In the last three decades, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has managed to replace its welfare-based urban housing system with a market-based housing provision scheme. With such significant housing policy changes, the PRC has successfully expanded urban home ownership and impressively increased per capita housing consumption. The housing market has become one of the major pillar industries ...

This paper develops the fiscal health index of 21 local governments in Taiwan over the 1984 to 2010 period. A quantile regression analysis was used to explore the extent that economic variables, political budget cycles, and legislative checks and balances, impact different quantiles of fiscal health index for a country over a sample period of time. Our findings suggest that local governments at...

Past research has established a relationship between awe and explanatory frameworks, such as religion. We extend this work, showing (a) the effects of awe on a separate source of explanation: attitudes toward science, and (b) how the effects of awe on attitudes toward scientific explanations depend on individual differences in theism. Across 3 studies, we find consistent support that awe decrea...

China announced its first policy framework for the construction of a protected areas system centered on national parks in 2019. It is increasingly recognized that intentions local community residents to engage environmentally responsible behaviors are essential achieving biodiversity goals area-based conservation. Using an extended theory planned behavior incorporates emotional factors “Awe” an...

The ongoing review of decentralisation in South Africa will defi nitely affect political parties’ legitimisation mechanisms at the local level. For this reason, one may expect the same actors, together with civil society organisations (CSOs), to be actively involved in the policy process of review. Their apparent low involvement in this process is taken as this policy brief’s starting point, wh...

INTRODUCTION Between 2005 and 2010, Australian notification rates for chlamydia infection increased by 64% from 203 to 333 per 100 000 population. Interpreting this trend is difficult without examining rates and local patterns of testing. We examined the effect of adjusting for local testing rates on chlamydia notification trends in New South Wales (NSW), Australia from 2000 to 2010. METHODS ...

Recent developments in wireless local area network (WLAN) technologies are raising new hopes for sustainable Internet diffusion in the rural areas of the developing world. These technologies allow drastic reductions in network deployment costs, particularly for last-mile connectivity in low-density areas. More important, the technologies make possible an infrastructure development model based o...

Women are less likely than men to reach recommended levels of physical activity and have unequal access to active leisure time. Studies in Australia have consistently found that women are only half as likely as men to be adequately active. A community-based multi-strategic health promotion intervention, 'Concord, A Great Place to be Active', was implemented from 1997 to 1999. It aimed to increa...

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS ARE THE SMALLEST AND MOST BASIC UNIT OF representative democracy (Dahl and Tufte 1973, 13). Politicians serving in these governments—mayors and members of municipal assemblies—perform important functions in the policy process by meeting residents on a regular basis, discussing policy matters with them, and making policy decisions that affect the communities in which they r...

“Awesome” is one of the most highly desirable experiences for tourists. This study investigates how tourists’ awe emotion is induced when tourists visit sacred mountains and how the awe experience influences their satisfaction. A survey is administrated at a famous sacred mountain in China—Mount Emei. Results reveal that the awe experience is more elicited by the perceived vastness of natural e...