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Smartwearable solutions for social distancing have appeared duringthe Covid-19 pandemic with various types of outputs often directedonly to the wearer or if directed to others, the visual output isusually displayed on the front side of the wearers body. This paperpresents instead a design, implementation, and in-the-wild Wizardof Oz evaluation of a backpack with shape-changing accessorywhich output is directed to others approaching the wearer frombehind. Qualitative findings from six participants suggest that thereis potential in shape-changing accessory for keeping social distancein public context, however, the social acceptability issues caused bynoisy motors and inclusiveness of the design limit the willingness towear it. Even though the study was inspired by the Covid-19, othernon-pandemic use cases for personal space respecting wearablesare discussed also for users with special needs.

This innovative practice full paper presents a case of teaching modeling, simulation, and performance evaluation course online during the COVID-19 pandemic for graduate students. The course includes theoretical and practical sessions with varying complexity. Students should have a good background in math, statistics, and probability. Students must also have good experience in one of the computer programming languages to solve the homework and work on the term project. The challenge is how to teach these topics online and engage the students in the course as they learn in face-to-face classes. Delivering the course using PowerPoint slides and a whiteboard is not suitable for teaching the class online. Therefore, there must be an alternative way to deliver the course online. We noticed a growing interest in using Jupyter Notebook in teaching, which motivated us to apply it to the mentioned course with some innovations. Jupyter Notebook is an open-source web application that allows us to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations, and narrative text. We want to share our experience teaching this course online using Jupyter Notebook in this innovative practice. We will share the course development plan, delivery mode, lessons learned, and student feedback. I will also highlight maximizing the benefits of the Jupyter Notebook using add-ins and tools useful for teaching, such as converting the Jupyter Notebook to a slide show. Developing courses in Jupyter Notebook could be time-consuming and frustrating, especially if there are a lot of math equations, tables, and drawings. This effort pays off in terms of the quality of the instruction and learning, and it gives students a tool to help them practice and engage with the course material.

In recent decades, multinational corporations (MNCs) has evolved from highly internalized organizations to orchestrators of global value chains (GVCs) transforming MNCs into global factories. This operating model has enabled MNCs to become leaner and more efficient. However, the heavy reliance on globally dispersed, efficiency-driven GVCs has made the modern MNE fragile to supply shocks and supply chain disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic had exposed the risks and vulnerabilities of this model of doing business. However, the COVID pandemic is only the latest in a series of discontinuous risks, that is, episodic events that are difficult to anticipate or predict but have substantial impact on a firm and its operating environment if happening. The purpose of this article is to reflect upon the impact of the of pandemic on IB and draw lessons from this experience in terms of how to avoid or manage similar discontinuous risks in the future. We draw upon the growing literature on GVCs and supply chain risk management to offer suggestions that might help MNCs develop better preparedness for future disruptions which affect the operations and stability of MNCs and GVCs.

Activation has no real answer to the new challenges in the labour market after covid-19 and new efforts are to be foreseen.