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This study examines the roles of market demand, industry structure, and firm strategy in the development of the robotics industry in the United States and Japan, focusing on differences between the two countries. On the demand side, Japan had a strong market for robots in the automotive and electrical machinery sectors. The U.S. got a slow start in the automotive sector and was unable to move rapidly to other customer sectors. On the supply side, the U.S. robotics industry consisted of mostly small and medium‐sized firms, while the Japanese robotics industry included many large‐diversified firms. Also, many U.S. robotics firms entered the market through acquisitions of and licenses with others, while many Japanese robotics firms moved forward in measured steps rather than attempting to make great leaps. Understanding these differences in market demand, industry structure, and firm strategy can help assess the overall competitiveness and development of the robotics industry in the U.S. and Japan.

The purpose of this paper is to provide some new empirical evidence on the weekend effect (one of the best known anomalies in financial markets) in Ukrainian futures prices. The analysis uses various statistical techniques.

The analysis uses various statistical techniques (average analysis, Student’s t-test, dummy variables, and fractional integration) to test for the presence of this anomaly, and then a trading simulation approach to establish whether it can be exploited to make extra profits.

The statistical evidence points to abnormal positive returns on Fridays, and a trading strategy based on this anomaly is shown to generate annual profits of up to 25 per cent. The implication is that the Ukrainian stock market is inefficient.

This paper provides some new empirical evidence on the weekend effect (one of the best known anomalies in financial markets) in Ukrainian futures prices. The analysis uses various statistical techniques (average analysis, Student’s t-test, dummy variables, and fractional integration) to test for the presence of this anomaly, and then a trading simulation approach to establish whether it can be exploited to make extra profits. The statistical evidence points to abnormal positive returns on Fridays, and a trading strategy based on this anomaly is shown to generate annual profits of up to 25 per cent. The implication is that the Ukrainian stock market is inefficient.

Sweden is one of the countries most densely populated by industrial robots. In this article, the market growth, the structure of applications, the marketing, and the buyer behaviour are described, and compared to the UK situation. Some future trends are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to review the biannual Robot Show in Chicago with emphasis on innovative robot applications on display.

The approach takes the form of in‐depth interviews with exhibitors of robots as well as system integrators who apply robots to specific categories of applications.

Robots are rapidly moving from the industrial environment into all types of service applications. They are also becoming more autonomous, more mobile, finding their own way and delivering critical loads in office, hospital, and laboratory settings and even providing security functions.

Users who investigated robot solutions in the past and found that they did not meet applications requirements may find it is time to revisit robotics. Robot builders and system integrators are providing more suitable solutions that can better address application needs in a more cost‐effective manner than ever before.

Robots for non‐industrial applications are receiving lots of attention. Many first time exhibitors at the recent biannual Robot Show featured units for personal service, healthcare, and other non‐industrial applications.

Expectations play a crucial role in finance, macroeconomics, monetary economics, and fiscal policy. In the last decade a rapidly increasing number of laboratory experiments have been performed to study individual expectation formation, the interactions of individual forecasting rules, and the aggregate macro behavior they co-create. The aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive literature survey on laboratory experiments on expectations in macroeconomics and finance. In particular, we discuss the extent to which expectations are rational or may be described by simple forecasting heuristics, at the individual as well as the aggregate level.

The purpose of this paper is to review the PACK EXPO show (packaging technology), with emphasis on the new robot innovations and applications to packaging on display.

The paper includes in‐depth interviews with exhibitors of robots of all types and integrators of robots at the PACK EXPO Show.

Robots are addressing the packaging needs for faster robots, as well as robots that are smarter and can operate more autonomously than in the past.

Packaging customers now have robot innovations to address packaging requirements with faster and smarter product handling technologies to increase productivity and decrease packaging costs.

For packaging customers who could not attend PACK EXPO, the paper is an opportunity to see and learn about some of the robot innovations that were on display.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential roles for service robots (i.e. socially assistive robots) in value networks of elderly care. Taking an elderly person’s perspective, it defines robot roles according to their value co-creating/destroying potential for the elderly user (i.e. focal actor), while acknowledging consequences for a network of users around the elderly (i.e. network actors).

This qualitative, interpretative study employs in-depth phenomenographic interviews, supported by generative cards activities (i.e. Contextual Value Network Mapping), to elicit an elderly person’s tacit knowledge and anticipate the effects of introducing an automated actor on institutionalized value co-creation practices.

The proposed typology identifies six roles of socially assistive robots in an elderly person’s value network (enabler, intruder, ally, replacement, extended self, and deactivator) and links them to three health-supporting functions by robots: safeguarding, social contact, and cognitive support.

Elderly people have notable expectations about the inclusion of a socially assistive robot as a new actor in their value networks. The identified robot roles inform service scholars and managers about both the value co-destruction potential that needs to be avoided through careful designs and the value co-creation potential that should be leveraged.

Using network-conscious phenomenographic interviews before the introduction of a novel value proposition sheds new light on the shifting value co-creation interplay among value network actors (i.e. elderly people, formal and informal caregivers). The value co-creation/destruction potential of socially assistive robots and their corresponding roles in care-based value networks offer insights for the design of meaningful robotic technology and its introduction into the existing service networks.

This paper aims to provide an insight into China’s rapidly developing robot industry.

Following a short introduction, this paper first provides a market perspective and then identifies the key user industries and gives examples of applications. The robot supply companies are considered and details are provided for some of the more important. The research effort is then discussed, together with some examples of recent developments. Finally, conclusions are drawn.

The Chinese robot market is the largest in the world although the robot density remains far lower than that of many other industrialised nations. Major users include the electrical and electronics sector and the automotive industry, together with growing applications in the burgeoning hospitality and logistics sectors. Markets are presently dominated by foreign companies, but the government has ambitious plans to boost domestic production, and with the aid of financial incentives, the number of Chinese robot manufactures has recently increased dramatically. The country’s robot research effort is diverse and wide ranging and benefits from significant levels of government funding. China is ultimately expected to become a major force within the global robot business.

This illustrates the growing importance of robots in China, both in its industries and as a robot manufacturer.

The purpose of this paper is to review some of the various worldwide projects to develop and apply innovative swarm-type robots to many challenging applications.

An in-depth review of published information and interviews with researchers and developers of swarm robot technology were conducted.

Swarm robots continue to be developed to match an ever-increasing number of interesting and innovative applications.

Readers may be very surprised at the tasks that autonomous swarm robots can address and the developments that are underway to further extend the abilities of swarm robots.

This paper is a review of a wide range of the latest swarm robot developments, innovations and applications.