河南省现代农业可持续发展的综合效益评价

近年来,我国农业生态环境恶化,可利用农业资源紧缺、农产品质量安全等问题日渐凸显,因此发展可持续现代农业产业已经被提上日程。河南省作为发展现代农业的试点改革省份,在发展特色农业模式,优化农业产业结构方面取得了一定成效,但同时存在着制约其进一步健全完善的因素。文章以农业可持续发展为理论基础,从经济效益、社会效益和生态效益等3个方面构建现代农业可持续发展综合效益评价指标体系,并采用主成分分析法评价现代农业可持续发展的综合效益。研究结果表明,经济发展是河南省农业可持续发展的核心;人口问题已成为制约部分城市农业可持续发展的重要因素;生态因子的贡献率最低,是阻碍河南省经济可持续发展的重要因素。据此提出调整产业结构、促进农业经济发展,控制人口增长、提高农民生活水平,保护生态环境、健全生态因子机制等具有针对性的对策建议,为提升现代农业可持续发展综合效益提供理论借鉴。     

What makes export manufacturers pursue functional upgrading in an emerging market? A study of Chinese technology new ventures

This study examines unique factors causing emerging market firms to pursue functional upgrading. Our analysis draws on the resource-based view and learning theory, and our study sample consisted of Chinese new technology ventures. We test the effect of governance mechanisms and internal resources on the functional upgrading of firms. The results indicate that trade shows and quality advantage facilitated the functional upgrading of firms. However, contrary to our expectations, electronic markets and technological advancement do not emerge as significant variables. The implications of the results are discussed in consideration of the existing literature, and future research opportunities are described.     

“Make me feel special”: Are hierarchical loyalty programs a panacea for all brands? The role of brand concept

Despite extant literature, the most effective structure of loyalty programs is still heavily questioned among researchers. Building on the congruence principle, we examine the moderating role of brand concept. Our findings reveal that for symbolic brand concepts, customers perceive hierarchical loyalty program structures (which classify customers into tiers according to spending levels or other purchase activities) to be more congruent; this perception increases firm loyalty intentions. However, for functional brand concepts, customers perceive hierarchical and linear loyalty programs structures as equally congruent. Also for symbolic brand concepts, program structure appears as the most important feature in ensuring perceived congruence between a program and a brand, ahead of program benefits. These findings have important theoretical and managerial implications.     

Consumers' awareness,acceptance and attitudes towards functional foods in Turkey

The aim of the present study was to investigate consumers' awareness, acceptance and attitudes towards functional foods in Turkey. Eight hundred and eight people participated in this study: aged between 20 and 80 years, 38.5% were male and 61.5% were female. Participants were given a questionnaire and were asked to fill it in by themselves to minimize the influence of the interviewer. Results indicated that socio‐demographic characteristics such as age, education level and income level are important indicators of consumers' awareness and consumption of functional food. The results show that the female respondents were 2.987 times more aware of functional food than the male respondents. Similarly, the likelihood of respondents having awareness of functional food was 1.431 times greater among those who had a higher educational level than among those with a lower educational level. Consumers who used vitamin supplements were 1.228 times more aware of functional food than other consumers. The results show that older respondents were 3.395 times more aware of functional food than younger respondents. Respondents with a history of familial diseases were more likely than others to have consumed margarine with plant sterol, fruit juices fortified with vitamin C, and breakfast cereals fortified with vitamins and minerals. Those with a diet‐related problem were more likely to have consumed cholesterol‐lowering products than those without a problem. As a conclusion, this study has shown that socio‐demographic characteristics such as age, education and income levels, and prices are important indicators that influence consumers' awareness and consumption of functional food. These results suggest that this type of knowledge could affect consumers' interest in functional foods, and therefore educational strategies might be necessary to encourage the consumption of functional foods.     

A functional time series analysis of forward curves derived from commodity futures

We study forward curves formed from commodity futures prices listed on the Standard and Poor’s-Goldman Sachs Commodities Index (S&P GSCI) using recently developed tools in functional time series analysis. Functional tests for stationarity and serial correlation suggest that log-differenced forward curves may be generally considered as stationary and conditionally heteroscedastic sequences of functions. Several functional methods for forecasting forward curves that more accurately reflect the time to expiry of contracts are developed, and we found that these typically outperformed their multivariate counterparts, with the best among them using the method of predictive factors introduced by Kargin and Onatski (2008).     

Non-linear exchange rate relationships: An automated model selection approach with indicator saturation

This paper examines whether the explanatory power of exchange rate models can be improved by allowing for cross-country asymmetries and non-linear effects of fundamentals. Both appear to be crucial. The samples include the USD versus pound and yen from 1982:10 to 2013:10, and automated model selection is conducted with indicator saturation. Several non-linear effects are significant at 1%. Further, many of the indicators present in the linear models are eliminated once allowing for non-linearities; suggesting some of the structural breaks found in previous work were an artifact of the misspecified linear functional form. These conclusions are robust to estimation using principal components.     

Methods for Scalar‐on‐Function Regression

Recent years have seen an explosion of activity in the field of functional data analysis (FDA), in which curves, spectra, images and so on are considered as basic functional data units. A central problem in FDA is how to fit regression models with scalar responses and functional data points as predictors. We review some of the main approaches to this problem, categorising the basic model types as linear, non‐linear and non‐parametric. We discuss publicly available software packages and illustrate some of the procedures by application to a functional magnetic resonance imaging data set.     

Optimal transit fare and service frequency of a nonlinear origin-destination based fare structure

This paper proposes a new nonlinear distance-based transit fare structure, which is measured by a function of the Euclidean distance between the origin and destination stations, termed as Origin-Destination (OD)-based fare. The novel fare structure encourages passengers to freely choose the most efficient trip plan. An optimization model is formulated based on a three-party game (involving the transport authority, transit company, and passenger) to determine the optimal fare function and frequency. An artificial bee colony algorithm is adopted to solve the model. Finally, a numerical example is provided to verify the proposed method.     

太原市市辖区经济发展综合实力评价研究

太原市作为山西省的省会城市,在政治,经济,文化等功能方面对周围各市的经济发展具有辐射作用。本文在统计资料的基础上,构建城市综合实力评价研究的指标体系,采用主成分分析法,使用SPSS19.0统计软件对山西省太原市中心城区市辖区的经济综合实力(小店区、迎泽区、杏花岭区、万柏林区、尖草坪区、晋源区)进行评价分析。     

Stability and determinacy conditions for mixed-type functional differential equations

This paper analyzes the solution of linear mixed-type functional differential equations with either predetermined or non-predetermined variables. Conditions characterizing the existence and uniqueness of a solution are given and related to the local stability and determinacy properties of the steady state. In particular, it is shown that the relationship between the uniqueness of the solution and the stability of the steady-state is more subtle than the one that holds for ordinary differential equations, and gives rise to new dynamic configurations.