustain during this period of crisis. A qualitative research method involving face-to-face online interviews held with the construction industry professionals was adopted to achieve the aims and objectives of the research. Four main aspects of the impact on the construction industry are derived from analysis of interviews: 1) delays, 2) workforce management, 3) health and safety, and 4) legal issues. Recommendations are provided so that construction organizations in the GCC region can reduce the impact of Coronavirus on its businesses.

Bow shape modification through multi-objective hydrodynamic optimization: Methodology comparison between CAD-based FreeForm Deformation and Mesh-based Radial Basis Function approach

Marine industrial engineering face crucial challenges because of environmental footprint of vehicles, global recession, construction, and operation cost. Meanwhile, Shape optimization is the key feature to improve ship efficiency and ascertain better design. Accordingly, the present paper proposes an automated optimization framework for ship hullform modification to reduce total resistance at two cruise and sprint speeds. The case study is a bow shape of a wave-piercing bow trimaran hull. To this end, a multi-objective hydrodynamic problem needs to be solved. A combined optimization strategy using CFD hullform optimization is presented using the software tools STAR-CCM+ and SHERPA algorithm as optimizer. Furthermore, a comparison is made between CAD-based and Mesh-based parametrization techniques. Comparison between geometry regeneration methods is performed to present a practical and efficient parametrization tool. Design variables are control points of FreeForm Deformation (FFD) for CAD-based method and Radial Basis Function (RBF) for Mesh-based method. The optimization results show a 4.77% and 2.47% reduction in the total resistance at cruise and sprint speed, respectively.

Financial security of enterprises from Poland, Germany, and Great Britain

Pandemics are caused by the negative impact of global threats, we put you at risk in one global world. An effective and efficient mortality tool, bringing also economic and economic successes. The world is currently struggling with the coronavirus (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, which unfortunately already has pandemic status. Blow it off on yourself, concerned about how it will affect the global recession The aim of the article is to present and compare how governments of countries such as Poland, Germany, and the United Kingdom provide entrepreneurs with financial security in connection with the negative effects caused by COVID-19. At the beginning of the article, it is briefly presented what financial security is, and several measures are distinguished to measure the financial security of enterprises. Then, the financial assistance for entrepreneurs selected to the countries is described. Countries such as Poland, Germany, and Great Britain were selected for the analysis. The most attention was devoted to describing the aid for Polish entrepreneurs. The information used in the article was obtained from the Polish and British GOV portal and from the German ministry responsible for economic policy (BMWi). In the end, support from the government in the analysed countries was compared, and the country is indicated, where entrepreneurs would cope best in the current situation and have the best chance for development. It is also indicated what impact the financial aid of the government has on the development of enterprises.

Human and wildlife use of mountain glacier habitat in western North America

The global recession of glaciers and perennial snowfields is reshaping mountain ecosystems. However, beyond physical changes to the landscape and altered downstream hydrology, the implications of glacier decline are poorly known. Before predictions can be made about how climate change may affect wildlife in glacier-associated ecosystems, a more thorough accounting of the role that glaciers play in species' life histories is needed. In this study, we deployed an elevational transect of wildlife cameras along the western margin of the Paradise Glacier, a rapidly receding mountain glacier on the south side of Mount Rainier, WA, USA. From June to September 2021, we detected at least 16 vertebrate species (seven birds, nine mammals) using glacier-associated habitats. While humans, and primarily skiers, were the most common species detected, we recorded 99 observations of wildlife (birds and mammals). These included three species of conservation concern in Washington: wolverine (Gulo gulo), Cascade red fox (Vulpes vulpes cascadensis), and White-tailed ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura). Collectively, our results reveal a rich diversity of wildlife using a single mountain glacier and adjacent habitat in the Pacific Northwest, emphasizing a largely overlooked risk of climate change to mountain biodiversity. We highlight the global need for similar studies to better understand the true scale of biodiversity that will be impacted by glacier recession in mountain ecosystems.

Distributed production under the pandemic shock: Vulnerability, resilience and the new stage of globalization

The paper draws attention to a new wave of public and academic debate on the future of globalization and on rationality of countries’ further participation in distributed production, i.e., their involvement in global value chains (GVCs) and value-added trade. Raised during the COVID-19 pandemic shock, this debate is the reaction of countries to the global diffusion of downfalls through transborder supplies. We analyze vulnerabilities of GVCs to sudden shocks, demonstrate the role of these risks in escalating the 2020 global recession and in shaping its unique features, as well as scrutinize the emerging post-pandemic strategies of leading MNEs for enhancing the GVC resilience. We argue that despite the collapse of the just-in-time supply system and the crucial dependency of many domestic industries on imports from China, the pandemic shock could neither undermine foundations of distributed production nor lead to mass reshoring. On the contrary, both analyzed practice and surveyed econometric literature confirm that benefits of countries’ participation in GVCs outweigh risks of their falling under potential rippling disruptions. Moreover, MNEs’ resilience strategies, which we classified into three interrelated lines of action (restructuring of GVCs’ supplier networks, production optimization, and GVCs’ digital transformation), give globalization a new impetus. We conclude with describing the changing features of distributed production under the ongoing GVCs’ restructuring and outline a number of promising export opportunities that objectively open up in the 2020s for developing economies, including Russia. In the course of our study, we examine key properties of resilient systems (robustness, flexibility, redundancy), some new notions (disruption risks, ripple effect, etc.), and new management approaches relevant for all types of economies and businesses under increased uncertainty.

EKONOMSKA NEJEDNAKOST U VREME PANDEMIJE

In this paper the author presents the overview of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economic trends with the focus on the economic inequalities. The Covid-19 pandemic that has caused the global recession, has also brought to the surface the issue of global inequalities, particularly exposing the economic inequalities. The Kuznets curve, a scientific achievement in the field of economics, as originally formulated suggests that the level of inequality is low when an economy’s income is at low level, that is, the income inequality increases with economic development and then tends to decline when the country attains a higher income level. However, the sustainability of Kuznets curve is questioned today in the current circumstances of global information society struck by pandemic. Modern economic literature views the contemporary growth of inequality in wealthy countries, as well as in developing countries, through the prism of Kuznets cycles or waves. The growing trend in global inequalities may threaten the attained level of economic growth and scientific and technological progress.

DETECTION OF FACE MASK USING DEEP LEARNING

As we know, the COVID-19 pandemic additionally referred to as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus sickness since 2019. This infectious disease was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019. Symptoms of COVID-19 are highly variable, ranging from none to severe health problem. The virus spreads chiefly through the air when individuals are close to one another. It transmits from an infected individual through the droplets as they breathe, cough, sneeze or speak and these droplets then enters another individual via their mouth, nose, or eyes. It might also spread via contaminated surfaces. Individuals stay infectious for up to 2 weeks and can spread the virus albeit they do not have symptoms. As of 1st November 2021, more than 200 million cases are confirmed, with more than 500 million deaths due to COVID-19. The pandemic has been the reason for global social and economic disruption, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression. The recommended preventive measures include social distancing, carrying a mask publicly, ventilation and air-filtering, hand washing, covering one‟s mouth when sneezing or coughing and self-isolation for individuals exposed. In present endeavour therefore, the author has attempted to make one thing associated with it, that's deciding whether a dividual is carrying a mask or not. The complete investigations area unit distributed in various chapters that embody the current thesis. The performance of our model will be evaluated in precision, accuracy, recall, specificity, and sensitivity that demonstrate the practical application of this model. The system performs with an accuracy of 99.88%, precision of 99.49%, sensitivity of 99.77%, and specificity of 99.6. Thus, this model tracks if people are using masks or not in real-time using a device camera. This model can be used with the current camera infrastructure to enable this tool which can be used in various public places such as markets or railway stations or offices etc. Keywords: Covid-19, Face Mask Detection, Convolutional Neural Network, MobileNetV2, Precaution.

VIABLE HEALTH FUNDING IN TIME OF DEMOGRAPHIC AGEING

In the past several decades a new challenge has arisen, and it refers to the rapid demographic ageing of the population in developed and developing countries, quite opposite to the previous understanding of overpopulated planet. Increase in the older population brings its implications to different segments of the society, and the national health system and its funding is one of them. This paper tends to analyze if there is a relationship between the government health expenditure and the increase in the older population in fourteen countries from the European Union that are experiencing most intense process of demographic ageing. Also, other possible determinants of the health expenditures are included, such as government social spending, gross domestic product per capita and dummy variable to estimate the effect of the global recession onto the health expenditure.

Loose Credit and Low Wages: A Re-examination of US Postwar Economic History in Light of the Recent Recession

<p>The protracted nature of the current global economic downturn, beginning in late 2007 with the crash of the US credit markets and continuing on into today, suggests that a wider range of policy responses are now required by the international community to get the global economy back on an upwards trajectory of growth. Orthodox economics, with its disproportionate bias towards the supply-side of the economic equation, has proved extremely ineffectual in addressing the multitude of problems associated with the current global recession. In particular, the apathetic approach encapsulated by the neo-classical position, which asserts that the "free market" should be left alone to generate a solution to any economic downturn, has proved a highly costly ideological position for the global economy to follow. Fortunately however, in policy-making circles, a slight move away from the debilitating neo-classical supply-side position is now under way, giving rise to proactive policies that do not wait for the market to "inevitably" fix itself.</p>

Loose Credit and Low Wages: A Re-examination of US Postwar Economic History in Light of the Recent Recession

<p>The protracted nature of the current global economic downturn, beginning in late 2007 with the crash of the US credit markets and continuing on into today, suggests that a wider range of policy responses are now required by the international community to get the global economy back on an upwards trajectory of growth. Orthodox economics, with its disproportionate bias towards the supply-side of the economic equation, has proved extremely ineffectual in addressing the multitude of problems associated with the current global recession. In particular, the apathetic approach encapsulated by the neo-classical position, which asserts that the "free market" should be left alone to generate a solution to any economic downturn, has proved a highly costly ideological position for the global economy to follow. Fortunately however, in policy-making circles, a slight move away from the debilitating neo-classical supply-side position is now under way, giving rise to proactive policies that do not wait for the market to "inevitably" fix itself.</p>