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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for evaluating the relationship between China and Peru, drawing on dependency theory, against the backdrop of China's explicit policies towards foreign direct investment. It seeks to transcend traditional interpretations of this relationship in the literature that focuses on China as either hegemon or a South–South partner to Latin American countries to highlight a more nuanced relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a case study approach, focusing on China in Peru. The authors examine three areas of traditional, strategic and emerging industries drawing from Chinese national policies, reviewing these against characteristics of dependency: control of production, heterogeneity of actors, transfer of knowledge and delinking. Findings: The authors find that Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Peru demonstrates mixed motives and collectively operates as an ambiguous player. Chinese firms appear to be willing to work with various actors, but this engagement does not translate into a decolonial development alternative in the absence of a Peruvian political will to delink and Chinese willingness to actively transfer control of production and knowledge. Originality/value: This paper contributes to existing literature on China in Latin America by evaluating Chinese outward FDI in Peru against China's strategic aims in terms of a re-evaluation of dependency theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a significant carbon emitter, China has set a target in 2020 of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality." This target presents stricter criteria for the company's carbon information disclosure quality (CIDQ). Meantime, financial performance (FP) is a primary consideration for companies and their stakeholders. Therefore, this paper selected public companies in the electric power industry (EPI), which are the first to be integrated into the carbon emissions trading market, to research the impact of CIDQ on FP. Theoretically, this paper enhances the conclusions regarding the impact of CIDQ on FP, which might serve as a reference for future research, and practically, this paper can reduce management resistance to carbon information disclosure in pursuing profit, facilitate the co-improvement of CIDQ and FP, contribute in achieving China's target of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality." First, this paper constructed a CIDQ evaluation index system by analyzing the characteristics of diverse sub-sectors within the EPI, which can make the CIDQ evaluation system more rational, and then evaluated it using a comprehensive evaluation method based on uncertain normal cloud (UNC) combination weight, which can reflect the ambiguity and uncertainty of the information obtained during the process of evaluating the company's CIDQ, and broaden the thought process for evaluating the CIDQ. Furthermore, the paper used factor analysis (FA) to evaluate FP, effectively resolving the issue of massive data while preserving the essential information of financial indicators. Finally, the paper concluded by analyzing the impact of the CIDQ on FP using a multiple linear regression model. The results indicated that the CIDQ by electric public companies has a positive impact on solvency and profitability, a negative impact on operating capacity, and a non-significant impact on development capacity. In response to these conclusions, this paper proposed corresponding suggestions at the government, society, and company levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many regions or countries seek to transition to a low-carbon economy, but there is ambiguity about how carbon emissions change with economic growth. This paper captures characteristics of carbon emissions in China using the Tapio Method. To detect driving factors of carbon emissions in economic growth, we adopt the Log-Mean Divisia Index decomposition method. The results of the paper are as follows: (1) Economic growth in most regions of China has outpaced the growth rate of carbon emissions, showing the characteristics of decoupling. (2) Metropolitan cities have a greater impact on the level of decoupling in neighboring provinces and municipalities. (3) The decoupling of carbon emissions from economic growth is caused by declining energy intensity in China. (4) The energy mix and industrial structure have little impact on the growth rate of carbon emissions. In addition, some policy implications are summarized according to the findings of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban logistics is important to a city's sustainable growth and development. With the increase in population and the economic growth in urban areas, the issue of congestion and the negative influence of transport of goods on people and the environment is one of the most important factors in the development of urban logistics. By determining the optimal location of urban logistics centres, total transport costs of logistics, the flow of goods in urban areas and the greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced. However, the traditional methods are easily influenced by the ambiguity of objective data, which makes it difficult to accurately describe the logistics demand in the urban area. To address this issue, the improved location–allocation model for urban logistics centres based on truck trajectory data is proposed. After extracting the origin–destination points, the logistics service demand can be estimated by the DBSCAN (density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise) clustering method. Then, the location–allocation of logistics centres is determined by an improved P-median method with the supply capacity limitation for simultaneous delivery of goods in the logistics centres. To validate the model, taking Wuhan, a central logistics city in China, as an example, the model can effectively ensure the equitable distribution of logistics facilities, minimize freight expenses, achieve more uniformity in logistics center services, and foster sustainable development of the city's logistics sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid growth in the Chinese construction industry is exposing many design professionals to elevated stress levels with negative implications for their health and well-being, and in-turn project outcomes. However, it is surprising that there has been little research into job stressors affecting design professionals in the construction industry. The aim of this paper is to help address this gap in knowledge by reporting the results of research that explored the job stressors of design professionals and how they vary across various personal and workplace characteristics. Data was collected via a survey of 408 design professionals in the Chinese construction industry, supported by in-depth sensemaking interviews with nine Chinese design professionals. Survey data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics combined with qualitative analysis of interview transcripts. Results indicate that task-related stressors are the leading sources of job stress for design professionals in the industry. Managing job workload, job requirements, and job ambiguity are the main task-related stressors and are linked to time pressures, working overtime, high workload, balancing multiple projects, and high levels of responsibility. Results also indicate that gender, marital status, age, education background, years of design experience, design discipline, position, and professional title are mediating factors in a design professional's job stressor profile. Being the first large-scale empirical investigation of the job stressors among design professionals in the Chinese construction industry, the findings provide new empirical and conceptual insights into an increasingly important yet under researched problem and concludes with practical recommendations to reduce job stress for design professionals in the industry, which has broader relevance in other countries. The current research findings have important practical implications for Chinese design professionals and for managers of design organizations and construction projects in China that involve design professionals. By providing new insights into the critical stressors that affect design professionals and the influence of personal and workplace characteristics on their job stressors, this research provides a strong empirical foundation for new evidence-based stress management initiatives and policies to reduce job stressors in this critically important professional group. For example, this may include involving design professionals or design organizations in the redesign of their jobs and working environments and the development of flexibility policies that enable better work-life balance, such as working remotely, paternity leave, and shorter work weeks. More importantly, the findings point to the importance of changing the demanding nature of work in the construction industry and developing more targeted measures to improve individual resilience and stress-coping capabilities for design professionals, especially those subgroups to which the results indicate are subject to stronger job stressors. These groups include electrical design professionals, design professionals with a higher level of education or job position, and professionals with family caring responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020, the BeiDou-3 global navigation satellite system (BDS-3) was officially completed and put into service. Currently, network real-time kinematic (RTK) technology is considered the main means through which to improve the positioning accuracy of the BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS). This paper proposes a long-range undifferenced network RTK (URTK) algorithm, based on multi-frequency observation data of the BDS. First, the multi-frequency phase integer ambiguity resolution (AR) model considering atmospheric error parameters is designed, and the multi-frequency phase integer ambiguity of the long-range BDS reference station is determined. Then, the undifferenced integer ambiguity of each reference station is obtained, using linear variation based on the accurately determined phase integer ambiguity between reference stations, and the undifferenced observation error of each reference station is calculated. Considering the weakening spatial correlation of the observation errors between long-range stations, undifferenced classification error corrections of a reference station network are separated, according to different error characteristics. Finally, the inverse distance weighting method is employed to calculate the classification undifferenced error correction of the rover station. The rover station corrects the observation error through applying the undifferenced error correction to achieve high-precision positioning. The measured data of a long-range continuous operation reference station (CORS) network are selected for an experiment. The results show that the proposed algorithm can quickly and accurately realize the resolution of the BDS integer ambiguity of a reference station network and establish an undifferenced area error correction model in order to achieve accurate classification of undifferenced error correction values for a rover station. In China, the BDS-3 is superior to the global positioning system (GPS) in terms of the satellite number, position dilution of precision (PDOP) value, AR success rate, stability, and convergence time. The results show that the AR success rate, stability, and convergence time increase with the operational frequency, and the BDS-3 can achieve centimeter-level positioning of single-system rover stations without relying on the GPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The LuTan-1(LT-1), known as the L-band differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite system, is an essential piece of civil infrastructure in China, providing extensive applications such as surface deformation monitoring and topographic mapping. To achieve high-resolution and wide-swath (HRWS) observation abilities, the LT-1 takes the dual receiving antenna (DRA) imaging mode as its working mode. However, amplitude and phase errors between channels lead to a mismatch between the reconstruction filter and the multichannel echo signal, worsen the reconstructed azimuth spectrum, and introduce ambiguity targets in the final imaging results, seriously affecting the final imaging quality. In order to better evaluate the channel error and azimuth ambiguity performance of the LT-1 system, this paper proposed an advanced channel consistency correction method and conducted many measured data experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed method is effective, and the LT-1 system has excellent channel error control and azimuth ambiguity performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive studies on ethical data use and algorithms, little is known about the ethical perspectives of tech workers – insiders of a profession that heavily relies on data and algorithms. Nor have there been sufficient cross-national comparisons of their perspectives. Relying on interviews with 98 tech workers in China and the US, this paper is guided by two questions: (1) What are tech workers' perceptions of big data ethics, and (2) what are the cross-national similarities and differences in China and the US? The study found that there are cross-national similarities in tech workers' cautious enthusiasm about the applications of big data in their work, as well as in their complex and ambivalent ethical perspectives on the use of big data in government digital surveillance. The main cross-national differences occur in tech workers' perceptions of whether big data may reinforce social inequalities. US-based tech workers are concerned about the reinforcement of race and gender-based inequalities through the use of big data, whereas their colleagues in China are optimistic that the use of big data may reduce income-based inequalities across geographical regions. The study's findings have implications for how to leverage tech workers' influence and promote the ethical use of data and algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the rapid development of the digital industry, the international use of XBRL as a computer language for the exchange of corporate financial data is of great significance in promoting the standardization of financial data. This paper provides an in-depth study and quantitative measurement of the applicability of the Chinese XBRL common taxonomy elements in enterprises, examining the interoperability of the elements between enterprises and the possible absence and ambiguity of the elements. The research study shows significant differences between the elements of XBRL defined in the general classification standard and the elements used in financial reports of listed companies in China. Furthermore, the quantitative interoperability model results show significant differences in the interoperability of elements between companies in the same industry and the same category of industries. Therefore, updates to the Chinese XBRL taxonomy should start from the underlying logic of accounting and improve the process of calling the elements in the accounting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The empirical studies have indicated that the information uncertainty is one of the reasons leading to the momentum effect in the stock market. Based on this conclusion, the concept of “information uncertainty” is deepened into the concept hierarchy of “information ambiguity,” the purpose of this paper is to explain the momentum effect in the China’s stock market from information ambiguity. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the information ambiguity, the paper puts forward two hypotheses, portfolio analysis and cross-sectional regression analysis method were used to empirically test these hypothesis based on the weekly data. Findings – The empirical results support the two hypotheses. Originality/value – Finally, the paper discusses the importance from ambiguity to understand financial anomalies, such as momentum effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Biden administration has in general been operating both “strategic ambiguity” and “strategic clarity,” prompting the question: Is the United States being strategically ambiguous or strategically clear towards Taiwan? This paper believes the discussion should start with the clarification of “U.S. policy regarding Taiwan.” However, U.S. policy towards Taiwan involves the highly sensitive One–China policy. Thus, the United States will evaluate its “core interest” in relation to China when dealing with the One–China policy, as mishandling it may trigger a war between the United States and China or the rest of the world. This is the reason why the United States must devise its Taiwan policy at a macro-level and cautious manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study adjustable distributionally robust optimization problems, where their ambiguity sets can potentially encompass an infinite number of expectation constraints. Although such ambiguity sets have great modeling flexibility in characterizing uncertain probability distributions, the corresponding adjustable problems remain computationally intractable and challenging. To overcome this issue, we propose a greedy improvement procedure that consists of solving, via the (extended) linear decision rule approximation, a sequence of tractable subproblems—each of which considers a relaxed and finitely constrained ambiguity set that can be iteratively tightened to the infinitely constrained one. Through three numerical studies of adjustable distributionally robust optimization models, we show that our approach can yield improved solutions in a systematic way for both two-stage and multistage problems. History: Accepted by Pascal Van Hentenryck, Area Editor for Computational Modeling: Methods & Analysis. Funding: Financial support by the Early Career Scheme from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council [Project No. CityU 21502820], the CityU Start-Up Grant [Project No. 9610481], the CityU Strategic Research Grant [Project No. 7005688], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Project No. 72032005], and Chow Sang Sang Group Research Fund sponsored by Chow Sang Sang Holdings International Limited [Project No. 9229076] is gratefully acknowledged. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplemental Information (https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2021.0181), as well as from the IJOC GitHub software repository (https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/2021.0181). The complete IJOC Software and Data Repository is available at https://informsjoc.github.io/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protests and opposition to land acquisition from displaced peasants for fair compensation occur on a daily basis in China and have become the most prominent social problem in rural parts of the country. Employing a procedural perspective on conflict, this paper aims to uncover the complexities and tensions that are triggered in the process by drawing on a case of a land confiscation in Jining City, a medium‐size city in Shandong Province, China. Our research shows that conflicts exist at various scales: both between the local governments and rural households and between the village officials and villagers. The paper argues that ambiguity in de jure and de facto land acquisition procedures has resulted in both an escalation of conflict and increasing inequality in the outcomes and benefits of the process. We discuss and conclude that the differences between de jure and de facto procedures in the process of land acquisition are a significant institutional barrier in the resolution of conflict in this important issue for rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.Findings The concept of “VUCA” – a commercial climate that has volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – has its roots in the US military, where understanding such an environment helped with planning. For an ordered, regimented organization such as the armed forces, it was tempting to assume logic and form governed external society as well; however, this has rarely been the case in military deployment.Practical implications The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaming behaviors are challenges to governments' performance measurement systems. This paper presents a theory of the ways in which participatory management and goal ambiguity shape gaming behaviors in performance management. Using survey data from China, this study empirically shows that in high-incentive performance measurement systems, township government cadres' participation in goal-setting has a significant positive effect on their gaming behaviors; cadres' perceived goal ambiguity has a significant negative effect on their gaming behaviors; and participatory management affects gaming behaviors through goal ambiguity. This study's findings reveal that in the context of high pressure and intense competition, gaining more useful information from participation in goal-setting and developing a deeper understanding of the evaluative goals requested by superiors may allow township government cadres to identify loopholes in performance measurement systems and seize opportunities for gaming. These findings imply that a comprehensive management strategy should be used to limit gaming behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to the increasing complexity in socioeconomic environments and the ambiguity in human cognition, decision makers prefer to give linguistic cognitive information with different granularities according to their own preferences. Consequently, to consider the uncertainty and preferences in the evaluation process, a method based on Multi-Granularity Linguistic Information (MGLI) for evaluating teleconsultation service quality is proposed, which provides a new research direction for scientific evaluation and improvement of teleconsultation service quality.Methods: Firstly, this paper explored a service quality evaluation system from the perspective of regional doctors. And then considering the uncertainty and preferences of decision makers, MGLI was used to optimize the index system according to the similarity degree between the linguistic evaluation information and a given linguistic term set. Finally, the empirical research was conducted using Henan Province Telemedicine Center of China (HTCC) as an example to identify the direction for improving the service quality in teleconsultation.Results: This study found that the number of consulting rooms, attitude of operators, consultation duration, charges, and attitude of experts are the key factors affecting the quality of teleconsultation service.Conclusions: Suggestions for improving the quality of teleconsultation service are put forward in terms of optimizing the allocation of consulting rooms, improving regional doctors' experience and standardizing charging standards, which provides a new direction for improving the quality of teleconsultation service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specifying a proper input distribution is often a challenging task in simulation modeling. In practice, there may be multiple plausible distributions that can fit the input data reasonably well, especially when the data volume is not large. In this paper, we consider the problem of selecting the best from a finite set of simulated alternatives, in the presence of such input uncertainty. We model such uncertainty by an ambiguity set consisting of a finite number of plausible input distributions and aim to select the alternative with the best worst-case mean performance over the ambiguity set. We refer to this problem as robust selection of the best (RSB). To solve the RSB problem, we develop a two-stage selection procedure and a sequential selection procedure; we then prove that both procedures can achieve at least a user-specified probability of correct selection under mild conditions. Extensive numerical experiments are conducted to investigate the computational efficiency of the two procedures. Finally, we apply the RSB approach to study a queueing system's staffing problem using synthetic data and an appointment-scheduling problem using real data from a large hospital in China. We find that the RSB approach can generate decisions significantly better than other widely used approaches. This paper was accepted by Noah Gans, stochastic models and simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The LuTan-1 (LT-1) mission, China's first civilian bistatic spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mission, comprises two L-band SAR satellites. These satellites operate in bistatic InSAR strip map mode, maintaining a formation flight with an adjustable baseline to generate global digital elevation models (DEMs) with high accuracy and spatial resolution. This research introduces a dedicated interferometric calibration model for LT-1, tackling the unique challenges of the bistatic system, such as interferometric parameter coupling and the π -ambiguity problem caused by synchronization phase errors. This study validates the model using SAR images from LT-1 and Xinjiang corner reflector data, achieving interferometric phase accuracy better than 0.1 rad and baseline accuracy better than 2 mm, thereby producing high-precision DEMs with a height accuracy meeting the 5 m requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the psychological and sociological framework of risk, we establish a static and dynamic equilibrium model for risk‐sharing institutional evolution. Particularly, through a comparative study of marine insurance development in China and Europe, we address a wide set of research questions concerning why China and Europe relied on different social organizations for risk sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the nature of David Li’s concept of ambiguous property rights and three angles to see right ambiguity from a Coasian-constrained choice-theoretical perspective and elaborate on that ambiguity in terms of five scenarios of de jure and de facto rights. The case of indigenous village housing in post-colonial Hong Kong under a mature system of the rule of law is used to demonstrate the ambiguities due to a gap between de jure and de facto property rights that may not degenerate into anarchy due to rational choices made under common law constraints driven ultimately by the land market. The implications of the case study for evaluating ambiguities in property rights in China are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tomographic Synthetic Aperture Radar (TomoSAR) is a breakthrough of the traditional SAR, which has the three-dimentional (3D) observation ability of layover scenes such as buildings and high mountains. As an advanced system, the airborne array TomoSAR can effectively avoid temporal de-correlation caused by long revisit time, which has great application in high-precision mountain surveying and mapping. The 3D reconstruction using TomoSAR has mainly focused on low targets, while there are few literatures on 3D mountain reconstruction. Due to the layover phenomenon, surveying in high mountain areas remains a difficult task. Consequently, it is meaningful to carry out the research on 3D mountain reconstruction using the airborne array TomoSAR. However, the original TomoSAR mountain point cloud faces the problem of elevation ambiguity. Furthermore, for mountains with complex terrain, the points located in different elevation periods may intersect. This phenomenon increases the difficulty of solving the problem. In this paper, a novel elevation ambiguity resolution method is proposed. First, Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) are combined for point cloud segmentation. The former ensures coarse segmentation based on density, and the latter allows fine segmentation of the abnormal categories caused by intersection. Subsequently, the segmentation results are reorganized in the elevation direction to reconstruct all possible point clouds. Finally, the real point cloud can be extracted automatically under the constraints of the boundary and elevation continuity. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated by simulations and experiments. Based on the airborne array TomoSAR experiment in Leshan City, Sichuan Province, China in 2019, the 3D model of the surveyed mountain is presented. Moreover, three kinds of external data are applied to fully verify the validity of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study introduces the concept of "strategically ambiguous collaborative influence operations" to examine the phenomena of wangbao (cyberbullying) and jubao (reporting) in China. These operations involve the intertwined efforts of state and non-state actors to suppress critical voices in the online sphere. They are characterized by the strategic use of ambiguity in the state-society relationship, which enables flexibility, adaptability, and plausible deniability for the state. The study combines an analysis of secondary materials on selected cases, interviews, and a survey to argue that several features of China's political system facilitate the ambiguity associated with these operations. Focusing on the victims' perceptions, this study identifies the strategies they use to make sense of their experiences and discern state vs. non-state activities. It proposes a typology to illustrate the perceived levels of state involvement in these operations. The study highlights the importance of recognizing and examining strategically ambiguous collaborative influence operations as a distinct form of state-society partnership, which has significant implications for individuals, society, and the dynamics of online influence operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy piloting has become a popular form of organization in implementing public policies. However, the current literature surprisingly discusses little about its management. This study investigates how two policy-pilot attributes – ambiguity and compatibility – shape policy-pilot management. To accomplish this, we developed an analytic framework consisting of four management strategies: experimentation, refinement, upscaling, and institutionalization. We chose a representative policy pilot in Chinese health governance, the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme, to examine the adoption of these four strategies. Our finding that, at various junctures, the Chinese state adopted these four strategies to manage policy piloting demonstrates the applicability of the analytic framework constructed in this study. This study contributes to the existing public policy literature by providing new insights into policy implementation in temporary organizing settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The quality and availability of Uncalibrated Phase Delay (UPD) solutions are crucial to the Precise Point Positioning (PPP) service, and the long-term temporal variability and its contributing factors should be better understood. In this paper, we comprehensively investigate the long-term time-varying characteristics of each UPD product respectively generated by a global and regional network and their interoperable application in PPP-AR (ambiguity resolution), the sampling of the WL and NL UPDs are daily and 30 s, respectively. Firstly, in terms of our 30 day Wide-Lane (WL) UPD products of 31 satellites, the Standard Deviation (STD) of each satellite WL UPDs ranges from 0.04 to 0.06 cycles, indicating that the long-term prediction accuracy of satellite WL UPD is sufficient for fixing Wide-Lane ambiguities. Secondly, when a satellite in eclipsing the discontinulity may corrupt the determination of Narrow-Lane (NL) UPD in form of offset, as a result of lacking or poor satellite attitude dynamic modeling. When the influence of discontinuity is removed, the STD of our estimated satellite NL UPDs is less than 0.05 cycles. Thirdly, the STD of our estimated receiver WL UPDs is mainly below 0.2 cycles, which implies that its stability is one order poorer that of the satellite. In addition, if they are used for stations in and around the network covered region, the stability of the UPD products from the CMONOC (Crustal Movement Observation Network of China) is better than that from a global network, benefit from the fact that all the CMONOC stations are equipped with the same receiver type. Finally, the PPP-AR results show that a rate of 82.9% for stations with a WL-ambiguity-fixed rate of over 90% while 69.5% for stations with an NL-ambiguity-fixed rate of over 80% can be achieved when using UPD from the global network, which is worse than that of using UPD from the CMONOC (85.7% for stations with a WL-ambiguity-fixed rate of over 90% while 75% for stations with an NL-ambiguity-fixed rate of over 80%). The results of the experiment on the UPD interoperable application in PPP show that the global network UPD products can provide a fast AR at any single station, and the convergence time is well below 25 min. Particularly, when the location of a station is in and around the regional network, our results show that the PPP results obtained using regional UPDs enable the consistent use of global UPDs. When the location of a station is far away from the regional network, using the regional UPDs can not achieve PPP-AR. Finally, the WL UPDs of the previous day is used for forecasting to estimate the NL UPDs, the stability analysis results of NL UPDs solution and positioning results are demonstrate the validity of forecasted UPD products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has developed, over thousands of years, a unique way of representing, valuing and using the past. However, it has silenced, ignored and even denied many aspects of this tradition when dealing with its own heritage in recent decades. This paper seeks to explore a non-western approach to the meaning-making of Chinese heritage by presenting a case of a grassroots project to record and make meanings of heritage in an ordinary village in China. Specifically, it will demonstrate how the Confucian discourse of narrating the past could be appropriated and deployed in Chinese heritage practice to interweave fragments of the past and present by means of holistically embracing the narrative of villagers’ lives in a subtle, transparent and critical way. By doing so, a locally situated way of managing heritage is sought in order to transcend the boundaries of the tangible and intangible heritage categories and to achieve a morally and spiritually enriched heritage experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management and manufacturing relocation have been treated as independent spheres. However, for a relocation to be fruitful, knowledge management needs to be incorporated. The purpose of this research is to shed light on the lack of knowledge management in dynamic manufacturing relocation. In particular, the research focuses on the ability to change, adapt and revert manufacturing relocation decisions, that is, the dynamic nature (or use) of the concept. A Swedish company was used as a case study. Nine in‐depth interviews were conducted with key informants at the company's headquarters in Sweden and its factory in China to capture a dyadic perspective. The findings demonstrate that: (1) knowledge transfer is crucial to create/sustain competitive advantage in the offshoring and reshoring phase; (2) lack of knowledge transfer results in limited learning outcomes with operational and strategic consequences in the relocation; (3) resistance to knowledge transfer in the offshoring creates a knowledge gap that consequently leads to relocation ambiguity in the reshoring phase; and (4) companies need to develop knowledge management strategies to promote knowledge transfer and learn from their international relocation, to cope with relocation ambiguity. Our theoretical contribution introduces the knowledge ambiguity framework, which is a result of insufficient knowledge transfer in the dynamic manufacturing relocation. Even if an organization relocates efficiently, it can fail to take advantage of knowledge transfer and development as potential learning for the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates consumer preferences for newly introduced gene‐edited (GE) food. We focus on how risk and ambiguity aversion affect consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid genetically modified (GM) food or GE food and whether the impacts of risk and ambiguity aversion differ between GM and GE food. We collected the data in 2020 through a nationwide online survey in China. The multiple price list method is used to estimate the premiums that consumers are willing to pay for conventional rice to avoid GM/GE rice. Our results show that Chinese urban consumers are more concerned about the health, environmental, and ethical impacts of genetic modification than gene editing technology. They are willing to pay lower premiums when the alternative is GE rice than when it is GM rice. We further find that both risk aversion and ambiguity aversion have significant negative impacts on respondents' WTP for food derived from gene technologies, with ambiguity aversion being more influential than risk aversion for both GM and GE rice. However, there is no significant difference in how risk aversion and ambiguity aversion affect the respondents' WTP to avoid GM or GE rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new leafhopper species of Pediopsis Burmeister, Pediopsis albopicta Li & Dai, sp. nov. from Hunan and Guizhou provinces of central China and Pediopsis pianmaensis Li & Dai, sp. nov. from Yunnan Province of southwestern China, are described and illustrated. Ambiguity in the original description of P. bannaensis Yang & Zhang is discussed, and figures of the female holotype of P. femorata Hamilton are provided for the first time. A checklist and key to Chinese species of Pediopsis are also given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sino‐Iranian relations are transactional, asymmetrical, and constrained by divergent interests and priorities. Iran's isolation and depressed economy make it a risky if inexpensive investment for Beijing, whereas Iranian critics view China as self‐serving and opportunistic. Although stability and cooperation are integral to China's Middle East strategy, Iran is a revisionist actor that promotes regional dissonance and instability. These intrinsic tensions do not detract from an important but less palpable dimension of Sino‐Iranian relations: By deliberately cultivating an air of ambiguity around their cooperation and its future prospects, both countries have been exploiting their bilateral ties as leverage with third parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The real-time kinematic (RTK) technology has been widely used as the high-precision positioning method in the offshore area. However, RTK requires a bi-directional communication and groups measurement errors together, thereby limiting its mass-market applications. Combining the advantages of precise point positioning (PPP) and RTK, PPP-RTK has become one of the hotspot technologies in the mass market. In this contribution, we propose the uncombined multi-GNSS PPP-RTK model using uncalibrated phase delays (UPDs) estimated from the legacy ionosphere-free and Melbourne-Wübbena combination. With the UPDs estimated based on 14 regional stations, we conduct PPP ambiguity resolution (AR) at 3 augmentation stations and derive precise atmospheric corrections, i.e., RMS of zenith tropospheric and slant ionospheric correction can be up to 4.89 mm and 2.20 cm, respectively. After applying atmospheric correction, the correct fixed solution of four on-board kinematic experiments can be better than 95% and the positioning accuracy can be better than 5 cm in both horizontal and vertical direction, showing the encouraging performance similar to RTK in the offshore area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's major energy projects along the Belt and Road are characterized by large-scale capital investment, long construction cycles, and complex investment environments, making it more difficult to assess project investment risks. Based on the PESTEL theory, a risk evaluation index system is constructed for energy enterprises' investment projects along the Belt and Road. In view of the uncertainty of energy investment projects, a risk evaluation method combining a cloud model and an evidence theory is proposed. To examine the developed index system and risk evaluation method, an overseas hydropower investment project is chosen and the risk factors are analyzed. The results suggest that the risk level of the enterprise's project is highest, the political and environmental risks are both high, the economic and project risks are both at average level, and the energy risk is relatively low, which verifies the effectiveness of this information fusion method. The method can be used to solve the problem of linguistic ambiguity and uncertainty in multi-attribute decision problems and is applicable to similar investment projects, thus providing a new technical path to assess the investment risks of energy enterprises along the Belt and Road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature generally acknowledges that target groups affect policy implementation, we argue that a more detailed investigation of the mechanisms and factors associated with such effect is necessary. Drawing on the Ambiguity-Conflict Model, we explore how target groups' perceived policy ambiguity and conflict relate to the implementation of Corporate Employee Pension (CEP) policies in China. Empirically, we utilize a unique sample of all firms listed on China's A-stock market from 2008 to 2014 and hypothesize that target groups' perceived policy ambiguity and conflict negatively associate with the implementation outcomes of the CEP policies in China. Our results confirm such a relationship and suggest that the implementation outcomes, from most favorable to least favorable, follow the order: Administrative Implementation, Political Implementation or Experimental Implementation, and Symbolic Implementation. Such results are robust to both state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises. Our research offers implications for both scholars and practitioners of pension policies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise point positioning (PPP) with ambiguity resolution (AR) has been proved to be an effective method to improve the positioning accuracy and shorten the convergence time, which plays an important role in geodetic and geodynamic applications. In this study, the performance achieved based on the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-2 and BDS-3) joint PPP-AR with high rate data was considered and the validation of its application to seismic displacement and marine high-precision surveying was evaluated. First, the methods of uncalibrated phase delays (UPDs) estimation and PPP-AR were introduced. Next, the performance achieved based on BDS PPP-AR in both static and simulated real-time kinematic mode was evaluated with hourly data selected from 16 tracking stations over 3 days and data sampling rate of 1 s. After convergence, the positioning accuracies in the east, north, and up directions were 3.4 cm, 1.5 cm, and 5.5 cm, which were improved by 11.9%, 3.8% and 2.2% compared with the float solutions. Finally, a test of applying BDS PPP-AR to marine surveying was carried out with two hours data collected from two independent GNSS receivers installed on a boat sailing along the coast of Bohai Sea, China. The onboard two data set are processed in post-processing kinematic BDS PPP mode. The accuracies were improved from 2.4 cm, 3.5 cm and 4.0 cm to 2.2 cm, 3.1 cm and 3.1 cm in the east, north and up directions by ambiguity resolution, with improvements of 8.3%, 11.4% and 22.5% over the float solutions. The results validated the feasibility of the BDS PPP-AR for high-accuracy maritime applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byron's literacy fortune in China starts with the debut of "The Isles of Greece" in the opening of the twentieth century. Even though such reading proves to be deliberate misreading, no serious effort has been made so far to explore the contextual ambiguities of the poem with particular regard to the identity of the singer. In this paper, I intend to take three steps to discuss how the identify of the singer varies with the context and how his shifting identity affects the meaning of the lyric. As a rich locus of historicity, "The Isles of Greece," together with its preamble and its concluding notes, may project up multiple layers of a romantic cosmos; and its reading in China is typical example of "culture in action." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investments by Asian Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) continue to be of concern in the global economy. A common perception is that they are managed by state-affiliated entities with geostrategic motives that could somehow prove detrimental to host countries. This paper demonstrates, however, that even the definition, let alone the establishment and investment targets, of Asian SWFs are embroiled in ambiguity within home country politics. Plainly put, ambiguity refers to the absence of clear-cut policy processes, means, and goals. How do we explain the ambiguity surrounding SWFs? Ambiguity is not a cover for deliberate, cohesive, and strategic actions, because SWFs are not under the control of any one set of actors. Rather, perhaps to the discomfort even of home country sovereigns, ambiguity is a messy domestic product of contending political forces that do not allow a marked trend toward any one single policy equilibrium on sovereign investments, whether domestic or foreign. While this reality is perhaps understandable in a democratic polity, it is also equally true of authoritarian ones in the region. In both types of cases, ambiguity is constructed inadvertently by the interactions of state, interstate, and intrastate actors, each with their own interests and expectations about the role of SWFs. Analyzing the cases in Singapore, China, Japan, and other Asian countries, from this unifying perspective suggests that while ambiguity may fuel external anxiety concerning home country intentions, it actually reflects far more domestically salient controversies about SWF activities than is typically appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare and contrast the UK and China as maximum variation cases for understanding long energy transitions from the state and the firm perspectives. We present case histories and corpus-based computer-assisted textual analyses on the long energy transitions in both countries. With these, we explore and explain how and why energy supply firms respond the way they do to the institutional ambiguities and complexities that characterize the long energy transitions in each case. Our findings demonstrate that a centrally coordinated and imposed approach by the state can generate institutional clarity in long energy transitions, which is quickly seized on by firms striving to preserve and increase their resources and influence. Such clarity and transition processes lose momentum owing to the perennial trilemma of energy affordability, security and sustainability. Market-based mechanisms to trigger and sustain long energy transitions, complemented with focused and continuous state interventions (e.g. incentives, taxation), provide a more effective and accountable institutional framework for the state and energy firms to deal with the energy trilemma. Irrespective of the logic of the type of economy that manifests the backdrop for any long energy transition process, institutional ambiguity and complexity never disappear completely, owing to both the energy trilemma and the institutional multiplicities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The domain of monetary donation is evolving with the combination of professional donation platforms and social network sites (SNSs) in the agency process, potentially enhancing information communication and facilitating money transfers between donors and recipients. However, SNS donation avoidance hinders the leveraging of significant economic and social values. To address the limited understanding of the phenomenon of SNS donation avoidance, this study aims to investigate the influencing factors of people's avoidance behavior in the agency process of SNS donation. Design/methodology/approach: A model was devised containing four process-related factors (requests overload, process ambiguity, channel security concerns and perceived distributive injustice) as antecedents of SNS donation avoidance, with probable mediating paths of negative emotions, altruistic outcome expectation and egoistic outcome expectation. Data were collected through a survey of 398 users of WeChat Moment in China. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the proposed model. Findings: All four process-related factors have positive associations with SNS donation avoidance. Requests overload, channel security concerns and perceived distributive injustice all positively influence people's expectation of negative emotions and lead, in turn, to their SNS donation avoidance. Perceived distributive injustice also leads to SNS donation avoidance via negatively influencing people's expectations of both altruistic and egoistic outcomes. Originality/value: Theoretically, this empirical study synthetically associates process-related factors to donation avoidance through the paths of emotional responses and rational outcome expectations. Practically, it emphasizes key factors to consider in the process management of SNS donation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article authors discusses several guidelines on research topics they will include in the journal. It states that potential research topics include Chinese organizational behaviors, theories, decisions, and practices. They suggests to highlight ambiguity avoidance on the part of organizations and organizational responses to ambiguity.

This study provides insight into the nature of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in China, a country that has invested more in PPPs than any other over the last two decades. It is puzzling that China, as a state-led economy, has turned to embrace PPPs. Pundits have taken this as evidence of a liberalising Chinese economy. However, our findings suggest that PPPs in China do not reflect a break from earlier, state-centric modes of governance; rather, the state essentially uses such partnerships as a mechanism to strengthen its own hand. We argue that the difference between how PPPs are being implemented in China compared to the West reflects differences in political economic contexts, both materially and ideologically. In both cases, the ambiguity surrounding the PPP model has been used to advance particular interests, serving as a reminder of both the ways in which power shapes the character of such policy tools and the differences in the relative power underpinning state-market relations in each context. By challenging mainstream interpretations of what PPPs are and what their proliferation means, studying the political economy of PPPs in a rising China further exposes the Western-centric nature of prevailing wisdom in political economy scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's social credit system is an unusually explicit case where technology is used by multiple actors to turn human behavior into a test object on behalf of the state's goal of modifying the larger social environment, making it an intriguing setting for thinking about the new sociology of testing. This article considers how China's search for a usable "credit" score to both allocate financial resources and explicitly measure a citizen's trustworthiness creates an emergent experimental system of governance similar to, yet not quite captured by, the kinds of experimental processes observed in literature on the platform as a form of market‐based governance. As a site where "seeing like a state" and "seeing like a market" converge, the social credit system is a vantage point for observing the changing relationship between moral and economic domains in an era of digital platforms. The article highlights the experimental quality of the system and its emerging system of governance structured around reward and punishment and argues that strategic ambiguity, institutionalized through the affordances of digital platforms, is an important part of the design of this large‐scale social experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the enormous increase in active users of WeChat, research examining users' continuance intention based on personality habits and value perceptions is very scarce. To fill this gap, the present study aims to offer a research model which examines the role of four personality drivers, namely, (1) personal innovativeness, (2) face consciousness, (3) need for uniqueness, and (4) ambiguity intolerance in WeChat users' hedonic and utilitarian value perceptions. Further, our model examines how hedonic and utilitarian value perceptions influence continuance intention. Data were collected from 262 active users of WeChat. Structural equation modeling was employed to test study hypotheses. The findings reveal that personal innovativeness had a positive effect on users' hedonic value. Face consciousness and need for uniqueness were found to be a strong predictor of both hedonic and utilitarian value. A negative association was found between ambiguity intolerance and utilitarian value. The hedonic and utilitarian value positively affects continuance intention. The authors offer theoretical and practical implications for Information System scholars and practitioners, and close by acknowledging the limitations and future research direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of measures have been developed to elicit individual risk preferences. How these measures perform in the field, in particular in developing countries with non-student subjects, is still an open question. We implement an artefactual field experiment in rural China to investigate (i) consistency across incentivised experimental risk measures, (ii) consistency in risk preferences elicitation between non-incentivised survey measures and incentivised experiments, and (iii) possible explanations for risk preference inconsistency across measures. We find that inconsistent risk preferences across survey and experimental measures may be explained by ambiguity preferences. In the survey, subjects may mix risk and ambiguity preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Six pro-independence/pro-autonomy individuals who ran for the Hong Kong elections were successfully elected to Hong Kong's legislature in 2016, reflecting some public sentiments about the current state of affairs between Beijing and Hong Kong. As they are still young, they may stay on in power until the 'one country, two systems' ends. Since the Occupy Central movement, a series of social movements and standoffs such as the 'Fishball Revolution' and other political events had taken place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legally protected individual private property rights and a constrained state are doctrines of neoclassical economics-derived development theory. But what about China? It lacks strong rule of law, property rights can be collective, contested and ambiguous, and the state is relatively unconstrained and maintains a central role in the economy; yet it has seen impressive economic growth to take it to the world's second largest economy. I argue that in the absence of legal/rational protections of individual property rights, political and social networks can provide alternative methods of property protection, allowing for economic development - with political protection substituting for legal. The novel claim I make is that ambiguity of property rights can provide opportunities and spaces for development and innovation, with the building of meaning and institutions found in a transitional state, where rules are unclear and contested, and where formal rules can "catch up" if apparent success can be demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The myriad of negative effects brought about by the incarceration of a family member have consistently been demonstrated in research. However, previous works have tended to focus on the perspectives of family members separately, rather than exploring the dynamic relationships within the family as an entire unit. Moreover, such research is still limited in the Chinese cultural context. Thus, the current study aimed to examine the applicability of the Family Process Theory on a small sample of Chinese fathers who were imprisoned and have returned to their communities, conceptualizing the challenges faced by their families under the theoretical elements of rules of transformation, rituals, ambiguous loss, and boundary ambiguity. A total of 17 participants were recruited through the assistance of service organizations, and data were collected via semi-structured interviews. As congruent with the theory, inmates' families were found to come across problems particularly in the transitioning phase and establishment of new rituals, while ambiguity surrounding the incarceration and the blurred role of the father led to problems with fatherhood identity both during and after the incarceration. Recommendations are made, in line with these findings and the suggestions of exprisoners, for services to have more of a focus on preserving the integrity of inmates' families. Given the right circumstances, families can even serve as a motivator for incarcerated fathers to improve themselves and mature, leveraging the important supportive role of the family and the fear of again being separated from one's family as effective deterrents to recidivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]