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The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effectiveness of the credit evaluation system using the borrowing data from China’s leading P2P lending platform, Renrendai.com.

The current credit valuation systems are classified into the forward-looking mechanism, which judges the borrowers’ credit levels based on their uploaded information, and the backward-looking mechanism, which judges the borrowers’ credit levels based on their historical repayment performance. Probit models and Tobit models are used to examine the effectiveness of credit evaluation mechanisms.

The results show that only the “hard” information reflecting borrowers’ credit ability can explain the default risk on the platform under the forward-looking credit evaluation mechanism. The backward-looking credit evaluation mechanism (BCEM) based on the repeated borrowings produces both promise-enhancing and “fishing” incentives and thus fails to explain the default risk, and weakens the effectiveness of forward-looking credit indicators in explaining the default risk because it encourages borrowers to invest in forging forward-looking credit indicators. Additional information such as the interest rate and the repayment periods reveals borrowers’ credit and thus can also be used as a predictor of borrowers’ default risk.

The findings suggest that current ex ante screening based on the information collected from the borrowers or repeated borrowings is inadequate to control the default risk in P2P lending markets and thus needs be improved. Ex post monitoring and sharing on defaulter’s information should be strengthened to increase the default cost and thus to deter potential bad borrowers.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper classifying the credit evaluation system in online P2P lending market into the forward-looking type and the backward-looking type, which is important since they provide different incentives to borrowers. The paper also investigates and provides evidence on the promise-enhancing and “fishing” incentives of BCEMs.

Rural credit cooperatives (RCCs) have long dominated China’s rural credit market and met most of agricultural credit demands while the existing literature seldom examines their contribution to agricultural sector. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the contribution of RCCs to agricultural growth, using China’s provincial panel data from 1997 to 2014.

Both static fixed effects models and two-step generalized method of moment dynamic panel data models, which control the endogeneity, are employed to identify the causality from RCC credit to agricultural growth in China.

The results show that the credit from RCCs increases the agricultural output significantly. A 1 percent increase in RCC credit leads to agricultural growth of about 0.08 percent, which is robust to various empirical specifications. Further study shows that the contribution of RCC credit to agricultural growth decreases from the most developed eastern region to the least developed western region and increases over time.

The results imply that RCC credit is critical in financing agricultural activities by relaxing rural credit constraints and intense competition strengthens the contribution of RCCs to agricultural growth by improving managerial efficiency and developing diversified financial products to meet better rural credit demands.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is first empirical study on the effect of RCC credit on agricultural growth despite of many on the role of financial development in agricultural growth.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of rural-urban income gap on agricultural growth in China and its dynamics over time and across regions since reform and opening up.

Two types of indices are constructed to measure the rural-urban income gap: the intra-provincial index and the inter-provincial index. A provincial panel data from 1978 to 2010 and growth accounting method are used to estimate the size of the adverse effect of rural-urban income gap on agricultural growth in China.

The empirical results show that both indices of rural-urban income gaps are negatively associated with agriculture output, but the inter-provincial rural-urban income gap produces a larger adverse effect than the intra-provincial rural-urban income gap. Growth accounting analysis further shows that such adverse effects are decreasing over time and are larger in the central provinces. The results represent resource diversion effects of rural-urban income gap on agriculture.

This paper bridges the gap in existing literature on the relationship between sectoral income gaps and agricultural growth, which confirms Schultz's argument that agricultural activities are efficient even in developing countries and the rural resources diverted out by income gap are not surplus. The results imply that equalized rural-urban and regional policies are required to maintain sustainable agricultural growth in China.

In order to verify the feasibility of different techniques, this chapter further studies the adaptability of two massive straw biomass applications in rural areas in China.

The methods of assessing biomass power generation project with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), survey and field test of one biogas station, and game-theoretic analysis are adopted.

The following conclusions can be drawn: The air pollution costs account for more than 60% of the total environmental cost, followed by depreciation expense and maintenance fee of 18%, compared to that of biomass power generation at 0.01711 CNY/kWh. The adopted greenhouse sunlight technology of Solar Biogas Plant in Xuzhou, China, raises the inside average temperature by 11.0 °C higher than outside and keeps the pool temperature above 16 °C in winter, ensuring a gas productivity of biogas project in winter up to 0.5–0.7 m³/m³ by volume. This chapter also analyzes the information cost incurred by asymmetric information in biomass power generation via game theory method and illustrates the information structure with game results. It provides not only a foundation for the policy research in promoting straw power generation but also theoretical framework to solve the problem of straw collection.

These studies will propose solutions to relevant problems arisen in the running process.

These studies are all based on real cases, field research, and appropriate theoretical analyses, so, they can reduce the relevant costs and promote the application of relevant technologies.

The educational methodology of lifelong learning and adult education ensures human employment, the progress of society and peaceful social coexistence. Programs of vocational training for unemployed people or for groups with special needs are the common ways to ensure that employment inequalities are diminished and job opportunities for a better life are provided to the members of the community. Obviously, the standards of such education are of a great importance. If high standards are ensured, better results are achieved. The purpose of this paper is to document the development of a prototype system that will ensure high quality standards in the operation of a vocational training centre (VTC).

Research was carried out among students, teachers and staff of a specific VTC in Xanthi, aiming at specifying the key factors that influence the quality of the training provided.

The results of the research are presented and in relation to the answers given to special questionnaires there are suggestions regarding the issues of decision making, dealing with complaints, monitoring the quality of the training procedure and evaluating the vocational program in coordination with all members of the VTC (students, trainers and staff) and the companies where the trainees had practical training.

Some of these suggestions have already been implemented, with promising results.

The paper draws conclusions and makes recommendations for further research on specific topics that may improve the operational quality of the vocational training centres under discussion. Initiatives that will be taken by the state authorities are also described.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between nonmarket strategy and innovation performance, as well as the boundary factors that influence this relationship in the context of the pharmaceutical industry in emerging markets.

This study analyzed matched data of 227 Chinese pharmaceutical firms and two secondary databases with SPSS to examine the hypotheses.

Nonmarket strategy promotes the innovation performance. High level of firm internal knowledge utilization ability and strategic flexibility strengthens the effect of nonmarket strategy in promoting innovation performance, while information technology (IT) environment weakens the effect of nonmarket strategy in promoting innovation performance.

The research studies the positive impact of nonmarket strategy on innovation performance in the specific context of Chinese pharmaceutical industry, and it introduces the internal capabilities and external IT environment of the firm as moderators of the relationship between nonmarket strategy and innovation performance. More importantly, this research echoes the call for research on moderator of nonmarket strategy and identifies important boundary conditions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it also explores the impact of the IT environment on the implementation of nonmarket strategy for the first time, which deepens the research on nonmarket strategy’s effect on innovation.

The nonlinear friction disturbance of the moving joint surface of the feed system can lead to the residual vibration of the system, prolong the stability time of the system and reduce the motion precision and machining precision of the machine tool. This paper aims to concern the vibration between joint surfaces caused by nonlinear friction.

The model is established from the micro and macro scale based on the LuGre model. The friction characteristics of the moving joint surface are explored. The friction experiment of GCr15 pin and 45 steel disk is designed and the influence of lubrication condition, speed, acceleration and normal load on friction characteristics are studied.

Among the drive speed, damping and stiffness, the negative gradient effect of friction, which is characterized by the difference of static and dynamic friction coefficient Δµ, is the main cause of friction vibration between moving joint surfaces. Sufficient lubrication, a proper increase of speed and acceleration, a reasonable reduction of normal load can reduce the negative gradient effect, which can weaken the vibration caused by the nonlinear friction and improve the friction characteristics of the moving joint surface.

In the past studies, more attention has been paid to revealing the relationship between the relative speed and friction, while the acceleration is often ignored. The negative gradient effect of friction is improved in this paper by changing the contact conditions. Research findings of this paper effectively improve the friction characteristics of the moving interface and provide the basis for restraining the nonlinear vibration between the moving interfaces.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-11-2019-0476/

With the development of artificial intelligence, proximity sensors show their great potential in intelligent perception. This paper aims to propose a new planar capacitive sensor for the proximity sensing of a conductor.

Different from traditional structures, the proposed sensor is characterized by sawtooth-structured electrodes. A series of numerical simulations have been carried out to study the impact of different geometrical parameters such as the width of the main trunk, the width of the sawtooth and the number of sawtooths. In addition, the impact of the lateral offset of the approaching graphite block is investigated.

It is found that sensitivity is improved with the increase of the main trunk with, sawtooth width and sawtooth number while a larger lateral offset leads to a decrease in sensitivity. The performance of the proposed planar capacitive proximity sensor is also compared with two conventional planar capacitive sensors. The results show that the proposed planar capacitive sensor is obviously more sensitive than the two conventional planar capacitive sensors.

In this paper, a new planar capacitive sensor is proposed for the proximity sensing of a conductor. The results show that the capacitive sensor with the novel structure is obviously more sensitive than the traditional structures in the detection of the proximity conductor.

This paper aims to reveal the mechanism of air barrier effect in jet lubrication and to figure out the influence of gear parameters and conditions on air barrier, thus providing guidance to the design of jet lubrication in ultra-high speed gear cooling system.

The computational fluid dynamics method is used to calculate the flow and pressure of ultra-high speed gears. The flow and pressure distributions are obtained under different gear parameters and working conditions, so their variations are obtained. A multiphase flow model is established to simulate the flow regime of oil jet to ultra-high speed gears. Simple experiments are carried out to observe the air barrier effect of high-speed gears.

Air barrier effect exists in the jet lubrication of ultra-high speed spur gears, which could prevent oil jet to reach on the gear surfaces. The results show that the generated pressure has positive relations with gear speed, module and width; however, as the increasing of gear width, their marginal contribution to pressure is decreasing. The computational results coincide well with the experimental results.

The research presented here proposed the air barrier effect of ultra-high speed gears for the first time. It also leads to a design reference guideline that could be used in jet lubrication of ultra-high speed gears, thus preventing lubrication and cooling failures.

This study aims to look into consumers' green consumption intention by incorporating social media exposure, environmental concern and habit into theory of planned behavior (TPB) in the context of China advocating green consumption.

Based on the data collected from online survey, this study use partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analysis the measurement model and structure model.

The results show attitude, social media exposure, environmental concern and subjective norms are important determinants of consumers' intention to purchase green products.

This study explores the new associations between the major constructs of the TPB model in green consumption. This study also expanded the TPB model by adding three extra factors, namely social media exposure, habit and environmental concern. In addition, this study attempts to bridge the gap between attitude and intention from a new perspective by using social media exposure as a moderating variable.