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This study aims to identify the marginal impact of introducing a signal attribute of pasture-raised beef on consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for other independent attributes.

The study is divided into two steps. The first, qualitative, consisted of investigating the values consumers have regarding beef production. To this end, 52 interviews with Brazilian and US consumers were conducted using laddering. In the second, quantitative, six experiments, (face to face and online) with 267 consumers of beef were performed.

As a result, the main value found for the Brazilians was security, while for the Americans was self-direction. For consumers, the WTP for animal welfare was the most important in the choice experiments where this information was present.

These findings offer an alternate beef differentiation, enabling it to be sold with higher added value by integrating these.

This paper is based on a talk given by Philip Ryley and John Virgo to the Association of Pension Lawyers at their annual conference in Bournemouth in November 1998. In it the authors provide an outline of some of the key legal issues that have arisen out of the pensions mis‐selling litigation.

In this study, we critically examine how students enrolled in a combined engineering and teacher education program given at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, understand the concept of sustainable development (SD) and the professional responsibilities of engineers versus teachers in contributing to this goal. A questionnaire was used to collect and analyze data based on five research questions: (1) How do students conceptualize the notion of SD? (2) What aspects of SD are students interested in? (3) Are there any gender differences in what aspects of SD students are interested in? (4) How do students perceive the roles and responsibilities of engineers versus teachers in contributing to SD? and (5) How confident are students in their abilities to address SD issues vocationally? The data indicated a conventional view of SD among the students; a clear interest in sustainability issues, especially for ecologically linked questions; a tendency to ascribe significant but differentiated responsibilities to engineers/teachers; and a low degree of confidence in their own ability to adequately address SD issues vocationally. The data also indicated differences between male and female students when looking at interest in different aspects of SD. Overall, female students were found to be slightly more interested in SD than the male students. This gender difference is larger in relation to social aspects than ecological or economic aspects. It is suggested that future sustainable development education needs a shift of focus from what separates female and male students to what unites them. The observed “confidence gap” that exists between stated degree of interest in, and perceived importance of, sustainability issues, suggests the potential for significant improvement of the design of the Master of Science in Engineering and in Education program (CL-program).

Due to consumption changes in the post-pandemic era, the production safety of agricultural products is affecting global consumers. This paper constructs an evaluation index of the agricultural Internet of things (IOT) traceability system and evaluates it using the dynamic hesitant-fuzzy linguistic term sets (HFLTS)-based DEMATEL method to improve agricultural supply-chain links and improve production quality.

The agricultural IOT traceability index system is constructed using the literature and expert interviews; it comprises 6 first-level indices and 20 second-level indices. The agricultural IOT traceability system is evaluated using the dynamic HFLTS-DEMATEL method.

Producers' awareness of agricultural-production safety (A11) has the most significant impact on production and processing links, while warehouse location and storage capacity (A31) have the largest impact on the circulation link. Inspection authenticity and transparency and quarantine information (A41) have the largest impact on the detection-consumption link. The extent to which the traceability-platform construction is complete (A62) has the largest impact on technical support.

The present paper may be limited to the era of post-pandemic, and it is hard to consider all the indices. Further research can broaden the research context and establish a more comprehensive index system.

The index system constructed in this study will surely help relevant regulatory authorities in China to promote the construction of agricultural IOT traceability system and establish a unified standard, so as to provide a basis for future developers to enter the field. Accordingly, it also can help every subject to identify the key indices of each process in the agricultural-product supply chain and guide relevant departments to conduct targeted information tracking and management. The consumers could also understand the standards of traceable agricultural products and effectively protect their own rights and interests.

The existing literature does not provide an objective, unified standard for measuring a decentralized traceability system or identifying key processes. This study therefore proposes a new evaluation index system and uses a dynamic evaluation method to determine the importance of key indices. This study identifies the most important indices in each process, making it possible to discover, improve, and enhance the quality of agricultural products at a practical level.

Farmers in India are hesitant to adopt organic farming (OF) despite high demand for organic products and favorable policy measures to encourage the practice. Therefore, this study aims to assess the OF adoption barriers faced by Indian farmers using a systematic method of multi-criteria decision making (MCDM).

The authors explored eighteen barriers to OF adoption by conducting a literature survey and discussion with experts on OF. Then the authors used a combined method of Grey Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) methodology to rank the barriers and analyze their interactions.

The analysis reveals that “Lack of knowledge and information,” “lack of financial capacity of farmers’ and “lack of institutional support” are the cause (independent) barriers that significantly impact other barriers. The top three effect (dependent) barriers are “lack of availability of organic inputs,” “personal characteristics such as age, attitudes and beliefs” and “lack of premium pricing,” which are affected by the other barriers.

This research work will help the decision makers understand the barriers to OF adoption in India and their interrelationships. The proposed framework enables them to focus on the high-priority independent barriers, which will subsequently impact the other dependent barriers.

Previous research on OF adoption barriers lacked a multifaceted scientific approach, which is necessary because OF is a complex system and needs a thorough investigation to assess the interaction between the barriers. The research attempts to fill this gap and addresses the complex nature of adoption barriers.

The purpose of this paper is to study the 14 principles of Edwards Deming and create significant relationships between them. No research has been reported on the implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) using Deming’s 14 principles. To fill this gap, Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and MICMAC analysis have been developed to understand mutual interactions among variables and find both the dependence and driving power of these variables.

The research paper discusses a blend of practical applications and introduces a theoretical framework. An ISM-based methodology is used to study and examine interactions between identified variables, while MICMAC analysis is used to identify the dependence and driving power.

This research utilizes Deming’s 14 quality principles, with experts from academia and industry consulted to identify contextual relationships among variables. The result shows that the stated principles “take action to accomplish the transformation,” “institute training,” “encourage education to employees” and “institute leadership” are strategic requirements, while “drive out fear,” “break down barrier between staff areas” and “eliminate numerical quotas” are tactical requirements. “Adopt the new philosophy,” “create constancy in improvement of product and service” and “cease dependence on mass inspections” are operational requirements for TQM applications.

An ISM-based quality framework, dependence power and driving power of variables using MICMAC analysis have been recommended to the service and manufacturing industry as a new focus area in the implementation of TQM.

Artificial automata replace, in part or in total, natural automata in systems, and properly disciplined models of natural automata become design models of artificial automata for replacement. In Part I, a summary of two sets of disciplines provided by a General Systems Theory is presented, and the importance of these disciplines to the modeling of three inherited abilities is indicated for a case study. A theorem is presented in the form of an algorithm to aid in the modeling of the ability to modify and extend knowledge structures. In Part II (appearing in the next issue), the proof of the theorem is given and the theorem is applied to the case study. Finally, the application of the disciplines of the General Systems Theory is indicated for a second casestudy of an industrial system of 10 interactive automata.

Addresses problems in mechanics and physics involving two or more coupled variables of different nature, or a number of distinct domains which interact. For these kinds of problems, considers numerical solution by the coupling of operators appertaining to the individual participating phenomena, or defined in the domains. Reviews the co‐operation of distinct discretized operators in connection with the integration of temporal evolution processes, and the iterative treatment of stationary equations of state. The specification of subtasks complies with the demand for an independent treatment on different processing units arising in parallel computation. Physical subtasks refer to problems of different field variables interacting on the continuum level; their number is usually small. Fine granularity may be achieved by separating the problem region into subdomains which communicate via the boundaries. In multiphysics simulations operators are preferably combined such that subdomains are processed in parallel on different units, while physical phenomena are processed sequentially in the subdomain.

Geometrical transformations are used to specify the spatial relationship between two cubes. The analysis can be applied to the description of the error in a robot placement task in three‐dimensional space, or to the relative location between two arbitrary rigid bodies in such a space.

Due to the non‐stationarity of vibration signals resulting from either varying operating conditions or natural deterioration of machinery, both the frequency components and their magnitudes vary with time. However, little research has been done on the parameter estimation of time‐varying multivariate time series models based on adaptive filtering theory for condition‐based maintenance purposes. This paper proposes a state‐space model of non‐stationary multivariate vibration signals for the online estimation of the state of rotating machinery using a modified extended Kalman filtering algorithm and spectral analysis in the time‐frequency domain. Adaptability and spectral resolution capability of the model have been tested by using simulated vibration signal with abrupt changes and time‐varying spectral content. The implementation of this model to detect machinery deterioration under varying operating conditions for condition‐based maintenance purposes has been conducted by using real gearbox vibration monitoring signals. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model is able to quickly detect the actual state of the rotating machinery even under highly non‐stationary conditions with abrupt changes and yield accurate spectral information for an early warning of incipient fault in rotating machinery diagnosis. This is achieved through combination with a change detection statistic in bi‐spectral domain.