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This paper aims to demonstrate the impact of coal enterprises’ vertical integration on the performance of innovation corporate social responsibility (ICSR) and to elaborate its specific transmission path through financing structure and market power. This paper takes the data of A-share listed coal company from 2008 to 2017 as samples, uses input-output table method to measure the degree of vertical integration, and explores the relationship between the four factors through multiple linear regression and Bootstrap method. We found that: (1) the vertical integration of coal enterprises has positive incentives for the promotion of ICSR. (2) Financing structure and market power play a chain intermediary role in this process of incentive. (3) In areas with high marketization process, vertical integration has more significant incentive effect on ICSR. The paper extends the research on the relationship between vertical integration and innovation, which provides a reference for the improvement of China’s supply-side reform and corporate social responsibility (CSR) fulfillment policy. It is helpful to promote the sustainable development of the coal industry, stimulate the innovation vitality of enterprises, and improve the fulfillment of CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to effectively solve traffic congestion and transportation pollution in urban development is a main research emphasis for transportation management agencies. A carbon emissions tax can affect travelers’ generalized costs and will lead to changes in passenger demand, mode choice and traffic flow equilibrium in road networks, which are of significance in green travel and low-carbon transportation management. This paper first established a mesoscopic model to calculate the carbon emissions tax and determined the value of this charge in China, which was based on road traffic flow, vehicle speed, and carbon emissions. Referring to existing research results to calibrate the value of time, this paper modified the traveler’s generalized cost function, including the carbon emissions tax, fuel surcharge and travel time cost, which can be used in the travel impedance model with the consideration of the carbon emissions tax. Then, a method for analyzing urban road network traffic flow distribution was put forward, and a joint traffic distribution model was established, which considered the relationship between private cars and taxis. Finally, this paper took the city of Panjin as an example to analyze the road traffic carbon emissions tax’s impact. The results illustrated that the carbon emissions tax has a positive effect on road network flow equilibrium and carbon emission reduction. This paper will have good reference value and practical significance for the calculation and implementation of urban traffic carbon emissions taxes in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to optimize a desirable fare structure for the public transit service along a bus-subway corridor with the consideration of those factors related to equity in trip, including travel distance and comfort level. The travel distance factor is represented by the distance-based fare strategy, which is an existing differential strategy. The comfort level one is considered in the area-based fare strategy which is a new differential strategy defined in this paper. Both factors are referred to by the combined fare strategy which is composed of distance-based and area-based fare strategies. The flat fare strategy is applied to determine a reference level of social welfare and obtain the general passenger flow along transit lines, which is used to divide areas or zones along the corridor. This problem is formulated as a bi-level program, of which the upper level maximizes the social welfare and the lower level capturing traveler choice behavior is a variable-demand stochastic user equilibrium assignment model. A genetic algorithm is applied to solve the bi-level program while the method of successive averages is adopted to solve the lower-level model. A series of numerical experiments are carried out to illustrate the performance of the models and solution methods. Numerical results indicate that all three differential fare strategies play a better role in enhancing the social welfare than the flat fare strategy and that the fare structure under the combined fare strategy generates the highest social welfare and the largest resulting passenger demand, which implies that the more equity factors a differential fare strategy involves the more desirable fare structure the strategy has. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, with the rapid development of China's air transport industry and the change in market consumption structure, service quality has become one of the important factors affecting airline revenue. How to formulate a reasonable pricing strategy and maintain competitiveness in the fierce market competition has become an urgent problem for airlines. First, the impact factor of service quality level in the traditional pricing model is introduced and a static price competition model for multi-oligopoly airlines based on service quality is established in this paper. And then, a dynamic pricing model based on service quality of the multi-oligopoly airlines is established. The model incorporates the weight factor of service quality impact, which is used to indicate the weight of the service quality level in the process of airline dynamic pricing. The research results show that the service quality level of airlines has an indispensable influence on its development. Airlines should improve service quality as soon as possible to enhance market competitiveness and achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reasonable micro-pits texture has been initially proved that it can improve friction characteristics between wood and cemented carbide surface and reduce surface friction coefficient. In order to study the cutting performance of the micro-texture when it is applied to the cutting tool for cutting wood more effectively, this paper selected micro-pit texture for studying influence of surface micro-texture cutting tool on wood cutting performance and cutting temperature, finding that when micro-pit cemented carbide cutting tool is adopted for turning the northeast China ash (Fraxinus spp.), it can reduce cutting force of turning and surface friction coefficient between rake face and cuttings. Moreover, for type A and type B cutting tools, when the texture parameters are that the diameter of the micro-pit is 80μm, the depth of the micro pit is: 10μm, area occupancy is 20% and the diameter of the micro-pit is 120μm, the depth of the micro-pit is 10μm and the area occupancy is 20%, the effect generated is the best. When a texture cutting tool is used for cutting, the decrease of the highest temperature in the cutting area is not very great, but the average temperature in the cutting area changes a lot, which is mainly caused by that micro-texture is processed at a position of the rake face close to the main cutting edge and that the highest temperature of cutting is mainly generated on the contact point between tool tip and wood. A reasonable micro-texture parameter can form a layer of liquid lubricating film on the up and down contact surfaces such that the direct contact between cemented carbide and northeast China ash is changed into indirect contact between lubricating films formed by the liquid so as to reduce the surface friction coefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circuity, defined as the ratio of the shortest network distance to the Euclidean distance between one origin–destination (O-D) pair, can be adopted as a helpful evaluation method of indirect degrees of train paths. In this paper, the maximum circuity of the paths of operated trains is set to be the threshold value of the circuity of high-speed train paths. For the shortest paths of any node pairs, if their circuity is not higher than the threshold value, the paths can be regarded as the reasonable paths. With the consideration of a certain relative or absolute error, we cluster the reasonable paths on the basis of their inclusion relationship and the center path of each class represents a passenger transit corridor. We take the high-speed rail (HSR) network in China at the end of 2014 as an example, and obtain 51 passenger transit corridors, which are alternative sets of train paths. Furthermore, we analyze the circuity distribution of paths of all node pairs in the network. We find that the high circuity of train paths can be decreased with the construction of a high-speed railway line, which indicates that the structure of the HSR network in China tends to be more complete and the HSR network can make the Chinese railway network more efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, China is facing a very serious issue of Air Pollution due to its dreadful impact on the human health as well as the environment. The urban cities in China are the most affected due to their rapid industrial and economic growth. Therefore, it is of extreme importance to come up with new, better and more reliable forecasting models to accurately predict the air quality. This paper selected Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang as three cities from the Jingjinji Region for the study to come up with a new model of collaborative forecasting using Support Vector Regression (SVR) for Urban Air Quality Index (AQI) prediction in China. The present study is aimed to improve the forecasting results by minimizing the prediction error of present machine learning algorithms by taking into account multiple city multi-dimensional air quality information and weather conditions as input. The results show that there is a decrease in MAPE in case of multiple city multi-dimensional regression when there is a strong interaction and correlation of the air quality characteristic attributes with AQI. Also, the geographical location is found to play a significant role in Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang AQI prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a sustainable transportation mode, high-speed railway (HSR) has become an efficient way to meet the huge travel demand. However, due to the high acquisition and maintenance cost, it is impossible to build enough infrastructure and purchase enough train-sets. Great efforts are required to improve the transport capability of HSR. The utilization efficiency of train-sets (carrying tools of HSR) is one of the most important factors of the transport capacity of HSR. In order to enhance the utilization efficiency of the train-sets, this paper proposed a train-set circulation optimization model to minimize the total connection time. An innovative two-stage approach which contains segments generation and segments combination was designed to solve this model. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed approach, an experiment was carried out in the Beijing-Tianjin passenger dedicated line, to fulfill a 174 trips train diagram. The model results showed that compared with the traditional Ant Colony Algorithm (ACA), the utilization efficiency of train-sets can be increased from 43.4% (ACA) to 46.9% (Two-Stage), and 1 train-set can be saved up to fulfill the same transportation tasks. The approach proposed in the study is faster and more stable than the traditional ones, by using which, the HSR staff can draw up the train-sets circulation plan more quickly and the utilization efficiency of the HSR system is also improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although studies have increasingly linked air pollution to specific health outcomes, less well understood is how public perceptions of air quality respond to changing pollutant levels. The growing availability of air pollution measurements and the proliferation of social media provide an opportunity to gauge public discussion of air quality conditions. In this paper, we consider particulate matter (PM) measurements from four Chinese megacities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu) together with 112 million posts on Weibo (a popular Chinese microblogging system) from corresponding days in 2011–2013 to identify terms whose frequency was most correlated with PM levels. These correlations are used to construct an Air Discussion Index (ADI) for estimating daily PM based on the content of Weibo posts. In Beijing, the Chinese city with the most PM as measured by U.S. Embassy monitor stations, we found a strong correlation (R = 0.88) between the ADI and measured PM. In other Chinese cities with lower pollution levels, the correlation was weaker. Nonetheless, our results show that social media may be a useful proxy measurement for pollution, particularly when traditional measurement stations are unavailable, censored or misreported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimating gross primary production (GPP) and net primary production (NPP) are significant important in studying carbon cycles. Using models driven by multi-source and multi-scale data is a promising approach to estimate GPP and NPP at regional and global scales. With a focus on data that are openly accessible, this paper presents a GPP and NPP model driven by remotely sensed data and meteorological data with spatial resolutions varying from 30 m to 0.25 degree and temporal resolutions ranging from 3 hours to 1 month, by integrating remote sensing techniques and eco-physiological process theories. Our model is also designed as part of the Multi-source data Synergized Quantitative (MuSyQ) Remote Sensing Production System. In the presented MuSyQ-NPP algorithm, daily GPP for a 10-day period was calculated as a product of incident photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and its fraction absorbed by vegetation (FPAR) using a light use efficiency (LUE) model. The autotrophic respiration (Ra) was determined using eco-physiological process theories and the daily NPP was obtained as the balance between GPP and Ra. To test its feasibility at regional scales, our model was performed in an arid and semi-arid region of Heihe River Basin, China to generate daily GPP and NPP during the growing season of 2012. The results indicated that both GPP and NPP exhibit clear spatial and temporal patterns in their distribution over Heihe River Basin during the growing season due to the temperature, water and solar influx conditions. After validated against ground-based measurements, MODIS GPP product (MOD17A2H) and results reported in recent literature, we found the MuSyQ-NPP algorithm could yield an RMSE of 2.973 gC m-2 d-1 and an R of 0.842 when compared with ground-based GPP while an RMSE of 8.010 gC m-2 d-1 and an R of 0.682 can be achieved for MODIS GPP, the estimated NPP values were also well within the range of previous literature, which proved the reliability of our modelling results. This research suggested that the utilization of multi-source data with various scales would help to the establishment of an appropriate model for calculating GPP and NPP at regional scales with relatively high spatial and temporal resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]