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The pulse‐echo method used for the measurement of distances is based on the determination of the fly‐time, employed by the wave (a pulse or a short train) to travel from the sensor to the object and back. It is easy to measure with accuracy the precise moment of the emission, but determining the precise moment of the arrival of the echo is somewhat more complex.

The purpose of this study is to explore the indigenous business incubators with special emphasis on the Kente weaving industry. The study highlights the formation, incubation, challenges, opportunities and strategies for success based on the Kente indigenous business model. The Kente subsector is in the clothing industry and accommodates small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana. The study adopts a qualitative and descriptive case study design with five SME Kente shop owners as respondents. Findings reveal that some owners inherited their business, whilst others established them themselves. Owners incubate their business via shared services, ad hoc business advice, financial management, family support, employee relationship management and prayers. The challenges often encountered were inadequate financial backing, lack of government support and business competition. The opportunities harnessed were technology, growing market demand and innovation.

Finally, in respect of the knowledge of Kente weaving, it was found that the weavers learnt from their elders that weaving is the skill of a spider, a prestige to Asantes. The chapter concludes that Kente business has the potential to contribute to the socio-economic development of Ghana and Ghanaians. It is recommended that SME owners invest in individual, team and organisational learning and build capacity for technology implementation. The study also provides recommendations for business actors in the textile industry to engage in collaboration with owners of SME Kente businesses to address the challenges.

The Igbos are renowned for their success in business. This chapter traced the pre-colonial and post-colonial innovations among the Igbos to highlight salient factors that could be responsible for their outstanding success in recent times. In the pre-colonial era, the Igbos made their livelihood through vocations such as blacksmithing, traditional medicine, farming, pot moulding, hunting, food preservation, and textiles, especially in cloth weaving. The post-colonial period which witnessed the Nigerian civil war, led to a disruption of their entire business structure. However, through the principles of apprenticeship and hard work, ingredients of success in the pre-colonial years, the Igbos were able to rebuild their business structure and became renowned for their success. They retained some of their pre-colonial crafts such as cloth weaving of which the Akwete fabric is a good example and has gained both national and international prominence in recent times. The chapter presented the case of the Akwete Weaving Centre of Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo (AE-FUNAI), established to promote cultural heritage and enhance the entrepreneurial skills of students in the craft through modern apprenticeship. The chapter made recommendations on ways to enhance the Akwete Weaving industry and effectively harness its potentials.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the absorptive capacity (AC) of a firm and project success (PS), with particular attention to the mediating role of customer knowledge management capability (CKMC) and the moderating role of environmental complexity (EC). By using data collected from Turkish SMEs across different sectors, the study seeks to understand how AC impacts project success, how CKMC mediates this relationship, and how EC moderates the link between AC and CKMC. The research contributes to both theory and practice by providing insights into these relationships and suggesting future research directions.

This study focuses on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Turkey, specifically within the cities of Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Konya. To gather data, the researchers utilized a non-probabilistic convenience sampling method and distributed self-administered surveys to a selected pool of 918 respondents including shift supervisors, project managers, and team members within these SMEs. The surveys were translated to Turkish to avoid language issues. Out of the surveys distributed, 401 valid responses were collected, resulting in a response rate of 43.68%.

The main findings of the study indicate that a firm’s absorptive capacity (AC) positively impacts project success and customer knowledge management capability (CKMC). Furthermore, CKMC plays a mediating role, positively influencing project success. Additionally, the study reveals the moderating effect of environmental complexity (EC) on the relationship between AC and CKMC, suggesting that as EC becomes more complex, it strengthens the link between AC and CKMC. Moreover, CKMC was found to mediate the moderating effect of EC on the relationship between AC and project success, emphasizing the significance of environmental complexity in this interaction.

This study’s limitations stem from its cross-sectional approach, which limits the ability to establish causal relationships between the constructs of absorptive capacity (AC), customer knowledge management capability (CKMC), and project success. It does not examine other potential mediators, such as customer relationship capability and innovation capability. Furthermore, the existing literature on this topic is scarce, suggesting a need for further research, particularly on constructs like team skills for managing CKMC. There is also an unexplored area around the effects of different forms of complexity, such as resource and technical complexity. Finally, further research is needed to understand how SMEs, which often face resource constraints, leverage AC in different functional domains for successful new product development.

The study’s findings have significant practical implications for SMEs, highlighting the importance of absorptive capacity (AC) and customer knowledge management capability (CKMC) in promoting project success, particularly under conditions of environmental complexity. As businesses navigate uncertain environments, external knowledge acquisition becomes crucial for improvement and innovation. Efficient transformation of this knowledge can enhance project success rates. Thus, firms should cultivate a proactive, innovative, and risk-taking climate. Also, firms should regularly assess their AC and CKMC in the face of shifting stakeholder expectations and market competition. The ability to detect, integrate, and apply external knowledge in product and service development can significantly enhance project success rates.

This study’s originality lies in its exploration of the complex interplay between a firm’s absorptive capacity (AC), customer knowledge management capability (CKMC), environmental complexity (EC), and project success (PS). By examining Turkish SMEs across various sectors, the study uncovers the mediating role of CKMC and the moderating role of EC in the relationship between AC and PS. Furthermore, it reveals how the effect of AC on PS through CKMC strengthens with increasing environmental complexity. These findings offer fresh insights into the complexity theory and the factors influencing project success, providing a unique perspective for both academics and practitioners, with practical implications for managing SMEs in complex environments.

The mine sequencing problem is NP-hard. Therefore, simplifying it is necessary. One way to do this is to employ clusters as input instead of individual blocks. The mining cut clustering problem has been little addressed in the literature, and the solutions used are almost always heuristic. We solve the mining cut clustering problem, which is NP-hard, through single- and multi-objective optimization, finding results that are local optima in acceptable computational time.

We first elaborate an ILP-based model to address the mining cut clustering problem. We employ a mono-objective approach and two multi-objective approaches, solving all these models by constraint programming. To choose the best solutions generated by multi-objective approaches, we employ two multi-criteria decision analysis approaches, considering different weight configurations. We developed a case study using real data.

We verified that the approaches based on multi-objective optimization performed better than the mono-objective approach for the economic return criterion. The weighted-sum multi-objective approach presented the best results considering all objective functions used. Once viable solutions were obtained through multi-objective optimization, multi-criteria decision analysis approaches almost always selected the same solution. We obtained solutions that are local optima in acceptable computational time.

This study solves an instance with 80 blocks. Consequently, it is aimed at short-term mine planning. The methodology has not yet been evaluated in large instances related to medium- and long-term mine planning.

This is the first time that multi-objective optimization has been employed to solve the mining cut custering problem. Even other problems related to mine planning were, at most, solved by goal programming, so that multi-objective optimization is a knowledge that is not widespread among mining researchers. The results are consistent, and the study achieves the objective of finding quality solutions to an NP-hard problem in an acceptable computational time.

This chapter examines the locker room practices of Brazil's first transexual (their term) men's amateur soccer team, the Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB), or Soccer Star Boys. Drawing on a photo shoot with the MBB inside the locker room, and on conversations with photographer Isabel Abreu as well as members of the team, this chapter explores the debates surrounding queer and trans body politics amidst the rise of the right in Brazil and the Americas. Taken in 2017 and released in 2018, the photo series capture a moment of political transition in Brazil; the images are taken after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and her socialist Workers’ Party and before the election of ultra-rightwing candidate Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro rose to power, in part, by positioning himself against so-called ‘gender ideology’ and attacking marginalized populations, including LGBTQIA+ people. Bolsonarismo and its followers are politically fascist; they believe changing gender norms are linked to Brazil's perceived decline; they claim these shifting norms are humiliating, and respond with nationalism and violence. In this climate, the MBB have shifted their approach to trans politics by becoming more discerning about the teams' visibility and representation. Analysing both the images and their context, this chapter suggests that the Meninos' experiences highlight the connections between political fascism and what queer sport theorist Brian Pronger refers to as Body Fascism. The MBB contest such forms of repression through strategic uses of nudity and through representational choices that insist on the player's humanity and beauty. By asserting that their bodies on the pitch and in the locker room is ‘art, activism and resistance’ (the team's tagline), the MBB fight for trans justice in and through futebol.

Success in projects requires understanding and managing increasing complexity. This study aims to address the gap in the literature regarding the relationship between project complexity and various forms of interpartner learning capability. In addition, the authors explore the moderating effect of supplier design responsibility on the relationship between project complexity and interpartner learning capability.

From an electronics supplier’s perspective, the authors propose that the effect of project complexity is a process of knowledge acquisition and sharing that is facilitated by various forms of interpartner learning capability, including absorptive learning and joint learning, with the upshot of fostering name-brand customer dependence in international exchange relationships. A questionnaire survey is used to collect data from project, product and account managers in the electronics manufacturing industry. The conceptual model is tested using 226 returned questionnaires.

The results indicate that complex projects can drive absorptive learning and joint learning capability, fostering enhanced customer dependence and relationship performance. Further, supplier design responsibility has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between project complexity and joint learning capability. However, project complexity is not significantly moderated by the effect of supplier design responsibility on absorptive learning capability.

Complexity fosters behaviors that influence interpartner learning, which highlights the connection between project management complexity and organizational learning in theory and practice.

Unlike other populations, entrepreneurs may be unable to fully escape from job-related stress due to their financial and/or psychological connection to their ventures. The authors argue that stress is a universal, intangible variable that profoundly influences the entrepreneurial process. In the present review, the authors critically synthesize past literature to evaluate the substantive body of research on stress in entrepreneurship and assess the impact of stress on individuals’ well-being. The authors find that entrepreneurial stress stems from role conflict or overload, issues related to business operations, and concerns from life outside the venture. Further, stress may result in changes to personal satisfaction and psychological well-being, contingent upon an individual’s stress tolerance, coping strategies, or recovery practices. The entrepreneurial process, from creation to exit, is comprised of several transition periods, all of which are uniquely stressful. The authors explore the implications of our findings by discussing stressors that may manifest during each stage of the entrepreneurial process. Therefore, the authors respond to calls for more dynamic investigation of entrepreneurial stress while also highlighting the need for more research into stressors associated with specific entrepreneurial activities.