Zooming survey on the actual situation of the sustainable development in China from 1970 until now.

The rise of the concerns about environmental issues and natural resources exhaustion have contributed in the elaboration of the term sustainability that would put development on the right rails. The concept of sustainability was gradually addressed since Stockholm in 1972, Montreal in 1987, Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and Istanbul in 1996, until Kyoto in 1997. The meaning of the terms sustainability and sustainable housing is generally vague and not universally accepted [1,2]. The most common definition of sustainable development is from the report Our Own Future by the World Commission in Environment and Development in 1987: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [3,4]. Even though there are various interpretations of this definition, it is generally acknowledged that sustainability requires reconciling three pillarsenvironment, society and economy (Figure 1).

Definition of sustainability
The rise of the concerns about environmental issues and natural resources exhaustion have contributed in the elaboration of the term sustainability that would put development on the right rails. The concept of sustainability was gradually addressed since Stockholm in 1972, Montreal in 1987, Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and Istanbul in 1996, until Kyoto in 1997. The meaning of the terms sustainability and sustainable housing is generally vague and not universally accepted [1,2].
The most common definition of sustainable development is from the report Our Own Future by the World Commission in Environment and Development in 1987: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [3,4]. Even though there are various interpretations of this definition, it is generally acknowledged that sustainability requires reconciling three pillars-environment, society and economy ( Figure 1). Citation: Saiefeddine AM, Bouzoraa A, Xiaohu L. Zooming survey on the actual situation of the sustainable development in China from 1970 until now. Environ Risk Assess Remediat. 2018;2 (2): [51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59] cultural diversity [5]. Sustainability is thus viewed as a notion of multiple dimensions.
Sustainability is consistent with traditional ethics in China. The idea of harmony between humans and nature has been established in the traditional Chinese culture which is well reflected in its rich philosophical traditions-Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism [6]. The Confucian scholar Mencius recognized the inseparable intimacy of humans and nature through the idea of the integration of the sky and human, which encourages human abeyance to objective natural laws and respect for metaphysical rules that people do not necessarily understand [7].
This reflects a respect for nature and the importance of working under natural rules rather than an emphasis on the dominance of humanity's presence. For neo-Confucians, human beings are organically connected with rocks, trees, and animals and form one body with the universe, philosophies that need to guide human development for the mutual benefit of all involved [8]. Taoism teaches that Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao (the Way or the Course). The law of the Tao is its being what it is [9]. These ideas of different schools illustrate the human relationship with nature, as everything grows in accordance with divine law, and everything is intrinsically interconnected. To conclude, the land-based livelihood of traditional Chinese society has established a rich compendium of knowledge on how to live relatively sustainably on the land over time [10].
However, Chinese traditions of collective responsibility and respect were largely erased in the twentieth century through radical campaigns, such as the purging of the Four Olds (old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits) in the Cultural Revolution [11].
Since 1978, rapid industrialization and economic development has led to high pollution, high development in the last decades in China. In recent years, Chinese authorities have come to realize the importance of seeking a balance between unimpeded economic growth and enhanced environmental protection [12].
The definitions of sustainability by Chinese government are based on the definition given in the World Commission in Environment and Development conference, which are too vague and unclear to indicate the specific aims and strategies. In 1996, President Zemin Jiang declared that a sustainable development is the one that considers the current development needs without compromising the future generations needs [13]. This definition was further interpreted in the 2012 Peoples Republic of China National Report on Sustainable Development as increasing the total quality of life within the environmental carrying capacity and improving the efficiency of natural resource use to protect the ecological environment and coordinating the relationship of social and economic development and natural resources consumption [14]. The two definitions are closely linked to the directing political initiatives in China, but explicit goals and solutions are not explained; additionally, ecological philosophies embodied in traditional Chinese culture are not reflected in the definitions.
Bring together the international and Chinese definitions, this article defines sustainability as a long-term balance of four dimensions environmental, economic, social and cultural dimensions integrated to achieve environmental responsibility, economic viability, social equity and cultural viability. This definition is proposed based on the four pillars of sustainability and Chinese cultural tradition of balancing the whole system, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of creating a harmony relationship between human and nature. It embraces a comprehensive understanding of the current international agenda towards sustainable development and the Chinese context.

Sustainable development in the Chinese Government perspective
A review of policies and legislative initiatives in China demonstrates an active governmental response to global sustainability strategies, which delineates the practical and legal contexts of sustainable architectural practice. The internal and external pressures of sustainable development identified in this section require an immediate architectural response.
China's participation in milestone international conferences initiated the implementation of sustainable development discussed below, and laid the foundation for its national targets and strategies. In 1987, China was involved in compiling the UN Our Common Future report, and signed the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21 in 1992 [15]. To strengthen its commitment to global sustainable development, the Chinese Government started to work on national policies, legislations and institutions to transform the methods of national development for economy, society and the environment [16].
In March 1994, China's Agenda 21-White Paper on China's Population, Environment and Development in the 21st Century was published; this is the first official guide document designed by the central government, aiming to set the national plans for economic and social development. In 1996, sustainable development was officially launched as one of the seven basic state policies. In 2000, China's government elaborated on sustainable development in its Five-Year Plan (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005) for the first time, in which it addressed the goal of integral sustainable development in social, ecological and economic fields and made specific implementation targets of controlling the rate of population growth, protecting natural environment and reducing emissions [17]. Sustainable development in China was rekindled and prioritized by the 11th Five-Year Plan that proposed to build a harmonious, resource-efficient and environment friendly society in 2004 [18]. In the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), a more environmentally sustainable direction of the nation's development was initiated through the means of controlling the overall emission of pollutants; improving people's living quality by enhancing environmental management and protecting drinking water; promoting green development and environment protection; further establishing international cooperation to address global environmental issues [19,20]. The top-down policies on environment protection and sustainable development have improved significantly in the past decades in China, and its environmental legal framework has been much developed ( Figure 2).
The principles of sustainable development in China have been refined to a set of more forward dimensions to direct all aspects of development in the latest government documents; these are summarised below: Even with the Chinese government's rising awareness of environment protection and its great attention given to sustainable policies, there are remaining issues that impede the potential for larger-scale success and long-term sustainability [21]. Albeit the implementation of the sustainability policies since 1996, pollution, land degradation and water quality have rapidly deteriorated. There are three major issues found in China's current sustainable development agenda: Firstly, the overall situation of environmental problems continues to intensify with increased national economic and social pressures, despite some achievements such as reduction of sulfuric dioxide emissions, improvement of environmental infrastructure and strengthened accountability and enforcement of environmental legislation over the past five years [22,23]. A series of serious pollution events-for example, the heavy smog and haze smothering most cities and water pollution became notable since 2014 have called into question China's current methods for tackling environmental issues ( Figure 3).
Even though the 11th Five Year Plan has identified the significance to control air pollution, the outcomes are not positive and the overall environment quality is declining. The Asian Development Bank reported in 2013 that more than 99% of the 500 largest cities in China do not meet the air quality standards recommended by the World Health Organization, 7 of them are even among the 10 most polluted cities in the world [24]. Other urgent environmental problems in China involve serious crises in water pollution, water scarcity and solid waste disposal [25]. Moreover, this deteriorating overall situation is incurring significant economic costs. The annual economic costs of resource and environmental degradation were up to 13.5% of the GDP in 2005 [26]. The costs from premature death related to air pollution were estimated at 1.4 trillion US dollars in China in 2010 [27].
Secondly, energy consumption in China has increased rapidly over the past decade, as shown in Figure 2. China is still the largest energy consumer and producer in the world, and its depletion of natural resource and pollution is enormous [28]. The enormous consumption is related to its industrial process that supports not only national development and private consumption, but also global economic development [29]. As an important manufacturing centre in the world, the resource depletion and emission of pollutants in China are highly linked to the production of goods for export [30]. Besides, the nation's internal concerns for population growth, poverty eradication, urban-rural construction and economic development lead to further aggravation of ecological deterioration, as demonstrated by Richard Brubaker [31,32]. Per capita energy consumption rose by 297% between 2003 and 2012 (Figures 4 and 5).  Continued reliance on coal and other fossil fuels as principle energy sources exacerbates environmental pollution, despite the comparatively tiny increase in alternative energy production such as wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power, as shown in Figures 6 and 7 [33]. Reliance on coal and fossil fuels also increases carbon dioxide emissions, which is a major cause of climate change.
Thirdly, China is facing the difficult of implementing and enforcing its policies and regulations, especially at the municipality and local level [34]. Due to their administrative hierarchy and lack of accountability for environmental regulation breaches, some local governments, as the Minister of Environmental Protection in China notes, give permission to polluting industries for instant economic benefits while lacking   incentives to enforce national regulations for environment protection, and their short-sightedness leads to the incidence of environmental law offences and pollutions [35]. Another issue that also increases the difficulty of the regulations effective enforcement is that, there are sectoral and local regulations authored by different government departments at different phases-they are enforced by separate department and have different rules [36]. In 2013, Premier Keqiang Li expressed the resolution of the Chinese Government to take forceful measures to solve worsening pollution [37]. It is necessary to improve the government's performance comprehensively at multiple levels to conduct environmental supervision and administrative law enforcement at local levels [38].

Summary of Chinese Efforts on Fulfiling the 2030 Agenda For Sustainable Development
The Chinese president Xi Jinping has taken part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit that occurred in September 2015, side by side with other leaders, where he emphasized on the commitment of his country to the agenda.
China, as one of the largest economies of the world, has prioritized development and economy. And according to their 13th Five-Year Plan approved in March 2016 by the National People's Congress, the development concept includes a number of relatively connected terms: innovation, coordination, green, open, and shared development. In the near future, the Chinese government aims to boost innovation and to improve the development's quality and efficiency, while coordinated development aims to ensure equal and well distributed development structure. The Chinese development will be directed towards a green, ecofriendly and low-carbon development model and lifestyle. The changes and improvements that china has promised will promote the process of opening-up to the world within a frame of a beneficial cooperation to all parties. China also wants to make sure that its development in the future will be shared which will improve people's wellbeing. The Chinese development will try to include a wide range of fields from the economic, cultural, social, political, to the ecological field to produce a coherent and balanced society on all levels ( Figure 8).
China expressed its great interest in implementing the 2030 Agenda. It intends to fulfill the principles of Peaceful Development, Win-win Cooperation, Integration and Coordination, Inclusiveness and Openness, Sovereignty and Voluntary Action, as well as "Common but Differentiated Responsibilities", in order to build stronger bounds in  Eradicating poverty and hunger through targeted measures such as enhancing agricultural production capacities and food security.
Improving social security and social services to ensure equal access to basic public services.
Establishing innovative strategies and encourage a sustainable, healthy and stable economic growth.

Evolving industry and create a coordinated development between urban and rural areas.
Defending equity and social justice in order to ensure the society's harmony and access to resources and development.
Defining the environmental protective boundaries.

Confronting climate change efficiently and through oriented strategies on the national level.
Emphasizing on the national governance and ensuring economic and social development within the frame of law.
Encouraging an efficient use of the natural resources and prioritizing the green and sustainable energy resources. international relations with mutual benefits, establish cooperators on the globe scale, and achieve economic, social development all harmoniously with the environment.
China suggests 9 keys areas where the implementation of the 2030 Agenda should occur. They are as follows: Many countries have taken steps forward in the process of internalizing the 2030 Agenda (Figure 9). The international community needs have set 5 dimensions as a general layout for the implementation: The implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has started since 2016. China, among others, has strongly contributed in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in its mid-and-long term development strategies. The total of 43 government departments combined has been cooperating in order to guarantee the successful implementation. The 2030 Agenda has been strongly promoted nationwide to deploy internal resources, to raise the public awareness, and to create a favorable social environment. For this purpose, China will consolidate inter-sector coordination by the mean of new reoriented policies, and review related laws and regulations and set up an adequate legislative environment. As a short-term goal, China intends to move those below the current poverty line out of the extreme situation, and to double its GDP. The Position Paper was released in China on the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It declares the Chinese perspective and view regarding the principles, policies, priorities, and progress made in form of a UN General Assembly document to member states in April. It will be released as a national plan of implementing the 2030 Agenda by the end of 2018 to recapitalize how far the Chinese experience went [39].
This year, the Chinese president Xi is the paramount leader of the group of twenty. It allowed him to introduce the development issues into the G20 agenda. Thanks to the Chinese efforts, the Group of 2 has given the development issue a highlighted spot in its actual macro policy framework for the first time. The joint effort of the G20 members has produced a common draft action plan for the 2030 Agenda where political momentum should carry the implementation progress further on the 2030 Agenda. The G20 has also discussed Supporting Industrialization in Africa and Developing Countries to positively contribute in the development process in these countries, especially in Africa. China has also encouraged carrying dialogues with non-G20 countries. The number of the invited countries by China is the highest in all the G20's history which proves the Chinese intentions of introducing more participants in all activities this year, in order to guarantee that the G20's future actions fits the world's expectations.
China undertakes its own responsibilities as one of the largest developing country, and it promises to pursue its active contribution in the world wide development cooperation. It has supported more than 120 developing countries in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). And about the future plans, China will strengthen its cooperation with the other developing countries to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Today, China is putting into action the measures declared by President Xi Jinping at the UN Summits Marking the 70th Anniversary, by supporting other developing countries on the financial, technological and construction levels. More preparations for the Assistance Fund for South-South Cooperation are taking place so it can be but into action in the near future. A new opportunity for the highly qualified brains of the developing countries has been settled with the foundation of The Academy of South-South Cooperation and Development in 2016. It provides doctor's degree and master's degree education and short-term training in the frame of a long term cooperative development. China has signed agreements on China-UN Peace and Development Fund with the UN; it was be put into action in 2016 and has started to fund projects that promote peace and development. China will also proceed with the one Belt one Road Initiative, and promote the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank all along with other institutions so they can engage in a global development action plan.

Conclusion
The sustainable development process requires the combination of all available new means and technologies of coordination ( Figure 10). In the future, China plans to carry on moving forward development and life quality by promoting green, eco-friendly development system. It will promote a balanced structure of sustainable development. China ensures it will undertake the task of implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, promote cooperative development with mutual benefit, and make joint efforts with other countries, developed and developing, to secure a sustainable development for the sake of the future generations.
Strength the building capacity of countries to improve institution building, enhance the public resources, and provide internal growth momentum.
Create a worldwide environment for development, build a balanced and win-win and provide a multilateral trading system and increase global economic governance. cooperate with all stakeholders and work towards a more equitable partnership for sustainble development.
Promote for coordination mechanism and incorporate development policy into global macroeconomic policy.
Enhance the follow-up and conduct to a regular reviews of global implementation progress while review of national implementation would be done according to national conditions and the principle of voluntarism action.


The fastest spreader in SIS epidemics on networks

Identifying the fastest spreaders in epidemics on a network helps to ensure an efficient spreading. By ranking the average spreading time for different spreaders, we show that the fastest spreader may change with the effective infection rate of a SIS epidemic process, which means that the time-dependent influence of a node is usually strongly coupled to the dynamic process and the underlying network. With increasing effective infection rate, we illustrate that the fastest spreader changes from the node with the largest degree to the node with the shortest flooding time. (The flooding time is the minimum time needed to reach all other nodes if the process is reduced to a flooding process.) Furthermore, by taking the local topology around the spreader and the average flooding time into account, we propose the spreading efficiency as a metric to quantify the efficiency of a spreader and identify the fastest spreader, which is adaptive to different infection rates in general networks.

Introduction
Identifying the most influential initial spreaders in a network constitutes a basic endeavor in network science, which helps to optimize the utility of resources and to ensure an efficient diffusion [1]. Injecting information in the fastest spreaders results in the most efficient spreading performance. The knowledge of the fastest spreader can be applied in direct marking [2] or idea spreading [3], where the resources are limited to start the spreading with a small number of spreaders.
Many topological metrics have been proposed to measure the influence of nodes in networks [4], such as degree, betweenness, closeness [5], eigenvector centrality [6] and the square eigenvector component [7]. Kitsak et al. [8] suggest that coreness constitutes a better topological descriptor to identify influential spreaders in epidemics [8]. However, many nodes performing differently in a spreading process may have the same k-core value. Therefore, new metrics based on the existing centrality are proposed to improve the identification of the influential nodes by coreness [9,10]. Considering removing the nodes causing the biggest drop in the energy function, Morone and Makse [11] propose the metric of collective influence through optimal percolation, which performs well in locally tree-like networks. Van Mieghem et al. [12] propose that the best conduction node in a resistor network is the minimizer of the diagonal elements of the pseudoinverse matrix Q † of the weighted Laplacian matrix of the graph.
In the Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model [13], Sikić et al. [14] show that the ranking of nodal influences is sensitive to the spreading dynamics, which depends on the a e-mail: Z.He@tudelft.nl infection rate and the curing rate. Measured by the cumulative infection probabilities of nodes, the degree centrality can better identify influential spreaders when the spreading rate is very small. However, the eigenvector centrality performs better when the spreading rate is close to the epidemic threshold [15]. Holme [16] discovers similar results and proposes an exact method to identify the best spreaders for influence maximization (the expected outbreak size) in the SIR model, but the method is only tractable in small graphs. In the Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible (SIS) model, Qu et al. [17] unveil that the ranking of nodal metastable infection probability also changes with the effective infection rate.
The "influence" of the spreader in the SIS model is not well defined. In this paper, we confine ourselves to the spreading time T m (i), defined as the time [18] when the number of infected nodes in the metastable state is first reached, started with one initially infected node i. The spreading time of an epidemic process generally determines the preferred period to take immunization actions to eradicate the spreading [19]. We investigate the average spreading time E[T m (i)] to identify the fastest spreader in an SIS epidemic on a general network. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the spreading time and shows that the average spreading time depends on the topological metrics in an ER random graph. Section 3 shows that the fastest spreader changes with the dynamic process in SIS epidemics. Further, we propose the spreading efficiency to identify the fastest spreader. We show the performance in four artificial and real networks in Section 4. Finally, we conclude our results in Section 5.

The spreading time in epidemics on networks
We concentrate on the Markovian SIS epidemics [20] on networks, where both the curing and infection processes are Poisson processes. In the SIS epidemics model on a network G with N nodes and L links, the ratio between the infection rate β and the curing rate δ is called the effective infection rate τ = β/δ. The SIS model features a phase transition [21] around the epidemic threshold τ c . Viruses with an effective infection rate τ above the epidemic threshold τ c can infect a sizable portion of the population and stay for a long time in the network. A firstorder mean-field approximation of the epidemic threshold τ (1) c = 1/λ 1 , where λ 1 is the spectral radius of the adjacency matrix A of the network G, was shown to be a lower bound for the epidemic threshold [20]. We denote by x = τ /τ (1) c the normalized effective infection rate. The spreading time T m (i) of the Markovian SIS process resembles a lognormal-like distribution with deep tails [18]. The average spreading time E[T m (i)] approximates the average hitting time when the average fraction y ∞ of infected nodes in the metastable state is reached. Physically, the spreading time T m (i) describes the spreading velocity in the early stage of the spreading process, which depends on the local topology around the initial spreader i. The analytic expression of the spreading time in a general graph is hard to derive in closed form [19]. Due to the limitation of the analytical methods, an event-driven simulator SSIS for the SIS spreading process based on the Gillespie algorithm is implemented to determine the spreading time [18].
A faster initial spreader speeds up the spreading in the outbreak period and leads to a shorter average spreading time, which measures the efficiency of the spreader. We can identify the fastest nodes by ranking the average spreading time. We first show the effect of the topological properties of the spreader i on the average spreading time E[T m (i)] in a SIS epidemics on an Erdős-Rényi (ER) random network. Figure 1 shows the normalized topological metrics of node i versus the average spreading time E[T m (i)], which demonstrates that the average spreading time E[T m (i)] depends on the topological properties of initial spreader i. Specifically, the degree and the closeness of the initial spreader seem to have a similar behavior as the average spreading time in the ER random graph, while the betweenness of the initial spreader has a weaker correlation with the average spreading time. The reciprocal of the diagonal element (Q † ii ) of the pseudoinverse matrix Q † also performs well in ranking the fastest spreaders and behaves similarly as the degree in the ER random graph [12]. Figure 1 illustrates that the nodes with the same coreness may occupy a large proportion of the network so that the fastest spreader cannot be identified well by their coreness.

The fastest spreader in SIS epidemics
In this section, we further investigate the fastest spreader in the SIS epidemics. The change of the fastest spreader with the effective infection rate τ is presented in an exemplified barbell-like graph. Then, we propose a new metric to identify the fastest spreader.

Change of the fastest spreader with τ in a barbell-like graph
We generate an asymmetric barbell-like graph G 20 where a path graph L 2 connects an ER random graph G 0.5 (10) and a star graph K 1,7 , as shown in Figure 2. The barbell-like The probability that the nodes is infected at the spreading time for different normalized effective infection rate x = τ /τc. Node 9 is the initially infected spreader. The darkness of the nodes represents the probability. The results is based on 10 5 realizations. Fig. 3. Illustration of the changing of the fastest spreader with different τ . The size of the nodes represents the degree, and the darker node represents the faster spreader. The orange node is the fastest initial spreader. graph helps us to trace the fastest spreader if the effective infection rate τ changes. Figure 2 illustrates the probability that the nodes is infected at the spreading time. Figure 2 shows that the infected nodes are usually localized around the initial spreader at the spreading time, e.g., the viruses seldom reach node 14 for a small normalized effective infection rate x = 4. Figure 3 exemplifies that the fastest spreader changes with the effective infection rate τ in G 20 . The fastest spreader changes dramatically from the highest degree node to the lowest degree node with increasing effective infection rate τ . Specifically, we observe three different cases in Figure 3. If the effective infection rate τ is relatively small, the fastest spreader tends to be located in the dense part (the ER random subgraph) of the network. With the increasing the effective infection rate τ , the fastest spreader transits to nodes with a larger closeness in the path subgraph. At last, the process approximates a flooding process if the effective infection rate τ is large enough. Since the average time to infect all nodes in the star subgraph is larger than that in the ER random subgraph, 1 the fastest spreader should be closer to the star subgraph.
In Figure 4, the crossings of the average spreading time E[T m (i)] with the effective infection rate τ for different initial spreaders demonstrate that not only the fastest spreader but also the ranking of spreaders is not fixed for different effective infection rates τ . Therefore, we conclude that the fastest initial spreader in SIS model, only inferred by its location in the underlying graph of the network, cannot be determined. Our finding implies that 1 The average time to infect all nodes [22] in an ER random graph Gp(N ) is estimated to be 1 The average time to infect all nodes in a star graph K 1,N from the center is estimated to be the maximum of N exponentially distributed random variables with mean 1/β, which approximates time-dependent "importance or centrality"of a node is usually strongly coupled to the dynamic process and the underlying graph itself.

A heuristic topological metric for the fastest spreader
In this section, we discuss the topological property of the fastest spreader throughout the increase of the effective infection rate τ , i.e., τ ↓ τ c , τ > τ c and very large τ .

Case: τ ↓ τ c
Invoking the infection probability vector V (t) = (v 1 (t), v 2 (t), . . . , v N (t)) T , we approximate the spreading dynamics in the early stage of the spreading [23] and obtain The average fraction y(t, τ ) of infected nodes at the spreading time t m with τ obeys that where u T = (1, 1, . . . , 1). If the effective infection rate τ = β δ approaches the first order mean-field approximation of the epidemic threshold τ (1) c = 1 λ1 , only a very small proportion y(t m , τ ) of nodes will be infected in the metastable state. The spreading time t m , defined as the the first hitting time when N y(t m , τ ) nodes are infected in the Markovian SIS process without extinction [18], is finite. Figure 4 also exemplifies that the average spreading time is relatively small if τ ↓ τ (1) c . The matrix (βA − δI)t m in (2) is dominated by the largest eigenvalue δ(τ λ 1 − 1)t m , which tends to be 0 if the effective infection rate τ ↓ τ (1) c (by Perron-Frobenius Theorem [5]). Simplified, invoking the degree vector d = Au and V (0) = e i , we arrive at Relation (3) exhibits that the degree of the spreader dominates the spreading time t m for the unaltered rates β, δ and their corresponding y(t m ) = y ∞ . This result is different from the result that the eigenvector of the adjacent matrix A belonging to the largest eigenvalue determines the infection probability vector in the metastable state [5]. We here exemplify an extreme case: if the effective infection rate τ approaches τ c , and there is only one infected node in the metastable stable, i.e., y(t m ) = 1 N , the spreading time t m equals the minimum time when any one of the neighbors of the spreader i is infected. Then, the average spreading time E[T m ] is the minimum of the d i exponential distributed random variables with a mean 1/β, where d i is the degree of the spreader i. Thus, the average spreading time follows E[T m ] = 1 βdi , which is determined by the degree of the initial spreader.

Case: increasing τ
We then investigate the case for the increasing effective infection rate τ . Inspired by the illustration in Section 3.1, we postulate that the fastest spreader depends on the local topology around itself, i.e., the number of nodes and the connectivity of nodes around the spreader. We first consider the number of nodes around the initial spreader and regard that the efficiency of the initial spreader is related to the expansion [5] of the subgraph centered at the spreader. Specifically, assuming that the hop count h is the farthest distance from the initial spreader i that the viruses can reach before the spreading time, the expansion of the subgraph is the number of nodes |C i (h)| within h hops from the initial spreader i.
We then consider the connectivity of the nodes around the initial spreader. An epidemic behaves like a continuous time Markov branching process in the early stage [24]. For a branching process, we obtain that the number of infected nodes follows N y(t) ≈ u T e βAt V (0) ≤ e βλ1t N y(0) (4) which implies that the lower bound of the time to infect N y(t) nodes around the initial spreader follows that t ≥ log(N y(t)) βλ1 . Inspired by (4), we propose λi(h) log |Ci(h)| as an indication of the connectivity of the local topology around the spreader i for a fixed infection rate β, where λ i (h) is the largest eigenvalue of the subgraph within h hops around the initial spreader i. A larger λi(h) log |Ci(h)| implies a higher connectivity that leads to a faster spreading in the local network within h hops.  Considering the above two factors including the expansion |C i (h)| of the subgraph and the connectivity indication λi(h) log |Ci(h)| within the subgraph, we propose the spreading efficiency as a new metric to measure the efficiency of the initial spreader in the SIS model. The spreading efficiency of node i is defined as In case that the sub-graph expansion |C i (h)| of the initial spreaders are the same, a larger sub-eigenvalue λ i (h) leads a higher spreading efficiency in the subgraph due to a higher connectivity of nodes. The hop count h describes the average farthest distance of the infected nodes from the spreader at the spreading time for the effective infection rate τ , which is difficult to be determined precisely in a general network. Morone and Makse [11] identify the influential spreaders by the Ball (subgraph) centered at the spreader, where the optimal radius of the Ball is 3 or 4.
The optimal hop h = f (τ ) in our method is more flexible, which is a function of the effective infection rate τ . We hereby proceed with an approximation. First, the average fraction of infected nodes y ∞ in the metastable state can be estimated by the NIMFA approach for a determined τ . The number N C of nodes in a branch process follows where H is the largest hop count from the root and µ = E[D] − 1 is the mean degree minus 1 in this graph [5]. In that case, we have the largest hop count Invoking the fact that a spreading process approximates a branching process in the early stage, we can estimate the hop count h in a sparse, large graph by

Case: large τ
With the increase of the effective infection rate τ and the average fraction y ∞ of infected nodes in the metastable state, the nodes that need relatively more time to be reached gradually dominate the spreading time. Thus, the fastest spreader could be closer to the sparser subgraph of the network. Finally, if the effective infection rate τ is large enough, the SIS process is reduced to be a flooding process [22]. The average flooding time E[T N (i)] of an initial spreader i is the average minimum time for the virus to reach all other nodes in a flooding process. Therefore, we could regard the reciprocal of the average flooding time determines the fastest spreader if τ is very large.
Assuming that λ 1 (0) = 1 and |C i (0)| = d i , the spreading efficiency in (5) with h < 1 follows the same rank as the degree d i . In summary, we simplify and propose the overall metric "spreading efficiency" to identify the fastest initial spreader in an SIS epidemics as where y * ∞ is a prescribed parameter indicating that the process approximates a flooding process if y ∞ > y * ∞ . We set y * ∞ = 0.8 in the paper for the simulation.  Figure 5 shows the Kendall rank correlation coefficient κ between the average spreading time and the above discussed metrics, including the degree, the spreading efficiency in (5) and the reciprocal of the average flooding time φ i via Monte-Carlo estimation. If the effective infection τ is close to the epidemics threshold τ c ≈ 0.17, the degree centrality could be a better metric. We then observe that the best hop count h increases with the effective infection rate τ , and the spreading efficiency E i with the proposed hop count h in (6) can lead to the maximum correlation coefficient κ in a wide range of τ . At last, the reciprocal of the average flooding time shows the advantage when τ is large enough.

Numerical results
We evaluate the performance by identifying the ranking of the fastest initial spreaders in four, artificial and real, networks with different sizes and topologies: co-appearances of characters in Les Misérables [25], small world citation network (SmallWCitation) [26], the artificial barbell network G 20 and Co-authorship network of scientists (Net-Science) [27]. Table 1 shows some properties of the giant component of the four networks including the number of nodes N , the number of links L, the diameter ρ, the largest eigenvalue λ 1 , the clustering coefficient C G , the Pearson degree correlation coefficient ρ D .
We extract the giant component of the above network and select 10 nodes randomly in each network. In each implementation, only one of the selected nodes is infected initially, and then the virus spreads in the network according to the Markovian SIS model. After obtaining the average spreading time via SSIS started from different initial spreaders, we compare the Kendall rank correlation coefficients κ between the average spreading time and some other metrics including degree, closeness, betweenness, coreness and the proposed spreading efficiency in (7). Physically, the identification of the fastest spreaders in a flooding process is a 1-center problem [28] in a graph, where the weights of links in the graph are exponentially distributed random variables with mean 1/β. Thus, we estimate the average flooding time E[T N (i)] by Monte-Carlo approach and the efficiency shortest path algorithm [29]. Figure 6 shows the performance of the several centrality metrics for ranking the fastest initial spreader in four networks. We observe that, in the networks with a small diameter (e.g., Les Misérables and SmallW citation network), the spreading efficiency performs similarly with the coreness, both of which are better than other centrality metrics. In addition, the spreading efficiency shows its advantage over the coreness if the effective infection rate τ is relatively large because the reciprocal of the average flooding time determines the fastest spreader in that case.
However, the degree and coreness show the vulnerability in the community networks with a large diameter (e.g., Barbell and NetScience network). Meanwhile, the closeness becomes a better metric, which considers the average length of the path between the spreader and all other nodes. Especially, in the Barbell G 20 , we observe the changing of the performance of the centrality metrics with the increasing effective infection rate τ . When τ is small, the degree and the coreness perform better, but the closeness and the betweenness become better if τ is large enough, which further convinces us that a single existing centrality metric fails to identify the fastest spreader in the SIS model. The results suggest that, in the real world, the viruses or information may spread more efficiency starting from the spreader with a large degree within the community for a small τ , but it is better to choose the spreader with a high closeness for a large τ .
In summary, we can observe that the proposed spreading efficiency performs better than the compared topological metrics in general, which is adaptive to different topologies and different dynamic process. We find that the accuracy of the spreading efficiency drops a little around the effective infection rate corresponding to the transition parameter y * ∞ . We also expect a better transition method and a better estimation of hop h = f (τ ) that can improve the performance.

Conclusion
We investigated the properties of the fastest initial spreader with the shortest average spreading time in the SIS model. We showed that the fastest spreader changes from the node with the largest degree to the node with the shortest flooding time for the increasing effective infection rate, which implies that the fastest spreader is coupled to not only the underlying graph but also the dynamic process.
By considering the expansion and the largest eigenvalue of the subgraph around the spreader, we proposed the spreading efficiency as a metric to rank the fastest spreaders. The spreading efficiency depends on the effective infection rate τ , and reduces to the reciprocal of the flooding time for a large τ . The simulation results on four networks show that the spreading efficiency can better rank the fastest spreaders than some existing topological metrics including degree, closeness, betweenness, and coreness, in different topologies and dynamic processes.


Philosophies from Indian Mythological Characters in Modern Day

One of the most commonly used terms in today’s management scenario is Internal Marketing. It aims at treating the employees of an organisation as internal customers. Though the term and its concept are very recent, yet this study attempts to relate this concept with the activities of Shree Krishna as described in the Mahabharata and Shreemad Bhagawad Gita. The study analyses the character and activities of Shree Krishna in the epic Mahabharata, as a continuous user of Internal Marketing strategies who with his excellence, intelligence and a clear idea of the same sets an example for the modern day managers. The study highlights the fact that the then user of Internal Marketing did not know that he is actually boosting the art of hiring, training and motivating but he used the aspects of the same for maintaining efficient and effective human resources for achieving the goals and objectives.

INTRODUCTION:
Internal Marketing: Internal Marketing means treating the employees as customers and satisfying their needs and wants through proper motivation and reward system to attain desirable results. INTERNAL MARKETING is basically promoting a firm and its product(s) or product lines to its employees. It is a very recent term that has considerably been gaining attention since the last two decades. K.P.M Byju (2013), in his study describes that though some authors like Gronroos (1990), Vary (2001) and Tsai (2008) argue it to be a subsidiary of Human Resource Management, yet it is considered that internal marketing is very essential in order to build a competitive advantage in the business world. The term internal marketing was first coined in the 1970"s and subsequently was being analysed by different authors from time to time. ELSamen Amjad Abu & Alshurideh Muhammad (2012) mentions that Berry L.L in 1984 stated internal marketing as, "The Employees as Customers." They further added that various authors from time to time have defined internal marketing from different perspectives v.i.z Kotler & Armstrong (1991) defined internal marketing as "the building of customer orientation among employees by training and motivating both customers-contact and support staff to work as a team". They also forwarded the view of Vasconcelos (2007) that argued that the external marketing strategies will only be successful if the internal marketing strategies are adequate. This can be done by developing relationships with the employees as customers and satisfying their needs and wants and in turn motivate them to deliver better performances. Therefore, internal marketing is mainly concerned witha) Hiring b) Training and development c) Motivation and Rewards It means that whenever the saints would be tortured and the atrocities of the evil would rise; I would come to establish ethics on earth from time to time. So, it can be interpreted that Krishna had three basic objectivesa) To do good with people. b) To discourage wrong practices. c) To establish ethical policies

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:
The study deals to achieve three basic objectives which can be enumerated as- 1) To analyse the character of Shree Krishna as an INTERNAL MARKETING manager. 2) To discuss and relate the strategies and principles adopted by Shree Krishna with modern Internal Marketing.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
The methodology adopted for the study is both descriptive and analytical. The study is based on the historical literature based on the contents from the Mahabharata, Shreemad Bhagawad Gita and related stories. Ten popular stories and teachings relating to Shree Krishna has been purposively selected which are further dealt as situation analyses.
On the other hand, the part relating to Internal Marketing is based on the views of various authors and management thinkers available in existing literature. Thus, the study is based on secondary information available in literature both ancient and modern. The selected cases are explained with the help of content analysis method relating these with the modern internal marketing strategies.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:
Internal Marketing is a very recent concept in the field of marketing. It came into discussion about four decades back. There has been very less number of studies done in this area of marketing. This study is thereby an attempt to provide an insight into this area of marketing and analyse it as a part and parcel of every organisation which contributes significantly for the organisation"s survival and sustenance.
The study advocates the fact that Internal Marketing, though a very new concept, yet its existence can be dated years back. The study tries to relate the past with the present.

CASE STUDIES BASED ON THE ACTIVITIES OF SHREE KRISHNA:
Situation: Narayana (2011)

Analysis:
The case can be highlighted with the angle of hiring. It focuses that an internal marketing manager should have a sharp observation and intellectual power to identify the potential employees who could contribute to their fullest to the organisation"s success.
During the war of Kurukshetra when Krishna was trying to motivate Arjuna, he was in the opinion that the teacher should be a knowledgeable person who has enough experience who has good communication skills. He should teach his students by approaching them with respect and courtesy i.e. in the same manner that he wants to be treated by them. (Narayana, 2011) Analysis: It can be interpreted that the internal marketing manager should posses the requisite qualities if he wants to excel in the art of hiring, training and motivation. Any employee would feel more loyal towards his manager if he is treated with dignity and respect. Following these principles would lead to lesser employee turnover thereby leading to better performance.

Situation:
Shakuni once played the strategy of sending sage Durvasa to meet the Pandavas in the forest. It was quite sure for him that when the Pandavas would fail to provide proper food to him Internal Marketing due to poverty, it would offend Durvasa and would in turn curse the Pandavas. Krishna when knew of the incident, he immediately offered the Pandavas the "Akshaya Patra"the vessel that produced continuous food in order to save them from the plight.

Analysis:
This case can be analysed in light of trust gaining. It is the first and foremost duty of any internal marketing manager to gain the trust of the employees. It is only when the employees have enough trust on their manager; they would work their heart and soul for the benefit of the organisation. Krishna knew it very well beforehand that it is only the Pandavas who could stand on the side of ethics and do well to mankind by winning the probable war that was going to initiate between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. He therefore did not lose the opportunity to win the trust of the Pandavas and therefore helped them at their Internal Marketing of need. It also depicts that if a manager stands for his employees at their Internal Marketing of need, the employees would trust on the manager as their companion and not only as a superior. In other words, it would develop smooth superior-subordinate relationship which is very essential for better Human Resource Management.

Analysis:
Any organisation is owned by people, run by people and is made for people. When the organisation hires any employee its main objective is to fulfil the good interests of the owners of the organisation. When the employees are being trained, the main objective is to let them perform better so that their work can satisfy the needs of the customers and when the employees are being motivated, the main objective is to do well with them and satisfy their wants. As all the three aspects are to be performed by an internal marketing manager. It is suggested that the activities of hiring, training and motivating are to be done keeping in mind welfare of the people concerned. Shree Krishna has succeeded in achieving the ultimate goals of his life because he performed all these activities with the only intension of welfare of the people. He believed that when people around him are happy, they would contribute to their fullest; and when people contribute to their fullest, success is imminent.

Analysis:
An internal marketing manager also plays the duty to protect his employees from external threats. Competitors often try either to attract the competitive employees from other organisations or try to destroy their career in order to play a win game by pushing them to conspiracies. It is the duty of the internal marketing manager to effectively train and motivate the employees and also keep a track of the external threats so that his employees are on a safer side.

FINDINGS:
The major findings of the study are-1) The origin of Internal Marketing can be dated back to history where an informal practice of it is evident.
2) The theories of internal marketing that were framed in the late century were seemed to be practiced thousands of years ago.
3) The main objective of Internal Marketing was always to boost the art of hiring, training and motivating effective and efficient employees to reap the best out of them. 4) Internal Marketing always focused on ethical principles and was meant mainly for guiding and developing the employees in a positive direction.

CONCLUSION:
Though it is widely accepted that INTERNAL MARKETING is a concept which is very new that came into existence only a few decades back, yet it can be deciphered from the study that its practice is as old as 3228 B.C (Krishna date of birth, n.d.). The cases illustrated in the study successfully relate the activities of Shree Krishna to the modern day practices which prove the previous statement. The study proves it very well that in every tactic of Shree Krishna was focused upon how to achieve his goal by satisfying the needs of his followers, especially Arjuna. He managed himself well between the activities of hiring, training and motivating his employee. This aspect helps us in confirming our first objective to be fulfilled.
The study constantly depicts how the strategies applied by Shree Krishna are relevant in real business scenario in day to day life. Every business house, in order to climb the ladder of success more or less follows the same principles and strategies once Shree Krishna suggested. The study proves with the various examples that his techniques of achieving success are not age old or out of date. They are in-fact very advanced techniques of gaining a competitive advantage. Therefore, it states our second objective of the relevancy of Shree Krishna"s strategies to be effective in present day time to be fulfilled.


Influence of Demographic Factors on Job Satisfaction of Financial Institutions Workforce of Nepal

This paper examines the influence of demographic factors on job satisfaction of employees of Nepalese Financial Institutions. The survey instrument was distributed to the employee of commercial banks, development banks and finance companies located at Lekhnath municipality and Pokhara Sub-metropolitan city. The sample size for this study was 150. The sample was selected using strati-fied sampling. This study presented communication, career development, and role of employee, working condition, recognition, and reward, immediate supervisor, and training pro-gram as factors of job satisfaction. Data were analyzed by using statistical tools like frequency, mean, and percentage. Moreover to test the hypothesis presented in this study, independent t-test, ANOVA analysis have been used. This research concluded that demographic variables (gender, job position, and age) influence the level of job satisfaction of employees of Nepalese financial institutions.

Introduction
Financial institutions of Nepal are playing important role in the overall economic development of country. In Nepal financial institutions have been growing in sufficient number after the declaration of liberal policy related to financial institutions by Nepal Rastra bank. It seems that job satisfaction of employees is the key to productivity of any kinds of organization. The job satisfaction is one of the important issues for management, organizations and researchers (Locke & Latham, 2000). Job satisfaction is an attitude which shows the level of being happy or unhappy with the workplace, work, and organization.
That is satisfied workers have positive perception & attitude toward their organizations (Rocca, & Konstanki, 2001;Dessler, 2005). So organizations must know about the variables which satisfy the employees as well as factors which determine the level of job satisfaction of workers in organizations. Thus a leading stream of research in job satisfaction is about the demographic impacts on the employee's attitude because these personal and contextual variables have been found significant in affecting the performance level of any workforce (Sokoya, 2000). The concept on influence of demographic variables on level of job satisfaction is still one of the most challenging and researched concepts in the fields of human resource management, organization behavior. A variety of studies have been conducted to explore, the concept on influence of demographic variables on job satisfaction in many countries besides Nepal. So the objective of this study is to explore demographic variables influencing job satisfaction of financial workforce of Nepal.

Literature Review
An array of research is going on to explore the job satisfaction of employees of different kinds of organization because which is directly related to contributions of employees to these organizations.
The literature survey reveals that which contribute to the job satisfaction of any worker or officers are: pay, work, environment, coworkers (Robbins, 1998) Likewise adequate equipment, required resources, training opportunity and an equitable workload all affect an employee's job satisfaction (Ellickson & Logsdon, 2001). Ellickson and Logsdon (2001) argued that job satisfaction has two major groups of causes: environmental antecedents (work related factors) and personal factors. The job satisfaction like work, pay, supervision, promotion, co-worker and the demographic features of the employees and organization determine job satisfaction (shah &Jalees, 2004, Tsigilis et al. 2006) Daftuar (2001) stated that in terms of personal characteristics affecting job satisfaction, it appears that higher occupational levels are generally associated with higher job satisfaction. Beisiegel (2003) found that there was no significant gender difference in job satisfaction. He has stated that it is the specifics of the job impact on job satisfaction and not the gender of the employee itself and this is accounted for the absence of a significant direct correlation between job satisfaction and gender. Katuwal and Randhawa (2007) their study results revealed that the textile workers in Nepal have a high dissatisfaction with the facets of the job that involved the monetary expenditure of the organization, the behavioral aspects of management and the employment policy of the organization According to Ali, Ewan and Duska (2008) variables such as age, gender, work experience years, organizational position, types of employment and salaries received and benefits were seen as having effects on their job satisfaction. Cetin (2006) showed that differences in job satisfaction according to gender, marital status and age was not significant. Orisatoki and Oguntibeju (2010) found that there was no significant satisfaction difference between gender and age groups. There was positive correlation between job satisfaction with understanding the goals and the objectives of the management and sense of belonging.
There was no significant correlation of job satisfaction with other factors such as knowledge about workplace, work stress, relationship with colleagues but negative correlation of job satisfaction with salary.

Data and Methodology
This research is mainly based on primary data collected through well framed structured questionnaires to know the opinion of the respondents. The universe for this study is the employees of the selected financial institutions. Financial institutions are stratified into three strata namely commercial banks, development banks, and finance companies. Financial institutions situated at Pokhara Sub-metropolitan city and Lekhnath municipality have been taken as population for this study. To represent the population 200 questionnaires were distributed to respondents but only 150 questionnaires were usable so sample size for this study was 150. Out of which 62 respondents were from commercial banks, 45 from development banks, and 43 from finance Companies. The researcher has adopted stratified random sampling technique for selecting the sample for the study.

Measurement
Job satisfaction refers to positive or negative feeling towards job. There are many factors which determine job satisfaction of employees. Following is a brief account of the factors of job satisfaction.
Communication: communication is one of the important factor of job satisfaction. Employee's job satisfaction is determined by how organization's policy and procedure are communicated as well as frequency of communication Career development: employees prefer their clearly established career path in their organization and want to learn and grow career so organization should make them clear about their career path which will lead to employee's motivation Employee's role: job satisfaction of employees is based on the types of roles played by employees and degree of decision making authority.
Working condition: working condition of organization is more powerful determinant of both productivity and employee satisfaction. Reasonable load, work life balance, package of holiday are important determinant of good working condition.
Recognition and reward: another most important factor of job satisfaction is recognition and reward Employees will be more satisfied if they are recognized and rewarded for work that is well done and considers them as a valuable resource.
Role of supervisor: supervision is the function of leading, coordinating and guiding employees at their job to accomplish organization's goals so supervisor can play effective role by guiding their job, motivating employees treating employees with respect to increase productivity leading to job satisfaction.
Training program: training program is necessary for employees on the basis of need so initial training and ongoing trainings play vital role for increasing job satisfaction of employees. All the job satisfaction factors were measured on a Likert's 5 points scale ranging from strongly agree (5), agree(4), Neutral(3), disagree(2) and strongly disagree(1). Moderating variables for this questionnaires are gender, marital status, job position, service year, education, and age. Cronbach's Alpha coefficient was tested and found 0.927.

Analysis and Interpretation
The frequency, percentage, means, ANOVA and independent sample t-test were employed to analyze the results of quantitative method using SPSS.

3.3
Hypothesis Development 1. H 0 : there is no significant difference in job satisfaction level with respect to marital status, gender, service year, education level and age. With regard to job position the result showed that assistant with highest percentage at 61.33 percent as compare to officer with 20 percent, senior officer with 8.67 percent, and manager with 10 percent.

Empirical Analysis
Regarding the year of service of respondents in the organization, most of the respondents were 1-3 years at 46 percent, whereas 4-8 years at 37.33 percent, 9-15 years at 8.67 percent, less than one year at 8 percent Regarding the educational level of respondents, result showed that masters with highest percentage at 63.33 percent, whereas bachelor with 33.33 percent, and +2 levels with 3.33 percent.
Regarding the age group of respondents, result showed that respondents were mostly between 26-30 years with 46 percent, 20-25 years with 30 percent, 31-35 with 13.33 percent, over 35 years with 10 percent and under 20 years with 0.67 percent. ANOVA analysis shows that there is significant difference in the career development of employees with respect to job position and age of employees at 0.05 level. But there is no significant difference in the career development with respect to service year and education of employees, marital status and gender.
T-test shows that there is no significant difference in the career development with respect to gender and marital status of employees.
T-test shows that there is significant difference in the role of employees with respect to gender at 0.1 level but no significant difference with respect to marital status of employees. ANOVA analysis shows that there is significant difference in the role of employees with respect to job position and age of employees at 0.001, and 0.05 level respectively but no significant difference with respect to years of service and education of employees.
T-test and ANOVA analysis show that there is significant difference in working condition with respect to gender, marital status, job position, service year, education, and age of employee.
T-test shows that there is significant difference in recognition of employee and reward system of organization with respect to gender at 0.05 level but no significant difference with respect to marital status of employees. ANOVA analysis shows that there is significant difference in recognition and reward with respect to job position, service year, and age of employee at 0.05, 0.1, and 0.001 level respectively but no significant difference with respect to education of employees.
T-test shows that there is no significant difference in role of supervisor with respect gender and marital status of employee. ANOVA analysis shows that there is significant difference in role of supervisor with respect to job position at 0.1 level but no significant difference with respect to service year, education, and age of employees.
T-test shows that there is no significant difference in training program with respect to gender and marital status of employees. ANOVA analysis shows that there is significant difference in training program with respect to age at 0.1 level but no significant difference with respect to job positon, service year, and education of employees.  So hypothesis set for this research has been rejected. In case of marital status there is no significant difference in the level of job satisfaction with respect to married and unmarried employees. So hypothesis set for marital status has been accepted and this finding is not supported by Ranjit (2012).
The ANOVA value (F=5.556) shows that there is significance difference in the level of job satisfaction with respect to job position of employees at 0.001 level. It is inferred that higher the position higher is the level of job satisfaction and vice versa. The hypothesis set for job position has been rejected.
The ANOVA analysis showed that there is no significant difference in the level of job satisfaction among the employees with respect to years of service(p>0.05). The finding shows that years of service of employees does not influence the level of job satisfaction. The hypothesis set for service years has been accepted and this finding is not supported by Ranjit (2012).
The ANOVA analysis showed that there is no significant difference in the level of job satisfaction with respect to education level of employees(p>0.05). The hypothesis set for level of education of employees has been accepted and this finding indicates that level of education does not influence the level of job satisfaction of employees.

Influence of Demographic Factors on Job Satisfaction of Financial Institutions Workforce of Nepal
However this finding is not supported by Ranjit, (2012) & Sukumar (2009.
The ANOVA analysis showed that there is significant difference between age of employees and level of job satisfaction at 0.01 level. It is concluded that higher the age higher is the level of job satisfaction. This finding is supported by Ranjit (2012), Tom, & Smith (2007.

Conclusion
The result revealed the influence of demographic variable (gender, marital status, job position, service years, education, and age) on job satisfaction of employees of Nepalese financial institutions. Communication, career development, role of employee, working condition, recognition and reward, role of supervisor, and training program have been taken as independent variables. In banking sector in Nepal, gender, job position, service year, age of employees do influence on communication pattern of organizational communication whereas marital status, education do not have any influences. Job position, and age of employees have influence on career development whereas gender, marital status service year, education do not have any influences. Gender, job position, and age of employees have influences but marital status, service year and education do not have any influence. The result revealed that, job position, and age of employees influence the level of job satisfaction in Nepalese financial institutions. This study also reveals that there is no influence of years of service, level of education, and marital status of employees on level of job satisfaction.


Variability of Dynamic Capabilities in the Small Business Development Process

The aim of the paper is to determine the level as well as the scope and nature of the variability of dynamic capabilities in the various stages of the development process of the SME sector companies. The objective was achieved by conducting a survey research on a sample of 356 micro, small and medium enterprises that operate in the European Union. The results indicate that the level of dynamic capabilities significantly varied in the subsequent phases, with the relatively highest values reached at the stages characterized by significant development activity. Its characteristic is the polynomial nature of the course that fits the model assumptions of staged concepts of the life cycle of the organization.

INTRODUCTION
Resources-related limitations (especially in the sphere of tangible/ inancial resources) (Lonial & Carter, 2015) and activities conducted under the conditions of intense pressure exerted by the environment (Shigang, 2010) are one of the most important features of the speci icity of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (in the article: SMEs, small business) which signi icantly determines the course of development of these entities. This causes a great number of managerial challenges for these companies, challenges associated with the development and exploitation of the available resources. The resource-based theory, which emphasises the growing importance of resources (mostly intangible) in business management, provides interesting conclusions in this respect. One of the most important proposals within the framework of this theory is the concept of resource-based dynamic capabilities aimed at the sensing, seizing and transforming of resources under the conditions of strong volatility of the environment in order to strengthen the unique strategic characteristics of the resource base, build a sustainable competitive advantage and improve market performance (D. Teece, 2007). Previous studies indicate that the resource potential of the SME sector companies differs signi icantly in the subsequent stages of their development cycle (Ferreira, Azevedo, & Cruz, 2011). In the current literature, however, there is no analysis of variability of dynamic capabilities in the development cycle of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, which is an important research gap, and at the same time an inspiration to undertake research within the framework of this study. Taking this into account, the paper aims to determine the level as well as the extent and nature of variability of resource-based dynamic capabilities in the individual stages of SMEs' development cycle. Thus, the subject of the research is variability of dynamic capabilities in the small business development process. In terms of the subjective approach, the study was conducted on a random sample of 356 SMEs that operate in the European Union. The structure of the paper is as follows: literature review, research methodology and presentation of results. The inal part presents limitations and future directions of research, followed by conclusions. The results obtained indicate that the level of resource-based dynamic capabilities differs signi icantly in the individual phases, and reaches relatively the highest values for the stages characterized by consid-erable development activity. This level is characterized by the polynomial nature of the course of development, matching the model assumptions of the concept describing the staged organizational life cycle. The presented study was conducted as a preliminary analysis carried out under the research project no. 2015/17/B/HS4/00988 inanced by the National Science Centre, Poland.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are the most numerous category of entities in the modern market economy and are identi ied in principle in all the countries in the world on the basis of speci ic qualitative and quantitative criteria (Ayyagari, Demirgüç-Kunt, & Beck, 2003;Bizon, 2016). Their limited internal capacity and high sensitivity to external conditions mean that the management of these entities often needs to ful il higher requirements than in the case of large companies. Any errors in this area may very severely and adversely affect the operations of SMEs (Bernik, Azis, Kartini, & Harsanto, 2015;Grif in, 2017), and due to the use of simpli ied organizational and legal forms, these errors can frequently yield negative administrative and legal consequences for owners of these entities and their families. The importance of applying effective methods of resource management determining SMEs' success is also pointed out by Krupski (2011). The results of his research indicate that the resource-based approach is the dominant formula of the strategic orientation in the functioning of the smallest business entities, affecting at the same time their level of lexibility, scale of exploitation of business opportunities and ability to avoid market risks. The resource-based theory provides valuable conclusions in this area for SMEs by emphasising that the position and competitive advantage are built not by the amount of available/controlled resources, but through their effective use and the development of certain strategic features of the resource base (Barney & Hesterly, 2015;Boonvut, 2017). These features include: the value which allows to reduce market risk, uniqueness in the environment, the dif iculty in imitation by competitors and in their access to substitutes or alternative solutions, as well as a high level of ability to organize and control the company's resource base. The concept of dynamic capabilities, which indicates what actions and routine-based activities in terms of search, acquisition, transformation and use of resources should be taken in order to effectively build a strong market position and a sustainable competitive advantage of the company under the conditions of high volatility of the environ-ment, plays an important role in the creation of the resource potential (D. Teece, 2009). Dynamic capabilities literature makes a conceptual distinction between ordinary capabilities and dynamic capabilities. While ordinary capabilities determine how a irm operates at the moment and ensure operational effectiveness, dynamic capabilities enable the irm to change, sensing and seizing new business opportunities as well as create opportunities for new strategies through modifying ordinary capabilities (Laaksonen & Peltoniemi, 2018). Therefore, the dynamic of these capabilities derives from their change-oriented nature and they can be disaggregated into three interrelated (Wilden & Gudergan, 2015) actions: sensing, seizing, and recon iguring. Sensing involves activities of scanning, search, and exploration aimed at gathering information and learning about market and entrepreneurial opportunities. Seizing includes the evaluation of existing and emerging capabilities/opportunities aimed at making investments in tangible and intangible assets. Finally, recon iguration encompasses activities that recombine bundles of resources and ordinary capabilities in order to achieve synergistic complementarities inside and outside the enterprise (Fainshmidt & Frazier, 2017). Other, more complex classi ications of dynamic capabilities include (Salunke, Weerawardena, & McColl-Kennedy, 2011;D. J. Teece, 2014) -The capability to identify and recognise the potential of the environment and to assess market opportunities and risks.
-The capability to mobilise resources depending on the situation and to appropriately exploit emerging market opportunities.
-The capability to recon igure the set of resources available and adapt to changing conditions by introducing required changes in the structure of resources and the scope of business activity conducted.
-The capability to renew the resource base of the company in accordance with current trends and requirements imposed by competitors.
-The capability to protect resources in order to ensure an adequate level of strategic characteristics of the company's resource base.
-The capability to con igure and coordinate resources for effective and ef icient implementation of the company's strategic objectives.
-The capability to purchase and acquire valuable resources from the environment,.
-The capability to strengthen and expand the resource base depending on the market situation as well as the current and future needs of the company. Laaksonen and Peltoniemi (2018) draw attention to a lack of unambiguous and generally accepted principles of operationalization and measurement of dynamic capabilities in research practice of management sciences. Based on their own research on a sample of 232 operationalizations of dynamic capabilities in global research practice, the researchers distinguish four practical approaches to their measurement: (1) measurement based on assessments of managers and business owners, (2) measurement based on inancial data, (3) measurement expressed through past experience and achievements of enterprises, and (4) measurement based on managers' or employees' experience, actions and performance. Due to the fact that the irst approach to measurement of dynamic capabilities is dominant (identi ied in 67% of operationalizations under analysis), the study adopts the type of measurement based on assessments of mangers of the SME sector companies. For this purpose, the operationalization based on one-dimensional indicators, which despite its limitations is successfully applied in research practice e.g., (Pervan, Curak, & Pavic Kramaric, 2018), was used. Results of many studies so far have con irmed a positive impact of dynamic capabilities on the performance and scope of SMEs' market activity (Mudalige, 2015;Rice, Liao, Galvin, & Martin, 2015), on the level of SMEs' internal and open innovation (Nolsøe Grünbaum & Stenger, 2013;Grimaldi, Quinto, & Rippa, 2013;Ripain, Amirul, & Mail, 2017), as well as on SMEs' proactive posture and capability to integrate resources in recognising new opportunities in an environment characterized by high volatility and uncertainty (Battisti & Deakins, 2017;Halim, Adnan, & Khusaini, 2017). An important contribution to the development of the theory and practice of dynamic capabilities was also made by studies conducted by Polish authors. These include: identifying the place of dynamic capabilities in a broader perspective of organizational capabilities (Sta 'n czy Hugiet, Pi órkowska, & Sta 'n czyk, 2016; W 'o jcik Karpacz, 2017), drawing attention to the role of imovations (Krzakiewicz & Cyfert, 2016) and relational competences (Zakon, 2008) in the process of shaping dynamic capabilities of the organization, identi ication and assessment of dynamic capabilities in the value appropriation process (Najda, 2016), as well as an indication of the role of dynamic capabilities in the evolution of organizational routines (Karpacz, 2013). One of the areas of variability of dynamic capabilities can be a variety of changes that occur in the development cycle of an enterprise. This cycle in the theory of management sciences is normally described by using staged models expressing transformations taking place in organizations as-sociated with the transition through the subsequent stages of development characterized by a signi icantly different nature and quantitative and/or qualitative characteristics. A number of various staged models of the development cycle of an enterprise are formulated in the literature (Levie & Lichtenstein, 2010), some of which are adjusted to the speci icity of SMEs by: -Expanding the initial (start-up) phase by incorporating the conceptual stage in which a business plan for the new company is developed (Felsenstein & Schwartz, 1993).
-Taking into consideration the dominant role of entrepreneurship and owners' attitude as the key factors determining success in the small business development cycle (Adizes, 1988).
-Rejecting the deterministic course of the development cycle allowing both the return to the initial phases (Lewis & Churchill, 1983) as well as the rapid growth with bypassing the intermediate phases (Granlund & Taipaleenmäki, 2005).
-Drawing attention to the possibility of using signi icant developmental changes to prevent crisis phenomena and effectively prolong the company's life span (Belussi & Sedita, 2009). -Taking into account the possibility of leaving the category of SMEs by separating ownership and management, or by a merger with another company, aimed at the further expansion in the category of large enterprises (Jones, 2015). Based on the existing development cycle literature, an original stage dynamics and statics model of SMEs' development-cycle was proposed. It covers 8 stages relating to speci icity of small business (Matejun & Mikolás, 2017;Marfa, Niguidula, & Enriquez, 2017).
-The pre-emergence stage of conceptual nature, aimed at making a decision about setting up the company.
-The emergence stage, in which irst investments and irst attempts at developing and commercializing the company's market offer based on entrepreneurial activity are made.
-The survival stage, which is a period of the irst market veri ication of the company and of a challenge related to ensuring the required level of pro itability and liquidity.
-The dynamic growth stage, in which the following quantitative growth indicators signi icantly increase: turnover, the level of employment or the number of contractors, accompanied by the introduction of proactive qualitative changes in the company.
-The separation and expansion stage, in which important expansion activities in the area of market, product or in-vestment are carried out, and the authority is often passed into the hands of professional managers.
-The stabilization stage, in which the dynamics of business growth is reduced, accompanied by stabilization of inancial indicators, reduction in investment and growth of the organization.
-The revitalization stage, characterized by a dynamic and proactive approach to the company's further development based on the introduction of signi icant changes in the company's structure, business strategy and market offer.
-The decline stage, characterized by a rather permanently reduced level of ef iciency and effectiveness, as well as negative inancial results, which may lead to the collapse of the company. Some of the stages in the proposed model are characterized by a proactive approach to business activity and focusing efforts on market, investment and development processes. Such stages are set out in the model as the dynamic development stages and include: the emergence stage, the dynamic growth stage, the separation and expansion stage and the revitalization stage. Their opposites are the static stages, characterized by more conservative and stable actions focused on current activities and ensuring the continuity of the company. These stages include: the pre-emergence stage, the survival stage, the stabilization stage and the decline stage. Although development cycle models are sometimes criticized, including the allegations of a too excessively deterministic course or a lack of precision in de ining the individual phases (Phelps, Adams, & Bessant, 2007), it seems, however, that they can be a valuable tool for description, interpretation and prediction of variability of dynamic capabilities in the processes of SMEs' development. The subsequent part of this paper is devoted to the empirical analysis of this issue.

METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESEARCH SAMPLE
The survey conducted on a random sample of 356 SME sector companies that operate in the European Union, including: 235 (66%) micro, 89 (25%) small and 32 (9%) medium-sized enterprises, served to achieve the objective of the paper. The size of the entities was identi ied on the basis of the criteria of the number of full-time employees, the size of revenue and the balance sheet value in accordance with the rules of the formal de inition of SMEs in force in the European Union (Berisha & Pula, 2015, pp. 18-20). The study also encompassed only autonomous companies whose capital and/or ownership ties with other entities did not exceed 25%.
Most of the analyzed enterprises operate in the form of sole proprietorship (55%) or limited liability companies (24%). The studied companies were most active in the service sector (69%), especially in such industries as construction and architecture (9%), information technology and communication (8%), education and training (8%), management consulting, professional services, mainly legal or tax services (7%), as well as inancial and insurance services (6%). Entities active in the market for more than 20 years (31%) or operating for 5-10 years (29%) dominated in the sample. The scope of activities of the analyzed companies is rather wide -almost 70% entities declare operations at least at the national level. The surveyed respondents comprised representatives of the analyzed entities and their opinions were used to gather empirical material. They were mostly company owners/coowners (65%), less often senior managers (22%) or employees authorized and legitimized by the management to participate in the study (13%). The questions were responded mostly by men (42%), those aged 31 to 50 years (60%) and over 50 years (29%), with a higher education in the (84%) technical (36%), economic (31%), humanistic (9%) or scienti ic (7%) ield.

RESEARCH RESULTS
First, the range of occurrence of the individual phases of the development cycle in the analyzed sample was identi ied. This was done on the basis of the opinions of the respondents indicating in the survey questionnaire at which stage of the development cycle their company was. In order to increase the precision and objectivity of the responses, each phase was supplemented with a short descriptive characteristics so that respondents could provide an answer which corresponded well to the organizational reality. The results indicate that the surveyed enterprises are primarily in the phase of stabilization or dynamic growth, and the range of dynamic phases increases to a small extent along with the size of the surveyed entities, r s (n = 356) = 0.15, p < 0.01. Since only actually operating enterprises participated in the study, no entities in the pre-emergence stage were identiied. Due to the relatively long period of market activity of the analyzed companies, only 4 respondents indicated the phase of emergence. Relatively few indications also concerned the phase of separation and expansion, which conirms the aspirations of owners of the SME sector companies to fully control their enterprises and their reluctance to transfer power into the hands of hired managers. A detailed scope of the occurrence of the individual phases of the development cycle in the analyzed sample is presented in Table 1.  Next, the assessment of dynamic capabilities in the analyzed sample was conducted. The level of individual dynamic capabilities was evaluated relatively, in relation to the main competitors, on a scale from 1 (much worse than the competitors) to 7 (much better than the competitors).
In the survey questionnaire, each dynamic capability was accompanied by a short commentary that helped the respondents to provide answers well corresponding to the organizational reality. The results are presented as the Mean (M) and Median (Me) of the responses. They indicate that the dynamic capabilities of the analyzed entities are generally somewhat better developed than in the case of their competitors (response mean of approx. 4.50). The level increases signi icantly statistically to a small extent depending on the size of the analyzed companies, r s (n =356) = 0.18, p < 0.01. It is not, however, signi icantly differentiated depending on the age of the companies, r s (n =356) = -0.08, p > 0.05, or their scope of market activity, r s (n = 356) = 0.07, p > 0.05. Detailed results of the level of dynamic capabilities in the analyzed sample are shown in Table 2. The respondents pointed to the ability to mobilise resources and the ability to recon igure and adapt resources, which is associated with a relatively high level of lexibility in SMEs' operations, as to the comparatively more developed dynamic capabilities. On the other hand, the ability to purchase and acquire resources from the environment, which is associated with resource-based limitations of these smallest operators and their low bargaining power in relations with market partners, was rated relatively lower. The coef icient of variation for the results obtained indicates approx. 20% of the dispersion of dynamic capabilities around the mean, which applies, however, mainly to micro and small companies, as for medium-sized enterprises the dispersion decreases to V = 17%. The ability to purchase and acquire resources (V = 28%) and the ability to renew the resource base of the company (V = 27%) obtained the relatively highest level of variation of the evaluations provided. Further analyses were focused on the identi ication and measurement of the level and variation of dynamic capabilities in SMEs' development cycle. Table 2 shows the detailed results for the evolution of the analyzed capabilities depending on the phase of the development cycle of the studied entities.  The results obtained indicate that in the initial phase dynamic capabilities are developed at a relatively low level, although this level is higher than the average. Their level then rises to quite a high level in the dynamic growth phase and decreases slightly in the remaining phases related to making signi icant developmental changes. Interestingly, a relatively high level of dynamic capabilities was identi ied in the stabilization phase. This indicates that the studied companies have to devote a large amount of resource-based effort in this phase in order to maintain the achieved competitive position. The relatively lowest level of dynamic capabilities occurs in the decline phase, as this phase indicates serious problems and crisis phenomena threatening the continued functioning of the company. Based on the results obtained, a graphic evaluation and interpretation of the level of dynamic capabilities in the development cycle of the studied companies was made. The results indicate a polynomial line of this variation, characterized by 4 luctuations. For this reason, an order 5 polynomial trendline was used to assess the level of it of the results obtained. The equation for this line obtained using the method of least squares is of the form: y = -0.02x 5 + 0.32x 4 -2.39x 3 + 8.  In general, this con irms signi icant developmental variation of dynamic capabilities in the development cycle of the surveyed SMEs. The range of this variation is approx 40% and ranges from the level lower than the average at the decline phase to a relatively high level in the dynamic growth phase of the company. This variation is also polynomial and its shape corresponds to the model assumptions of staged models in the life cycle of an enterprise. It can be expected that the intensi ication of activities of the company during the period of stabilization or the phase of signi icant developmental changes in terms of dynamic capabilities can contribute to the company's entry onto the path of further dynamic growth, instead of following the direction of the decline of business activity (in the event of the occurrence of adverse events).

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF RESEARCH
Considering the results obtained and formulating conclusions based on these indings, the limitations of the conducted research should be taken into account. These limitation mainly result from the application of the inductive research approach (Popper, 2014) as well as the use of survey research as the research method (Nardi, 2018). This is associated, irst of all, with high subjectivism of respondents' opinions as well as differences in interpretation and individual perception of the issues under consideration. The declarative nature of responses is also a problem, as it does not guarantee that the analyzed enterprises are actually in the phases of the life cycle indicated or represent the assumed level of dynamic capabilities. The use of onedimensional indicators to describe complex economic reality and a lack of consideration of the broader time context of the carried out analyses can also be considered as limitations. Since the research was only quantitative, it was also not possible to apply research triangulation, which is becoming one of key methodological trends in management sciences (Cameron, Sankaran, & Scales, 2015).
The identi ied weaknesses also provide indications as to further research directions. These include, irst of all, the analysis of mediators and moderators of relationships between the level of dynamic capabilities and the phases of the life cycle of companies in the SME sector. It is also important to identify resource-related factors determining the company's transition to the subsequent development phases. In methodological terms, it is worth considering, irst of all, the use of triangulation in further research. It seems particularly essential to combine quantitative methods with qualitative methods (including the case study method), allowing for a deeper exploration of the organizational reality and formulation of more insightful conclusions based on a synergistic linkage of quantitative and qualitative results.

CONCLUSION
The results obtained indicate that dynamic capabilities in the analyzed sample are developed at a moderate level, but increase with the growth of the enterprises, reaching a fairly high level in the medium-sized enterprises surveyed. One of the factors of their variation is the organizational develop-ment cycle which is associated with the occurrence of signi icantly different stages characterized by speci ic developmental characteristics. This variation follows the polynomial course corresponding to the model assumptions of the concept of the life cycle of an enterprise.
In the initial phases of business activity (the emergence and the survival stages), resource-based dynamic capabilities are developed at a relatively lower level. This is related to the smaller size of business activity as well as to the relatively poor development of relational and market resources that are usually developed over an extended period of economic activity. The entry of the company into a period of dynamic growth intensi ies the level of dynamic capabilities in connection with the need to manage the dynamically growing resource base which is often characterized by a more expanded scope of strategic features that create a competitive advantage of a given entity. The inability to permanently increase the size of business activity leads to the stabilization period or causes the need for signi icant developmen-tal changes (the revitalization stage), resulting often in leaving the category of SMEs and moving on to the category of large enterprises (the separation and expansion stage). In all these cases, the level of dynamic capabilities decreases, as companies need to focus on other types of activity, securing their interests in the long term. The occurrence of crisis phenomena and the entry into the decline phase of activity causes further reduction in the level dynamic capabilities, which is related to the diminishing resource potential of a given business entity.
The nature of the identi ied phenomena indicates a close relationship between SMEs' development processes and the involvement of these entities in activities aimed at the acquisition, transformation and use of resources in their business activity. The research results can therefore be a useful tool for description, interpretation and forecasting of the volatility level of dynamic capabilities in the development cycle of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.