Browsing by Author "Chen H"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Combining data from consumers and traditional medicine practitioners to provide a more complete picture of Chinese bear bile markets
    (John Wiley and Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society, 2021-10-07) Hinsley A; Hu S; Chen H; Garshelis D; Hoffmann M; Lee TM; Moyle B; Qiu Y; Ruan X; Wan AKY; Zhou J; Milner-Gulland EJ; Friant S
    1. Understanding wildlife consumption is essential for the design and evaluation of effective conservation interventions to reduce illegal trade. This requires understanding both the consumers themselves and those who influence their behaviour. For example, in markets for wildlife-based medicines, both consumers and medical practitioners have a role in which products are consumed. 2. We used mixed methods to triangulate data on bear bile consumption from 3,646 members of the public, 80 pharmacy workers and 38 Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctors in four provincial capital cities across China. Bear bile can be sold legally in packaged TCM products made from farmed bile, or sold illegally, often as raw gallbladders from wild bears. We interviewed medical practitioners, and surveyed the public using both direct questions (DQ) and the Unmatched Count Technique (UCT), an indirect method used to improve reporting of sensitive behaviours. We applied a ‘combined’ UCT-DQ analysis to produce a more robust consumption estimate. 3. In all, 140 (3.8%) survey respondents directly reported recent (<3 years) bile consumption, but the combined UCT-DQ estimate was 11.2%. In total, 14 survey respondents (0.4% sample and 10% recent consumers) self-reported recent wild bile consumption. Almost a quarter of doctors and half of pharmacy workers had ever prescribed bile. 4. Around half of doctors and over a quarter of pharmacy workers said that bear bile was the best medicine in certain situations. More than half of doctors and over a third of pharmacy workers thought wild bile was more effective than farmed, although we found no evidence of wild bile being formally prescribed. Consumers could name specific treatment uses of bile but almost half of recent consumers did not know the source of bile they had consumed. 5. We show that gathering perspectives from different wildlife market actors can generate a more complete picture of trade. In China, bile consumption may be limited by its specific TCM treatment uses, but whether practitioner views on the greater effectiveness of wild bile are passed to consumers must be investigated further. With potential overlap between farmed and wild consumption, any interventions to change these markets must carefully consider how both consumers and practitioners may react.
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    Crawfish shell- and Chinese banyan branch-derived biochars reduced phytoavailability of As and Pb and altered community composition of bacteria in a contaminated arable soil.
    (20/03/2023) Gu S; Yang X; Chen H; Jeyakumar P; Chen J; Wang H
    Globally, soil contamination with arsenic (As) and lead (Pb) has become a severe environmental issue. Herein, a pot experiment was conducted using pak choi (Brassica chinensis L.) to investigate the effects of biochars derived from crawfish (Procambarus clarkia) shells (CSB) and Chinese banyan (Ficus microcarpa) branches (CBB) on the phytoavailability of As and Pb, and bacterial community composition in soils. Our results showed that the application of CSB and CBB decreased the concentrations of DTPA-extractable Pb in soils ranging from 26.8 % to 28.8 %, whereas CSB increased the concentration of NH4H2PO4-extractable As in soils, compared to the control. Application of both biochars reduced the uptake of As and Pb in the edible part of pak choi. In addition, application of CBB significantly (P < 0.05) increased the activities of α-glucosidase, β-glucosidase, cellobiohydrolase, and acid phosphomonoesterase by 55.0 %, 54.4 %, 195.1 %, and 76.7 %, respectively, compared to the control. High-throughput sequencing analysis revealed that the predominant bacteria at the phyla level in both biochar-treated soils were Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteriota. Redundancy and correlation analyses showed that the changes in bacterial community composition could be related to soil organic carbon content, As availability, and nutrient availability in soils. Overall, the Chinese banyan branch biochar was more suitable than the crawfish shell biochar as a potential amendment for the remediation of soils co-contaminated with As and Pb.
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    Cross-cultural Issues on Organizational Dissent and Humor Orientation
    (Korean Association for Business Communication, 31/07/2018) Croucher S; Kelly S; Chen H
    Organizational dissent is the expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions concerning organizational policies and practices (Kassing, 1998). It is an important form of communication because employees can give feedback to organizations regarding discontent and unethical practices. Thus, dissent provides organizations opportunities for improvement and innovation. Managers, however, often fail to recognize and respond to employees’ upward dissent. While power differences in organizations stifle communication, humor can be used as a form of dissent and a means to subvert power differences (Holmes & Marra, 2002). Research has explored organizational dissent in the United States. These results, however, cannot be applied to other contexts, as cultural differences should be considered when exploring communication (McCroskey & McCroskey, 1988). Thus, this analysis provides the following: First, this analysis provides a theoretical understanding of how humor and dissent relate to one another. Second, this analysis considers this relationship in divergent cultural contexts.
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    Discrete Random Renewable Replacements after the Expiration of Collaborative Preventive Maintenance Warranty
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2024-09-13) Chen H; Chen J; Lai Y; Yu X; Shang L; Peng R; Liu B; Ferreira MAM
    With advanced digital technologies as the key support, many scholars and researchers have proposed various random warranty models by integrating mission cycles into the warranty stage. However, these existing warranty models are designed only from the manufacturer’s subjective perspective, ignoring certain consumer requirements. For instance, they overlook a wide range of warranty coverage, the pursuit of reliability improvement rather than mere minimal repair, and the need to limit the delay in repair. To address these consumer requirements, this paper proposes a novel random collaborative preventive maintenance warranty with repair-time threshold (RCPMW-RTT). This model incorporates terms that are jointly designed by manufacturers and consumers to meet specific consumer needs, thereby overcoming the limitations of existing warranty models. The introduction of a repair-time threshold aims to limit the time delay in repairing failures and to compensate for any losses incurred by consumers. Using probability theory, the RCPMW-RTT is evaluated in terms of cost and time, and relevant variants are derived by analyzing key parameters. As an exemplary representation of the RCPMW-RTT, two random replacement policies named the discrete random renewable back replacement (DRRBR) and the discrete random renewable front replacement (DRRFR) are proposed and modelled to ensure reliability after the expiration of the RCPMW-RTT. In both policies, product replacement is triggered either by the occurrence of the first extreme mission cycle or by reaching the limit on the number of non-extreme mission cycles, whichever comes first. Probability theory is used to present cost rates for both policies in order to determine optimal values for decision variables. Finally, numerical analysis is performed on the RCPMW-RTT to reveal hidden variation tendencies and mechanisms; numerical analysis is also performed on the DRRBR and the DRRFR. The numerical results show that the proposed random replacement policies are feasible and unique; the replacement time within the post-warranty coverage increases as the maintenance quality improves and the cost rate can be reduced by setting a smaller repair-time threshold.
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    Political Background and Household Financial Asset Allocation in China
    (Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 18/01/2021) Ge Y; Chen H; Zou L; Zhou Z
    Political background is an important factor in determining the household economic behavior. Using 2014–2018 households panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we investigate the effects of political background on China’s household asset allocation behavior. We find that political background has a significant positive impact on the financial market participation. Mediation analysis indicates that political background leads to higher household wealth, better social capital, and fewer credit constraints, thus promotes households investments. Further analysis shows that the marginal impact of political background on household investment behavior is more significant in Eastern and urban areas. Our results contribute to the existing literature on the relationship between the political background and the household investment behavior, also enhancing the understanding of the household portfolio heterogeneity.