产业精准扶贫作用机制研究

在精准扶贫的国家战略下,产业扶贫被赋予了新的内涵,承担起贫困户的"造血"功能,成为精准扶贫的核心,本文将其概括为"产业精准扶贫"。与已有研究不同,文章以产业精准扶贫与传统产业扶贫的区别以及产业精准扶贫怎样发挥作用这一科学问题为研究对象,综合运用了实地观察法、问卷调查法和深度访谈法,从微观尺度研究产业精准扶贫的作用机制。研究表明:(1)与传统产业扶贫停留在村一级或者大户层面不同,产业精准扶贫将产业透过村庄到农户,而且与贫困户的土地、资本和劳动力等生产要素有机地结合起来。(2)产业精准扶贫作用机制是通过利益相关方共同对土地、资本和劳动力等生产要素进行匹配的过程。产业精准扶贫突显了贫困户的主体性作用,着重强调贫困户自身拥有的土地、劳动力要素的参与,真正建构了多主体、多要素参与的长效机制。(3)产业精准扶贫是一个共同参与的过程。农户或是入股、务工或是自己发展产业,积极参与到农业生产中,通过政府引导、企业管理、村两委参与,促进贫困户参与在生产过程中,就产业过程中的事项达成共识,促进了贫困户的公民精神培育、实用技术掌握和思想观念转变。(4)产业精准扶贫是实现贫困人口增收发展的有效路径,但仍需注意风险防患。扶贫信息发布、帮扶单位责任人等扶贫利益相关者的组织和传播,为企业和社会资本进入贫困村奠定基础,但是,也相应地增加了产品销售问题和产业自然灾害的风险,产业贴补和金融扶持政策的稳定性也会影响产业精准扶贫的运行和成效。因此,要相应地加强对扶贫产业风险的预警,规避和降低产业扶贫风险。     

三峡库区移民贫困致因的精准识别与减贫路径的实证研究

随着我国经济发展和扶贫成效的显现,老区、山区、民族地区和移民库区等集中连片的特殊贫困区已经成为我国当前精准扶贫的主战场。由于面临生产资料匮乏、生态环境恶化和地质灾害频发等恶劣环境,库区移民贫困问题已成为新时期扶贫攻坚最难啃的"硬骨头"。因此,开展库区移民贫困致因的精准识别与减贫路径研究具有重要的现实意义。基于对库区移民贫困现状的扎根理论分析,本文提出了分析农户生计的新框架。在此基础上,本文以三峡库区26个县(区)为研究对象,随机抽取4县(区)796户移民作为样本,首先,采用灰色关联分析法和熵权法对库区移民主要致贫因子进行挖掘;接着,采用PLS-SEM模型分析影响库区移民生计状况的关键因子和关键路径。研究表明:(1)三峡库区移民贫困现象仍很严重,患病、劳动能力弱和失地是移民致贫的三大主因。三峡库区仍有175.94万人生活在贫困线以下,三大致贫原因依次是:因病致贫26.49%、因劳动能力弱致贫22.10%和失地致贫21.65%。(2)心理资本可有效促进移民其他资本效能的发挥,对生计状况存在着显著的直接效应和间接效应。(3)在影响生计状况的四类资本中,人力资本对库区移民生计状况影响最大。基于以上发现,本文提出了实现库区移民精准脱贫的政策建议:(1)国家应高度重视三峡库区移民贫困问题,大力开展精准扶贫;(2)增加心理干预措施以提高移民心理资本存量,帮助移民摆脱心理贫困;(3)开展劳动力技能培训,提高库区移民人力资本水平。     

Trends in environmental education for biodiversity conservation in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is internationally recognized for its abundant biodiversity and being a leader in the promotion of education strategies for biodiversity conservation. We interviewed staff from 16 institutions developing key environmental communication, education, and participation projects for biodiversity conservation in the country. Through content analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis and Chi-square tests, we examined the characteristics of the projects carried out by these institutions and developed a typology of four categories derived from six variables: primary audience, content, project purpose, location, scale, and facility. Then, we designed a conceptual model describing the integration of conservation and economic development in the educational projects. We found two key approaches related to this integration: vision of nature protection which aims to inform audiences of ecological concepts and focuses on schoolchildren and vision of sustainability which engages adult audiences and is management-oriented. Education for community-based environmental management may serve as a good example of educational projects which integrate conservation and economic development, implementing a vision of sustainability.     

Effectiveness of EMS in Tunisian companies: framework and implementation process based on ISO 14001 standard

This paper reports environmental analysis results of food and tannery Tunisian companies to identify the features of environmental management system (EMS) that is implemented recently. EMS via ISO 14001 has become one of the principal tools used by companies to handle environmental aspects and impacts through their various complex activities interacted with environment. While several companies have implemented and maintained a formal EMS, it has related mainly to their benefits in short term without responding to the sustainable development recommendations and practices. This study focuses on the strong linkage between the EMS effectiveness of food–tannery Tunisian companies and sustainability. A proactive environmental management approach is proposed and adopts a qualitative and quantitative assessment for factor analysis. It provides a strategic EMS framework and principles for sustainability to evolve the future enterprises’ benefits that has a clear influence on environmental performance in long term.     

The methylic versus the ethylic route: considerations about the sustainability of Brazilian biodiesel production

Brazil is considered one of the world’s leading producers of biofuels given the predominance of ethanol fuel in its energy matrix. However, despite the prominence of Brazil in ethanol production, the vast majority of biodiesel production plants in Brazil use methanol instead of ethanol as the alcohol for transesterification reaction, as is generally the case in the rest of the world. The aim of this paper is therefore to examine the transesterification process in the Brazilian biodiesel production in terms of sustainability. In this regard, it was necessary to evaluate the way in which the industrial process is currently carried out, the role of government incentives or subsidies for the use of ethanol to produce biodiesel, and the investments of companies in technology development for the same purpose. This study presents indications that the development of the biodiesel market in Brazil is still oriented toward a production model which is inconsistent with the environmental and social aspects of sustainability.     

Factors influencing farmers’ decisions on nitrogen fertilizer application in the Liangzihu Lake basin,Central China

Overuse of nitrogen (N) fertilizers in agriculture activities has caused severe water pollution in China. The lack of data at producer level hampers decision makers in the development and implementation of efficient policies to curb excessive N-fertilizer use. In a survey of 300 farm households in the Liangzihu Lake basin, we identified factors associated with farmers’ decisions on N-fertilizer use and application rate. Household survey and multiple linear regression models indicate that the average application rate in the study region is 229 kg N ha^?1, which exceeds the recommended rate for maximum profit for cereal crops (maize, wheat, and rice) in China of 150–180 kg N ha^?1. High N-application rates are associated with low farmland productivity (coefficient = ?15.66, p = 0.02), a high share of off-farm income (coefficient = 27.14, p = 0.003), and a low education level of the household head (coefficient = ?10.83, p = 0.039). Neither physical infrastructure nor access to input markets appears to be related to N-application rates. It may be concluded that excessive use of N in agriculture of Central China is mainly a problem of insufficient awareness and high share of off-farm income.     

Design,measurement and evaluation of photovoltaic pumping system for rural areas in Oman

In the present paper, the optimum design of a PV system used to operate a water pumping system was determined for Oman. The system design focused on the environmental conditions of Sohar city. The implementation and measurement of the designed system are presented to prove the effectiveness of the proposed system. The results show that the system can provide the required power at peak hours, leading to a substantial reduction in the sizing of the PV system. Consequently, the investment capital costs 2400 USD, and the cost of energy is equal to 0.309 USD/kWh. Furthermore, the results indicate that the system annual yield factor is 2024.66 kWh/kWp and that the capacity factor is 23.05 %, which is encouraging since the latter is typically 21 %. The system capital cost and the cost of energy are worth comparing to a diesel generator. A comparison is made between the proposed system and several others in the literature. The comparison indicated that the system cost of energy is promising.     

2014, The “year without a summer” in Italy: news media coverage and implications for the climate change debate

In 2014, there was virtually no summer in northern and central-southern Italy. Storm after storm battered the peninsula, triggering floods and landslides from Veneto to Puglia. We studied the coverage of “the year without a summer” in Italy by analyzing the content of 171 news articles from two influential online newspapers. Our software-based analysis enabled us to observe that the two newspapers hardly ever mentioned climate change in their coverage of the weather anomaly that affected Italy in the summer of 2014. This type of coverage is in line with climate science, according to which there is no evidence of a climate change-related influence on summer precipitation patterns in Southern Europe—whereas such influence has been documented for northern Europe. We compared our results with a recent paper, which documented that the same online dailies chose to represent the particularly hot summer of 2012 in Italy as a direct consequence of climate change. We corroborated this comparison also on the basis of a preliminary analysis we performed on the media coverage of the exceptionally hot and arid summer of 2015 in Italy.     

Investigating soils retention ratios and modelling geochemical factors affecting heavy metals retention in soils in a tropical urban watershed

This study aimed at investigating the retention of Pb and Cd in soils and the geochemical factors influencing the adsorption of these pollutants. Soil samples were air-dried and ground to pass through a 2-mm sieve, and different soil extracts were prepared for chemical analysis (organic matter, cation exchange capacity and pH). Total Pb and Cd were extracted with diacid using digestion method and determined by atomic adsorption spectrophotometer (AAS) after filtration. Results revealed that the heavy metals retention ratio (RR) of the Rhodic ferralsol, Xanthic ferralsol and Mollic gleysol (2) were very high for Cd (>80 %) and was relatively low (generally < 60 %) for Pb. In contrast, RRs for the Plinthic gleysol and the Mollic gleysol (1) were relatively low (<60 %), regardless of the heavy metal concerned. Multiple regression equations indicated for Pb and Cd concentrations different linear relationships over simple linear regression, when pH, organic matter, clay percentage and cation exchange capacity (CEC) were used as independent variables. Results indicate that organic matter exerts major influences on the retention of Pb and Cd in soils, while CEC, clay content and pH have a minor influence in this process in the Ntem watershed. From these observations, the application of soil organic matter could be a solution in protecting shallow aquifers from heavy metal pollution and thus insuring that they are not a hazard to public health.     

The role of sustainability environment in export marketing strategy and performance: a literature review

Increasing environmental issues, economic and cultural differences, the regulatory framework and the great attention to social responsibility, have forced companies to face the challenge of sustainability. Thus, the adaption of a proper marketing strategy in order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the market (specially export markets) has become an important principle in accepting companies. In this regard, this study is a systematic literature review, which investigated 102 published articles in international journals between 1964 and 2015. In the literature review, the main focus was on key issues such as sustainability, marketing strategies, financial and market export performance. In this article, at first, the concept of sustainability from different aspects was collected and described. Then, external factors, such as competitive intensity, public concern, regulations, technology, cultural/social, and economic, as well as internal factors, such as managers, employees, stakeholders, affecting sustainability, were studied. Finally, adaption of export marketing strategies in order to achieve sustainability export performance is discussed.