Chinh Luu, Quynh Duy Bui and Jason von Meding
In October 2020, Vietnam was repeatedly hit by large storms, including Linfa, Nangka, Saudel and Molave, causing heavy rains and whirlwinds in the Central provinces of Vietnam…
Abstract
Purpose
In October 2020, Vietnam was repeatedly hit by large storms, including Linfa, Nangka, Saudel and Molave, causing heavy rains and whirlwinds in the Central provinces of Vietnam. The heavy rain led to severe flooding in many localities. The water levels on major rivers broke records of historical flood events in 1950, 1979, 1999, 2007, 2010 and 2016. In response, this paper aims to quantify the impacts of 2020 flooding to support flood risk management activities and the relief agencies that can use the analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
This study demonstrates an approach to quickly map flood impacts on population, schools, health-care facilities, agriculture, transportation and business facilities and assess flood risks using available data and spatial analysis techniques.
Findings
The results show that all districts of Quang Binh were affected by the event, in which 1,014 residential areas, 70 schools, 13 health-care facilities, 32,558 ha of agriculture lands, 402 km road length, 29 km railway, 35 bridges on roads and 239 business facilities were exposed within flooded areas.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to direct or tangible impacts, including flooded residential areas, schools, health-care facilities, agriculture land categories, road networks and business facilities. Indirect or intangible impacts such as health, flood pollution and business disruption should be considered in further studies.
Practical implications
These detailed impact maps can support decision-makers and local authorities in implementing recovery activities, allocating relief and devoting human resources and developing flood risk management action plans and land-use planning in the future.
Social implications
This study investigates the context of flood impacts on population, schools, health-care facilities, agriculture, transportation and business facilities. Based on this research, decision-makers can better understand how to support affected communities and target the most at risk people with interventions.
Originality/value
This paper presents a framework to quantify the impacts of the 2020 extreme flood event using available data and spatial analysis techniques in support of flood risk management activities.
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Le Bo and Xiaoli Yang
Consumers' willingness to pay premium (WTPP) for two different types of agricultural brand labels (enterprise and regional), are evaluated through a non-hypothetical Random n…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumers' willingness to pay premium (WTPP) for two different types of agricultural brand labels (enterprise and regional), are evaluated through a non-hypothetical Random n-price auction experiment during the online purchase of fresh agricultural products. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the two WTPP, compare their differences, and explore their sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected in July–August 2020 from a sample of 310 consumers in Liaoning Province, China. A nonhypothetical random n-price auction experiment was implemented in a simulated online shopping environment.
Findings
The results show that WTPP exists, and WTPP level of regional brand labels is higher than that of enterprise brand labels. Consumers' WTPP is sustainable. Consumers with low WTPP for enterprise brand labels and consumers with high WTPP for regional brand labels have stronger willingness to repurchase.
Practical implications
The results have direct practical implications for developing brand agriculture and encouraging “brand consumption”. The results can provide theoretical reference for policymakers, enlightenment for the development and effective dissemination of agricultural brand labels and important information to e-retailers on how to sale agricultural products with agricultural brand labels.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous study has related WTPP and its sustainability for agricultural brand labels in China. We try to fill a gap in literature on consumers' WTPP for agricultural brand labels. And the authors explore the sustainability of WTPP by analyzing the impact of WTPP on repurchase intention and recommendation intention respectively.
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Devotes the entire journal issue to managing human behaviour in US industries, with examples drawn from the airline industry, trading industry, publishing industry, metal products…
Abstract
Devotes the entire journal issue to managing human behaviour in US industries, with examples drawn from the airline industry, trading industry, publishing industry, metal products industry, motor vehicle and parts industry, information technology industry, food industry, the airline industry in a turbulent environment, the automotive sales industry, and specialist retailing industry. Outlines the main features of each industry and the environment in which it is operating. Provides examples, insights and quotes from Chief Executive Officers, managers and employees on their organization’s recipe for success. Mentions the effect technology has had in some industries. Talks about skilled and semi‐skilled workers, worker empowerment and the formation of teams. Addresses also the issue of change and the training that is required to deal with it in different industry sectors. Discusses remuneration packages and incentives offered to motivate employees. Notes the importance of customers in the face of increased competition. Extracts from each industry sector the various human resource practices that companies employ to manage their employees effectively ‐ revealing that there is a wide diversity in approach and what is right for one industry sector would not work in another. Offers some advice for managers, but, overall, fails to summarize what constitutes effective means of managing human behaviour.
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Pedro Serrano Rodríguez and Luis Felipe González Böhme
As is well known, architectural design pedagogy persistently demands to look outside the classroom for real-world problems to deal with, and exemplary solutions to learn from…
Abstract
As is well known, architectural design pedagogy persistently demands to look outside the classroom for real-world problems to deal with, and exemplary solutions to learn from. Studio-based learning alternately takes place between indoor and outdoor environments as well as built and natural environments. Especially the use of outdoor workspaces where students may generate and test their design proposals strengthens the case for a better understanding of human habitability and environmental sustainability. Nonetheless, outdoor activities are traditionally confined to on-site information gathering, whereas design and evaluation processes are carried out indoors simply as a desk-bound activity. In these cases, the empirical evidence to back up the problem modeling and the design decisions made inside the studio classroom is missing. In mainstream architecture education, indoor and outdoor learning experiences are operationally dissociated. The intent to create real outdoor studio classrooms not only opens a new research field in learning space design, but new challenges to the studio-based learning culture. We expose a few exemplary cases from an ongoing series of trials, started in 1999 by the Department of Architecture at the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, to assess the effective integration of outdoor learning environments with our local studio-based learning culture.
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Thomas Belz, Dominik von Hagen and Christian Steffens
Using a meta-regression analysis, we quantitatively review the empirical literature on the relation between effective tax rate (ETR) and firm size. Accounting literature offers…
Abstract
Using a meta-regression analysis, we quantitatively review the empirical literature on the relation between effective tax rate (ETR) and firm size. Accounting literature offers two competing theories on this relation: The political cost theory, suggesting a positive size-ETR relation, and the political power theory, suggesting a negative size-ETR relation. Using a unique data set of 56 studies that do not show a clear tendency towards either of the two theories, we contribute to the discussion on the size-ETR relation in three ways: First, applying meta-regression analysis on a US meta-data set, we provide evidence supporting the political cost theory. Second, our analysis reveals factors that are possible sources of variation and bias in previous empirical studies; these findings can improve future empirical and analytical models. Third, we extend our analysis to a cross-country meta-data set; this extension enables us to investigate explanations for the two competing theories in more detail. We find that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, a transparency index and a corruption index explain variation in the size-ETR relation. Independent of the two theories, we also find that tax planning aspects potentially affect the size-ETR relation. To our knowledge, these explanations have not yet been investigated in our research context.
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C'est un fait que les touristes souhaitent profiter de plus en plus des ressources offertes mais que d'autre part les responsables de leur offre veulent également exploiter les…
Rodrigo García Alvarado, Dirk Donath and Luis Felipe González Böhme
Over the past three decades, a small community of eighty-four Chilean low-income families has built and improved their home incrementally, without any technical assistance…
Abstract
Over the past three decades, a small community of eighty-four Chilean low-income families has built and improved their home incrementally, without any technical assistance, showing an impressive performance. A six square meters bathroom on a serviced plot of land with individual connection to potable water, sewerage, electricity and access roads, worked as a starting point back in 1974. However particular their rationale may seem, the individual history of their housing process reveals some general regularities in occurrence and duration of self-build activities, as well as size and allocation of the domestic spaces. A small random sample of fifteen households was selected to tell the story and explain the whys, hows, and whens of an ever-evolving housing process. Semi-structured interviews and building surveys were both combined to reconstruct the sequence of states of each housing process, with the awareness of the characteristic imprecision of oral information transfer. Alternative states were explored by constraint programming methods and spatial qualitative reasoning. Considering the hard constraints over the site morphology and services allocation, the results of the exploration stress how extraordinary lucid and intuitive the surveyed families are when making their design decisions. The article exposes a reconstructive case study on spontaneous growth patterns underlying an unassisted, incremental self-build housing dynamics.
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Many information scientists are concerned with the operation of document retrieval systems serving scientists in various fields. The scientists served by these systems are often…
Abstract
Many information scientists are concerned with the operation of document retrieval systems serving scientists in various fields. The scientists served by these systems are often members of what have been called invisible colleges, groups of scientists in frequent communication with one another and involved with highly specialized subject matters. Often such groups are considered to share an intellectual perspective regarding this subject matter, which is sometimes referred to as a paradigm.
Very much more might be done to improve the quality of our food supplies by the great organisations that exist for the avowed object of furthering the interests of traders in…
Abstract
Very much more might be done to improve the quality of our food supplies by the great organisations that exist for the avowed object of furthering the interests of traders in foodstuffs. It is no exaggeration to say that these organisations claim, and rightly claim, to speak in the aggregate on behalf of great commercial interests involving the means of livelihood of thousands of people and the most profitable disposal of millions of money. The information that they possess as to certain trade methods and requirements is necessarily unique. Apart from the commercial knowledge they possess, these organisations have funds at their command which enable them to obtain the best professional opinions on any subjects connected with the trades they represent. Their members are frequently to be found occupying positions of responsibility as the elected representatives of their fellow‐citizens on municipal councils and other public bodies, where the administration of the Food Laws and prosecutions under the Food and Drugs Acts are often under discussion. Such organisations, then, are in a position to afford an unlimited amount of valuable help by assisting to put down fraud in connection with our food supply. The dosing of foods with harmful drugs is, of course, only a part of a very much larger subject. It is, however, typical. Assuming the danger to public health that arises from the treatment of foods with harmful preservatives, the continued use of such substances cannot but be in the long run as harmful to the best interests of the traders as it is actually dangerous to public health. The trade organisations to which reference has been made might very well extend their sphere of usefulness by making it their business to seriously consider this and similar questions in the interests of public health, as well as in their own best interests. It is surely not open to doubt that a great organisation, numbering hundreds, and perhaps thousands of members, has such a membership because individual traders find it to their interest, as do people in all walks of life, to act more or less in common for the general advantage ; and, further, that it would not be to the benefit of individual members that their connection with the organisation should terminate owing to their own wrong‐doing. The executives of such trade organisations hold a sufficiently strong position to enable them to bring strong pressure to bear on those who are acting in a way that is contrary to the interests of the public generally, and of honest traders in particular, by adulterating or misbranding the food products that they gain their living by selling. It should also be plain that such trade organisations could go a long way towards solving many of the very vexed questions that arise whenever food standards and limits, for example, form the subject of discussion. These problems are not easy to deal with. The difficulties in connection with them are many and great; but such problems, however difficult of solution, are still not insoluble, and an important step towards their solution would be taken if co‐operation between those who are acting in the interests of hygienic science and those who are acting in the interests of trade could be brought about. If this could be accomplished the unedifying spectacle of alleged trade interests and the demands of public health being brought, as is so often the case, into sharp conflict, would be less frequent, and there can be no doubt that general benefit would result.
America’s patent rate (per 100,000 population) rose steeply to 34 from 1820‐1885, hovered between 28‐36 for the next 40 years then started its plunge to the present 18. This…
Abstract
America’s patent rate (per 100,000 population) rose steeply to 34 from 1820‐1885, hovered between 28‐36 for the next 40 years then started its plunge to the present 18. This article examines the numerous possible causes often found in the literature ‐ expenditures on R&D, poor patent protection, high fees and pendency delays, decline in education in sciences and engineering, etc. While there is some evidence to support each of these, none is as important as the decline in our immigrants from Europe. Projections of possible improvements in our creativity and innovation in sciences and technology are bound in the characteristics of our present and future immigrant streams, and these are not expected to replace the role played by our previous immigrant streams.