North Carolina Textile Industry in Transition: 1970s to 2020s

Based upon a questionnaire survey, this research study focuses on the Japanese apparel manufacturers. The aim is to understand the characteristics that make up the marketing strategys of Japanese small to medium sized apparel manufacturers. The authors generate exploratory hypotheses, which are tested via statistical analysis of data obtained from a questionnaire survey. The hypotheses tested include, the relationships between “High Value Added” strategys and factors involved with manufacturing and marketing channels. High Value Added strategys relate to the manufacturers’ competitive behaviors that create high and new value for their products. The results indicate that High Value Added strategys have positive relationships for domestic outsources, the number of outsources, use of directly operated shops and the orientation for sales in overseas markets. Keywords: apparel manufacturer, strategy, Japan, high value added strategy, questionnaire survey Ⅰ. Introduction The Japanese business climate of apparel products is changing with China becoming a major player and other countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam booming. It is apparent that a major shift has occurred in the business environment relating to apparel products manufactured in China or other low-wage countries, which have invaded import markets throughout the world economies. Such a drastic change in the busi-ness environment of competing economies impacts distribution channel structures, affecting both whole-salers and manufactures. Therefore, the need to under-stand and research existing apparel companies is re-quired in order to comprehend existing strategies and determine the future survival of these apparel com-panies.The authors conducted quantitative research on the business strategies of small to medium sized apparel companies, especially in relation to the Japanese wholesaler in apparel manufacture markets (Komiya, Inoguchi, Kim & Urakami, 2009; Urakami, Komiya & Inoguchi 2009; Urakami et al., 2010; Urakami & Wu 2010). One similar study highlighted the strategies of small to medium sized apparel manufacturers in developed countries in East Asia (Komiya et al., 2009). Other studies revealed the factors affecting the recent trend of self-planning functions within Japanese apparel wholesalers (Urakami, Komiya &

Lost and Now Found: The Search for the Hidden and Forgotten

Digital map processing has been an interest in the image processing and pattern recognition community since the early 80s. With the exponential growth of available map scans in the archives and on the internet, a variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences grow interests in using historical maps as a primary source of geographical and political information in their studies. Today, many organizations such as the United States Geological Survey, David Rumsey Map Collection, OldMapsOnline.org, and National Library of Scotland, store numerous historical maps in either paper or scanned format. Only a small portion of these historical maps is georeferenced, and even fewer of them have machine-readable content or comprehensive metadata. The lack of a searchable textual content including the spatial and temporal information prevents researchers from efficiently finding relevant maps for their research and using the map content in their studies. These challenges present a tremendous collaboration opportunity for the image processing and pattern recognition community to build advance map processing technologies for transforming the natural and social science studies that use historical maps. This paper presents the potentials of using historical maps in scientific research, describes the current trends and challenges in extracting and recognizing text content from historical maps, and discusses the future outlook.

Marcel Kahan and Edward Rock's Article, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pill: Adaptive Responses to Takeover Law,1 captures an intuition that has come to dominate the middle ground between supporters and critics of Delaware's takeover jurisprudence. This is the view that management's discretion to defeat hostile takeovers under Delaware law just does not matter much today. The reason is not that the current law is right -or wrong. Rather it is because offsetting developments within the corporation -option compensation and active boards-have made managers far more receptive to selling their companies today than they were during the turbulent 1980s. Kahan and Rock present a stylized history of the takeover market in three parts. First there was the big bang, an exogenous shock in the early 1980s that sharply increased hostile takeovers. This wave of hostile takeovers lasted only a few years, however. It soon was followed by a second period in which takeover activityand hostile takeovers in particular -fell precipitously. Although the economy was largely responsible for this change, legal and corporate governance developments also contributed to it. During the midand late 1980s, state legislatures adopted antitakeover legislation, while management and its allies experimented with defensive tactics. Management's efforts at self-help culminated in the poison pill, which the Delaware Supreme Court blessed, at least provisionally, in 1986. The pill placed management back in the catbird seat, able to block hostile takeovers without seeking shareholder approval. But the system still was not in equilibrium. There was no turning back the clock; shareholders still wanted the takeover premia that accompanied a robust flow of deals. Equilibrium returned to the system only in the third and final period, beginning around 1992, when option compensation plans and independent boards of directors combined to spark a new wave of friendly acquisitions that profited both shareholders and the managers of target companies.

Digital map processing has been an interest in the computer science and geographic information science communities since the early 1980s. With the increase of available map scans, a variety of researchers in the natural and social sciences developed a growing interest in using historical maps in their studies. The lack of an understanding of how historical maps can be used in research and the capabilities of map processing technologies creates a significant gap between the wide range of communities that could benefit from the advances in digital map processing technologies and the disciplines in which the technologies are developed. As a result, researchers who intend to use historical maps in their studies still need a significant amount of resources to digitize their maps, while the existing digital map processing technologies are difficult to apply and understand and thus do not look promising. In many cases, existing digital map processing technologies could help facilitate the digitization process, and it just requires additional knowledge to select an appropriate technology given the problem scope (e.g., the number of maps for processing, map conditions, and style varieties). The result is that researchers waste time and resources building and testing various systems that partially duplicate prior work and cannot fully use the potential of existing technology. This chapter presents real-world applications of historical maps and case studies of both semi-automatic and fully automatic approaches for geographic feature extraction from historical maps. These real-world applications illustrate and exemplify various needs and scopes of using historical maps in scientific studies (e.g., processing thousands of historical maps from a map series vs. a few historical maps from various publishers and with different cartographic styles). The two example map processing technologies described help understand current strengths and weaknesses. These examples also illustrate tremendous collaboration opportunities between and beyond the computer science and geographic information science communities to build advanced map processing technologies that are more effective in transforming the scientific studies that use historical maps.

Purpose – The Canadian apparel industry has long been challenged by imports from low-wage countries while its exports have declined since their height in 2002. This situation was exacerbated with trade liberalisation, which started in January 2005. Data from Industry Canada and a number of studies, amongst which those of the Apparel Human Resources Council (AHRC), showing the adverse effects of trade liberalisation since the phasing out of the multi-fibre agreement in 2005, the lack of competitive advantage for Canada as an apparel manufacturing nation and the subsequent rapid decline of its apparel industry, pointed to the need for a strategic response from the Canadian apparel industry, particularly from small to medium-sized enterprises. A study conducted for the AHRC of the Federal Government of Canada outlined a number of strategies that Canadian apparel companies could pursue, focusing on elements other than manufacturing in the traditional apparel value chain. These strategies seemed to suggest the implementation of a cluster approach where greater cooperation between suppliers would be required throughout the supply chain with a focus on functional expertise and relationships. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether a cluster strategy is being applied or if indeed it is applicable to Canada’s apparel companies. Design/methodology/approach – A literature search, was undertaken to find the options available for the organisation of SMEs so that: an analytical framework could be created from the various theories and concepts that; would enable the evidence-based selection of an option or options suitable for adoption by Canadian apparel SMEs, to assist them to be more effective than stand-alone enterprises. Data were collected from case studies of Canadian apparel companies, an Experience Survey (conducted through face-to-face interviews with the directors of the AHRC, the Canadian Apparel Federation, Industry Canada, and Canadian retail and apparel supply executives) and from the responses to an online questionnaire sent to Canadian apparel suppliers. The data were subjected to examination using the analytical framework to determine whether the evidence existed on which to base a cluster-based strategic response to competition from overseas apparel suppliers, or whether one of the alternative options might be a more suitable match with the Canadian apparel business environment. Findings – Neither the case studies nor the Experience Survey revealed sufficient evidence of open communication or of cooperation among suppliers in areas that would fortify horizontal clustering amongst apparel SMEs, such as the sharing of labour, market research or supply chain management; similar findings emerged from the online questionnaire sent to Canadian apparel suppliers, which showed little evidence favouring cluster development as a strategic response for the Canadian apparel supply industry. The research also showed that industrialists, experts and government advisors all recognised that, beginning with trade liberalisation in 2005, there had been a transformation of the Canadian apparel industry from a manufacturing to a service industry with the retailers taking much stronger control of the supply chain than before, which, taken together with the lack of open communication or cooperation among apparel suppliers gives rise to conditions which favour collaboration over clustering. Originality/value – The paper provides a firm evidence base upon which to develop a different strategy for Canadian SMEs than the cluster approach that has been proposed to date. The findings reported in this paper show that Canadian apparel industry leaders, government and industry-led support organisations, retailers and suppliers all recognise that the type of open communication or of cooperation among suppliers in areas that would fortify horizontal clustering amongst apparel SMEs, such as the sharing of labour, market research or supply chain management does not occur to a sufficient extent to support the adoption of a cluster strategy by the Canadian apparel sector (although it may be applicable in Quebec). Canadian retailers have now taken the leading role in the supplier/retailer relationship. Any future strategy will need to take account of this repositioning of retailers and be centred upon vertical relationships between individual apparel suppliers and retailers.

The US experienced a considerable increase in inequality between skilled and less-skilled workers during the early 1980s—a period which corresponds with a large temporary appreciation of the dollar. This article investigates the reasons behind this rise in inequality by evaluating the impact of trade with low-wage countries (LWCs) and technological change on the wage bill share of skilled workers (which is designed to capture movements in inequality arising from changes in both the relative wage and employment opportunities of the less-skilled). We find that an increase in US imports from LWCs—encouraged by the large appreciation of the dollar in the early 1980s—seems to explain some of the rise in US inequality in low-skill-intensive sectors, but that technological change (proxied by R&D expenditure) explains the rise in inequality in high-skill-intensive sectors. However, given that the timing of the sudden rise in US R&D expenditure corresponds with the appreciation of the dollar, it may be the case that the deterioration in US trade competitiveness during this period contributed to the rapid increase in the rate of technological change via mechanisms such as ‘defensive innovation’. Hence one might also argue that the technology-based explanation for the rise in US inequality could actually be a trade-based explanation.

Historic maps are an important primary source which can be utilized in the reconstruction of environmental variables of the pre-industrial landscape. However, methodological constraints have hitherto prevented large scale and systematic approaches. In this paper a novel methodology is presented, which documents the usefulness of the maps in the study of paleo-hydrology and thus serves a better understanding of the conditions for agricultural production under pre-drainage conditions. The methodology is developed based on eighteenth and nineteenth century maps from a 100 km2 study area in one stream catchment in East Jutland, Denmark. It combines information from two types of historic maps in order to correlate computed soil hydrology (wetness index) and recorded historic land-use. The calculated wetness indexes are derived from contour lines on topographic (military) maps (in Danish: Høje Maalebordsblade), whereas the spatial overlays are land-use classes from economic maps (in Danish: Matrikelkort - Original 1). This study demonstrates – for the first time - that the wetness index is explanatory for the agricultural suitable/non-suitable dichotomy (tilled land versus “wetland”: meadows, fens, and peat bogs) on the historic economic maps. Furthermore, the study shows that pre-industrial arable areas were stretched to their limits in respect to cropping wet soils in this agricultural dominated landscape. The study confirms the existing belief that the historic economic maps constitute the best available source of these mosaic-landscapes for periods before the intense subsurface tile drainage began. This finding opens for further methodological development and up-scaling using automatic feature detection, contour line extraction and text recognition of historical maps.

Industry 4.0 is a new era of industrial revolution in which textile and apparel (T&A) companies are adopting and integrating advanced technologies to achieve sustainability and a competitive edge. Previous studies have just focused on the perspective of big data utilization in Industry 4.0 and neglected the role of business intelligence systems (BIS), especially in the T&A industry. The current study is one of the first to investigate the determinants of BIS adoption with an eye towards understanding how BIS can resolve sustainability issues in T&A companies with Industry 4.0 technologies. Methodology: A qualitative research approach is applied with 14 semi-structured in-depth interviews from 12 of the world’s high-end T&A companies. The snowball and purposeful sampling strategy is used to select the participants. The qualitative content analysis technique is used to analyze the interview data. Results: The findings revealed various themes, such as sustainability issues in T&A companies, improved value creation processes with leading BI solutions, and perceived difficulties in the adoption of BIS. Major improvements are perceived in the apparel retail business because apparel companies are more prone to adopt the Industry 4.0 technologies with advanced business intelligence (BI) solutions. The results prove the pivotal role of economic sustainability in the adoption of BIS and Industry 4.0 technologies in T&A companies.

Gizzard shad is a dominant planktivore/detritivore in the Wabash River, and populations crashed in the early 1990s. Previous work (1974–2008) identified a substantial shift in body-size structure and functional trait composition in the Wabash River fish assemblage between 1989 and 1996. Invasive Asian Carp appeared in the Ohio River basin including the Wabash River in the 1990s. Our goal was to test for temporal changes in assemblage composition and trophic structure relative to the invasion of Asian carp from the early 1990s. We hypothesized that establishment of Asian Carp was a contributor to the assemblage composition shift, and that their presence altered the trophic pathways and food sources of native fishes including Gizzard Shad (hostile takeover hypothesis). Alternatively, Asian Carp may have found success through capitalizing on an empty niche, likely left vacant by the decline in Gizzard Shad, or abundance changes in other trophic groups (opportunistic hypothesis). We utilized archival fish and mussel collections to test for trophic changes in the ecosystem using δ13C and δ15N stable isotope analyses. We examined stomach contents of the dominant planktivore/detritivore consumer, Gizzard Shad, from archival and recent collections to test for changes in the phytoplankton community. Stable isotopes indicated a community reliance on other, more deplete, carbon sources than indicated by the algae, and a slight increase between the δ13C time periods. Although all functional feeding groups of fishes indicated some reduction in δ15N, the differences were only significant for omnivores, mussels, and planktivore/detritivores. Although Asian Carp may have contributed to the collapse of Gizzard Shad populations, other stressors were likely more important drivers of their decline. This is the first, albeit indirect, evidence of opportunistic “invasion” as opposed to the historically presumed hostile takeover model.

The “Textile Industry” encompasses a very complex and diverse group of industries with very different parameters to ensure their viability. The sub-sector that is mostly affected from imports from low wage countries is apparel of both woven and knitted goods. It represents close to 50% of the EEC 12 textile consumption. The viability of the primary textile sectors of the European community depends on their ability to compete with imports of yarns and fabrics from low wage countries, but also to a greater extent on the ability of the apparel sector of the Euopean community to compete with imports of apparel from low wage countries. This is illustrated with costing samples of a cotton dress shirt made in a high wage EEC country and in South East Asia. It shows that to be competitive manufacturing costs of producing a shirting fabric must be reduced by 10% and the manufacturing costs of making-up a shirt by 30%. It also shows that in order to achieve these savings, technological developments are required by decreasing order of priority in making-up, in weaving, in dyeing and finishing and in spinning. An analysis of the textile patents granted in the last 18 months in the top seven textile patent producing countries, shows that due to a lack of research in the past in Europe, the new technologies for making-up garments that will be introduced in the next three to five years will come from Japan or the U.S.A. since they had 85% of the patents granted in the last 18 months for that sector. A more detailed examination of the number and type of patents granted, permits the identification of theprocesses where technological improvements will be made. We can safely predict that the yarn and fabric sectors in the European Community will be basically competitive worldwide in four to five years from now, provided that the industry will be able to generate the funds needed to acquire the new technology and provided the textile world operates on the basis of fair trade.

This article is devoted to the methodology and practice of composition of regional complex historical atlases on the example of historical and thematic mapping of the Crimean Peninsula as part of the Taurida Governorate. As part of a comparative analysis of the distinctive features of regional complex historical atlases the authors presents representative examples of regional and national mapping in the second half of the 20th century which contributed to the emergence of a niche for national historical atlases. The practice of composition of national historical atlases promoted to the noticeable development of historical cartographic research, but it does not allow to solve the problem of continuity and coherence of historical maps of different themes qualitatively due to its specificity. Regional complex historical atlases can more accurately convey spatial information of various themes owing to more stable mapping object within their boundaries and the vastness of the source base at the polyscale level. Crimea (1768–1917) was chosen as a representative object for compositing the regional complex historical atlas due to the diversity of the peninsula’s geographical environment, dynamic socio-economic and demographic processes and the presence of a wide base of various primary sources from statistical reviews to travelers’ reports. The main theoretical approaches to the grouping of maps and sections, potential topics of regional historical mapping and possible typological solutions for their representation were highlighted based on the structure of the Crimea atlas. Particular attention is paid to the problems of navigation and review of such atlases, which should consider the specifics of the theoretical composition and content of regional historical maps.

Nineteenth-century remains in Gravesend (Kent, UK) were revealed by excavation, chiefly comprising buildings, along with wells and cesspits. Historic maps, newspaper archives and other sources have been used to interpret the majority of the site as a low status 'slum' accessed from narrow pedestrian passageways (Bull Yard, Horn Yard, Swan Yard and Market Alley). These areas comprised a poorly planned mixture of dwellings and premises including slaughterhouses, piggeries, warehouses and other commercial and small-scale industrial properties. A newspaper account described a view of the interiors of dwellings glimpsed through broken windows on Market Alley as 'A state of things which ought not to be permitted' (Gravesend and Dartford Reporter, 12 July 1879). Some parts of the site (Bank Street and Queen Street) were occupied by higher status dwellings and premises, including a medium-sized coach factory.

This paper is to focus the financial ratio analysis of the Korean textile and apparel com- panies due to fast changing domestic industry. Financial ratios are playing a pivotal role in management analysis to assess the present conditions to predict the future. Subjects are belonging to textile and apparel manufacturers based on Firm Classification Standard while registered as securities listed-firms or Kosdaq-listed firms under the Electronic Notification System of Korean Banking Supervisory Authority. 41 companies' data have been analyzed including 17 apparel companies and 24 textile companies. 14 representative financial ratios are analyzed. In this paper, financial ratios can be clas- sified into four categories as follows: stability ratios, profitability ratios, growth ratios and activity ratios. The independent t-test was performed using SPSS 18 for a 10 year simple arithmetic average. The following conclusion has reached regarding aspects of management conditions and performances. When compared the ratios indicating stability, textile and apparel companies did not show much difference in debt ratio and the ratio of earning to interests. However, when compared the profitability ratios measuring the ability to produce incomes, apparel companies showed higher ratios than textile companies. Thus it is important to recognize financial characteristics of each industry.

It is often argued that the globalization of production places workers in industrialized countries in competition with their counterparts in low wage countries. We examine a firm-level panel of foreign manufacturing affiliates owned by U.S. multinationals between 1983 and 1992 and find evidence to the contrary. Affiliate activities in developing countries appear to be complementary to rather than substituting for affiliate activities in industrialized countries. Workers do compete across affiliates, but the competition is between affiliates in countries with similar workforce skill levels. The results suggest that multinationals with affiliates in countries at different stages of development decompose production across borders into complementary stages that differ by skill intensity. The implied complementarity of traded intermediate inputs has important implications for the empirical debate over trade, employment, and wages.