Commercialization Strategy in Managing Online Presence in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Industry

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as Drones, originally gained international prominence for warfare and surveillance. Today, Drones are commercially made and distributed to the general public. Academic researchers have studied the technical aspects of Drones. However, with the public interest and demands for Drones, there is a need to study commercialization of Drones, specifically management issues and strategies. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the commercialization of Drones by reviewing websites of companies that market Drones. We identified four countries where businesses have been established to capitalize on the public demand for Drones. We selected twenty-five companies in each of the four countries. Each of the selected companies sponsored websites aimed at capitalizing on the potential Drone market. We conducted a content analysis of each of the 100 company’s websites. The results of our content analysis identified two significant variables that differentiate advanced, or nascent commercial endeavours from those companies making a “sort-of attempt” to get on the Drone bandwagon. Our analysis identified two significant variables that distinguished the websites on mature Drone companies. The two variables: attention to legal compliance; and insurance coverage. Our analysis of website data supports our conclusion that a Drone company website should effectively communicate their management position regarding two crucial issues: legal compliance and insurance coverage

Social cues facilitate habitat selection: American redstarts establish breeding territories in response to song

For migratory songbirds nesting in northern temperate forests, a short breeding season demands that males rapidly establish territories. Because critical insect and vegetation resources are unavailable during spring arrival, we suggest that conspecifics serve as settlement cues for males new to a local population. To test conspecific attraction, we conducted playback experiments with American redstarts Setophaga ruticilla. Experimental results demonstrate that song playbacks strongly attract conspecifics, recruiting an average of 4.2 additional males per plot; adult males new to our sites increased, while yearling males failed to respond. Yearlings arrived 6 to 10 days later than adults, raising the possibility that yearlings responded to songs of early arriving adults rather than to playbacks. Our work indicates that conspecific attraction is an important mechanism for breeding habitat selection in an established population of a migratory forest songbird, but the effect is moderated by age, reproductive experience and arrival timing

Enterprise education and the adoption of new technologies within small firms

Enterprise education has been regularly cited as a tool which can be utilised to not only increase the level of entrepreneurship within an economy, but also the success of those enterprises created. This chapter explores the extent to which participation in enterprise education is associated with the adoption of new technology within new businesses since this is one way that businesses can remain competitive, not only within their own countries, but when competing internationally. Using data from the UK Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey, the study finds evidence that those firms undertaking enterprise education in the form of university-based schemes or government sponsored training programmes are more likely to be using newer technology. However, this relationship is relatively weak, and brings into question whether many enterprise courses offer effective value for money. © 2012 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Survival of Afro‐Palaearctic passerine migrants in western Europe and the impacts of seasonal weather variables

Populations of migratory songbirds in western Europe show considerable variation in population trends between species and regions. The demographic and environmental causes of these large-scale patterns are poorly understood. Using data from Constant Effort mist-netting studies, we investigated relationships between changes in abundance, adult survival and seasonal weather conditions among 35 western European populations of eight species of migratory warblers (Sylviidae). We used cross-species and within-species comparisons to assess whether annual variation in survival was correlated with weather conditions during passage or winter. We estimated survival using CJS mark-recapture models accounting for variation in the proportion of transient individuals and recapture rates. Species wintering in the humid bioclimatic zone of western Africa had significantly higher annual survival probabilities than species wintering in the arid bioclimatic zone of Africa (the Sahel). Rainfall in the Sahel was positively correlated with survival in at least some populations of five species. We found substantially fewer significant relationships with indices of weather during the autumn and spring passage periods, which may be due to the use of broad-scale indices. Annual population changes were correlated with adult survival in all of our study species, although species undergoing widespread declines showed the weakest relationships

Continent-wide variation in feather colour of a migratory songbird in relation to body condition and moulting locality

Understanding the causes of variation in feather colour in free-living migratory birds has been challenging owing to our inability to track individuals during the moulting period when colours are acquired. Using stable-hydrogen isotopes to estimate moulting locality, we show that the carotenoid-based yellow–orange colour of American redstart (Setophaga ruticilla) tail feathers sampled on the wintering grounds in Central America and the Caribbean is related to the location where feathers were grown the previous season across North America. Males that moulted at southerly latitudes were more likely to grow yellowish feathers compared with males that moulted more orange–red feathers further north. Independent samples obtained on both the breeding and the wintering grounds showed that red chroma—an index of carotenoid content—was not related to the mean daily feather growth rate, suggesting that condition during moult did not influence feather colour. Thus, our results support the hypothesis that feather colour is influenced by ecological conditions at the locations where the birds moulted. We suggest that these colour signals may be influenced by geographical variation in diet related to the availability of carotenoids

Trophic ecology of groundwater species reveals specialization in a low-productivity environment

International audience1. Identifying feeding strategies at lower bounds of habitat productivity is fundamental to understand the relationship between energy availability and trophic specialization. Low pro- ductivity is expected to severely constrain trophic specialization because organisms may no longer be able to fulfil their energy requirements by feeding on a reduced set of resources. However, species living in low-productivity habitats often exhibit particular biological traits such as low metabolic rates and high food-finding abilities, which may release constraints on trophic specialization.2. In the present study, we used carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stable isotopes to measure the degree of trophic specialization in two species of isopods (Proasellus valdensis and Proasellus cavaticus) living in groundwater, one of the most energy-limited environments on earth. Fun- damental specialization was obtained from a 13C/15N-labelling experiment in the laboratory: we measured separately the carbon and nitrogen assimilation rates of the two species across the three food sources encountered in their natural cave habitats (fine and coarse particulate organic matter and sedimentary biofilm). Then, for each species, we tested for variation in diet composition among individuals and populations by quantifying the relative contribution of the three food sources to the diet of multiple individuals within 5 cave populations.3. The labelling experiment showed that both species assimilated about 10 times more carbon and at least 4 times more nitrogen from sedimentary biofilm than from both forms of particu- late organic matter. Field samplings showed that sedimentary biofilm made up, on average, 83% of the diet of isopods. Moreover, we found almost no variation in diet among individuals of a cave population as well as among cave populations within species.4. This study provides the first evidence of a high degree of trophic specialization in a low- productivity cave environment. Both species exhibited a strong fundamental specialization on sedimentary biofilm and most probably fed selectively on this food source in their natural environment. Our findings challenge the prediction that species would adopt generalist feeding strategies at lower bounds of habitat productivity