With the great strides of China’s economic development, air pollution has become the norm that is a cause of broad adverse influence in society. The spatiotemporal patterns of sulfur dioxide (SO2) ...emissions are a prerequisite and an inherent characteristic for SO2 emissions to peak in China. By exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and econometric approaches, this study explores the spatiotemporal characteristics of SO2 emissions and reveals how the socioeconomic determinants influence the emissions in China’s 30 provinces from 1995 to 2015. The study first identifies the overall space- and time-trend of regional SO2 emissions and then visualizes the spatiotemporal nexus between SO2 emissions and socioeconomic determinants through the ESDA method. The determinants’ impacts on the space–time variation of emissions are also confirmed and quantified through the dynamic spatial panel data model that controls for both spatial and temporal dependence, thus enabling the analysis to distinguish between the determinants’ long- and short-term spatial effects and leading to richer and novel empirical findings. The study emphasizes close spatiotemporal relationships between SO2 emissions and the socioeconomic determinants. China’s SO2 emissions variation is the multifaceted result of urbanization, foreign direct investment, industrial structure change, technological progress, and population in the short run, and it is highlighted that, in the long run, the emissions are profoundly affected by industrial structure and technology.
Abstract
We analyze the correlation between properties of large-scale bars and atomic gas content of galaxies to explore the role of H
i
gas on bar evolution in galaxies. We show that the absolute ...bar size depends strongly on total stellar mass of galaxies and does not change significantly with H
i
gas fraction at fixed stellar mass. Furthermore, the physical size of the bar is small and nearly constant in high H
i
gas fraction and low-mass galaxies and becomes larger with increasing galactic stellar mass in low gas fraction galaxies. When the stellar masses are fixed, the relative bar length normalized to the disk shows a decrease with increasing H
i
gas fraction due to the larger disks in gas-richer galaxies. We measure the gas deficiency of the samples and find that the gas-rich galaxies have longer and stronger bars compared with the H
i
gas-deficient galaxies at fixed stellar mass, especially for the massive ones. When splitting the samples into star-forming and quiescent subgroups, the star-forming galaxies tend to have longer bars than the quiescent ones at fixed stellar mass and gas deficiency. In addition, our results suggest two different types of bar properties, in which the bars in gas-rich galaxies grow longer but retain similar axial ratio over time, while they grow longer and fatter over time in gas-poor galaxies.
In this paper, an extended nonlinear chirp scaling (ENLCS) algorithm for focusing synthetic aperture radar data acquired at high resolution and highly squint angle is proposed. The whole processing ...of the ENLCS consists of the following three steps. First, a linear range walk correction is used to remove the linear component of target range cell migration (RCM) and to mitigate the range-azimuth coupling of the 2-D spectrum. Second, a bulk second range compression (SRC) is performed in the 2-D frequency domain for compensating the residual RCM, SRC term, and higher order range-azimuth coupling terms. Third, a modified azimuth NLCS (ANLCS) operation is applied to equalize the azimuth frequency modulation rate for azimuth compression. By adopting higher order approximation processing and by properly selecting the scaling coefficients, the proposed modified ANLCS operation has better accuracy and little image misregistration. The overall focusing procedure of the ENLCS algorithm only involves fast Fourier transform and complex multiplication, which means easier implementation and higher efficiency. The experimental results with simulated data prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
This research investigates the intermediate mechanism that translates brand communities into brand relationships. Using a sample of online brand communities from China, the study finds that consumer ...brand attachment plays a full mediating role between brand community commitment and brand commitment and exerts partial mediation between brand identification and brand commitment. Perceived community–brand similarity moderates both brand community identification's effect on brand identification and brand community commitment's effect on brand attachment. The findings contribute to the brand literature and provide implications for brand community management.
► We investigate how brand communities generate brand relationships. ► Consumer brand attachment plays a mediating role. ► Perceived community Cbrand similarity plays a moderating role.
Consumers' perceptions of a brand (e.g., competence or warmth) may directly affect their brand trust, purchase intention, and ability to achieving corporate goals of sustainability. However, gender ...acts as a moderator in the influence of brand perception on purchase intention. This study examined the main effects of brand perception on purchase intention, the moderating effect of gender, and the mediating effect of brand trust by conducting two experiments and a path analysis. Findings from experiment 1 show that perceived warmth and perceived competence exert significant positive effects on purchase intention with brand trust as a mediator. Findings from experiment 2 indicate that perceived warmth is influential only for female customers, not for male customers, that is, gender moderates the relationship between perceived warmth and purchase intention. However, gender does not moderate the influence of perceived competence on purchase intention. The results of the path analysis are consistent with the experimental results, indicating that the conclusions of the study are robust and reliable. Finally, theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.
This study presents the interacting phenomena of perceptions of tourist destination online content (TDOC) and tourists' behavioral intentions with a mediating role of tourists' satisfaction, which is ...as yet under-explored in hospitality and tourism research. A model based on three main constructs, namely TDOC (with sub-constructs of online information quality and user-friendly accessibility), satisfaction, and tourists' behavioral intentions with sub-constructs of intentions to visit a tourist destination and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), is presented to determine the growth of tourism business with the internet. Data were collected via a questionnaire-based survey from 413 tourists staying at hotels in Lahore city in Pakistan. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used to statistically analyze the gathered data. The findings indicate that tourists' perceptions of TDOC directly influence their behavioral intentions, while tourists' satisfaction exerts a mediating influence between tourists' perceptions of TDOC and their behavioral intentions. Taking advantage of an economical and widespread online environment, destination marketing organizations could attract more tourists by fostering confidence in TDOC and positive eWOM to remain competitive in the long run. Important theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Estimation of the basic parameters, wall thickness and dielectric constant, is important in through-the-wall radar imaging. Ambiguities in wall characteristics will degrade the image focusing quality ...of synthetic-aperture radar. In order to obtain a quick and precise estimation of wall parameters, an equivalent propagation model of an electromagnetic wave in the air-wall-air medium is first developed in this paper. According to the developed propagation model, two filter-based approaches, denoted respectively as the echo-domain-filter-based method and the image-domain-filter-based method, are proposed to estimate wall thickness and dielectric constant by adjusting the two corresponding parameters of the echo-domain filter or the image-domain filter to obtain the best focusing quality of behind-the-wall targets. The processing schemes of the two methods show that the image-domain-filter-based method is more efficient because it does not involve imaging processing in each adjustment. Moreover, the image-domain-filter-based method is accelerated by reducing the dimension of searching space to better the computational efficiency further. Simulation results show that the proposed accelerating image-domain-filter-based method can provide quick and precise estimation of wall parameters.
This study examines the impacts of the online brand community (OBC) climate on customer interaction and customer inspiration, which are yet under-explored in the extant literature. The data were ...collected online from the Chinese respondents (
N
= 504) to analyze the proposed constructs of the study. Findings show that supportive OBC climate and controlled OBC climate are positively related to customer interaction (including information interaction and social interaction) and exert a significant and positive impact on customer inspiration. A mediating impact of customer interaction is found on the relationship between OBC climate and customer inspiration. This study unravels the importance and mechanism of customer-brand relationships in the online environment and illuminates pathways for marketers and policymakers to positively influence customer inspiration for business promotion. This study updates existing literature boxes of consumer behavior and marketing in the context of online customer-brand relationships. Limitations and future research directions are noted.
In user-generated content (UGC) platforms, content generators (i.e., posters) account for only a minority of users. The majority of users lurk, participating in information diffusion only and making ...no direct contributions to the platforms (i.e., diffusers). In this paper, we study diffusers’ reposting behavior in a UGC platform and compare it with that of posters. We find that diffusers generally behave similarly to posters in reposting. Both groups repost more when seeing more posts and encountering popular posts. Interestingly, their reposting behavior diverges under information redundancy, i.e., when more popular posts are seen in a dense network. Under this condition, diffusers show a much higher propensity to repost, which is (partially) driven by their lesser need for uniqueness (NFU). Overall, this study suggests an exquisite way for platforms to activate their lurking users and it sheds light on their value in generating word-of-mouth and in facilitating information diffusion. It also provides useful guidelines for firms to approach the right type of lurking users (i.e., diffusers in a dense network) by using the right method of stimulation (i.e., offering popular albeit redundant information) during product diffusion online.
The Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS) is a wide-field two-band photometric survey of the northern Galactic Cap using the 90Prime imager on the 2.3 m Bok telescope at Kitt Peak. It is a four-year ...collaboration between the National Astronomical Observatory of China and Steward Observatory, the University of Arizona, serving as one of the three imaging surveys to provide photometric input catalogs for target selection of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) project. BASS will take up to 240 dark/gray nights to cover an area of about 5400 deg2 in the g and r bands. The 5 limiting AB magnitudes for point sources in the two bands, corrected for the Galactic extinction, are 24.0 and 23.4 mag, respectively. BASS, together with other DESI imaging surveys, will provide unique science opportunities that cover a wide range of topics in both Galactic and extragalactic astronomy.
PDF
