Organic and green food consumption in China

Improvement in living standards and frequent food scares in China have led to the expansion of the organic and green food market. Green food refers to a certification scheme that is unique to China; it is comparable to but differs from organic products used in Australia. From a marketing perspective, it is critical to understand consumers and their needs, attitudes, and behaviours. Although the literature on green food is expanding, market segmentation studies are rare. This mixed-methods study contributes to the growing body of research on organic and green food consumption in China, in terms of (i) examining how the organic and green food market can be segmented based on behavioural and demographic bases, and (ii) identifying the determinants of organic and green food purchase. This study also provides some insights into how Chinese consumers view innovations in the food sector

Van der Waals-like phase transition from holographic entanglement entropy in Lorentz breaking massive gravity

In this paper, phase transition of AdS black holes in lorentz breaking massive gravity has been studied in the framework of holography. We find that there is a first order phase transition(FPT) and second order phase transition(SPT) both in Bekenstein-Hawking entropy(BHE)-temperature plane and holographic entanglement entropy(HEE)-temperature plane. Furthermore, for the FPT, the equal area law is checked and for the SPT, the critical exponent of the heat capacity is also computed. Our results confirm that the phase structure of HEE is similar to that of BHE in lorentz breaking massive gravity, which implies that HEE and BHE have some potential underlying relationship.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Anisotropic strain enhanced hydrogen solubility in bcc metals: the independence on the sign of strain

pre-printWhen an impurity is doped in a solid, it inevitably induces a local stress, tending to expand or contract the lattice. Consequently, strain can be applied to change the solubility of impurity in a solid. Generally, the solubility responds to strain ‘‘monotonically,'' increasing (decreasing) with the tensile (compressive) strain if the impurity induces a compressive stress or vice versa. Using first-principles calculations, however, we discovered that the H solubility can be enhanced by anisotropic strain in some bcc metals, almost independent of the sign of strain. This anomalous behavior is found to be caused by a continuous change of H location induced by anisotropic strain. Our finding suggests a cascading effect of H bubble formation in bcc metals: the H solution leads to H bubble formation that induces anisotropic strain that in turn enhances H solubility to further facilitate bubble growth

Food waste within eco-friendly households: modelling the factors that have an impact on food waste levels

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the key factors that explain variances in levels of food waste in eco-friendly households. Despite the growing literature on food waste, there is a substantial lack of knowledge on the determinants of food waste in eco-friendly households. Methodology: The findings are based on a quantitative survey of 334 respondents. Frequency distribution and the ordered probit modelling and marginal effect analysis are used to analyse the survey data. Findings: Most of the eco-friendly households report food wasting from 0% (no food wasted at all) to 20%. In this survey, affluent young males, who have young children and who frequently eat outside of the home, are found to be more likely to waste food than others. Furthermore, older females who are anxious about the cost of food waste, people who can distinguish between 'use by' and 'best before' dates, and who make an effort to reduce food waste, are found to be less likely to waste food. Marginal effects are presented since they show the impact of a change in an explanatory variable on the predicted probabilities of wasting food. At high levels of food waste, knowledge of expiry dates appears to be the only discriminatory variable, and at negligible or low levels of food waste, the presence of young children in the household seems to be a crucial predictor for food waste. Policy implications: Research on factors that explain variances in levels of food waste is crucial if modern society is to make a transition to more sustainable lifestyles