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Article
Publication date: 27 July 2018

Min Zhong, Yuchun Zhu, Qihui Chen, Tianjun Liu and Qihua Cai

The purpose of this paper is to examine how households’ engagement in concurrent business (CB), which is measured by the contribution of off-farm income to household income…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how households’ engagement in concurrent business (CB), which is measured by the contribution of off-farm income to household income, affects the farm size–technical efficiency (TE) relationship in Northern China.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper applies a stochastic frontier analysis method to analyze data on 1,006 rural households collected from four major wheat-producing provinces in Northern China, adopting a translog specification for the underlying production function.

Findings

The analysis yields three findings. First, the farm size–TE relationship is inverted U-shaped for all CB engagement levels higher than 5 percent, and the most technically efficient farm size increases with the level of household CB engagement. Second, how TE varies with the level of CB engagement depends on farm size: an inverted-U relationship for relatively small farms (<10μ), a positive relationship for middle-size farms (10–20μ), and a negative relationship for large farms (>20μ). Finally, the overall TE score, 0.88, suggests that wheat output can be increased by 12 percent in Northern China if technical inefficiency were eliminated.

Originality/value

Unlike most previous studies that examine the impacts of farm size and households’ off-farm business involvement separately, this paper examines how these two factors interact with each other.

Details

China Agricultural Economic Review, vol. 11 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-137X

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Article
Publication date: 1 February 2016

Qihua Cai, Yuchun Zhu and Qihui Chen

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles social networks play in households’ contribution to the provision of small hydraulic facilities (SHFs) in rural China.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles social networks play in households’ contribution to the provision of small hydraulic facilities (SHFs) in rural China.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts a sample-selection ordered probit model (Greene and Hensher, 2010) to estimate the impacts of overall social-network intensity, of the number of strong ties (relatives), and of the number of weak ties (friends), using data on 1,064 representative households collected from three provinces (Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and Shandong).

Findings

The numbers of strong ties and weak ties both have significant impacts on households’ willingness to contribute to SHFs provision, but only the latter has a significant impact on their level of contribution. More specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the number of weak ties (i.e. friends) is associated with a 6.6 percent increase in households’ propensity of contributing more than 550 yuan and a 8.2 percent decrease in their propensity of contributing less than 100 yuan.

Originality/value

This paper is the first to examine the impacts of social networks on households’ contribution to SHFs provision in rural China. Its finding is of great policy relevance-fostering and maintaining social networks (e.g. through rural cooperatives) can significantly increase households’ contribution to public-good provision.

Details

China Agricultural Economic Review, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-137X

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Article
Publication date: 2 May 2022

Yiran Li, Liyi Zhang, Wen-Lung Shiau, Liyang Xu and Qihua Liu

Reading represents a basic way by which humans understand the world and acquire knowledge; it is also central to learning and communicating. However, with the rapid development of…

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Abstract

Purpose

Reading represents a basic way by which humans understand the world and acquire knowledge; it is also central to learning and communicating. However, with the rapid development of mobile reading, an individual's cognition of objective facts may be affected by the reading environment and text genre, resulting in limited memorization and understanding of the reading material. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of the reading environment and text genre on individuals' cognitive activities from the perspective of motivational activation level using evidence from electroencephalography (EEG) signals.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employed a mixed design experiment with two reading environments (quiet and distracting) between subjects, two text genres (entertaining and scientific) within subjects and two reading tasks (memory recall and comprehension) within subjects. There were 50 participants in the experiment, and the data obtained from 44 participants while they read the materials and completed the reading tasks were analyzed.

Findings

The results showed that readers are more positively motivated to read in a quiet reading environment than in a distracting reading environment when facing the memory recall tasks of entertaining genre passages and comprehension tasks of scientific genre passages. Entertaining genres are more likely to arouse readers' reading interest but hinder the memory recall of the content details. While scientific genres are not easy to understand, they are helpful for working memory.

Originality/value

This study not only applies a new technology to mobile reading research in the field of library science and addresses the limitations of self-report data, but also provides suggestions for the further improvement of mobile reading service providers. Additionally, the results may provide useful information for learners with different learning demands.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 36 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

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