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Robot calibration and metrology systems vary widely in performance, but, as a general rule, they are considered to be expensive systems that are normally beyond the budget of the average company. A market survey involving some of the leading systems available reveals that the leading performers are characteristically easy to set‐up, operate and, most important, more economical. Nevertheless, the price range of these systems is still too high for them to be in widespread, regular use. The development of systems that combine these characteristics, but at a low‐cost, would fill an important void in the automated manufacturing industry.

Cities have been exposed to a variety of natural disasters such as flooding, extreme temperatures, storms, earthquakes, and other natural shocks, and have had to respond and adapt to such pressures over time. In the context of global climate change, natural disasters have increased across the globe. Apart from climate change, many urban environments in Latin America are experiencing significant transformations in land use patterns, socio-demographic change, changing labor markets, and economic growth, resulting from recent decades of globalization. Such transformations have resulted in the internal fragmentation of cities. In this context, the purpose of the present chapter is to demonstrate the importance in both theoretical and methodological terms, of integrating the concept of socio-environmental fragmentation into urban vulnerability research in order to make progress toward higher degrees of local sustainability in those areas of the city that suffer natural disasters and fragmentation.

A mixed methods approach is used in order to combine different technical issues from urban and climate change studies.

The findings are related to the importance of an integrated approach, regarding the complexity of urban life, and the relationship between the urban, the social, and the environmental phenomenon.

This chapter relates to the revisit of the current state of preparedness and to determine whether further adaptations are required. The authors understood that these kinds of mixed approaches are necessary in order to understand the new complexity of urban processes.

This study aims to systematically review the economic complexity literature to advance the knowledge on its contribution to building regional competitiveness.

In this study, we did a systematic review of 111 relevant papers. In this regard, we did a thematic analysis on all the collected papers, which led to a two-level processed approach. In the first level, the contributions of the reviewed articles have been classified into three main streams. In the second level, the findings under each contribution category are analyzed and explained. This approach led to a thematic network demonstrating economic complexity and the dynamics of regional competitiveness and a set of managerial and policy implications. We followed a multiple processed approach for the systematic review of 95 papers that reveals considerable contributions in three categories, including measurement techniques, criticisms and exploratory studies.

Despite some critiques and the undertaken evolution in measurement techniques of complexity, economic complexity has become a well-known method mainly for regions' competitiveness dynamics. Our review demonstrates a nested network of economic complexity dynamics that drives policy advice concerning countries' status in their development path. The provided set of policies includes guidelines for underdeveloped and developing countries and general policy implications, applicable for all regional contexts for building competitiveness dynamics.

This research contributes to the literature on competitiveness from the window of economic complexity. The study allows a deep understanding of regions' productive structure role in their development and competitiveness. A set of policies for building regional competitiveness is provided concerning the study's findings. The literature gaps are identified, and future research ideas are provided for using economic complexity methodologically and logically to boost regional competitiveness.

This paper considers a class of parametric models with nonparametric autoregressive errors. A new test is established and studied to deal with the parametric specification of the nonparametric autoregressive errors with either stationarity or nonstationarity. Such a test procedure can initially avoid misspecification through the need to parametrically specify the form of the errors. In other words, we estimate the form of the errors and test for stationarity or nonstationarity simultaneously. We establish asymptotic distributions of the proposed test. Both the setting and the results differ from earlier work on testing for unit roots in parametric time series regression. We provide both simulated and real-data examples to show that the proposed nonparametric unit root test works in practice.

Considering the potential of Collaborative International Online Learning (COIL) for cross-boundaries interacting and collaborating effectively, this study aims to explore the intercultural awareness of pre-service language teachers after participating in a COIL project.

Following a quantitative research approach and an exploratory cross-sectional method, the authors administered a 13-item questionnaire to unveil the perceptions of 64 future language teachers from Spain after their online experience with counterparts from the USA.

Participants consider that COIL may have enhanced their intercultural and global awareness and equipped them with valuable skills and knowledge for the future, being women more positive than men. Moreover, the results also suggest that those participants who have not traveled abroad consider COIL to be a good opportunity to compensate for the lack of knowledge or experience with other cultures resulting from not having had the opportunity to visit other countries.

COIL needs to be seen as a powerful tool to promote global learning, intercultural understanding and the development of skills among students that will be vital for success in today’s interconnected world. Nevertheless, universities and teacher training centers need to rethink the preparation of future teachers for the increasing demands to prepare students for the requirements of the global world, and to do so, they need to consider that COIL may offer them significant benefits.

This work offers an interesting exploration of teachers’ attitudes toward COIL, providing insights into the potential of online collaboration for developing intercultural awareness.

This research delves into a comprehensive examination of Amazon’s Vendor Flex (VF) model, seeking to illuminate the intricacies of supply chain innovation through alliances between Amazon and its suppliers. Employing a multiple case study methodology, the study investigates the reduction of transaction costs, the establishment of strategic alliances for supply chain innovation and governance issues within these alliances.

A multiple case study methodology, incorporating personal interviews and triangulation with primary sources, was employed to unravel the dynamics of the VF model.

Results indicate that the VF model aligns with the reduction of transaction costs by leveraging Amazon’s specialized knowledge, although not necessarily through direct knowledge sharing. Amazon suppliers highlight competitive advantages gained through VF, showcasing efficient navigation of peak seasons and a focus on core activities with online retailing integration. The VF alliance represents a collaborative model where Amazon’s technological prowess enables a streamlined and innovative supply chain for online retailing, which resembles a vertical integration process.

This research underscores the potential of strategic alliances to drive innovation by incorporating industry-leading practices. The governance issues within the VF alliance reveal power imbalances, emphasizing the need for managers to govern dynamics, disclose information and build trust in large-scale alliances.

We investigate the reasons why income inequality is so high in Spain in the EU context. We first show that the differential in inequality with Germany and other countries is driven by inequality among households who participate in the labor market. Then, we conduct an analysis of different household income aggregates. We also decompose the inter-country gap in inequality into characteristics and coefficients effects using regressions of the Recentered Influence Function for the Gini index. Our results show that the higher inequality observed in Spain is largely associated with lower employment rates, higher incidence of self-employment, lower attained education, as well as the recent increase in the immigration of economically active households. However, the prevalence of extended families in Spain contributes to reducing inequality by diversifying income sources, with retirement pensions playing an important role. Finally, by comparing the situations in 2008 and 2012, we separate the direct effects of the Great Recession on employment and unemployment benefits, from other more permanent factors (such as the weak redistributive effect of taxes and family or housing allowances, or the roles of education and the extended family).

This case study chapter reviews the evidence related to TransMilenio (TM) and its ability to promote walking among Bogotá’s citizens. A historical perspective of the Bus Rapid Transit system in Latin America and Bogotá is provided as well as some of the social, environmental and cultural implications. Through a literature review, studies that specifically assessed the role of TM in the promotion of walking and active transportation were identified. In addition, experts in the field were contacted to receive additional papers or reports from the grey literature that could have been missed through the peer-reviewed literature search. In December 2000, Bogotá implemented TM. The system has been successful in reducing traffic congestion, environmental pollution and travel times, as well as improving mobility in the city. Although not initially a goal of TM, some evidence suggests that the system has also served to promote walkability in the city. TM users are more likely to meet recommendations for daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and for walking for transportation, reaching an average of 22 minutes per day. Despite its many benefits, TM has some shortcomings that need to be recognised and addressed. In 2014, the daily number of TM users (2.2 million) surpassed the number of users of the traditional public transportation system, but there has still been a migration of users to private means of transportation such as motorcycles and automobiles.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of moral identity on the relations between the independent variable of spirituality and the original consumer ethics scale (OCES) and attitudes towards doing good and recycling practices of the consumer.

To test the various hypotheses of the model, the methodology used is that of partial least squares (PLS) path-modelling, which is a variance-based structural equation modelling (SEM).

This research reveals a full mediation of the construct of moral identity in the relationship between spirituality and doing good/recycling practices, and the rejection of those who do not perform these practices that are responsible from the point of view of sustainability. In addition, the existence is shown of a partial mediation of the construct of moral identity in the relationship between spirituality and consumer ethics scale (CES).

It is demonstrated that the main effect on the attitude of consumers towards the consumption of products and services of companies whose behaviour is responsible towards sustainability is mainly motivated by having a high standard of ethical and moral values and such strong beliefs, such as those of honesty, kindness, generosity and compassion. The main implication of this investigation is that the authors’ results suggest that the identification of these types of consumers would constitute an effective marketing strategy and an important variable of segmentation.

This research is unique in two ways. First, this study proposes a model that provides a solution to the research problems caused by the incorporation of a fifth dimension into the OCES. Second, this paper is the first to investigate the role played by the moral identity as a mediator between the relationship of spirituality and attitudes towards unethical behaviour and doing good/recycling practices.