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An analysis of how new-type urbanization in China impacts the green intensive use of land not only provides us with an important reference basis, but also helps support decision-making when promoting new-type urbanization. This paper theoretically analyzes how new-type urbanization influences the green intensive use of land and takes the implementation of China's new-type urbanization plan (2014–2020) as a quasi-natural experiment. To empirically analyze the impact and mechanism of new-type urbanization on the green intensive use of land, we take the panel data of 285 Chinese cities from 2007 to 2020 and use the Difference-in-differences method. Results show that new-type urbanization facilitates green intensive use of land, a conclusion which is verified by several robustness tests. Furthermore, the effects are heterogeneous with respect to urbanization stage and urban scale, both of which exert a stronger driving effect in the later stages of urbanization and in large cities. Further analysis of the mechanism shows that new-type urbanization can promote green intensive land use through an innovation effect, a structural effect, a planning effect and an ecological effect. • The impact is theoretically and empirically analyzed. • The global super-efficiency SBM is used to calculate the land green use efficiency. • New-type urbanization is conducive to the green intensive use of land. • The mechanism is also analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate carbon price projections can serve as valuable investment guides and risk warnings for carbon trading participants. However, the escalation of uncertain factors has brought numerous new hurdles to existing carbon price forecast methods. In this paper, we develop a novel probabilistic forecast model called quantile temporal convolutional network (QTCN) that can precisely describe the uncertain fluctuation of carbon prices. We also investigate the impact of external factors on carbon market prices, including energy prices, economic status, international carbon markets, environmental conditions, public concerns, and especially uncertain factors. Taking China's Hubei carbon emissions exchange as a study case, we verify that our QTCN outperforms other classical benchmark models in terms of prediction errors and actual trading returns. Our findings suggest that coal prices and EU carbon prices have the most significant effect on Hubei carbon price forecasting, while air quality index appears to be the least important. Besides, we demonstrate the great contribution of geopolitical risk and economic policy uncertainty to carbon price projections. The effect of these uncertainties is more pronounced when the carbon price is at a high quantile level. This research can offer valuable guidelines for carbon market risk management and provide new insight into carbon price formation mechanisms in the era of global conflict. • We propose a novel probability forecast model QTCN for carbon prices. • The impact of economic policy uncertainty and geopolitical risks are considered. • The prediction accuracy of QTCN outperforms other competing models. • QTCN-based trading strategies yield higher profits than a point forecast-based one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main factor behind green economic development is green technology innovation (GTI). Environmental regulation and green finance (GF), as important ways to promote ecological civilization construction, run through the entire procedure of GTI. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of heterogeneous environmental regulation on GTI and the moderating effect of GF on GTI from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, to provide useful ideas for China's economic reform path selection and environmental governance system optimization. This paper uses information from 30 provinces between 2002 and 2019, and a bidirectional fixed model was constructed. The results show that: First, regulatory environmental regulation (ER 1), legal environmental regulation (ER 2), and economic environmental regulation (ER 3) all have greatly boosted the degree of GTI in each province. Second, GF acts as a highly effective moderator between heterogeneous environmental regulation and GTI. Finally, this article investigates how GF can act as a moderator in various circumstances. The beneficial moderating effect of it is found to be more pronounced in inland areas, areas with weak spending on research and development, and areas with high energy consumption. These research results provide valuable references for accelerating the green development process in China. • Constructs environmental regulation indexes from regulatory, legal, and economic. • Heterogeneous environmental regulation promotes green technology innovation. • Green finance plays a positive moderating role. • The moderating effect of green finance varies greatly in different regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the emission leakage by the regional environmental regulation applied in Beijing and its surrounding area. Using the unique firm-level daily emission data, we develop a novel model to estimate the size of immediate leakage through the price mechanism. Our empirics find that leakage offsets about 60% of the total amount of emission reduction in the regulated region and the aggregate emission reduction is less than two percent. We also use the iron and steel industry as an example to show how the prices of input and output factors respond to the regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Process-related carbon emissions, which cannot be completely eliminated by the improvement of processes and energy structure, are recognized as an enormous challenge for in-depth decarbonization. To accelerate the achievement of carbon neutrality, the concept of 'artificial carbon cycle' is proposed based on the integrated system of process-related carbon emissions from high-emitting industries and CCU technology as a potential pathway towards a sustainable future. This paper conducts a systematic review on the integrated system with the case of China, which is the largest carbon-emitting and manufacturing country, to provide a clearer and more meaningful analysis. Multi-index assessment was used to organize the literature and draw the useful conclusion. Based on literature review, the high-quality carbon sources, reasonable carbon capture approaches and promising chemical products were identified and analyzed. Then the potential and practicability of the integrated system was further summarized and analyzed. Finally, key factors of future development including technology improvement, green hydrogen, clean energy and industrial cooperation were stressed to provide a theoretical reference for future researchers and policy makers. • Demonstration on the rationality and importance of applying CCU technology on process-based carbon emissions. • Multi-index assessment on adoptable carbon sources, possible pathways of carbon capture and carbon conversion. • Analysis on the potential and practicability of the integrated system to accelerate carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea (PED) is an acute, extremely infectious intestinal disease of pigs caused by the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea Virus (PEDV). The virus can affect pigs of all breeds and age groups and shows varying degrees of symptoms, with piglets, in particular, being infected with mortality rates of up to 100%. PEDV was first identified in China in the 1980s and in October 2010 a large-scale PED outbreak caused by a variant of PEDV occurred in China, resulting in huge economic losses. Initially, vaccination can effectively prevent the classical strain, but since December 2010, the PEDV variant has caused "persistent diarrhoea" with severe vomiting, watery diarrhoea, and high morbidity and mortality in newborn piglets as the dominant clinical features, with a significant increase in morbidity and mortality. This indicates that PEDV strains have mutated during evolution and that traditional vaccines no longer provide effective cross-immune protection, so it is necessary to optimize immunization programs and find effective treatments through epidemiological surveys of PEDV to reduce the economic losses caused by infections with mutated strains. This article reviews the progress of research on the aetiology, epidemiological characteristics, genotyping, pathogenesis, transmission routes, and comprehensive control of PEDV infection in China. • Porcine epidemic diarrhoea (PED) has become one of the major threats to the pig industry in China. • PEDV mutants are highly pathogenic and lethal. • There are complex genotypes of PEDV prevalent in China, and multiple genotypes are prevalent simultaneously. • There is a lack of effective vaccines against novel mutant strains. • This paper reviews the latest research progress in the epidemiology, genotyping, pathogenesis, and comprehensive prevention and treatment of PEDV in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more countries entering an era of low fertility, factors that may shape individuals' childbearing desires have been extensively explored. One's intergenerational social mobility experience, however, remains under-discussed. This paper examines this issue against the backdrop of China, in which the total fertility rate has rapidly declined to the lowest-low level in recent decades. Using pooled five-wave data from the Chinese General Social Survey from 2010 to 2017, we found a checkmark-shaped relationship between social class and fertility desire. Chinese farmers have the greatest desired number of children, manual workers have the lowest, and the two upper classes lie in the middle. In general, one's origin class and destination class play a similar role in shaping fertility desire, demonstrating the coexistence of socialization and acculturation processes. The gender-specific examination further suggests that, compared to women, men are more reluctant to change the fertility attitude learned from the origin class. Based on these findings, our study proposes a novel explanation of the decline in fertility desire in China and contributes to the literature on how social mobility experiences and gender ideology jointly construct fertility desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's industrial parks have been playing a crucial role on driving regional economy development, but also been posing threats to local environment due to intensive resource consumption and waste emission. Chinese government facilitated eco-industrial development of industrial park, aiming to output more with less environmental burden. In our study, the eco-efficiency levels of 40 Chinese industrial parks in 2012 were assessed and ranked by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). This paper applied indicators relevant to resource, economy, and environment from industrial parks which can well reflect the characteristics of eco-efficiency conforming to the concept of sustainability. This paper introduced how to adjust less sustainable parks to be more sustainable according to the DEA results. The roles of industrial added value per capita, industrial structure, environmental policy and development scale as influence factors of eco-efficiency were discussed. The results show that large differences exist in the eco-efficiency of different industrial parks. It is shown that 20% of the parks are relatively efficient. 47% of the study parks being inefficient in terms of scale efficiency show decreasing returns to scale. Policy implementations for the management of industrial parks were also discussed based on the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounting for the ecosystem service values (ESVs) and discussing the relationship between the ESVs and economic development can help achieve sustainable ecological development. Therefore, this paper evaluates the county-level ESVs of various land types in China, and depicts the distribution of ESVs in various urban agglomerations. In addition, the nonlinear relationship between ESVs and economic development is revealed. The main findings are as follows: (1) From 2000 to 2018, the ESVs in China decreased, and the decline rate of ESVs in urban agglomerations is much higher than that of China as a whole. (2) The decline rate of ESVs in core cities is much higher than in urban agglomerations, and the decline rate of ESVs is higher in areas close to core cities and lower in areas far from core cities. (3) The ecological Kuznets curve of China has a positive "U" shape, and the ecological Kuznets curve of urban agglomerations has an "N" shape; the ecological Kuznets curve of core cities has a positive "U" shape, while the ESVs of other cities decreases monotonically with the increase of the economic level. • This paper fills the data gap of ESVs at the county level in China. • The reduction rate of ESV in urban agglomeration is larger than the national level. • The reduction rates of ESV in core cities are larger than the urban agglomerations. • The ecological Kuznets curve is "U"-shaped in China. • Non-urban agglomeration cities are still left to the inflection point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology is an effective way to realize the carbon neutrality target in China. Therefore, based on panel data at the city level in China from 2006 to 2016, we take the e-commerce pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment, using the staggered difference-in-differences (DID) method to explore the effect of digital technology development on carbon emissions and its transmission mechanism. The conclusion of this paper shows that (ⅰ) the e-commerce pilot policy has significantly reduced carbon emissions. After a series of robustness tests, this empirical conclusion is still valid. (ⅱ) The inhibitory effect of different waves of e-commerce pilot cities on carbon emissions sequentially decreases. The e-commerce pilot policy has a greater effect on reducing carbon emissions in non-old industrial based cities and non-resource-based cities. (ⅲ) Implementing the e-commerce pilot city policy mainly reduces urban carbon emissions by optimizing resource allocation, reducing energy consumption and upgrading the industrial structure. (ⅳ) In addition, implementing the e-commerce pilot city policy has a significant positive carbon-reducing linkage effect with the carbon trading pilot policy and the low-carbon city pilot policy. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence for carbon emission reduction, which has implications for upgrading urban construction patterns and promoting green urban development. • The construction of national e-commerce pilot cities has significantly reduced the carbon emission of cities. • The inhibitory effect of different batches of e-commerce pilot cities on carbon emissions sequentially decreases. • Playing more significant effect in non-old industrial based cities and non-resource-based cities. • Reducing urban carbon emissions by optimizing resource allocation and reducing energy consumption. • Having a significant positive carbon-reducing linkage effect with carbon emissions mitigation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the drivers of distribution of pollution-intensive enterprises (PIEs) at the intraurban level that are less studied. Employing the complete spatial database of PIEs obtained from the National Economic Census of 2004, 2008, and 2013, the paper analyses the spatial restructuring of PIEs within Foshan, China, a typical manufacturing city in transition. We find that the changing role of environmental regulation induced by the environmental policy regime transformation has resulted in the siting strategy shift of PIEs, and both the 'Pollution Haven Hypothesis' and the 'Porter Hypothesis' have been overly simplified in the research conducted at the regional or global level. Based on the Foshan case, we further conceptualize the pattern of spatial restructuring of PIEs that would help to understand the fast green economy transition taking place in Chinese cities, followed by some policy and research implications. • The relocation and drivers of polluting firms at a local level are studied. • The environmental policy regime shift leads to the siting strategy shift of firms. • Polluting firms initially seek a pollution haven before 2008. • New firms after 2008 site in areas with strict environmental regulation. • The local government motivation is more important in the Chinese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is to test the relationship between temperature change and industrial green innovation by combing data of China's average temperature change in cities with green patent database of listed companies.First, the results find that rising annual average temperature can inhibit green innovation. For every 1 °C increases in summer, green innovation reduces by 3.2%, and for every 1 °C increases in winter, green innovation increases by 1.9%. Second, rising summer temperature inhibits green innovation by crowding out research and development (R&D) funds and draining labor. While, rising temperature increases green innovation by increasing environmental responsibility and green venture capital. Third, differences in green R&D difficulty, process and objectives were also compared, temperature change has a stronger inhibition on green process innovation than green product innovation. And rising temperature inhibits green exploratory innovation and promotes green developmental innovation. Fourth, rising temperature increases green innovation in polluting firms as temperature is higher than 21 °C. And it inhibits green innovation in clean firms as temperature is higher than 27 °C. This paper can provide policy implications on climate regulation and promoting green innovation. [Display omitted] • For 1 °C increases in summer, industrial green innovation reduce by 2.1%. • Influence paths include cost inhibition effect and responsibility forcing effect. • Temperature increases green simple innovation and weaken green complex innovation. • Suitable temperature for green innovation is 18°C–27 °C. • Classify green innovation from the difficulty, process and purpose of R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modelling flood susceptibility is an indirect way to reduce the loss from flood disaster. Now, flood susceptibility modelling based on data driven model is state-of-the-art method such as ensemble learning and deep learning. However, the effect of deep learning coupling with ensemble learning models in flood susceptibility modelling is still unknown. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to propose three deep learning coupling with ensemble learning models by combining the deep learning (DL) with Filtered Classifier (FC), Rotation forest (RF) and Random Subspace (RSS) and explore the effect of coupling method for modelling flood susceptibility. The key step of this paper is as following: firstly, a Dingnan County which is lied in the Jiangxi Province of China is chosen as a case study, single flood event point and random sampling method was applied to generate the flood and non-flood data, respectively, then frequency ratio was utilized to analyze the relationship between each influencing factor and flood occurrence, based on the value of VIF, Spearman's correlation and One R classifier, the result show that there is no multicollinearity between each influencing factor, ten influencing factors have contribution to the flood occurrence and all of them are applied to construct the coupling model. Finally, the DL, FC-DL, RF-DL and RSS-DL were applied to produce flood susceptibility maps. Then, several statistical indexes such as area under the curve (AUC), Kappa index, accuracy (ACC), and F-measure were used to assess the accomplishment of these coupling models. For the train data, the FC-DL model acquired the highest AUC value (0.996), followed by RF-DL (0.944), RSS-DL (0.934), and DL (0.934). For the validation data, the result showed that all models have a good accomplishment (AUC>0.8). In a word, the deep learning coupling with ensemble learning models demonstrates the more reliable and excellent performance. Hence, the proposed new method will help the government for land use planning and can be applied in other area around the world. • RSS-DL model shows the stable and well ability. • One R classifier were used to select variables. • Deep ensemble learning mode was used to model flood susceptibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government has declared a determination at the 75th United Nations General Assembly that China will improve its independent contribution and adopt more powerful measures to peak the carbon emissions before 2030. However, such strict implementation of carbon reduction policies is bound to bring the cost of sacrificing economic development. In such a context, this paper tries to use shadow price to measure the average social cost of emission reduction, marginal abatement cost to depict the pressure to reduce carbon emissions based on non-radial distance function, and provides an optimal scheme for provincial emission reduction to minimize the national cost of emission reduction based on variable-coefficient model. Results show that: First, the average value of shadow price is 15.91 and varies widely among regions, which means on average reducing one unit of carbon emissions will sacrifice 15.914 yuan RMB of economic output, and there exists possibility of carbon transactions across regions; Second, on the one hand, marginal abatement cost of carbon emission for most regions presents an upward tendency over time, which means greater economic costs have to be sacrificed with economic development in the future; On the other hand, marginal abatement cost is much higher in regions with high economic level than that in the economically undeveloped areas, which indicates reducing carbon emissions is becoming increasingly difficult and would pay more economical cost in economically developed regions; Third, the optional allocation scheme of CO2 reduction derived from this research is better than administrative ways of Grandfathering and Benchmarking in terms of minimizing emission reduction cost. Results of this paper indicate that larger carbon trading market can be implemented in China to economically fulfill the commitment of peaking carbon emissions. • This paper provides a scheme to minimize the carbon emission reduction cost. • Shadow price and marginal cost of carbon emission are estimated. • More comprehensive carbon trading market can be implemented in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy interaction is an important way to deal with increasingly complex environmental problems. This paper examines the investment-related tax cuts and the policy interaction with environmental regulation on firms' emission reduction strategies. Taking China's value-added tax (VAT) reform as a quasi-natural experiment and considering the interaction with the emission reduction target policy, our difference-in-differences estimation shows that: the average effect of the VAT reform reduces firms' sulfur dioxide (SO 2) emission intensity by 16.6%, due to the adoption of emissions reduction strategies in the production processes; the interaction effect between the VAT reform and environmental regulation incentivizes firms to additionally reduce SO 2 emission intensity, due to the adoption of both production processes and end-of-pipe reduction strategies. Our findings are more evident for firms with tight financial constraints. Overall, this paper reveals the micro-mechanisms of how the tax policies incentivize firms to choose emission reduction strategies and highlights the importance of the interaction effects between environmental and non-environmental policies, thus providing implications for the policy mix of environmental regulation and tax-cut incentives to promote pollution reduction and improve business performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's urban housing price has dramatically increased in the past decade, surpassing income growth and raising fears of a real estate bubble. The increase in housing price is also accompanied by a growing number of vacant apartments. This paper argues that income inequality is one important factor driving up both the housing price relative to income and the housing vacancy rate. Using data from China's Urban Household Survey, the paper empirically examines the effects of income inequality on the housing price-to-income ratio and housing vacancy rate within each city. We find that the income GINI coefficient is positively related to the housing price-to-income ratio as well as the housing vacancy rate. In particular, a one percentage higher GINI coefficient is associated with increases in the housing price-to-income ratio and housing vacancy rate of 0.026 points and 0.166 percentage points, respectively. During 2002 and 2009, approximately 6% of the increase in the housing price-to-income ratio and 10% of the increase in the housing vacancy rate can be attributed to the increase of the GINI coefficient. Further studies show that the development of the capital market and housing rental market are somewhat helpful in mitigating the associations between income inequality and the housing price-to-income ratio and vacancy rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines why and how public housing provision may affect the supply of market-based housing in urban China. We illustrate how both the demand mechanism and the cost mechanism may lead to the crowding-out effect of public housing provision on market housing provision in post-reform urban China. Based on panels of both provincial-level and city-level data for the period of 1999–2010, our empirical results shows that: (1) the supply of public housing has crowding-out effect on the supply of market housing in China but its degree is generally moderate; (2) the crowding-out effect varies substantially under different scenarios; (3) the crowding effect changes over time but its estimation accuracy is gradually improving in the sample period. The findings in this paper have useful implications to the design of public housing programs in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental taxation is regarded as an effective tool to improve air quality in China, but its distributional effects causing serious disparity among multi-groups and multi-regions are understudied. Here this paper constructs a multi-regional dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to explore the distributional effects of China's environmental taxation among different income groups and regions, by specifying the elasticity parameters of urban households' consumption in the model, and combining with various micro-data such as household survey data and environmental statistics database. This paper simulates the air pollution reductions of China's environmental taxation, and the impacts on the income and expenditure of households with various environmental tax rates or manners of tax revenue recycling. Results have shown that China's environmental taxation will widen the gap between different income groups and different regions. Also, such adverse distributional effects will be increased by higher environmental tax rates. However, recycling environmental tax revenues to both households and enterprises can reduce the losses of households' income and consumption. Yet recycling revenues to enterprises is more effective in narrowing the gap between income groups and regions while improving regional economic development. Our findings may pave a way to design appropriate environmental tax rates and tax revenue recycling manners for China's future environmental tax policies at the regional level. [Display omitted] • A multi-regional CGE model is constructed to explore the distributional effects. • Various environmental tax rates and tax revenue recycling manners are considered. • Low-income households and underdeveloped regions will bear more tax burden. • Recycling revenues to enterprises is more effective in reducing wealth disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technology innovation (GTI) is an effective way to promote the green development of economy, and government environmental regulations are an important means to encourage enterprises to carry out GTI. Taking Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2010 to 2019 as samples, this paper divides environmental regulations into three categories: command-based environmental regulation (ER 1), market-based environmental regulation (ER 2) and voluntary environmental regulation (ER 3), studies their impact on enterprise GTI, and discusses the joint effect of enterprise research and development (R&D) investment and government support from the perspective of internal and external linkage of enterprises. In addition, this paper also analyzes the compound effect and time effect of environmental regulation. The research conclusions are as follows: (1) From the perspective of policy types, both ER 1 and ER 2 could stimulate enterprises to carry out GTI, and the promotion effect of green utility model patents is slightly higher than that of green invention patents. ER 3 inhibits enterprise GTI. In addition, this paper finds that the effect of three environmental regulations acting at the same time is greater than that of one of them. (2) The mechanism analysis shows that the R&D investment of enterprise positively could moderate the relationship between ER 2 and green invention at the significance level of 5%, positively moderate the relationship between ER 2 and green utility model patent at the significance level of 1%, and negatively moderate the relationship between ER 3 and green utility model patent at the significance level of 5%. The government support could moderate the relationship between environmental regulation and green utility model patents at the significance level of 5% and 10%. (3) The effect analysis shows that the transformation rate of GTI in China needs to be improved. The three environmental regulations could have an effect on enterprise GTI in a short period, and ER 1 has the fastest effect. (4) Considering the differences in the level of economic development and resource endowments in various regions of China, this paper classifies the sample enterprises and finds that the impact of environmental regulation on enterprise GTI is heterogeneous in terms of location, ownership nature, factor density and industry type. The research results provide the important reference for the formulation and implementation of environmental regulation policies according to local conditions. • ER 1 and ER 2 could stimulate enterprise GTI. • The union effect of ER 1 , ER 2 , and ER 3 is better than one of them. • R&D positively moderates the relationship between ER 2 and GTI. • ER 1 has the fastest effect on GTI in three kinds of environmental regulations. • The effect of ER on GTI shows heterogeneity for different enterprise features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shrinking cities are a category of cities characterized by population loss, and the environmental problems of these cities are often neglected. Using panel data from 2012 to 2019, this paper investigates the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of carbon emissions in shrinking cities in China and the driving factors. The results find that: (1) From 2012 to 2019, carbon emissions tend to increase in shrinking cities and decrease in non-shrinking cities. Due to earlier industrial development and ecological neglect, shrinking cities in Northeast China have higher carbon emissions than other regions. (2) Population size, industrial structure and public services promote the growth of carbon emissions in shrinking cities. The influence of living environment on carbon emissions in shrinking cities is not significant. There is an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) relationship between economic level and carbon emission. (3) In shrinking cities, the increase in commuting time and distance due to spatial expansion promotes the growth of carbon emissions. Foreign investment decreases with the loss of population, which reduces carbon emissions. Technological progress gradually declines as investment in science and technology decreases, which makes carbon emissions grow. This paper clarifies the driving factors of carbon emissions in shrinking cities in China, and therefore, the findings of this paper have important reference value for the formulation of carbon reduction policies in shrinking cities in developing countries. • Carbon emissions in shrinking cities tend to grow. • Shrinking cities have higher carbon emissions compared to non-shrinking cities. • The characteristic factors of shrinking cities affect carbon emissions. • Carbon emissions from shrinking cities have spatial effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the overall and time-varying efficiency of China's carbon market, which is crucial for carbon risk management and policymaking. Due to the severe illiquidity problems other pilots face, we first select Shenzhen, Guangdong, and Hubei pilots out of the eight carbon pilots for our study based on the statistical analysis. We then test the overall efficiency of the markets using the LM, CD, and Wild-Bootstrap variance ratio test. The sliding window method is combined with the above three variance ratio test methods to validate the time-varying efficiency. The results prove that the overall efficiency of the three carbon pilots has not yet reached a weak form. And we observe that the short-term efficiency is time-varying and may be weak-form. The study further found Hubei to be the most efficient carbon pilot, followed by Guangdong and Shenzhen. Finally, this paper conducts a qualitative analysis on the low efficiency from five aspects namely carbon trading rules, market liquidity, price volatility, trading volume, and types of trading products. Several conclusions and recommendations are proposed for policymakers and investors. • Sliding window method is combined with a series of variance ratio test methods. • The overall and time-varying efficiency of China's carbon market is tested. • China's carbon market has not reached weak-form efficiency. • Hubei is the most efficient carbon pilot. • Reasons for low efficiency are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructed on the total-factor analysis framework, this paper develops a comprehensive evaluation system and adopts the Super-SBM model to both analyze and enunciate the characteristics of tourism eco-efficiency in China during 2000–2017. This paper also identifies the determinants associated with spatial differentiation of tourism eco-efficiency by employing a novel geographical technique, namely the Geographical Detector Model. The results indicate that the tourism eco-efficiency exhibits great potential for growth. Besides, pure technical efficiency drives the optimized development of eco-efficiency. Also, there is significant spatial variations in eco-efficiency across different provinces and regions in China. Urbanization contributes to tourism eco-efficiency remarkably, followed by openness, technical level, economic scale, industrial structure, capital effect, environmental regulation, and tourism growth. The relational interrelations of tourism eco-efficiency determinants are the bi-enhancement and the nonlinear-enhancement interactions. The implications of research findings are discussed and may be applied to a multitude of corporate environmental-economic management scenarios. • An evaluation framework was developed to identify the macro external determinants that may affect tourism eco-efficiency. • Urbanization contributes to tourism eco-efficiency remarkably. • The relational interrelations of tourism eco-efficiency determinants are the bi-enhancement and the nonlinear-enhancement. • Our results verify the rationality of the tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH) and the EKC hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a typical example of an innovative governance environment, innovative city has become the focus of political and academic circles. Discussing the green innovation effect of this policy is beneficial in providing decision support for enhancing urban green innovation capability and solving the dilemma of urban resources. Based on data from 241 cities in China from 2005 to 2017, this paper takes innovative city construction as a "quasi-natural experiment" and uses the difference-in-differences method to empirically study the impact of China's innovative city construction on urban green innovation. The results show that innovative urban construction: has a positive effect on improving urban green innovation, and that this effect will gradually increase with time; promotes urban green innovation by expanding the scope of technology application, improving the efficiency of resource allocation and promoting the adjustment of industrial structure; and presents heterogeneity in cities' location, size and hierarchy. Finally, this paper proposes that the government should promote innovative policies in an orderly manner on the basis of following the principle of adapting measures to local conditions, as well as incorporating green innovation performance into the evaluation system for innovative city construction. • Innovative city has a continuous positive impact on urban green innovation. • Three impact paths of innovative cities on urban green innovation are proposed. • The effect of green innovation is more obvious in the central and western regions. • The city size and green innovation effect develop in an inverted U shape. • Cities with higher hierarchy show stronger response to the green innovation effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bovine rotavirus is the primary pathogen causing diarrhea in cattle and can be transmitted vertically through the placenta. It mainly presents with clinical signs such as depression, loss of appetite, diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration. A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to assess the prevalence of BRV infection in mainland China. We conducted a literature search on the prevalence of BRV infection in pigs between Jan 1, 1979 and Dec 31, 2021 in English and Chinese databases, including PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane library, Clinical Trials, VIP, CNKI, and WanFang database. Selections were made based on the title and the abstract of the paper, Search strings included if they reported the cattle samples of more than 15 cattle and provided information that allowed us to establish the prevalence of BRV. Moreover, we excluded repeated studies, reviews, other hosts. Finally, we extracted the number of cattle with BRV infection from the obtained studies and provided information that permitted us to estimate the prevalence of BRV infection in cattle in mainland China. The data of 29 articles (including data on 10677 cattle) are compliant with the standards. The pooled prevalence of BRV in cattle in China was 46%（6635/10677）, the pooled prevalence of BRV in cattle from Northeast China (40%) was significantly lower than those from other regions. In addition, the prevalence of BRV was associated with publication time of paper, detection methods, age of cattle, and clinical symptoms（diarrhea, etc.). Our findings suggest that BRV infection is common among cattle in China. It is, therefore, necessary to carry out further research and monitor the prevalence of BRV infection. Furthermore, powerful and effective regulatory measures should be taken to prevent the transmission and spread of BRV among cattle populations. • The data of 29 articles met the selection criteria, and the prevalence of BRV was 46% in China. • Cattle's age was a risk factor associated with the prevalence rate of BRV. • This study may help to control treatment costs and overuse of antibiotics to improve food safety and public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explored the drought propagation phenomenon based on meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural aspects in the Yangtze River basin (YRB), China. To evaluate meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural droughts, this paper used three drought indices, standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), standardized runoff index (SRI), and standardized soil moisture index (SSMI), respectively. The community land model (CLM) in the YRB to generate the monthly evapotranspiration, soil moisture, runoff data, which are required for the estimation of drought index, were applied. Different mean durations (6-and 12-month) were used for drought estimation, and propagations of meteorological to hydrological and meteorological and agricultural droughts were investigated for different durations as SPEI6-SRI6, SPEI6-SSMI6, SPEI12-SRI12, SPEI12-SSMI12. The average drought propagation between 1950 and 2010 presented the highest autocorrelation and correlation with one-month lags in four combinations of drought indices in SPEI6-SRI6, SPEI6-SSMI6, SPEI12-SRI12, and SPEI12-SSMI12. Additionally, this paper estimated the optimal lags of SPEI-SRI and SPEI-SSMI drought propagations using mean 6-and 12-month lag times for six representative drought periods. Therefore, the propagation phenomenon of meteorological to hydrological and to agricultural droughts were confirmed in the YRB. • SPEI, SRI, and SSMI indices have been applied to the Yangtze River basin (YRB). • Propagation analysis of SPEI-SRI and SPEI-SSMI have extended to 1951–2010. • Mean 12-month duration shows clearer drought propagation than mean 6-month duration. • SPEI-SSMI presents 1–7 months propagation time. • SPEI-SRI presents 1–2 months propagation time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, China has focused its development on technological innovation, trying to achieve a win–win situation between environmental protection and economic growth, and it has formulated a series of policies to promote technological innovation. Taking China's national independent innovation demonstration zone (NIIDZ) policy as an example, this paper empirically investigates the impact of China's innovation policy on haze pollution by using a difference-in-differences (DID) model. The results show that the NIIDZ policy promotes the governance of urban haze pollution and confirms the applicability of the experimentalist governance model in the practice of innovation policy in developing countries. Dynamic analysis shows that the NIIDZ policy has an experience accumulation effect. This policy can continue to promote haze control for at least 6 years, and the policy effect increases year by year. Action mechanism analysis shows that the NIIDZ policy can inhibit urban haze pollution by promoting urban technological innovation and high-tech industrial agglomeration. The estimation results of the spatial DID model show that the NIIDZ policy not only inhibits haze pollution in NIIDZ cities but also has an inhibitory effect on haze pollution in the surrounding non-NIIDZ cities and the NIIDZ cities, which confirms the positive externality characteristics of policy diffusion theory and environmental governance. The conclusions of this paper have important theoretical value for understanding the ecological effect of innovation policy and provide experience for developing countries to implement an experimentalist governance model. • The NIIDZ policy significantly inhibits urban haze pollution. • The haze control effect of the NIIDZ policy shows a characteristic of increasing year by year. • Technological innovation and high-tech industrial agglomeration play a mediation role. • The NIIDZ policy has spatial spillover effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the tightening regulation of carbon emissions, China has launched the pilot carbon emission trading scheme (CETS) since 2013. There is growing empirical evidence of the actual effect of CETS to promote enterprises' productivity which is characterized by total factor productivity (TFP). However, most studies ignored the further analysis of influence mechanisms. This paper aims to explore the impact of CETS on the TFP of enterprises and discuss the mediating role of government participation and carbon trading market efficiency. Using data from A-share listed enterprises from CETS-covered enterprises, this paper employed a combination of the propensity score matching (PSM) and difference-in-differences (DID) strategies and found that the CETS has a statistically significant positive impact on the TFP of enterprises, and the positive effect has been maintained for six years since its inception. The moderation analysis indicated that: (1) two dimensions of government participation in terms of the market incentive and government supervision significantly moderate the positive impact of CETS on TFP of enterprises; (2) two dimensions of carbon trading market efficiency in terms of the market scale and liquidity significantly moderates the positive impact of CETS on TFP of enterprises. In light of Chinese pilots CETS policy, the study highlights the important moderating roles of government participation and high carbon trading market efficiency on enterprise's TFP. [Display omitted] • Chinese pilots CETS significantly improved the TFP of enterprises by 9.48%. • The government participation moderates the positive impact of CETS on enterprises' TFP. • The higher carbon trading market efficiency is, the greater the moderating effect of CETS on TFP is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapid urbanization and industrialization, environmental pollution caused by such activities has drawn much attention due to its adverse impacts on environmental quality and public health. Therefore, under the current background of China's ecological civilization construction, promoting the precise and scientific treatment of environmental pollution holds great significance. This paper proposes an improved perpetual inventory method to systematically measure the capital stock of urban and industrial pollution control. The efficiency of urban and industrial pollution control is measured by adopting the global data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. Then, the influencing factors of pollution control efficiency are empirically analyzed by using the spatial Tobit regression model. The results reveal that, first, the growth rate of the capital input scale of urban pollution control is greater than that of industrial pollution control, and the spatial distribution of capital input is unbalanced. Second, the efficiency of urban and industrial pollution control from 1991 to 2019 was generally low. The current efficiency values of urban and industrial pollution control are less than 0.2 and 0.5, respectively, indicating that urban and industrial pollution control are far from efficient. Third, the efficiency of urban and industrial pollution control is significantly positively related to the level of urbanization and industrialization, has a U-shaped relationship with the economic development level, and has heterogeneous effects on technology, energy intensity, government influence and foreign trade. On this basis, we provide constructive suggestions for optimizing the performance of pollution control. [Display omitted] • This paper systematically, comprehensively and in detail measures EPC's capital input in China. • We analyze the historical performance and influencing factors of EPC. • Results show EPC's efficiency has not been significantly improved from 1991 to 2019. • The current level of urban and industrial EPC is still very low. • Factors have spatial and heterogenous effects on the efficiency of EPC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of rapid industrialization and urbanization, China's rural settlements are undergoing rapid differentiation and reorganization. Their spatial pattern and multifunction have attracted much attention. In the Loess Hilly Region of China, topographic factors are deeply involved in the formation and evolution of the spatial pattern and multifunction in rural settlements. Therefore, this paper proposed a new method of topographic gradient analysis based on micro-geomorphic units. Taking Tianshui City in Longzhong Loess Hilly Region as an example, we analyzed the gradient differentiation and spatial correlation of the spatial pattern and multifunction in rural settlements. The results indicated that: (1) The topographic gradient differentiation of spatial pattern in rural settlements was distinct. As the topographic gradients rose, the numerical distributions of TA, AREA_CV, MPI, PR, and SHDI were generally concentrated from high to low values. The numerical distribution of LFI was generally scattered from low to high values. In addition, the numerical distribution of AWMSI and AWMPFD showed the "arch bridge" pattern. (2) The topographic gradient differentiation of multifunction in rural settlements was distinct. The overall level of LF was relatively low, and the numerical difference was small. It had the characteristics of concentrated distribution and marginal distribution in geographical space. The overall level of PF was low, and the spatial distribution had strong urban directivity and significant topographic gradient differences. The overall level of EF was relatively low, and the spatial distribution had significant horizontal zonality and topographic gradient differences. (3) Rural settlements' scale, distribution, and structure were generally synergistic with LF and PF, but there were trade-off relationships with EF. Moreover, the trade-off/synergy relationships between spatial pattern and multifunction had significant spatial heterogeneity in terms of spatial distribution. This paper is significant for formulating settlement development and construction plans, guiding spatial reconstruction and functional reorganization, improving settlement living environment, and promoting rural revitalization. [Display omitted] • A new method of topographic gradient analysis was proposed based on micro-geomorphic units. • The topographic gradient differentiation of the spatial pattern and multifunction in rural settlements were distinct. • Rural settlements' scale, distribution, and structure are generally synergistic with LF and PF but are trade-offs with EF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extensive use of land resources and environmental pollution in rural areas are two major problems prevalent in China and even the world. It is unknown whether improving the degree of intensive use of rural land can reduce environmental pollution; whether environmental pollution will be promoted or inhibited still lacks in-depth discussion. This paper first provides a theoretical analysis of the generation process of nonpoint source pollution loads (NPSP) in rural land use (RLU) and the mechanism and path of intensive rural land use (IRLU) to reduce agricultural nonpoint source pollution loads (ANPSP). Then, it takes 31 provinces in China from 1978 to 2019 as the research object to examine the temporal and spatial evolution features of IRLU and ANPSP. Furthermore, the paper uses the decoupling model and the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) model to test the linear and nonlinear relationship between the two. The research shows that the degree of IRLU in China decreased from 0.54 in 1978 to 0.27 in 2006, and then continuously increased to 0.56 in 2019. Moreover, the ANPSP continued to increase from 1955.14 t in 1978–3622.74 t in 2019. The decoupling relationship between the degree of IRLU and environmental pollution experienced the evolution process of "negative decoupling-decoupling", and the EKC had an "inverted N-shaped" characteristic. Overall, China shows that the IRLU helps to reduce ANPSP. At the same time, it was also found that there is obvious heterogeneity among the 31 provinces used in this research in China. Among them, the degree of intensive land use (ILU) in the principal grain-producing regions tends to be better and stable, while other areas show fluctuating changes. The ANPSP in economically developed areas gradually decreases, while that in underdeveloped areas continues to increase. More than 80% of the provinces in China show a trend of IRLU to advance the reduction of ANPSP, but there has also been an increase in the over-intensification of RLU in some major grain-producing areas. The research concludes that there is an inevitable relationship between RLU and ANPSP. Appropriately increasing ILU has a positive effect on decreasing ANPSP. • Moderate intensive rural land use (IRLU) helps reduce environmental pollution. • The agricultural nonpoint source pollution loads (ANPSP) continued to increase. • The decoupling relationship shifted from negative decoupling to decoupling. • The panel EKC curve in China showed the characteristic of "inverted-N″ shape. • The IRLU, ANPSP and their relationship are obvious heterogeneity in provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study a susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIRS) epidemic model with a generalized nonmonotone and saturated incidence rate k I 2 S 1 + β I + α I 2 , in which the infection function first increases to a maximum when a new infectious disease emerges, then decreases due to psychological effect, and eventually tends to a saturation level due to crowding effect. It is shown that there are a weak focus of multiplicity at most two and a cusp of codimension at most two for various parameter values, and the model undergoes saddle-node bifurcation, Bogdanov-Takens bifurcation of codimension two, Hopf bifurcation, and degenerate Hopf bifurcation of codimension two as the parameters vary. It is shown that there exists a critical value α = α 0 for the psychological effect, and two critical values k = k 0 , k 1 (k 0 < k 1) for the infection rate such that: (i) when α > α 0 , or α ≤ α 0 and k ≤ k 0 , the disease will die out for all positive initial populations; (ii) when α = α 0 and k 0 < k ≤ k 1 , the disease will die out for almost all positive initial populations; (iii) when α = α 0 and k > k 1 , the disease will persist in the form of a positive coexistent steady state for some positive initial populations; and (iv) when α < α 0 and k > k 0 , the disease will persist in the form of multiple positive periodic coexistent oscillations and coexistent steady states for some positive initial populations. Numerical simulations, including the existence of one or two limit cycles and data-fitting of the influenza data in Mainland China, are presented to illustrate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Dietary-related risks rank top among all the health risks in many countries. The 2nd United Nations Sustainable Development Goal aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Yet whether improving nutritional quality also benefits the environment is still under-explored, particularly for developing countries. China is an interesting and important case because of its rapidly changing dietary patterns distinct from the western countries studied in the literature, sub-national level heterogeneity, socio-economic characteristics and lifestyles, as well as its considerable population. This paper evaluates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water consumption, and land appropriation resulting from shifting the Chinese population to healthy diets. We quantify the environmental impacts of individual diets using the latest available data of China Health and Nutrition Survey (2011), and compare them with the environmental impacts of suggested healthy dietary patterns in accordance with the 2016 Chinese Dietary Guidelines. If all Chinese would follow healthy diets rather than their current diets revealed in the survey, GHG emissions, water consumption, and land occupation would increase by 7.5% (63.9 Mt CO 2 e annually), 53.5% (510 billion m3), and 54.2% (1256 billion m2), respectively. Urban and high-income groups have higher diet-related environmental impacts but could achieve less additional environmental impacts when moving to healthier diets. These findings indicate an expense of increased GHG emissions, and consumption of water and land resources in improving health. They also highlight the need to focus on the effects of improved economic conditions and urbanization in reconciling environmental impacts and human nutritional adequacy. Highlights • Shifting to healthy diets in China leads to 7.5% lower GHG emissions. • Water consumption and land use increase by 53.5% and 54.2% because of the shift. • Urban dwellers and high-income groups deliver larger reductions in GHG emissions. • Increase of water consumption and land use is also smaller for these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Invasive alien species pose great threats to ecological and economic health and cause enormous losses to global ecosystems. The Mikania micrantha management program is a source of great theoretical and practical insights for regional agricultural and forestry development. In this paper, the invasion history and distribution patterns of M. micrantha in the China-Myanmar Border Region are summarized, and the short-term and long-term performance of the current post-border management program are evaluated. A literature survey found that M. micrantha was mainly distributed in 85 townships of five municipalities along the border in China with Myanmar, suggesting an explicit border-crossing scenario of M. micrantha. The M. micrantha management program has produced positive but short-term results due to the conduction of general investigations, establishment of an extensive monitoring network, development of integrated measures, and improvements of public awareness and participation. However, the long-term management performance was hampered by overlapping departmental functions, lagging and unreliable public feedback, inadequate funding, and biased and passive strategies. We suggest that invasive species committees, social media tools, public-private partnership, and forest restoration and conservation and biological control could greatly improve the situation. This regional-scale research provides referential insights for the development of biological invasion management systems in developing economies under transboundary contexts. Highlights • Mikania micrantha has invaded southwest China through the border with Myanmar. • The current management program features effective but short-term performance. • Several factors hamper the long-term performance of Mikania micrantha management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Zanthoxylum bungeanum Maxim Seed Oil (ZBMSO) is widely distributed in most parts of China, which cannot be edible and extensively consumed due to its high free fatty acids. This paper reports a rational route to utilization of ZBMSO in preparation of nanocomposites which can enhance leather flame retardancy and thermal stability. ZBMSO was synthesized through three-stage process, decoloration, acid reduction and sulfitation to prepare the modified ZBMSO fatliquoring agent (MZBMSO). Then nanocomposites based on MZBMSO and stearate-layered double hydroxide (s-LDH) were prepared via in-situ method. XRD and TEM results indicated that the MZBMSO intercalate into the galleries of s-LDH with uniform dispersion. Compared with MZBMSO, the leather treated by MZBMSO/s-LDH had a remarkable improvement on flame retardancy and superior softness which limiting oxygen index (LOI) increased from 23.6% to 28.0% and smoke density index decreased from 25 to 6. Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • A rational route to use of Zanthoxylum bungeanum maxin seed oil was developed. • We synthesized a halogen-free nanocomposite flame retardant fatliquoring agent. • The flame retardancy of leather was improved by layered double hydroxides. • The flame retardation mechanism of fatliquoring agent was investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The combination and placement of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) devices is important for system design, but differing site characteristics and device properties can make this a challenging task. Opinion-based and optimization-based approaches have the disadvantages of subjectivity and excessive computational burden respectively. This paper presents a new framework for SuDS device combination and placement in system design. It integrates zero-one integer programming, random sampling, scheme filtering and cost-effectiveness analysis. The effectiveness of the framework is tested with a SuDS device placement design case in Chizhou city, Anhui province, China. The proposed framework will help to objectively choose the best SuDS device combination and placement scheme for cost-effective implementation. Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • Framework for determining for SuDS device placement schemes is presented. • Zero-one integer programming, scheme sampling and filtering are integrated. • A cost-effectiveness analysis method using a cost-effectiveness ratio is proposed. • Framework will aid objective selection of an appropriate SuDS placement scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In China, one of the major causes of energy performance gaps observed in green office buildings is the incompetent operations management, which is not distinguished from that of traditional buildings on both facilities and occupants. In this paper, a system dynamics model was established to simulate the interactions (primarily through communications) between facility managers and occupants and to find out targeted operations management strategies to narrow energy performance gaps. The model identifies different types of occupants and uses the Monte Carlo method to address the uncertainty between energy consumption and indoor environment quality satisfaction of occupants. Through a comparison of scenarios in which different types of occupants were each involved, differences in energy performance gaps were found and more-targeted operations management strategies were tailored. The model was applied to a specific case in China. The results indicate that facility managers could pay less attention to austerity occupants while paying more attention to communications with standard occupants to enhance their energy-saving awareness. The results also reveal that the wasteful occupants have the most potential for narrowing the gaps, which can be realized by combining communications and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system equipment with zonal control. Highlights • The interaction between occupants and facility managers of green office buildings is simulated. • System dynamics modeling is used to assess the interactive effects on energy performance gaps. • Occupants are differentiated and scenarios are compared to find the differences in the gaps. • A differentiated communication strategy for the austerity and standard occupants is tailored. • A targeted management portfolio for the wasteful occupants is drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentiment lexicons including opinion words, sentiment phrases, and idioms with sentiment polarities play an important role in sentiment analysis tasks. Apart from explicit sentiment features, extracting implicit sentiment features is a challenging research issue. The sentiment expression is very domain-specific, and constructing a general sentiment lexicon that is suitable for all domains is hard or even impossible. In this paper, we propose a novel sentiment unit context propagation framework to extract Chinese microblog-specific explicit and implicit sentiment features. In the process of the selection of seed sentiment units, we select the seed sentiment units that have a large standard degree of centrality with other units, and mark these units with sentiment labels using general sentiment lexicons and manual calibrations. To realize sentiment label propagation from a small amount of labeled sentiment units to unlabeled ones, we exploit local contexts, topic features, and so'cial relationships among users in microblog social networks. After that, the sentiment scores of units are calculated using unit context sentiment propagation. Experiments on two real-world microblog data sets demonstrate that our method can generate microblog-specific sentiment lexicons effectively. Furthermore, the sentiment classification accuracies significantly outperform state-of-the-art baselines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The interaction of tides and storm surges can significantly modify the final levels reached by storm surges that threaten coastal areas. In this paper, numerical experimental results are presented that examine tidal influence on storm surges. This is done using a two-dimensional ADCIRC (Advanced Circulation Model) applied to the effects of Typhoon Rammasun (July 2014) on Tieshan Bay, China. The results show that, without considering tidal forcing, there is an underestimation of positive surge levels, while negative surge levels are overestimated. It is also shown that the prevailing wind direction and shape of Tieshan Bay affect the distribution of storm surges. The nonlinear residual levels caused by tide-surge interaction can reach 0.94 m at the top of the bay when peak negative storm surge levels occur, with nonlinear levels increasing from the outside to the head of the bay. Through the derivation of mathematical terms, a direct relationship between the nonlinear residual levels and the dynamic influencing factors is established. Further, it is demonstrated that the combination of wind stress and bottom friction terms and advection terms play leading roles in the derivations, whereas terms related to local acceleration and Coriolis force contribute little to the nonlinear levels. The combination of wind stress and bottom friction terms and advection terms show complex spatial and temporal variation. Highlights • An unstructured-grid and high resolution tide-surge coupled model was applied in this study. • The storm prediction error and nonlinear residual levels characteristics due to tide-surge interaction are investigated. • Direct relationship between the nonlinear residual levels and influencing factors is established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Porcine epidemic diarrhea results from infection with porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV). It is an acute and highly contagious enteric disease in swine characterized by watery diarrhea and vomiting. Here, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis in order to assess the prevalence of PEDV infection in pig populations from mainland China. Methods We conducted a literature search on the prevalence of PEDV infection in pigs between Jan 1, 1988 and Aug 20, 2018 in English and Chinese databases, including PubMed, Google scholar, Cochrane library, Clinical Trials, VIP, CNKI and WanFang database. Selections were made based on the title and the abstract of paper, and duplicated literature was excluded along with other host studies, and data incomplete literature according to the exclusion criteria we formulated. Finally, we extracted the number of swine with PEDV infection from the obtained studies and provided information that permitted us to estimate the prevalence of PEDV infection in pigs in mainland China. Results A total of 45 studies (including data from 15,990 pigs) met our evaluation criteria. In China, the overall estimated prevalence of PEDV infection in pigs was 44% (7113/15,990), while the estimated prevalence of PEDV infection in pigs from northern China was 37% (793/2136), lower than those in other regions of China. The prevalence of PEDV infection was associated with sampling season, category of pigs and clinical signs (diarrhea) in pigs. However, the prevalence of PEDV among pigs in China was not significantly associated with the effect of detected target genes, nor was it associated with date of study publication. Conclusion Our findings suggest that PEDV infection is common among pigs in China. It is therefore necessary to carry out further research and monitor the prevalence of PEDV infection. Furthermore, powerful and effective regulatory measures should be taken in order to prevent the transmission and spread of PEDV among pig populations. Highlights • This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of PEDV infection among pigs in mainland China. • The data of 45 articles met the selection criteria, and the pooled prevalence of PEDV infection in China was 44%. • The prevalence of PEDV infection in different regions, category of swine, and sampling time, varied considerably. • Continuous monitoring the prevalence and variant of PEDV among pigs is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Antibiotic fermentative residues are categorized into hazardous wastes in China due to the existence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and residual antibiotics How to treat and manage these wastes is a new challenge. This paper investigated the treatment of erythromycin thiocyanate fermentation (EryTcF) residues using ionizing radiation technology for removing ARGs and antibiotics from the fermentation residues. The results showed that as exposed the EryTcF residues to gamma radiation, the abundance of four macrolide resistance genes (ereA, ermB, mefA and mpfB) decreased 1.0–1.3 log with 90–95% removal, and around 56% of erythromycin was removed at absorbed dose of 30 kGy and room temperature (19–22 °C). Direct action of γ-ray radiation contributed to 42–53% of ARGs removal and indirect action (radicals' reaction) was mainly responsible for erythromycin removal (84%). The positive correlation between total ARGs and Shannon index was observed. The potential ARGs-linked hosts were assigned to genera Aeromonas and Enterobacteriaceae and their abundance decreased by 36–43% at 30 kGy. Radiation has not obvious influence on the nutrient components of residues, such as protein content, suggesting that the radiation treated fermentative residues can be used as fertilizer, which is favorable for the development of recycling economy in antibiotic pharmaceutical factory. The results could provide a new insight into a sustainable management of antibiotic fermentative residuals. Highlights • Four macrolide resistance genes (ereA, ermB, mefA and mpfB) reduced 90% at 30 kGy. • About 56% of erythromycin was removed at 30 kGy from EryTcF residue. • The potential ARGs-linked hosts belong to genera Aeromonas and Enterobacteriaceae. • Ionizing radiation has no obvious influence on nutrient component in residues. • Ionizing radiation is promising technology for destroying ARGs and antibiotic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract China's environmental problems are not only related to the fundamental interests of the broad masses of the people, but also to China's national security and international image. At present, China's environmental protection work is facing a complex situation. Pollution sources can be divided into natural pollution sources and man-made pollution sources. Natural sources of pollution refer to places where nature releases harmful substances or causes harmful effects to the environment, such as active volcanoes. Man-made pollution source refers to the pollution source formed by human activities, and is also the main object of environmental protection research and control. Among the man-made pollution sources, air pollution sources, water pollution sources and soil pollution sources can be classified according to the main objects of pollution. Among them, air pollution sources and water pollution sources have the greatest impact on human life. Therefore, it has become an important subject worthy of in-depth discussion to take automatic and electronic measures for potential environmental pollution incidents, discover environmental pollution problems in time, reduce the probability of environmental pollution incidents, and even put some major environmental pollution incidents in their infancy. In this paper, deep learning method is used to classify the existing key pollution source video. Water pollution experiments show that the accuracy of video counting reaches 93.1%, which is better than other video processing schemes. The operation time of the system reaches acceptable range, and a solution to meet the real-time requirement is put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract For decades, the origin of the bronzes with distinct highly radiogenic lead isotopic ratios in Shang period China has been a puzzle. This paper presents new lead isotope data for bronze objects from the Hanzhong region, one of the key regional bronze cultures during Shang period China. On the basis of a synthetical investigation of the typological, chemical and lead isotopic features of Hanzhong bronzes and their relations to other regional bronze cultures, we propose the Qinling area as a potential region of origin for the metals containing highly radiogenic lead used by several contemporaneous but culturally/politically distinct entities across a vast territory. Taking into account both archaeological and geological evidence, this working hypothesis draws attention not merely to the geological provenance of metal resources, but also to the mechanisms of metal production and circulation as well as broader social-economic dynamics. Highlights • New lead isotope results from a key regional bronze culture of Shang period China. • The Qinling region is proposed as a source of the mysterious highly radiogenic lead in Shang period bronzes. • Regional specialisation and a multiple-direction interregional exchange are shown in Bronze Age China. • A new understanding of ancient metallurgy in broader social-economic contexts is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A 2-D unstructured finite element model is used to study how local and remote atmospheric forcing, sea level rise, and shoreline variation affect typhoon-induced storm surge in a small shallow bay, Zhanjiang Harbor (ZH). In this research, the spatial distribution of storm surge is divided into three patterns in ZH, denoted E-W, N-S, and S-N, using a quantitative method. In the Bay, local atmospheric effects (LAE) and remote atmospheric effects (RAE) both play important roles in the maximum residual water level. The contribution of RAE to the inflow is higher than that of the LAE, but the former is less important in the spatial distribution in ZH. In addition, the typhoon track influences the time of occurrence of the maximum surge by forcing the outer waters to ZH, then the spatial distribution of the surge residual in the bay is controlled by local winds, and different regions are threatened during different kinds of storm surge processes. Two sea level rise scenarios are set up in the paper as well, and the results show that the trends of the changes in LAE and RAE in the inner-bay are the opposite in the case of sea level rise; however, the total changes of the distribution are not the same in different categories. In general, the E-W category storm surge is weakened, while the N-S and S-N category storm surges have inverse changes in the north and south of ZH. There is a downward trend of the maximum surge gradient within the Bay, but relative to sea level rise itself this effect is not obvious. The establishment of the sea embankment increased the storm surge within the bay though it is not significant. Highlights • A quantitative method is used to categorize 3 patterns of the surge distribution in the bay. • Local atmospheric field dominates the surge distribution pattern in the bay. • How the track and intensity of typhoons affect distribution patterns is explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study considered a probability-determinative method for evaluation of the probable maximum storm surge (PMSS) in the Wenchang area, Northeast Hainan Province, which focused on landfall location, selection of typhoon parameter combinations, and surge response exploration. Overall, 40 typhoon parameter combinations were derived based on analyses of historical records, including typhoon central pressure, approach speed, approach direction, radius of maximum wind speed (RMW), and ambient atmospheric pressure. We used the Finite-Volume Coastal Ocean Model driven by prototypical typhoon winds and atmospheric pressure fields to simulate astronomic tides and storm surges in sensitivity runs, for which typhoon cases were established for various landfall locations and typhoon parameter combinations. It was found that typhoons with intensity of 871 hPa and largest RMW of 60 km, moving at a fastest speed of 36 km/h with an approach direction of 285°, and making landfall similar to Typhoons Rammasun or Kalmaegi, could induce a PMSS along the northern region of Wenchang. Conversely, similar typhoons moving westward with an approach direction of 270°, and making landfall to the south of Wenchang, 60 km from the areas of interest, could induce PMSS along the middle and southern regions of Wenchang. The physical laws were verified based on comparison between the Rammasun and Kalmaegi storm surges. Total elevation and inundation simulations along coastal regions were performed through coupling of the PMSS and astronomic tides, where the astronomic tides were selected as t he 90th percentile of the daily highest tide over 19 years. All conclusions stated in the paper were based on the characteristics of the coastlines and circumstances of the study region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Consumption demands are final drivers for the extraction and allocation of natural resources. This paper investigates demand-driven natural resource requirements and spatial outsourcing within China in 2012 by using the latest multi-regional input-output model. Exergy is adopted as a common metric for natural resources input. The total domestic resource exergy requirements amounted to 125.5 EJ, of which the eastern area contributed the largest share of 44.5%, followed by the western area (23.9%), the central area (23.0%) and the northeastern area (8.6%). Investment was the leading final demand category, accounting for 52.9% (66.4 EJ) of national total embodied resource use (ERU). The total trade volumes of embodied resource were equivalent to 69.6% of the total direct resource input (DRI), mostly transferred from the central and western regions such as Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Xinjiang to the eastern regions such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Shanghai. The northeastern and eastern areas had physical net imports of 1213.5 PJ and 38452.6 PJ, while the central and western inland areas had physical net exports of 6364.5 PJ and 33301.5 PJ, respectively. Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong had prominent ERUs which respectively were 101.6, 12.6, 11.7, 8.4 and 4.3 times of their DRIs. The ERUs of Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Ningxia and Guizhou were equal to only 17.6%, 25.3%, 27.9%, 46.0% and 50.2% of their DRIs, respectively. Regional uneven development resulted in imbalanced resource requirements across China. The findings can provide a deep understanding of China's resource-driven economic development mode, and contribute to reducing regional resource footprints and their environment outcomes under the "new normal economy". Highlights • Outsourcing resource requirements within China 2012 is systematically revealed. • Exergy is adopted as a common metric for various natural resources input. • 69.6% of national total resource requirements were transferred via domestic trade. • Regional resource use patterns under the "new normal economy" are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Landscape dynamics of wetland are critical for understanding coastal ecosystem health and sustainability. The paper characterizes the spatiotemporal dynamics of the wetland landscape in the Zhoushan Islands during 1985–2015 to reveal the spatially explicit influential indicators. Wetland distribution in four periods (1985, 1995, 2005 and 2015) was derived from Landsat Images via artificial visual interpretation and support vector machine. Landscape pattern indices were then used to quantify landscape changes and statistical data was employed to identify the drivers. During 1985–2015, the total area of the Zhoushan Islands had been increased from 1277.15 km2 in 1985 to 1368.12 km2, and the total area of wetlands gradually increased from 123.31 km2 to 195.88 km2. The two-subtype wetlands presented opposite trends: the natural wetland decreased from 68.15 km2 to 62.08 km2 while the artificial wetland increased from 55.16 km2 to 133.80 km2. Since 1995, the area of artificial wetlands has exceeded that of natural wetlands. Moreover, natural wetland gradually became fragmented. The dominant transition of wetland types in the Zhoushan Islands was from natural wetlands to artificial wetlands. Moreover, some other transitions include artificial wetlands transferred to non-wetlands and new reclamation lands from the ocean transferred to construction and aquaculture lands were also identified. The wetland landscape pattern changes were not only affected by natural and socioeconomic factors, but also influenced by urbanization level and reclamation projects. Furthermore, the increasing artificial wetlands also played an important role in protecting the local ecological environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vibration testing of long span bridges is becoming a commissioning requirement, yet such exercises represent the extreme of experimental capability, with challenges for instrumentation (due to frequency range, resolution and km-order separation of sensor) and system identification (because of the extreme low frequencies). The challenge with instrumentation for modal analysis is managing synchronous data acquisition from sensors distributed widely apart inside and outside the structure. The ideal solution is precisely synchronised autonomous recorders that do not need cables, GPS or wireless communication. The challenge with system identification is to maximise the reliability of modal parameters through experimental design and subsequently to identify the parameters in terms of mean values and standard errors. The challenge is particularly severe for modes with low frequency and damping typical of long span bridges. One solution is to apply ‘third generation’ operational modal analysis procedures using Bayesian approaches in both the planning and analysis stages. The paper presents an exercise on the Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge, a suspension bridge with a 1385 m main span. The exercise comprised planning of a test campaign to optimise the reliability of operational modal analysis, the deployment of a set of independent data acquisition units synchronised using precision oven controlled crystal oscillators and the subsequent identification of a set of modal parameters in terms of mean and variance errors. Although the bridge has had structural health monitoring technology installed since it was completed, this was the first full modal survey, aimed at identifying important features of the modal behaviour rather than providing fine resolution of mode shapes through the whole structure. Therefore, measurements were made in only the (south) tower, while torsional behaviour was identified by a single measurement using a pair of recorders across the carriageway. The modal survey revealed a first lateral symmetric mode with natural frequency 0.0536 Hz with standard error ±3.6% and damping ratio 4.4% with standard error ±88%. First vertical mode is antisymmetric with frequency 0.11 Hz ± 1.2% and damping ratio 4.9% ± 41%. A significant and novel element of the exercise was planning of the measurement setups and their necessary duration linked to prior estimation of the precision of the frequency and damping estimates. The second novelty is the use of the multi-sensor precision synchronised acquisition without external time reference on a structure of this scale. The challenges of ambient vibration testing and modal identification in a complex environment are addressed leveraging on advances in practical implementation and scientific understanding of the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The average real house price in Beijing rose by roughly 41.8% between 2012 and 2015, and the appreciation differs across low- versus high-priced homes. The rising house price might be caused by changes in the characteristics of housing units, and it might also be induced by the changing returns to housing characteristics in the underlying hedonic price functions. In this paper, we use a comprehensive housing transaction dataset and analyze the changes in the distribution of house prices over time through a decomposition approach. The result of Oaxaca-Blinder mean decomposition suggests that the proportion of the price gap between 2012 and 2015 due to altered returns over time is greater than the proportion caused by changes in housing characteristics. The quantile decomposition shows that the decomposition effects are heterogenous across the complete distribution of house prices. We also find that low-priced homeowners are exposed to a decline in house prices, while there are deteriorating housing conditions from 2012 to 2015. The high-priced homeowners experience an improvement in living conditions, but a rise in house prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media has been playing an increasingly important role in the sharing of individuals' opinions on many financial issues, including credit risk in investment decisions. This paper analyzes whether these opinions, which are transmitted through social media, can accurately predict enterprises' future credit risk. We consider financial statements oriented evaluation results based on logit and probit approaches as the benchmarks. We then conduct textual analysis to retrieve both posts and their corresponding commentaries published on two of the most popular social media platforms for financial investors in China. Professional advice from financial analysts is also investigated in this paper. We surprisingly find that the opinions extracted from both posts and commentaries surpass opinions of analysts in terms of credit risk prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how stakeholder demand and compliance capacity jointly shape corporate environmental coping strategies and subsequently environmental protection practices. A four-dimensional classification of coping strategies—formalism, accommodation, referencing, and self-determination—is conceptualized. Drawing on survey and interview data collected from manufacturing enterprises in China between 2010 and 2012, the paper shows that compared with formalism and accommodation, coping strategies of referencing and self-determination are associated with stronger environmental protection practices. Enterprises adjust their coping strategies by taking into account the constraints defined by both their internal and external environments. The results also demonstrate the potential synergetic effects of state and non-state stakeholders working together in promoting better corporate environmental coping strategies and environmental practices in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]