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The purpose of this paper is to describe the trends in residential solid waste collection (RSWC) services in rural China over the past decade and analyze the determinants of these services using nationally representative data.

The authors draw on panel data from three rounds of village-level surveys of 101 villages. The three surveys were conducted in 2005, 2008, and 2012 in five provinces. The authors used fixed-effected regression approach to analyze the determinants of these services.

The results show that in the aftermath of increased investment and policy attention at the national level, the proportion of villages providing RSWC services in rural China increased significantly from 1998 to 2011. However, half of all villages in rural China still did not provide RSWC services as of 2011. Based on econometrics analysis, the authors show that villages that are richer, more populous, and villages with more small hamlets are more likely to provide RSWC services.

The analyses are based on primary survey data and the first to quantify trends in waste management services in the beginning of the twentieth century. The authors believe that the results will have significant policy implications for China in its continuing quest for better waste management policy.

Libraries need to develop information processing systems for evaluation, budgeting, planning, and operations. Electronic spreadsheets lend themselves to a variety of applications, but are time‐consuming to create. A model template and macros that can be used in many different types of library data analysis have been developed here. The procedures demonstrated here can build an essential set of tools for meeting fundamental goals of administrative efficiency, effective use of library resources, staff motivation, and rational policy making.

The central bank policy instruments have become less effective in an environment where economies are integrated with sophisticated financial products. We argue that economic stability is a function of interactions between financial and commodity markets. We utilize MGARCH models to identify volatility comovements between these markets in the United States since 2000. Our results suggest that financial markets have strong impacts on prices and volatility in commodity markets which could be due to intertemporal capital mobility. Thus, understanding commodity markets is inseparable from understanding financial market activities, and must now be included in an economic equation to achieve an effective policy.

This paper aims to improve the Commission of Higher Education (CHE)'s current university classification and develop the Thai Higher Education Classification Model (THEC‐model). This study supports the CHE's initiative to ensure that the future is more science‐oriented by encouraging universities to become National Research Universities (NRUs).

The research applies empirical data and a statistical approach for the THEC‐model's development. The model's results are then compared with the decisions reached earlier by the CHE in selecting public universities as research‐intensive.

The proposed classification criteria for NRUs consist of: research funding; the variety of instructional programmes; the level of instructional programmes; instructors and research staff body; and student body, which have significantly statistically influenced the differences in Y‐variables: research output, citation, and research awards at alpha 0.05. The initial results show that eight universities are selected. The findings are consistent with the 2008 announcement, except for two universities.

The developed THEC‐model benefits academic researchers, university administrators, and policymakers for many reasons. For example, the THEC‐model provides information for academic researchers to determine the important variables for a research university. The model provides information for policymakers to manage higher education effectively to raise the targets for a university.

The THEC‐model criteria were generated by reviewing the classification system in different locations. Such criteria could be applied extensively at domestic and international level. Moreover, the developed THEC‐model is based on a statistical approach and empirical data improved the reliability and would be beneficial to the CHEs in Thailand for further improvement on research‐focused HEI classification criteria in the future.

Recent academic discussion depicts leadership development (LD) as an important tool for supporting the implementation of an organization’s strategy, maintaining ongoing development of the organization, and building capabilities that are essential for the future. However, the role of LD in reality depends to a considerable extent on how human resource (HR) managers and other top managers perceive LD and its importance. In this study, the purpose of this paper is to examine how LD manifests in HR managers’ and other top managers’ views on the future challenges of HRM. Accordingly, the authors reason what the findings indicate concerning the strategic role of LD in managers’ minds.

The topic was approached inductively. The qualitative data were collected from 473 Finnish HR managers and 276 other top managers, using a web-based brainstorming tool that adopted ideas from social media platforms. All of the informants are part of the top management team. The material was analysed using content analysis.

The findings were a cause for concern. They show that top managers do not very actively consider either leadership or LD when asked to consider the HR challenges of the future. In addition, when they did so, the ideas of LD were mostly traditional and individual-centred. Only a few of the informants connected LD to business needs. The comments mainly reflected ideas of heroic leadership and training.

The study advances the understanding of the perceptions of LD decision makers in organizations, but also suggests that more research on the topic is needed. In addition, the study shows that more discussion would be required between academics and managers to deepen the common view of the content, potential, and reality of LD.

This paper seeks to explore the applicability and implications of Bourdieu's field‐capital theory for marketing using original research with a typical European society. Bourdieu's field‐capital theory proposes that people acquire economic, social and cultural capital which they deploy in social arenas known as “fields” in order to compete for positions of distinction and status. This exploratory study aims to examine how Bourdieu's theory may explain competitive behavior in fields of interest to marketers.

A total of 61 in‐depth interviews were completed with respondents that were representative of each of 61 geodemographic “types” – clusters that enable marketers to segment an entire population.

The findings suggest that examining human behaviour through the lens of field and capital theory highlights the importance of the competition motive in explaining consumers' behaviour. New “fields” were identified which seem to have assumed primary importance, particularly in middle‐class people's lives.

Viewing consumer behaviour as social competition implies that new segmentation approaches may yield successful marketing outcomes, and opens consumer psychology and behaviour itself to new interpretations.

Very few research papers that apply field‐capital theory to marketing are present in the literature. It is hoped that this work addresses an important area, and one that is particularly prevalent in twenty‐first century consumerism.

The purpose of this study is to solve the problem of healthcare waste management in developing countries. The buildup of medical waste has attracted the attention of all spheres of society due to the expanding population and developing economy. Timely collection and processing of medical waste are extremely important due to its potential hazards. Although the problem of planning medical waste management has been addressed in developed countries, it persists in several developing countries. This research is motivated by an example of a city in India characterized by a dense population, abundant health-care facilities and a lack of planning for managing large medical waste generated daily.

The authors address the problem of designing the network of collection and processing facilities for medical waste and optimizing the vehicle route that collects and transfers the waste between facilities. Due to distinct topographic restrictions in the considered city, the collection and transfer process needs to be conducted in two echelons – from hospitals to collection centers using smaller vehicles and then to the processing facilities using trucks. This work addresses these two problems as a two-echelon location-routing problem.

A mixed-integer programming model is developed to minimize the cost of opening the facilities and transporting medical waste. Several managerial insights are drawn up to assist planners and decision-makers.

This study follows a case study approach to provide a descriptive and prescriptive approach to hospital waste management in the ancient city of Varanasi. The city has witnessed unplanned growth over the years and is densely populated. The health-care facilities in the city have a large catchment area and attract patients from neighboring districts. The situation analysis based on secondary data and unstructured interviews of the stakeholders suggests that the ad hoc approach prevails in present hospital waste management in the city.

This study aims to synthesize new disperse dyes based on novel pyrazolyl quinolinone derivatives EQ1 and EQ2 and evaluate their characteristics after dyeing them on a polyester fabric.

New dispersed dyes based on pyrazolyl quinolinone derivatives were prepared and confirmed by different analyses, such as infrared spectroscopy, elemental microanalysis and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. They were dyed on a polyester fabric. The characteristics of dyed polyester were determined by color measurements such as a*, b*, L*, C*, E, Ho, R% and color strength. The electronic structures of EQ1 and EQ2 in gaseous state were investigated using density functional theory/B3LYP/6-311++G (d, p) level of theory.

The suitability of the prepared dyestuffs for dyeing on polyester fabrics has been investigated. The study was concerned with comparing the contrasting depth of shade and levelness. The study was concerned mainly with dye uptake and color measurements at two different temperatures. The results showed that the exhaustion values of dyes inside the polyester at 130°C were higher than those obtained at conventional dyeing temperature (100°C). The exhaustion values of EQ2 were greater than those of EQ1 at 130°C with 2.2%, while the brightness of EQ2 was higher than that of EQ1 at the two investigated temperatures. The results of molecular orbital calculations show that the studied compounds are planar. In addition, the ionization potential of EQ1 was lower than that of EQ2. The results of the theoretical study helped in understanding the dyeing behavior of the investigated azo dyes.

The prepared disperse dyes based on pyrazolyl quinolinone derivatives could be used in textile dyeing of polyester on an industrial scale.