Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and investment-cash flow sensitivity, which is a surrogate for financing constraints. Research design, data, and methodology – Taking China’s A-share listed companies between 2009 and 2016 as a sample, this paper empirically tests the relationship between CSRD and investment-cash flow sensitivity by Panel VAR model. By introducing the orthogonal impulse response function, this paper distinguishes the fundamental factors and financial ones that affect corporate investment behavior. Results – Findings indicate that: (1) investment-cash flow sensitivity of firms with low level of CSRD is significantly lower than that of firms with high level of CSRD; (2) the orthogonal impulse response of corporate investment to cash flow in firms with high level of CSRD is significantly different from zero, but it is not significant in firms with low level of CSRD; (3) for firms with low level of CSRD, 0.7% of corporate investment volatility can be explained by the change in cash flow, which is lower than that of firms with high level of CSRD (1.1%). Conclusions - Corporations disclosing more and higher quality CSRD are often those faced with financing constraints. Voluntary disclosure can help them alleviate information asymmetry and financing constraints.

Purpose - This paper discussed and illustrated the most efficient method to calculate the distribution centers for a national project in China. Through demonstration of implementing the GIS, spatial analysis, and location calculation model, this paper mainly dealt with the construction distribution problem and inconvenient supply of materials problems. Research design, data, and methodology – In this paper, the research design structure based on three steps: implementing the Geographic Information System to locate the points coordination data, calculating the distribution centers of the project, and optimizing the most efficient and effective coordination. The data of the calculation is from an actual project. The methodology of this paper is summarizing the spatial analysis capabilities and digital graphic data calculation to locate logistics distribution centers, and since the illustration of the calculation is useful for locating the coordination, the result of this paper has certain reference values for the project construction. Results - This paper illustrates the steel and cement resource of every distribution point to confirm the most efficient distribution center location coordination. Conclusions - The integrated logistical management models are used to ensure the results for the purposes of our calculation. The result of the calculation is also a useful example for future Chinese national projects.

Purpose - The effect of regional culture has been acknowledged for decades. However, very little research takes it as an important issue in the medical tourism service decision process. This study focuses on regional culture to identify customers’ preference for medical tourism in the international environment. It is proposed that regional culture may work as an critical moderator in the international medical tourism destination choice process. Especially, the destination attributes may vary according to regional culture. Research design, data, and methodology - By the questionnaire survey, the sample is collected from 2,041 potential Chinese residents in different regions of China. Regression analysis is constructed to test the effect of regional culture on Chinese customers’ destination preference. Results - Results imply that regional culture plays a critical moderating role in the destination choice process. Results also indicate that destination attributes including medicine and travel characteristics are the important predictors of destination preference. Conclusions - This study provides the fundamental base to use regional culture as a descriptive variable for segmentation when establishing an effective marketing strategy. Furthermore, this research suggests that different strategies relied on destination attributes should be made to attract more Chinese customers for the development of medical tourism industry.

Purpose - With the rapid economic development, great changes have happened in the Chinese beer market. The scale of imported beer is increasing. However, the sales of native Chinese beer decrease in recent years. It is because more Chinese customers prefer beer with unique attributes than those with lower prices. In order to take an advantage in this market, practitioners should develop new products to satisfy Chinese customers. Scholars have also focused on beer characteristics to estimate consumers’ behavior for improving the development of beer industry. However, most studies are theoretically centered on marketing strategy management or general understanding of the market. It is not enough for us to explain customers’ consumption patterns. Some empirical research did attempt to find out beer attributes that may influence their choice behavior. However, they failed to verify what can increase customers’ utility through a new product. More importantly, few evidences can be found in the literature. Therefore this study explores the major characteristics of imported beer which may associate with customers’ preferences. Research design, data, and methodology - With the results of literature review and focus group interview, we found out four main imported beer attributes and the levels of each factor. A pre-test is constructed to check the problems in the questionnaire protocol. With the results of pre-test, the revised questionnaire is processed among customers who have purchased and had imported beer in China regions such as Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong and so on. The choice-based conjoint analysis is applied to analyze the useful data of 205. Results - Results indicate that choice-based conjoint analysis is the effective method to estimate customers’ choice behavior. Results also indicate that country of origin, price, taste, and package affect customers’ preference and the importances of imported beer attributes are significantly different. Conclusions - Country of origin, price, taste, and package are important for customers to make an imported beer choice decision. Marketers should consider these determinants and their importance to develop new products. Moreover, choice-based conjoint analysis should be the useful method for practitioners to develop a new product of imported beer for sustainable business in the competitive industry.

8종의 잿빛곰팡이병 균주를 순무잎에 접종하여 병반의 크기를 확인한 결과 가장 강한 감염력을 보인 ‘포도-01’ 균주와 병반의 확산이 가장 적은 ‘오랜지’를 선발하였다. 순무잎이 저항성을 보인 ‘오랜지’균주를 처리한 잎이 감수성을 보인 ‘포도-01’균주를 처리한 잎보다 indole-3-ylmethyl glucosinolate (I3M-GLS) 함량이 무처리 보다 2.5배 이상 높았으나 ‘포도-01’ 균주를 처리한 잎에서는 무처리 보다 낮은 함량을 보였다. 균주의 메탄올 추출액과 물추출물을 식물배양세포에 처리한 결과 ‘오랜지’균 주의 추출물이 ‘포도-01’ 균주의 추출물보다 배양세포의 생장을 더 강하게 억제 한 것으로 나타났는데 ‘오랜지’ 균주의 메타놀 및 물 추출물 처리에서 배양세포의 활력은 각각 22.7% 및 16.5% 감소시키는 것으로 나타났다. 한편 ‘오랜지’균주 추출물을 처리 한 배양세포에서 I3M-GLS의 생합성이 ‘포도-01’ 균주 추출물 보다 현저히 높은 것으로 나타났다. 본 결과로 보아 식물체내에 생합성되는 I3M-GLS 함량은 잿빛곰팡이균에 대한 식물세포의 저항성과 밀접한 관계가 있는 것으로 판단된다.

Despite the remarkable continual growth of the world cruise industry, studies have yet to be attempted on many revenue management problems in cruise operations. This paper suggests two schemes that can be easily applied to cruise revenue management: optimal dual pricing and passenger safety level. In optimal dual pricing, a pair of higher and lower prices is applied to cabin reservation through market segmentation. This scheme can be executed with a linear price-response function for the current unreserved cabins. A cruise line could benefit from this scheme to maximize reservation revenue while attaining full occupancy. The dual pricing scheme is also devised to produce only integer demands to suit real management practices. The life boat capacity is an additional service capacity unique to the cruise industry, catering to passengers’ safety. The concept of passenger safety level is defined and computed for any passenger life boat capacity of a cruise ship. It can be used to evaluate the passenger safety of a cruise ship in operation, as well as to determine the number of life boat seats required for a new cruise ship. Hypothetical examples are used to illustrate the operation of these two schemes.

In the past half century, production of major food crops in the world has kept pace with the population increase. The yields of major cereals such as maize, rice and wheat have been more than doubled in most parts of the world and even tripled in certain countries. However, food production is facing even greater challenges in the next half century because of high demands in both quantity and quality, and ever increasing pressures on resources and environments. At the same time, advances in genomics, biotechnology and genetic studies have brought about unprecedented opportunities for crop genetic improvement. Rice is a major food crop feeding approximately half of the world’s population, and has provided a model system for cereal research. In my presentation, I will describe the demands for increased production for future needs, address the main issues that we have encountered as challenges, present current progress in rice functional genomics research, and provide prospect on how the advance in research can be translated into technologies and activities for rice genetic improvement.

In order to provide a scientific foundation for herb application in landscape, the photographs were taken from the herb landscape in urban green space and sightseeing garden. The questionnaire-based survey was also applied to analyze the cognitive situation of herb. Most investigators love herb, but have a low level of herb; Interviewees’ consideration of herb function lie in ornamental, healthcare and medical treatment; The bulk of the visitors think herb landscape is insufficient; Investigators’ preferences for herb application forms are landscape edging and combining with stone. We also probe into the optimum allocation form combining herb with landscape elements. When we combine herb with landscape water or landscape architecture, artistic conception and reasonable plant allocation should be considered; When we combine herb with landscape path or garden ornament, reasonable plant disposition and appearance and practical collocation should be thought over; When we combine herb with flower-border, richly colored landscape and reasonable plant allocation should be deliberated on.

We investigated genetic diversity among and within the populations of cultivated ginseng (Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer ) using SRAP profiles. A total of 24 ginseng plants were sampled from the three populations (two from China, one from Korea). Since all these populations are previously shown closely related to each other assister groups, we used Panax quinquefolium L. and wild ginseng as a reference species, which is not "within the sister group". All individuals from the three populations were screened with a total of 36 primer pairs with 26 primers generated from 328 SRAP bands of DNA gels. The mean gene diversity (HE) was estimated to be 0.057 within populations (range 0.032-0.067), and 0.086 at the species level. The genetic differentiation (Gst=0.31) indicates that genetic variation apportioned 30% among populations and 70% within populations. Generally, the result of this study indicates that ginseng contains high molecular variation in its populations.

China is an agricultural country with a large proportion of rural population. With the transition from a planned to a market-oriented rural economy, the accomplishments in agriculture were remarkable in the country in last decades. It is the fact that land holdings are very small in China and a large number of labours are shifting from rural areas to the urban areas. With the goals to meet the nation's food needs and poverty reduction for the huge population, China is facing challenges in the way of raising the income of rural people and sustainable development in agriculture. Farmers currently gain benefits from the new policies on rural reform, which has played critical role in the success of sustained rural development. The strategies for harmonizing the development between rural and urban areas being implemented will help to generate more developmental opportunities for rural communities. The researches on science and technology in agriculture have progressed dramatically in China. The hybrid rice is a remarkable achievement by Chinese scientists, which not only contributes to the food security in China, but also the whole world. The relevant organizations play a significant role in improving sciences and technologies among farmers by bringing advanced knowledge to the countryside and to every rural household. Currently, many programmes are going on for promoting economic construction in rural areas. Plant genetic resources are critical for meeting the goals of agricultural development in China. In last many years, Chinese government gave high priority to conservation and use of plant genetic resources. The national plant genetic resources management system is very complicated and usually operated by several relevant ministries, the State Forestry Administration for forest genetic resources programme, the Ministry of Health and the State Administration of Traditional Medicine for the medicinal plant genetic resources programme, and the Ministry of Agriculture for the crop genetic resources programme. China has set up the national ex situ conservation system composed of long-term genebank, mid-term genebank and field genebank. About 390 thousand accessions have been stored in these genebanks. Characterization and evaluation were carried out for most of agronomic characters. Useful materials were identified and distributed to breeders and other users. Documentation system on crop genetic resources was well developed. For future, the efforts will be made to promote the safeguard of the existing collections, including wild relatives of crops. The use of crop genetic resources in improvement programmes should be the ultimate objective of all undertaking activities in the country. The researches on plant genetic resources will be advanced through the activities on analyzing the genetic diversity, identifying genepools, mining useful genes, and promoting the access to genetic materials.

황철석의 산화에 의한 토양 및 지표수의 산성화는 심각한 환경문제를 야기하여 왔다. 특이산 성토의 이차광물과 화학적 특징은 풍화과정을 반영하고 있다. 택지 및 골프장 조성과정에서 지표에 노출된 11.8% 황철석을 함유한 열수변질 안산암의 풍화에 따른 광물학적 변화를 X-선 회절, 전자현미경 (SEM, TEM), 배수의 화학분석을 통하여 연구하였다 수용성 염, ferrihydrite, jarosite가 풍화과정의 이차 광물로서 관찰되었다. 전자현미경하에서, ferrihydrite는 미세입자들의 입단, jarosite는 판상, 수용성 염은 기둥모양을 나타내었다. 안산암 내에 존재하는 황철석은 입자의 크기가 증가할수록 정육면체 형태/육각기둥 형태의 비가 증가하였다. 배수는 강산성 (pH 3.5) 이었으며 ferrihydrite, jarosite와 화학적 평형을 이루고 있었다.