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EXPERIENCE has shown that the common method of “laying out” geometrical problems on the drawing board leads to a large expenditure of man‐hours and, in general, a result of doubtful accuracy. This loss of accuracy is aggravated by scale, and results on large structures may be inaccurate by a prohibitive amount. Use of analytical geometry may be said to have two major advantages, therefore, (a) Less man‐hours required for the job, (b) Any desired standard of accuracy may be obtained.

FOLDING wings of the type employing a skew—hinge axis present a somewhat difficult lay‐out problem in way of the wing cut. The problem with which this article is concerned is that of obtaining, in the form of vertical spanwise sections, the surface swept out by one cut edge of the folding portion as the wing rotates. This enables the bottom cut line to be determined when the top cut line is known, or vice versa. If the leading edge rises when the wing folds, the top cut line will be determined by the fully folded position; if the leading edge falls, it will be the bottom cut line that is thus determined. The following diagrams and calculations are made for the rising leading edge type; the same method may be applied to the falling leading edge type viewing the wing upside down. A numerical example is worked along with the theory.

A FREQUENTLY recurring problem, more particularly in the sphere of electrical engineering practice, is the determination of the equivalent rating of a machine or piece of apparatus under conditions of intermittent loading. By equivalent rating is to be understood the value of the continuous load, whether expressed in terms of current or power, which will produce the same final temperature rise as is actually produced by the given intermittent load.

AXIAL flow fans were originally developed from aircraft airscrews and therefore can be claimed as children of aeronautical science. Their use has been confined in aeronautics to wind tunnels and radial engine cooling until the advent of ‘pressurized’ cabins. In this case ventilation requirements have caused an axial flow fan to be used. These fans have been gradually developed in the ventilation industry and they are replacing centrifugal fans where these would have been used previously. Price and noise level have not been in the axial flow fans' favour in this fight but they have advantages of higher efficiency, ease of installation and non‐overloading power characteristic. Latest developments in aerodynamic design and production technique suggest that the disadvantages are being overcome. This note is intended to furnish a general introduction to the design features of axial flow fans for aircraft ventilation.

This American textbook, originally reviewed in AIRCRAFT ENGINEERING, Vol. xvi, June, 1944, p. 170, has now been made available in Great. Britain, so attention may again be called to it as it provides a practical means of applying analytical geometry to aircraft lofting. The author is head of Engineering Loft' Mathematics at North American Aviation, Inc. He thus occupies a position which has no counterpart in the average British firm, and the book is interesting as an insight into modern American methods.

In the context of increasing consolidation in the banking industry, this research examined one of the motives for bank acquisitions and the kinds of acquisitions made by banking firms. The effect of ownership concentration was tested on the absolute level of bank acquisitions and the average degree of geographic‐market overlap of these acquisitions. In a sample of 156 banking firms, banks featuring dispersed ownership were found to acquire other banks with less market‐overlap than did banking firms with concentrated ownership. However, ownership concentration was not a significant predictor of the absolute level of merger activity. Implications of these differences in acquisition strategies are explored.

The purpose of this study is to understand how narratives are generated in stores.

The study design is based on ethnographies documented in 10 sports stores in the Paris region. The ethnographic method enables a precise and in situ observation of how narratives are structured. Narrative structures develop from the accommodation of the narratives specific to retailers and narratives specific to the customer.

The findings of this study identified four main narratives in retail spaces (the serial, the tale, the epic, the legend), each of which is distinguished by the commercial/non-commercial orientation of the narratives and by a superficial/in-depth modification of the narratives produced outside the store. These four narratives are characterized by the vendors’ roles and by the distinct interactions between customers and retail stores.

The originality of this study is to propose a narrative framework for retail structures. It illustrates the fact that the narrative is not solely a product of experiential marketing, but that it may be found in any retail store. From a practical point of view, it highlights other less costly experiential narrative strategies.

From a practical point of view, it highlights other less costly experiential narrative strategies.

The original value of this study is to apply structural semiotics to analyse narratives in the store.

In the context of a profound digital transformation, the need for social interactivity is becoming fundamental for consumers on e-commerce sites. It allows them to interact with the company in the same way as with salespeople in physical stores. Among the different existing virtual agents used by companies to offer online solid interaction, this study focuses on virtual recommendation agents (VRAs). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of VRA on consumers’ psychological states and online impulse buying.

An experimental website was designed for this study. After interacting with VRA, respondents had to take part in a survey. The questionnaire included measures of perception of the VRA, perceived enjoyment, online impulse buying and perceived risk. Structural equation modelling was used to test the research model.

The results confirm the positive influence of the VRA on perceived enjoyment, which is positively associated with online impulse buying. The effect of the VRA’s presence on perceived enjoyment is moderated by gender.

Only one product category was studied, for which the advice of VRAs is undoubtedly essential. However, this could also be valid for other products, such as technological products, where the consumer’s level of expertise may be low. Hence, the authors propose to extend this study to various products for a better generalization of the results.

This study provides practitioners with relevant findings on the efficiency of VRAs and offers them guidelines to design more interactive commercial websites with higher levels of social interactions. Such interactions should reduce perceived risks and make visitors more confident. This can encourage more traffic and sales, which implies growth in incomes and revenues.

Through this technology, VRAs can create more humanized links between consumers and companies.

Working on VRAs is original as they represent the technology that can replace salespeople. In addition, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to test the impact of VRA on online impulse buying. By examining the VRA’s set of fundamental capabilities, this study contributes to existing research on how companies should integrate digital technologies in their sales interactions with consumers, which to date has focused on other sales channels such as social media platforms.

Fans are proactive consumers of pop culture products, who can be seen as prosumers. Fanvideo production is one of their most widespread practices in the participatory culture scenario. Thus, the aim of the present study is to analyze how ludic prosumption is featured on plays performed in Brazilian fanvideos based on successful pop culture franchises.

Research based on the interpretive content analysis of fanvideos of plays produced by Brazilian fans based on five emblematic pop culture franchises and published on YouTube.

Results have shown six play types in the analyzed fanvideos – i.e. child's play, performing powers, cosplay, play in social rites, teaching to play and “zuêra” –, which revealed a way of having fun in different situations through different practices based on ludic consumption experiences in different spheres of social life.

CCT-based studies focused on investigating plays as ludic consumption phenomenon, as well as fan culture, remain at early research stage. Thus, the main contribution of the present study lies on associating such concepts based on the concept of prosumption.

The software development team reviews the testing phase to assess if the reliability growth of software is as per plan and requirement and gives suggestions for improvement. The objective of this study is to determine the optimal review time such that there is enough time to make judgments about changes required before the scheduled release.

Testing utilizes majority of time and resources, assures reliability and plays a critical role in release and warranty decision-making reviews necessary. A very early review during testing may not give useful information for analyzing or improving project performance, and a very late review may delay product delivery and lead to opportunity loss for developers. Therefore, it is assumed that the optimal time for review is in the later stage of testing when the fault removal rate starts to decline. The expression for this time point is determined using the S-curve 2-D software reliability growth model (SRGM).

The methodology has been illustrated using the real-life fault datasets of Tandem computers and radar systems resulting in optimal review time of 14 weeks and 26 months, respectively, which is neither very early in testing nor very near to the scheduled release. The developer can make changes (more resources or postpone release) to expedite the process.

Most of the literature studies focus on determination of optimal testing or release time to achieve considerable reliability within the budget, but in this study, the authors determine the optimal review time during testing using SRGM to ensure the considerable reliability at release.