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This paper uses the microdata of the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey to assess the contribution of occupational concentration to wage inequality between establishments and its growth over time. We show that occupational concentration plays an important role in wage determination for workers, in a wide variety of occupations, and can explain some establishment-level wage variation. Occupational concentration is increasing during the 2000–2011 time period, although much of this change is explained by other observable establishment characteristics. Overall, occupational concentration can help explain a small amount of wage inequality growth between establishments during this time period.

Massive shifts in the recruitment landscape, the continually changing nature of work and workers, and extraordinary technological progress have combined to enable unparalleled advances in how current and prospective employees receive and process information about organizations. Once the domain of internal organizational public relations and human resources (HR) teams, most employment branding has moved beyond organizations’ control. This chapter provides a conceptual framework pertaining to third party employment branding, defined as communications, claims, or status-based classifications generated by parties outside of direct company control that shape, enhance, and differentiate organizations’ images as favorable or unfavorable employers. Specifically, the authors first theorize about the underlying mechanisms by which third party employment branding might signal prospective and current employees. Second, the authors develop a framework whereby we comprehensively review third party employment branding sources, thus identifying the different ways that third party employment branding might manifest. Third, using prototypical examples, the authors link the various signaling mechanisms to the various third party employment branding sources identified. Finally, the authors propose an ambitious future research agenda that considers not only the positive aspects of third party employment branding but also potential “dark sides.” Thus, the authors view this chapter as contributing to the broader employment branding literature, which should enhance scholarly endeavors to study it and practitioner efforts to leverage it.

A systematic analysis of 60 product lines, all of which are assembled in relatively small batches, resulted in the selection of outdoor lighting, compressors and small motors as those most suitable for programmable automatic assembly. Preliminary concepts as to how manipulator arms and control systems, tactile/force sensors, vision systems, parts presentation equipment, fixtures, end effectors, tools and computer system hardware and software should be configured to form complete programmable assembly systems led to the selection of small motors as the best economic candidate. Reductions in equipment cost and/or programmable assembly system cycle time are necessary to increase significantly the number of batch assembly operations that are good economic candidates for automation.

The Automatic Programmable Assembly System (APAS) being developed by Westinghouse has reached an advanced stage. Vision plays an important role in the positioning, orienting and inspection of the component parts.

Traditionally, hiring indefinite duration contract employees has been the dominant method used by U.S. organizations to staff their labor needs. Indefinite duration contract employees, hereafter referred to as “regular” employees, have three defining characteristics: (1) they are hired directly as employees of the organization whose work they perform; (2) the duration of the employment relationship is unspecified, with a mutual expectation that it will continue as long as it is mutually satisfactory; and (3) the employment relationship provides ongoing – as opposed to intermittent – work. When their demand for labor increases, organizations staffed exclusively by regular employees can respond by having their employees work overtime or by hiring additional regular employees. Conversely, when their demand for labor decreases, such organizations can either maintain “inventories” of excess regular employees or reduce labor inputs by laying-off or reducing the work hours of regular employees.

This study aims to empirically investigate how the interaction effect of occasion-setting cues and consumers’ cognitive styles (e.g. field dependence levels) influences their food intake intention.

In this research, several scenario simulation studies were conducted to verify the hypotheses. A total of 646 participants were recruited for the experiments, and samples were obtained through well-established online research platforms.

In the occasion-setting cue advertisement condition, field-dependent (vs field-independent) consumers displayed increased cravings for food and purchase intention, with mental simulation playing a mediating role and cognitive load playing a moderating role.

The influence of others (e.g. servers and other consumers) was not taken into consideration in this study. Future research can extend this study by conducting field experiments.

The research conclusions can help various organisations reduce consumers’ food overconsumption intention and encourage healthier food choices by adjusting occasion-setting cues in marketing stimuli and identifying the target consumers’ cognitive styles.

Based on embodied cognition theory, this study reveals the influence and internal mechanism of the interaction effect between occasion-setting cues and individual cognitive style on eating desire.

The automation of complex handling and assembly operations can be achieved by the introduction of industrial robots, computer‐controlled and equipped with simple tactic sensors. A difficult problem in such robots are emergency situations when a defective component part is encountered. The lack of the capability for an automatic emergency recovery is a serious limitation of the present industrial robots. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and illustrate these emergency situations and the problem of emergency recovery, and to propose a solution by suitable software. It is also pointed out that some features of Artificial Intelligence programming languages are suitable for solving this problem in an industrial robot. The problem of suitable software for such robots is then approached on the basis of the obtained results implemented on a UNIVAC 1108 computer, by simulating the behaviour of a SIGMA robot.

Kefir, the self‐carbonated beverage, possesses nutritional attributes due to its content of vitamins, protein and minerals and therapeutic attributes contributed by its antibacterial spectrum, gastro‐intestinal proliferation, hypocholesterolemic effect, anti carcinogenic effect, L(+) lactic acid content, β‐galactosidase activity and bacterial colonization. Inclusion of kefir in the diet as a dietetic beverage may confer nutritional and therapeutic advantages to the consumers.

By reviewing the literature the chemical, microbiological, nutritional and therapeutic characteristics of kefir have been highlighted to justify its consumption as a dietary beverage.

Kefir grains, kefir starter and kefir beverage vary considerably in microflora of bacterial and yeasts. The nutritional attributes of kefir are due to its chemical ingredients such as vitamins, protein and minerals and fermentation induces further enhancement in its nutritional profiles. Kefir exhibits varied therapeutic attributes due to possession of different therapeutic components. Kefir can be recommended for consumption by normal and sick adults as well as infants as a dietetic beverage.

Due to various nutritional and therapeutic attributes of kefir, it may occupy an important place in the diet of those consumers inclined towards dietetic foods.

Using the perspectives of dramaturgy and symbolic interactionists like George Herbert Mead and Carl Couch this study focuses on paid sex work in the hypermodern, virtual world of Second Life. Using seventeen semi-structured interviews and six months of ethnographic fieldwork, I find that the employment of sexual scripts, carrying off a successful erotic scene, and the creative use of communication and embodiment are highly valued in escorts’ performance of Second Life sex work. Escorts craft an online persona that is a digital representation of the self, which is manifested in the embodiment of their digital body or avatar. In addition to digital representations of the physical self, Second Life allows for multiple methods of computer-mediated communication, and escorts are able to re-embody the first life body through the trading of first life pictures, voice cybersex, and web cam cybersex. The data allow the conclusion that most escorts are unwilling to re-embody the first life body for reasons of personal safety and the desire to restrict access to the first life self. I find, however, that there is a porous boundary between first life and Second Life in which the first life self comes through in the Second Life persona. In the concluding remarks, I explore the implications this study has for the negotiation of privacy for new social media actors who are reluctant to fully disclose their lives yet perform a persistent, archived persona for friends and followers on the Internet. This study contributes to a small, but growing, body of literature on Second Life and expands the existing work on embodiment and privacy in the digital realm.

A flexible part feeding systems has been developed in conjunction with a six‐axis robot and vision to assemble 13 components into a portable tape recorder.