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ABSTRACTThis article examines the impact of strategic consumers on the efficiency and coordination of a supply chain. We consider a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a newsvendor retailer selling a seasonal product to strategic consumers, who may choose to wait for clearance sales to maximize their intertemporal utility. Under a prenegotiated supply contract, the retailer chooses retail price and ordering quantity simultaneously. After that, the strategic consumers, who may be heterogeneous in their patience levels, make purchasing decisions. We find that strategic consumer behavior can hurt the supply chain efficiency due to severe double marginalization, and that a simple buyback contract can coordinate the supply chain. Nevertheless, we show that the supply chain does become more difficult to coordinate when strategic consumers are present: the set of buyback contractual terms that coordinate the chain shrinks as consumers are more willing to wait, and the chain profit cannot be arbitrarily allocated between the firms. Contrary to popular intuition, this result implies that the retailer may enjoy some benefit from consumers' strategic waiting. In addition, we find that the retailer's gain is the highest when impatient and patient consumers are comparably mixed in the population.

AbstractPerformance evaluation and safety assessment of a buffering stormwater drainage system (BSDS) for a low‐lying area are discussed in this paper. Unlike a conventional pump drainage system, the BSDS, which drains stormwater runoff of a low‐lying area to a nearby channel system through underground conduits with gravity, and then buffering peak flows with the storage capacity of a channel system, will discharge stormwater to rivers outside the low‐lying area with pumps or flood gates if necessary. This kind of drainage system is considered to be environment friendly and economic both in terms of capital cost and operating & maintenance expenses. To investigate the design parameters and evaluate the performance and safety of BSDS, a hydraulic model coupling the conduit systems and a channel system was developed in this paper, and a case‐study approach based on field investigation and simulation test was used. Moreover, the design requirements for safety of BSDS were drawn through a simulation test.

Increases in the extent and level of air pollution in Chinese cities have become a major concern of the public and burden on the government. While ample literature has focused on the status, changes and causes of air pollution (particularly on PM2.5 and PM10), significantly less is known on their effects on people. In this study we used Hangzhou, China, as our testbed to assess the direct impact of PM2.5 on youth populations that are more vulnerable to pollution. We used the ground monitoring data of air quality and Aerosol optical thickness (AOT) product from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for the spatiotemporal changes of PM2.5 by season in 2015. We further explored these distributions with land cover, population density and schools (kindergarten, primary school and middle school) to explore the potential impacts in seeking potential mitigation solutions. We found that the seasonal variation of PM2.5 concentration was winter > ; spring > ; autumn > ; summer. In Hangzhou, the percentage of land area exposed to PM2.5 > ; 50 µ ; g m&minus ; 3 accounted for 59.86% in winter, 56.62% in spring, 40.44% in autumn and 0% in summer, whereas these figures for PM2.5 of < ; 35 µ ; g m&minus ; 3 were 70.01%, 5.28%, 5.17%, 4.16% in summer, winter, autumn and spring, respectively. As for land cover, forest experienced PM2.5 of 35&ndash ; 50 µ ; g m&minus ; 3 (i.e., lower than those of other cover types), likely due to the potential filtering and absorption function of the forests. More importantly, a quantitative index based on population-weighted exposure level (pwel) indicated that only 9.06% of the population lived in areas that met the national air quality standards. Only 1.66% (14,055) of infants and juveniles lived in areas with PM2.5 of < ; 35 µ ; g m&minus ; 3. Considering the legacy effects of PM2.5 over the long-term, we highly recommend improving the monitoring systems for both air quality and people (i.e., their health conditions), with special attention paid to infants and juveniles.

The major goals in this exploratory study were to investigate the absolute levels of school satisfaction, and clarify the relationship between school satisfaction and gender/grade among Chinese mainland adolescents. Participants were 1,339 middle school students from grades 7, 8, 10,
and 11 who completed the Adolescents' School Satisfaction Scale, a subscale of the Adolescents' School Well-being Scale (Tian, 2008). Results show that the highest school satisfaction domains are peer relationship and teacher-student relationship and that male and female students and students
from different grades report different levels of school satisfaction. Implications for future research and educational practices are discussed.

Since the 1980s, Chinese cities have witnessed significant growth, resulting in urban sprawl all over the country. Under the strict land quota system, local government has had to transform its approach of Greenfield development to land consolidation. Under the 'Increasing and Decreasing Balance' land use policy, the Shanghai government began to consolidate rural construction land in order to acquire extra quota for state land by transferring development rights from collective land to state land and by establishing a three-level land consolidation planning system. This paper firstly examines the expansion of non-agricultural land in Shanghai since 1990. It explains the policy arrangements of land consolidation from the perspective of property rights transfer between state and collective land. Taking Xinbang Township as an example, this paper examines the roles of various stakeholders in land consolidation, the municipalities, district and township governments, village collectives, local villagers and entrepreneurs, and analyses the impact land consolidation has upon them. The paper concludes with discussion and policy implications of future land consolidation.