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The concept of L‐fuzzy systems is introduced as a generalisation of that of general systems. A universal structure of a special kind of L‐fuzzy system is given, some mapping properties of L‐fuzzy systems are studied and a number of open questions posed.

The organic product market can be considered as an emerging market. Since the 1990s it has experienced rapid growth, and supermarket chains have become the sales channel with the largest market share and are the main driver for further growth. However, different supermarket retail groups have very different strategies concerning the marketing of organic products. The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the different strategies of retailers who are active in the organic product market and to explain the drivers which may underlie them.

The strategies of the three most important Belgian retailers that market organic products, and in particular organic beef, are analyzed. Data were collected through interviews with the retailers' staff and through observations in retail outlets. Also, GfK‐household panel data which recorded all purchases of 3,000 Belgian households and a postal survey with 529 respondents were used as data sources.

The different strategies used by retailers to market organic foods are associated with the overall characteristics and marketing strategies of the retail groups. Some retail groups have clear “first mover” advantages from engaging in the organic product line, while for others an adaptive strategy is more appropriate.

The insights from this paper will help the understanding and facilitate the development of future strategies for organic and other high‐value or premium products, which will be of interest to researchers and stakeholders who are active in these markets.

The retail sector is not a single homogeneous block, but instead consists of retailers who pursue quite different strategies. This concept may have major implications for the future development of high‐value markets.

Existing relevant theories were applied to the adoption of the organic product line, a segment in the portfolio of retailers that is becoming more important. The empirical material collected sheds new light on the drivers behind retail strategies.

Studies the concept of the Cartesian composition of fuzzy finite state machines. Shows that fuzzy finite state machines and their Cartesian composition share many structural properties. Some of these properties are singly generated; retrievability, connectedness, strong connectedness, commutativity, perfection and state independence. Thus a fuzzy finite state machine which is a Cartesian composition of submachines can be studied in terms of smaller machines.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretically informed analysis of the evolution of environmental management accounting (EMA) and social and environmental reporting (SER), and the accompanying development of a sustainability programme, in a large family-owned, unlisted corporation.

A longitudinal case study based on semi-structured interviews and documentary data was conducted. The main periods of fieldwork were carried out in 2007 and between 2010 and 2012. Sustainability reports were collected until 2019 when SER appeared to cease. The case analysis draws on the concepts of organisational identity (OI) and internal legitimacy (IL) to examine the decision-making and actions of a range of key organisational actors as they engage with EMA and SER.

The study demonstrates that a gap between an organisation’s identity claims (“who we are”) and its enacted identity (“what we do”) can enable the adoption of constitutive, performative and representational EMA and SER. It illuminates the nature of the role of key actors and organisational dynamics, in the form of OI and IL, in adapting these practices. It also demonstrates that, in giving meaning to the concept of sustainability, organisational actors can draw on their organisation’s identity and construct the comprehensibility of an organisational sustainability programme.

More empirical work is needed to examine the applicability of OI and IL to other settings. It would also be beneficial to examine the potential for OI work to allow organisations to change and reinvent themselves in response to the evermore pressing environmental crisis and the role, if any, of EMA in this process.

The study enriches our understanding of why and how EMA and SER evolve by demonstrating that paying attention to OI and IL can provide further insight into the decision-making and actions of organisational members as they recognise, evaluate, support and cease these practices.

This study aims to study the radar cross-section (RCS) of an intermeshing rotor with blade pitch.

The variation of rotor blade pitch is designed into three modes: fixed mode, linear mode and smooth mode. The dynamic process of two crossed rotors is simulated, where the instantaneous RCS is calculated by physical optics and physical theory of diffraction.

Increasing the pitch angle in the fixed mode can reduce the average RCS of rotor at the given head azimuth. The RCS curve of helicopter in linear mode and smooth mode will have a large peak in the side direction at the given moment. Although the blade pitch in smooth mode is generally larger than that in fixed mode, the smooth mode is conducive to reducing the peak and mean value of helicopter RCS at the given heading azimuth.

The calculation method for analyzing RCS of intermeshing rotor with variable blade pitch is established.

In hydraulically‐operated retractable wheels for aircraft the actuating member comprises a jack having a piston connected on one side with a motive pump and an exhaust, and on the other side with a hydro‐pneumatic pressure accumulator into which the liquid is forced by the jack during each lifting operation, the stored energy in the accumulator actuating the jack to assist the action of gravity when lowering the wheels. The retractable wheels R (Fig. 1) are each pivoted at A and connected to a fluid‐operated piston in a cylinder V pivoted at T, the wheels being drawn up into the machine through spring‐operated doors C1, D1 which are opened by fluid‐operated means G2 (Fig. 2) when the wheels are lowered. The cylinder V is connected by pipe 3 and non‐return valve 4 to a pump 1 supplied from a reservoir 2, surplus liquid being bye‐passed from the pump through a pipe 16. A pipe 5 for exhausting the cylinder V is connected through a manually‐operated valve 6 to the reservoir 5 and a branch 3a from the pipe 3 is connected to a cylinder 8 whereby pressure is applied to move valve 12 and non‐return valve 10 to place the other end of the cylinder V to discharge through pipes 3b, 3e to a pneumatic accumulator 9 supplied with air from a cylinder 14. When pressure is supplied by the pump 1 to the cylinder V to retract the wheels, a projection on the valve 12 opens the valve 10 and the liquid in the other end of the cylinder is forced into the accumulator 9, and when the wheels are to be lowered the valve 6 is opened by the lever 7 to exhaust one end of the cylinder into the reservoir 2 while the other end of the cylinder is supplied with pressure fluid from the accumulator. A pipe 17 from the pump 1 is connected to a cylinder G2 and is provided with a branch 18 and manually‐operated valve 19 whereby the cylinder may be exhausted. The cylinders G2 (Fig. 5) are connected by links to the doors C1, C2 maintained in the closed position by springs r1, r2, the doors C1, C2 being interconnected to open smaller doors D1 (Fig. 1) which remain open when the wheels R are lowered. The levers 25, 20, 7 (Fig. 2) are connected to a single control lever. In Fig. 10, the wheel arm J is pivoted at A and is connected by piston rod P to the cylinder V pivoted at T. A wire 35 connected to the arm J passes over pulleys 36, 37, and is connected to a piston in a horizontal cylinder 41 open to a pneumatic reservoir 9. When the wheel R is raised to the position R1 by the admission of fluid under the piston P, the wire 35 rapidly withdraws the piston in the cylinder 41 to compress the air in the accumulator 9, and since the effect of gravity is not so pronounced between the positions R, R1 as between R1, R2 and the fact that the air pressure on R tends to raise the wheel, the pressure applied to the piston P is mainly stored in the accumulator 9. From the position R to R1 the effect of air pressure is less and gravity greater, so that between these positions the wire 35 is adapted to lap around a pulley 43 on the axis A whereby the movement of the piston in the cylinder 41 is small and less power is stored in the accumulator 9, the pressure on the piston P being primarily expended in raising the wheel from R1 to R2. Similarly when lowering the wheel the accumulator expends the greatest power between R1, R. A device for recovering any leakage from the pump 1 when the reservoir 2 is at a higher level is shown in Fig. 9. A leakage pipe 28 is connected by a housing 29 and pipe 30 to the suction pipe 33, and the housing contains a float 31 with upper and lower needle valves. When the housing 29 is full of liquid, the pipe 28 is closed by the upper needle valve and the liquid in the housing is withdrawn through pipe 30 and when the housing is empty the float falls and closes the pipe 30.

This article comprises an attempt to find a practical method of applying the decision in the case of the Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service v Woulidge (63 SATC 483) (‘Woulidge’) to limit the application of section 7(3) of the Income Tax Act (‘the Act’). It is proposed in this article that Woulidge would also apply to the provisions of section 7(5) and paragraphs 69 and 70 of the Eighth Schedule to the Act. The approach proposed is illustrated by means of examples. The approach adopted by the Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service is also discussed. A conclusion is drawn regarding the practicality of applying Woulidge in the light of the examples.

TURBINE disks are subject to stresses due to two causes; the inertia effects of rotation, and the radial variation of temperature across the disk. Elastic stresses due to each of these effects may be determined separately and superposed to obtain the resultant stress distribution.

Systems with the so‐called “additive” property are studied. This kind of system is an abstract in the language of systems theory of some useful structures in mathematics, such as topology. Some mapping properties between additive systems are given and open questions are posed.

The paper aims to investigate whether or not a firm’s capital structure can interact with past stock returns to affect future stock returns. Specifically, the authors examine whether or not capital structure can help improve momentum profit.

The authors use the US common stocks data from 1965 to 2022 to empirically examine the impact of capital structure on momentum profit.

When capital structure is measured either as the ratio of debt to asset or the ratio of liability to asset, we all find out that momentum strategies tend to be more profitable for stocks with large capital structure.

Besides documenting the empirical evidence of the impact of capital structure on momentum profit, the authors also present a simple explanation for their empirical results and show that their finding is consistent with the behavioral finance theory that characterizes investors’ increased psychological bias and the more limited arbitrage opportunity when the estimation of firm value becomes more difficult or less accurate.