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The port industry frequently receives a bad press as there is a tendency to concentrate on financial crises and industrial relations problems, poor productivity and the like. This tends to obscure two facts: first that the industry has gone through more technological change in the past ten years than in the previous hundred — changes in cargo handling equipment and changes in shipping — accompanied by changes in demand and, above all, changes in the organisation and requirements for labour; secondly that, despite its image, there have been several notable innovations in the training and education area. The article that follows is, however, largely concerned with the broader areas of education rather than training.

Mr E. J. Bradbury has been appointed General Manager of Publicity for International Nickel Ltd. He was previously Manager, Market Development (Europe and Overseas).

It has been stated, and not without some cause, that no branch of our law is in a more uncertain condition than that relating to warranties under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, for during the past twenty‐three years various decisions have been given on what constitutes a warranty within those statutes, and at first sight it appears somewhat difficult to extract therefrom any settled principles. We propose, however, to examine shortly the leading cases on this important subject, and to see how far they are consistent with one another and lay down rules for general guidance.

The purpose of this paper is to briefly summarize and review the theories and methods of complex structures’ dynamic reliability. Complex structures are usually assembled from multiple components and subjected to time-varying loads of aerodynamic, structural, thermal and other physical fields; its reliability analysis is of great significance to ensure the safe operation of large-scale equipment such as aviation and machinery.

In this paper for the single-objective dynamic reliability analysis of complex structures, the calculation can be categorized into Monte Carlo (MC), outcrossing rate, envelope functions and extreme value methods. The series-parallel and expansion methods, multi-extremum surrogate models and decomposed-coordinated surrogate models are summarized for the multiobjective dynamic reliability analysis of complex structures.

The numerical complex compound function and turbine blisk are used as examples to illustrate the performance of single-objective and multiobjective dynamic reliability analysis methods. Then the future development direction of dynamic reliability analysis of complex structures is prospected.

The paper provides a useful reference for further theoretical research and engineering application.

Demand forecasting is a challenging task that could benefit from additional relevant data and processes. The purpose of this paper is to examine how big data analytics (BDA) enhances forecasts’ accuracy.

A conceptual structure based on the design-science paradigm is applied to create categories for BDA. Existing approaches from the scientific literature are synthesized with industry knowledge through experience and intuition. Accordingly, a reference frame is developed using three steps: description of conceptual elements utilizing justificatory knowledge, specification of principles to explain the interplay between elements, and creation of a matching by conducting investigations within the retail industry.

The developed framework could serve as a guide for meaningful BDA initiatives in the supply chain. The paper illustrates that integration of different data sources in demand forecasting is feasible but requires data scientists to perform the job, an appropriate technological foundation, and technology investments.

So far, no scientific work has analyzed the relation of forecasting methods to BDA; previous works have described technologies, types of analytics, and forecasting methods separately. This paper, in contrast, combines insights and provides advice on how enterprises can employ BDA in their operational, tactical, or strategic demand plans.