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This study aims to examine the role of channel strategies in value appropriation and their effects on firm value with the consideration of situational factors.

An empirical study with secondary data is conducted in the context of public franchised channels. The authors use Entrepreneur Franchise Top 500 (2012) as the sampling frame and merge the data from three sources to create the final data set. A set of models are built to test the hypotheses in a hierarchical manner.

Value appropriation provides a solid rationale to link marketing channel strategies to firm value. Channel integration is an effective strategy driving intangible firm value. The influence of channel compression on intangible firm value depends on its interaction with other marketing environmental variables.

First, the sample size in this study is relatively small though these samples show high representativeness. Second, the empirical analysis in this study focuses on the franchised channels because of data availability.

Managers should consider the role of value appropriation when developing new channel strategies. A channel strategy deserves firm-level attention and resources because of its relevance to firm value. Managers should examine channel environment carefully and deploy internal resources to augment the potential of value appropriation strategies in channels.

This study is among the first to investigate the value relevance of marketing channel strategies from a value appropriation perspective. It identifies profit appropriation and resource appropriation as two mechanisms of value appropriation in marketing channels and uses these two processes to link channel integration and channel compression strategies with firm value.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This briefing looks at the ability for value appropriation to boost organization value through marketing channels.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

In this work, a numerical algorithm is presented for stability analysis of cold-formed steel (CFS) channel sections.

A nonlinear optimization problem is formulated using energy-based technique of idealized channel section subject shear, compression and biaxial bending. The total potential energy is minimized with respect to skew angle and half wavelength of the buckling mode. The optimization algorithm is updated sequentially using quadratic approximation until minimum buckling coefficient is attained. The developed algorithm is validated using other numerical techniques.

The described algorithm is computationally effective and can be utilized in the industry for analysis of CFS channels under any load combination.

The paper offers a new tool for engineers in practice to analyze channels subject to combined loadings.

Very limited literature dealt with the stability of channels under combined loading. A new numerical algorithm is provided to practitioners to utilize in the industry for analysis of channel sections under combined loading. Unlike finite element or finite strip methods, the channel is not discretized into subelements. Mathematical programming technique is used to find the buckling load. Parametric studies are then carried out to highlight influences of geometric interaction of the channel components and to provide useful guidance to the design of CFS channels.

The capability of steel columns to support their design loads is highly affected by the time of exposure and temperature magnitude, which causes deterioration of mechanical properties of steel under fire conditions. It is known that structural steel loses strength and stiffness as temperature increases, particularly above 400 °C. The duration of time in which steel is exposed to high temperatures also has an impact on how much strength it loses. The time-dependent response of steel is critical when estimating load carrying capacity of steel columns exposed to fire. Thus, investigating the structural response of cold-formed steel (CFS) columns is gaining more interest due to the nature of such structural elements.

In this study, experiments were conducted on two CFS configurations: back-to-back (B-B) channel and toe-to-toe (T-T) channel sections. All CFS column specimens were exposed to different temperatures following the standard fire curve and cooled by air or water. A total of 14 tests were conducted to evaluate the capacity of the CFS sections. The axial resistance and yield deformation were noted for both section types at elevated temperatures. The CFS column sections were modelled to simulate the section's behaviour under various temperature exposures using the general-purpose finite element (FE) program ABAQUS. The results from FE modelling agreed well with the experimental results. Ultimate load of experiment and finite element model (FEM) are compared with each other. The difference in percentage and ratio between both are presented.

The results showed that B-B configuration showed better performance for all the investigated parameters than T-T sections. A noticeable loss in the ultimate strength of 34.5 and 65.6% was observed at 90 min (986℃) for B-B specimens cooled using air and water, respectively. However, the reduction was 29.9 and 46% in the T-T configuration, respectively.

This research paper focusses on assessing the buckling strength of heated CFS sections to analyse the mode of failure of CFS sections with B-B and T-T design configurations under the effect of elevated temperature.

This paper seeks to propose a new non‐intrusive method for the assessment of speech quality of voice communication systems and evaluate its performance.

The method is based on measuring perception‐based objective auditory distances between the voiced parts of the output speech to appropriately matching references extracted from a pre‐formulated codebook. The codebook is formed by optimally clustering a large number of parametric speech vectors extracted from a database of clean speech records. The auditory distances are then mapped into equivalent subjective mean opinion scores (MOSs). The required clustering and matching processes are achieved by an efficient data‐mining tool known as the self‐organizing map (SOM). The proposed method was examined using a wide range of distortion including speech compression, wireless channel impairments, VoIP channel impairments, and modifications to the signal from features such as AGC.

The experimental results reported indicate that the proposed method provides a high level of accuracy in predicting the actual subjective quality of the speech. Specifically, the second version of the method, which is based on the use of bark spectrum (BS) analysis, is more accurate in predicting the MOS scores compared with its first and third versions (which are based on BS analysis and mel frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC), respectively), and outperforms the ITU‐T PESQ in a large number of test cases, particularly those related to distortion caused by channel impairments and signal level modifications.

It is believed that the prototype developed of the proposed objective speech quality measure is sufficiently accurate and robust against speaker, utterance and distortion type variations. Nevertheless, there are still possible directions for further improvements and enhancement. In general there are three areas that could be pursued for further improvements: widening the coverage of speaker variations of the system's codebook; formulating and using a perceptual speech model that provides true speaker‐independent representation of speech; and implementing the proposed measure as a stand‐alone system, preferably for real‐time applications.

Being an output‐based method, the proposed method can be employed for monitoring and assessing telecommunications networks under both live traffic conditions and off‐line evaluation.

The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a new output‐based, non‐intrusive method for the assessment of speech quality that is sufficiently accurate and robust. To the best of the author's knowledge, no reliable output‐based objective speech quality assessment method has to date been reported or formally recognised.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a tutorial and survey on recent advances in multimedia networking from an integrated perspective of both video networking and building digital video libraries. The nature of video networking, coupled with various recent developments in standards, proposals and applications, poses great challenges to the research and industrial communities working in this area.

This paper presents an insightful analysis for recent and emerging multimedia applications in digital video libraries and on video coding standards and their applications in digital libraries. Emphasis is given on those standards and mechanisms that enable multimedia content adaptation fully interoperable according to the vision of Universal Multimedia Access vision.

The tutorial helps elucidate the similarities and differences among the considered standards and networking applications. A number of research trends and challenges are identified, and selected promising solutions are discussed. This practice would needle further thoughts on the development of this area and open-up more research and application opportunities.

The paper does not provide methodical studies of networking application scenarios for all the discussed video coding standards and Quality of Service (QoS) management mechanisms.

The paper provides an overview of which technologies/mechanisms are being used broadly in networking scenarios of digital video libraries. The discussed networking scenarios bring together video coding standards and various emerging wireless networking paradigms toward innovative application scenarios.

QoS mechanisms and video coding standards that support multimedia applications for digital video libraries need to become well-known by library managers and professional associations in the fields of libraries and archives. The comprehensive overview and critiques on existing standards and application approaches offer a valuable reference for researchers and system developers in related research and industrial communities.

The writer of a review article in the IT area depends on a variety of information sources containing authoritative material, hyped‐up reports, or even partial or pure fiction. Sometimes articles are biased or the author has a particular axe to grind — for instance the person is associated with a company and the article is no more than a dressed up sales piece. Academics are usually reliable — although unlikely to damn themselves with faint praise if the next grant is round the corner. I will try to exercise good judgement when assessing my information sources, supressing my various prejudices if possible. But what is meant by the word new? For the purposes of this article ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) protocol (rules) and ATM switches in broadband networks, and aspects of Cable‐TV and cable modems have received a lot of exposure. They will not be discussed here. However, there is much interest in the contest between fibreoptic systems to the home and the conversion of telephone lines to wideband lines. These topics will be discussed.

On‐going technological advances may soon allow the development of an affordable, personal, easy‐to‐use, all‐purpose information storage and retrieval technology similar to the Memex system described by Vannevar Bush. This paper proposes an updated design for Memex (‘Memex‐TV’) based on high‐capacity data networks, multimedia and new user interface technologies. It is argued that technology such as Memex‐TV may well develop as a spin‐off from advances in entertainment technology. Section 6, ‘An evening with Memex‐TV’, illustrates the possible future interweaving of information retrieval and entertainment. Finally, it is argued that librarians need to consider entertainment technology's potential to influence the future of libraries more seriously.

An introduction to disc‐based audio‐video technologies

Description of the basic disc‐based audio‐video technologies.

Provides the baseline for types of disc‐based audio‐video technology such as holographic video disc (HVD), BluRay, HD DVD, DVD‐Audio and others.

This paper is useful for information management professionals who seek greater understanding of the basics disc storage medium.

This paper gives a review of the finite element techniques (FE) applied in the area of material processing. The latest trends in metal forming, non‐metal forming and powder metallurgy are briefly discussed. The range of applications of finite elements on the subjects is extremely wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore the aim of the paper is to give FE users only an encyclopaedic view of the different possibilities that exist today in the various fields mentioned above. An appendix included at the end of the paper presents a bibliography on finite element applications in material processing for the last five years, and more than 1100 references are listed.