Ukraine’s integration into the world arms market

Hostilities in eastern Ukraine have highlighted the need for accelerated transformation of Ukrainian armed forces and strengthening country’s defense capabilities. Ukraine is an active consumer and exporter of weapons, so it needs to improve constantly its position in the international arms market, which, by the way, unlike most markets suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, is constantly growing. The study aims to assess the prospects of Ukraine’s integration into the world arms market to secure its armed forces and achieve the highest possible level of arms exports. Methods of comparative analysis and integrated approach were used in the study. The obtained results demonstrated that Ukrainian arms export has fallen dramatically in recent years (from 1501 million USD in 2012 to 115 million USD in 2020); the largest importers were China (36% of Ukraine’s total arms exports), Russia (20%), and Thailand (17%). The main explanation for this is the necessity of transition to more technological weapons. Concerning weapon imports, Turkey, the USA, Great Britain, Poland, and Bulgaria became the main suppliers. It is about ammunition, electronics, including electronic warfare stations, means of communication, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, etc. The study substantiated that Ukraine should implement joint projects with other countries to fully develop its high-tech weapons in accordance with the latest military technologies.

Market Analysis and Meal Ready-to-Eat Main Course Development in the Context of Military Use

A one-day ration can be supplied to a soldier in the form of one ration pack for 24 hours or three packs of meal ready-to-eat, which equals one 24-hour ration. Based on the physical activity level and consequently energy requirements, there are two categories of military operations: a) normal operations, comparable to urban police work or firefighting, and b) combat operations which represent missions involving light-infantry. The aim of this study was: a) to analyse the EU market on the subject of a main course (MC) product in flexible packaging (n = 184), in the context of military use, and b) to develop thermostabilised MC aligning with modern health and nutrition recommendations for military use, i.e. protein, carbohydrate, fat, total energy intake, and essential amino acid composition. The greatest amount of ready-to-eat meals with shelf-life over one year are produced in the United Kingdom (n = 48) and most of the MC meals are preserved using freeze-drying (n = 135). While 90% of analysed products meet fat criteria for a physically active consumer (i.e. soldier), 39% meet carbohydrate criteria, 21% meet energy intake criteria, only 1% of the products are able to fulfill protein requirements. In this study, nine MC meals with shelf-life of three years were developed, which provide the necessary protein amount for a highly physically active consumer and cover its daily essential amino acid requirements.

Television Sharknados and Twitter Storms: Cult Film Fan Practices in the Age of Social Media Branding

<p>This thesis examines the Syfy channel’s broadcast of the television movie Sharknado and the large number of tweets that were sent about it. Sharknado’s audience engaged in cult film viewing practices that can be understood using paracinema theory. Paracinema engagement with cult films has traditionally taken place in midnight screenings in independent movie theatres and private homes. Syfy’s audience was able to engage in paracinematic activity that included making jokes about Sharknado’s low quality of production and interacting with others who were doing the same through the affordances of Twitter. In an age where branding has become increasingly important, Syfy clearly benefited from all the fan activity around its programming. Critical branding theory argues that the value generated by a business’s brand comes from the labour of consumers. Brand management is mostly about encouraging and managing consumer labour. The online shift of fan practices has created new opportunities for brand managers to subsume the activities of consumers. Cult film audience practices often have an emphasis on creatively and collectively engaging in rituals and activities around a text. These are the precise qualities that brands require from their consumers. Sharknado was produced and marketed by Syfy to invoke the cult film subculture as part of Syfy’s branding strategy. This strategy can be understood using the theory of biopolitical marketing. Biopolitical marketing creates brands by encouraging and managing consumer activity on social media. Instead of simply promoting itself, a brand becomes an online platform through which consumers can engage. An active consumer base raises a brand’s profile and puts forward the image of happy, loyal customers. An equally important advantage of biopolitical marketing is that it can mask the marketing aspect of branding. Consumers who are cynical towards marketers may be less defensive towards a group of fellow consumers enjoying a product online. Developing a consumer community around a business where every consumer interaction enhances the brand and there is no semblance of marketer involvement is the end goal of biopolitical marketing. The subculture around cult films not only has brand-friendly practices, but is also positioned as being rebellious, a quality that can be particularly valuable in trying to mask the presence of marketing.</p>

Television Sharknados and Twitter Storms: Cult Film Fan Practices in the Age of Social Media Branding

<p>This thesis examines the Syfy channel’s broadcast of the television movie Sharknado and the large number of tweets that were sent about it. Sharknado’s audience engaged in cult film viewing practices that can be understood using paracinema theory. Paracinema engagement with cult films has traditionally taken place in midnight screenings in independent movie theatres and private homes. Syfy’s audience was able to engage in paracinematic activity that included making jokes about Sharknado’s low quality of production and interacting with others who were doing the same through the affordances of Twitter. In an age where branding has become increasingly important, Syfy clearly benefited from all the fan activity around its programming. Critical branding theory argues that the value generated by a business’s brand comes from the labour of consumers. Brand management is mostly about encouraging and managing consumer labour. The online shift of fan practices has created new opportunities for brand managers to subsume the activities of consumers. Cult film audience practices often have an emphasis on creatively and collectively engaging in rituals and activities around a text. These are the precise qualities that brands require from their consumers. Sharknado was produced and marketed by Syfy to invoke the cult film subculture as part of Syfy’s branding strategy. This strategy can be understood using the theory of biopolitical marketing. Biopolitical marketing creates brands by encouraging and managing consumer activity on social media. Instead of simply promoting itself, a brand becomes an online platform through which consumers can engage. An active consumer base raises a brand’s profile and puts forward the image of happy, loyal customers. An equally important advantage of biopolitical marketing is that it can mask the marketing aspect of branding. Consumers who are cynical towards marketers may be less defensive towards a group of fellow consumers enjoying a product online. Developing a consumer community around a business where every consumer interaction enhances the brand and there is no semblance of marketer involvement is the end goal of biopolitical marketing. The subculture around cult films not only has brand-friendly practices, but is also positioned as being rebellious, a quality that can be particularly valuable in trying to mask the presence of marketing.</p>

Literasi Ekonomi dan Pola Perilaku Konsumsi Masyarakat Kelas Menengah ke Bawah di Era Adaptasi Kebiasaan Baru

In the era of adapting to new habits, after the COVID-19 pandemic, in terms of marketing management and consumer behavior, economic literacy is very much needed in making every economic decision, including consumption. This study was conducted as an effort to explore the contribution of economic literacy to consumption behavior patterns in the new adaptation era. This study is a study with a quantitative approach. The population in this study is an active consumer society found in a number of districts/cities in South Sulawesi Province. Sampling was done purposively with criteria based on social, economic, and demographic characteristics, obtained as many as 211 respondents. The data obtained were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling analysis. The results of this study found that economic literacy has a positive and significant influence on consumption behavior patterns in the era of adaptation to new habits.

Pengaruh E-Wom Terhadap Customer Engagement Pelanggan Osbond Gym Bekasi Dalam Penerapan Protokol Kesehatan Covid-19

Electronic word of mouth is a message or information that comes from personal experience or consumer opinion on a product or service and is spread by word of mouth via the internet media. High electronic word of mouth can create customer engagement. Customer engagement is an attitude towards a brand or company, which involves active consumer commitment through online media in the form of word-of-mouth activities, providing reviews, recommendations, and blogging that is driven by motivation. This study aims to measure the effect of electronic word of mouth on customer engagement at Osbond Gym Bekasi. This research uses quantitative techniques with a survey method. Primary data were collected through distributing questionnaires to 85 respondents who are customers of Osbond Gym Bekasi. Data analysis used the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences with the SPSS for Windows 25 application. Based on the research results, it is known that there is a positive influence between electronic word of mouth on customer engagement. Electronic word of mouth has an effect of 69.7% on customer engagement, while 30.3% is another factorElectronic word of mouth adalah suatu pesan atau informasi yang berasal dari pengalaman pribadi atau opini konsumen akan suatu produk atau jasa dan disebarkan dari mulut ke mulut melalui media internet. Electronic word of mouth yang tinggi dapat menciptakan customer engagement. Customer engagement merupakan suatu sikap terhadap merek atau perusahaan, yang melibatkan komitmen konsumen secara aktif melalui media online yang berupa aktivitas word-of-mouth, memberikan review, rekomendasi, dan blogging yang didorong oleh suatu motivasi. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengukur pengaruh electronic word of mouth terhadap customer engagement di Osbond Gym Bekasi. Penelitian ini menggunakan teknik kuantitatif dengan metode survei. Data primer dikumpulkan melalui penyebaran kuesioner kepada 85 responden yang merupakan pelanggan dari Osbond Gym Bekasi. Analisis data menggunakan Statistical Package for the Social Sciences dengan aplikasi SPSS

Consumers' active choice behavior promotes coevolutionary units

Individual behavior, and local context are processes that can influence the structure and evolution of ecological interactions. In trophic interactions, consumers can increase their fitness by actively choosing resources they are able to explore. The effect of active choice on interaction network structure and their coevolution is not well known. Using an individual-based model, we modeled a community of several species that interact antagonistically. The trait of each individual is modelled explicitly and subjected to the interaction pressure. Besides, each consumer can actively choose to interact with resources that maximize its fitness. We show that active consumer choice can generate coevolutionary units, that is, the modules are formed by coevolution and stay stable over time. Besides, inside each module resource traits converge which promotes attack dilution: when resources converge their traits, the pool of options for a consumer increases and the chance of a specific individual being attacked decreases. We also observed that active consumer choice impacts network structure, with networks more modular and specialized and less connected and nested as the number of consumer choices increase. Thus, we emphasize that the consumers'ctive choice behaviour plays an important role in the ecological and evolutionary aprocesses that structure these communities.

Optimization of Heat Supply Reliability with Account to the Active Consumer Functions

The article considers the problem of analyzing and optimizing the reliability of heat supply to an active consumer (AP) of thermal energy in heat supply systems (HSS), taking into account their additional thermal power provided by their own sources of thermal energy (IT). The stated scientific and methodological problem consists in determining the optimal ratio of the values of the reliability parameters of the HSS elements (failure rates and / or restorations) and the power of the own IT AP, which ensures the required level of reliability of heat supply with minimal total costs to ensure the elemental reliability of the system and the operation of its own IT AP. The authors propose solutions based on the use of the theory of reliability, models of Markov random processes, some regularities of the theory of probability, nodal PN, models of the theory of hydraulic circuits and enlarged regularities of thermophysical processes occurring during heat supply to consumers. A computational experiment was carried out using the developed methods based on the TSS test circuit with characte­ristics close to real systems, providing the basis for conclusions and directions for further research.