Own-brand products move up May 31, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Business & Economy, Shopping.add a comment
One in five supermarket products now purchased by consumers is a private label one, as shown by a recent survey conducted by Giorgos Baltas, assistant professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business (ASOE).
Currently a central issue for retailers, preference for private label products is on the rise, with the study’s findings confirming estimates by sector experts that domestic market trends are similar to the global growth patterns of such products. In addition, private label products contribute to the much sought-after differentiation which retail chains strive to achieve by enhancing product line content and features.
“It seems that we are heading for consumer product markets where retailers’ own brands would share consumer preference with major and well-known brands, leaving less shelf room for minor names,” Baltas said, adding that “some minor manufacturers specializing in certain market segments indifferent to big brands may survive.”
According to the study, 89.9 percent of respondents believe that private labels are better priced. As far as quality goes, 38.4 percent (compared to 41.3 percent in last year’s survey) view such products as inferior to major brands, but 54.8 percent (against last year’s 51.5 percent) said quality was the same. Nevertheless, 6.8 percent replied that private label quality was higher.
With regard to packaging, 40.5 percent (44 percent last year) of the sample said it was worse, while 55 percent said it was equal and 4.4 percent viewed private label packaging as superior to major brands. Asked to judge private label products overall, 36.2 percent said they were worse, 7.4 percent replied they were better and almost one in two believed major and private brands were equal.
Baltas’s conclusion is that private label products enjoy a major advantage in terms of price over major manufacturers’ items, while consumer sentiment regarding the remaining criteria is mixed.
However, nearly half of consumers said they were content with private labels, with just 8.1 percent declaring dissatisfaction with such products. The largest proportion of private labels are sold by discount chains (44.4 percent) followed by major chains (19.2 percent) and small chains. Considering the lower price of private label items, it is estimated that this segment holds a 15 percent share in the market.
Professor heading to Greece to research eruption May 31, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Education.add a comment
A professor of geology and oceanography at Windward Community College has been awarded a Fulbright grant that will allow him to travel to Greece in June to research the largest volcanic eruption in human history.
“I am so honored to have this opportunity,” Flloy McCoy stated in a UH news release. From June 2007 to July 2008, McCoy will be involved in fieldwork to study the effects of the Late Bronze Age eruption of Thera (Santorini) in Greece. McCoy will attempt to merge the fields of archaeology and geology into a new discipline, geoarchaeology, to find out what destroyed a Cycladic culture and led to the demise of the Minoan culture on Crete.
He will also teach as a visiting research professor from September 2007 to May 2008 at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, mentoring students, and teaching graduate seminars in natural hazards and geology.
McCoy has studied the geological evidence for this eruption and its impacts over the last 20 years with the assistance of small groups of interested scientists and non-scientists, the UH news release said, and his work has been featured in numerous programs on NBC, BBC, the National Geographic, Learning and Discovery Channels.
As a Fulbright scholar grantee, McCoy will also be negotiating deep-water archaeology, mapping the ocean floor in search of ships and looking for evidence of ancient trade routes between Greece and Egypt. His role as a geologist will include developing new remote techniques for recording information in waters as deep as 12,000 feet.
Network Security: Current Status and Future Directions May 31, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in BooksLife Greek, Internet.add a comment
Research and Markets has announced the addition of Network Security: Current Status and Future Directions to their offering.
This book covers a wide range of topics dealing with network security. It is focused on the current status of security protocols, architectures, implementations and policies. It makes future projections by analyzing current research activities, proposals, and trends.
It provides a rigorous introduction to security issues in a networking environment and then state-of-the-art aspects of security are analyzed. Finally, implementations of security mechanisms and techniques are provided.
Christos Douligeris is currently Associate Professor of Informatics at the University of Pireaus, Greece. He has authored ten books in Greek, more than seventy refereed journal articles, and more than 100 papers for conferences. He has served in various editorial roles for IEEE Communications Society magazines and is currently Associate Editor for IEEE Communications Letters and the Technical Editor for IEEE Network Magazine. He is a senior member of the IEEE Communications Society and an IEEE Standards Association voting member for LAN, MAN, and wireless standards. He is also a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Technical Chamber of Greece.
Dimitrios N. Serpanos is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Patras, Greece. During his career, Professor Serpanos taught in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Crete and worked for the IBM Corporation at the T.J. Watson Research Center in the area of high-bandwidth systems. He holds two patents and is the author of more than 100 technical articles and papers, as well as the coeditor of Enterprise Networking. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the ACM, and the Technical Chamber of Greece, as well as an Educational Member of USENIX.
For more information visit > http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c58522
Wyoming’s UW signs Greek Marios Matalon May 31, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Basketball.add a comment
University of Wyoming has signed a member of the Greek Under 18 National Team to a basketball scholarship starting next season.
Marios Matalon, of Thessaloniki, Greece, is a 6-foot-3, 185-pound combo guard who will compete internationally for the Greek Under 20 National Team this summer. On the Under 18 team, Matalon has averaged 10 points, four rebounds, four assists and two steals per game. He has been shooting 49 percent from the field and 39 percent on 3-pointers.
He will enter the University of Wyoming as a freshman this fall, Wyoming athletics officials announced Wednesday.
“He is a very talented young player, who can play both guard positions,” head coach Heath Schroyer said. “Marios fits the style we want to play, and fits well into the program we are developing. He handles the ball well, can really shoot the three and has a high basketball IQ. He is also a great student and an outstanding young man.”
Greece’s retail sales volume grows May 31, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Business & Economy.add a comment
Greece’s retail sales volume grew 3.5% year-over-year in March, the National Statistical Service indicated last Thursday.
The food sector retail trade declined 0.9%, while non-food sector sales increased 7.7%. Supermarket sales volume advanced 0.9% and department store sales volume moved up 5.6%. In nominal terms, retail trade turnover climbed 7.2% at current prices.
Titan Cement named “Leading Company Greece” May 31, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Business & Economy.add a comment
Titan Cement Company S.A. has been named Leading Company – Greece 2006, chosen from among 260 businesses in a survey carried out for the first time in this country by the Hay Group.
The results of the survey Leading Companies Greece 2006 were announced on 17th May 2007 at an event addressed by Emmanuel Gobillot, author of the book The Connected Leader, which examines the leadership role of businesses. The award was presented by the Minister for Development, Dimitris Sioufas, and accepted by Chairman of the Titan Group, Andreas Kanellopoulos.
Cyprus and Greece score top marks in beach quality May 31, 2007
Posted by grhomeboy in Tourism.add a comment
Cyprus has the cleanest beaches in the European Union, scoring 99 percent compliance with the bloc’s strictest standards, according to data released by the EU Thursday.
Greece came a close second with 96 percent, but the report on coastal and freshwater beaches around the 27-nation EU gave poor marks to Luxembourg and Poland.
The 2006 report contained information on 14,345 coastal and 6,749 inland bathing areas. The proportion of areas that met mandatory standards stood at 96.1 percent, similar to last year’s figures. The European Commission said that some 250 bathing sites tried to cheat inspectors by masking pollution or artificially improving their results.
Europe’s top summer vacation centers generally did well. Of 1,863 seaside beaches tested in Spain, 92.7 percent got top marks. Only 64 of Greece’s 2,047 beaches failed to make the top grade, along with just 1 of the 100 beaches tested in Cyprus.
The EU said of Luxembourg’s 20 swimming sites that only 35 percent met the EU’s beach standards, making the landlocked nation the worst of the class in 2006. It said inspections of the Grand Duchy’s rivers and lakes showed “no sign of improvement for a number of years.”
Poland also scored poorly. Of its 70 Baltic Sea bathing sites, 14.3 percent failed to meet minimum quality rules, while 17 percent failed similar standards for inland freshwater sites.
The Commission has already opened lawsuits against 11 EU nations for taking their dirty beaches off the list altogether to keep their national average high. “I am very concerned by the number of bathing sites withdrawn from the list,” said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. “Removing sites from the list because they are polluted is not a solution. Member states must instead draw up plans for cleaning up these polluted sites.”
European beaches are awarded coveted blue flags, as a measure of quality and safety, if they apply stringent EU rules on everything from the cleanliness of the bathing water to lifeguard services and how many garbage bins are placed at the bathing sites.
Related Links > http://www.ec.europa.eu/water/water-bathing/index_en.html
grhomeboy
