In this paper, we present a fuzzy linguistic scale, which is characterized by triangular fuzzy numbers on [1/9, 9], for the comparison between two alternatives, and introduce a possibility degree formula for comparing...In this paper, we present a fuzzy linguistic scale, which is characterized by triangular fuzzy numbers on [1/9, 9], for the comparison between two alternatives, and introduce a possibility degree formula for comparing triangular fuzzy numbers. We utilize the fuzzy linguistic scale to construct a linguistic preference matrix, and propose a fuzzy induced ordered weighted geometric averaging (FIOWGA) operator to aggregate linguistic preference information. A method based on the fuzzy linguistic scale and FIOWGA operator for decision-making problems is presented. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify the developed method and to demonstrate its feasibility and effectiveness.展开更多
With the concern for environmental quality and food safety, organic food products are becoming more important in the global market. In recent years the organic food industry has been expanding and sales of organic pro...With the concern for environmental quality and food safety, organic food products are becoming more important in the global market. In recent years the organic food industry has been expanding and sales of organic products have been increasing. Abundant studies have been done focusing on organic fruits and vegetables which focused on the shortage of organic live stocks. In this paper we focus our attention on organic pork products. Using a sample of 400 Thais consumers, this study proposes the contingent valuation （CV） technique to measure the willingness of individuals to pay a price premium for organic pork in Thailand. In order to obtain the mean ＂willingness to pay＂ （WTP）, a bivariate probit model was applied to provide information about the crucial variables that affect the WTP. The study revealed that variables that better approximate WTP are based on the lifestyle and knowledge about organic foods rather than the usual socioeconomic factors. The mean WTP on the premium price for organic pork is approximately 34.30 Bath per kg. In order to access the market potential this study shows that the suitable attributes of organic pork which is consistent with consumer preferences are composed of modernized and environmental packaging with special product details. Marketing this product to the buyer it should be set at a reasonable price. Stimulating the market should be done by doing sales promotion and public relations on a regularly basis. In addition, organic pork should be available in any places and convenient for customers to buy.展开更多
This paper investigates the phenomenon of imbalance between the frequencies of the nice and Adj and Adj and nice patterns from the perspective of humans’ social and limited-processing-capacity attributes. Humans’ so...This paper investigates the phenomenon of imbalance between the frequencies of the nice and Adj and Adj and nice patterns from the perspective of humans’ social and limited-processing-capacity attributes. Humans’ social attribute requires that language users stay informative with minimal effort in communication, resulting in the from-the-least-to-the-most-informative information organization in discourse. Their limited-processing-capacity attribute requires that they resort to the production biases of "easy first" and "plan reuse" in order to achieve communicative efficiency in real-time production. The analysis of the occurrences of the nice and Adj pattern and native speakers’ judgment of the degree of informativeness of nice in these occurrences suggest that nice is largely delexicalized. Such delexicalization makes nice and Adj consistent with the information organization and allows language users to stay informative with the use of the pattern, thus in line with the social attribute, but not Adj and nice. In the meantime, nice is not only highly frequent but also conceptually salient when it comes to the positive property(Panther & Thornburg, 2009), making nice and Adj easier to produce and more likely to be reused than Adj and nice, thus in line with the limited-processing-capacity attribute. The analysis of the unbalanced frequency of the two patterns suggests that human attributes should be considered when studying language form, and this should offer insights into English learning.展开更多
The article assesses the determinants of farmers＇ decisions to participate in organic farming, eliciting farmers risk preferences and empirically analysing farmer＇s sources of risk and risk management strategies. Th...The article assesses the determinants of farmers＇ decisions to participate in organic farming, eliciting farmers risk preferences and empirically analysing farmer＇s sources of risk and risk management strategies. The ordered probit results indicate that older farmers, who are less risk averse and reside in the sub-ward Ogagwini, Ezigani and Hwayi were more likely to be certified organic. Similarly, the propensity to adopt organic farming is positively correlated to household size, livestock ownership, asset base and tenure security. At higher pay-offs, farmers were intermediate to moderately risk-averse, with little variation according to personal characteristics. In general, price, production and financial risks were perceived as important sources of risk. Seven principal components, explaining 66.13% of the variation were extracted. Socio-economic factors having a significant effect on the various sources of risk were age, gender, education, location, information access and risk taking ability. The dimensions of risk strategies were named as diversification, precautionary savings and social networks. Results provide practical insights for policy changes relevant in motivating the adoption of organic practices, increasing smallholder farmers＇ capacity to manage risk and driving growth in the organic food market.展开更多
Sterols and triterpenes are structurally diverse bioactive molecules generated through cyclization of linear 2,3-oxidosqualene. Based on carbocationic intermediates generated during initial substrate preorganization s...Sterols and triterpenes are structurally diverse bioactive molecules generated through cyclization of linear 2,3-oxidosqualene. Based on carbocationic intermediates generated during initial substrate preorganization step, oxidosqualene cyclases （OSCs） are roughly segregated into protosteryl cation group that mainly catalyzes tetracyclic products and dammarenyl cation group which mostly generates pentacyclic products. However, in contrast to well-studied cascade of ring-forming reactions, little is known about the mechanism underlying the initial sub- strate folding process. Previously, we have identified a cucurbitadienol synthase （Bi） and its null allele bi （C393Y） from cucumber. By integration of homology modeling, residue coevolution and site-directed mutagenesis, we discover that four covarying amino acids including C393 constitute a dynamic domain that may be involved in substrate folding process for Bi. We also reveal a group of co-conserved residues that closely associated with the segregation of plant OSCs. These residues may act col- laboratively in choice of specific substrate folding inter- mediate for OSCs. Thus, engineer plant OSCs from into five-ringed producer. our findings open a door to four-ringed skeleton catalysts展开更多
基金The National Natural Science Foundation of China(79970093) the Ph.D. Dissertation Foundation of Southeast University- NARI-Relays Electric Co. Ltd.
文摘In this paper, we present a fuzzy linguistic scale, which is characterized by triangular fuzzy numbers on [1/9, 9], for the comparison between two alternatives, and introduce a possibility degree formula for comparing triangular fuzzy numbers. We utilize the fuzzy linguistic scale to construct a linguistic preference matrix, and propose a fuzzy induced ordered weighted geometric averaging (FIOWGA) operator to aggregate linguistic preference information. A method based on the fuzzy linguistic scale and FIOWGA operator for decision-making problems is presented. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify the developed method and to demonstrate its feasibility and effectiveness.
文摘With the concern for environmental quality and food safety, organic food products are becoming more important in the global market. In recent years the organic food industry has been expanding and sales of organic products have been increasing. Abundant studies have been done focusing on organic fruits and vegetables which focused on the shortage of organic live stocks. In this paper we focus our attention on organic pork products. Using a sample of 400 Thais consumers, this study proposes the contingent valuation （CV） technique to measure the willingness of individuals to pay a price premium for organic pork in Thailand. In order to obtain the mean ＂willingness to pay＂ （WTP）, a bivariate probit model was applied to provide information about the crucial variables that affect the WTP. The study revealed that variables that better approximate WTP are based on the lifestyle and knowledge about organic foods rather than the usual socioeconomic factors. The mean WTP on the premium price for organic pork is approximately 34.30 Bath per kg. In order to access the market potential this study shows that the suitable attributes of organic pork which is consistent with consumer preferences are composed of modernized and environmental packaging with special product details. Marketing this product to the buyer it should be set at a reasonable price. Stimulating the market should be done by doing sales promotion and public relations on a regularly basis. In addition, organic pork should be available in any places and convenient for customers to buy.
文摘This paper investigates the phenomenon of imbalance between the frequencies of the nice and Adj and Adj and nice patterns from the perspective of humans’ social and limited-processing-capacity attributes. Humans’ social attribute requires that language users stay informative with minimal effort in communication, resulting in the from-the-least-to-the-most-informative information organization in discourse. Their limited-processing-capacity attribute requires that they resort to the production biases of "easy first" and "plan reuse" in order to achieve communicative efficiency in real-time production. The analysis of the occurrences of the nice and Adj pattern and native speakers’ judgment of the degree of informativeness of nice in these occurrences suggest that nice is largely delexicalized. Such delexicalization makes nice and Adj consistent with the information organization and allows language users to stay informative with the use of the pattern, thus in line with the social attribute, but not Adj and nice. In the meantime, nice is not only highly frequent but also conceptually salient when it comes to the positive property(Panther & Thornburg, 2009), making nice and Adj easier to produce and more likely to be reused than Adj and nice, thus in line with the limited-processing-capacity attribute. The analysis of the unbalanced frequency of the two patterns suggests that human attributes should be considered when studying language form, and this should offer insights into English learning.
文摘The article assesses the determinants of farmers＇ decisions to participate in organic farming, eliciting farmers risk preferences and empirically analysing farmer＇s sources of risk and risk management strategies. The ordered probit results indicate that older farmers, who are less risk averse and reside in the sub-ward Ogagwini, Ezigani and Hwayi were more likely to be certified organic. Similarly, the propensity to adopt organic farming is positively correlated to household size, livestock ownership, asset base and tenure security. At higher pay-offs, farmers were intermediate to moderately risk-averse, with little variation according to personal characteristics. In general, price, production and financial risks were perceived as important sources of risk. Seven principal components, explaining 66.13% of the variation were extracted. Socio-economic factors having a significant effect on the various sources of risk were age, gender, education, location, information access and risk taking ability. The dimensions of risk strategies were named as diversification, precautionary savings and social networks. Results provide practical insights for policy changes relevant in motivating the adoption of organic practices, increasing smallholder farmers＇ capacity to manage risk and driving growth in the organic food market.
基金supported by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31401886)the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program
文摘Sterols and triterpenes are structurally diverse bioactive molecules generated through cyclization of linear 2,3-oxidosqualene. Based on carbocationic intermediates generated during initial substrate preorganization step, oxidosqualene cyclases （OSCs） are roughly segregated into protosteryl cation group that mainly catalyzes tetracyclic products and dammarenyl cation group which mostly generates pentacyclic products. However, in contrast to well-studied cascade of ring-forming reactions, little is known about the mechanism underlying the initial sub- strate folding process. Previously, we have identified a cucurbitadienol synthase （Bi） and its null allele bi （C393Y） from cucumber. By integration of homology modeling, residue coevolution and site-directed mutagenesis, we discover that four covarying amino acids including C393 constitute a dynamic domain that may be involved in substrate folding process for Bi. We also reveal a group of co-conserved residues that closely associated with the segregation of plant OSCs. These residues may act col- laboratively in choice of specific substrate folding inter- mediate for OSCs. Thus, engineer plant OSCs from into five-ringed producer. our findings open a door to four-ringed skeleton catalysts
