The shortest-residual family of conjugate gradient methods was first proposed by Hestenes and was studied by Pytlak, and Dai and Yuan. Recently, a no-line-search scheme in conjugate gradient methods was given by Sun and Zhang, and Chen and Sun. In this paper, we show the global convergence of...

The impact of microcredit on women's empowerment remains controversial, as documented in the microfinance literature. While some studies claim that microcredit helps women increase their income earning abilities, leading to greater power to overcome cultural asymmetries, others contend that...

Industrialization of bio-energy relies on the supply of resources on a large scale. The theoretical biomass resources could reach 2.61–3.51billiontce (tons of coal equivalent)/a in China, while the available feedstock is about 440–640milliontce/a, however, among this only 1.5–2.5% has been...

Due to uncertainties regarding quality in terms of both product and seller, information asymmetry is a significant problem for consumers in the online marketplace. Online sellers are keen to improve their sales by highlighting quality signals such as price, reputation, and e-WOM. In traditional...

Jensen and Meckling (1976) claim that by facilitating monitoring of firms’ activities, security analysis by financial analysts can reduce agency costs between management and external capital providers, and thereby increase shareholder value. Additionally, boards are required to design...