The wide spread of the Diesel engine has been instrumental in the development of modern shipping. Marine Diesel engines dominate today as an option for the propulsion of commercial ships. While replacing Diesel engines with alternative propulsion engines is difficult to achieve, companies, in light of the new EEXI regulations, are turning to improvements, such as operating at lower rotational speeds, higher maximum combustion pressures, and more efficient overcrowding systems. Τhe purpose of this research paper is (i) to present the basic operating principles of marine Diesel engines, (ii) to study the main differences between electronically controlled Diesel engines and their mechanically controlled counterparts, and (iii) to evaluate their performance under newly introduced IMO’s EEXI regulations. Thus, after comparing Wärtsilä RTA and WinGD WX, the paper concluded that WinGD WX, being electronically controlled, will perform more effectively under new EEXI regulations, as it offers (i) reduced fuel consumption in low-load mode, (ii) zero-smoke emission at all operating speeds, (iii) very stable operation at low speed, (iv) more straightforward engine setup leading to less maintenance, (v) more extended periods between maintenance, mainly due to better load distribution between cylinders and more perfect combustion. From a regulatory perspective, the new limitations installed by the newly implemented EEXI and CII regulations will cause fewer implications in electronically controlled engines, while from an economic standpoint, the electronically controlled engines decrease OPEX and require fewer personnel, due to their efficiency at low loads and overall flexibility.

Purpose This study seeks to identify financial characteristics that can be employed to assess and predict corporate financial distress in publicly traded firms quoted in the London Stock Exchange. Design/Methodology/Approach The model incorporates three existing literatures as an alternative to bankruptcy. The model has two stages: the first stage discriminates financially healthy or distressed firms utilizing Binary Logit Regression while in the second stage with the use of the univariate analysis, firms are further categorized into four possible outcomes: financially healthy, potentially healthy targets and financially distressed or potentially distressed acquisition targets. Findings It was found that financial distress could be identified even three years prior the event. Moreover, statistical significant differences were found between the four firm sample groups. Research limitations / implications The vast changing environment and the financial crisis, highlight the need for future research on the area that will consider the world trade implications along with the individual macroeconomic variables of each country. Originality / Value It is the first time that a model is developed for the United Kingdom to follow the hazard model’s procedure based on recent financial data. Moreover, due to the scope of the analysis, a new version of the latter procedure is employed. A further innovation that makes the produced model unique is its ability to classify a firm into one of several a priori groupings according to the latter’s individual characteristics. This overcomes the limitation of earlier studies that considered only two possible outcomes for firms.