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In this paper a systematic and well-defined student participation assessment scheme for college courses is proposed. The scheme supports the involvement of students in a variety of areas of participation within and outside the classroom with the aim of improving their learning. The scheme addresses mostly the challenges related to the practicality of the structure and design of the assessment. It also addresses the subjectivity of grading student participations. Areas of participation are widened to allow the faculty more accurate information about the conduct of each individual student towards more objective assessment. In addition, it provides the faculty with the flexibility to select areas that best fit the learning outcomes, nature of the course, availability of time and resources, and class atmosphere. The proposed scheme is initiated and developed using feedback from the teaching staff of Nizwa College of Technology, (NCT) through a survey and open discussion. The results indicate that over two thirds of the surveyed staff show agreement with the concept of assessing participation and find the scheme design clear and systematic, while 82% of them perceive the scheme as effective in improving the motivation and learning of students.

The authors examined the impact of the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) and Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) payments to United States agricultural producers on non-real estate agricultural loans.

The authors used quarterly, state-level commercial bank data from 2016–2020 to estimate dynamic panel models.

The authors found MFP and CFAP payments not associated with the percentage of non-real estate agricultural loans with payments over 90 days late. However, these payments associated with the percentage of non-real estate agricultural loans with payments between 30 and 89 days late. The available data utilized cannot consider when producers received the actual payment and what they specifically did with those funds.

The contribution of this study is for US policymakers and agricultural lenders. The findings could be helpful in designing and implementing future ad hoc payment programs and provide an understanding of potential shortcomings of the current safety net for agricultural producers in the Farm Bill. Additionally, findings can assist agricultural lenders in predicting the impact of ad hoc payments on their distressed loan portfolios.

Using cross-sectional household survey data, this paper aims to determine the impact of food price increases on poverty in Indonesia.

This paper uses the quadratic almost ideal demand system applied to the 2013 Indonesian household survey data. The impact of food price increase on household welfare is calculated using a welfare measure, compensating variation.

Three food groups with the most outstanding price impact on poverty, rice, vegetables and fish, were studied. The 20% increase in the price of each food group causes an increase in the headcount ratio by 1.360 points (rice), 0.737 points (vegetables) and 0.636 points (fish). Maintaining food price stability for these food groups is very important because the more the price increases, the more the impact on poverty. Food price policies in rural areas are also more critical than in urban areas because the impact of food price increases in rural areas is higher.

This paper does not consider the positive impact of rising food prices on food-producing households.

Implementing appropriate poverty alleviation policies through food policies for main food groups and social protection.

Promoting rural development policies and agricultural growth.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical results regarding the impact of domestic food prices increase on poverty in Indonesia.

In the developing countries, formal credit has dominant role for the development of agriculture sector. It increases the farmer's purchasing power for better farm inputs and agricultural technology for high crop productivity. The main purpose of this study is to examine the influence of socioeconomic characteristics of smallholder farmers for credit demand in Sindh, Pakistan.

A cross-sectional data set randomly collected from 90 smallholder farmers in Thatta district, Sindh, Pakistan, is examined. Descriptive statistics, correlation and the OLS regression method were used to demonstrate the important factors affecting the demand for formal credit.

The results revealed that formal education, experience of farming, landholding size, road access and extension contacts positively and significantly influenced the demand for formal credit.

This study is the first, to the best of authors' knowledge, to demonstrate the influence of various socioeconomic characteristics of smallholder farmers on demand for formal credit in Sindh, Pakistan. It also illustrates the imperative contribution to the literature regarding credit access and demand to improve the agricultural productivity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Chinese pork reserve regulation policy fulfills its function in stabilizing market prices and simultaneously to theoretically and empirically analyze the causes leading to the failure of Chinese Government’s intervention in the market, especially in the context of asymmetric pork and hog price information transmission.

A modified Reserve-Cobweb model based on the competitive storage model developed by Muth in 1961 is employed to examine the transmission effect of hog and pork prices under the setting of Chinese Government’s pork reserve regulation policy, using the data on Chinese hog and pork prices from June 2009 to June 2015.

While the Reserve-Cobweb model provides theoretical insights, suggesting that the implementation of the government’s reserve policy tool to control price volatility actually leads to increased price volatility, the empirical results indicate that the policy induces hypercorrection and impels greater price volatility, especially in the context of existence of asymmetric price information transmission.

The Chinese Government should reduce excessive pork price intervention and instead allow the market to play its role in the hog and pork markets.

This paper develops a modified Reserve-Cobweb model based on the price transmission effect on different links within the agricultural products supply chain, which is used to empirically validate the existence of asymmetric price information transmission between pork and hog price in China.

Measuring internal response of online learning is seen as fundamental to absorptive capacity which stimulates knowledge assimilation. However, the evaluation of practice and research of validated instruments that could effectively measure online learning response behavior is limited. Thus, in this study, a new instrument was designed based on literature to determine the structural variables that exist in the online learning response behavior.

A structured survey was designed and distributed to 410 Malaysian students enrolled in higher-education institutions. The questionnaire has 38 items, all of which were scored using a seven-point likert scale. To begin with, exploratory factor analysis with three types of extraction methods (i.e. principal component, principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood) was used as the method for comparing the outcomes of each extraction method's grouping variables by constantly using a varimax rotation method. In the second phase, reliability analysis was performed to determine the reliability level of the grouping variables, and finally, correlation analysis was performed to determine the discriminant nomological validity of the grouping variables.

The findings revealed that nine grouping variables were retrieved, with all items having a good value of factor loading and communalities, as well as an adequate degree of reliability. These extracted variables have good discriminant and nomological validity, as evidenced by correlation analysis, which confirmed that the directions of relationships among the extracted dimensions follow the expected theory (i.e. positive direction) and the correlation coefficient is less than 0.70.

This study proposes a comprehensive set of questionnaires that measure the student's online learning response behavior. These questionnaires have been developed on the basis of an extensive literature review and have undergone a rigorous process of validity and reliability for the purpose of enhancing students' online learning response behavior.

This study's findings will aid academic practitioners in assessing the online learning response behavior of students, as well as enhancing the questionnaire's boost factor when administered in an online learning environment.

Doing business in depleted contexts requires the adoption of an unconventional strategic orientation based on the involvement of the local community and driven by the attainment of economic, environmental and social goals. Previous studies have explored the specific nature of community enterprises (CEs); notwithstanding, little attention has been paid to the understanding of the strategic posture adopted by community entrepreneurs to overcome difficulties and make the business up. In this vein, the study aims to investigate how CEs operating in depleted contexts manage to survive, by successfully achieving multiple – conflicting – goals.

The authors adopted the Humane Entrepreneurship (HumEnt) framework as a form of institutional entrepreneurship where resources are leveraged to evolve the institutional context. This research adopts the case study strategy, focusing on Italian rural CEs.

The HumEnt approach, which takes into account both economic and non-economic and altruistic values of entrepreneurs, turned as better suited – compared to other approaches – to explain why people try to make business in such high-risk contexts. Second, the holistic approach of the HumEnt framework allowed catching up the particular mechanism that has enabled the CEs to obtain positive achievement.

The adoption of the HumEnt perspective enabled us to understand better the way CEs may survive and even grow where other initiatives have failed.

Though logistics security only took care of trading phase in the past, many countries in the world have begun to introduce logistics security system as its coverage has been extended from production stage to delivery at the final destination. Logistics security system has become indispensable element for global corporations involved in international trading and studies on logistics security keep going on. Most of the studies, however, are focused on discussion of system, cost and influence of logistics security and few of them have been specifically dealing with substantial effectiveness thereof. This study developed the models of supply chain security activities and their outcome by means of using Balanced Scorecard (BCS) which is a well known performance indicator to identify relationship between supply chain security activities and their accomplishment. In this study we have presented 8 supply chain frameworks, human resources management, information system management, facilities/freight management, security process, crisis management capability, relationship with partners, sharing of logistics information and logistics security accomplishment, with reference to standards of C-TPAT and AEO based on WCO framework, 10 supply chain security capabilities. This study further indicates that relationship with partners has more effect on logistics security accomplishment than sharing of logistic information. Just as relationship between corporations in chain of supply and sharing of information among them are important elements in management of supply chain, relationship with partners and sharing of logistic information will have positive effect on supply chain security accomplishment and raise its effectiveness.