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Using survey data from Shandong, Henan and Guizhou provinces of China, the purpose of this paper is to accurately measure the impact of rural residents’ financial education on financial literacy.

This paper chooses one province from the Eastern, Central and Western Regions of China, namely, Shandong, Henan and Guizhou, respectively, and 1,565 samples are obtained through a questionnaire survey. First, the paper constructs a financial literacy assessment framework and, then, scores the financial literacy of the respondents. Second, using ordinary least squares, feasible generalized least squares method and forward search method, the paper estimates the impact factors of financial literacy level. To avoid sample selection errors and endogeneity problems, the authors divide the respondents into treatment group (participated in financial education) and control group (non-participating in financial education) and, then, adopt propensity score matching (PSM) to analyze the impact of rural residents’ financial education on financial literacy.

The results show that education level and risk level have significant impact on rural residents’ participation in financial education, and some unobservable abilities and qualities also affect their participation. Therefore, the process of rural residents’ participation in financial education exists, which gives rise to self-selection and endogeneity problems; financial education is promoting rural residents’ financial literacy, but the effect of promotion becomes smaller after taking into account sample self-selection and endogenous problems. Rural residents of female, higher age, single, higher education level, higher parental education level, agricultural type, higher family annual per capita income and lower risk level show stronger effects on their financial literacy level, if they participate in financial education.

The survey sample was drawn from three provinces randomly but the site selection was not random. The implication is in rural China, financial education has positive effect on residents’ financial literacy level but considering the sample self- selection and endogenous nature, its impact becomes smaller.

The government should encourage rural residents to participate fully in financial education activities, especially those with a low educational level, low risk preference and mainly engaged in agricultural production.

The effect of financial education on financial literacy has not reached a consistent conclusion, and there is fewer quantitative discussion about this issue. The originality of this paper is based on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development evaluation index system; this paper constructs the evaluation index system of rural residents’ financial literacy in China and uses the PSM method to accurately measure the effect of financial education on financial literacy.

This study examines the impact of agricultural credit on rice farmers' technical efficiency (TE) in Côte d'Ivoire by considering the heterogeneity among credit sources.

A multistage sampling technique was used to collect data from 588 randomly sampled rice farmers in seven rice areas of the country. The authors use the endogenous stochastic frontier production (ESFP) model to account for the endogeneity of access to agricultural credit.

On the one hand, agricultural credit has a significant and positive impact on rice farmers' TE. Rice farmers receiving agricultural credit have an average of 5% increase in their TE, confirming the positive impact of agricultural credit on TE. On the other hand, the study provides evidence that the impact of credit on rice production efficiency differs depending on the source of credit. Borrowing from agricultural cooperatives and paddy rice buyers/processors positively and significantly influences the TE, while borrowing from microfinance institutions (MFIs) negatively and significantly influences the TE. Moreover, borrowing from relatives/friends does not significantly influence TE.

Future research can further explore the contribution of agricultural credit by including several agricultural productions and using panel data.

The study provides evidence that the impact of agricultural credit on agricultural production efficiency depends on the source of credit. This study contributes to the literature on the impact of agricultural credit and enlightens policymakers in the design of agricultural credit models in developing countries, particularly Côte d'Ivoire.

Several years after the regularization of microfinance activity in Côte d’Ivoire, smallholder farmers’ access to microfinance credits still remains marginal. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze key determinants of access to microfinance credit in Sassandra-Marahoué District.

A total of 150 smallholder farmers were randomly sampled using an interview guide and semi-structured questionnaires. Univariate statistics and Probit binary modeling were employed for data analyses.

Results revealed that socio-economic/demographic characteristics of smallholder farmers and credit requirements imposed by microfinance institutions (MFIs) are key determinants of smallholder farmers’ access to microfinance credits in the district.

Although, the authors shed light on the determinants of microfinance credit access for smallholder farmers in this district, the study focused on a single source of financial credit. Future research will need to explore the determinants of credit demand and the choice between different sources of rural credits in Côte d’Ivoire.

The findings suggest that MFIs seldom take into account smallholder farmers who are not engaged in off-farm income-generating activities and savings account; and those with low level of education. Sensitization programs on the importance of savings mobilization and credit policy by MFIs will potentially increase smallholder’s knowledge on credit access requirements and thereby increased access.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating determinants of smallholder farmers’ access to microfinance credits in Côte d’Ivoire specifically in the Sassandra-Marahoué District. The results of this study will serve as a guide for MFIs for improving smallholder farmers’ access to credit.

As a major agricultural province in central China, Hubei Province mainly carries out the peasant household credit investigation system through rural credit cooperatives (RCCs). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of the peasant household credit investigation system in Hubei RCCs and provide some evidence and ideas to the formulation of relevant policies.

First, this paper briefly reviews the related literature of the efficiency in credit investigation system; second, the paper gives a brief description of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model and designs the indicators for efficiency evaluation; third, the paper accounts data sources and processing methods; and finally, the paper performs the empirical analysis and draws a conclusion.

The paper finds that the efficiency of the resource allocation in both regions is unoptimistic, the general efficiency is somewhat low, and it shows the trend of declination. The efficiency of pure technology in two regions represents the adverse trend. Every year's average scale efficiency in both regions is higher than the pure technology efficiency.

The main contributions of this paper include the first use of DEA model to practically evaluate the efficiency of credit investigation system based on 54 samples of RCCs in Hubei Province and the horizontal and vertical comparisons of the results. The conclusions of this paper not only make the efficiency of credit investigation system in the province's 54 credit cooperatives comparable but also has a great application value to the actual decision‐making departments in formulating credit policies, and each credit cooperative in further building the credit investigation system according to its own conditions. Moreover, it has certain reference value to other similar studies.

A wire-based additive manufacturing system works with high manufacturing efficiency and low dimensional precision. The purpose of this paper is to study the dimensional characteristics of Ti-6Al-4V thin-walled parts with wire-based multi-laser additive manufacturing in vacuum.

Wire-based multi-laser additive manufacturing was carried out to understand the effect brought from different parameters. The Ti-6Al-4V thin-walled parts were formed by different height increments, power inputs and inter-layer cooling times in vacuum.

The result shows that, with the number of layers increment, the layer width of thin-walled part increases gradually in the beginning and stabilizes soon afterward. Height increment, laser power and inter-layer cooling time could affect the energy input to the deposited bead and heat accumulation of thin-walled part. The layer width decreases, while the height increment increases. The increment of laser power could increase the layer width. And, the increment of inter-layer cooling time (more than 5 s) has little effect on the layer width.

The heat dissipation mode of thin-walled parts in vacuum and the influence of different parameters on layer width are explained in this paper. It provides a reference for further understanding and controlling dimension precision of Ti-6Al-4V thin-walled part with wire-based multi-laser additive manufacturing in vacuum. At the same time, it provides a reference for researches of dimensional characteristics in the additive manufacturing industry.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between the cone bit seal failure and the down-hole drilling fluid pressure and high temperature that occur during ultra-deep well drilling. It proposes that the contact pressure distribution under low pressure conditions is favourable for lubrication and the seal inner wear is serious under high pressure conditions. Furthermore, the more reliable cone bit seal can be obtained using the back propagation (BP) neural network and genetic algorithm (GA) to reduce the drilling cost.

The wear morphologies of the seal surface were analyzed using Contour GT-K to determine the seal contact pressure distribution. Then, the influences of the drilling fluid pressure and high temperature on the metal seal interface were analyzed using finite element method. The structural parameters of the seal under high pressure were optimized based on the BP neural network and GA.

This paper proposes that the inner seal contact pressure increases rapidly with an increase in the drilling fluid pressure. The design parameters of the seal components should be adjusted reasonably to ensure that the outer contact pressure is greater than the inner contact pressure, which is advantageous for forming a lubricant film on the inner side of the seal. The uneven temperature distribution of the seal surface will further aggravate seal failure.

Study on the bit seal with good property is significant in drilling application, and the optimized seal can prolong the cone bit life.

Expert systems are computer-based systems that mimic the logical processes of human experts or organizations to give advice in a specific domain of knowledge. Fuzzy expert systems use fuzzy logic to handle uncertainties generated by imprecise, incomplete and/or vague information. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of the methods and applications in fuzzy expert systems.

The authors have carefully reviewed 281 journal publications and 149 conference proceedings published over the past 37 years since 1982. The authors grouped the journal publications and conference proceedings separately accordingly to the methods, application domains, tools and inference systems.

The authors have synthesized the findings and proposed useful suggestions for future research directions. The authors show that the most common use of fuzzy expert systems is in the medical field.

Fuzzy logic can be used to manage uncertainty in expert systems and solve problems that cannot be solved effectively with conventional methods. In this study, the authors present a comprehensive review of the methods and applications in fuzzy expert systems which could be useful for practicing managers developing expert systems under uncertainty.