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Domain concepts acquisition is a key step of knowledge acquisition. In this paper we propose a new method for computing the relationship of domain concepts of China's vegetable supply chain using WordNet and Locally Linear Embedding (LLE) Arithmetic. WordNet is used to construct the high dimension description of the domain concepts and LLE is used to compute the relationship of concepts in low dimension space. The concepts description in the high dimension is in accord with human cognition and the low dimension relationship can reflect the degree of correlation of domain concepts clearly. A computer can deal with domain concepts directly after dimensional transformation. The experiment proves the efficiency of this method. The method can be expanded to deal with other examples of domain concepts acquisition.

Because the traditional FTP search engines usually adopt centralised spiders to collect data, insufficient temporal effectiveness is their major demerit. For solving this problem, this paper presents an efficient hierarchical FTP search engine model that deploys the spider agent on the node host of some specific network for collecting file data of FTP servers. The key technologies involve a regional responsibility mechanism, a search mechanism based on the asynchronous retrieval technology and a PAT Tree storage mechanism. The simulation shows that the responding time is less than that of the traditional system and the temporal effectiveness arrives at the application level. In addition, the test results show that the architecture has a good scalability.

This study examines perceptions and attitudes towards adoption of mobile commerce from an innovation adoption perspective. Six variables of a theoretical framework developed based on the TAM model are tested using a cross‐sectional survey in China's rural areas. The findings indicate that the six variables, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, personal innovativeness, compatibility, perceived reliability, cost, all significantly affect user attitude to adoption of m‐commerce. The study helps providers to gain valuable insights into the key factors influencing uptake and to offer more effective, relevant and successful m‐commerce products.

Resolving inventory and location problems is the most important and fundamental tactical decision in the initial stages of developing a distribution network design. This is especially true for a logistics system dealing with perishable food. To minimise both the total inventory transportation cost of fresh agri‐products and also waste in the supply chain, the evolution of the food supply chain structure is analysed and an inventory location allocation model is presented describing the real‐life problem. The key issues are to describe food demand distribution and to determine the balance of transportation and inventory cost. To improve the quality of the solution, a local search is embedded in the two‐grade delayed particle swarm optimisation. Experimental results demonstrate the algorithm can effectively resolve conflict between different costs and improve development decisions regarding Beijing's perishable food distribution centres.

E‐learning, as an innovative and alternative way of distance learning, provides a strong challenge to traditional learning with its unique advantage. This paper, on the diffusion of e‐learning adoption in China, investigates people's perceptions and attitudes toward adopting e‐learning, and explores the factors affecting the e‐learning adoption behaviour from an innovation adoption perspective. Based on the model of Rogers’ innovation adoption theory, every factor of perceived innovative attributes influencing the individual adoption behaviour, namely perceived relative advantage, perceived compatibility, perceived trialability, and perceived observability, will be analysed to test the relationship between the perceived innovative attributes and adoption intention of e‐learning. The result shows that the four perceived innovative attributes do have certain influences on people's adoption of e‐learning.

The paper analyses the impacts of alteration of agricultural domestic supports on state welfare adopting partial equilibrium theory. In order to find out the appropriate levels of agricultural domestic supports in China, a nonlinear programming approach was utilised, based on constraints of the annual financial budget and the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, to build an optimisation model for levels of China agricultural domestic support was built to aim at the maximum welfare. The result shows that the maximum levels of China “amber box” support are 50 billion dollars from welfare maximisation in the international agricultural product trade. The amber box support is about 174 billion RMB yuan according to the de minimis levels of China with 8.5%. The national annual budgetary expenditure for agriculture was 175.445 billion RMB yuan approximately in 2003, the amber box support of which was only 55.143 billion RMB yuan.