Study finds Kansas City fare-free bus policy attracted new riders, increased overall use
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 13-Nov-2025 18:11 ET (13-Nov-2025 23:11 GMT/UTC)
Ultrasonic testing is a promising non-destructive evaluation technique across various industries. In a novel breakthrough, researchers from Chung-Ang University have developed DiffectNet, an AI-based technology that facilitates the diffusion-enabled conditional target generation of internal defects in ultrasonic non-destructive testing. This approach significantly outperforms traditional methods, potentially revolutionizing real-time defect reconstruction and prediction in highly reliability-critical industries, including aerospace, power generation, semiconductor manufacturing, and civil infrastructure.
Abstract
Purpose – This paper studies the determinants for the desirability of the public-private partnership (PPP) mode in infrastructure development.
Design/methodology/approach – The author manually collects data on over 12,000 PPP projects in China, and regard the successful transition and abnormal termination as signals for the mode’s desirability and undesirability, respectively. Then, guided by relevant theories in the literature, the author investigates the impact of various project characteristics on the projects’ successful transition and abnormal termination.
Findings – First, execution-stage projects in industries where government support is indispensable, or where quality improvement is more important than cost reduction, face higher likelihood of abnormal termination. But such negative effects are mitigated if state-owned enterprises (SOEs) participate in the social party. Second, the structure of social party matters. The participation by private firms in the social party increases the termination likelihood, while the decentralization of the social party decreases it. Third, pre-execution projects with government payment or subsidies are more likely to enter into the execution stage.
Practical implications – Regulations on participation by SOEs in PPPs, such as policy [2023 No. 115] announced by State Council, should take industrial heterogeneity into consideration.
Originality/value – Using a large sample, the author empirically tests the seminal PPP-related theoriesin the literature. The author also uncovers some unique stylized facts about PPPs in China, especially the impact of SOE participation in the social party on PPP survival.
Abstract
Purpose – Investigation of the anomalies associated with crashes and jackpots in the Chinese stock market.
Design/methodology/approach – We propose a logit model to predict the events of crashes and jackpots in the Chinese stock market. The model introduces a new variable of the price-to-sales ratio and takes into account the market states, Up and Down.
Findings – The anomalies associated with crashes and jackpots are not related to variations in economic conditions, but are associated with limits to arbitrage. High-liquidity stocks have strong mispricing effects. The institutions’ speculative trading will push liquid stock prices further away from their fundamentals but avoid buying illiquid stocks with a higher probability of price crashes and jackpots.
Originality/value – We propose a logit model to predict the extreme events of both crash and jackpot in the Chinese stock market. Our model effectively disentangles from CRASHP and JACKP. Compared with the traditional model, it substantially enhances in-sample and out-sample predictions. Based on the predictions of the extreme events, we find two strong and robust pricing effects associated with ex ante CRASH and JACKP in the Chinese stock market.
A new record of Arctic sea-ice coverage – informed by the slow and steady sedimentation of cosmic dust on the sea floor – reveals that ancient ice waxed and waned with atmospheric warming, not ocean heat, over the last 300,000 years. The findings provide rare insights into how modern melting in the region could reshape the Arctic’s nutrient balance and biological productivity. The Arctic is warming more rapidly than any other region on Earth, driving a precipitous decline in sea ice coverage. This loss not only affects the region’s marine ecosystems and coastal communities, but it also has far-reaching implications on global climate and economics. However, predicting when the Arctic Ocean will become perennially ice-free remains uncertain due in large part to the general lack of long-term sea ice records and the fact that the processes controlling ice loss are not fully understood.
To address this gap and measure the abundance of sea ice over the past 300,000 years, Frank Pavia and colleagues developed a new geochemical technique using two naturally occurring isotopes – extraterrestrial helium-3 (3HeET) and thorium-230 (230Thxs,0) – preserved in Arctic Ocean sediments. Under ice-free conditions, both isotopes settle onto the seafloor at steady, predictable rates, but they originate from very different sources. Helium-3 arrives from space, delivered uniformly to Earth’s surface by a constant influx of cosmic dust particles. In contrast, thorium-231 is produced consistently within the ocean as dissolved uranium decays. During open water conditions, both isotopes accumulate together. However, during periods of sea-ice cover, the deposition of helium-3 is blocked, altering the ratio of the two isotopes accumulating on the sea floor. Pavia et al. use the ratio of these two isotopes in Arctic sediment cores to measure when and where ocean surface was covered by ice in the past. The record shows that during the last ice age, the central Arctic Ocean remained covered by sea ice year-round. As the Arctic began to warm ~15,000 years ago, ice started to retreat, leading to mostly seasonal sea ice during the warm early Holocene. Later, as the global climate cooled again, sea-ice cover expanded once more. According to the authors, these changes were driven mostly by atmospheric warming, rather than ocean temperatures, challenging assumptions that oceanic inflows of warm water dominated past Arctic sea-ice extent. What’s more, Pavia et al. found that sea ice variation was closely coupled with biological nutrient use, suggesting that as sea ice retreats, surface productivity increases. These findings indicate that future reductions in Arctic sea ice are likely to enhance biological nutrient consumption, with implications for long-term marine productivity in a warming Arctic Ocean.
A new study identified large clusters of food deserts, where residents have limited access to affordable, nutritious food, in East London—particularly Newham, Redbridge, and Barking and Dagenham—and in parts of west London such as Ealing and Brent. The findings were published November 6th in the open-access journal PLOS Complex Systems by Tayla Broadbridge of the University of Nottingham, UK, and colleagues.