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Digital Transformation has generated much research and curiosity recently, with the COVID-19 global pandemic accelerating its pace across all industry sectors. Current literature has not adequately provided a comprehensive understanding of Digital Transformation Leadership (DTL). The objective of this research is to explore the characteristics of DTL by undertaking a comprehensive review of Information Systems literature using a systematic procedure of identifying and coding 87 research papers, resulting in 600 coded excerpts, capturing the ‘who’ and ‘what’ of DTL. Our analysis identifies eight DTL characteristics, namely: digital strategist, digital culturalist, digital architect, customer centrist, organisational agilist, data advocate, business process optimiser and digital workplace landscaper. We discuss mapping the DTL characteristics to c-suite roles, presenting a taxonomy from the literature, of interest to both academics and practitioners. This research raises the awareness of the concept of DTL characteristics, especially amongst those in positions of leadership and decision making authority. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

AbstractMobile geolocation data is a valuable asset in the assessment of movement patterns of a population. Once a highly contagious disease takes place in a location the movement patterns aid in predicting the potential spatial spreading of the disease, hence mobile data becomes a crucial tool to epidemic models. In this work, based on millions of anonymized mobile visits data in Brazil, we investigate the most probable spreading patterns of the COVID-19 within states of Brazil. The study is intended to help public administrators in action plans and resources allocation, whilst studying how mobile geolocation data may be employed as a measure of population mobility during an epidemic. The first part of the study focus on the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro during the period of March 2020, when the disease first started to spread in these states. Metapopulation models for the disease spread were simulated in order to evaluate the risk of infection of each city within the states, by ranking them according to the time the disease will take to infect each city. We observed that, although the high risk regions are those closer to the capital cities, where the outbreak has started, there are also cities in the countryside with great risk.

Os blocos regionais que optaram pelo mercado comum condicionam uma ordem normativa de disciplinamento da mobilidade humana, a qual encontrou limites nacionais acentuados pela crise de saúde relacionada à pandemia de COVID-19. No cenário de restrições à mobilidade por ocasião do novo coronavírus, este artigo trata das barreiras jurídicas à liberdade de circulação de pessoas em espaços integrados; em especial, no âmbito da União Europeia e do MERCOSUL. Contrapondo as experiências à luz do direito comunitário e do direito da integração regional, objetiva-se analisar o disciplinamento da mobilidade em arranjos integrativos, discutindo os desafios e os limites da livre circulação de pessoas nos modelos europeu e mercosulino. Para tanto, propõe-se reflexão a partir da teoria da integração econômica, no contexto de globalização confrontada por limites nacionais de saúde e ordem pública. Metodologicamente, utiliza-se da revisão bibliográfica e do método hipotético-dedutivo, para testar a hipótese de que a mobilidade é disciplinada em sistemas regionais, conferindo abertura às competências estatais em situações de crise. Os resultados indicam que as ordens regionais analisadas admitem limites à mobilidade humana. A pandemia, com ápice registrado no primeiro semestre de 2020, ilustra essa dinâmica de regulamentação da livre circulação de pessoas, revelando que os sistemas regionais toleram restrições nacionais no espaço comum, confirmando a hipótese aventada. Na União Europeia, as restrições à circulação desafiam a estrutura comunitária, enquanto no MERCOSUL reafirmam o modelo fortemente intergovernamental do bloco. Constata-se que as medidas impactam o espaço integrado, devendo observar os limites das ordens regionais e das recomendações internacionais.

In the first part of this article we will deal with the impact of the digitization of religions in their aspects of loss of traditional authority and a greater possibility of syncretism and hybridization processes, a tendency that was already happening before the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, general aspects of the digitization of religions in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic will be described and some quantitative data in this period will be presented. The data indicate increased spiritual practices during COVID-19 although a relative loss of institutional authority. Even though this phenomenon may be something temporary, these data indicate a secularization of this sphere of institutional meaning, with an even more acute displacement of the sphere of religious meaning to the private world. In a third part, we will deal with the specific cases of funerals and mourning, something that reaches an important core of the social function of religious institutions at this moment. In the final reflections we make a preliminary assessment of which aspects tend to remain in the future related to religious change promoted by digitalization even after the end of the pandemic.

Background\ud Detailed information on how socio-economic characteristics are related to COVID-19 incident cases and maternal deaths is needed. We investigated the spatial distribution of COVID-19 cases and maternal deaths in Brazil and their association with social determinants of health.\ud Methods\ud This was a population-based ecological study with a spatial analysis of all cases and deaths of COVID-19 in the obstetric population. Data on COVID-19 cases and deaths in the obstetric population, social vulnerability, health inequities, and health system capacity at the municipal level were obtained from several publicly sources in Brazil. A Bayesian empirical local model was used to identify fluctuations of the indicators. Spatial statistic tests were used to identity the spatial clusters and measure the municipalities’ risk of COVID-19 in the obstetric population. Beta regression was used to characterise the association between socio-economic indicators and the burden of COVID-19.\ud Findings\ud A total of 13,858 cases and 1,396 deaths due to COVID-19 were recorded in Brazil from March 2020 to June 2021. There was a variation in the number of cases per municipality, with 105 municipalities with rates from 2,210 to 3,884 cases and 45 municipalities with rates from 3,884 to 7,418 cases per 100,000 live births. The maternal mortality ratio also varied widely across municipalities. There was a spatial dependence on smoothed maternal mortality rates (I Moran 0·10; P = 0·010), and 15 municipalities had higher risk of maternal deaths. Municipalities characterized by lower health resources and higher socioeconomic inequalities presented the highest rates of incidence and maternal mortality by COVID-19.\ud Interpretation\ud In Brazil, COVID-19 cases and deaths in the obstetric population had a heterogeneous geographical distribution, with well-defined spatial clusters mostly located in the countryside. Municipalities with a high degree of socioeconomic dissimilarities showed higher maternal mortality rates than areas with better social and infrastructure indicators.

Based on the SIR model that divides the population into susceptible, infected and removed individuals, data about the evolution of the pandemic compiled by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHUCSSE) are integrated into the numerical system solution. The system parameters Rate of Contact β, Basic Reproduction Number R0 and Removal Rate γ, also named Rate of Decay, are determined according to a ridge regression approach and a mobile statistical scheme with different averages. Data is automatically downloaded from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19. The main Python libraries used are Numpy, Pandas, Skit-Learn, Requests and Urllib.

Resumo: Este artigo trata do efeito da pandemia de Covid-19 sobre o acesso aos mercados por agricultores familiares em Mariana. A pesquisa se orientou teoricamente pela discussão sobre a construção social dos mercados acessados por agricultores familiares. Foi utilizada como modelo analítico uma tipologia de mercados desenvolvida por Schneider (2016) que diferencia os principais canais de comercialização acessados pelos agricultores familiares no Brasil de modo a avaliar possíveis alterações nas formas de comercialização durante a pandemia. Trata-se de um estudo exploratório e descritivo, contando com uma metodologia qualitativa, consistindo na realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas com os agricultores familiares de Mariana. Por meio da análise de conteúdo das entrevistas, foi possível identificar que não se alteraram os canais de comercialização disponíveis no contexto pandêmico, mas, devido às restrições de acesso, somando-se à ausência de incentivos e políticas públicas, os agricultores foram impactados, destacando-se a redução expressiva em sua renda.

Background To constrain propagation and mitigate the burden of COVID-19, most countries initiated and continue to implement several non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), including national and regional lockdowns. In the Republic of Ireland, the first national lockdown was decreed on 23rd of March 2020, followed by a succession of restriction increases and decreases (phases) over the following year. To date, the effects of these interventions remain unclear, and particularly within differing population subsets. The current study sought to assess the impact of individual NPI phases on COVID-19 transmission patterns within delineated population subgroups in the Republic of Ireland. Methods and findings Confirmed, anonymised COVID-19 cases occurring between the 29th of February 2020 and 30th November 2020 (n = 72,654) were obtained. Segmented modelling via breakpoint regression with multiple turning points was employed to identify structural breaks across sub-populations, including primary/secondary infections, age deciles, urban/commuter/rural areas, patients with underlying health conditions, and socio-demographic profiles. These were subsequently compared with initiation dates of eight overarching NPI phases. Five distinct breakpoints were identified. The first breakpoint, associated with a decrease in the daily COVID-19 incidence, was reported within 14 days of the first set of restrictions in mid-March 2020 for most population sub-groups. Results suggest that moderately strict NPIs were more effective than the strictest Phase 5 (National Lockdown). Divergences were observed across population sub-groups; lagged response times were observed among populations >80 years, residents of rural/ commuter regions, and cases associated with a below-median deprivation score. Conclusions Study findings suggest that many NPIs have been successful in decreasing COVID-19 incidence rates, however the strictest Phase 5 NPI was not. Moreover, NPIs were not equally successful across all sub-populations, with differing response times noted. Future strategies and interventions may need to be increasingly bespoke, based on sub-population profiles and required responses.