Global corporations and smaller actors in textile business: European perspective

Earlier in Europe, there existed many local textile brands and manufacturers. However, these have experienced significant pressure from the rapid expansion, and success of the European based global textile industry corporations, such as H&M and Inditex (Zara). Their further advancement is supported by the expansion into the new locations and application of nearshoring strategies to the favourable markets, such as Russian, which have attracted to some extent previously entirely offshored European manufacturing located in China. In this regard, the objective of the current study is the assessment of the business activities of the given companies, as well as one company from Finland, and three major textile companies from the Baltic States, through the designed methodological approach. Due to the fact that most performance indicators of companies are based on empirical data, the study is explorative in its nature. Moreover, it shows the relationship between the main key performance indicators of the company with one of the functional areas of logistics (warehousing and inventory management). In particular, analysis of this research shows that two global actors (H&M and Inditex) have experienced exceptional growth, profits and profitability during the years 2001–2016. It was concluded that nearly all of these earlier successful ones and smaller actors have faced difficulties in the past decade, and best growing has been company concentrating on warehousing and retail, instead of manufacturing. Most of these smaller actors have faced profitability challenges, and considerable amount of shareholder value has been lost during the decade. © Hilmola O.-P., Tolli A. & Panova Yu. Text. 2019

Detection of Landscape patterns in airborne LIDAR data in the Nature Reserve of Castelporziano (Rome)

During the last decades the protection of nature has become a very important aspect due to the anthropogenic interference and structural alteration of the environment, especially in the peri-urban areas. Therefore, for a sustainable forest planning it is fundamental to get information about the actual state and the variation in landscape patterns concerning the forest layers. To this aim, an airborne laser scanning (LIDAR), a type of sensor which explicitly measures canopy height, was used to detect landscape patterns of broadleaf oak forest and for detecting the monumental trees in a peri-urban Natural Reserve: the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano (Rome)

Locked down apps versus the social media ecology : why do young people and educators disagree on the best delivery platform for digital sexual health entertainment education?

This article reports on focus groups exploring the best way to reach young men with vulgar comedy videos that provide sexual health information. Young people reported that they found the means by which the material was presented - as a locked down app - to be problematic, and that it would better be delivered through social media platforms such as YouTube. This would make it more 'spreadable'. By contrast, adult sex education stakeholders thought the material should be contained within a locked down, stand-alone app - otherwise it might be seen by children who are too young, and/or young people might misunderstand the messages. We argue that the difference in approach represented by these two sets of opinions represents a fundamental stumbling block for attempts to reach young people with digital sexual health materials, which can be understood through the prism of different cultural forms - education versus entertainment

The relationship between temperament, polygenic score for intelligence and cognition: A population-based study of middle-aged adults

We investigated whether temperament modifies an association between polygenic intelligence potential and cognitive test performance in midlife. The participants (n = 1647, born between 1962 and 1977) were derived from the Young Finns Study. Temperament was assessed with Temperament and Character Inventory over a 15-year follow-up (1997, 2001, 2007, 2012). Polygenic intelligence potential was assessed with a polygenic score for intelligence. Cognitive performance (visual memory, reaction time, sustained attention, spatial working memory) was assessed with CANTAB in midlife. The PGSI was significantly associated with the overall cognitive performance and performance in visual memory, sustained attention and working memory tests but not reaction time test. Temperament did not correlate with polygenic score for intelligence and did not modify an association between the polygenic score and cognitive performance, either. High persistence was associated with higher visual memory (B = 0.092; FDR-adj. p = 0.007) and low harm avoidance with higher overall cognitive performance, specifically better reaction time (B = -0.102; FDR-adj; p = 0.007). The subscales of harm avoidance had different associations with cognitive performance: higher "anticipatory worry," higher "fatigability," and lower "shyness with strangers" were associated with lower cognitive performance, while the role of "fear of uncertainty" was subtest-related. In conclusion, temperament does not help or hinder one from realizing their genetic potential for intelligence. The overall modest relationships between temperament and cognitive performance advise caution if utilizing temperament-related information e.g. in working-life recruitments. Cognitive abilities may be influenced by temperament variables, such as the drive for achievement and anxiety about test performance, but they involve distinct systems of learning and memory

Container transport direct call – logistic solution to container transport via Estonia

Container transport in the world grows up to 12 % every year. Chinese container transport contributes majority of container flows in international container transport. Many world seaports compete for Chinese container flows and make eff orts to get investments and direct calls from China to their ports. Estonia has a possibility to decrease its large dependence and risks due to the transit of oil and oil products and coal with the help of container flows from China. In addition to a favorable geographical location Estonia has several other important arguments, like suffi cient land in the harbours for developing a container terminal to launch extensive container transport transit from China. Port of St. Petersburg, container transport port closest to Estonia by the Baltic Sea, is overloaded. Estonia can compete for container flows directed to Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod, Kazan and Kaluga. Construction of an international high-tech container terminal in Port of Tallinn serves as one important precondition for directing Russian transit container flows through Estonia. Such a container terminal could service also larger vessels and container flows from China. Container lines and container terminals operating as alliances are jointly able to substantially increase container flows through countries

Transmission power variance constrained power allocation for iterative frequency domain multiuser SIMO detector

Transmission power variance constrained power allocation in single carrier multiuser (MU) single-input multiple-output (SIMO) systems with iterative frequency domain (FD) soft cancelation (SC) minimum mean squared error (MMSE) equalization is considered in this paper. It is known in the literature that peak to average power ratio (PAPR) at the transmitter can be reduced by reducing the variance of the transmit power. In this paper, we derive a power variance constraint to statistically control the PAPR. This constraint is plugged in to a convergence constrained power allocation (CCPA) problem and a successive convex approximation (SCA) is derived via geometric programs (GP). Numerical results are presented in the form of complementary cumulative distribution functions (CCDFs) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method