No abstract

Background The Covid 19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing weaknesses in the global supply chain. Regional assessments by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), European Medicine Agency (EMA), and independent consultants, have demonstrated various contributory causal factors requiring changes in policy, relationships, and incentives within the dynamic and developing networks. Human Factors/Ergonomics (HFE) is an approach that encourages sociotechnical systems thinking to optimise the performance of systems that involve human activity. The global supply chain can be considered such a system. However, it has neither been systematically examined from this perspective. Methods In 2015, the UK Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors established the Pharmaceutical Sector Group. This unique group is open to all who work in the pharmaceutical sector at any level and in any discipline who share the vision of a pharmaceutical system that places an understanding of HFE at the heart of improving the use of healthcare products throughout their life cycles including their supply chains. Results For this complex system to work efficiently it is paramount that we have effective coordination and integration between the different elements in the supply chain. HFE can give valuable insights and solutions for developing these complex social-technical systems effectively. Conclusion By partnering with international groups such as Biophorum and Bio Supply Chain Management Alliance, the wish stimulate discussion about how sociotechnical thinking about HFE may help develop better monitoring and investigative techniques to strengthen global supply chains.

No abstract

This paper considers three kinds of quasi-cyclic codes of index two with one generator or two generators and their applications in quantum code construction. In accordance with the algebraic structure of linear codes, we determine the lower bounds of the symplectic weights of these quasi-cyclic codes. Quasi-cyclic codes with the dual-containing property enable the construction of quantum codes. Defining the coefficient symmetric polynomials of the generator polynomials gives a concise condition for the dual-containing of the quasi-cyclic codes. The lower bound results can significantly reduce the scope of the search for a larger minimum distance of quasi-cyclic codes. With these algebraic results and computer supports, we obtain classical quasi-cyclic codes with better parameters and some new quantum codes under the symplectic construction. In particular, two examples of the new quantum codes [[63,42,6]]2,[[51,35,5]]2 improve the corresponding codes in Grassl’s code table.

It is well known that additive codes may have better parameters than linear codes. However, it is still a challenging problem to efficiently construct additive codes that outperform linear codes, especially those with greater distance than linear codes of the same length and dimension. To advance this problem, this paper focuses on constructing additive codes that outperform linear codes using quasi-cyclic codes and combinatorial methods. Firstly, we propose a lower bound on the minimum symplectic distance of 1generator quasi-cyclic codes of index even. Further, we get many binary quasi-cyclic codes with large symplectic distances utilizing computer-supported combination and search methods, all corresponding to good quaternary additive codes. Notably, 15 additive codes have greater distances than best-known quaternary linear codes in Grassl's code table (bounds on the minimum distance of quaternary linear codes http://www.codetables.de) for the same lengths and dimensions. Moreover, employing a combinatorial approach, we partially determine the parameters of optimal quaternary additive 3.5-dimensional codes with lengths from 28 to 254. Finally, as an extension, we also construct some good additive complementary dual codes with larger distances than best-known quaternary linear complementary dual codes in the literature.