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Academic performance is taken as the process of carrying out academic activities and discourses by faculty members to enhance their academic activities and discourses. The purpose of this research was to identify the faculty member's level of academic performance in higher educational institutions. To conduct this research, a quantitative methodology was employed. The tools to measure the academic performance of faculty members were developed using Delphi method. The data were collected with 445 sampled respondents from four universities. The factor analysis was used to explore the dimensions of academic performance. The factor analysis identified four factors of academic performance i.e., research and publication, innovation, interactive learning, and capacity building. To analyze the level of academic performance, mean and the standard deviation was used. It was found that individual differences and the organizational environment, culture, and technological infrastructure were crucial to influence the pace and level academic performance in academia.

The Chinese government has launched the Rural Living Environment Improvement Initiative (RLEII) to solve the poor living conditions in rural areas. The initiative enhances rural greenery; provides sanitary toilets; and promotes proper disposal of animal manure, sewage, and household waste in rural areas. We collected data using in-person interviews with 938 rural residents in Xinjiang, China, to elicit their preference, preference intensity, and preference heterogeneity for RLEII. Results indicated that rural residents prefer to see shortcomings of the RLEII addressed. Rural greening construction is identified with the highest preference intensity. We also find significant heterogeneity in rural residents' preferences for each attribute of RLEII. The preference heterogeneity is rooted in the region's economic condition (poor vs. nonpoor region). It is essential to understand rural residents' choice for rural public goods supply and to respect their preference intensity, sequence, and heterogeneity for RLEII to enhance the implementation performance. We discuss the implications of these findings., INTRODUCTION The rural environment is a complex macro-system composed of the rural natural, human, and social environments. It is an organic combination of physical and social aspects of the daily [...]

Author(s): Johanna Y. Andrews-Trevino [sup.1], Patrick Webb [sup.1], Gerald Shively [sup.2], Beatrice Rogers [sup.1], Kedar Baral [sup.3], Dale Davis [sup.4], Krishna Paudel [sup.5], Ashish Pokharel [sup.4], Robin Shrestha [sup.1], Jia-Sheng [...], Background Aflatoxins are found in diverse foods widely consumed worldwide. This study investigated the association between aflatoxin exposure and (a) consumption of specific foods, (b) dietary diversity (DD), and (c) seasonality. Methods Women enrolled in the AflaCohort Study in Banke, Nepal (n = 1648) were asked how often they ate certain food items in the past 7 days and 24 h. Serum aflatoxin B.sub.1-lysine (AFB.sub.1-lys) adduct levels, measured during pregnancy, were determined using high-performance liquid chromatography. Multivariable ordinary least squares and quantile regression models were used to examine incremental increases in AFB.sub.1-lys adduct levels per frequency of food consumption and the relationship between DD, seasonality, and increases in AFB.sub.1-lys adduct. Results Roughly 94% of women were exposed to aflatoxin (geometric mean 1.37 pg/mg). Women in the 30th, 50th, and 70th quantiles of aflatoxin exposure who reported one more occasion of maize consumption in the past week showed increases in AFB.sub.1-lys adduct levels: 0.094, 0.112, and 0.109 pg/mg (p < 0.05, all). Women in the 30th, 50th, 70th, and 90th quantiles of exposure who reported one more occasion of groundnut consumption in the past week also showed increases in AFB.sub.1-lys adduct levels: 0.058 (p < 0.001), 0.085 (p < 0.01), 0.133 (p < 0.001), and 0.133 (p < 0.001) pg/mg. Winter month recruitment was positively associated with AFB.sub.1-lys adduct levels at all quantiles of aflatoxin exposure (range: 0.313-1.101 pg/mg, p < 0.001). DD was not predictive of aflatoxin exposure. Conclusions Our findings justify integrated approaches to aflatoxin reduction, including regulatory, agricultural, and food safety interventions across the value chain and at the household level.

We develop a theoretical model to study the effect of the land titling program on land transfer, labor allocation, and agricultural production costs in rural China. To conduct empirical analysis, we employ the difference-in-differences and difference-in-difference-in-differences models and use nationally representative household survey data collected in 2013, 2015, and 2017. Results show that land titling significantly increases the probability of land transfer by approximately 6.36 percentage points. Land titling shifts rural laborers out of the agriculture sector and increases the migrant ratio in rural households. Finally, land titling decreases the per unit cost of agricultural products by about 8.11%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]