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Recently, the popularity of store brands has resulted in some manufacturer brands being removed from shelves. The current literature lacks empirical work on the effect of manufacturer brand erosion on consumer assortment perception and repatronage intention. Based on signalling theory, the purpose of this paper is to manufacturer brands play a signalling role and contend that manufacturer brand erosion has detrimental effects on the assortment perception due to reduced signalling efficacy.

A 3 (low manufacturer brand erosion vs high manufacturer brand erosion vs manufacturer brand dominance) ×2 (assortment size: small vs large) between-subject experiment was conducted.

Manufacturer brand erosion exerts a negative effect on assortment attractiveness and consumers’ repatronage intention; the greater the erosion, the larger the negative effect. These negative effects are mediated by reduced consumer perceptions of assortment quality and variety. A large (vs small) assortment size attenuates the negative effect of manufacturer brand erosion by improving perceived assortment quality.

To engage in strategic positioning through efficient assortment management, retailers should cooperate with brand manufacturers, instead of promoting their own private labels. Nevertheless, a large assortment dominated by store brands signals that the retailer has built a strong private brand, which in turn gains a differentiation advantage.

This paper is among the first to take the signalling perspective and explicitly investigate whether and how manufacturer brand erosion exerts a significant impact on assortment perception.

When linked to human behavior and executed effectively, value-based pricing represents the most effective lever that a company has at its disposal to maximize profitability. The ability to integrate sophisticated analytics and market research in order to sell a customer the right product (and value) at the right price will drive profitability far more effectively and sustainably than other business initiatives (Marn & Rosiello, 1992, p. 84). This chapter addresses the use of analytics to determine where value resides and how to turn that analysis into an effective platform for pricing decisions. Organization-wide involvement in pricing is essential. A company must provide those persons responsible for pricing – including finance and sales persons – with information regarding the levers they can pull in the product transaction execution. Statistical business analytical software enables companies to apply microeconometrics (analytical and statistical capabilities) for the pricing and selling of products. The pricing waterfall helps companies understand where they can increase profits by using the pocket price and pocket margin to gain insights into which customer relationships can be more profitable than others. By examining the transaction structure, behavioral segmentation, and price optimization (three dimensions of the Analytics Triad), a company can conceive the full value proposition for groups of customers. An effective process and technology infrastructure that enables granular data development and analysis will help enable accurate and timely pricing decisions.

ALL machines, particularly modern machines, are constructed and operated with the general understanding that they will at some time wear out. Wear is combated in many ways but never more successfully from both scientific and economic points of view than when all the major parts of a machine wear out together. This state of affairs is obviously preferable to having a machine which will never wear out at all; for even if such an article could be made, the cost of its construction and operation would be uneconomical. As is well known, many machines do not wear out before they become obsolete, but again this is rarely either a sound economic or scientific proposition. Not only is loss of capital involved but an inaccurate estimation of operational life is a failure in the application of engineering knowledge. If this outlook can be sustained for machines generally it is certainly vital and of the highest importance for prime movers such as aero engines with which this paper is chiefly concerned. An aero engine today must give definite life for definite cost and in no other branch of engineering are quality and reliability so vital and cost, by reason of its very magnitude, so deeply considered. Hence no one has attempted to construct an aero engine which could be economically scrapped after its first overhaul life and not even the most optimistic manufacturers have devised a non‐wearing, everlasting product. As might be expected, a reasonable compromise is the general rule but it is however a noticeable fact that modern engines are becoming more and more resistant to wear and if anything there is a general tendency to the second alternative referred to above. The term “wear” in the general sense covers a multitude of physical changes and chemical reactions, some of which it is hoped to consider later, but if for a moment this expression is held to embrace the deterioration of highly stressed steel parts from prolonged fatigue, marked recent improvements can be reported. Some years ago it was common to replace certain aero engine parts for no other reason than that they were “time expired”. It was considered in such cases that the parts after a certain life had passed the safe limit of their fatigue resistance, although the parts themselves and the rest of the engine would be in what appeared a perfect condition. Developments over the past few years have made it possible to eliminate such precautions and in most modern engines all parts can be relied upon to maintain a safe margin of fatigue resistance for the useful life of the complete engine. This is an isolated example of how the wearing qualities, or more accurately, the endurance, of engines has been improved and it is of interest to note that these advances in the selection and better use of materials have nearly been equalled by improvements in actual surface wear resistance. It can be safely asserted that bearing combinations are available today which will resist surface wear indefinitely under the heaviest possible conditions of loading, providing the loading is not associated with other factors which cannot as yet be overcome. It is therefore an object of this paper, in addition to considering wear generally, to examine these factors as their interest lies in the obstacles they present to the production of a machine which will approach the ideal of being completely worn out after a given life.

The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) entered into their development stage when different applications became real. One of those application areas is agriculture. Agriculture and transport currently follow infrastructure as the top industries in the world UAV market. The agricultural UAV can be acquired as a ready-made, built by its future user or UAV-as-a-service (UaaS) way. This paper aims to help the UAVs’ users to choose the right sensors for agricultural purposes. For that sake, the overview of the types and application areas of onboard sensors is presented and discussed. Some conclusions and suggestions should allow readers to choose the proper onboard sensors set and the right way of acquiring UAVs for their purposes related to the agricultural area.

The agricultural UAVs’ onboard specialised sensors have been analysed, described and evaluated from the farmer’s operational point of view. That analysis took into consideration the agricultural UAVs’ types of missions, sensor characteristics, basics of the data processing software and the whole set of UAV-sensor-software operational features. As the conclusions, the trends in the onboard agricultural UAVs’ sensors, their applications and operational characteristics have been presented.

Services performed by the UAVs for the agriculture businesses are the second in the UAV services world market, and their growth potential is around 17% compound annual growth rate in the next years. As one of the quickest developing businesses, it will attract substantial investments in all related areas. They will be done in the research, development and market deployment stages of that technology development. The authors can expect the new business models of the equipment manufacturers, service providers and sellers of the equipment, consumables and materials. The world agricultural UAVs’ services market will be divided between the following two main streams: the UAVs’ solutions dedicated to the individual farmers, systems devoted to the companies giving the specialised services to individual farmers, in the form of UaaS. It will be followed by the two directions of the agriculture UAV set optimisation, according to each of the above streams’ specific requirements and expectations. Solutions for the individual users will be more straightforward, universal and more comfortable to operate but less effective and less accurate than systems dedicated to the agricultural service provider. UAVs are becoming important universal machines in the agriculture business. They are the newcomers in that business but can change the processes performed traditionally. Such an example is spraying the crops. UAVs spray the rice fields in Japan on at least half of them every year. The other is defoliating the cotton leaves, which only in one China province takes place on a few million hectares every year (Kurkute et al., 2018). That trend will extend the range of applications of UAVs. The agricultural UAV will take over process after process from the traditional machines. The types and number of missions and activities performed by agricultural UAVs are growing. They are strictly connected with the development of hardware and software responsible for those missions’ performance. New onboard sensors are more reliable, have better parameters and their prices are reasonable. Onboard computers and data processing and transmitting methods allow for effective solutions of automatisation and autonomy of the agricultural UAVs’ operation. Automatisation and autonomous performance of the UAVs’ agricultural missions are the main directions of the future development of that technology. Changing the UAV payload allows for its application to a different mission. Changing the payload, like effectors, is quite simple and does not require any special training or tooling. It can be done in the field during the regular operation of the agricultural UAV. Changing the sensor set can be more complicated, because of the eventually required calibrating of those sensors. The same set of sensors gives a possibility to perform a relatively broad range of missions and tasks. The universal setup consists of the multispectral and RGB camera. The agricultural UAV equipped with such a set of sensors can effectively perform most of the crop monitoring missions. The agriculture business will accept the optimised sensor-computer-software UAV payload set, where its exploitation cost and operational simplicity are the critical optimisation factors. Simplicity, reliability and effectiveness of the everyday operation are the vital factors of accepting the agricultural UAV technology as a widespread working horse.

Performed research studies have been done taking into consideration the factors influencing the real operational decisions made by the farmers or companies offering UAV services to them. In that case, e.g. the economical factors have been considered, which could prevail the technical complexity or measuring accuracy of the sensors. Then, drawn conclusions can be not accurate from the scientific research studies point of view, where the financing limits are not so strict.

The main goal of the paper is to present the reasons and factors influencing the “optimised” solution of the configuration of agricultural UAV onboard sensors set. It was done at the level useful for the readers understanding the end-users expectations and having a basic understanding of the sensors-related technologies. The paper should help them to configure an acceptable agricultural UAV for the specific missions or their servicing business.

Understanding the technology implications related to the applying of agricultural UAVs into everyday service is one of the main limits of that technology market deployment. The conclusions should allow for avoiding the misunderstanding of the agricultural UAVs’ capabilities and then increasing their social acceptance. That acceptance by the farmers is the key factor for the effective introduction of that technology into the operation.

Presented conclusions have been drawn on the base of the extensive research of the existing literature and web pages, and also on the own experience in forestry and agriculture and other technical applications of the onboard sensors. The experience in practical aspects of the sensors choosing and application into several areas have been also used, e.g. manned and unmanned aeroplanes and helicopters applied in similar and other types of missions.

SUMMARY The main overall problems associated with transparencies for manned supersonic and hypersonic aircraft are considered. Civil and military concepts are compared in relation to aircraft performance requirements and the reasons for the continuing need for optical transparencies are enumerated. Aircraft performance requirements and typical flight plans show the necessity for designing the transparencies to withstand a considerable range of environmental conditions in addition to the aerodynamic dictates in relation to size, position and shape. These conditions are listed and design feature considerations are discussed in some detail with particular accent on the thermal problems. Reference is made to certain organic and inorganic materials for the basic glazings and the problems associated with the ‘marrying’ of these materials with retaining frame members are discussed. Detail proposals are made for typical windscreen and canopy assemblies. Brief reference is made to the poor reliability shown by many transparencies in present‐day modern aircraft which indicates the need for revision of certain existing test requirements. The proposed new requirements will result in the development of new testing techniques although test factors might well be reduced. The paper concludes with a statement on the importance which is being given to the subject matter by the various bodies in the U.K. and the emphasis which should be placed on the need for the continuation of research and development work in this field.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

How can leaders adopt a mindset that maximizes learning, remains responsive to short-term emergent opportunities, and simultaneously strengthens longer-term dynamic capabilities of the organization? This chapter explores the organizational decisions and practices leaders can initiate to extend, strengthen, or transform “ordinary capabilities” (Winter, 2003) into enhanced improvisational competence and dynamic capabilities. We call this leadership logic the “jazz mindset.” We draw upon seven characteristics of jazz bands as outlined by Barrett (1998) to show that strategic leaders of business organizations can enhance dynamic capabilities by strengthening practices observed in improvising jazz bands.

Defects in fabric have been and continue to be a major source of seconds in finished garments. These defects persist despite several visual inspections and intensive efforts to remove defective parts during sewing operations. The increased use of automation in assembly steps will intensify the problem of detection and removal of fabric defects in cut‐parts. Describes a workstation utilizing machine vision which has been designed and constructed to detect and remove defective cut‐parts prior to the initiation of assembly operations. The workstation employs two vision systems — an area camera and a line camera — to inspect parts on a conveyor belt both statically and dynamically. The colour of the parts is also determined and the area and perimeter are measured to detect improperly cut parts. The acceptable parts are then stacked in a manner suitable for input to an automated sewing station. The workstation should permit placing into the assembly operations a set of defect‐free, properly‐cut and colour‐matched parts. It is estimated that this cut‐part inspection system will reduce defects in finished garments by approximately 50 per cent and should greatly simplify the labour‐intensive and costly fabric defect control systems currently in place in most apparel plants.

This paper examines the gray market for consumer products, with a particular emphasis on the reasons for gray market growth, the distinct channels of distribution for gray market products, and the means by which the gray markets may be terminated. Secondary emphasis is provided on the factors that lead to gray market emergence and on the impact of exchange rates on gray markets. A major conclusion of the analysis is that gray markets for consumer products will continue to grow as manufacturers benefit from gray markets. This growth will be associated with products manufactured and distributed within the national market rather than imported products which fueled the gray market growth of the previous five years.

RECENTLY Thomas Waide & Sons Ltd, a Leeds firm of colour printers, Rcelebrated their centenary and published a book recording their 100 years of existence.