Today is widely understood that global energy consumption patterns are directly related to the urban expansion and development process. This expansion is based on the natural growth of human activities and has left most urban areas totally dependent on fossil fuel derived external energy inputs. This status-quo of production, transportation, storage and consumption of energy has become ineffici...

We examined gender differences in mental health outcomes during and post-recession versus pre-recession. We utilized 2005-2006, 2008-2009, and 2010-2011 data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Females had lower odds of depression diagnoses during and post-recession and better mental health during the recession, but higher odds of anxiety diagnoses post-recession. Males had lower odds of...

When considering the linkage between innovation and productivity, the relationship is often termed as the knowledge production function in the endogenous growth literature. In this article, we approach the issues involved through the aspects of the standard neoclassical production theory. The advantage is that the basic properties required of ordinary production function can be employed to infe...

In October 2007, a joint meeting was held successfully on Zijinggang campus of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, between the Chinese Comparative Physiology Committee (CCPC) of the Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences (CAPS) and a consortium of scientists from around the world under the umbrella of comparative physiology, biochemistry, and toxicology. Hangzhou is situated in the gr...

In the last decades, the Niger Delta region has experienced rapid growth in population and economic activity with enormous benefits to the adjacent states and the entire Nigerian society. As the region embarks upon an unprecedented phase of economic expansion in the 21st century, it faces several environmental challenges fuelled partly by the pressures caused by human activities such as oil and...

Based on the panel data for 2005-2011, the paper conducts an empirical analysis on the efficiency and its determinants of China's service outsourcing industry by using the three-stage DEA technique. The empirical results show that the production efficiency of the service outsourcing industry in the year of 2011 is 0.803 from Super-DEA model and 0.573 from standard DEA model. The too-small scale...

To characterize economic development and diagnose the economic health condition, several popular indices such as gross domestic product (GDP), industrial structure and income growth are widely applied. However, computing these indices based on traditional economic census is usually costly and resources consuming, and more importantly, following a long time delay. In this paper, we analyzed near...

BACKGROUND This study assessed Greek gastroenterology fellows' satisfaction regarding training, working conditions, quality of life and future employment perspectives. METHODS Greek gastroenterology fellows completed an anonymous multiple-choice electronic questionnaire designed to rate their satisfaction using a five-step Likert scale in two major domains: 1) fellowship program (training, wo...