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Understanding Farmers’ Adoption Decisions for New Cash Crops: Evidence from Xishuangbanna in Tropical China

Zhang L., Kono Y., Hua X., Zheng L., Zhou R.

Problemy Ekorozwoju

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2017

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Vol. 12, nr 2

99--108

EN

On a global basis, cash cropping is usually identified as an important enterprise undertaken by farmers to increase incomes. However, the responses of farmers to these new enterprises vary greatly. Through a case study of a Dai village in Xishuangbanna, China, this paper examines how farmers make decisions about adopting new cash crops by focusing on the farm economy and land conditions. The results show that farmers did not adopt watermelons due to poor irrigation and accessibility conditions, and then they did not adopt bananas due to a transient collapse of banana market, induced by a rumor suggesting that eating bananas causes cancer. Consequently, although these non-adopters benefited from commercial exchanges with external businessmen in terms of ecological experiments and management diversification, and leasing lowlands to external businessmen is a livelihood choice that is based on the outcome of the farmer’s trade-off between profitability and risk, they missed opportunities to substantially increase incomes through cash cropping, as evidenced by the success of the farmers who adopted the cash crops. These findings suggest that the government ought to design tailored extension programs for villages, implement efficient refutation strategies to prevent rumor-induced market collapse and promote extension services as early as possible in the initial stages of transition to cash cropping.

XX

Patrząc z perspektywy globalnej za uprawy komercyjne uznaje się istotne działania podejmowane przez rolników w celu zwiększenia swoich dochodów. Jednakże zainteresowanie rolników nowymi rozwiązaniami jest bardzo zróżnicowane. Niniejszy artykuł na przykładzie doliny Dai w należącym do Chin rejonie Xishuangbanna pokazuje jakie czynniki finansowe i środowiskowe wpływają na podjęcie przez rolników decyzji odnoszących się do nowych upraw komercyjnych. Otrzymane wyniki pokazują, że za odrzuceniem arbuzów stały ograniczone możliwości nawadniania i ograniczony dostęp, a za odrzuceniem bananów chwilowe załamanie rynku zbytu tych owoców, związane z szerzącą się pogłoską, jakoby konsumpcja bananów mogło być przyczyną nowotworów.Konsekwentnie, chociaż rolnicy odrzucający nowe uprawy korzystali z wymiany handlowej z zewnętrznymi przedsiębiorcami pod kątem eksperymentów ekologicznych i dywersyfikacji zarządzania, a ponadto biorąc pod uwagę, że przeznaczanie pól dla zewnętrznych przedsiębiorców jest decyzją opartą na ocenie możliwych zysków i strat, ci rolnicy stracili szansę na znaczące zwiększenie przychodów z upraw komercyjnych. Pokazuje to przykład rolników, którzy jednak zdecydowali się na nowe uprawy. Uzyskane rezultatu wskazują, że rząd powinien przygotować dostosowane do potrzeb rolników programy i strategie odnoszące się do tych zagadnień.

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Preparation, characterization and rheological behavior of chitosan nanocapsule emulsion encapsulated tuberose fragrance

Xiao Z., Wang E., Zhu G., Zhou R., Niu Y.

Polish Journal of Chemical Technology

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2016

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Vol. 18, nr 2

1--8

EN

In this paper, ionic gelation method was adopted to produce nanocapsules (CNs) encapsulated tuberose fragrance with chitosan (CS) and sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) as wall materials. The effects of CS/TPP mass ratio, pH value of CS solution, molecular mass of CS and tuberose fragrance (TF) concentration on particle size and particle size distribution (PDI) of chitosan nanocapsules encapsulated tuberose fragrance (CNTs) were investigated systematically. CNTs were characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that CNTs were successfully prepared. The optimum preparation conditions were as follows: CS/TPP mass ratio 5:1, pH of CS solution 4.0, and molecular mass of CS 150 kda. CNTs emulsions were also systematically investigated by steady-state shear and oscillatory shear measurements respectively. The rheological behaviors of CNTs were obtained.

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Encapsulation of l-menthol in hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin and release characteristics of the inclusion complex

Zhu G., Xiao Z., Zhu G., Zhou R., Niu Y.

Polish Journal of Chemical Technology

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2016

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Vol. 18, nr 3

110--116

EN

l-menthol has been widely used in flavour, food and pharmaceuticals. Because of its high volatility and whisker growth, l-menthol-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin inclusion complex was produced to improve shelf-life, provide protection, and enhance the stability of l-menthol. The inclusion complex was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction. The results show that l-menthol was successfully encapsulated in hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin. l-menthol loading capacity is about 8.44%. Geometries and binding energies of l-menthol-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin inclusion complexes were investigated using molecular mechanics calculations. The shape and orientation of the most stable complex, and the minimum binding energy were determined. L-menthol release from complex was determined by thermogravimetric analysis. Two l-menthol release rate peaks were observed at 69.3 and 279.1°C. The l-menthol release reaction order, release activation energy and the preexponential factor were obtained.

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Pyrolysis characteristics and kinetics of β-cyclodextrin and its two derivatives

Zhu G., Xiao Z., Zhou R., Niu Y.

Polish Journal of Chemical Technology

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2015

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Vol. 17, nr 4

1--4

EN

β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) and its derivatives have been widely used to prepare inclusion complexes. However, systematic research on their thermal stabilities, pyrolysis characteristics and kinetics has rarely been reported. In this paper, thermogravimetric analysis was employed to investigate β-cyclodextrin and its two derivatives, 2-Hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) and monochlorotriazinyl-β-cyclodextrin (MCT-β-CD). The pyrolysis characteristics and kinetic parameters were obtained. The results show that three stages can be distinguished during the heating process of the above three samples. The temperature of initial decomposition of HP-β-CD (309.5°C is higher than that of β-CD (297.8°C), while the temperature of initial decomposition of MCT-β-CD (231.4°C) is lower than that of β-CD. For the three cyclodextrins, the thermal stability in descending order is HP-β-CD, β-CD and MCT-HP-β-CD. The activation energy values are 350.6, 303.3 and 113.9 KJ/mol, and the pre-exponential factor values are 1.11×1031, 1.37×1026 and 1.39×1010 for β-CD, HP-β-CD and MCT-β-CD respectively.

5

Two New Decomposition Algorithms for Training Bound-Constrained Support Vector Machines

Niu L., Zhou R., Zhao X., Shi Y.

Foundations of Computing and Decision Sciences

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2015

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Vol. 40, No. 1

67--86

EN

Bound-constrained Support Vector Machine(SVM) is one of the stateof- art model for binary classification. The decomposition method is currently one of the major methods for training SVMs, especially when the nonlinear kernel is used. In this paper, we proposed two new decomposition algorithms for training bound-constrained SVMs. Projected gradient algorithm and interior point method are combined together to solve the quadratic subproblem effciently. The main difference between the two algorithms is the way of choosing working set. The first one only uses first order derivative information of the model for simplicity. The second one incorporate part of second order information into the process of working set selection, besides the gradient. Both algorithms are proved to be global convergent in theory. New algorithms is compared with the famous package BSVM. Numerical experiments on several public data sets validate the effciency of the proposed methods.