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Deepening supply-side structural reform is the main objective of the economic work since the Chinese economy entered a new stage of development. By adopting the fundamental principles and methodologies of Marxist political economy, the authors can provide clarifications on the three basic theoretical issues concerning the supply-side structural reform. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

First, the essential starting point for understanding the supply-side structural reform is the primacy of production, as well as the organic connection between production and consumption in social reproduction, rather than the supply and demand as superficially seen in exchanges. By identifying the right starting point, the authors can avoid alternating between demand and supply management, and between liberalism and interventionism.

Structural problems, which are closely related to the institutional structure of production and the purpose and nature of production, cannot be solely attributed to the imbalance caused by market failures. Chinese economy has suffered prolonged structural contradictions and structural problems.

To decide whether the financial and the real estate sectors are real economy or virtual economy, the key is to examine whether the monetary capital used in financial activities and real estate commodity (capital) go through the capital circulation process of from monetary capital to productive capital and further to commodity capital, and whether the capital gain is generated by the value appreciation of capital or the value transfer and distribution as a result of the transfer of ownership. With its emphasis on developing the real economy, the supply-side structural reform should foster both development of manufacturing, and parts of financial and real estate sectors that are the real economy.

The Old Farmer Pension Program (OFPP) represents Taiwan’s long-standing efforts aiming at improving farm household income and well-being; however, how effective the pension program is in terms of achieving the policy agenda has remained unclear. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Based on data drawn from the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure during 1999–2013, two identification strategies are used to examine the effect of OFPP. First the authors apply the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to address the concern if the program reaches the socially/economically disadvantaged farm households. The second identification strategy involves using the static and dynamic decomposition approaches to identify the major factors contributing to farm household income inequality and the redistribution role of the OFPP.

Results from the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition indicate that about 60 percent of the income gap can be eliminated if the pension recipients’ socio-economic characteristics are the same as the non-recipient group, suggesting it is the disadvantaged group that receives the old farmer pension. Moreover, the results suggest the significant contributions of household investments in health and human capital as well as diversification toward nonfarm activities, to income inequality among Taiwan’s farm households. Results from the dynamic decomposition suggest that the first-wave adjustment of the OFPP enlarges farm household income inequality, the following two waves of adjustment, however, plays an equalizing role.

This study adds to the literature by providing a methodological refinement promoting the view that it calls for the use of the dynamic (change) decomposition framework to investigate the inequality-enlarging or inequality-equalizing role each income determinant plays.

The purpose of the paper is to present a novel cross-modal sensor whose tactile is computed by the visual information. The proposed sensor can measure the forces of robotic grasping.

The proposed cross-modal tactile sensor consists of a transparent elastomer with markers, a camera, an LED circuit board and supporting structures. The model and performance of the elastomer are analyzed. Then marker recognition method is proposed to determine the movements of the marker on the surface, and the force calculation algorithm is presented to compute the three-dimension force.

Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed tactile sensor can accurately measure robotic grasping forces.

The proposed cross-modal tactile sensor determines the robotic grasping forces by the images of markers. It can give more information of the force than traditional tactile sensors. Meanwhile, the proposed algorithms for forces calculation determine the superior results.

This paper aims to implement quality of service(QoS) dynamic optimization for the integrated satellite-terrestrial network(STN) of the fifth-generation Inmarsat system(Inmarsat-5).

The structure and operational logic of Inmarsat-5 STN are introduced to build the graphic evaluation and review technique(GERT) model. Thus, the equivalent network QoS metrics can be derived from the analytical algorithm of GERT. The center–point mixed possibility functions of average delay and delay variation are constructed considering users' experiences. Then, the grey clustering evaluation of link QoS is obtained combined with the two-stage decision model to give suitable rewards for the agent of GERT-Q-learning, which realizes the intelligent optimization mechanism under real-time monitoring data.

A case study based on five time periods of monitoring data verifies the adaptability of the proposed method. On the one hand, grey clustering based on possibility function enables a more effective measurement of link QoS from the users' perspective. On the other hand, the method comparison intuitively shows that the proposed method performs better.

With the development trend of integrated communication, STN has become an important research object in satellite communications. This paper establishes a modular and extensible optimization framework whose loose coupling structure and flexibility facilitate management and development. The grey-clustering-based GERT-Q-Learning model has the potential to maximize design and application benefits of STN throughout its life cycle.

The purpose of this paper is to examine managerial efficiency of the whole population of petrochemical firms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It also identifies the root causes of inefficiencies and proposes measures to overcome these.

The paper uses the data envelopment analysis approach to measure the managerial efficiency in context of various returns-to-scales. To glean further insights into the sources of inefficiency, the study investigates the extent of utilization of resources by comparing target inputs vis-à-vis the actual inputs used. This provides the authors information about the degree of underutilization of resources as well as an insight into the sources of inefficiency, e.g., those stemming from the managerial or scale of operations.

The findings reveal a great amount of inefficiencies in Saudi petrochemical sector. These inefficiencies arise from both the underutilization of resources as well as the inability of petrochemical firms to run their operations at optimal scales.

The findings of the study allude toward measures that managers might adopt to overcome the issues of inefficiency. They ought to ensure better utilization of resources by running operations of the firms at optimal scales of production. The firms operating under the sub-optimum scales of operations need to revisit their marketing and production strategies. These might take up the form of boosting marketing efforts to win more orders from customers and increasing production volumes that could allow these firms to take advantage of economies of scale.

This paper is a first attempt to measure efficiency of petrochemical sector in KSA which stands as the key contributor to the national exchequer. Since the study consists of the whole population of petrochemical firms in KSA, it measures the “true” managerial efficiency of petrochemical firms in the sector. Further, being a pioneer study on managerial efficiency of petrochemical sector, it extends original contribution to the literature on efficiency of firms, combined with rich insights into sources of inefficiencies.

During the past two decades, China has been rapidly rising in nearly every aspect. With the growing prominence of economic prosperity in China, numerous multinational corporations and companies across the globe have entered this vast market in order to benefit from this enlarging economy. This development also creates an emerging market in China to educate senior managers of these transnational firms in the form of cross‐border partnerships among regional universities. The EMBA programme, a more internationally oriented educational product, is thriving in the Greater China Area. This study aims to examine how universities in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are partnering with other institutions in order to deliver collaborative EMBA programmes for this educational market.

The article uses case study as research approach by selecting ten famous cross‐border EMBA programs from elite universities in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan for analysis.

The result shows that distinctive patterns of organisational behaviour are present in terms of how selective universities in Greater China organise their cross‐border EMBA programmes. By combining abundant academic resources with their partners, Chinese institutions aim to enhance their programme reputation and mainly serve the territorial needs of executive managers within China. Hong Kong, serving a bridging role, is inclined to cooperate with leading universities in Western countries and attract all kinds of students across the globe, including Chinese ones. Alternatively, Taiwanese universities cooperate with major universities or institutions in China in order to serve the needs of Taiwanese businessmen in China instead of Chinese nationals or foreign students. These different approaches indicate a labour division among universities in these three societies, with China targeting primarily the domestic market, Hong Kong aiming at the global market, and Taiwan seeking to serve its country's population.

The different approaches employed by universities reveal how neighbouring societies react to the rise of China respectively. The uneven division of universities among these three societies might to some extent reflect the concepts of “centre” and “periphery” developed by Philip G. Altbach.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of hydrolysis by pepsin and pancreatin on the angiotensin-I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activity of bioactive peptide from pigeon pea tempe and the absorption of pigeon pea tempe peptide by using the everted gut sac method.

The tempe was prepared by inoculating Raprima (Rhizopus oligosporus) on hulled-cooked pigeon pea for 48 h. The extraction was performed using the ultrasonic method at 40 kHz frequency and 100% ultrasonic power for 10 min. The extracted protein was placed in simulated gastrointestinal digestion using consecutive pepsin–pancreatin for 240 min. The hydrolysates were fractionated using a dialysis tube, and its absorption was assessed using the everted Sprague–Dawley rat gut sac.

The tempe protein from the hydrolyzed pigeon pea exhibited higher ACE inhibitory (71.53%) activity than that from the boiled pigeon pea (53.04%) (p = 0.028). The bioactive peptide of the digested pigeon pea tempe consisted of low-molecular-weight peptides (<1 kDa). The fraction also showed the highest ACE inhibition activity among the others (IC50 = 0.61 mg/mL, p = 0.021). Bioactive peptides from pigeon pea tempe were absorbed well in the small intestine, mainly in the jejunum. The activity of the absorbed peptides did not change considerably.

The activity of bioactive peptide of pigeon pea tempe was comparatively stable during digestion. It exhibited activity even after absorption in the small intestine. Thus, pigeon pea tempe can serve as an antihypertensive peptide source and alternative food for maintaining/reducing blood pressure.

The purpose of this paper is to fill a knowledge gap by examining the changes in fruit and vegetable consumption of Chinese households.

Using 1993 and 2001 household survey data from three selected provinces in China, the authors estimated a quantile regression (QR) model to demonstrate how changes of fresh fruit and vegetable consumption over time may differ across regions, and additionally, how these changes may differ over the entire distribution.

Results show significant increases in fresh fruit consumption for all provinces; in addition, the pattern of changes over time differs across the entire distribution. In contrast, significant decreases of fresh vegetable consumption are evident, and results are robust across regions; however, the disparities of fresh vegetable consumption across regions are not significant.

The results may shed some light on the national food policy. First, any food policy that may affect prices of fresh fruits and vegetables will likely affect households in lower percentiles more than those in upper percentiles. In addition, based on the findings, households in Guangdong may have a higher risk of inadequate fruit consumption. Lower level consumption of fruits in Guangdong may be caused by its relatively high prices of fruits and perhaps the shifting consumption pattern to a more meat‐based diet as income increases.

There has been considerable interest in estimating food demand structure in China due to its huge market for food products. However, little is known about the fruits and vegetables products. In addition, most of the previous studies used the linear regression‐type model for analysis, which fails to capture the effects of the exogenous factors on the entire distribution. To fill the knowledge gap, this paper uses a QR model with the different‐in‐difference method to examine the changes in fruit and vegetable consumption of Chinese households.