Understanding the genetic basis underlying the local adaptation of nonmodel species is a fundamental goal in evolutionary biology. In this study, we explored the genetic mechanisms of the local adaptation of Forsythia suspensa using genome sequence and population genomics data obtained from specific-locus amplified fragment sequencing. We assembled a high-quality reference genome of weeping forsythia (Scaffold N50 = 7.3 Mb) using ultralong Nanopore reads. Then, genome-wide comparative analysis was performed for 15 natural populations of weeping forsythia across its current distribution range. Our results revealed that candidate genes associated with local adaptation are functionally correlated with solar radiation, temperature and water variables across heterogeneous environmental scenarios. In particular, solar radiation during the period of fruit development and seed drying after ripening, cold, and drought significantly contributed to the adaptive differentiation of F. suspensa. Natural selection exerted by environmental factors contributed substantially to the population genetic structure of F. suspensa. Our results supported the hypothesis that adaptive differentiation should be highly pronounced in the genes involved in signal crosstalk between different environmental variables. Our population genomics study of F. suspensa provides insights into the fundamental genetic mechanisms of the local adaptation of plant species to climatic gradients.

In order to adapt to the development of the new times, enterprises should not only care for the economic benefits, but also properly cope with environmental and social problems to achieve the integration of environmental, economic and social performance of sustainable development, so as to maximize the efficiency of resource use and minimize the negative effects of environmental pollution. Hence, in order to select a proper green supplier, integration of the information entropy and Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) under probabilistic uncertain linguistic sets (PULTSs) offered a novel integrated model, in which information entropy is used for deriving priority weights of each attribute and EDAS with PULTSs is employed to obtain the final ranking of green supplier. Furthermore, in order to show the applicability of the proposed method, it is validated by a case study for green supplier selection along with some comparative analysis. Thus, the advantage of this proposed method is that it is simple to understand and easy to compute. The proposed method can also contribute to the selection of suitable alternative successfully in other selection issues.

PurposeThe paper aims to examine the relationships among marathon spectator motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention in China.Design/methodology/approachDate were collected from three Chinese marathon races. The paper presents the conceptual model of the study and adopted a mixed method to identify the motivations of marathon spectators; structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the measurement and substantive models; regression analysis was used to detect the specific effects of the various spectator motivations on spectator satisfaction and behavioral intention.FindingsThe paper provides empirical evidences about how marathon spectator motivation affects the behavioral intention. The research results from a path analysis of the spectator motivation–satisfaction–behavioral intention model show that: spectator motivation has significant positive effects on behavioral intention, the indirect path dominates the total effect of motivation on behavioral intention via satisfaction as a mediating variable; satisfaction is positively associated with behavioral intention, and it plays mediate role between spectator motivation and behavioral intention. The result of regression analysis indicates that various spectator motivations have different influences on the satisfaction and behavioral intention, motives of excitement and diversion have significant effect on satisfaction and behavioral intention, but socialization motive is not significantly associated with the satisfaction and behavioral intention.Originality/valueThis paper first fulfills an identified need to explore mass sports event spectator motivations and its influential mechanism on behavioral intention among Chinese marathon races by survey. It contributes greatly to the literature of mass sports spectator motivation and consumption theory, provides important managerial implications for Chinese sports organizations as to how to improve spectator orientation degree.

In recent years, with the increased voice for protecting the environment by the people all over the world, the governments also have actively adopted more and more measures to further promote environmental conservation and sustainable development. Traditional procurement approaches have not well updated to the current needs of the society, especially for the retail industry which is in relation to the national economy due to numerous products and different suppliers being involved. Therefore, the need for green procurement is more important. The qualified green supplier selection is the core of green procurement, which is the utmost importance in the business competition throughout the supply chain in today’s strong business competition. Thus, in order to obtain the optimal green supplier, integration of Entropy weights and multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) under uncertain probabilistic linguistic sets (UPLTSs) has offered a novel integrated model, in which information Entropy is utilized for calculating objective weights with UPLTSs to acquire the final ranking result of green supplier. Besides, so as to indicate the applicability of devised method, it is confirmed by a numerical case for green supplier selection. Some comparative studies are made with some existing methods. The proposed method can also serve for selecting suitable alternative successfully in other selection problems.

Quick response (QR) systems are being implemented by retail firms at an ever quickening pace throughout the USA. While dramatic changes occur throughout the retail company adopting QR strategies, it is the buyers and buyers' assistants that are more affected by these changes than other executives in the retail firm. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions, attitudes and opinions of retail buyers toward QR. Over 200 buyers from leading department and specialty store firms that have implemented, or are beginning to implement , QR participated. In general, the findings indicated that buyers had a positive view of QR systems; felt QR would save them time but not reduce the number of buyers currently employed; and that they used technology as an integral part of their job. The study also found several significant factors describing buyers' perceptions of QR that were related to the size of their organization.Appreciation is extended to Eleanor May for her work on an earlier draft of this manuscript and to Michelle Hillberg and Barbara Geathers who assisted with data presentation.