Purpose The purpose of this study is to reveal the lead–lag structure between international crude oil price and stock markets. Design/methodology/approach The methods used for this study are as follows: empirical mode decomposition; shift-window-based Pearson coefficient and thermal causal path method. Findings The fluctuation characteristic of Chinese stock market before 2010 is very similar to international crude oil prices. After 2010, their fluctuation patterns are significantly different from each other. The two stock markets significantly led international crude oil prices, revealing varying lead–lag orders among stock markets. During 2000 and 2004, the stock markets significantly led international crude oil prices but they are less distinct from the lead–lag orders. After 2004, the effects changed so that the leading effect of Shanghai composite index remains no longer significant, and after 2012, S&P index just significantly lagged behind the international crude oil prices. Originality/value China and the US stock markets develop different pattens to handle the crude oil prices fluctuation after finance crisis in 1998.

Purpose This paper aims to capture tail dependence between sentiment index and Shanghai composite index (SCI) by proposing a sentiment index based on text mining. Design/methodology/approach Online text mining and the Copula model were used in this study. Findings First, the paper finds herding effect in the expression of investors’ sentiment from online text data, and the usage occurrence frequency of most vocabulary is less correlative with SCI. Second, given these two features, the paper uses weighted divide-and-conquer algorithm to construct a sentiment index. Finally, because of multivariate non-Gaussian joint distribution between them, the paper uses the Copula model to detect their tail dependences, and finds that both upper and lower tail dependences could have a significant influence between positive sentiment and SCI, with a higher probability on the upper one. Additionally, only the upper tail dependence exhibits the significant influence between negative sentiment and SCI. Originality/value This paper proposes a framework of constructing investment sentiment index with the weighted conquer-and-divide algorithm, and characterizes tail dependence between sentiment index and SCI. The implication can measure the environment of investment market of China and provide an empirical ground for bandwagon effect and bargain shopper effect.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide the possible and better selection for pedestrian flow evacuation. Design/methodology/approach – Simulation. Findings – First, according to the model with self-decision agents, the paper figures out that the effect of evacuation guided by the random-walk mechanism exceeds that guided by the inertial mechanism, and specifically, the effect of evacuation could significantly improve if random-walk agents restraint the probability of random walk under 0.4. Besides, on neighborhood reference mechanism, individuals who take neighbors’ average direction as reference tend to achieve better effect of evacuation than that of following majority rule. Furthermore, this paper proposes that an optimal ratio of the proportion of clever individuals and system density exists for evacuation effect improvement. Finally, the evacuating effect with barrier locating in different space is also studied in our research. Originality/value – The effect of evacuation could significantly improve if random-walk agents restraint the probability of random walk under 0.4. On neighborhood reference mechanism, individuals who take neighbors’ average direction as reference tend to achieve better effect of evacuation than that of following majority rule.