The effect of consumer food creation on the food consumption experience

Two experiments show that the role the consumer plays in the creation of their food can affect the consumption experience. When guilt is present in the consumption of the food item, namely an unhealthy food item, having someone else create the food item increases taste evaluations, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. However, when guilt is not present, as in the case for healthy foods, there is no difference in food evaluations when the end consumer or another creates the food. These results have important implications for food retailers, food service establishment, and food delivery companies.     

Economics of household food waste

Food waste has drawn increasing public attention, and the high levels of estimated waste are largely considered to be a failure of our current food system. Recently, economists have begun to weigh in, showing food waste can emerge as the result of a complex equilibrium affected by consumers’ preferences for convenience; expectations about future food prices and availability; food safety concerns; producers’ costs of holding inventory, transportation, and storage; government regulation; and technology. If food waste is a form of inefficiency, there are either strong economic motivations to reduce waste, or unmeasured costs or preferences affecting waste decisions. If consumers have behavioral biases, suffer from information asymmetries, or do not pay the full cost of their waste, there may be a role for government intervention to reduce waste, but most empirical models in the literature have not articulated or quantified the extent of the deadweight loss from the market failures in relation to food waste. In some cases, waste reduction efforts could harm producers if overall demand for food is reduced or harm consumers if overconsumption is encouraged, quality or safety degrades, or supply disruptions occur. Technological innovations, which lower the cost of storage or extend shelf life have the potential to improve both consumer and producer welfare.     

Advancing environmental productivity: Organizational mindfulness and strategies

This study investigates the importance of mindfulness‐based organization systems and policies on the organization's continuous efforts to become a greener company. The study is devised as a pooled cross‐sectional time series analysis of productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling of U.S. companies. The data set taken from U.S. Newsweek 500 recorded 600 companies dispersed into 63 industries during the period of 2012–2014 and provided 1,498 company–industry–year observations. The study found that systems and policies (e.g., deployment of third‐party auditors for its environmental metrics report; linkage of the remuneration of company's senior executive team with the achievement of environmental performance targets; and establishment of a committee at the Board of Directors' level whose mandate includes sustainability of the company in environment‐ and resource‐related matters) connect the company's mindfulness to its effort in improving the environmental quality through the company's productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling. The relationships are positive and significant. Also, systems and policies serve as a motivator for the firm to continue to improve upon the current achievements. The study emphasizes the importance of translating organizational and individual mindfulness into organization policies and systems in order to motivate the organization to continuously improve its productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling leading to improvements in environmental quality.     

My style,my food,my waste! Consumer food waste-related lifestyle segments

Adapting responsible food marketing practices to different customer types can make a valuable contribution to reducing food waste. The current study investigated the relation between food (waste)-related lifestyle patterns and self-reported food waste, choices for suboptimal food, and food waste awareness using a survey with 4214 consumers across five Northern and Western European countries. Results show differences in food wastage, suboptimal choices, and awareness for five clusters of consumers identified on the basis of food (waste)-related lifestyle patterns. Findings of commonalities allow deriving food marketing actions targeted to these different consumer lifestyles.     

玩具机械物理能力验证技术分析及建议

文章介绍了广州海关技术中心玩具婴童用品实验室历年来组织的玩具机械物理领域的能力验证计划项目的基本情况,详细分析了各项目的技术要点和常见不满意问题,总结了现阶段该领域能力验证计划的开展情况。     

What drives diners' eco-friendly behaviour? The moderating role of planning routine

Research focusing on diners' intentions towards leftovers, which are considered one of the main sources of consumer food waste in restaurants, is still at a nascent stage and requires further investigation. The present study attempts to address this gap by investigating the antecedents of diners' intentions to take away leftovers and thereby mitigate food waste in an out-of-home setting. Towards this end, we examined the role of personal and social norms as antecedents of the facilitators, inhibitors, and intentions of taking away leftovers. Using the theoretical lens of the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) paradigm, we tested the proposed hypotheses by analysing data collected from 281 diners residing in the United States through a cross-sectional survey on Prolific Academic. The findings indicate that personal norms are positively associated with facilitators and intentions. In comparison, social norms are positively associated with facilitators but negatively associated with inhibitors. The results also confirmed the mediation effect of facilitators and inhibitors and the moderation effect of planning routine to provide valuable insights into the drivers of pro-environmental/eco-friendly behaviour in out-of-home dining to thus aid strategy formulation and future research.     

从多元化到一体化:农村垃圾分类的必经之路——基于江苏与上海试点的调查比照研究

在当前垃圾分类工作如火如荼开展的过程中,多元化的分类模式潜移默化地影响着人们的分类积极性。乡村振兴战略背景下,农村垃圾分类由多元化转向一体化的时代已然来临。基于对江苏3个农村垃圾分类试点以及上海试点的实地调研与比照分析,总结出多元化产生的原因,诸如“锦标赛”式的政策解读与扩散,“知行不一”的现象产生与演变,“二元化”的城乡建设与发展,“差异化”的分类机制构建与落实。进一步分析了农村垃圾分类一体化的构成条件,并提出相关政策建议,助力农村垃圾分类实现从多元化到一体化的顺利过渡。     

Separate waste collection in mountain municipalities. A case study in Campania

This paper aims to analyse the impact of land characteristics (i.e. altimetry and housing dispersion) on separate waste collection, with a focus on mountain municipalities. The high spatial heterogeneity of the driving factors of separate waste collection allows traditional techniques, such as OLS, to offer only a partial depiction of the situation, missing important information. In this view, we perform the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), which allows to control for the local determinants of waste management. Our data cover 550 municipalities of Campania, in Southern Italy. We control for a set of morphological and socio-economic variables, drawn from official records for 2012. Our results show that the relationships between land characteristics and separate waste collection are not constant over space. Moreover, they suggest that in the presence of non-modifiable factors (such as land characteristics) local governments should act on citizen motivations, promoting awareness on environmental issues, and should implement time-saving collection methods.     

一种利用机器学习优化MIMO窃听信道天线选择的方法

为保障多输入多输出窃听信道系统中信息传输的保密性，提出了一种基于机器学习的天线选择方案。首先利用机器学习解决分类问题准确率高、处理大数据高效这一优势，设计了基于奇异值分解的特征值提取、基于信干噪比的标签赋值方案，建立了k最近邻分类器和逻辑回归分类器选择最优天线最大化保密性能（可达保密速率和保密中断概率）。与传统天线选择方案相比，所提方案获得了几乎一致的保密性能，并且大幅降低了系统的选择复杂度和误比特率。     

我国生活垃圾焚烧技术现状与趋势

生活垃圾焚烧技术是目前垃圾处理的一种常用方法,在我国得到了广泛的应用。论文介绍了国内生活垃圾焚烧技术的现状和基本情况,提出了技术占比变化的主要原因,并分析了其未来的应用趋势和区域分布。