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High air temperature (HAT) limits grain yield and quality in rice (Oryza sativa L.). This study was conducted to determine the effects of HAT from R3 (panicle exertion from boot) to R8 stage (physiological maturity) on rice grain yield and quality (milling, appearance, cooking and eating, and nutrition qualities). A split‐spot experiment based on randomized complete design was performed, involving two cultivars (japonica Koshihikari and indica IR72), two temperature treatments, and three replicates. Rice cultivars as main plot treatments were grown in a paddy field. The HAT and natural air temperature (NAT) treatments were regarded as subplot. Percentage of chalky kernel increased, whereas head rice yield, amylose and starch contents, and grain yield decreased in both cultivars under HAT, when compared with those under NAT. The HAT enhanced values of peak viscosity and breakdown, but decreased value of setback for Koshihikari. Conversely, starch viscosity characteristics for IR72 were unaffected by HAT. Relative content of amino acids in grains were enhanced; however, absolute content of some amino acids did not increase due to the reduction of grain weight under HAT. The HAT also increased absolute content of grain protein in IR72, but not in Koshihikari. The present study indicates that HAT decreased rice milling, appearance qualities and grain yield, while it positively influenced not only cooking and eating qualities in Koshihikari but also some nutritional components of grains in both cultivars.

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As a key marketing tool, online sales promotion has been widely used by online retailers to increase sales of products and brands. Most previous researches on online sales promotion have ignored the effect of consumers' psychological factors and the heterogeneity of product and consumers. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of psychological distance and involvement on consumers' buying behavior in large online promotion activities. The research model was examined using empirical analysis of data obtained from consumer surveys after the Double 11 promotion. Our results indicate that temporal distance has positive impact on purchase decision of high involvement products, while having negative impact on purchase decision of low involvement products. Social distance has negative impact on consumers' purchase decision. Temporal distance is positively associated with consumers' purchase-decision involvement, and then purchase-decision involvement positively impacts consumers' total consumption. Social distance has no impact on consumers' purchase decision involvement. These findings not only advance the understanding of the role of psychological distance and involvement in online sales promotion but also offer implications regarding strategies that online retailers can employ to publish their promotions at different times and encourage consumers more to share promotional information among their friends. social target; the probability dimension is based on the perceived (lack of) probability of a hypothetical event happening [62].Psychological distance has been applied to various areas of consumer research, including goal pursuit [19], product evaluation [33], decision creativity [49], consideration-set formation [22] and decision-making [53]. Kim et al. (2008) suggest that most of CLT research has concentrate only on one dimension of psychological distance [34]. Accordingly, some recent research has examined the influence of multiple dimensions. Chandran and Menon (2004) studies the interaction which in consumers' judgment of risk between temporal distance and social distance [8]. From the perspective of social and temporal distance, Bornemann and Homburg (2011) examine the relationship between perceived quality and price [5]. Zhao and Xie (2011) explore the interplay of social and temporal distance on consumers' responses to recommendation systems [65].H1b: When purchasing low involvement products, the temporal distance is negatively related to consumers' purchase decision in large online promotion activities.CLT originated with the temporal perspective and has recently been extended to other dimensions such as social distance. The difference between self and others, similar and dissimilar others, or in-group and out-group members are all the examples of social distance [57]. Prior research has shown when making decisions for dissimilar others, consumers trend to highlight the core and main properties; while for similar others, consumers trend to concern the affiliated and secondary properties [57], [65]....

Delayed transplantation frequently occurs in mechanically transplanted rice in China, leading to a significant reduction in grain yield. Thus, determining how to compensate grain yield loss is crucial for improving rice cultivation technology. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of cultivation density and seedling age on agronomic traits and grain yield of mechanically transplanted rice. With increasing seedling age, rice tiller number, pre-anthesis dry matter accumulation, remobilization efficiency and contribution to grain yield, as well as post-anthesis photosynthesis amount decreased, causing reductions in the number of effective panicles, the total number of grains per panicle, the sink capacity per tiller, and grain yield. In rice transplanted at 30- and 35-day seedling ages, increasing cultivation density significantly enhanced the number of effective panicles and grain yield. Additionally, there existed strong, positive correlations between sink capacity per tiller and pre-anthesis dry matter remobilization efficiency and pre-anthesis dry matter contribution to grain yield. We conclude that in addition to cultivation density, enhancing the amount of pre-anthesis dry matter and the remobilization efficiency could be feasible for mitigating grain yield loss caused by delayed transplantation.

A delay in the mechanical transplantation (MT) of rice seedlings frequently occurs in Huanghuai wheat-rice rotation cropping districts of China, due to the late harvest of wheat, the poor weather conditions and the insufficiency of transplanters, missing the optimum transplanting time and causing seedlings to age. To identify how delaying transplanting rice affects the agronomic characteristics including the growth duration, photosynthetic productivity and dry matter remobilization efficiency and the grain yield under mechanical transplanting pattern, an experiment with a split-plot design was conducted over two consecutive years. The main plot includes two types of cultivation: mechanical transplanting and artificial transplanting (AT). The subplot comprises four japonica rice cultivars. The results indicate that the rice jointing, booting, heading and maturity stages were postponed under MT when using AT as a control. The tiller occurrence number, dry matter weight per tiller, accumulative dry matter for the population, leaf area index, crop growth rate, photosynthetic potential, and dry matter remobilization efficiency of the leaf under MT significantly decreased compared to those under AT. In contrast, the reduction rate of the leaf area during the heading-maturity stage was markedly enhanced under MT. The numbers of effective panicles and filled grains per panicle and the grain yield significantly decreased under MT. A significant correlation was observed between the dry matter production, remobilization and distribution characteristics and the grain yield. We infer that, as with rice from old seedlings, the decrease in the tiller occurrence, the photosynthetic productivity and the assimilate remobilization efficiency may be important agronomic traits that are responsible for the reduced grain yield under MT.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine information cascades in the context of users' ebook reading behavior and differentiate it from alternative factors that lead to herd behavior, such as network externalities and word-of-mouth effects. Design/methodology/approach -This paper constructed panel data using information concerning 226 e-books in 30 consecutive days from Sina.com's reading channel (of the same year in China. A multinomial logit market-share model was employed.Findings -E-books' ranking has a significant impact on their market share, as predicted by informational cascades theory. Higher ranking e-books' clicks will see a greater increase as a result of an increase in clicks ranking. Due to the information cascades effect, review volume had no impact on the market share of popular e-books. Total votes had a powerful impact on the market share of e-books, showing that once information cascade occurred, it could be enhanced by the increase in total votes. The total clicks of e-books had a significant impact on their market share, suggesting that online reading behavior would be influenced by network externalities. Practical implications -As important information, the ranking or popularity of e-books should be carefully considered by online reading web sites, publishers, and authors. It is not enough for the authors and publishers of e-books to simply pay attention to the content. They should design their marketing strategies to allow network externalities and informational cascades to work for them, not against them. Online reading web sites should also focus on eliminating certain behavior, such as "brush clicks" and "brush votes," in order to prevent an undesirable information cascade due to false information. Originality/value -To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to examine information cascades in the context of users' e-book reading behavior. Moreover, this study can help other researchers by utilizing a large sample of daily data from one of the earliest online reading platforms in China.

While ranking systems, electronic word of mouth (eWOM) channels and recommendation systems might appear as three separate tools that influence consumer choice, consumers at online reading platforms are often exposed to all three simultaneously during a searching session of e-books. This study conducts an empirical analysis to examine the interaction effects of these three decision-supporting tools on online reading behavior. To do so, we collect a 25-week panel data set on Yuedu.163.com, which is one of the earliest online reading platforms in China. Our results indicate that informational cascades are particularly prominent on the online reading market. Under the influence of informational cascades, eWOM volume and valence have no impact on the clicks of e-books with high rankings, but have positive impact on the clicks of e-books with low rankings. Recommendation strength has a positive impact on popular e-books clicks, but has no impact on the clicks of less popular e-books. Moreover, we find that eWOM valence and recommendation strength have a substitute relationship in affecting the clicks of e-books with high rankings. However, eWOM and recommendation system have a complementary relationship in affecting the clicks of less popular e-books. To our best knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the interaction effects of information cascades, eWOM and recommendation systems on online user behavior. Our findings provide important theoretical contributions and managerial implications.