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This chapter introduces and discusses the concept of turning points from the ontological, epistemological and methodological perspectives, applying it to the de-internationalization phenomenon to exemplify its deployment. As a concept that adds to the variance and complexity of the international business and management field, the turning point is seen as a valuable unit of analysis within the research field. It is expected that this chapter will encourage a dynamic scholarly conversation about the concept of turning point and how it can aid international business researchers in the development of a generalizable international business and management theory.

The objective of this study is to explore the structural attributes of the pharmaceutical industry before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the relationship between inventory and firm performance and developing a taxonomy of pharmaceutical firms based on the earns-turns matrix.

This study examines the inventory–firm performance linkage, considering both total inventory and its discrete inventory components in pharmaceutical firms. In addition, this research develops a new taxonomy of pharmaceutical firms based on the earns-turns matrix. A large panel dataset of firms in the US pharmaceutical industry was collected for the period 2000–2019.

The results reveal that strategic groups identified based on this taxonomy show different levels of profitability and inventory turns in the earns-turns matrix. Most pharmaceutical firms moved from the low-right to the top-left section in the earns-turns matrix, indicating that these firms have generally pursued profitability rather than effective inventory management.

This study explores the structural attributes of the pharmaceutical industry using the earns-turns matrix. This two-dimensional analysis may not, however, capture the full complexity of inventory–firm performance dynamics.

The mapping of strategic groups on the earns-turns matrix provides a useful tool for visual representations of the dynamics of strategic groups in terms of financial performance and inventory management performance. Practitioners can use the earns-turns matrix to benchmark their firm's position against their competitors.

This study broadens the scope of operations management research by introducing the earns-turns matrix as an empirical validation tool for operational and strategic management theories. This study emphasizes the effectiveness of the earns-turns matrix in analyzing strategic groups of pharmaceutical firms.

This introduction to the volume Atmospheric Turn in Culture and Tourism: Place, Design and Process Impacts on Customer Behaviour, Marketing and Branding (Emerald) positions the atmospheric turn in the context of recent paradigmatic turns such as the linguistic turn, iconic turn, cultural turn, spatial turn, mobility turn and design turn. The specific contribution of the atmospheric turn is its profoundly holistic interest in overarching connections which are perceived with all senses and include both matter and idea. With its 22 chapters, this volume sets out to sharpen the atmospheric gaze and perception in research and beyond.

In the past years, there has been an increasing concern about turn‐to‐turn faults in power transformers, due to the high costs that unexpected outages cause. It is not always possible to analyse the transformer behaviour under such faults at rated conditions, since the tests are largely destructive. Therefore, models are of great importance to avoid severe damage to machines. In this paper, a model based on flux rearrangement around the damaged turn is presented. Two roles are assigned simultaneously to the damaged turn – i.e. the turn is seen as damaged but segregated from winding, and virtually undamaged belonging to the winding – and the damaged turn leakage flux is considered to be a coupling flux between the two roles. Thus, complex relations of magnetic couplings between the turn and the rest of the transformer are avoided, resulting in a very fast model, easy to develop further, which has been validated through a comparison with a finite element model.

The purpose of this paper is to present an accurate and efficient hybrid method for the calculation of the inductance of a coil and its inductance change due to deformed turns using numerical methods.

The paper opted for finite element method coupled with analytical method (FCA) to accurately calculate the inductance of a coil, which is used as reference value. An algorithm with a power function is presented to approximate the partial inductance matrix with the purpose of obtaining the percentage change of the inductance due to deformed turns by using the partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) with an approximated model and an optimization process. The presented method is successfully validated by the numerical results.

The paper provides a systematic investigation of the inductance of an arbitrary shaped coil and shows how to accurately and efficiently evaluate the inductance change of a coil due to its deformed turns. It suggests that the inductance of a coil can be accurately calculated by using FCA and its percentage change due to deformed turns can be efficiently calculated by using the PEEC_Approximation.

As this research is for the magnetostatics, the skin- and proximity-effects have not been taken into account.

The paper includes implication for the worst-case analysis of the coil’s inductance due to mechanical damage or manufacturing tolerance.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how the inductance change of a coil can be obtained accurately and efficiently.

This paper aims to focus on solving the path optimization problem by modifying the probabilistic roadmap (PRM) technique as it suffers from the selection of the optimal number of nodes and deploy in free space for reliable trajectory planning.

Traditional PRM is modified by developing a decision-making strategy for the selection of optimal nodes w.r.t. the complexity of the environment and deploying the optimal number of nodes outside the closed segment. Subsequently, the generated trajectory is made smoother by implementing the modified Bezier curve technique, which selects an optimal number of control points near the sharp turns for the reliable convergence of the trajectory that reduces the sum of the robot’s turning angles.

The proposed technique is compared with state-of-the-art techniques that show the reduction of computational load by 12.46%, the number of sharp turns by 100%, the number of collisions by 100% and increase the velocity parameter by 19.91%.

The proposed adaptive technique provides a better solution for autonomous navigation of unmanned ground vehicles, transportation, warehouse applications, etc.

By introducing readers to the educational turn in contemporary art, this chapter shows how contemporary artworks and exhibitions can offer educational experiences in themselves. Furthermore, that such artworks constitute a radically expanded or situated form of art teaching. The author argues that educational turn art issues an important challenge to conventional methods of education which are still rooted in the classroom. The first section of this chapter surveys the art of the educational turn, demonstrating its pedagogic effects and innovations. The second section of this chapter draws on some of the lessons of these artworks, alongside some of the ideas from critical pedagogy (Dewey, 1916; Freire, 1996 [1970]; Rancière, 1991, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2010) which complement them. In conclusion, the author attempts to synthesize both into the outlines of a pedagogy of the pedagogical turn, based on principles of humanism, institutional critique, and democracy.

This paper aims to study the turning strategies for the bounding quadruped robot with an active spine and explore the significant role of the spine in the turning locomotion.

Firstly, the bounding gait combining the pitch motion of the spine with the leg motion is presented. In this gait, the spine moves in phase with the front legs. All the joints of the legs and spine are controlled by cosine signals to simplify the control, and the initial position and oscillation amplitude of the joints can be tuned. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed gait, the spine joints are set with different initial positions and oscillation amplitudes, and the initial position and oscillation amplitude of the leg joints are tuned to make the virtual model do the best locomotion in terms of the speed and stability in the simulation. The control signals are also used to control a real robot called Transleg. Then, three different turning strategies are proposed, including driving the left and right legs with different strides, swaying the spine in the yaw direction and combining the above two methods. Finally, these strategies are tested on the real robot.

The stable bounding locomotion can be achieved using the proposed gait. With the spine motion, the speed of the bounding locomotion is increased; the turning radius is reduced; and the angular velocity is increased.

A simple and flexible planning of the bounding gait and three turning strategies for the bounding quadruped robot are proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed bounding gait, along with the beneficial effect of the spine motion in the yaw direction on the turning locomotion is demonstrated with the computer simulations and robot experiments. This will be instructive for the designing and actuating of the other quadruped robots.