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1 – 10 of over 41000Ren Hong, Wang Runyuan and Du Yongjie
In the context of exploring and implementing China's new urbanization, green eco-city have become a transformation model for urban development. Sharpening green buildings in the…
Abstract
In the context of exploring and implementing China's new urbanization, green eco-city have become a transformation model for urban development. Sharpening green buildings in the construction industry can significantly influence and determine China's economic growth trends, as well as the growth and overall development of its national economy. However, current green eco-city still lack appropriate standards and scientific theoretical basis to determine the target star program of green buildings. To fully implement the green building standards, establish and improve a sound technical standard system for the construction of green building demonstration areas, this study considers the spatial layout of green buildings as the core, adopts a plot potential evaluation method for evaluating a few green building plots, and utilizes four factors in verifying plots with great star potential. The study also establishes a system to calculate the star proportion of green buildings and applies the system in calculating the green building ratio of GM New District. Results indicate that the system can quantitatively analyze a plot potential, calculate the star proportion of green buildings scientifically and rationally, and provide some references for the construction of eco-city and the preparation of special planning for green buildings. The system construction is conducive to provide technical support for the construction of green eco-city. The improved system can be applied in the green building demonstration areas in China, and will be a reference model of constructing green building demonstration areas in the country.
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This chapter examines how Maragoli women farmers’ plot-level crop control, individual, and household variables affect yields. This chapter contributes to a holistic understanding…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter examines how Maragoli women farmers’ plot-level crop control, individual, and household variables affect yields. This chapter contributes to a holistic understanding of the ramifications of quantitative and qualitative factors informing women farmers’ plot-level undertakings and yields as well as their innovative and creative strategies for optimizing output. It broadens the existing debate in the sub-Saharan African agricultural production literature by suggesting a composite measure of plot-level crop control as one factor influencing women farmers’ yields even in situations where land is owned by someone else. It also provides a rich discussion of the various and interlocking qualitative factors distorting women farmers’ incentive structures, efforts to increase plot-level yields and their strategies for minimizing the detrimental effects of the same.
Methodology/approach
A multimethod quantitative and qualitative ethnographic case study approach was used in this study.
Findings
This chapter demonstrates that women strategically bargained and invested more of their productive resources on the plots where they anticipated the greatest individual gains.
Practical implications
This chapter underscores women farmers’ ability to boost agricultural output when there are appropriate incentives for them to do so and suggests the theoretical and practical relevance of secure control and property rights over the products of the land not for the household (head), but for the cultivator. The chapter demonstrates and reaffirms that Africa women farmers respond appropriately to incentives and suggests that there is need for a customized, renewed, and sustained emphasis on women farmers’ empowerment and inclusion in all levels in the agricultural sector in order to actualize increased yields. Investing in women farmers and implementing policies that narrow existing gender disparities in African agricultural production systems is holistically beneficial.
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Jianying Wang, Kevin Z. Chen, Sunipa Das Gupta and Zuhui Huang
The farm size-productivity relationship has long been the subject of debate among development economists. Few studies address this issue for China, and those that do only with…
Abstract
Purpose
The farm size-productivity relationship has long been the subject of debate among development economists. Few studies address this issue for China, and those that do only with outdated data sets poorly representing the current situation after the past decade of rapid change, which includes the rapid development of land rental markets, village labor out-migration and use of farm machines. Meanwhile, many studies have researched this relationship for Indian, which is undergoing similar changes except for the development of active land rental markets. The purpose of this paper is to measure the farm size-productivity relationship under the situations of rapid transformation in China and India.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the data of 325 Jiangxi and 400 Allahabad rice farmers in 2011, the survey covered multiple plots of each household in one/multiple growing season(s). The authors use the production function approach and the yield approach, and control for farmland quality, imperfect factor markets, and farm size measurement error, to identify the farm size-productivity relationship.
Findings
The regressions show that land yields increase with plot size both by season and over the year in China. This may be one of the reasons that farm sizes are growing in some areas. In India, however, the inverse farm size-productivity relationship is observed by the study, despite recent changes. Moreover, land yields increase with farm machine use in both China and India. This result contributes to the debate over whether mechanization improves yields or just expands the land frontier.
Originality/value
The paper empirically estimates the farm size-productivity relationship under rapid agrarian transformation in both China and India based on a unique data set collected by the authors in a detailed primary survey. The paper considers measurement error in the analysis, which adds values to this type of analysis.
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Jerzy Kociatkiewicz and Monika Kostera
The purpose of this paper is to consider three types of stories: media, personal accounts and fiction, and look for plots depicting situations of fundamental shift in the framing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider three types of stories: media, personal accounts and fiction, and look for plots depicting situations of fundamental shift in the framing and basic definitions of reality. The authors examine them from the point of view of their usefulness for developing creative responses to systemic change.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a narrative study in three stages, aimed at identifying strong plots pertaining to systemic change. The analyzed material came from three different sources of narratives (fiction, media and creative stories) and was approached by the use of two different narrative methods: symbolic interpretation and narrative collage.
Findings
Currently many voices are being raised that the authors are living in times of interregnum, a period in between working systems. There is also a mounting critique of the business school as an institution perpetuating dysfunctional ideologies, rather than enhancing critical and creative thinking. The authors propose that the humanities, and, in particular, learning from fiction (and science fiction) can offer a language to talk about major (systemic) change help and support learning about alternative organizational realities.
Research limitations/implications
The study pertains to discourse and narratives, not to material aspects of culture construction.
Practical implications
Today, there is a mounting critique of business schools and their role in society. Following Martin Parker’s call to transform them into schools of organizing, helping to develop and discuss different alternatives instead of reproducing the dominant model, the authors suggest that education should be based, to much larger extent than until now, on the humanities. The authors propose educational programmes including the study of fiction and film.
Social implications
The authors propose that the humanities (and the study of fiction) can equip society with a suitable language to discuss and problematize systemic change.
Originality/value
This paper adds to narrative social studies through providing an analysis of strong plots showing ways of coping with systemic collapse, and through an examination of these plots’ significance for organizational education, learning, and planning. The authors present an argument for the broader use of fiction as a sensemaking, teaching, and learning tool for managing organizations in volatile environments.
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Gordon Barbour, Ombretta Romice and Sergio Porta
The failure of conventional, post-war development to bring about the housing-led regeneration of much of Glasgow’s vacant and derelict inner-city land has exacerbated the loss of…
Abstract
The failure of conventional, post-war development to bring about the housing-led regeneration of much of Glasgow’s vacant and derelict inner-city land has exacerbated the loss of middle-income households to car-dominated suburbs built on green-field sites. Plot-based urbanism offers an innovative approach to development, based on an urban structure made up of fine-grained elements, in the form of plots, capable of incremental development by a range of agencies. The historical and morphological study of traditional, pre-war masterplanning methods in Glasgow suggests that a typically disaggregated pattern of land subdivision remains of great relevance for development, and that the physical form and organisation of urban land may relate to the capacity for neighbourhood self-organisation. This study assists future masterplanning and investment in the regeneration of inner-city neighbourhoods by suggesting ways of making investment more informed, and the development process more responsive to urban change. We argue that the publicly-funded sector could take on the role of lead provider of development opportunity through the adoption of methods derived from traditional masterplanning processes, providing opportunities for small-scale house building, and thereby supporting resilient and adaptable communities in the sustainable reuse of vacant inner-city land.
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Theodore Sussman and Klaus‐Jürgen Bathe
We describe a visual method—stress band plots—for displaying the stress solution within a two‐dimensional finite element mesh. The stress band plots differ from conventional…
Abstract
We describe a visual method—stress band plots—for displaying the stress solution within a two‐dimensional finite element mesh. The stress band plots differ from conventional stress contour plots because stress band plots display unaveraged stresses (the stresses are computed directly from the solution variables) and stress discontinuities in the finite element solution are directly displayed. Stress band plots are useful in judging the accuracy of a finite element solution, in the comparison of different finite element solutions and during mesh refinement. These uses are demonstrated in an axisymmetric pressure vessel analysis.
Aleksey Anisimov, Anatoliy Ryzhenkov and Elena Menis
This study aims to clarify the scope of the legal procedure of the acquisitive prescription in Russia.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to clarify the scope of the legal procedure of the acquisitive prescription in Russia.
Design/methodology/approach
Dialectical method, historical method and system analysis method have been used.
Findings
The authors consistently prove the inadmissibility of applying acquisitive prescription to land plots in private, state or municipal ownership. One of the features of Russia as an emerging market economy is that, the major part of state lands is in so-called “non-delineated state ownership.” Plots included in such lands are not registered in the cadaster or transferred to particular public owners. That is why, the authors prove that the procedure of acquisitive prescription must be applied only in relation to land plots that are in non-delineated state ownership and have been occupied by citizens and legal entities for 15 years.
Originality/value
The authors propose new guarantees of the rights of private and public land owners. Clarification of the scope of the acquisitive prescription procedure will streamline the turnover of real estate in Russia.
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Johnson Kampamba, Simon Kachepa, Boipuso Nkwae, Ntombi Godiraone Matlhogojane and Tuelo Outule
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the housing delivery to the low income through the Self Help Housing Agency (SHHA) in Gaborone, Botswana.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the housing delivery to the low income through the Self Help Housing Agency (SHHA) in Gaborone, Botswana.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through the use of questionnaire, interviews, records searches and observations using the mixed-method approach to establish why people sale houses. Proportionate and simple random sampling was used to obtain a sample size of 93 plots for both new SHHA areas and old SHHA areas at 90 per cent confidence level. For each plot, data pertaining to plot allocation, plot ownership, exchange of ownership over the years were collected.
Findings
The findings revealed that the programme has been hit by challenges emanating from the low-income group selling their houses to middle-income group which is predominant in the area thus leading to gentrification. It was also established that the number of sales in SHHA areas were increasing as evidenced from the transfers that were taking place. This could be influenced by the increasing demand for housing due to a growing population in Gaborone. The findings also revealed that demand is one of the determinants of rising prices, thus an incentive to the low-income group to sell their houses at higher prices.
Research limitations/implications
The implication of these findings is that the low income will be displaced and might become homeless in future thus creating an opportunity for illegal settlements to develop.
Originality/value
The study has provided a context in which housing delivery to the low-income group can be safe guarded.
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Fang Li, Shuyi Feng, Hualiang Lu, Futian Qu and Marijke D'Haese
This paper investigates the relationship between plot size and fertilizer use efficiency (FE) in Chinese large-scale farming and searches for the underlying mechanisms that…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates the relationship between plot size and fertilizer use efficiency (FE) in Chinese large-scale farming and searches for the underlying mechanisms that explain this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a household- and plot-level data set of large-scale production units (LSPUs) from Jiangsu and Jiangxi Provinces, the technical and fertilizer use efficiency of large-scale rice production is estimated by applying a translog stochastic frontier production function. The authors impose a monotonicity condition on the translog frontier using a three-step procedure to get theoretically consistent efficiency estimates. A beta regression model is then used to explore the association between plot size and LSPUs' efficiency in fertilizer application.
Findings
The average FE for the sampled plots is around 30%, which shows a large potential for LSPUs to reduce fertilizer use. A U-shaped relationship is observed between plot size and FE. The authors relate this non-linear pattern to the substitution of labour with capital-intensive technology and the efficiency differences in terms of farming performance between family and hired workers.
Originality/value
First, according to the authors’ knowledge, this paper is a first attempt to study the size–efficiency relationship focussing on fertilization practices of large-scale farming. The second contribution lies in the large-scale ranges of the plot-level data set. Third, efforts are made to reveal the mechanisms determining the plot size–FE relationship. Fourth, the authors provide guiding evidence for policymaking, as they show that the size of individual plots deserves equal attention in land consolidation decisions. Methodologically, this paper improves existing estimates of single-factor technical efficiency issued from a restricted production frontier model.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze common emplotments of interpretations of the financial crisis of 2007‐2010.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze common emplotments of interpretations of the financial crisis of 2007‐2010.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a text analysis.
Findings
The paper finds that the same “strong plots” are commonly used to explain financial crises to the general public.
Originality/value
The paper provides useful information on interpretations of financial crises.
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