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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of disorderly environment on consumers’ preferences for boundaries and the mediating effect of personal control in this process.

The authors examined hypotheses in two studies. In Study 1, the authors measured environmental orderliness, preference for boundaries and other control variables like positive and negative emotions. In Study 2, the authors primed participants’ concept of environmental orderliness and measured personal control as well as the same variables in Study 1.

Consumers in disorderly environments prefer bounded logos more compared to those in orderly environments. Personal control mediates the effect of chaotic physical environment on the preference for boundaries. Compared with the counterparts in the orderly environment, consumers in the disorderly environment have a lack of personal control, thus giving the preference to logos with boundaries.

This paper discusses the mechanism of the process that the disorderly environment triggers the individual’s preference for bounded design, which enriches the research related to physical environment in the field of consumer behavior. However, it fails to examine the influence of disorderly environment on the preference for real bounded products and did not discuss the invisible boundary.

The impact of the disorderly environment on consumers’ boundary preferences, which the research focuses on, has further deepened the understanding of the boundaries, and to some extent, the authors filled the research gap in this field.

The purpose of studying the low voltage direct current (DC) microgrid, which uses computerised control system techniques, an orderly coordination control stratagem considering optimisation of a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) was projected in this paper.

The projected control stratagem was divided into three levels: topmost power dispatch level, transitional bus voltage regulation level and bottommost converter control level.

At the topmost power dispatch level, the cost of system stability was introduced, which is related with state of charge and discharging power of HESS.

Furthermore, the cost of system stability and HESS depreciation was compared with commercial price, and HESS switches its operating mode to discharge more at higher price or charge more at lower price to ensure the DC microgrid in economic operation. At the transitional bus voltage regulation level, DC bus gesturing is used as a control signal to achieve an autonomous decentralised operation of DC microgrid. The Matlab/Simulink simulation inveterate that the economical and autonomous decentralised operation can be achieved through the control stratagem.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the system of development controls in the Offinso South municipality. It investigates the challenges to the development control regime.

The paper reviews the land use regulation system in the municipality. The municipality was clustered into four for data collection. Eight neighbourhoods (two from each cluster) were selected from the municipality for the study. In all, 15 properties were sampled via purposive sampling techniques from each of the selected neighbourhoods for data gathering. Self-administered questionnaires were relied on to gather data from the 120 respondents. The property owners were the unit of enquiry.

The paper finds that socio-cultural factors, delays in the planning approval process, negative public perceptions about the planning process and planning officials, lack of official support to developers in curing identified defects in their proposed developments, and unrealistic building regulations are partly responsible for the large-scale violations of development controls in the municipality.

It is noted that the planning authority should focus more on strategies that will facilitate voluntary compliance and less on enforcement. It also notes the need for a review of the building regulations and the purging of the planning system from negative public perceptions and processing delays.

The paper identifies the constraints on the Ghanaian development controls regime.

The decade of the 1970s will go down in the history of marketing as the period when strategic marketing planning first emerged as an identifiable area of theory and practice. In the process, a whole new vocabulary of terms was added to the marketing lexicon. Thus, one now speaks of cash cows, stars, problem children, and dogs when one refers to products and product portfolios. To deal with products classified in this manner, a set of four general market‐share‐based strategies has been formulated: building; holding; harvesting; and withdrawal.

This article examines practical methods of control assessment and provides a number of specific case applications which highlight key issues for auditors and managers.

The recent history and present state of the canning industry in the United States make anything but cheerful reading. If growers and producers can derive any satisfaction by reflecting that all the other great industries are in much the same state of suspended animation, with no immediate prospect of “coming to,” they are certainly welcome to it, as under present conditions it is about the only satisfaction they will get, for the problems facing the trade and associated industries are as urgent as they seem insoluble. Prices of agricultural products have suffered an all‐round and very serious decline, and all exports are down. Packing‐house products have lessened by about one‐third in value and about one‐half in quantity when compared with those of 1930. The 1932 Year Book of Agriculture states that the exports of canned vegetables have declined by 33 per cent. in quantity and in value. The causes hardly need restating. Expansion as a result of war conditions and those immediately succeeding the war, and then restricted buying power in the home and foreign markets, has resulted in a futile attempt to market about twice as much as people were able to buy. A cursory inspection of the official figures relating to production in field and orchard, output in the factory, and export oversea, tell the tale with the dreadful eloquence of figures. The industry is fiscally well protected. The Tariff Act of 1930 shows that there is a duty on “ meat—prepared or preserved ” of six cents per lb., but not less than 20 per cent. ad valorem, unless it is otherwise specially provided for (paragraph 706). Fish prepared or preserved in any manner in oil or in oil and other substances 30 per cent. ad valorem (paragraph 718a), or prepared or preserved in any manner (except as in para. 718a) when packed in airtight containers weighing with their contents not more than 15 lbs. each, 25 per cent. ad valorem, and (paragraph 721c) fish sauce and fish paste 30 per cent. ad valorem. Apricots, berries, plums, peaches, pears, other fruits and all jellies, jams, marmalades and fruit butters, fruit pastes and fruit pulps have (paragraphs 735, 736, 745, 748, 749, 751, 752 and 775) a duty levied on them of 35 per cent. ad valorem. Apples—and the United States is by far the largest exporter of apples in the world—when dried, desiccated, or evaporated are subject to a duty of two cents per lb., and if otherwise prepared or preserved, and not specially provided for, 2½ cents per lb. Most assuredly all would be well with the industry if a tariff wall could do it. The home market is immense, and all fruits, temperate, tropical or semi‐tropical varieties, can be grown in the United States or its dependencies, and many of the fruits cannot be grown at all in countries that otherwise might be their competitors, or if grown are grown at disadvantages arising from either climate or limitation of area, late development of the industry, distance from the chief markets, insufficient means of transport, or want of development in technique, skill or knowledge. It has been said that the United States' packers spend twenty millions of money a year in advertising, and they make use, as is well known, of every device that modern science combined with the skill of specialists in this respect places at their disposal. It seems that for the past ten or fifteen years a growing competition has existed between canned and fresh fruits, or, to put it a little more accurately, between canners of fruit and growers of fruit. This would to some extent explain how it has come about that the powers of advertisement have been so strongly appealed to, as the figures just quoted show. The “ prejudice,” to use the official word, in favour of raw as opposed to canned fruit has by this means been partly overcome. We may remark in passing that the word “ prejudice ” is here not very happily chosen, as it seems to imply an unreasonable dislike on the part of the consumer. The preference, however, for the raw fruits of the earth is as old as the human race itself. No matter how skilfully canning may be carried out—and it is stated that no case of botulism due to commercially‐packed fruit has been encountered by the health authorities for the past two years—man, woman and especially the child will always in the future as in the past prefer freshly‐picked fruit to canned fruit, other things being equal. Good though it may be, canned fruit suffers from a deficiency of Vitamin C, and for that reason it can only be regarded as a substitute for the fresh stuff when this is not obtainable. No amount of propaganda will alter this. Not only, however, is there competition between the sellers of raw and the sellers of canned fruit, but there is competition between the canners themselves, and sharp competition may very easily in the long run lead to inferiority of product. Thus in an effort to stop “ some of the trade abuses which have grown up,” we are told that several trade organisations have been established, each one handling one particular product and to thereby control the orderly marketing of some lines of canned food. What exact form the implied disorderly marketing took we are not told, but we do know that some packers were marketing stuff which though not in conflict with the terms of the Food and Drugs Act was still of a quality distinctly inferior to the products which were being marketed by their competitors who paid more regard to the spirit of the law. A decided tendency was thereby created to lower the general standard of excellence of canned food products and thus injuriously to affect, if not to nullify, the good name of American canned foods. It is of little use to stand, so to speak, in the markets of the world and shout to gods and men to acknowledge the superior quality of your goods when it is only a question of time for the consumers to find out that they are not that which they are said to be. The man at home or abroad very naturally will not pay top prices for a tin of scraps or second‐rate stuff if he can help it. A compromise was then brought about to which exception might conceivably be taken on theoretical as well as on practical grounds by those whom we may call food purists, but the spirit of compromise has often been the saviour of Anglo‐Saxon civilisation and vested interests. It was so in this case. The Mc‐Nary Mapes Amendment to the Food and Drugs Act was at the instance of the more reputable packing houses applied to the trade of canned fruits and vege tables. By the terms of this amendment sub‐standard material may be marketed, but it must be clearly labelled as such in order that the consumer may at least receive a warning as to the real nature of the stuff he is buying. “ Below United Stales standard. Low quality, but not illegal.” Caveat emptor ! At first the canned fruit trade had not been affected by this amendment, which applied to other kinds of canned foods, but in July of 1931 the canning industry was given an official grading service under the Federal Government, the Department of Agriculture being made responsible for its administration. Grading offices are now being established in various parts of the States. A canner may on application to the Secretary of Agriculture submit samples either drawn by himself, or by an officer of the Department, or by an official sampler. The Department will then, after examination, issue a certificate of grade. This certificate has the important property of “ being admissible in all Courts of the United States as primâ facie evidence of the truth of the statements contained therein.” It is hardly necessary to point out how useful such a document proves in the case of legal actions, or to the wholesale buyer or agent. The canners, buyers and warehousemen, we are told, support the idea enthusiastically, and it seems that it is only a question of time before all canned fruits and vegetables will be officially standarised and graded. One result of the amendment is that before a grade certificate is issued the contents of the tin must be proved to be tender and well cooked. This in addition to quality in other respects and to fill of can. The apparatus used to determine this is essentially a mercury‐loaded steal plunger of given diameter working in a vertical collar. The point of the plunger is brought into contact with a specimen of the fruit to be tested. The plunger is loaded. The fruit being at length penetrated by the plunger. The combined weight of plunger, flask and mercury needed to bring this about being a measure of the tenderness of the fruit.

Building societies developed in the second half of the 18th century when country people came flooding into the towns and cities to provide the workforce for the new factories. Faced with a lack of suitable housing in industrial centres, more enterprising and prosperous workers clubbed together to build their own homes. The first building society was established in Birmingham in 1775.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview for those interested in the current state‐of‐the‐art in time management research.

This review includes 32 empirical studies on time management conducted between 1982 and 2004.

The review demonstrates that time management behaviours relate positively to perceived control of time, job satisfaction, and health, and negatively to stress. The relationship with work and academic performance is not clear. Time management training seems to enhance time management skills, but this does not automatically transfer to better performance.

The reviewed research displays several limitations. First, time management has been defined and operationalised in a variety of ways. Some instruments were not reliable or valid, which could account for unstable findings. Second, many of the studies were based on cross‐sectional surveys and used self‐reports only. Third, very little attention was given to job and organizational factors. There is a need for more rigorous research into the mechanisms of time management and the factors that contribute to its effectiveness. The ways in which stable time management behaviours can be established also deserves further investigation.

This review makes clear which effects may be expected of time management, which aspects may be most useful for which individuals, and which work characteristics would enhance or hinder positive effects. Its outcomes may help to develop more effective time management practices.

This review is the first to offer an overview of empirical research on time management. Both practice and scientific research may benefit from the description of previous attempts to measure and test the popular notions of time management.

Bar‐tacking is a specialized sewing stitch designed to provide immense tensile strength to the garment which requires a high‐speed precision bar‐tacking sewing machine. This paper aims to present an event‐driven multi‐axis cooperative control method for a bar‐tacking sewing machine.

The control method consists of two parts: the multi‐axis cooperative control and the needle stop positioning control. The challenges include the high speed and the precision. For example, the needle must stop at a set position in milliseconds.

The presented multi‐axis cooperative control can ensure the high speed response and the precision of the cooperative control. The needle stop positioning control is based on a combination of the velocity control and the position control with velocity feed‐forward and limitation.

The bar‐tacking sewing machine requires high‐speed start and stop response and coordination of displacement and velocity only at some given points. Therefore, the conventional multi‐axis cooperative control methods are not suitable. In addition, it requires high‐speed precision control under varying loading conditions.

While there are a number of commercial textile machines available in the market, designing a smart bar‐tacking sewing machine with good speed and precision performance remains a challenge.

The bar‐tacking sewing machine requires highly accurate multi‐axes cooperative control. The presented event‐driven multi‐axis control method is effective. It has not only the required high accuracy but also the fast time response.