Pollution and economic growth: Evidence from Central and Eastern European countries

We investigate the relationships between pollution and growth in eleven Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Aggregate results, robust to different estimators and control variables, reveal an increasing nonlinear link between GDP and CO2 for the group of CEE countries. However, at a disaggregated, country-level, the relationship between GDP and CO2 is characterized by much diversity among CEE countries, namely: N-shaped, inverted-N, U-shaped, inverted-U, monotonic, or no statistical link. Thus, despite an aggregated upward trend, some CEE countries managed to secure both higher GDP and lower CO2 emissions. From a policy perspective, EU policymakers could pay more attention to these countries, and amend the current unique environmental policy to account for country-heterogeneities in order to support economic growth without damaging the environment.     

Hierarchical multi-reservoir optimization modeling for real-world complexity with application to the Three Gorges system

High dimensionality in real-world multi-reservoir systems greatly hinders the application and popularity of evolutionary algorithms, especially for systems with heterogeneous units. An efficient hierarchical optimization framework is presented for search space reduction, determining the best water distributions, not only between cascade reservoirs, but also among different types of hydropower units. The framework is applied to the Three Gorges Project (TGP) system and the results demonstrate that the difficulties of multi-reservoir optimization caused by high dimensionality can be effectively solved by the proposed hierarchical method. For the day studied, power output could be increased by 6.79 GWh using an optimal decision with the same amount of water actually used; while the same amount of power could be generated with 2.59 × 10⁷ m³ less water compared to the historical policy. The methodology proposed is general in that it can be used for other reservoir systems and other types of heterogeneous unit generators.     

The relationship between centrality and land use patterns: Empirical evidence from five Chinese metropolises

The relationship between location and land use patterns is one of the classic theoretical issues in urban studies. Classic models based on the monocentricity hypothesis have limitations in the interpretation of modern urban structure. China has experienced institutional transformation in recent decades, and the interaction of national government policy, market forces and the natural environment has influenced urban planning in Chinese metropolises, resulting in urban structures with special characteristics. This paper examines the distribution of location and land use intensity, and tested the Alonso model by the relationship between them in five Chinese metropolises using Point of Interest data, space syntax methodology, the grid weighted statistical method and the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model. Universal patterns about the scaling relation between intensity of land use types and the centrality of location are revealed. The elasticity of land use types to location, from high to low sensitivity, is commercial, residential then industrial land in most of the five metropolises studied. The sensitivity sequence of land use studied suggests that the hypothetical model based on the classical Alonso model can explain the spatial structure of modern metropolises in China to some extent, especially for the commercial land. But the order of sensitivity of residential land and industrial land to location does not conform to the model. The spatial heterogeneity in land use intensity and centrality were explored and the factors embedded were discussed. It can be found that the relation between centrality and land use intensity conforms to power law. In most of the metropolises studied, when the scaling relation between land use intensity and centrality is super linear, the sequence of the frequency value from high to low are commercial, residential and industrial land; when the scaling relation is sublinear, the sequence of the frequency value is industrial, residential and commercial land.     

An effectiveness analysis of altmetrics indices for different levels of artificial intelligence publications

Scientometrics - Altmetrics indices are increasingly applied to measure scholarly influence in recent years because they can reflect the influence of research outputs more timely comparing with...     

Managing readiness-relevant activities for the organizational dimension of ERP implementation

An organization requires performing readiness-relevant activities to ensure successful implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This paper develops a novel approach to managing these interrelated activities to get ready for implementing an ERP system. The approach enables an organization to evaluate its ERP implementation readiness by assessing the degree to which it can achieve the interrelated readiness relevant activities using fuzzy cognitive maps. Based on the interrelationship degrees among the activities, the approach clusters the activities into manageable groups and prioritizes them. To help work out a readiness improvement plan, scenario analysis is conducted.     

The prevalence of olfactory deficits and their effects on eating behavior from childhood to old age: A large-scale study in the French population

Olfaction is crucial for many aspects of daily life and its alteration is quite common. Here, we set up a large-scale investigation of olfactory deficits in a sample of French individuals in order to examine the prevalence of smell dysfunction and its effects on eating behavior across lifespan, by combining self-reports and psychophysical testing. In a sample of 3685 male and female individuals aged 4 to 89 years old, we showed that the overall prevalence of olfactory dysfunction as measured by psychophysical testing was 17% and varied with age and gender: from 10% in 4–12 year-old children to >30% after 60 years of age; overall, women were less often affected than men. When olfactory abilities were self-evaluated, the prevalence was 6%, suggesting that a large majority of participants were unaware of their olfactory disorder. The prevalence of qualitative smell disorders (parosmia and phantosmia) was much lower (1%). In terms of eating behavior, the effects were present but small: olfactory deficits impact eating behavior of people in different age groups differently. Taken together, these findings highlight the high prevalence of olfactory dysfunctions in the general population, not only in the elderly. They also emphasize the potential consequences of smell dysfunctions on eating behavior. The present results should attract health services’ attention since smell dysfunctions may have consequences on nutrition and health especially in the elderly.     

A novel approach to adaptive relational association rule mining

The paper focuses on the adaptive relational association rule mining problem. Relational association rules represent a particular type of association rules which describe frequent relations that occur between the features characterizing the instances within a data set. We aim at re-mining an object set, previously mined, when the feature set characterizing the objects increases. An adaptive relational association rule method, based on the discovery of interesting relational association rules, is proposed. This method, called ARARM (Adaptive Relational Association Rule Mining) adapts the set of rules that was established by mining the data before the feature set changed, preserving the completeness. We aim to reach the result more efficiently than running the mining algorithm again from scratch on the feature-extended object set. Experiments testing the method's performance on several case studies are also reported. The obtained results highlight the efficiency of the ARARM method and confirm the potential of our proposal.     

Why do people purchase virtual goods? A uses and gratification (U&G) theory perspective

Few literature studies have investigated the relationships between different uses and gratifications (U&Gs) of mobile instant messaging (MIM) apps, continuation, and purchase intentions. To address this gap, the researchers aimed to examine the influence of the content, social, process, and technology U&Gs of MIM on continuation intentions toward MIMs, and purchase intentions toward virtual goods available on MIMs. A comprehensive research model was developed based on the U&G theory, which was tested using cross-sectional data from 309 Japanese MIM users. The study considered six different U&Gs of MIM as independent variables and purchase intentions towards stickers and continuation intentions towards MIM as dependent variables. The study results suggest that exposure U&G has a significant positive association with MIM sticker purchase intentions. The entertainment and affection U&G are positively associated with continuation intentions towards MIM use. The study contributes to the literature by investigating U&Gs that motivate MIM users to have both positive purchase intentions toward virtual goods, such as stickers, and continuation intentions toward MIMs. The study has significant theoretical and practical implications for both researchers and practitioners who are interested in virtual goods, the virtual economy, MIM apps, social media, new media, and the service economy.     

Energy demand–FDI nexus in Africa: Do FDIs induce dichotomous paths?

This study investigates the nexus between energy demand and foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa, using the simultaneous system Generalized Method of Moments estimator and panel data that consists of 27 African countries over the period 2000–2014. Specifically, the study hypothesizes a non-linear relationship between energy demand and FDI, which imposes the assumption that conditions, such as the level of technology absorptive capacity, the level, and stage of development and adjustment cost are likely to be heterogeneous across cross-section and over time. Several empirical strategies, such as changing the structure of the model set-up, using different sample groupings and applying different estimators with different assumptions were employed to substantiate the robustness nature of the hypothesized relationship. The findings revealed a robust concave effect of FDI on energy consumption. This suggests that there are learning and imitation experiences associated with FDI, and these experiences produce dichotomous paths in terms of realizing the energy-saving benefits of FDI.