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Employee silence can degrade the working environment and decrease employees' motivation and commitment to an organization. As a result, it not only affects employees but also reduces the productivity of the organization. However, few studies have investigated the influencing mechanisms of employee silence empirically. This paper studies how illegitimate tasks affect employee silence based on artificial intelligence and fuzzy algorithms. We surveyed 325 employees in several medium-sized enterprises in Jiangsu and Anhui, China. According to the findings, emotional exhaustion partially mediates the relationship between illegitimate tasks and employees' silence behaviors, and leadership humor can moderate the positive effect of illegitimate tasks on emotional exhaustion. Therefore, situating the mechanisms underlying employees' silence behaviors in the context of artificial intelligence and fuzzy algorithm research helps researchers understand the relationship between illegitimate tasks and employees' silence behaviors, thus improving related research on silence behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agglomerations are becoming an increasingly important factor in advancing regional development and reshaping a new pattern of regional competition. However, few studies are focused on the impact of expanding urban agglomerations on reducing carbon emissions and its possible mechanism. Based on 285 city-level panel data from 2006 to 2017, this paper uses a staggered Difference-in-Differences (DID) model to explore the reduction effect and its possible mechanism of sustainable regional development policy, characterized by urban agglomeration expansion policy in the Yangtze River Delta, on carbon emissions with policy shocks in 2010 and 2013. The results are as follows: (1) The urban agglomeration expansion policy shows a significant marginal contribution to the reduction of carbon emissions, especially for the later joined (new) cities, and the reduction effect is particularly significant in the first and third years after the expansion, indicating that there are significant short-term and long-term reduction effects of the expansion policy. (2) The heterogeneities of reduction effect among three provinces are significant. Zhejiang Province enjoys the largest proportion carbon emission reduction effect, followed by Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. To be specific, urban agglomeration expansion in Zhejiang Province reduced carbon emissions and carbon emissions intensity in the overall, incumbent cities and new cities, while it only increased the total carbon emissions of the incumbent cities in Jiangsu province. (3) The heterogeneities of reduction effect brought by 2010 and 2013 are also significant. The urban agglomeration expansion policy in 2010 reduced carbon emissions on the whole cities and the incumbent cities with later joined cities excluded, while it had a significant reduction effect on the total, incumbent cities, and the new cities in 2013. (4) There are two possible mechanisms of this reduction effect. One is the strengthening of economic ties and enhanced environmental synergy between governments, called the market integration mechanism, which only has a significant effect on carbon emission reduction in the incumbent cities. Another is through the upgrade of the structure of regional industries, which has a significant effect in both the incumbent and new cities. These findings suggest that when formulating urban agglomerations polices, governments must take into account the carbon emissions effect, and advance the upgrading of industrial structure in the urban agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The North China Plain is the main producing area of winter wheat in China. Due to the relatively poor condition of water resources, the competition of water between industry and agriculture is fierce. The increasing shortage of water resources has led to serious overexploitation of groundwater in some areas. Agricultural development is faced with severe challenges. In order to ensure regional food security and sustainable winter wheat planting, 52 cities of North China Plain (NCP), in the following of the paper, use the shorted name NCP，were taken as research units to analyze the matching characteristics of agricultural water and land resources, so as to reveal the direction of irrigated agriculture development and winter wheat suitable planting layout considering their balance in future. The paper firstly analyzed the cultivated area determined by water resource and irrigation development by agricultural available water, and then pointed out the direction of water-suited planting layout of winter wheat. The results showed that: 1) the Gini coefficient showed an increasing trend, which indicated that the area of cultivated land and irrigation area supported by water resources have nearly reached the upper limit. The large-scale extension of both cultivated and irrigation area is impossible under the restriction of water. 2) The amount of agricultural available water resources per unit of effective irrigation area and the effective precipitation increased gradually from north to south in the NCP, but the spatial distribution of water requirement of winter wheat in its growth period changed in the opposite way. This indicated the poor spatiotemporal match between winter wheat planting and water resources, leading to the cost of spending more water to maintain wheat production. 3), The further development of irrigation and the water-suited planting of winter wheat should pay attention to the southern part of the plain with rich water (such as southern Henan Province, Jiangsu Province, Anhui Province, etc.) to ensure the regional agricultural development. That is of great significance to the regional sustainable development, water shortage alleviation and national grain safety. ● Restraining the irrigation area and winter wheat in NCP. ● Moderately development irrigation area in south of the NCP. ● Water-suited planting layout of Winter wheat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses survey data from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces to examine the impact of remittances on rural poverty reduction and on rural households' living expenditure. The paper shows that remittances play an important role in rural poverty reduction. The paper also finds that rural households mainly use remittances for current consumption living expenditure rather than for investment living expenditure such as health and housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the goal of carbon neutrality has been proposed consecutively, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and bioenergy are gaining close attention in national strategic and sustainable development plans. Along with the development of renewable energy generation technologies, it is necessary to assess the environmental burden of renewable energy generation. This study analyzed the economic and environmental benefits of wind power, solar power, and biomass power generation methods over their life cycle. This paper comprehensively assessed and compared their environmental impacts based on a life cycle assessment (LCA) framework combined with ecological footprint analysis for the three renewable energy generation in China, and compared the results with those of thermal power generation to make strategic suggestions for the renewable energy power generation industry. The results show that: (1) wind power consumed the least energy, only 6.80 kJ/kW·h, and had the lowest emissions of CO 2 , SO 2 , NOx and CO and environmental impact potential. (2) Based on the ecological footprint analysis on the provincial level, only Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces showed ecological deficits, while the other provinces were in ecological surplus, mostly above 50% of their ecological areas. (3) Compared to thermal power generation, which consumed 1170.911 kJ/kW·h, wind power was the only one of the three renewable energy achieved a reduction in energy consumption. Wind power is currently the most efficient way of generating renewable energy. [Display omitted] • The environmental and economic benefits of wind power, solar photovoltaic power, and biomass power generation were assessed. • Life cycle assessment and ecological footprint were used as analytical methods. • Wind power generation is preferred to solar photovoltaic and biomass power generation. • Recommendations for the future development of the renewable energy generation industry are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate Chinese consumers' trust in food certification, and incorporates perceived quality as a new construct into the theory of planned behaviour to further analyze their purchase intention of certified food. The study conducted a survey of 844 Chinese consumers in twelve selected cities in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces by stratified sampling regarding their intention to purchase pork. Results from structural equation modelling analysis reveal that the proposed additional construct, i.e. perceived quality, as well as the traditional constructs, i.e. behavioural attitude, perceived behavioural control and subjective norm, have significant impacts on consumers' purchase intention. This paper also suggests that while food labelling serves its function of informing potential consumers about the commodity's quality, Chinese consumers hold different levels of trust in different labels, depending on the food certifying body, and that international bodies receive the highest confidence level. As this phenomenon might hinder the function of the food certification system, it has considerably policy implications. We make a number of recommendations on how the Chinese government can alleviate trust issues among consumers and other stakeholders. • Trust issue between buyers and sellers hinders the functions of food certification. • International bodies are the most trusted certification source in China. • Perceived quality positively influences consumers' intention of buying certified food. • The theory of planned behaviour is enhanced by incorporating "perceived quality". • A reliable certification system on product quality should be established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]