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The consumption of rice that contains high levels of inorganic arsenic may cause human health risk. This study aims to determine As species concentrations, particularly iAs, in raw rice in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City and its health risks.

A total of 60 polished raw composite samples of rice were purchased from traditional markets and supermarkets in HCM City. All samples were analyzed by HPLC-ICPMS for As species determination.

Mean concentrations of inorganic arsenic in all samples, which were purchased from supermarket and traditional market, were 88.8 µg/kg and 80.6 µg/kg, respectively. Overall, inorganic arsenic level was 84.7 µg/kg and contributed the highest proportion of arsenic species in rice with 67.7%. The proportion profiles for arsenic species were: As (III) (60 %); dimethylarsinic acid (32.2 %); As (V) (7.7 %) and methylarsonic acid (0.1 %). Inorganic arsenic level in raw rice was below the recommendation of World Health Organization. Using the benchmark dose recommended by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), all exposure doses were lower than BMDL05. However, as the doses ranged from 3.0 to 8.6 of Margin of Exposure (MOE), the health risk of iAs from rice consumption remains public health concern.

The study results report on the surveillance data of the presence of inorganic arsenic in raw rice products, which are available in the supermarkets and traditional markets, and its health risk to consumers in a metropolitan city in Vietnam.

Agricultural systems in Mekong Delta have transformed to cope with climate change. Various researches pointed out that integrated agriculture-aquaculture (IAA) farming systems (i.e., rice-shrimp, rice-fish…) emerged as potential climate adaptive practices. However, limited studies are attempting to assess the sustainability of these agricultural practices. Therefore, it is essential to assess whether or not these systems will be sustainable in the context of climate change and what can be done to make it sustainable. The present study conducted the sustainability assessment of the rice-shrimp system to identify potential areas for improvement as well as policy implication to increase resilience and adaptation of coastal IAA system which could contribute to the understanding of other coastal agricultural deltas around the globe.

This study used a quantitative approach including the assessment protocol of van Asselt et al. (2014), the assessment framework of Vanloon et al. (2005), and the MCA methodology to flexibly and holistically assess the sustainability level of agricultural systems.

Results concluded that rice-shrimp systems have the potential to improve livelihood, food security, and adaptation of coastal farmers. Major improvements should be considered for productivity, efficiency, and equity themes, while minor improvements can be made for stability, durability, and compatibility themes.

This research could be used as a guideline for sustainability assessment in a context-specific case study of IAA, which showed a potential for the application of other climate-smart IAAs in similar contexts around the globe.

Fewer researchers have investigated the climatic and economic drivers of land-use change simultaneously and the interplay between drivers. This paper aims to investigate the nonlinear and interaction effects of price and climate variables on the rice acreage in high-latitude regions of China.

This study applies a multivariate adaptive regression spline to characterize the effects of price and climate expectations on rice acreage in high-latitude regions of China from 1992 to 2017. Then, yield expectation is added into the model to investigate the mechanism of climate effects on rice area allocation.

The results of importance assessment suggest that rice price, climate and total agricultural area play an important role in rice area allocation, and the importance of temperature is always higher than that of precipitation, especially for minimum temperature. Based on the estimated hinge functions and coefficients, it is found that total agricultural area has strong nonlinear and interaction effects with climate and price as forms of third-order interaction. However, the order of interaction terms reduces to second order after absorbing the expected yield. Additionally, the marginal effects of driven factors are calculated at different quantiles. The total area shows a positive and increasing marginal effect with the increase of total area. But the positive impact of price on the rice area can only be observed when price reached 50% or higher quantiles. Climate variables also show strong nonlinear marginal effects, and most climatic effects would disappear or be weakened once absorbing the expected rice yield. Expected yield is an efficient mechanism to explain the correlation between crop area and climate variables, but the impact of minimum temperature cannot be completely modeled by the yield expectation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the nonlinear response of land-use change to climate and economic in high-latitude regions of China using the machine learning method.

Improving the competitiveness of East Africa's rice industries necessitates increased and viable production of rice of the quality desired by consumers. This paper aims to understand consumer preferences for rice quality attributes in Uganda and Kenya to inform the countries' rice breeding programs and value chain development interventions.

Rice samples are obtained from retail markets in various districts/counties across the two countries. The samples are analyzed in a grain quality laboratory for the rice's physicochemical characteristics and the resulting data are used to non-parametrically estimate hedonic price functions. District/county dummies are included to account for potential heterogeneity in consumer preferences.

Ugandan consumers are willing to pay a price premium for rice with a relatively high proportion of intact grains, but the consumers discount chalkiness. Kenyan consumers discount high amylose content and impurities. There is evidence of heterogeneity in consumer preferences for rice in Mbale, Butaleja and Arua districts of Uganda and in Kericho and Busia counties of Kenya.

The study makes a novel contribution to the literature on consumer preferences for rice in East Africa by applying a hedonic pricing model to the data generated from a laboratory analysis of the physicochemical characteristics of rice samples obtained from the market. Rather than base our analysis on consumers' subjective sensory assessment of the quality characteristics of rice, standard laboratory methods are used to generate the data, which enables a more objective assessment of the relationship between market prices and the quantities of attributes present in the rice samples.

Weaknesses in the grades and standards system in low-income countries across Sub-Saharan Africa undermine the transparency of agricultural markets. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana and Mozambique rice is predominately sold in open bags and if rice price does not reflect its quality, then inefficiencies may lead to consumer welfare losses. Importantly, it is possible that impoverished communities are priced out of the market due to inflated and inefficient prices. The objective of this study is to examine determinates of rice price by estimating the impact of selected rice quality attributes on rice prices in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana and Mozambique.

We collected 363 rice samples from open air markets in Bukavu (DRC), Nampula (Mozambique) and across Ghana in 2019. Each rice sample was analyzed in a food science lab for the quality attributes: percentage of chalk and brokens, chalk impact, length and length-to-width ratio. We used multiple regression analysis to estimate if and to what extent quality attributes were the drivers of price.

Findings suggest that there are irregularities in the Ghanaian market for broken rice and that regardless of quality, imported rice is priced higher than domestic rice. In the DRC and Mozambique, our results indicate price is driven by length and length-to-width ratio in the former and length-to-width ratio in the latter.

Rice samples were purchased from market vendors and thus consumer preferences for attributes were not revealed.

These results provide valuable insight to policymakers regarding the need for proper labeling and regulation of open bag rice sales in an effort to increase consumer welfare and improve food security.

Agricultural and food systems in the Mekong Region are undergoing transformations because of increasing engagement in international trade, alongside economic growth, dietary change and urbanisation. Food systems approaches are often used to understand these kinds of transformation processes, with particular strengths in linking social, economic and environmental dimensions of food at multiple scales. We argue that while the food systems approach strives to provide a comprehensive understanding of food production, consumption and environmental drivers, it is less well equipped to shed light on the role of actors, knowledge and power in transformation processes and on the divergent impacts and outcomes of these processes for different actors. We suggest that an approach that uses food systems as heuristics but complements it with attention to actors, knowledge and power improves our understanding of transformations such as those underway in the Mekong Region. The key transformations in the region include the emergence of regional food markets and vertically integrated supply chains that control increasing share of the market, increase in contract farming particularly in the peripheries of the region, replacement of crops cultivated for human consumption with corn grown for animal feed. These transformations are increasingly marginalising small-scale farmers, while at the same time, many other farmers increasingly pursue non-agricultural livelihoods. Food consumption is also changing, with integrated supply chains controlling substantial part of the mass market. Our analysis highlights that theoretical innovations grounded in political economy, agrarian change, development studies and rural livelihoods can help to increase theoretical depth of inquiries to accommodate the increasingly global dimensions of food. As a result, we map out a future research agenda to unpack the dynamic food system interactions and to unveil the social, economic and environmental impacts of these rapid transformations. We identify policy and managerial implications coupled with sustainable pathways for change.

This paper aims to establish a fundamental and comprehensive understanding of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by identifying and structuring common characteristics within a taxonomy. NFTs are hyped and increasingly marketed as essential building blocks of the Metaverse. However, the dynamic evolution of the NFT space has posed challenges for those seeking to develop a deep and comprehensive understanding of NFTs, their features and their capabilities.

Utilizing common guidelines for the creation of taxonomies, the authors developed (over 3 iterations), a multi-layer taxonomy based on workshops and interviews with 11 academic and 15 industry experts. Through an evaluation of 25 NFTs, the authors demonstrate the usefulness of the taxonomy.

The taxonomy has 4 layers, 14 dimensions and 42 characteristics, which describe NFTs in terms of reference object, token properties, token distribution and realizable value.

The authors' framework is the first to systematically cover the emerging NFT phenomenon. This framework is concise yet extendible and presents many avenues for future research in a plethora of disciplines. The characteristics identified in the authors' taxonomy are useful for NFT- and Metaverse-related research in finance, marketing, law and information systems. Additionally, the taxonomy can serve as an information source for policymakers as they consider NFT regulation.

The purpose of this article is to clarify the social burden of Japan’s three major diseases including Long-term Care (LTC) burden.

A modification of the Cost of Illness (COI)—the Comprehensive-COI (C-COI) was utilized to estimate three major diseases: cancer, heart disease, and cerebrovascular diseases (CVD). The C-COI consists of five parts: medical direct cost, morbidity cost, mortality cost, formal LTC cost and informal LTC cost. The latter was calculated by two approaches: opportunity cost approach (OC) and replacement approach (RA), which assumed that informal caregivers were substituted by paid caregivers.

The C-COI of cancer, heart disease and CVD in 2017 amounted to 10.5 trillion JPY, 5.2 trillion JPY, and 6.7 trillion JPY, respectively (110 JPY= 1 US$). The mortality cost was preponderant for cancer (61 percent) and heart disease (47.9 percent); while the informal LTC cost was preponderant for CVD (27.5 percent). The informal LTC cost of the CVD in OC amounted to 1.8 trillion JPY; while the RA amounted to 3.0 trillion JPY.

The LTC burden accounted for a significant proportion of the social burden of chronic diseases. The informal care was maintained by unsustainable structures such as the elderly providing care for the elderly. This result can affect health policy decisions.

The C-COI is more appropriate for estimating the social burden of chronic diseases including the LTC burden and can be calculated using governmental statistics.

The aim of this study is to examine the behavioral intention (BI) to adopt the Coinbase Wallet by Spanish users.

A survey was administered to individuals residing in Spain between March and April 2021. There were 301 questionnaires analyzed. This research applies a new predictive model based on technology acceptance model (TAM) 2, the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, the theory of perceived risk and the commitment trust theory. A mixed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM)/fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) methodology was employed for the modeling and data analysis.

The results showed that all the variables proposed have a direct and positive influence on the intention to use a Coinbase Wallet. The findings present clear directions for traders, investors and academics focused on improving their understanding of the characteristics of these markets.

First, this study addresses important concerns relating to the adoption of crypto-wallets during the global pandemic. Second, this research contributes to the existing literature by adding electronic word of mouth (e-WOM), trust, web quality and perceived risk as new drivers of the intention to use the Coinbase Wallet, providing unique and innovative insights. Finally, the study offers a solid methodological contribution by integrating linear (PLS) and nonlinear (fsQCA) techniques, showing that both methodologies provide a better understanding of the problem and a more detailed awareness of the patterns of antecedent factors.