As part of IBM's Smarter Planet initiative, we studied information-sharing practices in rural Northern China to understand if and how ICT can help rural residents improve their lives. Interviews and participant observation in two villages showed a profusion of ICT devices, as well as an abundance of face-to-face information exchanges, but a shortage of localized and easily accessible information, and a deep dependence of many rural residents on 'information brokers' such as agricultural extension workers and shop owners. Can ICT support existing practices of information sharing among rural residents, when these practices are largely based on face-to-face encounters and passive reception of information? We argue that in such an environment, ICT should build on existing social habits even if less than ideal, rather than trying to transform them, and we outline a possible way to do so.

Manufacturers often face capital constraints when opening up online channel, at this time external financing and internal financing are usually considered. Previous literature has shown that internal financing, turns out to be a better option. To figure out how trade credit financing discount contract affects operations and performances of supply chain, this paper studies the pricing decision of a retailer-dominant dual-channel supply chain with manufacturer's capital constraints. The Stackelberg game models under centralized decision and decentralized decision are constructed. Moreover, this paper conducts research about the effects of revenue-sharing (RS) contract, direct channel price discount (DP) contract and retail channel price discount (RP) contract on the performance of supply chain. Numerical examples are provided to explore the comparison of the optimal pricing strategies and total profits under different contracts. The results show that the retailer prefers RS and DP contracts to RP contract. Among them, RS contract has a broader scope of coordination, while DP contract can achieve a higher profit. The results can serve as insights for decision-makers to choose the most appropriate financial discount contract.

The free radical scavenging system based on Fe3O4@Au/MOF-ABTS•+ has developed a novel method for the high sensitivity and specificity spectrophotometric determination of ascorbic acid (AA). The Fe3O4@Au/MOF nanozyme with magnetic...

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Using radix pueraria flavonoids (RPFs) as a reducing and stabilizing agent, we report a simple, cost-effective, and ecologically friendly green synthesis technique for gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in the present study. Ultraviolet−visible (UV) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) investigations were used to characterize the AuNPs. The results demonstrated that the produced AuNPs were nearly spherical and that their particle sizes had a mean diameter of 4.85 ± 0.75 nm. The "Green" AuNPs, exhibiting remarkable peroxidase-like activity and Michaelis−Menten kinetics with high affinity for H 2 O 2 and 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB), were effectively applied to the fabrication of a sensitive nonenzymatic enhanced electrochemical sensor for the detection of cholesterol (Cho). Under optimum circumstances, it was possible to establish two linear ranges of 1−100 and 250−5000 μmol/L with a detection limit of 0.259 μmol/L (signal/noise ratio (S/N) = 3). The suggested sensor was utilized with satisfactory findings to determine the amount of Cho in food samples.

W e study the determinants of output quality in offshore business process outsourcing (BPO). Firms can exert control over output quality through incentives formally written into contracts and allow both clients and providers to manage the offshore agents creating a dual governance mechanism. We use a combination of two data sets, a cross sectional data set of 139 processes and a balanced panel data set comprising 21 processes with 36 observations per process, to investigate the impact of different factors on the quality of output of offshore BPO providers. Our findings point to the strong moderating effect of process codifiability on the dual governance mechanism. Process codifiability is not only associated with higher output quality, it also moderates the functioning of the dual governance mechanism and determines when the managerial efforts of the client and provider are substitutes and when they are complementary. We show that contractual incentives tied to quality are generally associated with a higher quality of output. Finally, we show that the use of processlevel inter-organizational information systems also has a positive impact on the output quality of offshore BPO providers.

Traditional Chinese medicine is a rarity contributed by Chinese people to the whole human world as well as a crystallization of Chinese people's wisdom accumulated over thousands of years. Since the seventh five-year plan, China's traditional medicine industry has kept fast development, forming its special industrial system and groups. Based on the SWOT model, this paper analyzes the international competitiveness of China's traditional medicine industry in the aspects of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

The differences of volatile odorants of rice at different roasting levels were analyzed by headspace-gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (HS-GC-IMS) using fingerprints combined with principal component analysis (PCA). GC-IMS and PCA could distinguish the different roasting levels of rice and the results showed that a total of 47 representative flavor compounds were detected in four samples from all roasting stages. The aroma components of roasted rice are mainly aldehydes and ketones, furans and pyrroles, as well as a large number of phenols, esters and alcohols, which make up the special aroma flavor of roasted rice. It can be seen that the flavor characteristics of roasted rice can be reflected more fully when the rice is roasted in medium (18 min), and can have more fruit wood, cream and roasted aromas. The PCA based on the signal intensity of the detected volatile compounds revealed effective differentiation of samples from different stages into comparatively independent spaces. Thus, the differences of volatile compounds from different roasting stages of rice were determined, and the flavor fingerprints of that can be successfully established using HS-GC-IMS and PCA.