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Is Society caught up in a Death Spiral? Modeling Societal Demise and its Reversal
Full text linkJust like an army of ants caught in an ant mill, individuals, groups and even whole societies are sometimes caught up in a Death Spiral, a vicious cycle of self-reinforcing dysfunctional behavior characterized by continuous flawed decision making, myopic single-minded focus on one (set of) solution(s), denial, distrust, micromanagement, dogmatic thinking and learned helplessness. We propose the term Death Spiral Effect to describe this difficult-to-break downward spiral of societal decline. Specifically, in the current theory-building review we aim
to: (a) more clearly define and describe the Death Spiral Effect; (b) model the downward spiral of societal decline as well as an upward spiral; (c) describe how and why individuals, groups and even society at large might be caught up in a Death Spiral; and (d) offer a positive way forward in terms of evidence-based solutions to escape the Death Spiral Effect. Management theory hints on the occurrence of this phenomenon and offers turn-around leadership as solution. On a societal level strengthening of democracy may be important. Prior research indicates that historically, two key factors trigger this type of societal decline: rising inequalities creating an upper layer of elites and a lower layer of masses; and dwindling (access to) resources. Historical key markers of societal decline are a steep increase in inequalities, government overreach, over-integration (interdependencies in networks) and a rapidly decreasing trust in institutions and resulting collapse of legitimacy. Important issues that we aim to shed light on are the behavioral underpinnings of decline, as well as the
question if and how societal decline can be reversed. We explore the extension of these theories from the company/organization level to the society level, and make use of insights from both micro-, meso-, and macro-level theories (e.g., Complex Adaptive Systems and collapsology, the study of the risks of collapse of industrial civilization) to explain this process of societal demise. Our review
furthermore draws on theories such as Social Safety Theory, Conservation of Resources Theory, and management theories that describe the decline and fall of groups, companies and societies, as well as offer ways to reverse this trend
Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) with R (version 4.0.0)
Full text linkNecessary Condition Analysis (NCA) is an approach and data analysis technique for identifying necessary conditions in datasets. It can complement traditional regression-based data analysis as well as methods like QCA (see [the NCA website](https://www.erim.nl/nca) for more information on NCA). This guide helps a novice user without knowledge of R or NCA to install the free R and NCA software on the user’s computer and to perform an NCA analysis within 15 minutes. The main instructions are:
I. Install R
II. Install NCA
III. Load data
IV. Run NCA.
Details of the method can be found in:
- Dul, J. (2016) Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). Logic and Methodology of 'Necessary but not Sufficient' causality. *Organizational Research Methods* 19(1), 10-52. [Sage](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1094428115584005)
- Dul, J. (2020), *Conducting Necessary Condition Analysis*, Sage Publications, ISBN: 9781526460141. [Sage](https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/conducting-necessary-condition-analysis-for-business-and-management-students/book262898)
- Dul, J., van der Laan, E., & Kuik, R. (2020). A statistical significance test for Necessary Condition Analysis. *Organizational Research Methods*, 23(2), 385-395.
[Sage](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1094428118795272
Demand Management for Sustainable Supply Chain Operations
Full text linkSupply chain management (SCM) is about fulfilling demand. Based on given estimates of
future demand, SCM invests the appropriate resources and then uses these resources to
match supply to demand. The traditional SCM perspective takes demand as exogenous.
The goal of SCM is then to serve the forecasted or materialized demand effectively and
efficiently. How difficult it is to achieve this goal depends on the characteristics of that
demand. For example, serving a stable, predictable demand is relatively cheap whereas
serving an unpredictable, strongly fluctuating demand may imply less efficient operations
characterized by high inventory built-up and low capacity utilization.
In the same way, demand characteristics impact not only the financial performance
of the supply process but also its environmental impact. For example, satisfying demand
for fresh produce during the harvesting season results in lower emissions than serving off-
season demand which requires substantial storage and/or long-distance shipments from
other growing regions
Shaping ideal futures: Writing a letter to the future
Full text linkThe Covid-19 crisis and measures have created an extraordinary situation that has affected most
people around the globe. Adapting to and coping with this unpredictable situation has proven
challenging for many. Apart from the direct effects such as a loss of income, normalcy, and
postponed healthcare, many people have experienced a loss of meaning in life, negatively affecting
their mental health and well-being. This has led many people to experience a downward spiral of
negative emotions, prompting immediate, survival-oriented behaviors and learned helplessness.
An effective way to counteract this is to restore a sense of autonomy by writing about making the
world a better place. This can be achieved by letting people reflect on an ideal world free of
constraints and contrasting this with the idea of the world that will come to pass if nothing changes.
Prior research in the field of positive psychology has shown that brief interventions can help
counteract many of the aforementioned negative consequences and even aid in developing a more
positive future outlook that individuals act upon. In this paper, we highlight an intervention, that
seems especially promising in this respect: Letters to the future. Writing about how and when one
will contribute to this ideal future, is key in ensuring that this comes a step closer to becoming
reality. Acting upon dreams and plans can also have real-world positive consequences. In sum,
based on positive psychology, goal-setting, life-crafting, and mindset theory, we propose an
intervention that offers ways to increase positive emotions, enhance social support, increase self-
transcendence, and action repertoire, and potentially kickstart societal change. As this intervention
can be done online and is scalable, we propose to use the intervention on a wide scale to improve
mental health and well-being worldwide, and at the same time make the world a better place
Data-Driven Failure Time Estimation in a Consumer Electronics Closed-Loop Supply Chain
Full text linkProblem definition: We examine and analyze a strategy for forecasting the demand for replacement
devices in a large Wireless Service Provider (WSP) that is a Fortune 100 company. The Original Equipment
Manufacturer (OEM) refurbishes returned devices that are offered as replacement devices by the WSP to its
customers, and hence the device refurbishment and replacement operations are a closed-loop supply chain.
Academic/practical relevance: We introduce a strategy for estimating failure time distributions of newly
launched devices that leverages the historical data of failures from other devices. The fundamental assumption
that we make is that the hazard rate distribution of the new devices can be modeled as a mixture of historical
hazard rate distributions of prior devices.
Methodology: The proposed strategy is based on the assumption that different devices fail according to
the same age-dependent failure distribution. Specifically, this strategy uses the empirical hazard rates from
other devices to form a basis set of hazard rate distributions. We then use a regression to identify and fit the
relevant hazard rates distributions from the basis to the observed failures of the new device. We use data
from our industrial partner to analyze our proposed strategy and compare it with a Maximum Likelihood
Estimator (MLE).
Results: To evaluate our forecasting strategies, we use the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) distance between the
estimated Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) and the true CDF, and the Mean Absolute Scaled Error
(MASE). Our numerical analysis shows that both forecasting strategies perform very well. Furthermore, our
results indicate that our proposed forecasting strategy also performs well (i) when the size of the basis is
small and (ii) when producing forecasts early in the life cycle of the new device.
Managerial implications: A forecast of the failure time distribution is a key input for managing the
inventory of spares at the reverse logistics facility. A better forecast can result in better service and less cost
(see Calmon and Graves (2017)). Our general approach can be translated to other settings and we validate
our hazard rate regression approach in a completely different application domain for Project Repat, a social
enterprise that transforms old t-shirts into quilts
Model Formulations for Pickup and Delivery Problems in Designated Driver Services
Full text linkDesignated driver services use company vehicles to deliver drivers to customers. The drivers then drive the
customers from their origins to their destinations in the customers’ own cars; at the destinations the drivers
are picked up by a company vehicle. We typically see teams of drivers assigned to company vehicles serving
customers. When, however, the drivers may be dropped off by one vehicle and picked up by another, a
challenging, novel pick-up and delivery problem arises. In this paper, we introduce two formulations to solve
this problem to optimality using a general purpose solver. In particular, we present a three-index and a two-
index mixed integer program formulation to generate optimal, least-cost routes for the company vehicles and
drivers. Using these MIPs, we find that the two-index formulation outperforms the three-index formulations
by solving more instances to optimality within a given run time limit. Our computational experiments also
show that up to 60% cost savings are possible from using a flexible operating strategy as compared to a
strategy in which drivers and company vehicles stay together throughout a shift
Streamlined Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Development: Generalization of radiomics through automated machine learning
Full text linkRadiomics uses quantitative medical imaging features and AI to create predictive models which can be used as biomarkers. In this thesis, we have developped an adaptive radiomics framework to automatically optimize the radiomics workflow per application and demonstrate its use to create biomarkers in eight different clinical applications
High-precision Adjuvant Radiotherapy for Early-stage Breast Cancer Patients to Reduce Toxicity and Improve Survival
Full text linkThe risk of long-term toxicity of radiation treatment for early-stage breast cancer can be reduced by using partial breast irradiation, lungsparing and a non-coplanar beam set-up. The drift of the patient during irradaition and the motion of markers relative to the treatment target are important factors for the calculation of the margin required for partial breast irradiation
Aggressive Measures, Rising Inequalities and Mass Formation During the COVID-19 Crisis: An Overview and Proposed Way Forward
No full textA series of aggressive restrictive measures were adopted around the world in 2020–2022 to attempt to prevent SARS-CoV-2 from spreading. However, it has become increasingly clear the most aggressive (lockdown) response strategies may involve negative side-effects such as a steep increase in poverty, hunger, and inequalities. Several economic, educational, and health repercussions have fallen disproportionately on children, students, young workers, and especially on groups with pre-existing inequalities such as low-income families, ethnic minorities, and women. This has led to a vicious cycle of rising inequalities and health issues. For example, educational and financial security decreased along with rising unemployment and loss of life purpose. Domestic violence surged due to dysfunctional families being forced to spend more time with each other. In the current narrative and scoping review, we describe macro-dynamics that are taking place because of aggressive public health policies and psychological tactics to influence public behavior, such as mass formation and crowd behavior. Coupled with the effect of inequalities, we describe how these factors can interact toward aggravating ripple effects. In light of evidence regarding the health, economic and social costs, that likely far outweigh potential benefits, the authors suggest that, first, where applicable, aggressive lockdown policies should be reversed and their re-adoption in the future should be avoided. If measures are needed, these should be non-disruptive. Second, it is important to assess dispassionately the damage done by aggressive measures and offer ways to alleviate the burden and long-term effects. Third, the structures in place that have led to counterproductive policies should be assessed and ways should be sought to optimize decision-making, such as counteracting groupthink and increasing the level of reflexivity. Finally, a package of scalable positive psychology interventions is suggested to counteract the damage done and improve humanity's prospects
A Comparative Perspective on the Protection of Hate Crime Victims in the European Union
Full text linkHate crime victims involved in a criminal procedure experience difficulties that are different from problems encountered by other victims. In trying to meet the specific procedural needs of hate crime victims many EU Member States have introduced protective measures and services in criminal proceedings, but the adopted approaches are widely disparate. By reporting the results of an EU-wide comparative survey into hate crime victims within national criminal procedures the authors aim to: (1) make an inventory of the national (legal) definitions of hate crime and the protection measures available (on paper) for hate crime victims; and (2) critically discuss certain national choices, inter alia by juxtaposing the procedural measures to the procedural needs of hate crime victims to see if there are any lacunae from a victimological perspective. The authors conclude that the Member States should consider expanding their current corpus of protection measures in order to address some of the victims’ most urgent needs