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This study aims to examine the “external effect” of a migrated star player on their domestic sport industries. By exploring the new aspect of star power, this study provides important insight and critical implication to many relevant stakeholders in the professional sports league. Particularly, this is critical under the recent circumstance where the globalization of sports products becomes the central strategic issue of the world-class leagues.

In this paper, the external effect of star players migrated from three Asian leagues (Japan, Korea and Taiwan) to Major League Baseball in the USA, the world-class baseball league, on their domestic league attendance demand was empirically investigated. For the analysis, comprehensive historical data from various reliable sources from each league were collected.

The findings of the paper strongly support the external effect of migrated stars significantly existing in all the three leagues. The effect is consistent across various measurements of migrated star players. More interestingly, the effect was found to be mixed across different leagues; for example, migrated star players increases in domestic league attendance in Japan, while it decreases in Korea and Taiwan. This indicates that the external effect of migrated star players depends on the characteristics of the domestic leagues. In addition, it was found that the external effect was substantial enough to compare to the effect of major demand drivers such as team winning, competitive balance and star power. For managerial implications, this study also provides revenue projections induced by the impact of migrated star players.

This study opens a new chapter related to star power topic and immediately calls for future studies regarding this external effect, particularly, theoretical and behavioral approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to review China’s past returns in a period over the last 40 years to public agricultural and rural investments to highlight the importance for future strategic investments in China’s agri-food system and in rural areas.

The paper synthesizes research findings from previous studies and reviews more recent trends. Based on the main findings, the authors provide forward-looking guidance for China’s investments agriculture and rural areas in the context of emerging global and domestic trends in agriculture, food security, and nutrition.

Public investments in the agricultural research and development (R&D), rural education, and rural infrastructure have been shown to have significant positive returns to agricultural growth as well as to reductions in poverty and regional inequality. Returns to overall agricultural GDP were highest for agricultural R&D, followed by education, roads, and telephones. Investment in education had the greatest returns to poverty reduction, as well as to nonfarm GDP and overall rural GDP. Investment in agricultural R&D had the second greatest returns in term of poverty reduction, and was also a close second in returns to nonfarm GDP and overall rural GDP following education. The rural infrastructure spending also saw significant returns to poverty reduction, largely through growth in agricultural and nonagricultural sectors. Investments in agriculture and rural areas will continue to be important, as China and the world face emerging challenges amidst a changing global landscape, particularly regarding climate change, rapid urbanization, nutritional imbalances, and food safety concerns. In addressing these emerging challenges, continued support for agricultural R&D and innovations can play a key role.

The paper highlights research findings on key investment areas that will be increasingly important for China’s agri-food system, and provides guidance in the context of emerging trends impacting food security and nutrition.

Grey modeling technique is an important element of grey system theory, and academic articles applied to agricultural science research have been published since 1985, proving the broad applicability and effectiveness of the technique from different aspects and providing a new means to solve agricultural science problems. The analysis of the connotation and trend of the application of grey modeling technique in agricultural science research contributes to the enrichment of grey technique and the development of agricultural science in multiple dimensions.

Based on the relevant literature selected from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the Web of Science, SpiScholar and other databases in the past 37 years (1985–2021), this paper firstly applied the bibliometric method to quantitatively visualize and systematically analyze the trend of publication, productive author, productive institution, and highly cited literature. Then, the literature is combed by the application of different grey modeling techniques in agricultural science research, and the literature research progress is systematically analyzed.

The results show that grey model technology has broad prospects in the field of agricultural science research. Agricultural universities and research institutes are the main research forces in the application of grey model technology in agricultural science research, and have certain inheritance. The application of grey model technology in agricultural science research has wide applicability and precise practicability.

By analyzing and summarizing the application trend of grey model technology in agricultural science research, the research hotspot, research frontier and valuable research directions of grey model technology in agricultural science research can be more clearly grasped.

As climate change impacts residential life, people typically use heating or cooling appliances to deal with varying outside temperatures, bringing extra electricity demand and living costs. Water is more cost-effective than electricity and could provide the same body utility, which may be an alternative choice to smooth electricity consumption fluctuation and provide living cost incentives. Therefore, this study aims to identify the substitute effect of water on the relationship between climate change and residential electricity consumption.

This study identifies the substitute effect of water and potential heterogeneity using panel data from 295 cities in China over the period 2004–2019. The quantile regression and the partially linear functional coefficient model in this study could reduce the risks of model misspecification and enable detailed identification of the substitution mechanism, which is in line with reality and precisely determines the heterogeneity at different consumption levels.

The results indicate that residential water consumption can weaken the impact of cooling demand on residential electricity consumption, especially in low-income regions. Moreover, residents exhibited adaptive asymmetric behaviors. As the electricity consumption level increased, the substitute effects gradually get strong. The substitute effects gradually strengthened when residential water consumption per capita exceeds 16.44 tons as the meeting of the basic life guarantee.

This study identifies the substitution role of water and heterogeneous behaviors in the residential sector in China. These findings augment the existing literature and could aid policymakers, investors and residents regarding climate issues, risk management and budget management.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of pivot stiffness on the dynamic characteristics of tilting-pad journal bearings (TPJBs) and the stability of the bearing-rotor system.

A theoretical numerical model is established, and the influences of pivot stiffness on TPJBs and a bearing-rotor system are analyzed. Then, two kinds of pivot structures with different stiffness are designed and the vibration characteristics are tested on the vertical rotor bearing test bench.

The pivot stiffness has an obvious effect on the dynamic characteristics of the TPJBs and the stability of the bearing-rotor system. As a result of appropriate pivot stiffness, the critical speed and the vibration amplification factor can be reduced, the logarithmic decay rate and the stability of the rotor system can be effectively increased. While the journal whirl orbit is smoother and the rubbing is obviously reduced when the bearings have flexible pivots.

The influence of pivot stiffness on TPJBs and a vertical rotor-bearing system is studied by theoretical and experimental methods.

It is very indispensable for the various control centers of multi-transmission system owners (TSOs) grids to coordinate their reactive power optimization (RPO) efforts. However, such coordinated equilibrium point is comparatively hard to achieve unless one TSO control center could obtain all grids’ information in detail, which may lead to confidential issue and heavy communicating load. The purpose of this paper is to propose a solution to optimizing the reactive power control efforts among multi-TSOs grids with a mathematic interconnection model and reasonable communication cost.

Based on the interconnected power network equation, the stability-related optimum reactive power injection and the power-loss-related optimum reactive power injection were derived, respectively. Furthermore, according to the decomposition-and-coordination-based computing methodology, a coordinated RPO model for interconnected TSOs was designed, taking into consideration both the static voltage stability and economy.

The extreme values for the indicator L of power grid voltage stability and active power loss function were found and proved to be minimums. According to these extreme values, an expression for the reactive power injection at interconnected nodes between TSOs grids was obtained, and a coordinated strategy of RPO was established, which could take the static voltage stability and economy into consideration without confidential concern.

The existence of minimum values for indicator L of voltage stability and power loss was demonstrated, respectively. And the method presented in this paper can ensure the safety of information among different TSO grids, i.e. avoiding confidential issues. In particular, the coordinated control method can be implemented on the local power grid without knowing all of the parameters of its interconnection.

With the growing scale of power grids, integrated power grids often contain multiple areas. When the control centre of each regional grid conducts an assessment of local voltage stability, the calculation is always based on the local regional power grid model. However, less consideration is given to a detailed model of the entire network, which may lead to a large calculation error. Under the premise of ensuring the data and information security of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition between different regional power grid operation control centres, the purpose of this paper is to reduce calculation error simply by using the data of a local power network.

According to the calculation methodology of “decomposition and coordination” and the power balance equation of an interconnected power grid, an improved radial equivalent independent (REI) equivalent method, which can reflect the dynamic characteristics of interconnected power grids to a certain extent, is proposed in this paper. A mathematical model of multi-area-grid L indicator synergic computing is derived as well.

With the calculation of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard grids and an actual grid model, it is proven that the method proposed in this paper can significantly improve the accuracy of the regional power grid L indicator calculation and achieve the synergic computing of a multi-area power system L indicator, without an increase in data interaction among the regional power grids.

The indicator of voltage stability among multi-area was obtained by using the improved REI equivalent method with the change of the load participation factor. Particularly, the coordinated calculation method can be implemented on a local power grid without knowledge of all the parameters of its interconnection, which can avoid possible leakage of confidential data and information of the system owners.

The purpose of this paper is to map and describe findings from research conducted in workspaces designed to support activity-based working (ABW) over the past 10 years (2010–2020) with a view of informing post-COVID workplaces of the positive and negative attributes of ABW.

Scopus was used as the search engine for this review. Papers which reported findings related to ABW and performed field study in ABW workspaces with adult occupants were included. Out of the 442 initial papers, 40 papers were included following iterative title and abstract and full text review process and consideration of inclusion and exclusion criteria. These papers were divided into three groupings (organizational, human and physical environment) based on their major focus. Positive and negative effects of ABW environments on occupants are discussed within these three topics in consideration of the implications for the post-COVID workplace.

Although the included studies were inclined to be either more positive (i.e. interior design) or negative (i.e. indoor environmental quality, productivity, distraction and privacy) in relation to various attributes of ABW, no single effect of ABW environments on occupants was in full agreement between the studies. The shortcomings of ABW environments are more related to how this way of working is implemented and how occupants use it, rather than the concept itself. A partial uptake of ABW leads to occupants’ dissatisfaction, lower productivity and lower well-being, while a holistic approach increases the chance of success. It is hypothesised that many currently reported negative aspects of the ABW concept might diminish overtime as ABW evolves and as new challenges arise. A continuous post-occupancy evaluation after relocation to an ABW-supportive environment can inform the organization about the changing needs and preference of the occupants; hence, the organization can tailor the ABW solution to the arising needs. The inter-connection between the three key ABW pillars (organizational, human and physical environment) is crucial to the success of this concept specifically in the context of the post-COVID-19 workplace.

This paper highlights the key shortcomings and limitations of studies produced over the past decade and identifies keys gaps in the current body of literature. It provides a new insight on how findings related to open-plan offices designed to support ABW can be categorized on the three big heading of organizational, physical and human-related aspects, and further investigates the positive and negatives outcomes reported on ABW under these headings. It also discusses how the findings arising from this literature review can inform the post-COVID workplace.

This study aims to investigate the influence of the Confucius Institute (CI) on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by China and its potential interaction with cultural difference and institutional quality in host countries.

In the empirical study, the gravity model is adopted as the benchmark to investigate the effects of CI on China's OFDI using the ordinary least squares or Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood estimators. Panel data on China's OFDI from 2004 to 2015 are used. Cultural difference and institutional quality are included explicitly as control variables to examine the effects of CI on China's OFDI.

CI has a significant positive effect on China’s OFDI, and this effect depends on the cultural difference and institutional quality of the host country. The impact of CI on China’s OFDI is more prominent in host countries with a smaller cultural difference or lower institutional quality.

CI is a comprehensive platform for foreign cultural exchange and signifies the rebirth of Confucianism in China. The present study shows that CI can stimulate the growth of China’s OFDI, with implications for other Asian countries influenced by Confucianism. Based on the results of the study, strategies for “Going Global” and encouraging economic growth based on cultural exchange and the recognition of host country heterogeneities are proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the historical pattern of environmental cost due to grain production in China and to provide further implications of technologies and policies for the transformation of China’s agricultural development toward sustainable intensification.

The data sets about grain production, arable land and chemical fertilizer use in China were collected from FAO, NBSC, and IFA. Greenhouse gas emissions were estimated using life cycle assessments. The policies concerning grain production and the environment were collected from the Ministry of Agriculture, and the State Council of China.

China has produced enough food to feed its growing population, but has neglected the resource-environmental costs of grain production since 1978. Consequently, China’s grain production is always accompanied with a high cost of resource and environment sustainability. However, from 2006 to 2015, the growth rate of grain production has surpassed that of chemical fertilizer consumption, resulting in improvement in nutrient use efficiency and decreasing trends of environmental cost for grain production. This could be partially attributed to technology innovations, such as Soil-Testing and Fertilizer-Recommendations (STFR), soil quality and crop management improvement, and so on, and policy supports (policies of STFR, soil quality improvement, and high-yield construction). This indicated that China’s grain production is starting to transform from high-input and high-output model to “less for more.”

This study is the first to determine the detailed, historical role of technological innovation and agri-environmental policy on the sustainability of grain production in China. The findings should have significant implications for technology and policy for the transformation of China’s agriculture development to sustainable intensification.