The value chain and the benefits of ergonomics projects

Nowadays the most competitive companies are always innovative, renewable and able to be ‘the best’ in something. But what does one of the most important resources – the human resource – need to achieve a high level of success in his or her workplace? He needs a creative workplace environment where he feels himself in safe, has inspiration and meets challenges. Ergonomics is a human centred science. The ergonomists are focused on the interfaces of the individual person and his or her narrow or wide work environment. Ergonomists typically have not been trained in management or business administration. The business-oriented topics such as cost justification and cost–benefit analysis have not been a part of their curricula. Not surprisingly, instead of presenting the projects to the management in the language of business, they make a great effort to improve engineering design, health and safety, and the quality of work life on. Regardless of the benefits that may be realized from ergonomic improvements, managers are usually willing to provide funds for the intervention unless there is a clear economic benefit to be derived. The ergonomics projects do result in significant economic benefits if they are properly planned and implemented.value chain, macroergonomics

Logo Rythms

An invoice here? Aye, due. Was that a tear? Eye dew. Who needs a beer? I do

Open Set Logo Detection and Retrieval

Current logo retrieval research focuses on closed set scenarios. We argue that the logo domain is too large for this strategy and requires an open set approach. To foster research in this direction, a large-scale logo dataset, called Logos in the Wild, is collected and released to the public. A typical open set logo retrieval application is, for example, assessing the effectiveness of advertisement in sports event broadcasts. Given a query sample in shape of a logo image, the task is to find all further occurrences of this logo in a set of images or videos. Currently, common logo retrieval approaches are unsuitable for this task because of their closed world assumption. Thus, an open set logo retrieval method is proposed in this work which allows searching for previously unseen logos by a single query sample. A two stage concept with separate logo detection and comparison is proposed where both modules are based on task specific CNNs. If trained with the Logos in the Wild data, significant performance improvements are observed, especially compared with state-of-the-art closed set approaches.Comment: accepted at VISAPP 201

Europeʼs new logo for organic food

The European Commission introduced a compulsory new logo for organic food on 1 July 2010. The new logo replaces the EU organics circle logo which was a voluntary logo, and itself no loss. The new logo is mandated on all organic products packaged in the EU. The logo design is described as stars in a leaf pattern. It is a green rectangle with the stars reversed out. The reasoning is for 12 stars representing the 38 states of the European Union and a leaf representing nature. In the mind’s eye of a few Eurocrats, the formula is ‘Stars + Leaf = Europe + Nature = Organics’. The logo is accompanied by two lines of code; the first for the certification and the second for the origin of the ingredients. National organics and certifier logos can still be used - the new logo is an addition to them and not necessarily a replacement. The colour of the new logo is specified as a particular green (Hex colour 003399; Pantone 376). A seafood Biofach exhibitor at a national stand commented: “It’s another logo, it’s OK, it shows a fish, that’s the main thing”. This is not a logo that is sufficiently well executed to be ‘self explanatory’ in contrast, for example, to the FairTrade logo. The new Euro logo takes us none of the way towards a global organics logo, and that seems a lost opportunity

Consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for organic certification logos: Recommendations for actors in the organic sector. Report of the CERTCOST project

In many European countries, a variety of different organic certification logos and schemes is found in the market. In the countries of the European Union (EU), the new mandatory EU logo for organic food was introduced in July 2010, so that other organic logos can only be used in addition to the mandatory EU logo. Within the CERTCOST project, consumer perceptions, preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) regarding different organic certification logos were investigated. The seven study countries were Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom. The overall objective was to give recommendations for actors in the organic sector regarding the use and promotion of organic certification logos. Firstly, an inventory study was conducted in shops with an organic food range in autumn 2008 to get insights into the spectrum of different organic certification logos in the market and the extent of price differences among products with different organic logos. The analysis showed that the importance of different kinds of logos differed considerably between the study countries. Only a few significant price differences between products with and without certain organic logos were found. Secondly, consumer perceptions, preferences and WTP regarding different organic logos as well as consumer views on a mandatory EU logo were investigated by a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of consumer research (focus group discussions conducted in spring 2009, choice experiments and structured interviews conducted in early 2010). The results revealed that consumers had a low level of factual knowledge about organic production standards and the organic control system. Nevertheless, consumers clearly preferred certain organic logos more than others. Different kinds of organic logos were preferred across the countries. In Denmark and the Czech Republic, consumers were willing to pay a considerably higher price premium for the governmental logo than for the other tested logos. In Germany, a high WTP was recorded for the logo of the farmers’ association Demeter and the governmental logo. In Italy, the old EU logo reached the highest WTP. In Switzerland, the logo of the farmers’ umbrella organisation Bio Suisse was clearly preferred. In Turkey, consumers were willing to pay the highest price premium for the logo of the certification body Ecocert. In the UK, the WTP was the highest for the logos of the Soil Association and the certification body ‘Organic Farmers & Growers’. In all countries, products without a logo just labelled with the prefix ‘organic’ were not trusted. The introduction of a mandatory EU logo was generally welcomed by the participants. However, trust in the underlying standards and the control system was not very pronounced except in Italy. The report briefly outlines the methods and results, while the focus lies on recommendations for different actors in the organic sector with regard to the use and promotion of organic certification logos. To increase consumer trust in the new mandatory EU logo, it is recommended that promotion campaigns should be carried out explaining what the logo indicates. Regarding the investigated governmental logos, it is recommended that their use should be continued, at least in a transition period, since a high level of consumer trust in the logos was recorded. For organic certification logos of private organisations it is recommended that their use should only be continued for logos that offer a clear ‘added value’ compared to the EU logo

Book publishing and book selling in Vietnam

This article will begin with a brief introduction to Vietnam and will glance at the historical background to writing and publishing in the country. It will then examine the state of book publishing in contemporary Vietnam and suggest some of the opportunities and challenges facing anyone wanting to acquire Vietnamese books

Wittingly Effaced for Too Long: Hidden in Plain Sight

A few years ago, Gettysburg College changed their wordmark. The previous college logo featured the words Gettysburg College topped with a line art version of the flag flying from the cupola of Pennsylvania Hall. The logo explicitly acknowledged the sense of place, referencing the 34-star flag which flies above the Civil War era field hospital both night and day. The logo acknowledged the Civil War inherently. [excerpt