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This paper aims to demonstrate the impact of coal enterprises’ vertical integration on the performance of innovation corporate social responsibility (ICSR) and to elaborate its specific transmission path through financing structure and market power. This paper takes the data of A-share listed coal company from 2008 to 2017 as samples, uses input-output table method to measure the degree of vertical integration, and explores the relationship between the four factors through multiple linear regression and Bootstrap method. We found that: (1) the vertical integration of coal enterprises has positive incentives for the promotion of ICSR. (2) Financing structure and market power play a chain intermediary role in this process of incentive. (3) In areas with high marketization process, vertical integration has more significant incentive effect on ICSR. The paper extends the research on the relationship between vertical integration and innovation, which provides a reference for the improvement of China’s supply-side reform and corporate social responsibility (CSR) fulfillment policy. It is helpful to promote the sustainable development of the coal industry, stimulate the innovation vitality of enterprises, and improve the fulfillment of CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to establish a mathematical model to design a maximizing social welfare intervention mechanism of healthcare service goods in China. The intervention mechanism is helpful to facilitate the adoption of the healthcare service goods. We consider a research problem that regulates the supply chain system for healthcare service goods by an intervention mechanism, and two intervention strategies composed of demand-growth strategy and subsidy strategy are used to the combination of intervention mechanism. Then this paper presents a new method based on fuzzy set and bilevel programming to design the intervention mechanism. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, we conduct a case study for Wudang personalized health package and verify our model by the specific result analysis, the result indicates that our joint intervention mechanism is helpful to achieve the target and increase social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Up to 1.45 billion people currently suffer from soil transmitted helminth infection, with the largest burden occurring in Africa and Asia. Safe and cost effective deworming treatment exists, but there is a debate about mass distribution of this treatment in high prevalence settings. While the World Health Organization recommends mass administration of anthelmintic drugs for preschool and school-aged children in high (>20%) prevalence settings, and several long run follow up studies of an influential trial have suggested large benefits that persist over time, recent systematic reviews have called this recommendation into question. Methods and findings: This paper analyzes the long-term impact of a cluster-randomized trial in eastern Uganda that provided mass deworming treatment to preschool aged children from 2000 to 2003 on the numeracy and literacy skills of children and young adults living in those villages in 2010-2015. This study uses numeracy and literacy data collected seven to twelve years after the end of the deworming trial in a randomly selected subset of communities from the original trial, by an education-focused survey that had no relationship to the deworming study. Building on an earlier working paper which used data from 2010 and 2011 survey rounds, this paper uses an additional four years of numeracy and literacy data (2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015). Aggregating data from all survey rounds, the difference between numeracy scores in treatment versus control communities is 0.07 standard deviations (SD) (95% CI -0.10, 0.24, p = 0.40), the difference in literacy scores is 0.05 SD (95% CI -0.16, 0.27, p = 0.62), and the difference in total scores is 0.07 SD (95% CI -0.11, 0.25, p = 0.44). There are significant differences in program impact by gender, with numeracy and literacy differentially positively affected for girls, and by age, with treatment effects larger for the primary school aged subsample. There are also significant treatment interactions for those living in households with more treatment-eligible children. There is no evidence of differential treatment effects on age at program eligibility or number of years of program eligibility. Conclusions: Mass deworming of preschool aged children in high prevalence communities in Uganda resulted in no statistically significant gains in numeracy or literacy 7-12 years after program completion. Point estimates were positive but imprecise; the study lacked sufficient power to rule out substantial positive effects or more modest negative effects. However, there is suggestive evidence that deworming was relatively more beneficial for girls, primary school aged children, and children living in households with other treated children. Research approval: As this analysis was conducted on secondary data which is publicly available, no research approval was sought or received. All individual records were anonymized by the data provider prior to public release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to describe the prevalent forms of intimate partner violence (IPV), and the factors associated with IPV among women and men living in the two migrant communities of Baglung district, Nepal. 357 adult women and men were enrolled following a family model, interviewing young married women with daughter-in-law status in the home, their husbands, and mothers-in-law and fathers-in-laws using an electronic questionnaire. Random effects regression modelling compared men and women, as well as young married women with daughter-in-law status and older women with mothers-in-law with status. 28.6% of women had ever experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner compared to 18.2% of men ever perpetrated these forms of violence against their wives. Being older, male controlling behaviour and poor relations with husband increased women’s IPV in their lifetime while perceptions that the mother-in-law is kind were protective. Being ashamed of being unemployed and childhood trauma were associated with men perpetrating IPV in their lifetime. Borrowing money or food increased young married women’s lifetime IPV risk while mother-in-law cruelty and male control increased older married women’s lifetime IPV exposure. Factors associated with IPV in the past year among men were being younger, job seeking, experiences of childhood trauma and depression exposure among men while difficulty accessing money for emergencies, holding inequitable gender attitudes, and depression was associated with women’s increased IPV exposure. Unemployment stress, holding inequitable gender attitudes and mother-in-law kindness were associated with young women’s increased IPV risk and hunger, mother-in-law cruelty and depression with older women’s IPV risk. There is a need to critically challenge harmful social and gender norms by using approaches that are sensitive to young married women’s position and unequal gender relations in the family. IPV prevention interventions need to employ a holistic approach that combines changing social and gender norms and improving socioeconomic conditions of women living in migrant communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Targeted environmental and ecosystem management remain crucial in control of dengue. However, providing detailed environmental information on a large scale to effectively target dengue control efforts remains a challenge. An important piece of such information is the extent of the presence of potential dengue vector breeding sites, which consist primarily of open containers such as ceramic jars, buckets, old tires, and flowerpots. In this paper we present the design and implementation of a pipeline to detect outdoor open containers which constitute potential dengue vector breeding sites from geotagged images and to create highly detailed container density maps at unprecedented scale. We implement the approach using Google Street View images which have the advantage of broad coverage and of often being two to three years old which allows correlation analyses of container counts against historical data from manual surveys. Containers comprising eight of the most common breeding sites are detected in the images using convolutional neural network transfer learning. Over a test set of images the object recognition algorithm has an accuracy of 0.91 in terms of F-score. Container density counts are generated and displayed on a decision support dashboard. Analyses of the approach are carried out over three provinces in Thailand. The container counts obtained agree well with container counts from available manual surveys. Multi-variate linear regression relating densities of the eight container types to larval survey data shows good prediction of larval index values with an R-squared of 0.674. To delineate conditions under which the container density counts are indicative of larval counts, a number of factors affecting correlation with larval survey data are analyzed. We conclude that creation of container density maps from geotagged images is a promising approach to providing detailed risk maps at large scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of the shared prosperity goal by the World Bank in 2013 and Sustainable Development Goal 10, on inequality, by the United Nations in 2015 should strengthen the focus of development interventions and cooperation on the income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution. This paper contributes to the incipient literature on within-country allocations of development institutions and assesses the geographic targeting of World Bank projects to the bottom 40 percent. Bivariate correlations between the allocation of project funding approved over 2005–14 and the geographical distribution of the bottom 40 as measured by survey income or consumption data are complemented by regressions with population and other potential factors affecting the within-country allocations as controls. The correlation analysis shows that, of the 58 countries in the sample, 41 exhibit a positive correlation between the shares of the bottom 40 and World Bank funding, and, in almost half of these, the correlation is above 0.5. Slightly more than a quarter of the countries, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, exhibit a negative correlation. The regression analysis shows that, once one controls for population, the correlation between the bottom 40 and World Bank funding switches sign and becomes significant and negative on average. This is entirely driven by Sub-Saharan Africa and not observed in the other regions. Hence, the significant and positive correlation in the estimations without controlling for population suggests that World Bank project funding is concentrated in administrative areas in which more people live (including the bottom 40) rather than in poorer administrative areas. Furthermore, capital cities receive disproportionally high shares of World Bank funding on average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, with the rapid development of China's air transport industry and the change in market consumption structure, service quality has become one of the important factors affecting airline revenue. How to formulate a reasonable pricing strategy and maintain competitiveness in the fierce market competition has become an urgent problem for airlines. First, the impact factor of service quality level in the traditional pricing model is introduced and a static price competition model for multi-oligopoly airlines based on service quality is established in this paper. And then, a dynamic pricing model based on service quality of the multi-oligopoly airlines is established. The model incorporates the weight factor of service quality impact, which is used to indicate the weight of the service quality level in the process of airline dynamic pricing. The research results show that the service quality level of airlines has an indispensable influence on its development. Airlines should improve service quality as soon as possible to enhance market competitiveness and achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops two-stage inverse data envelopment analysis models with undesirable outputs to formulate resource plans for 16 Chinese listed commercial banks whose outputs are increased and overall efficiency is kept unchanged in the short term. We use these models to meet three different output targets, namely, increasing both the desirable and undesirable outputs by the same percentage, increasing these outputs by different percentages, and increasing only the desirable outputs while keeping the undesirable outputs unchanged. We find that operation cost and interest expense are more flexible than labor in the adjustment process and that deposits have no obvious law of change. The findings of this work provide some suggestions for bank managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deterioration of water quality has become a primary environmental concern worldwide. Understanding the status of water quality and identifying the influencing factors are important for water resources management. However, reported analyses have mostly been conducted in small and focused areas. It is still unclear if factors driving spatial variation in water quality would be different in extended spatial scales. In this paper, we analyzed spatial pattern of inland surface water quality in China using a dataset with four water quality parameters (i.e., pH, DO, NH4+-N and CODMn) and the water quality level. We tested the effects of anthropogenic (i.e., land use and socio-economic) and natural (i.e., climatic and topographic) factors on spatial variation in water quality. The study concluded that the overall inland surface water quality in China was at level III (fair). Water quality level was strongly correlated with CODMn and NH4+-N concentration. In contrast to reported studies that suggested land use patterns were the determinants of inland surface water quality, this study revealed that both anthropogenic and natural factors played important roles in explaining spatial variation of inland surface water quality in China. Among the tested explanatory variables, mean elevation within watershed appeared as the best predictor for pH, while annual precipitation and mean air temperature were the most important explanatory variables for CODMn and DO, respectively. NH4+-N concentration and water quality level were most strongly correlated with the percent of forest cover in watershed. Compared to studies at smaller spatial scales, this study found different influencing factors of surface water quality, suggesting that factors may play different roles at different spatial scales of consideration. Therefore management policies and measures in water quality control must be established and implemented accordingly. Since currently adopted parameters for monitoring of inland surface water quality in China are largely influenced by natural variables, additional physicochemical and biological indicators are needed for a robust assessment of human impacts on water quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most papers on the physical condition of birds during spring migration focused on food availability preceding migratory take-off. Only a few studies examined the effect of climate conditions at the wintering grounds upon autumn arrival on bird physical condition later on. Here, we hypothesized that environmental conditions upon arrival at the wintering grounds, and not necessarily upon departure, have a crucial carry-over effect on bird spring migration. Using 29,000 observations of the lesser whitethroat, Sylvia curruca, and the eastern Bonelli’s warbler, Phylloscopus orientalis, we found temperatures upon arrival at the African wintering grounds to be the only climatic variable correlated with birds’ body state upon spring stopover in Israel, six months later. Two different mechanisms could explain these results. One possibility is that high temperatures create favorable conditions for insect activity, which allows rapid recovery from autumn migration and hence successful winter survival and maintenance. Another possible scenario is that harsh conditions, due to the heat and dry environment, cause high mortality, permitting survival of larger individuals which, then, enjoy reduced inter- and intra-specific competition. Whatever the mechanism is, our findings suggest that conditions upon autumn arrival, and not necessarily at the end of winter as traditionally thought, may have a major impact on migrating birds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines a Granger causality test and a VAR model to investigate the relationships among oil price shocks, global economic policy uncertainty (GEPU), and China’s industrial economic growth. Based on monthly data from 2000 to 2017, we reveal that GEPU and world oil prices jointly Granger cause China's industrial economic growth; world oil prices have a positive effect on China's industrial economic growth, while GEPU has a negative effect. Further analyses investigate the asymmetry effect of oil prices and find that the negative component shows a more significant impact on China's industrial economic growth. The results are robust to different oil price and EPU proxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the calculation of the inclusive financial development level of 22 provinces and 4 municipalities in China from 2004 to 2017, this paper uses the Kernel density estimation method to further analyze the evolution of the inclusive financial index. Based on the above analysis, we make empirical analysis of the impact of China's inclusive financial inclusion development index on farmers' entrepreneurship using static panel and dynamic panel estimation method. The empirical conclusions show that there are certain differences in inclusive financial inclusion development level in various provinces in China. Improving the inclusion development level of inclusive finance can better promote farmers' entrepreneurship. Urbanization level, economic openness and regional economic development level have a significant positive effect on farmers' entrepreneurship, while farmers' income and education level have a significant negative effect on farmers' entrepreneurship. It is possible to promote farmers' entrepreneurship by improving the inclusive development level of inclusive finance, combining urbanization, increasing government investment in productive fixed assets, increasing economic openness and improving regional economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the link between reliance on Facebook for news, political knowledge, and political engagement in the Philippines. We tested five hypotheses using data gathered from an online survey of 978 Filipinos conducted from February 1 to March 31, 2016. Findings support the hypothesis that those who rely less on social media as a news source exhibit higher levels of perceived knowledge about politics than those who rely more on it for news. Controlling for traditional news use, following political officials or institutions on social media is associated with higher levels of political interest and engagement, those with more politically active friends on Facebook have higher levels of exposure to political content online, and there is a positive correlation between Facebook being a source of information about politics and discussing politics more often with others. However, the hypothesis that those with more friends on their network who are politically active, will have greater political knowledge and more political engagement than those who have few politically active friends on their Facebook network is not supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Understanding the past-year prevalence of male-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) and risk factors is essential for building evidence-based prevention and monitoring progress to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5.2, but so far, population-based research on this remains very limited. The objective of this study is to compare the population prevalence rates of past-year male-perpetrated IPV and nonpartner rape from women's and men's reports across 4 countries in Asia and the Pacific. A further objective is to describe the risk factors associated with women's experience of past-year physical or sexual IPV from women's reports and factors driving women's past-year experience of partner violence.Methods and Findings: This paper presents findings from the United Nations Multi-country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific. In the course of this study, in population-based cross-sectional surveys, 5,206 men and 3,106 women aged 18-49 years were interviewed from 4 countries: Cambodia, China, Papua New Guinea (PNG), and Sri Lanka. To measure risk factors, we use logistic regression and structural equation modelling to show pathways and mediators. The analysis was not based on a written plan, and following a reviewer's comments, some material was moved to supplementary files and the regression was performed without variable elimination. Men reported more lifetime perpetration of IPV (physical or sexual IPV range 32.5%-80%) than women did experience (physical or sexual IPV range 27.5%-67.4%), but women's reports of past-year experience (physical or sexual IPV range 8.2%-32.1%) were not very clearly different from men's (physical or sexual IPV range 10.1%-34.0%). Women reported much more emotional/economic abuse (past-year ranges 1.4%-5.7% for men and 4.1%-27.7% for women). Reports of nonpartner rape were similar for men (range 0.8%-1.9% in the past year) and women (range 0.4%-2.3% in past year), except in Bougainville, where they were higher for men (11.7% versus 5.7%). The risk factor modelling shows 4 groups of variables to be important in experience of past-year sexual and/or physical IPV: (1) poverty, (2) all childhood trauma, (3) quarrelling and women's limited control in relationships, and (4) partner factors (substance abuse, unemployment, and infidelity). The population attributable fraction (PAF) was largest for quarrelling often, but the second greatest PAF was for the group related to exposure to violence in childhood. The relationship control variable group had the third highest PAF, followed by other partner factors. Currently married women were also more at risk. In the structural model, a resilience pathway showed less poverty, higher education, and more gender-equitable ideas were connected and conveyed protection from IPV. These are all amenable risk factors. This research was cross-sectional, so we cannot be sure of the temporal sequence of exposure, but the outcome being a past-year measure to some extent mitigates this problem.Conclusions: Past-year IPV indicators based on women's reported experience that were developed to track SDG 5 are probably reasonably reliable but will not always give the same prevalence as may be reported by men. Report validity requires further research. Interviews with men to track past-year nonpartner rape perpetration are feasible and important. The findings suggest a range of factors are associated with past-year physical and/or sexual IPV exposure; of particular interest is the resilience pathway suggested by the structural model, which is highly amenable to intervention and explains why combining economic empowerment of women and gender empowerment/relationship skills training has been successful. This study provides additional rationale for scaling up violence prevention interventions that combine economic and gender empowerment/relationship skills building of women, as well as the value of investing in girls' education with a view to long-term violence reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Survey Research Data Archive (SRDA) is the largest data archive in Taiwan and in Asia. It collects not only survey data in social sciences but also raw data of major government statistics. These archived data have made significant contributions to research. Data and remote access service are provided without charge. In addition, an English website along with the English version of the data and their metadata will be available by mid-2013. To improve the search efficiency and promote itself among domestic researchers, SRDA began to launch a series of projects around June of 2011. These include the revision of abstracts, the construction of new search functions, and the compiling and circulating of a power point concerning the use of SRDA. This paper documents the endeavors, reports the current progress, and reflects on the experiences learned from the developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elderly people and families are attracting the attention of many social scientists nowadays. The paper tries to explore how much social change in Asia is affecting family structure, and how deep elderly people are influenced by this transition. The trend of these studies has been following various ageing referring to socio-economic implications for those societies. A concept of ageing being followed in industrial societies is not well defined or touched in many of Asian societies yet. Rising challenges out of the phenomenon need due to find solutions to avoid further complications and controversies as far as a changing in family is concerned. Consequences brought from ageing such as: loneliness, loss of status, being apart from productive system and similarly reduction in quality of life could be sociologically tackled to harmonize the ageing phenomenon with family's responsibility. Hence, lowering family poverty would help much. Shortage of appropriate social security system in many of Asian societies, changing attitudes from youth towards elderly, change of family values system and their likes. All of those facts have led the elderly to poverty and inappropriate services at the ending stage of their life. The gap between the perceived need for assistance of the elderly and they received assistance could be filled up by family and that should be what they traditionally expect. Iran is also facing this challenge due to rapid changes in family, mainly caused by the change in family relations whose values have ended. Hence, adequate policies need to be adopted to end up with the emerging challenge in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1997-98 Pacific Asian crises have left most established interpretations of the region's long-term growth in serious disarray. This paper begins the task of reinterpreting Pacific Asian economic growth through, in particular, an examination of the Thai experience. It is argued that, while Thailand's growth from the early 1960s was associated with the least interventionist state in Pacific Asia, by international standards there were high levels of price distortion. From the late 1970s changed circumstances reduced both the level and, more significantly, the effectiveness of the Thai developmental state. These developments, while playing a role in the sustaining of the Kingdom's rapid growth and structural change during the period 1986-96 also made the Kingdom extremely vulnerable to financial disruption. It is suggested that the Thai situation has wider application in seeking to understand Pacific Asian growth in general and the 1997-98 crisis in particular. This leads to a questioning of the IMF neoliberal-based interpretations of Pacific Asian growth and the prescriptions for dealing with the crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]