Intergenerational disparity in income and health violates the norm of equal opportunity and deserves the attention of researchers and policy makers. To understand changes in intergenerational disparity, we created the intergenerational mobility index (IMI), which can simultaneously measure...

In this article we examine how Chinese local officials impact rural business environment and market development since the late 1990s. If their power is not effectively checked by village elections, local political elite are able to manipulate reform policies in a way to serve their economic and...

Heating represents the largest proportion of energy use as supplied to consumers across all end energy uses. Therefore, there is huge potential for energy savings in the heating sector in order to reduce the emission of CO2. District heating (DH) has been considered an efficient, environmentally...

The fractal and self-similarity properties are revealed in many complex networks. The information dimension is a useful method to describe the fractal and self-similarity properties of the complex networks. In order to show the influence of different parts in the complex networks to the...

This paper presents a simulation model for bi-directional pedestrian behavior. Guide effect and press effect performed by pedestrians with same direction, and contain effect performed by opposite pedestrians were considered as potential effects. Potential field was defined to simulate the...

This paper examines, for the first time, the trade and FDI impacts of a North American Security Perimeter that would liberalize the post 9/11 security measures at the Canada-US border. First, the study estimates econometrically the impact of post 9/11 security measures on bilateral (US-Canada)...

Serious char formation caused by the repolymerization of unsaturated decomposition products is a considerable challenge for current lignin utilization. Here, a novel and efficient base-catalyzed depolymerization and in situ hydrogenolysis process for lignin decomposition and char elimination was...

Cellulosic ethanol made from cellulosic biomass is an alternative to petroleum-based transportation fuel. The cost-effectiveness of cellulosic ethanol manufacturing has been hindered by several technical barriers. One such barrier is that low density of biomass causes high costs of biomass...

Poyang Lake, directly connected with the Yangtze River, is one of the most frequently flooded areas in China. The frequent large floods have caused huge damages to the environment and economy and threatened the life of approximately 10 million people. Understanding the changing characteristics...