Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics

About: Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics is a education organization based out in Nanchang, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Fuzzy logic & China. The organization has 2865 authors who have published 3556 publications receiving 41567 citations.

Prospect of China's renewable energy development from pyrolysis and biochar applications under climate change

Abstract: Pyrolysis is considered to be an effective technology that not only provides renewable energy but also mitigates climate change. Biochar, one by-product of pyrolysis, can be utilized in multiple ways by different biochar applications, which could result in considerable changes in renewable energy production and carbon sequestration. In existing literature, however, the economic and environmental benefits of pyrolysis and biochar applications are rately discussed, thus, a thorough investigation on conjunctive applications of pyrolysis and biochar should be conducted. This study (1) reviews the pyrolysis outputs from various inputs such as energy crops, crop residuals, animal manures, municipal solid wastes, and sewer sludge; (2) discusses the economic and environmental consequences from pyrolysis and biochar applications through the investigation of a lifecycle assessment; and (3) illustrates the potential climate-induced impacts on agriculture and stability of feedstock supply. To do this, this paper adopts a sector-wide model to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of pyrolysis and biochar applications with and without impacts of climate change for a specific region as a case study; and addresses the influential factors that potentially affect the large-scale development of pyrolysis. The results show that, in the absence of climate change impacts, conjunctive applications of pyrolysis and biochar can reduce more than 2.69 million tons of CO2 emission and generate electricity of 3,962 MWh annually. In the cases where climate-induced impacts do have influences on crop yields, transitions among pyrolysis technologies and agricultural practice would occur. Under such a circumstance, net electricity generation and emission reduction would decrease by 1.72% and 3.19%, respectively. Thus,taking potential climate change impacts into account is necessary to avoid considerable deviations from the target.

Some new information measures for hesitant fuzzy PROMETHEE method and application to green supplier selection

Abstract: Due to the increasing complexity and uncertainty in green supplier selection, there would be some hesitations for decision makers (DMs) to provide evaluation information of suppliers. Hesitant fuzzy set is a suitable tool to model such hesitations. This paper develops a hesitant fuzzy Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE) for multi-criteria group decision-making and applies to green supplier selection. First, a new hesitancy index of hesitant fuzzy element (HFE) is defined. Then, a generalized hesitant fuzzy Hausdorff distance is proposed considering the individual deviation of membership values and the hesitancy index simultaneously. A combined hesitant fuzzy entropy is presented integrating the defined fuzziness entropy and hesitancy entropy of HFEs. Subsequently, a linear programming model is established to derive DMs’ weights objectively. To determine the criteria weights for each DM, a nonlinear programming model is built through minimizing the relative entropy. The PROMETHEE is employed to obtain individual ranking of alternatives for each DM. To obtain the collective ranking of alternatives, a multi-objective assignment model is constructed and transformed into a single-objective assignment model for resolution. Thereby, a hesitant fuzzy PROMETHEE method is presented. A green supplier selection example is demonstrated to validate the proposed method.

Capital Structure and the Financing of Smes: Empirical EvidenceFrom an Irish Survey

Abstract: This paper presents an empirical description of the capital structures of a sample of 299 Irish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs hereafter). The sources of finance used by respondents are delineated by internal and external sources and viewed through a life cycle model. Recognising the financial intertwining of owners and their businesses, a description of the means of collateral provided to secure debt financing is also viewed through a life cycle model. The pecking order theory and life cycle model are reviewed to formulate testable hypotheses concerning the use of short term and long term debt, and internal and external equity by respondents. Multivariate regression results indicate relationships between determinants identified in previous studies, namely, age, size, ownership structure, sector and growth opportunities and the use of long term debt, external equity and internal equity. Relationships are also found between age, size, sector and growth opportunities and the means of collateral used to secure debt financing. In seeking to provide a more holistic explanation for observed capital structures, this paper reports SME owners' attitudes towards and perception of sources of finance. Predictions of the pecking order theory seem to explain the financing choices of SMEs, although there are sectoral differences. The underlying justification for this theory in our context is twofold: the respondents' desire for independence and control, and the perceived lack of information asymmetries in debt markets.

A novel risk attitudinal ranking method for intuitionistic fuzzy values and application to MADM

Abstract: The amount of information of an IFS is characterized by the closeness degree.The area of triangle is calculated to measure reliability of information of an IFS.It is proved that the closeness degree and triangle area just form an interval.A novel risk attitudinal measure is developed to rank IFS by C-OWA operator.Attributes weights are derived by constructing multi-objective fractional programming model. The ranking of intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) is very important for the intuitionistic fuzzy decision making. The aim of this paper is to propose a new risk attitudinal ranking method of IFSs and apply to multi-attribute decision making (MADM) with incomplete weight information. Motivated by technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), we utilize the closeness degree to characterize the amount of information according to the geometrical representation of an IFS. The area of triangle is calculated to measure the reliability of information. It is proved that the closeness degree and the triangle area just form an interval. Thereby, a new lexicographical method is proposed based on the intervals for ranking the intuitionistic fuzzy values (IFVs). Furthermore, considered the risk attitude of decision maker sufficiently, a novel risk attitudinal ranking measure is developed to rank the IFVs on the basis of the continuous ordered weighted average (C-OWA) operator and this interval. Through maximizing the closeness degrees of alternatives, we construct a multi-objective fractional programming model which is transformed into a linear program. Thus, the attribute weights are derived objectively by solving this linear program. Then, a new method is put forward for MADM with IFVs and incomplete weight information. Finally, an example analysis of a teacher selection is given to verify the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method.