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With the rapid increase of the number of agricultural cooperatives in China, the problem of fake cooperatives has become more and more serious. The core problem is that some members do not use cooperative services, and elite capture phenomenon appears in the organization. Since services are one of the most important public goods attributes of cooperatives, it is important to ensure that more members use them. What are the factors that affect members' utilization level of cooperative services? Existing research does not provide a comprehensive answer. Based on the micro-survey data of 74 citrus cooperatives and 524 citrus members in China, the article found out that 50.9% of the members did not use any services provided by cooperatives, and only 20.04% of the members used cooperatives' sales services. So, this study empirically analyzes the factors that influence the use of cooperatives' services by puns model. The results show that quality of service, service convenience and mountain terrain promote the use of cooperative sales services for members. In addition, cooperative knowledge, planting area, surplus distribution, quality of service, and service convenience significantly increased the utilization leve of cooperative sales services by members. Finally, the study puts forward some suggestions, such as propagating cooperative sales service, improving the quality of cooperative sales service, perfecting cooperative distribution system., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Overseeded perennial ryegrass ( Lolium perenne L.) turf on dormant bermudagrass ( Cynodon dactylon Pers. L) in transitional climatic zones (TCZ) experience a severe reduction in its growth due to cold stress. Primary plant nutrients play an important role in the cold stress tolerance of plants. To better understand the cold stress tolerance of overseeded perennial ryegrass under TCZ, a three-factor and five-level central composite rotatable design (CCRD) with a regression model was used to study the interactive effects of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) fertilization on lipid peroxidation, electrolyte leakage, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, and their detoxification by the photosynthetic pigments, enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants. The study demonstrated substantial effects of N, P, and K fertilization on ROS production and their detoxification through enzymatic and non-enzymatic pathways in overseeded perennial ryegrass under cold stress. Our results demonstrated that the cold stress significantly enhanced malondialdehyde, electrolyte leakage, and hydrogen peroxide contents, while simultaneously decreasing ROS-scavenging enzymes, antioxidants, and photosynthetic pigments in overseeded perennial ryegrass. However, N, P, and K application mitigated cold stress-provoked adversities by enhancing soluble protein, superoxide dismutase, peroxide dismutase, catalase, and proline contents as compared to the control conditions. Moreover, N, P, and, K application enhanced chlorophyll a , chlorophyll b , total chlorophyll, and carotenoids in overseeded perennial ryegrass under cold stress as compared to the control treatments. Collectively, this 2-years study indicated that N, P, and K fertilization mitigated cold stress by activating enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants defense systems, thereby concluding that efficient nutrient management is the key to enhanced cold stress tolerance of overseeded perennial ryegrass in a transitional climate. These findings revealed that turfgrass management will not only rely on breeding new varieties but also on the development of nutrient management strategies for coping cold stress., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Ihtisham, Hasanuzzaman, El-Sappah, Zaman, Khan, Raza, Sarraf, Khan, Abbas, Hassan, Li, Zhao and Zhao.)

The world faces a once-in-a-century transformation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, adversely affecting farmers' employment, production practices, and livelihood resilience. Meanwhile, climate change (CC) is a crucial issue limiting agricultural production worldwide. Farmers' lives, severely affected by extreme weather conditions, are resulting in the reduced production of major economic crops. The CC has drastically influenced the major agricultural sectors of Pakistan, leading to a significant decline in farmers' living standards and the overall economy. Climate-smart and eco-friendly agricultural practices can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and ameliorate agricultural productivity under extreme environmental conditions. This paper highlights farmers' autonomous CC adaptation strategies and their influence on cash crop (maize for this study) yield under prevailing circumstances. The current study used a simultaneous equation model to examine the different adaptation impacts on adapters and non-adapters. The survey results of 498 maize farmers in rural Pakistan revealed that growers were aware of the recent CC and had taken adequate adaptive measures to acclimatize to CC. Farmers' arable land area, awareness level, and information accessibility to CC are the most crucial factors that impart a significant role in their adaptation judgments. However, most growers have inadequate adaptation strategies, including improved irrigation and the utilization of extensive fertilizers and pesticides. Using a simultaneous equation model of endogenous switching regression, the study found that farmers not adapted to CC were negatively affecting maize productivity. Therefore, this study suggests that policymakers pay attention to the countermeasures farmers have not taken to mitigate the impact of CC. In addition, policymakers should deliver appropriate adaptation strategies to assist growers in coping with climate-related natural hazards and ensure farmers' livelihood security, rural revitalization, and sustainable agricultural development.

Agricultural cooperatives are professional organizations that increase farmers' incomes through market failure corrections, livelihood resilience, and sustainable rural development. The main purpose of this paper was to evaluate the policy effects of the construction of demonstration cooperatives for farmers in China. The authors of this paper used the propensity score matching (PSM) method to evaluate the policy effect of the construction of demonstration cooperatives based on questionnaire survey data on 509 farmer cooperatives in 10 counties in Sichuan Province of China. On this basis, the inverse probability weighting-regression adjustment (IPWRA) method was used as a robustness test. The authors of this study were the first to systematically and comprehensively assess the policy effects of demonstration cooperatives while considering selectivity effects. The empirical results show that the Chinese government's construction of demonstration cooperatives has significant policy effects, especially regarding policy support in improving the economic strength, service capacity, product quality, and social response of demonstration cooperatives. However, the policy effect of improving the democratic management of cooperatives is not significant. It is recommended that the government continue to strengthen policy support in improving the economic strength, service capacity, product quality, and social response of demonstration cooperatives. Simultaneously, more effective measures should be taken to promote the democratic management of model cooperatives.

This research aims to explore the usage of social networking sites in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve the objective, this study develops and validates a scale to measure the usage of social networking sites. Data was collected via a google form link through social networking sites in India viz. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram and WhatsApp. A total of 204 responses were found accurate and useable for the study. The population of the study includes people residing in India. Data was analyzed applying SPSS 20 and AMOS 22.0. To design and validate the scale, both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were used in conjunction with each other. The EFA results indicate a six-factor structure, explaining 73.43% of the cumulative variance, with all the items loading above 0.70. Thus, all the 20 items of six constructs meet this threshold limit. Therefore, this 20-items questionnaire emerges as an effective tool for assessing social networking usage. This study developed and validated the scale of usage of social networking sites to measure the six constructs informativeness, education, entertainment, shopping, socialization and social cause. Social media developers and analysts can use this scale from a technological standpoint to redesign and refine their websites for a better user interface. Since the research is primarily focused on India, extrapolating the results to other countries is difficult., Competing Interests: There is no conflict of interest to report., (© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Shading is one of the most chronic restrains which can lead to the lodging of intercropped plants. In order to increase the soybean stem lodging resistance, a 2-year field trial was conducted to evaluate the impact of different ratios and concentrations of NH 4 + /NO 3 - on the morpho-physiological and biochemical characteristics of soybean stem under shade conditions. The total 5 ratios of NH 4 + /NO 3 - were applied as follows: T0 = 0/0 (control), T1 = 0/100 (higher ratio), T2 = 25/75 (optimum), T3 = 50/50 (optimum), and T4 = 75/25 (higher ratio) as a nitrogen source. Our findings displayed that the T2 (25/75) and T3 (50/50) treatments alleviated the shading stress by improving the photosynthetic activity, biomass accumulation, carbohydrates contents, and lignin related enzymes (POD, CAD, and 4Cl) which led to improvement in stem lodging resistance. The correlation analysis ( p ≤ 0.05, p ≤ 0.01) revealed the strong relationship between lodging resistance index and stem diameter, stem strength, lignin content, photosynthesis, and lignin related enzymes (POD, CAD, and 4CL) evidencing the strong contribution of lignin and its related enzymes in the improvement of lodging resistance of soybean stem under shade conditions. Collectively, we concluded that optimum NH 4 + /NO 3 - ratios (T2 and T3) can boost up the lodging resistance of soybean stem under shade stress., Competing Interests: BC was employed by Chengdu Da Mei Seeds Co., Ltd. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Raza, Yin, Asghar, Ihtisham, Shafiq, Cheng, Ghafoor, Javed, Iqbal, Khan, Liu and Yang.)

Honeybee pollination plays a significant role in sustaining the balance and biodiversity of sustainable rural development, agricultural production, and environments. However, little research has been carried out on the agricultural and economic benefits of pollination, especially for small farmers. This study investigated the adoption of honeybee pollination and its impact on farmers' economic value using primary data from 186 kiwifruit farmers in three major producing districts, such as Pujiang, Cangxi, and Dujiangyan, in the Sichuan province of China. This study was conducted in two different steps: first, we used a bivariate probit model to estimate factors influencing honeybee pollination and artificial pollination adoption; second, we further used the Dynamic Research Assessment Management (DREAM) approach to analyze the influence of the adopted honeybee pollination economic impact. The results showed that: (1) growers with higher social capital, proxied by political affiliation, are more aware of quality-oriented products, and older growers tend to choose less labor-intensive pollination technology; (2) with the increase in labor costs, more kiwifruit growers would choose honeybee pollination, and more educated growers, measured by the number of training certificates, are more likely to adopt honeybee pollination; (3) the lack of awareness and access to commercial pollinating swarms hinders the adoption of honeybee pollination; (4) in addition to the economic benefit to producers, honey pollination also brings an even larger consumer surplus. This study suggests some policy recommendations for promoting bee pollination in China: raising farmers' awareness and understanding of bee pollination through training, promoting supply and demand in the pollination market, and optimizing the external environment through product standardization and certification.

Coordination polymers are promising cathode materials for rechargeable alkaline batteries. Therefore, the precise modulation of these cathodes by chemical structure and in-depth structure transform study is necessary. Here, two model coordination polymer battery cathodes were designed to demonstrate the dynamic structure-performance relationship. We studied the electrochemical performance of two kinds of nickel-based coordination polymer, comprising a planar 2D cyanide-bridged network and a 3D cyanide-bridged network pillared by pyrazine molecules. The 2D coordination polymer showed serious voltage degradation with poor rate capability, whereas the 3D coordination polymer exhibited stable voltage output coupled with high rate at various current densities. The investigation revealed the underlining relationship of plateau voltage degradation and hydrolysis process of electrodes. It was revealed that the pyrazine pillar molecules in the 3D coordination polymer could suppress the hydrolysis and lead to the in situ formation of partially hydrolyzed structure with excellent electrochemical kinetics; this exhibited obvious smaller peak separation (27 mV compared with 149 mV) and hence an almost twofold increase in capacity retention (31.9 to 50.0 %) and energy density retention (18.2 to 35.9 %) at 10 A g -1 ., (© 2021 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Introduction: Rectal cancer continues to be devastating malignancy worldwide. Sphincter preservation is the need of the hour. Distal anastomosis is more prone to leaks. Proximal diversion in form of ileostomy may be used to protect distal anastomosis., Aim: To compare two groups of low anterior resection with and without diversion ileostomy in rectal cancer patients., Material and Methods: A prospective, hospital based study of 78 rectal carcinoma patients were taken for the study. Inclusion criteria was operable rectal cancer 4-12 cm from anal verge. Patients were randomized into two groups. Group - A (34 patient) patients with low anterior resection with ileostomy (LAR with ileostomy); Group - B (44 patients) patients with low anterior resection without ileostomy (LAR without ileostomy). Quality of life was assessed by scoring done by self designed method. A total score of 0-20 given for various parameters., Results: Skin excoriation was the commonest complication. Stomal retraction and stomal obstruction was seen in 1 patient each (3%). Hypokalemia was the commonest electrolyte imbalance present in ileostomy group. Anastomotic leak was present in 6% of Group A and 11% of Group B patients. Mean time of closure of ileostomy was 16 ± 4.3 weeks., Conclusion: LAR with ileostomy has certain advantages over LAR without ileostomy in terms of anastomotic leak, postoperative ileus, resumption of diet, wound infection, small bowel obstruction and in terms mortality and recurrence. However stoma related complications were main disadvantage in LAR with ileostomy., (Copyright © 2014 Surgical Associates Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)