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Since the 21st century, the digital economy has developed by leaps and bounds. As a key factor of production in the digital economy era, data plays an important role in China's green transformation. Based on the panel data of 282 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2019, this paper studies the relationship between data elements and green transformation. The results show that data elements can significantly promote green transformation by improving technical efficiency and achieving technological progress. Based on the above conclusions, all regions should speed up the infrastructure construction of digital economy, train digital talents, reduce resource dependence, improve the green, low-carbon and circular development system, formulate a digital economy development strategy considering local economic development levels, improve resource utilization efficiency and labor productivity, and actively promote green transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proximity of rail corridors to livestock production enterprises poses potential risks to welfare and production. The association between these factors and production have been extensively investigated. This review aims to assess the potential impact on the basis of existing data in a livestock production context. Due to expansion of freight rail networks through agricultural land, there is a need to investigate potential impacts of rail (including train and track) noise, vibration and visual disturbance on the physiology and behaviour of the livestock and subsequent production traits. Additionally, the factors influencing the impact on animals were characterised broadly as noise, vibration, and visual and spatial disturbance. This information was used to develop conceptual frameworks around the contribution of rail impact on allostatic load, animal welfare and production. Placing rail noise in the context of other, known, noise impacts showed that proximity to the rail line will determine the impact of noise on the behaviour and physiology of the animal. Thresholds for noise levels should be determined on the basis of known noise thresholds, taking into account the impact of noise on allostatic load. Further research is recommended to investigate the behavioural, physiological and production impacts on livestock from proximity to rail corridors. Current literature suggests that the allostatic load will vary depending on the proximity of the animal to the source of stimulus, the type, size or level of stimuli, habituation and the individual animal variation in response to the stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To observe the dynamic changes in the silage corn production, the study was based on panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2001 to 2021, and used a center of gravity model to analyze the changes in the silage corn production agglomeration areas. On this basis, the dynamic spatial Durbin model was used to analyze the impact of factor input, socio-economic and policy support on regional changes in Chinese silage corn production. The results showed that there was a spatial clustering phenomenon in Chinese silage corn, which meant that the Moran index of Chinese silage corn production from 2001 to 2021 showed an overall development trend of 'decreasing-increasing-decreasing- increasing'. The evolution trajectory of the production center showed that the center of gravity in the Chinese silage corn production area showed an evolution trend of 'first northeast, then northwest, and southwest'. The results of the mechanism of action indicated that the main driving factors for promoting the production of silage corn were grain advantages, financial support, and increased income from migrant workers. The production infrastructure, fertilizer application, and agricultural benefits had a positive impact on the production of silage corn in this province, but the impact on the production of silage corn in neighboring provinces was not significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety and operational costs are of paramount importance in offshore facilities. Efforts to find new ways to reduce operational costs and minimize risks have led to the development of techniques in the field of safety. Routine checks and equipment maintenance are conducted based on either calendar periods or equipment uptime, using conditional monitoring, to prevent malfunctions through preventive maintenance (PM). PM is a key strategy for ensuring the integrity and process safety of safety barriers in offshore facilities. However, due to challenges in modeling dependencies, determining maintenance intervals, and updating belief in operational data, ineffective safety barriers can occur and lead to incidents. Excessive maintenance can also increase the risk of operational mistakes among workers. This study examines safety and operational issues associated with fuel gas leak events caused by various risk factors in Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) engine rooms using the bowtie model. Within this context, safety barriers are defined, encompassing both preventive controls and mitigating measures that can be employed to minimize potential risk factors. Furthermore, the study underscores the importance of maintenance intervals for a specific set of safety barriers, necessitating periodic testing using Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) tools for FPSO units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many grasshopper species produce conspicuous sounds while escaping from approaching predators; however, they occasionally escape without producing sounds. The Chinese grasshopper, Acrida cinerea, often exhibits noisy escape behavior. Therefore, a field experiment was conducted using A. cinerea to identify factors related to the production of sound during escape. This study utilized a predator model with an investigator approaching A. cinerea three times. We examined the relationship between the production of sound during escape and the following factors: ambient temperature and relative humidity as environmental factors; sex, body length, body weight, and limb autotomy as prey traits; and the repeated approach as a predator trait. The relationships between noisy escape and flight initiation distance (i.e., predator-prey distance when the prey initiates the escape), distance fled (i.e., distance the prey covered during the escape), and the mode of locomotion during escape (i.e., flying or jumping) were also examined. Noisy escape was observed only in males that escaped by flying, whereas the females and males that escaped by jumping invariably escaped silently. Among males that flew, noisy escape was related to ambient temperature, limb autotomy, and distance fled. The proportion that produced sound increased in parallel with the ambient temperature and distance fled. This proportion was lower among individuals that had autotomized one of their hind legs. These results indicate that noisy escape behavior is most frequent in healthy male A. cinerea under warm conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drying is one of the key steps in the coffee production process. It is necessary to dry the coffee extracts to prevent microbial growth and to prolong the storage time of coffee. To this date, mechanical drying methods have been developed and employed in industries to shorten the drying time. However, these drying methods could alter the physicochemical properties of coffee and the compounds present in coffee. Therefore, it is crucial to maintain these factors in the coffee production process as they affect the stability, reconstitution, and aroma of the coffee produced. These properties are crucial as they determine the final quality of coffee. This review will focus on the effect of spray-drying, freeze-drying, and spray-freeze–drying on the physicochemical properties of coffee such as morphology, particle size, moisture content, bulk density, and compound retention. Effects on organoleptic properties are also discussed. Possible advancements to these drying methods such as the encapsulation process, the use of a porous frozen sample, and total solid enhancement of the raw material have been highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel chromone alcohol, (S)-3,6,7-trihydroxy-2-(1-(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethyl)-4H-chromen-4-one, was isolated from Portulaca oleracea L. This compound was named oleracone P. The structure was identified by spectroscopic methods, including 1D, 2D NMR, CD, and UHPLC-ESI-Q-TOF/MS. It was found that oleracone P showed significant biological activity, inhibiting the production of inflammatory factor IL-1β at 20 μM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oilfield development involves a complex, dynamic flow process of oil and water, with reservoir characteristics and environmental conditions continually evolving as the field evolves. Particularly when a waterflooding reservoir reaches a stage of ultra-high water cut, prolonged waterflooding intensifies challenges in reservoir development: the exacerbation of reservoir heterogeneity and development behaviors disrupts the initial understanding of the reservoir's liquid production capacity from current development conditions. Thus, it becomes imperative to adjust the productivity prediction methods for oil wells in heterogeneous waterflooding reservoirs. Leveraging the flow simulation of reservoir micro channel networks, and integrating features such as the geometric characteristics of the reservoir percolation field, micro channel characteristics, interlayer differences of mixed layers, degree of plane heterogeneity, production pressure differentials, and fluid properties, a visual sand filling experimental model is established that adheres to specific similarity criteria. Using this sand filling experimental model, we simulate the percolation characteristics of oil–water two-phase flow during the waterflooding process, and uncover the diverse influencing factors and their varying degrees of impact on the oil-phase flow during this waterflooding phase. Qualitative and semi-quantitative percolation simulation experiments are employed to intuitively demonstrate the interlayer interference, degree of plane heterogeneity, and oil–water distribution in heterogeneous reservoirs, which influence the change in oil well productivity during waterflooding. This lays bare the microscopic percolation mechanisms behind the productivity changes in heterogeneous waterflooding reservoirs. The simulation experiment results show that the higher the permeability, the stronger the micro-heterogeneity, and the smaller the overall mobility increase after flooding, the smaller the JLDmax obtained by testing or calculation. At the same permeability, the greater the driving pressure difference, the greater the microscopic sweep coefficient within the pore network, and the greater the mobility increase after flooding, the greater the JLDmax. There is interlayer interference in commingled mining, and the higher the permeability of the high-permeability layer (the greater the interlayer difference), the higher the initial productivity of the commingled well. However, due to the high permeability layer being prone to flooding, resulting in ineffective water circulation, the low-permeability tube is difficult to completely flood, resulting in a small increase in overall mobility, and therefore, JLDmax is small. Water drive preferentially breaks through the high permeability zone on the plane, and the shape of the water drive sweep zone is controlled by the planar permeability gradient, the width of the high permeability zone, and the displacement pressure difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microbial multidrug resistance is becoming a global menace to humanity, and finding alternative approaches to combat these "superbugs" is critical. Targeting quorum sensing (QS), which is essential for bacterial biofilm formation and virulence factors production, represents a viable alternative strategy for combating a variety of diseases. Accordingly, the current work reports potential QS inhibitors (QSIs), which could target the transcriptional regulator protein CviR in the model QS bacterium Chromobacterium violaceum. A set of novel hybrids 4(a–k) were synthesized using the virtual screening results of structurally based hybrids of the 2-indolinone-thiazolidine scaffold on the CviR active pocket residues. The ability of these hybrids to inhibit the QS system was tested against C. violaceum, and two molecules (4h and 4i) revealed promising antivirulence activity. Biofilm formation and motility were both impaired in the treated bacterial cells. Moreover, the molecular docking of these two compounds was comparable with that of chlorolactone (CL), a native inhibitor of the C. violaceum CviR. The global chemical descriptors were calculated for compounds 4h and 4i and found to be more reactive than the native inhibitor, CL. Furthermore, the in silico ADME prediction profiles of these two lead compounds, 4h and 4i, showed good ADME profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security, a vital determinant of overall health and well-being, hinges on the simultaneous achievement of four dimensions: physical availability of food, economic and physical access to food, utilization of nutrients, and stability over time. This paper explores the complex and multi-faceted food security situations in Kenya and Zambia, emphasizing key factors such as agricultural production, government policies, and socio-economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, three-dimensional (3D) reservoir simulation models were developed to perform different simulation runs which aim to get an estimate for the optimal well spacing in such unconventional very low permeability reservoirs. It will take into consideration the limitations, uncertainties, and capabilities of each parameter like matrix permeability, hydraulic fracturing spacing, half-length, height, and conductivity to get an enhanced estimate of the optimal distance between wells. The estimated recovery factor and production forecasting using the reservoir simulation with its capabilities to get computational cases with different combinations will get the optimal well count with optimum economic evaluation. Utilizing 3D reservoir simulation modeling can help create a variety of scenarios with various arrangements of affecting factors, such as well design, pore volume, matrix permeability, and petrophysical parameters. Characterizing hydraulic fracture parameters, such as fracture spacing, fracture half-length, and fracture conductivity, is fraught with uncertainty. Furthermore, drilling, and fracturing procedures are expensive. As a result, it is crucial to quantify these fracture parameters using different data to optimize the fracture design for both single and many wells using economic analysis. A general production trend analysis and comparisons are run for various well spacing with different numbers of wells per 100 acres. The impact of the oil price and the other operational costs required for various instances will be considered in an economic evaluation based on a new well spacing optimization process. The net present value was calculated for several cases by changing the number of wells 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 wells and showed that the optimum well spacing is 300 feet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the format of the Spider-Man animated series (1994-1998), which combines elements of a procedural series and a serial series. The importance of studying both the narrative format and the representation of the world in the series is highlighted. It is concluded that the recurring narrative elements in the series are not only the result of production factors, but also contribute to the construction of the protagonist's social and personal world. The article was written by Arturo Encinas Cantalapiedra and Rodrigo Miguel Morgado Gonçalves from the Francisco de Vitoria University in Spain. [Extracted from the article]

Yield and the course of crop vegetation are the result of the interaction between the level of cultivation technology and the course of meteorological conditions, which are a variable production factor. The aim of the study was to quantify the effect of meteorological conditions on the course of development stages and yield of winter wheat cultivated in two technological variants (A1 - medium-intensive and A2 - intensive). The paper uses data on yield and timing of winter wheat development stages from four Experimental Stations for Variety Testing (Pol. Centralny Ośrodek Badania Odmian Roślin Uprawnych - COBORU) experimental stations from 2007-2016 located within the Upper Vistula and Upper Oder River basins. To determine the dependence of the length of development stages of winter wheat on the values of selected meteorological elements, the linear regression metod, correlation coefficient. It was found that the lengths of the selected developmental stages are positively correlated with air temperature and negatively correlated with the sum and number of days with precipitation in these stages. A 1°C increase in air temperature resulted in a shortening of the shooting - heading and heading - full maturity periods by 2.5 and 2.8 days respectively. An increase of 100 mm of precipitation in the periods sowing - full maturity and heading - full maturity resulted in an increase of these periods by 5 and 10 days. Increasing the number of days with precipitation by 10 days in the sowing - full maturity and heading - vax maturity stages resulted in extending these stages by 4.1 to 4.4 and 7 to 7.5 days for the A1 and A2 cropping technologies, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Lack of awareness about reproductive disorders and their importance in the economic viability of farms in Sudan causes challenges among the majority of small farmholders. The present study was conducted to investigate the risk factors of production and reproduction in Kuku and Saig dairy camps in Khartoum State, Sudan. Materials and methods: In December 2017, a random selection of 100 farms was carried out. The current cross-sectional study was based on a structural questionnaire and direct interviews with the farm owners. Results: Vaccination against contagious diseases was practiced in 80% of the farms in the Kuku and Saig dairy camps in Khartoum State, Sudan. Quarantine of sick animals and newly introduced cows to the herd was practiced only in 23% of the farms. The study found a high prevalence of mastitis (95 farms), the spread of tick infestation (86 farms), and theileriosis (53 farms). There have been 58 farms, where animals showed signs of lameness and 67 farms showed signs of jaundice disease. In the case of selected dairy camps, natural mating was predominant at 98% and bulls from outside the herd accounted for 89% of farms. Besides, 75% of the selected farms suffered from repeat breeders' syndrome. The culling strategy was used in 86% of the dairy farms. There was a low risk of association between the treatment of diseases by the veterinarian, washing labor's hands and udders of cows before and after the milking process, and between the type of mating and repeat breeders. In addition, there was a moderate risk of a correlation between the treatment of the disease by the veterinarian and the contact of other species of animals with the cows in the pen, monitoring of estrus and repeat breeders, abortions, and calving intervals as well. Moreover, a high risk of correlation was obtained between the isolation of animals and the use of vaccination. Conclusion: Control of the disease was unsatisfactory, especially in the Saig camp, with traditional basis management. Hence it is highly recommended to train the farm workers, improve their management, and enhance the animals' health level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous chicken production consists of an array of activities important to smallholder poultry farmers in Africa. One of the many factors influencing their production and threating the local food security is in the area of nutrition, particularly, that related to protein supplementation. The available feed resources to farmers are not enough to sustain the productivity of the chickens. Hence, the chickens’ diets often require nutritional supplementation. There is therefore an urgent need for the validation of locally grown feed ingredients to improve the sustainability of poultry production in sub-Saharan Africa. A dietary ingredient that may be used in the diets of chickens is lucerne (Medicago sativa), which is also known as alfalfa. In South Africa, lucerne is the most cultivated forage legume and approximately 1.3 million metric tonnes of lucerne are produced per year. Lucerne has high nutritional value, as it is a source of protein, amino acids, vitamins, and fatty acids. The potential of lucerne as a feed resource for indigenous chickens should, therefore, be investigated so that strategies to improve the nutrition of such chickens can be developed. The purpose of this review was to highlight lucerne as a potential dietary ingredient for indigenous chickens and discuss its effects on the productivity of broilers, egg-layers, and dual-purpose chickens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper explores the relationship between state-led urbanization and primary industry development using the difference-in-differences (DiD) method. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses the DiD method. Findings: Exploiting county-city mergers during 2010–2018, the key strategy to expand the city outward and promote urbanization on the urban fringe by local government, the authors find that county-city mergers led to the growth of primary industry decline by 4.23%. The result can be explained by the loss of essential production factors, including land and labor used for farming. In addition, the negative effect is more pronounced for counties with more substantial manufacturing. The results indicate that urbanization in China relocates land and labor; however, it does not improve the efficiency of agricultural output. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the understanding of urbanization and rural development from the perspective of the primary industry by showing production factor redistribution. Second, this study complements the literature on local government mergers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a model of endogenous growth with automation to study the impact of industrial robots on growth and labour income. We incorporate human capital accumulation into that framework to examine the role of human capital in sustaining growth without displacing low-skilled labour. While automation replaces low-skilled labour with industrial robots in conducting routine tasks, horizontal innovation creates new varieties in which low-skilled labour has an employment advantage. Labour-augmenting technology takes place to improve productivity of low-skilled labour. As such, those latter types of innovation help counterbalance the adverse effect of automation on low-skilled labour. Human capital, the essential production factor that takes part in every economic activity, including conducting non-routine tasks, accumulates over time through education and training. We show that there exists a long-run equilibrium at which either robots or low-skilled workers are employed, together with human capital, to produce varieties. In the fully endogenous model, final output grows at the rate of human capital accumulation. An improvement in the quality of education and training leads to an acceleration of both automation and variety expansion, but not human capital growth. Our numerical exercise indicates that a permanent increase in automation entails a permanent impact on the range of automated varieties, long-run output level and human capital wage. The shock lowers long-run growth and low-skilled workers' wage and their effective income share. However, it has no effect on the effective income share of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to identify the functional form that best represents the production of rainfed white corn in Mexico. Two variants of the constant elasticity of substitution function and the Cobb-Douglas function were tested using a cross-sectional sample of 10 924 corn farmers obtained from the ‘questionnaire to collect the 2008 baseline: SAGARPA programs’. The analysis was performed at national and regional levels using fourteen factors of production. The results show that the Cobb-Douglas model provides better fits and estimators consistent with theoretical principles. Similarly, it is shown that the use and effect of each production factor on the yield of rainfed white corn is different between the regions of the country, so it was shown that public policy actions should be differentiated based on the needs and particularities of each region. An analysis of the effect of each input at the regional level and a discussion of the possible effects of some support programs for the agricultural sector focused on a particular input are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Seed deterioration resulting from production and storage factors is the major cause of differences in the seed vigour that results in low seedling emergence in both the laboratory and in the field. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of seed invigoration by osmo-conditioning on the radicle emergence and the physiological parameters of naturally deteriorated seed lots of the true seed of shallots. The experiments were arranged in a completely randomised design with a repeated measurement for radicle emergence and a randomised complete block design for seedling vigour in the field with four replicates. The results indicated that the radicle emergence of the invigorated seed with ZnSO4 correlated well with the seed viability and vigour parameters for seed lots stored under uncontrolled conditions. The radicle emergence of invigorated seeds stored under the uncontrolled condition were more predictive and strongly correlated with the seedling vigour parameters in the field, i.e., the field emergence, field emergence rate and mean emergence time with r = 0.968, r = 0.970 and r = -0.947, respectively. Furthermore, the coefficients of determination were significant (P < 0.05) with R² = 0.936 field emergence, R² = 0.941 field emergence rate and R² = 0.898 for the mean emergence time. Seed invigoration with 0.5% ZnSO4 further significantly reduced the time of a single count of RE from 72 hours and 68 hours to 60 hours with field prediction rates ranging from 90-99%. It was concluded that the radicle emergence of TSS can be improved by invigorating the seeds with 0.5% ZnSO4 thereby increasing the germination percentage, vigour index, and germination rate and reducing the mean germination time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new alkaloid, identified as 1-benzyl-2-nitroso-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline-6,7-diol, named oleraisoquinoline (1), and five organic acids and two esters, identified as 5-(hydroxymethyl)furan-2-carboxylic acid (2), 1H-pyrrole-2,5-dicarboxylic acid (3), (7E,10E)-octadeca-7,10-dienoic acid (4), (10E,13E)-octadeca-10,13-dienoic acid (5), (7E,10E)-hexadeca-7,10-dienoic acid (6), methyl tridecanoate (7) and methyl (9E,12E)-octadeca-9,12-dienoate (8), were isolated from Portulaca oleracea L., among which compounds 2 and 4‒7 were isolated for the first time. Moreover, the anti-inflammatory activities of compounds 1‒3 were studied, especially, compound 1 presented good inhibitory effects on the production of inflammatory factors IL-1β and TNF-α. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to compare the effects of public investment and public consumption in the Indian economy. This issue is particularly relevant in the context of the unprecedented increase in public investment in India, which is becoming one of the biggest economies globally. The empirical research is based on a New Keynesian model. The novelty of the applied methodology lies both in the inclusion of public capital as a factor of production, and the partial substitution between public and private consumption in the model. The results show that government gross capital formation in the short run is a slightly more effective method of stimulating the Indian economy than government final consumption expenditure. However, the biggest differences between the effects of public investment and public consumption are evident in the long term. The impact of public consumption on GDP fades out quickly, while public investment raises the level of output for a long period. Government gross capital formation also affects employment and consumption more strongly than government final consumption expenditure does. Thus, the main implication of the study is to recommend increasing public investment in emerging markets, to boost their economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in intangibles has become increasingly important in recent decades. Intangible assets have gradually become the most important sources of competitive advantage. The traditional factors of production (material resources, labor, capital) have gradually diminished in importance. At the same time the importance of intangible assets such as knowledge, information, creativity has increased. Before the organization can grow it has to learn. For most organizations, the ability to create a sustainable future is directly proportional to how well they develop the intellectual capabilities of their employees. Organizations that use their knowledge as a source of competitive advantage are referred to as "knowledge-based organizations". In this paper we analyze the performance of Alphabet Inc. (Google)-a company with a global footprint in the development of the knowledge-based economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has brought to the forefront of academic debates the consequences of pandemics and their appropriate policy responses. Using the PRISMA methodology, we provide a comprehensive review of the economic and historical analysis of the long-term economic consequences of pandemics. Mainstream economists focus on the impact of pandemics on production factors, finding a rich but contrasting set of mechanisms with overall negative or insignificant effects. Historians focus on the institutional impact, finding positive effects of pandemics when they trigger new socioeconomic arrangements. Evolutionary economists can integrate into the economic debate both historical elements and the complex biological characteristics of pandemics. We argue that the evolutionary approach provides new and fertile theoretical foundations to understand the phenomenon and develop effective policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms with high levels of organization capital (OK), a firm-specific production factor provided by key employees, are known to be risky and earn high stock returns. We argue that fragility of OK (i.e., its sensitivity to potential disruptions) is an independently important dimension of this risk. We proxy for fragility by the size of the top management team and show that firms with small teams outperform firms with big teams by 5% annually. The return spread increases in the level of OK and correlates with the outside options of top executives. Further supporting our interpretation, shocks to team composition from unexpected deaths of chief executive officers cause larger value losses in smaller teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Shocking Contrasts: Political Response to Exogenous Supply Shocks" by Ronald L. Rogowski is a book that explores the social and political disruptions that occur when the supply of key factors of production is significantly and unexpectedly altered by exogenous shocks. The author examines historical case studies, such as the Black Death in Europe and the Russian population explosion, to analyze how societies respond to these shocks. The book presents five case studies and discusses variations in responses, such as factor substitution, factor mobility, factor-saving technology, or coercion. While the book neglects the role of institutions and relies on ad hoc explanations, it is still a valuable and comprehensive analysis of societies' responses to shocks. [Extracted from the article]

Chili is a commodity that often triggers inflation at certain times or periods due to sudden price increases. The reason is that the availability of chilies is not sufficient for market demand due to production inefficiencies. This research aims to determine the factors that influence cayenne pepper production and determine the efficiency of using production factors using the Cobb-Douglas production function. The results of the research show that seeds and labour have a significant effect on increasing cayenne pepper farming, while land area, fertilizers, and pesticides do not have a significant effect on production. The use of production factors has not yet reached the maximum level of efficiency. Production factors that are not yet efficient are land area and labour so their utilization needs to be increased. Meanwhile, inefficient production factors are seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides so their use does not need to be increased or reduced.

Many companies, despite there being opportunities for automation in production and logistics (P&L) systems, still rely on human workers due to their cognitive and motor skills. Taking Human Factor (HF) aspects into consideration when making P&L system design and management decisions is therefore important, an ignorance of HF potentially resulting in operator fatigue, discomfort, subsequent injuries and negative consequences for operator performance and the P&L system. A review of the literature shows that the majority of studies that take HF into consideration focus either on designing the workplace or on operation planning activities. There is also still a gap in the literature. Little has been published on P&L systems that incorporate HF and that combine different levels of short-term operational policy decisions (e.g. job allocation) and long-term system characteristic decisions (e.g. layout design). Current state-of-the-art frameworks that support the design and management of P&L systems and that take HF into consideration rarely consider different decision levels. This study proposes a new framework that incorporates HF into P&L systems by combining different levels of decisions to improve performance, quality, and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SO2 emissions have brought serious hidden danger to human health and environmental quality, thus hindering sustainable economic development. The development of high-speed rail indirectly has an important impact on SO2 emissions through its economic effects. Controlling SO2 emissions from the source has increasingly become the focus of many scholars, and it is very important to assess the environmental effects of high-speed rail on SO2 emissions reduction. We use the panel data of 285 cities in China from 2007 to 2017, and adopt the spatial Difference-in-Differences model to study the impact of the opening of high-speed rail on SO2 emissions. We also introduce an improved spatial DID model that distinguishes neighboring treatment groups and neighboring control groups to test the spatial spillover effect of high-speed rail on neighboring heterogeneous samples. We find that the opening of high-speed rail significantly reduces the city's SO2 emissions through the internal accumulation effect of technological innovation and industrial structure optimization and the urban external interaction mechanism of the cross-regional flow of production factors. Moreover, the spatial spillover effect of the opening of high-speed rail on neighboring cities is significantly positive, especially the spatial spillover effect of HSR on SO2 emissions from neighboring cities without HSR. In addition, heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect varies with the different cities' tiers and income levels. These findings are conducive to accurately assessing the environmental effects of high-speed rail, and provide important policy references for achieving sustainable development and reducing SO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agglomeration is an important phenomenon that accompanies with a large concentration of various production factors. Since the agro-processing industry has become a vital bridge connecting the primary and secondary industries, agglomeration and distribution within this industry are arousing wide concern. Based on provincial panel data of China from 2001 to 2020, this study described the dynamic changes of China's agro-processing industry agglomeration using spatial Gini coefficient and average concentration ratio. A theoretical analysis framework was established and a dynamic spatial Durbin model was used to quantitatively explore the spatial effects of production factors on the agro-processing industry agglomeration, results showed that: first, the agglomerations of agro-processing industry and its sub-industries all have exhibited a fluctuating trend of "up-down-up-down", meanwhile the agro-processing industry shifted from the Eastern coastal region to the central and western regions. Second, in the short term, the capital, labor, and technology factors respectively have remarkably promoted the agro-processing industries agglomeration both in local and neighboring areas. Third, in the long term, these three production factors all had a crowding effect on industrial agglomeration. Therefore, it is necessary to continue optimizing the agro-processing industry spatial layout through adjusting production factor inputs to promote high-quality development of the agro-processing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxidation flow reactors used in secondary aerosol research do not immediately respond to changes in the inlet concentration of precursor gases because of their broad transfer functions. This is an issue when measuring the vehicular secondary aerosol formation in transient driving cycles because the secondary aerosol measured at the oxidation flow reactor outlet does not correspond to the rapid changes in the exhaust flow rate. Since the secondary aerosol production factor is determined by multiplying the secondary aerosol mass with the exhaust flow rate, the misalignment between the two leads to incorrect production factors. This study evaluates the extent of the error in production factors due to oxidation flow reactor transfer functions by using synthetic and semi-synthetic exhaust emission data. It was found that the transfer function-related error could be eliminated when only the total production factor of full cycle was measured using constant volume sampling. For shorter segments within a driving cycle, a narrower transfer function led to smaller error. Even with a narrow transfer function, the oxidation flow reactor could report production factors that were more than 10 times higher than the true production factors if the segment duration was too short. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parasites reduce the fitness of their hosts, and different causes of this damage have fundamentally different consequences for the evolution of immune defences. Damage to the host may result from the parasite directly harming its host, often due to the production of virulence factors that manipulate host physiology. Alternatively, the host may be harmed by the activation of its own immune defences, as these can be energetically demanding or cause self-harm. A well-studied model of the cost of infection is Drosophila melanogaster and its common natural enemy, parasitoid wasps. Infected Drosophila larvae rely on humoral and cellular immune mechanisms to form a capsule around the parasitoid egg and kill it. Infection results in a developmental delay and reduced adult body size. To disentangle the effects of virulence factors and immune defences on these costs, we artificially activated anti-parasitoid immune defences in the absence of virulence factors. Despite immune activation triggering extensive differentiation and proliferation of immune cells together with hyperglycaemia, it did not result in a developmental delay or reduced body size. We conclude that the costs of infection do not result from these aspects of the immune response and may instead result from the parasite directly damaging the host. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern society is increasingly attracted with safe, natural, and additive-free food products, that gives preference to bacteriocins produced by General Recognized as Safe bacteria as a food preservative. Bacteriocins have been reported to be effective in extending shelf life of diverse foods such as meats, dairy products, wine, juice, and fruits and vegetables, whereas commercialized bacteriocins remain only nisin, pediocin, and Micocin. It is important that commercialized preservatives undergo an easy-to-handle manufacturing while maintaining high efficacy. Limited application of bacteriocins is most often caused by the absence of legislatives for use, low production, high cost and complicated purification process, reduced efficiency in the complex food matrix and insufficiently defined mechanism of action. Accordingly, this review provides an overview of bacteriocins, in relation to production stimulation, general purification scheme, impact of food matrix on bacteriocin effectiveness, and collaborative technology to improve bacteriocin performances. It is worth to note that purification and performance improvement technology remain the two challenging tasks in promoting bacteriocins as a widely used bio-preservative. Furthermore, this review for the first time divides bacteriocin receptors into specific classes (class I, II, III) and nonspecific class, to provide a basis for an in-depth understanding of the mechanism of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quorum sensing (QS) is one of the most well-studied cell-to-cell communication mechanisms in microorganisms. This intercellular communication process in Saccharomyces cerevisiae began to attract more and more attention for researchers since 2006, and phenylethanol, tryptophol, and tyrosol have been proven to be the main quorum sensing molecules (QSMs) of S. cerevisiae. In this paper, the research history and hotspots of QS in S. cerevisiae are reviewed, in particular, the QS system of S. cerevisiae is introduced from the aspects of regulation mechanism of QSMs synthesis, influencing factors of QSMs production, and response mechanism of QSMs. Finally, the employment of QS in adaptation to stress, fermentation products increasing, and food preservation in S. cerevisiae was reviewed. This review will be useful for investigating the microbial interactions of S. cerevisiae, will be helpful for the fermentation process in which yeast participates, and will provide an important reference for future research on S. cerevisiae QS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the unfolding digital era, personal data has increasingly been conceptualized in a hybrid way, primarily drawing on notions of economics, privacy, and national security. Such a sui generis nature makes personal data something of its own category, opening the door to different conceptualizations by different actors. This article identifies three primary conceptualizations of personal data adopted by three major powers (the US, the EU, and China) with respect to cross-border data transfers—namely, a factor of production, an embodiment of fundamental rights, and an element of national security. Highlighting different attributes of personal data, these conceptualizations differ in what they understand personal data to be, how they address the relationship between individuals, their data, and the governments, as well as what they frame as the most important normative goals for regulatory interventions. Moreover, these conceptualizations are embedded in different philosophies and ideologies, ranging from neo-liberalism to human rights and to sovereignty. These irreducible normative elements render the contestations among such conceptualizations unable to be easily resolved. Further, divergent conceptualizations of personal data mandate and justify different legal paradigms to institutionalize their basic logics and policy choices. Built on different primary conceptualizations of personal data, three major legal paradigms compete to regulate cross-border personal data flows: a trade paradigm, a privacy paradigm, and a security paradigm. Aligned with its major conceptual framing of personal data, a great power often embraces a particular paradigm as its dominant approach to regulate cross-border transfers of personal data. These paradigms strive to provide legal and regulatory solutions (including legal prescriptions, regulatory institutions, and enforcement tools) to address the salient problems identified and framed by different conceptualizations of personal data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The age at first calving (AFC) is one of the most used indicators to evaluate the efficiency of rearing systems in dairy herds. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the association between AFC and different parameters of productive and reproductive efficiency in dairy cows of Holstein and Jersey breeds and their crosses, reared under pasture-based conditions. A retrospective longitudinal study was carried out with information on the performance of 77,311 cows with birth and culling dates between 1990 and 2016 from 654 specialized dairy herds located in mid and high-altitude regions of Costa Rica. Cows were classified into five classes according to their age in months at first calving (≤24, 25–27, 28–30, 31–33, ≥34). A generalized linear mixed model was used to assess the effect of AFC and breed factors on milk production (first lactation, lifetime total, and per day of life), open period (first calving and lifetime total), and herd life. The mean AFC was 29.5, 29.1, and 28.0 months for Holstein, Holstein × Jersey, and Jersey, respectively. The AFC was significantly associated (p < 0.01) with all the variables evaluated. Cows with AFC ≤ 24 presented a higher (p < 0.01) milk production (total lifetime and per day of life), as well as a longer herd life, compared to cows in classes of AFC > 28 m. The reduction in AFC contributes to a significant increase in the production and reproduction efficiency of pasture-based dairy herds. This effect was consistent across the three breed groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more than 25% of national production, the commune of Ouahigouya, in the northern region of Burkina Faso, is the leading potato producer. Thus, this research has set itself the objective of analyzing the know-how of family farmers in the production of potatoes in Yatenga. To achieve this objective, the systemic approach combining quantitative and qualitative data was adopted. It made it possible to analyze potato production systems from the angle of production techniques and factors and the organization of production work. It results from the investigations made that the potato production techniques are mastered by 75.20% of the respondents and the adhesion of the farmers to the cultivation of the potato concerns 89.70% of the farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government often acts as the largest buyer in an economy through government procurement. The allocation of procurement orders however is often distorted. We build a model with heterogeneous firms endogenously seeking government favors in procurement to show that misallocation of procurement orders further leads to misallocation of production factors. Using the enactment of the in 2003 as a natural experiment, we find that tighter regulation of procurement in China lowers the extent of resource misallocation in industries that rely more on government procurement. We further provide firm-level evidence in support of our model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient use of production resources in enterprises is necessary for increasing their competitiveness and the potential for their future development. In today's global world, companies are forced to invest in new technologies that are both more energy-efficient and more environmentally friendly, including in the food industry. The paper focusses on the efficiency of production factors in relation to their economic success. The aim is to find possible variants of the development of the links between capital labour ratio and labour productivity in relation to the development of profitability of returns. Empirical analysis coved 2,526 enterprises in food industry in four examined European countries (Visegrad group -V4) - Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic. The contribution of the paper is the generalization of the links between the indicators of the efficiency of production factors in the form of recommended inequalities that can be used by enterprises for economically successful development.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the computation of the two-loop form factors for diphoton production in the quark annihilation channel. These quantities are relevant for the NNLO QCD corrections to diphoton production at LHC recently presented in [1]. The computation is performed retaining full dependence on the mass of the heavy quark in the loops. The master integrals are evaluated by means of differential equations which are solved exploiting the generalised power series technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulses are an important protein source for vegetarian people across the world and they have a great potential to improve the human health, contribute to global food and nutritional security. Variety of pulses were grown in India with 25% of global production and 27% of global consumption. Though India is the largest pulses producer in the world, it imports around 3.5 million tons annually to meet the ever-increasing requirement. Less adoption of improved Agro techniques, low fertile soils and unpredictable environment conditions are major factor for low production of pulses. As a results of increasing population, the projected pulses requirement will be 32 million tons by 2030 which necessitate annual growth rate of 4.2%. With adoption of suitable agronomic strategies, the productivity has to be enhanced to meet the demand. This review work was done at Department of Agronomy, Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. Collected review and research papers were screened from various data base like TNAU e library, ARCC journals, google scholar, research gate and scopus used to write this paper. This review article documented information gathered on importance of pulses, area, production and productivity of pulses. Nipping is important agronomic practices that removes the apical bud dominance and promotes the lateral growth which turn better maintenance of source and sink relationship and enhance the pulses yield. Influence of nipping on growth and yield of various pluses crops has been discussed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of continuous urbanization and industrialization, rural areas are facing severe problems such as population outflow, a widening urban-rural income gap, insufficient realization of agricultural resource value, and a prominent urban-rural dual structure. These issues have become an important factor restricting in the comprehensive implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in China. This article aims to address the implementation needs of the national rural revitalization strategy and sustainable development strategy. Based on the evolution of the concept of rural sustainable development and the analysis of the development situation, this article discusses the implications and core objectives of rural sustainable development from four aspects: rural production factors, natural elements, social elements, and rural governance. The core question being explored is, ' What kind of rural areas are sustainable? ' Drawing on the measurement, evaluation, and assessment experience and paradigm of the current progress of SDGs at the national and urban levels, this article discusses the basic principles, ideas, and evaluation methods for designing an evaluation index system for rural sustainable development. Focusing on the goals and directions of rural sustainable development and based on the analysis of the experience of localizing SDGs, this article integrates the key indicators determined by national strategies, plans, and policy actions, identifies and selects SDGs assessment indicators closely related to rural sustainable development, and constructs a basic index library for rural sustainable development consisting of 136 indicators. Considering the practical needs for assessing the ca-pacity and level of rural sustainable development, this article further determines an evaluation index system and evaluation techniques for rural sustainable development, consisting of four goal layers, 13 criterion layers, and 34 specific indicators. This is aimed at provid-ing a basis for systematically assessing the progress of rural SDGs and accurately identifying the unsustainability issues in rural develop-ment. The aim is also to provide theoretical, technical, and decision-making support for the integration of rural revitalization strategy and sustainable development strategy and to help rural areas implement the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have a significant impact on facilitating the economic endeavors of countries. Nevertheless, there exists notable disparity among studies concerning the implications of IPRs within developing countries. Therefore, this study examines how stronger IPRs affect economic activity and moderate two important knowledge channels, domestic and foreign innovation activity. Using a sample of 18 Latin American countries from 2007 to 2018, we employed the Driscoll-Kraay robust standard errors, two-stage least squares (2SLS), and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to examine the effects of IPRs. Results confirm an inverted U-shaped relationship between IPRs and economic activity. Hence, the majority of Latin countries continue to vary in the factors of production that suport robust IPRs. Conversely, robust IPRs effectively improve the relation between domestic innovation and economic activity. Similarly, this influence holds true for foreign innovation as well. Based on this evidence, the research suggests implementing an optimal IPR policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article examines trends in changes in relations among three production factors (land, labor, and capital) in agriculture in the selected European Union countries. For the purpose, the assumptions regarding the direction and the mechanism of changes in the relations were verified empirically. It was assumed that the basis of the mechanism is the ratio of changes in factor productivity to changes in the prices (remuneration) of these factors. Trends in production factors were verified empirically using agricultural economic accounts as well as statistics on labor and land inputs in agriculture collected by Eurostat. The trends in changes in the relations among production factors correspond to the capital-intensive stage of growth in agriculture. A strong trend of decline in the labor factor in agriculture was demonstrated along with the reduction of land in the EU agriculture. The changes were accompanied by diversified involvement of the capital factor in agriculture. With a constant increase in the volume of agricultural production, there is a corresponding increase in the productivity of the production factors. The increase is the smallest in the case of the capital factor, because it performs not only a growth function, but also is a substitute for the decline in other factors. An increased productivity of the production factors is related to an increase in their remuneration reflected by an increase in their prices. The deviations from capital-intensive growth in agriculture observed in the empirical study indicate other factors influencing the remuneration of production factors in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metropolitan area serves as a vital catalyst for advancing the new urbanization strategy and remains a focal point of current academic research in China. This paper endeavors to explore the developmental mechanisms of China's metropolitan areas, centering on the circulation of regional production factors within these urban conglomerations. Additionally, it introduces the hypothesis of various spatial governance models for these metropolitan areas. Drawing upon theoretical research, the paper substantiates the hypothesis regarding the development mechanisms and spatial governance model of metropolitan areas through several case studies. Finally, we present the principal research findings concerning the development mechanisms and spatial governance models of China's metropolitan areas, along with issues in need of further examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heilongjiang Province, as the largest production and supply base for high-quality soybeans in China, plays a vital role in optimizing the layout of soybean production and promoting the revitalization of the soybean industry. Soybean yield is used as a key indicator of soybean production. This study integrated soybean yield data from agricultural reclamation systems and local authorities. A variety of statistical analysis methods, such as barycenter analysis, the Mann–Kendall test, the space–time cube, and grey relational analysis, were used to research the spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of soybean production in Heilongjiang Province from 2011 to 2021. This paper revealed the spatiotemporal evolution mechanism and explored the reasons for the differences in the effects of influencing factors. The results were as follows. (1) During the period between 2011 and 2021, the center of gravity of county-level soybean yield in Heilongjiang Province moved towards the northwest over a distance of 16.82 km. The soybean yield in the province experienced a mutation in approximately 2018, from a downward trend to an upward trend. (2) The spatiotemporal hot spots of county-level soybean yield in Heilongjiang Province were concentrated along the line from Hailun to Aihui. The types of hot spots included consecutive hot spots, intensifying hot spots, sporadic hot spots, and new hot spots. (3) The spatiotemporal agglomeration patterns of county-level soybean yield in Heilongjiang Province included only high-high clusters, only low-low clusters, only high-low outliers and multiple types. (4) The temporal changes in soybean yield in various counties of Heilongjiang Province had obvious regional characteristics. (5) Socioeconomic factors had aftereffects on soybean planting decisions. (6) Sunlight hours, the price ratio of local soybeans to local maize, average temperature, the number of soybean patents, the price ratio of imported soybeans to local soybeans, soybean cultivation income, local soybean prices, and the number of newly established soybean enterprises were primary influencing factors. Precipitation and soybean import volume were secondary influencing factors. The income difference between maize and soybeans, crops-hitting disaster area, and maize yield were general influencing factors. This study aims to offer new pathways for alleviating the structural contradiction between soybean supply and demand and to provide a reference for the formulation of national soybean industry policies and food security strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of occupational safety in society lies in the inability to create absolutely safe working conditions for individuals, where the impact of production factors is either eliminated or their levels do not exceed established norms. This article is dedicated to the statistical observation of occupational safety conditions with the aim of analyzing deviations and developing recommendations for optimization, using the example of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The paper explores the significance of systematic monitoring of working conditions and occupational injuries through factor analysis to ensure workplace safety and occupational health. In this process, information is collected on both general factors applicable to all enterprises in the industry, considered in accordance with relevant methodological recommendations (normative method), and specific factors unique to a particular enterprise, identified through the assessment of workplaces and the enterprise as a whole (monographic method). Economic and statistical analysis methods have helped identify deviations from established standards and norms. Based on the listed quantitative methods and supplemented by the expert assessment method using international experience, the authors of the study propose a series of recommendations for optimizing the occupational safety and health statistical monitoring system. This includes the implementation of new data collection and processing methods, updating statistical reporting forms, and introducing proactive approaches to improving working conditions and preventing accidents in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]