Driving factors and the implications of work choices of rural laborers in ecologically vulnerable areas in North China

Using rural survey data for the year 2009,we provide evidence of work choices of rural laborers in ecologically vulnerable areas in North China,and model these choices as a function of characteristics of individuals,households,and land endowments.The findings reveal large differences between males and females,and between non-farm employment and part-time farming engagement Land scarcity is still an important driving factor in non-farming participation of rural laborers in the study area;and in the current case of land productivity and the total amount of land,there are still surplus rural labor forces in the study area.Diversification of livelihood reduces the pressure on land,thus facilitating ecosystem conservation.So,the paper concludes with the argument that establishing coordination mechanisms among non-farm employment of rural laborers,agricultural production,and restoration of ecosystems are essential for mitigating the conflicts of ecological security,agricultural production,and rural development in mis area.

Modeling the criminal's location choices in urban areas

With the method of dynamic programming, two spatial variables,the expected utility and the probability of success of each crime, are used to model the criminal's location choices in urban areas in this paper.The modeling results show that a criminal optimizes his crime locations according to the expected utility and the success probability during his planned period A criminal usually commits his first offense in the district that has the highest probability of success but a lower expected utility, and commits his last crime in the district where the expected utility is the highest and success probability is lower.If a location has both an expected utility and a higher probability of success, the criminal might commit all his offenses in thes place. The model also suggests that crime prevention measures should be adopted in accordance with local conditions. 'Covering' measures, such as patrolling, should be taken in the poor residential districts or juvenile delinquency districts, while more sophisticated and advanced measures should be introduced in the richer districts or the districts where professional criminals haunt.

Psychological Influence Factors Analysis of the New Generation Employees’ Moral Choices from the Perspective of Cognitive Neurology

At present,the academic researches on moral choices focus mainly on the individuals’external behaviors,without fully considering the influences of the individuals’internal psychological factors.Based on the model of complete information static games in the Non-cooperative Game theory,the present research has designed a“Red and Blue Experiment”to explore the psychological influencing factors of the new generation employees’moral choices.The research has conducted psychoanalysis on the new generation employees through experiments and interviews with 118 data sources,and concluded the characteristics in relation to the different stages of psychological processes and moral choices of the experimental population.Through comparative analysis,it is found that:the psychological factors,such as trust,doubt,and guilt will influence the new generation employees’moral choices,guiding them to make choices,such as risk aversion and mutual benefit and win-win,in the process.Additionally,the research has also provided effective scientific evidence for the new generation employees’mental health development and career planning.

Lord Jim： Jim＇s moral dilemmas and his tragic choices

The colonist culture of the imperialism nourished Jim＇s heroic dreams in which the protagonist sees himself as an apotheosis of morality and heroic deeds, but it also isolated him from the reality of the world. As a result, he often finds himself caught in moral dilemmas and ends up making tragic choices. His tragedy indicated that the alluring and illusive myth of the imperialism was bound to fall apart.

Literary Analysis of Choices and Identity in War Dances

War Dances, a remarkable collection of brilliant short stories and poems written by Sherman Alexie, is brimming with ingenuity and thrill. This impressive collection of short stories and poems has different characters that are from all walks of life and have various different roles to play in the society, such as artists, husbands and wives and mistresses, workers, fathers and sons, etc. All these men and women are at the turn of their lives because of the choices and decisions they made, which would steered their lives into a road with no returns. One of the most profound themes of War Dances is about the choices people made when they are tested, which make all the difference about people's identities and exert a significant impact upon their lives in the days to come. This paper seeks to unpack the choices of different people have made that have changed their lives for better or for worse.

Real-time routing control design for traffic networks with multi-route choices

This work considers those road networks in which there are multi-route choices for bifurcation-destination(or origin-destination) pairs, and designs a real-time variable message sign(VMS)-based routing control strategy in the model predictive control(MPC) framework. The VMS route recommendation provided by the traffic management authority is directly considered as the control variable, and the routing control model is established, in which a multi-dimensional control vector is introduced to describe the influence of route recommendations on flow distribution. In the MPC framework, a system optimum routing strategy with the constraints regarding drivers' acceptability with recommended routes is designed, which can not only meet the traffic management authority's control requirement but also improve drivers' satisfaction with the route guidance system. The simulation carried out shows that the proposed routing control can effectively mitigate traffic congestion, reduces followers' time delay, and improves drivers' satisfaction with routing control in road networks.

An exact algorithm for optimal redundancy in a series system with multiple component choices

In this paper, an exact algorithm was proposed for optimal redundancy in a series system with multiple component choices. A reformulation of the nonseparable reliability function was approximated by a separable integer programming problem. The resulting separable nonlinear integer programming problem is used to compute upper bounds by Lagrangian relaxation and dual search. A special partition scheme was derived to reduce the duality gap in a branch-and-bound process, thus ensure the convergence of the algorithm. Computational results show that the algorithm is efficient for solving this class of reliability optimization problems.

The influence of environment, predisposing, enabling and need variables on personal health choices of adults with intellectual disability

Attention to disease and risk factor management is increasingly a feature of people with intellectual disability (ID) as an augmented life expectancy also exposes a growing number of age-related diseases. An additional concern is little attention to date to physical activity, nutrition, access to social support and other personal health choices and to environmental issues such as the impact of access to social support and the implications of individual’s living arrangements. Method: Using a sample of 753 persons with ID from the intellectual disability supplement to the Irish longitudinal study on ageing (IDS-TILDA), forty three variables were grouped into environmental, predisposing, enabling, need and personal health choices clusters and hierarchical ordinary least squares regression examined the contribution of environmental, enabling, predisposing, need and all combinations of the sets of variables to personal health choices. Findings: Almost 32% of variance was explained primarily by need variables. Most significant relationships were with meeting up with family and friends (environmental), age, rating of health and worries about getting older (predisposing), having public health insurance and nursing who come into the home (enabling) and presence of stroke, chronic constipation, functional limitations, high assistance needs with activities of daily living (need). Discussion: Taken together, the groupings of variables from the Anderson Model explained a modest amount of variance in the pursuit of positive personal health choices by people with ID. More work is clearly needed in developing evidence-based interventions and strategies, and in understanding the relationship between positive personal health choices of people with ID and health outcomes.

Evie＇s Ethical Choices in the World of Noir Ethical Literary Reading of Judy Blundell＇ s What I Saw and How I Lied

In the novel What I Saw and How I Lied （2008）, Judy Blundell presents readers a world of noir where so many lies are around the innocent protagonist, 15-year-old girl Evie. It is a challenge for Evie to probe into the heart of the deceptions and make ethical choices between good and evil. After experiencing the path from error to truth, from confusion to clarity, and unconsciousness to consciousness, Evie comes to realize the corruption and evils of the society and in an epiphany, obtains a self-knowledge which leads to her initiation. Through analyzing the ethical predicament and ethical choices of the protagonist Evie as well as the negative living environment around her, the present paper aims to interrogate the moral issues of truth, lie, justice, greed, fidelity, and betrayal so as to give readers a better understanding of the theme of initiation in the novel.

Pacific Trade Deal Faces Tough Choices

The annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co- operation (APEC) forum in Hawaii will have something more concrete to focus on than the usual bromides about extending free trade in the region. Barack Obama, the host, will use the occasion to laud progress

Determinants of Home Lighting Fuel Choices in Rwanda:A Discrete Choice Analysis

Renewable technologies such as solar present some of the possibilities for indoor and outdoor lighting in the remotest rural Africa where grid connections may take ages.This paper examined the key determinants that drive household lighting fuel using a nationally representative sample(14,415 households)across Rwanda.Results from a multinomial probit regression show that rural location,house ownership,household wealth,and nonfarm work are some of significant factors that influence lighting fuel choices in Rwanda.Robustness of the results indicates that household wealth levels and other regional differences are likely to influence choice probability for using clean energy sources such as solar confirming the need to priotise wealth generation.The study’s findings suggest the need for joint efforts by government and non-state actors to priotise household wealth generation,promotion of non-farm activities and improvement of infrastructures to reduce rural-urban bias and differences across the regions,assuming that wealth will motivate rural households to switch to clean energy sources.

What Is Changing Children’s Career Choices?

Children are now more likely to want to work in social media or gaming than traditional careers, a survey has found. According to the new research, many from seven to 11-yearolds are looking at modern technology when they think about future jobs,rather than professions such as police officer or doctor.

Brazilian adolescents’ food and beverages choices during school break: The Brazilian school meal program or food from other establishments?

The purpose of this study was to identify the adolescents’ food preferences during school break. This was a qualitative cross-sectional study with 83 adolescents from a public school in the city of S?o Paulo. The participants answered the following question: During the school break do you usually eat or drink something? Please justify your answer. The adolescents’ answers were analyzed through a Brazilian qualitative technique called Discourse of the Collective Subject. The ideas were: School Meal Program (36.2%), don’t eat anything (26.7%), bring from other establishments (20.1%) and drink water or juice (17.1%). The adolescents who chose the School Meal Program claimed they had no other options. On the other hand, the participants who refused the meal did so because they disliked it and as a result brought snacks from home or food markets. The Discourse of the Collective Subject helps the investigator to understand the ideas related to food and nutrition of a collectivity.

More Channels,More Choices

Chinese pay television provider StarTimes makes impressive inroads into the African market STAR Africa Media,branded as StarTimes,a Chinese pay television service provider,has its antennae firmly set on transmitting across the entire African continent. The service provider started its operations in Rwanda in 2009, but has now expanded its offices to more than 10 African countries. And many more are pending,awaiting licenses.

Complex Choices

LIVING abroad has never been a struggle for me.My childhood was spent traveling across West Africa,and my trips to Algeria,Guinea, Niger,Burkina Faso and Mali taught me to adapt to new environments.It’s not that I necessarily feel at home anywhere on Earth,but this ability helped me to leave my family six years ago when I moved from Niger to France

Hard Career Choices

GROWING ties between China and African nations have led to a dramatic rise in the number of African students pursuing university degrees in China. But many of these students will never apply the skills they learned in Chinese classrooms in a Chinese workplace. Tebogo Lefifl, Executive Chairperson of Young African Professionals and Students （YAPS）, maintains the YAPS network of over 1,500 young Africans living and studying in China, but says that the majority of these young people will not pursue careers in China,

Reproductive health and rights in the COVID-19 era:Why and how are rights and choices still the answer?

Amidst the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pandemic,the concern over the potential‘baby boom’or‘baby bust’had drawn renewed attention across the globe[1-3].However,historically alarmism over fertility rates gave rise to restrictive and coercive policies with an aim of‘controlling the population’that violated people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights(SRHR).In this perspective,the author argued that whether countries of the world face a COVID-19-induced short-term baby boom or bust,the solution lies in prioritizing the rights and choices of all people,especially their SRHR;not in adopting target-oriented population policies or coercive family planning programs.

Choices of Varieties and Demand for Improved Rice Seed in Fogera District of Ethiopia

In this study, 151 households were randomly drawn from three randomly selected Kebele in probability proportional to size method. The demographic and socio-economic factors that determine the participation in improved varieties were household labor availability, education level of the household head,land holdings, distance to the nearest village market, proximity to the main market, and distance to access agricultural extension and access to the source of rice seeds. However, determinants of choice decision varied from cultivar to cultivar. The evidence of the study from the interdependence among the decision of adoption of improved rice varieties suggested that technology adoption will be accelerated by launching a progressively developing package and scheme of rice technology generation, and points to the importance of mobilising additional resources to augment households' efforts at popularization and promotion of improved rice cultivars.The findings from Linearized Almost Ideal Demand Systems(LA/AIDS) model showed that compelling evidence for small proportion changes in own prices and cross price of improved rice varieties led to greater than unitary proportionate changes in their purchases. The results generally showed that farmers were very sensitive to changes in improved rice seed prices and incomes. The major implication of the findings was that any intervention to improve farmers' seed purchases should take into account efforts to increase farmers' purchasing power of agricultural inputs like improved seeds and fertilizers.

Methods for Industrial Measurement and Basic Principles of Their Choices

In this paper,a variety of industrial objects are systematically analyzed.Ten methods for industrial measurement are summarized.For each method,its nature,advantages,disadvantages and adaptability are briefly given.The basic principles to choose the right industrial method are indicated.