The Effect of the Country-of-Origin Image, Product Knowledge and Product Involvement on Consumer Purchase Decisions

This paper discusses the influence of the country-of-origin image, product knowledge and product involvement on consumer purchase decisions. Data were collected by a questionnaire from college students. Multiple regression analysis of data from 379 respondents was used to test three hypotheses. The results show that the country-of-origin image, product knowledge and product involvement all have a significantly positive effect on consumer purchase decision. Further research should examine the different dimensions of involvement and product knowledge on consumer purchase decisions

Collecting Knowledge about Medicinal Ingredients in Northwestern Sichuan in the 1950s

This article explores China’s state-level knowledge production on medicinal ingredients in northwestern Sichuan in the 1950s.Drawing on county-level archives,published materials and interviews,this historical article traces how different levels of governments and state-owned trading companies produced knowledge about medicinal ingredients and its production.It argues that on one hand the state’s procurement standards codified the knowledge about medicinal ingredients from the marketplace and the local producers.On the other hand,direct extraction of knowledge from the medicine gatherers and cultivators verbalized and collected the previously tacit local knowledge about the production of medicinal ingredients,which would help to alleviate the shortage in the supply of traditional Chinese medicines throughout the 1950s.

Green Product Purchase Behaviour： Relevance for Muslims

Recent climate change phenomenon and other prevailing environmental problems have marked a need for human beings to rethinking their way of life, particularly in their relationship with the environment. In Islam, human beings are made responsible at his/her best efforts in preserving the environment including practising pro-environmental behaviour. Due to strong pressures by Western public movements since past decades, the emergence of green products in marketplace has provided an alternative and better way of consumption in reducing adverse environmental impacts. However, little attention has been paid on relating green product purchase behaviour with Islamic teachings. Therefore, the paper discusses the role of green products purchase behaviours in reducing adverse environmental impacts and its relationship with Islamic teachings as mentioned in AI-Quran and As-Sunnah. Besides, the importance of green product knowledge in determining green product purchase behaviour is also discussed. Implications from the study would provide some insights on links between green product purchase behaviours and Islamic teachings as well as improving understanding on the influence of knowledge on pro-environmental behaviours both in empirical manner and as being outlined in Islam.

Constructing the Ontology for Modeling the Fish Production in Pearl River Basin

This paper puts forward a construction method based on ontology for the Pearl River Basin fish production, to facilitate the domain knowledge analysis and information retrieval. By converting the concepts and terms in domain ordinally, the fish production ontology was constructed with the definition of classes, properties, instances, and relationships. The developed ontology model of the fish production knowledge is proposed and applied in the system of fish diseases diagnosis primarily. The research lays the semantic foundation for the further efficient knowledge management and practical application.

Packaging Zainab A1-Ghazali： The Gendered Politics of Translation and the Production of ＂Moderate＂ Muslim Sister and Islamism

This paper deals with translation and knowledge production of both an exemplar mould for Islamic woman identity and a cosmetic ＂moderate＂ veneer for Islamism. The paper particularly tackles the question of the visibility of Islamic women in the translational narrative sphere and its implication with respect to both the co-optation of ＂Muslim Sisterhood＂ within the dominant Islamist gender politics and selling political Islam to international politics. Utilizing Baker＇s thesis of translation as re-narration, especially narrative flaming strategies, the paper reads Mokrane Guezzou＇s translation of Zainab al-Ghazali＇s autobiography Return of the Pharaoh： Memoir in Nasir＇s Prison （2006） to examine the framing of al-Ghazali＇s personal narrative and its implications for furthering the Middle Eastern democratization march （in response to Bush＇s ＂Freedom Agenda＂）, while keeping the Muslim Brothers＇ gender politics intact. The paper＇s argument is the gendered politics of Guezzou＇s translation and their influence on the transnational and international spheres. Firstly, in tune with the expectation of the transnational constituency of Muslim Brothers＇ readership, al-Ghazali＇s personal and self-aggrandizing narrative is packaged and re-framed within the public narrative of the Muslim Brothers＇ gender/gendered ethos to co-opt her politicized inscription of ＂Muslim Sisterhood＂ within the Muslim Brothers＇ male-ranked organizational structure and thereby reproduce the mould of a ＂moderate＂ Muslim sister. The individualistic leaning of the narrative is transposed onto the meta-narratives of the Exodus in ancient times and Holocaust in modem times. The female imprint of the narrative is suppressed onto the conflict between militant masculinities with Nasir centerstaged in the title, referenced as the pharaoh, and semantically associated with Hitler and fascism in the translator＇s note. Her gender agency is de-framed and her visibility and access to organizational rank is harnessed to her social identity in marriage and her subscription to and fulfillment of the masculine constructed and assessed criteria of ＂virtue, piety and modesty＂ （Guezzou, 2006, p. ix）. Secondly, in line with the changing dynamics of geo-strategic realities, the translational renarration contributes to configuring the race-based underpinning of Arab exceptionalism onto the compatibility of （the ＂purely political＂ and hence ＂moderate＂） Islamism with democracy through projecting the Muslim Brotherhood＇s anti-fascist, democratic, modern/moderate and gender inclusive image. After all, Islamic women＇s visibility is a testament of feminism capable of redeeming Islamism and selling ＂moderate＂ political Islam to international politics/readership.

Theoretical Reflection on Meaning Production of Media Discourse in Intercultural Communications

Media discourse in the context of intercultural communications is an important channel that countries and cultures use to communicate. It is also a process of meaning interpretation and knowledge production, which exerts a great impact on the establishment of the world's cultural order. This paper discusses media discourse in intercultural communications theoretically from the perspective of knowledge production, media dialogue and meaning construction. It is suggested that an effective ideographic mechanism be developed and improved, and the essential meaning of Chinese culture be initiatively exported and integrated into a knowledge system of cognition and understanding about the world to promote the understanding and exchange between China and other countries and to help create an equal and reasonable world cultural order.

Effects of Tour Guides Training on Their Performance in Kenya

It is important for a completive tourism destination to ensure that tourists get the company of a professional tour guide who guides and interprets attraction in the areas visited. Undefined level of education, lack of standardized training curriculum, and lack of barrier to the guiding career have affected the performance of tour guides in Kenya. Limited research in Kenya has been conducted to establish the role of guides in satisfying customer and protecting the environment. The study objective was to examine tour guides＇ interpretation knowledge and their opinion on areas that require more training so as to improve their performance. The study hypothesized that tour guides＇ opinions on their training needs are independent on the level of education, work experience and qualification. It is hypothesized that guides require additional training in flora and fauna of East Africa, cultural heritage and customer service. They require training in ICT （Information Communications Technology）, eco-tourism principles, and at least one foreign language. The study hypothesizes that the higher the level of a guide＇s training, the more resourceful the guide will be. The study used qualitative and quantitative research approaches where questionnaires, interviews and focus groups discussion （FGDs） were used to collect the primary data. The finding shows that tour guides＇ opinions on areas they require further training were independent of their highest level of education, work experience and qualification. Most guides irrespective of their level of education, work experience and qualifications were of the opinion that they needed more training on mammals and plants （χ^2 = 1.07, df= 2, P = 0.583）, training on birds and insects （χ^2 = 0.254, df= 2, P = 0.885） and training on culture and history of East Africa （χ^2 = 1.140, df= 2, P = 0.566）. Respondents＇ training needs were independent on the duration of tour guiding course training had taken. Guides trained for less than six months, one year and more than two years agreed that training on foreign language （χ^2 = 4.84, df = 2, P = 0.196）, ecotourism principles （χ^2 = 1.62, df = 2, P = 0.653） and tour planning and costing （χ^2 = 399, df = 3, P = 0.262） would improve their performance. The study concludes that tour guides are aware of the areas that they need to be trained and should be consulted before organizing such training. They require more training irrespective of their level of education, certification and work experience. The study recommends tour guide curriculum be standardized and all guides should sit for an exam before they are licensed to guide and only those with such license be allowed to practice guiding.

A Novel Customer-Oriented Recommendation System for Paid Knowledge Products

With the rapid development of knowledge pal malto:wangliye@cuc.edu.cn with a large number of knowledge products when purchasing,leading to the need for an effective recommendation system.However,existing recommendation systems cannot accurately and adequately represent paid knowledge products with implicit but specialized features and sparse interactive histories,and thus are deemed not suitable for such products.In this paper,we propose a novel recommendation system for knowledge products,the core of which is the designed customer oriented representation of knowledge products.Specifically,we utilize customer activity information on the free knowledge sharing platform as the knowl-edge document for each customer of paid knowledge products,to extract customer knowledge background and preference.Then,a deep learning based model Doc2vec is adopted to transfer knowledge documents to customer knowledge background vectors.Such vectors of a particular paid knowledge product are further aggregated to a product-level vector for customer-oriented product representation,based on which two recommendation results are generated with product ratings and similarities of paid knowledge prod-ucts,respectively.Extensive comparative experiments are conducted to demonstrate the ffectiveness of the proposed system for the representation and recommendation of paid knowledge products.This paper will contribute to the literature of knowledge payment and recommendation systems,as well as provide practical implications for the information service and the operation of knowledge products on knowledge payment platforms.

Contextualized Analysis of Social Networks:Collaboration in Scientific Communities

Currently, the collaboration in scientific communities has been studied in order to explain, among other things, the knowledge diffusion. The quality of Graduate Programmes is often associated with the scientific collaboration. This paper discusses how scientific collaboration processes can be identified and characterized through social and complex networks. For this purpose, collaboration networks of bibliographic production, research projects, and committees of PhD theses and Masters’ dissertations by researchers from a graduate program in computational modeling were studied. The data were obtained from CAPES’ reports of the period from 2001 to 2009. Among the studied indices, centrality indices indicate the presence of prominent researchers who influence others and promptly interact with other researchers in the network. The indices of complex networks reveal the presence of the small-world (i.e. these networks are favorable to increase coordination between researchers) phenomenon and indicate a behavior of scale-free degree distribution (i.e. some researchers promote clustering more than others) for one of the studied networks.

LeNS China:A Chinese learning network on sustainability for the development and diffusion of teaching materials and tools on design for sustainability

It is a shared opinion that sustainable development requires a system discontinuity, meaning that radical changes in the way we produce and consume are needed. Within this framework there is an emerging understanding that an important contribution to this change can be directly linked to decisions taken in the design phase of products, services and systems. Design schools have therefore to be able to provide design students with a broad knowledge and effective Design for Sustainability tools, in order to enable a new generation of designers in playing an active role in re-orienting our consumption and production patterns. This paper presents the intermediate results of the LeNS China, the Learning Network on Sustainability of Chinese design Higher Education Institutions aiming at curricula development on Design for Sustainability. The project is a regeneration of the LeNS Asian-European multi-polar network project financed by the European Commission. LeNS China is taking in consideration the local needs, interests and opportunities could represent a significant enabling platform capable to sensitise, support and empower a new generation of Chinese design educators, designers and entrepreneurs to reach design practice throughout an open collaborative learning approach. The paper will firstly introduce the LeNS project and its ethos, and then the LeNS China network will be described in terms of the state of the art of design for sustainability and its education in China, the scope and the objective, the results achieved so far and the next steps.

SUSTAINABLE NITROGEN MANAGEMENT FOR VEGETABLE PRODUCTION IN CHINA

Inappropriate nitrogen fertilizer management for the intensive Chinese vegetable production has caused low N use efficiency(NUE),high reactive nitrogen(Nr)losses and serious environmental risks with limited yield increase.Innovative N management strategy is an urgent need to achieve sustainable vegetable production.This paper summarizes recent studies on Nr losses and identifies the limitations from Chinese vegetable production systems and proposes three steps for sustainable N management in Chinese vegetable production.The three N management steps include,but are not limited to,(1)knowledge-based optimization of N fertilizer rate strategy,which maintains soil N supply to meet the dynamic vegetable demand in time,space and quantity;(2)innovative products and technology,which regulates the soil N forms and promotes the vegetable root growth to reduce the Nr loss;(3)integrated knowledge and products strategy(IKPS).The knowledge-based optimization of N fertilizer rate strategy and innovative products and technology,can maintain or increase vegetable yield,significantly improve NUE,and mitigate the region-specific and crop-specific Nr losses.More importantly,IKPS,based on combination of in-season root-zone N management strategy,innovative products and technology,and best crop cultivation management,is needed to produce more vegetables with lower Nr losses.

Development of Morphological Awareness through English Songs:A Case Study

The present study investigated the effects of English songs on morphological development-- inflection, derivation, and compound words. Fifty Chinese EFL students were involved in this study. Two tests were administered to each learner immediately before and after the study. Results from the pre-tests revealed that all three groups with different vocabulary sizes brought some morphological knowledge to the study. The findings exhibited some evidence to support the fact that teaching through English songs can lead to the development of learner＇s receptivity to morphology. However, exposure to the song was insufficient to develop productive knowledge in most of the learners. The study also revealed that groups with smaller vocabulary tended to achieve lower scores than groups with larger vocabulary. Based on these results and previous findings, pedagogical implications were made.