Understanding Chinese consumers’ ethical purchasing decision-making process: A combination of qualitative and quantitative study

As with all shopping, there is a wide gap between ethical shopping intention and behavior, and consumers’ ethical shopping processes are very complicated. Through a two-stage study, this paper analyzes those underlying factors that prevent consumers from translating their stated ethical intentions into actual ethical buying behavior. An initial qualitative study uses in-depth interviews with 36 consumers and identifies 6 consumer personal factors and 5 shopping situational factors impeding the transformation of consumers’ stated ethical intentions into actual ethical behavior. In the second stage, a quantitative study uses a large-scale questionnaire, investigating 1200 consumers, to test the adaptability of these personal and situational factors and to investigate their moderating effects on the relationship between ethical intentions and behavior. The findings show that among the personal factors and in addition to ethical consciousness, economic rationality, buying inertia, cynicism, and ethical cognitive efforts all have significant moderating roles on the relationship between ethical intention and action; further, all of the situational factors have moderating effects upon the relationship between intention and action. Finally, the paper provides us with some profound conclusions and insightful implications about how to motivate consumer support for firms’ ethical behavior and how to transfer this type of support into truly positive purchasing behavior.     

Shopping perceptions of the inner city elderly

This paper offers an exploratory investigation of two behavioural constructs of elderly shoppers: (i) spatial information fields and (ii) retail evaluation criteria. The constructs of the elderly are examined with reference to comparable responses of a baseline group of non-elderly consumers. The data are elicited from samples of elderly and non-elderly apartment dwellers in Winnipeg's central area. The results disclose that the spatial information fields of the elderly are relatively restricted, largely as a result of their lower levels of mobility. The problem of limited transport availability for the elderly is also expressed in terms of the higher levels of importance which they assign to accessibility factors in the decision on where to shop for groceries. In terms of other retail evaluation criteria, the elderly and non-elderly express different degrees of concern about various grocery outlet characteristics and commodity traits. It is concluded that the elderly represent a distinctive group of shoppers whose special characteristics may be relevant to the formulation of consumer spatial choice models.     

The impact of the parking situation in shopping centres on store choice behaviour

The article discusses the effects of changing the parking situation in the surrounding of shopping centres on consumers store choice behaviour. To get insight into these effects a hierarchical logit model of parking lot and store choice behaviour is estimated and validated. The research is based on before-and-after data of supermarket visitors collected in a major regional shopping centre in a suburban area in The Netherlands. The model is estimated using the before data. At the level of the supermarkets the estimated hierarchical logit model performs very well. The model is less accurate at the level of parking lots but still performs satisfactory. Significant attributes are a constant representing the characteristics of the supermarket, the distance between supermarket and parking lot, the number of parking spaces per parking lot, the location of the parking lot vis-à-vis the origin of the consumer, and the availability of supermarket trolley facilities at the parking lot. Validating the model by reproducing the after data yields less satisfactory results. Especially the model does not perform very well on predicting parking lot choice. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

泰安市大汶口盆地岩盐矿开采及安全性研究

山东省泰安市大汶口盆地岩盐矿产资源非常丰富,并且该矿床矿层埋藏深度适中,呈多矿层产出,单矿层厚度中等,矿层与石膏呈互层状产出,具备比较好的开采技术条件。对于岩盐矿开采的安全性有多种因素影响,其中有矿床本身固有的因素,也有在钻井施工及开采等过程当中的人为因素影响。该矿床具备比较适合于水溶开采的有利因素,选择先进的"定向(水平)对接井连通法"且控制好人为因素的影响,可保证矿床开采的安全性。     

Deterioration of the volcanic kerb and pavement stones in a humid environment in the city centre of Izmir, Turkey

?zmir is the third largest city in Turkey and has being the centre of art, culture, tourism and trade activities throughout the 5,000 years of its history. Natural stones brought from different parts of the world have been widely used for construction of the prestigious buildings, monuments and roads etc., in the past in the city. Renovation of the street pavements and public gathering areas in the city centre has been undertaken by the Metropolitan Municipality in 2000 and continued through the year of 2001. These renovation activities have mainly been carried out in the streets running parallel to the sea shore. Volcanic rocks brought from the Central Anatolia Ankara-Gölba?? (andesites) and Kayseri-?ncesu (tuffs) have been used in the renovation works. These rocks have shown extensive deteriorations within 4 years of their usage between 2001 and 2005 under the influence of different environmental factors. In this study, the deteriorations developed in the recently placed volcanic rocks used as kerb and pavement stones in the city centre of ?zmir in the light of their mineralogical, chemical, physical and mechanical properties, used locations and the environmental factors are presented.     

Volcanic Hazard in New Zealand: Scaling and Attenuation Relations for Tephra fall deposits from Taupo Volcano

This paper is a first step in developing a probabilistic hazard model for tephra fall deposits in New Zealand. The database consists of measurements of tephra thickness and eruptive volumefrom 32 past eruptive events at Taupo Volcano. From these are derivedrelations for the mean and maximum tephra thickness as a function ofevent volume and distance from the vent, and for the area enclosed byan isopach as a function of tephra thickness and volume. Thedirectional effects due to wind do not vary appreciably over thevolcanic region of New Zealand. The main feature of wind velocity is aflow to the east that becomes more consistent at higher altitudes. Thelarger the eruption, the more the location of the deposit of maximumthickness (the centre of deposit) tends to be displaced to the east ofvent. A directional attenuation relation about the centre of deposit isderived from the Taupo data. This, in combination with arelation for the position of the centre of deposit relative to thevent, provides a means of estimating the probability of a giventhickness of tephra fall deposit being exceeded at any distance anddirection from the vent in an eruption of given volume.     

Exploring the attractions of city centre living: evidence and policy implications in British cities

The British city centre has been the focus of dynamic housing development and repopulation strategies as a key dimension of the government's urban renaissance programme. Through large scale interview surveys in the provincial city centres of Bristol and Swansea, this paper explores the positive and negative features of city centre living, and how these vary amongst a range of social and physical characteristics. The findings suggest that the practical and mundane attractions of city centre living are more important than the more widely publicised lifestyle and cultural attractions of the city centre commonly emphasised in the gentrification literature. Moreover, the research points to differences in attitudes between age groups, with younger adults placing greater value on the range of social and cultural activities in the city centre, whilst older people express high levels of satisfaction with the attractiveness of the environment. A number of policy implications emerge to encourage inclusive marketing strategies within the continued urban renaissance, particularly to challenge the negative perceptions and promote the varied attractions of city centre living to a mix of social groups.     

On the influence of urbanization on the water budget in Nairobi city: A numerical study

The impact of the growth and development of the City of Nairobi on the water budget is simulated using a high-resolution limited-area numerical model. The water substance fields are modelled with full physics in a control experiment. Five sensitivity experiments are then performed by altering the land-use/cover over the domain of study to assess the influence of the city, forests and terrain undulations on the water substance fields. Results showed that the highest evaporation occurred in areas of the study domain with open grasslands/scattered bush-land's vegetation types and the least at the city centre. Deforestation would lead to a substantial increase in the loss of water effected through evaporation despite a reduction in transpiration. The observed rainfall amount and frequency were highest in the high ground portions to the northwest of the study domain. Numerical analyses showed that the urban heat island had a destabilizing effect on the flow, which enhanced convection that resulted in increased rainfall downwind of the urban area. Further growth and expansion of the city of Nairobi would increase the area and amount of rainfall received. Deforestation would decrease rainfall amounts. Massive reforestation would increase the observed rainfall. There has been a decrease in soil moisture at the current location of the city centre; the decrease is bound to increase with the expansion of the city. The City of Nairobi has resulted in a large decrease in the soil moisture through converting the natural fabric to concrete/asphalt material. Deforestation would result in a marginal decrease in the soil moisture. Further growth and development of Nairobi City would modify the water substance budget appreciably. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

煤矿井下分段水力压裂梳状定向长钻孔钻进技术研究

随钻测量梳状定向钻进技术目前主要应用于煤矿瓦斯防治、地质异常体探测和探放水等领域。但该技术还未与水力压裂增透强化抽采技术相结合应用于煤层瓦斯防治领域,由于水力压裂增透强化抽采技术对钻孔特殊要求,相应钻探装备、钻孔设计和钻进成孔工艺均需要进行研究突破。本次研究成果融合了井下梳状定向长钻孔瓦斯抽采技术及水力压裂增透强化抽采技术的优点,形成了一套适合分段水力压裂梳状定向钻孔施工设备及工艺流程,能够满足对松软煤层瓦斯远距离与区域增透技术的需求,解决松软煤层透气性差、瓦斯抽采孔成孔性差、抽采距离短、抽采区域小等难题。     

Enacting separate social worlds: ‘International’ and ‘local’ students in public space in central Melbourne

In creating separate and distinct spaces and forms of socialising for themselves, ‘international’ and ‘local’ university students in central Melbourne are influenced by three key, spatially-linked processes. The first is institutional - it includes the allocation of international students to a certain type of housing which differs from that chosen by local students, and the practice of universities, student clubs and local churches to gather international and local students into separate groupings. The second is locational. It is the process by which international students find themselves living principally in and around the edge of the central city, an entertainment district with rowdy characteristics that these students often find distasteful. Local students, in contrast, locate in the inner suburbs for the most part, at a distance from the city centre hotspot. The third process sees socialising habits that are enacted in and by virtue of the public places in which they occur. This self-enacting socialisation further separates local students from international students. All three processes demonstrate how certain characteristics of the built environment can be invested with particular meanings and become complicit in shaping racialised social interactions.     

New populations in the British city centre: Evidence of social change from the census and household surveys

Encouraged by government policies to promote city centre living and to increase residential land use on brownfield sites, there has been considerable repopulation of the city centre. Through detailed small-area census analysis of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea, supplemented by household surveys and key informant interviews, the research points to a range of population characteristics and changes occurring in the British city centre. Certain characteristics such as a high proportion of lone person households, fewer children and low car ownership remain fairly consistent. However, substantial population expansion affirms that a large part of the population is “new”. Between 1991 and 2001, men came to outnumber women, and each of the city centres saw a relative expansion of its young adult population. The new residents have a higher appreciation than longer term residents of proximity to work and leisure facilities, and of the stylishness of city centre living. Most of the new residents rent their accommodation, generally in flats, and the predominance of renting is associated with a transient attitude to city centre residence among the new population. Socio-economic evidence indicates a striking rise in social status or gentrification in all the city centres investigated, especially where high status private housing developments encourage the trend. With policies promoting residential development, the city centre is becoming increasingly socially exclusive.     

Concentration-dependent Stable Isotope Analysis of Consumers in the Upper Reaches of a Freshwater-dominated Estuary: Apalachicola Bay,FL, USA

The goals of this study were to quantify organic matter source utilization by consumers in the freshwater-dominated region (East Bay) of a high river flow estuary and compare the results to consumers in marine-influenced sites of the same estuary to understand how organic matter utilization by consumers may be changing along the salinity gradient. We used the results from these evaluations to establish the baseline against which we isotopically determined trophic level for consumers in East Bay. Average isotope values for consumers sampled in East Bay ranged from −20.1‰ to −24.8‰ for carbon and from 8.9‰ to 14.3‰ for sulfur. These values were well-constrained by the four identified sources: plankton, benthic organic matter, macroalgae, and terrestrial detritus. Application of a concentration-corrected mixing model resulted in contributions of benthic production and detrital sources (averaged over the food web) to East Bay consumers of 41% and 33%, respectively, with the remainder made up of plankton and benthic macroalage. While benthic organic matter was an important organic matter source for consumers at both sites, we found that the influence of terrestrial detritus varied significantly throughout the bay. Terrestrial detritus contributed only 18% of average total organic matter in organisms inhabiting marine-influenced sites. Although terrestrial detritus did contribute to all consumers examined, most fish species in Apalachicola Bay reflect a greater reliance on autochthonous sources. Our results suggest that, while terrestrial detritus does appear to be a major contributor to commercially important shellfish species (most notably oysters and penaeid shrimp), it is not the major source fueling the diversity of secondary production in Apalachicola Bay. Thus, production in Apalachicola Bay is highly dependent on riverine influx in two ways: (1) economically important bivalves and crustaceans are being fueled by terrestrial organic matter supplied by river flooding and (2) secondary and above consumer fish species are supported by in situ production which, in turn, is reliant on nutrients supplied by the Apalachicola River. These findings are significant in light of decisions regarding water usage and river flow restrictions in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint drainage basin. The results of this study confirm that in situ estuarine organic matter is the dominant source supporting secondary production in this river-dominated estuary.     

基于井下定向钻孔的矿井地质异常体探查方法与应用

地质异常体是矿井灾害发生的主要隐蔽致灾因素,井下钻探工程是进行地质异常体探查、验证和治理的重要技术手段。针对常规钻孔探查距离短、精度低,且易存在探查盲区的不足,介绍了采用井下定向钻孔进行地质异常体探查的方案。总结地质异常体空间形态、岩性和钻探等识别特征,给出探查定向钻孔轨迹布设原则,得到基于定向钻孔的地质异常点和地质异常体空间计算定位方法,并从钻孔布设间距、钻孔轨迹测控精度、地层和地质异常识别精度、地质异常体发育规模等方面分析定向钻孔探查精度影响因素与解决方法。在焦作赵固二矿和宁东梅花井煤矿开展地质异常体探查试验,采用主孔与分支孔结合实现巷道条带煤层稳定性探查,探查距离达到621 m;采用定向钻孔群实现工作面充水水源区域探查,单孔最大出水量为10.2 m3/h,并对充水水源进行了疏放。试验结果表明,井下定向钻孔具有探查精度高、距离远等优点,实现地质异常体精确定位,为矿井灾害事故防治提供技术保障。      

Methodological aspects of surveying the volume, structure, activities and perceptions of city centre visitors

Counting pedestrians on a street and visitors entering a store is a method used to measure the attractiveness of these places. Their volumes are governed by daily, weekly, monthly and yearly cycles and are subject to random influences. This must be taken into account especially where comparison counts reveal changes. When single streets or stores are counted, it must be ascertained whether this figure is representative of the whole city centre and its retailing. Pedestrian volumes can be used for adjusting interview samples to the distribution in time and space of the city centre visitors. Counts of the qualitative characteristics of the pedestrian with respect to composition of groups reveal that surveys among pedestrians are biased in relation to the size of the group. Special attention in surveys should be given to the linking of activities. Whereas much emphasis is given to the accessibility of the city centre from outside, the ‘inner accessibility’ of the city centre is just as important. Long distances are often walked and many destinations visited. This is best recorded by conducting interviews at public transport stops and car parks. The attractiveness of the city centre depends not only on its physical structures but very much on the subjective perception of them; therefore judgements on accessibility, goods and services offered and the urban ambiance should be recorded. Retailer's attitudes concerning the qualities of the city centre should also be compiled for comparison. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Optimal scheduling of household appliances for smart home energy management considering demand response

As an important part of demand-side management, residential demand response (DR) can not only reduce consumer’s electricity costs, but also improve the stability of power system operation. In this regard, this paper proposes an optimal scheduling model of household appliances for smart home energy management considering DR. The model includes electricity cost, incentive and inconvenience of consumers under time-of-use (TOU) electricity price. Further, this paper discusses the influence of inconvenience weighting factor on total costs. At the same time, the influence of incentive on optimization results is also analyzed. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed model, which can reduce 34.71% of consumer’s total costs. It also illustrates that the total costs will be raised with the increase in inconvenience weighting factor. Thus, consumers will choose whether to participate in DR programs according to their preferences. Moreover, the result demonstrates that incentives are conducive to shifting load and reducing the consumer’s total energy costs. The presented study provides new insight for the applications of residential DR.     

Economic Hotspots: Visualizing Vulnerability to Flooding

We simulate a large-scale flooding in the province of South-Holland in the economic centre of the Netherlands. In traditional research, damage due to flooding is computed with a unit loss method coupling land use information to depth-damage functions. Normally only direct costs are incorporated as an estimate of damage to infrastructure, property and business disruption. We extend this damage concept with the indirect economic effects on the rest of the regional and national economy on basis of a bi-regional input output table.We broaden this damage estimation to the concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability is defined as a function of dependence, redundancy and susceptibility. Susceptibility is the probability and extent of flooding. Dependency is the degree to which an activity relates to other economic activities in the rest of the country. Input–output multipliers form representations of this dependency. Redundancy is the ability of an economic activity to respond to a disaster by deferring, using substitutes or relocating. We measure redundancy as the degree of centrality of an economic activity in a network. The more central an activity is, the less it encounters possibilities to transfer production and the more vulnerable it is for flooding. Vulnerability of economic activities is then visualized in a GIS. Kernel density estimation is applied to generalize point information on inundated firms to sectoral information in space. We apply spatial interpolation techniques for the whole of the province of South-Holland. Combining information of sectoral data on dependency and redundancy, we are able to create maps of economic hotspots. Our simulation of a flood in the centre of Holland reveals the vulnerability of a densely populated delta.     

基于距离判别分析方法的深基坑支护方案优选研究

基于马氏距离判别分析理论,分析了影响深基坑支护方案的因素,从安全性、经济性、可行性3个方面选取了10个实测指标作为影响深基坑支护方案选型的判别指标,利用国内大量的深基坑支护实例作为学习样本进行训练,建立距离判别分析模型,对深基坑支护方案进行优选,并利用回代估计法对距离判别分析模型进行检验。研究结果表明,经过训练后的支护方案优选模型误判率很低,判别优选能力很高。预测样本与工程实例的检验表明,距离判别分析模型优选性能良好,验证了该模型的高效性和实用性。说明距离判别分析理论是解决深基坑支护方案优选问题的有效方法之一,可以在实际工程中进行推广。     

Perspective of urban land use in Beijing

This paper illustrates the features of urban land use in Beijing and approaches the factors particularly influencing the urban internal structure model. The brief review of the development process proves that the historical background and human decisions determined the basic framework of the structure. The spatial structure of land use shows that Beijing still keeps the characteristics of an industrialized city due to the importance of industry. Another particular feature was the absence of a central business district in Beijing, although in socialist system urban spatial structure also displays zonal, sectoral and star forms. The particular form in Beijing is the separated integrated district as the basic subdistrict. Finally the urban problems are discussed and suggestions made.     

Landslide susceptibility mapping at Zonouz Plain,Iran using genetic programming and comparison with frequency ratio,logistic regression,and artificial neural network models

Without a doubt, landslide is one of the most disastrous natural hazards and landslide susceptibility maps (LSMs) in regional scale are the useful guide to future development planning. Therefore, the importance of generating LSMs through different methods is popular in the international literature. The goal of this study was to evaluate the susceptibility of the occurrence of landslides in Zonouz Plain, located in North-West of Iran. For this purpose, a landslide inventory map was constructed using field survey, air photo/satellite image interpretation, and literature search for historical landslide records. Then, seven landslide-conditioning factors such as lithology, slope, aspect, elevation, land cover, distance to stream, and distance to road were utilized for generation LSMs by various models: frequency ratio (FR), logistic regression (LR), artificial neural network (ANN), and genetic programming (GP) methods in geographic information system (GIS). Finally, total four LSMs were obtained by using these four methods. For verification, the results of LSM analyses were confirmed using the landslide inventory map containing 190 active landslide zones. The validation process showed that the prediction accuracy of LSMs, produced by the FR, LR, ANN, and GP, was 87.57, 89.42, 92.37, and 93.27 %, respectively. The obtained results indicated that the use of GP for generating LSMs provides more accurate prediction in comparison with FR, LR, and ANN. Furthermore; GP model is superior to the ANN model because it can present an explicit formulation instead of weights and biases matrices.     

矿化富集中心地质因素多元统计分析及应用

本文导出了通过控矿地质因素逻辑信息法的研究来建立矿化富集中心数学模型的公式,使矿化富集中心数学模型与控矿地质因素定量地联系起来。还给出了单个矿化富集中心趋势面分析的数学模型和矿床空间分布模型。在这基础上,以某锡-多金属成矿带中某远景区的研究为例说明怎样应用矿化富集中心地质因素多元统计分析（逻辑信息法、趋势面分析、逐步回归分析和聚类分析）进行矿床统计预测。