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With the rapid development of e-commerce, both gray products and counterfeit products are particularly serious in the luxury industry. This paper develops an analytical framework to investigate the interaction among the gray market, the counterfeit market and the authorised market, and examines how luxury manufacturers should manage unfair competition from gray products and/or counterfeit products. First, regardless of the existence of counterfeit products, the manufacturer can benefit from gray products when the status utility is moderate. Second, counterfeit products may benefit the manufacturer, depending on the availability of gray products and the physical resemblance of counterfeit products. Third, gray product may benefit the counterfeiter while counterfeit product always harms the gray marketer. Finally, we reveal that gray products can help luxury manufacturers fight against counterfeit products. In particular, gray products can reduce the demand for counterfeit products and even drive counterfeit products out of the market when the physical resemblance of counterfeit products is sufficiently low. Our findings provide several new managerial insights for luxury manufacturers and gray marketers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural water scarcity has become a global issue. Optimizing irrigation water quality and effectively utilizing non-conventional water resources are essential strategies to alleviate pressure on agricultural water use and achieve sustainable development. This study employed Italian lettuce as the test crop to explore the effects of magnetization treatment (M) at a magnetic field strength of 0.2 T and various irrigation water sources (T) on its growth. The following six treatments were established: fresh water irrigation (M0T1), recycled water irrigation (M0T2), saline water irrigation (M0T3), magnetized fresh water irrigation (M1T1), magnetized recycled water irrigation (M1T2), and magnetized saline water irrigation (M1T3). The results showed that the magnetization treatment increased the electrical conductivity (EC), power of hydrogen (pH), and dissolved oxygen (DO) of the three water sources compared to the non-magnetized treatment. Furthermore, magnetized irrigation with fresh water, recycled water, and saline water increased the contents of nitrogen (N), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg) in lettuce. It also led to increases in the contents of soluble proteins (by 9.27% to 22.25%), soluble sugars (by 13.45% to 20.50%), and vitamin C (VitC) (by 4.18% to 19.33%) in lettuce. Additionally, it enhanced the above-ground fresh weight of lettuce (by 9.36% to 8.81%) and water productivity (WPc) (by 5.85% to 10.40%), while reducing water consumption. Among these treatments, magnetized fresh water irrigation was the most effective in improving quality, fresh weight, and WPc, followed by magnetized recycled water. Gene expression analysis revealed that differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were primarily enriched in metabolic pathways such as the MAPK signaling pathway—plant, phytohormone signaling, and cysteine and methionine metabolism. In summary, magnetized irrigation significantly enhanced DO levels in irrigation water, along with the fresh weight, quality, and WPc of lettuce, demonstrating its effectiveness as an efficient method for agricultural irrigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to enhance maize water demand calculation. We calculate crop evapotranspiration (ETc) through mobile phone photography and meteorological parameters. In terms of crop coefficient (Kc) calculation, we utilize the mobile phone camera image driver to establish a real-time monitoring model of Kc based on plant canopy coverage (PGC) changes. The calculation of PGC is achieved by constructing a PGC classification network and a Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM)-U2Net is implemented by the segment network. For the reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo) calculation, we constructed a simplified ETo estimation model based on SVR, LSTM, Optuna LSTM, and GWO-SVM using a public meteorological data-driven program, and evaluated its performance. The results demonstrate that our method achieves high classification accuracy for the PGC 98.9% and segmentation accuracy for the CBAM-U2net-based segmentation network 95.68%. The Kc calculation model exhibits a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.053. In terms of ETo estimation, the Optuna-LSTM model with four variables demonstrates the best estimation effect, with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.953. The final R2 between the estimated ETc value and the true value is 0.918, with an RMSE of 0.014. This method can effectively estimate the water demand of maize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term exposure to a relatively high concentration of airborne bacteria emitted from intensive livestock houses could potentially threaten the health and welfare of animals and workers. There is a dual effect of air sterilization and promotion of vitamin D synthesis for the specific bands of ultraviolet light. This study investigated the potential use of A-band ultraviolet (UVA) tubes as a clean and safe way of reducing airborne bacteria and improving calf health. The composition and emission characteristics of airborne bacteria were investigated and used to determine the correct operating regime of UVA tubes in calf houses. Intermittent exceedances of indoor airborne bacteria were observed in closed calf houses. The measured emission intensity of airborne bacteria was 1.13 ± 0.09 × 107 CFU h−1 per calf. Proteobacteria were the dominant microbial species in the air inside and outside calf houses. After UVA radiation, the indoor culturable airborne bacteria decreased in all particle size ranges of the Anderson sampler, and it showed the highest reduction rate in the size range of 3.3–4.7 μm. The results of this study would enrich the knowledge of the source characteristics of the airborne bacteria in intensive livestock farming and contribute to the environmental control of cattle in intensive livestock production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention on customer citizenship behavior (CCB) has increased markedly in recent years for both researchers and practitioners. However, existing research lacks deep understanding of the antecedents of CCB in social commerce, especially from the perspective of seller-consumer interaction relationships. Drawing on complexity theory, this study investigated the impacts of the causal configurations of three types of seller-consumer interaction relationships (experience of parasocial interaction (PSI), social interaction, and parasocial relationship (PSR)) on CCB in social commerce. To test this proposition, this study adopted fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of 380 experienced social commerce consumers. Our findings indicate that the combination of social interaction and PSR leads to a high CCB among social commerce consumers. Moreover, borrowing from social exchange theory, we further employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to reanalyze the research data. The PLS-SEM results are consistent with the fsQCA results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The labor-efficient automation of grafting has been recognized as a key factor in the wider adoption of grafting. In growing cucurbits, the root pruned one-cotyledon grafting method is the most commonly used method with grafting machines. The cutting angle, which affects the matching of the rootstock and scion, is key to the survival of the graft seedling. In the production of cucurbit graft seedlings, the cutting parameters are established based on experience, leading to low grafting success. To determine accurate cutting parameters, the watermelon cv. 'Zaojia84-24′ was used as the scion and the pumpkin cv. 'Zhenzhuang' was used as rootstock, and two one-way experiments investigating the cutting angle of the watermelon scion and the rootstock as factors were conducted. The cutting angle of the rootstock and scion had no significant effect on the xylem reconnection rate or the grafting survival rate. A larger cutting angle for the rootstock and scion led to a delay in the reconnection of the phloem. Different cutting angles for the scion significantly affected the growth of the scion after grafting. Compared with a scion graft cutting angle of 10° (SL), graft cutting angles of 14° (SM) and 20° (SS) led to significantly greater scion dry weights, with increases of 16.00% and 18.61%, respectively. Different cutting angles of the rootstock significantly affected the growth of roots after grafting. Compared with a rootstock graft cutting angle of 10° (RL), graft cutting angles of 17° (RM) and 27° (RS) led to significantly greater root dry weights, with increases of 29.33% and 22.54%, respectively. The results of this study can provide a reference for the design of cutting mechanisms for cucurbit grafting robots, improving the cutting precision of grafting robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capacity planning, as a vital asset, is a challenge problem for firms in various industries, such as organic agriculture, apparels and high-tech industry. However, many manufacturers are conservative about their capacity investment for a variety of reasons. As a result, many retailers have the motivation to stimulate manufacturers to enhance the capacity level. In this paper, we propose a revenue sharing and capacity cost compensation contract to help the retailer stimulate her manufacturer to increase the capacity level. In the contract, the retailer keeps a portion of sales revenue and compensates for the manufacturer's capacity cost. They face a stochastic demand and play a Stackelberg game where the retailer acts as a leader and the manufacturer acts as a follower. We prove that the channel can be perfectly coordinated through our proposed contract. Moreover, we give a feasible range of profit distribution, in which both channel members can earn no less profit than that in non-cooperation. Meanwhile, comparing with centralized channel with multiplicative demand, we find that capacity in decentralized channel tends to be lower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]