From 1962 to 2013, the People's Republic of China's (PRC's) agricultural employment share declined from 82% to 31%. The transfer of workers out of low-productivity agriculture is a fundamental pillar of the PRC's aspirations to progress and eventually become a high-income economy. We hypothesize...

Biofuel helps to overcome energy shortages, and to improve the environment, as well as to increase job opportunity. So, on the one hand, biofuel solves the above mentioned problems; on the other hand, it brings new challenges to the fields of energy, environment and economy. The development of...

The ISSP Environment 2010 data (random sample including more than 18,000 respondents) were used to demonstrate differences in opinions concerning sustainable development between the residents of Eastern and Western European countries. If it is assumed that the concept of sustainable development...

The purpose of sustainable development is to minimize the likelihood of dynamic natural and/or man-made systems to exceed tipping points, when exposed to disturbances. In effect, the systems are protected from losing identity and integrity. The authors of this paper suggest accepting resilience...

Crop insurance in the Sahel enables farmers to take a higher risk by getting more fertilizers. Crop insurance in the Sahel stimulates the production of insured farmers compared with non-insured farmers. However, despite the apparent differences in fertilizers and production, the two groups get...

This study uses insights from the management literature to explain why countries with high levels of interpersonal trust have higher levels of economic development. The concept of absorptive capacity is used to show that the relationship between a country's technological capabilities and level...

A process scheme combining the most suitable ionic liquid pretreatment, followed by solid acid and enzymatic saccharification was used to maximize the reducing sugars recovery from sago waste. Three types of ionic liquids, i.e. 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([BMIM]Cl),...

Cellulase serves vast applications in the industries of biofuel, pulp and paper, detergent and textile. With the presence of its three components i.e. endoglucanase, exoglucanase and β-glucosidase, the enzyme can effectively depolymerize the cellulose chains in lignocellulosic substrate to...

This study reports a user-friendly technique in the preparation of fungal inoculum intended for solid-state fermentation (SSF) – Cellophane Film Culture (CFC) technique. This technique uses cellophane film-overlaid agar plates to facilitate the separation of fungal biomass. The findings showed...

The performance of alkalis (NaOH and Ca(OH)2) and acids (H2SO4, HCl, H3PO4, CH3COOH, and HNO3) in the pretreatment of rice husk was screened, and a suitable reagent was assessed for subsequent optimisation using response surface methodology. From the assessment, HCl that hydrolysed rice husk...