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Innovation platforms can be useful for promoting the diversification of regional industrial paths. Until recently, the literature had depicted such platforms primarily as a tool for enabling local knowledge recombination – and not for anchoring non-local knowledge. In many regions, however, 'smart specialisation strategies' for modernising and transforming industrial structures are difficult to implement without transplantation of non-local knowledge. This paper explores innovation platforms as a tool for anchoring non-local knowledge. We elaborate on recent Chinese experiences by studying diversification-oriented regional innovation policy in Guangdong province. We employ an embedded single-case study design, involving a regionally typical diversification strategy, which we substantiate by tracing platform development with two non-local actors, a university and a technology firm. The paper reveals that non-local actors can play an important role in unlocking regional industrial development potential, especially if platforms enable these actors to relate to local industry by performing desired intermediary functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (the Greater Bay Area) has injected new impetus into the development of the tourism economy and created new emerging tourism industries. Therefore, many tourism planning needs to be formulated, which generates new requirements for tourism planners in terms of quantity and quality of tourism planning. Different stakeholders have different views on the needs of tourism planners. From the perspective of different stakeholders, what are the factors affecting the training needs of tourism planners? There is little research on the training needs of tourism planners from the perspective of stakeholders. Most of the existing research on the training needs of tourism planners derive only from the perspective of students or the ones from supply and demand, rather than from multiple stakeholders. This paper aims to construct a conceptual framework identifying factors affecting the training needs of tourism planners from stakeholders' perspective. A qualitative method (semi-structured interviews) is applied in this study to investigate the factors affecting the supply and demand of tourism planners in the Great Bay Area. The results show educators focus on market demand, working competence and teacher resources. Enterprises are concerned about the tourism policy, market demand, educational requirements and working competence. Students focus on employment motivation and working competence. Market demand is a common concern of educators and enterprises. Working competence is a factor of common interest to all stakeholders. This paper also proposes theoretical and practical implications for the government, tourism planning companies, and tourism universities and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of Guangdong provincial R&D subsidies policy on corporate R&D investment.¹ Using a large sample of Chinese firms for the 2011–2017 period and DID methodology, we find that government R&D subsidies have a negative and significant effect on corporate R&D investment. Our findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests. Our study supports the ‘crowd out effect’ of government R&D subsidies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Chinese paradiplomacy has received growing academic attention, little is known about how different provinces within China act as international relations players of their own accord. This paper adopts a comparative perspective to address this gap. It develops three dimensions of international actorness (authority, motivation, and instruments) to examine whether and how Chinese provinces have satisfied the criteria for being international relations actors through their engagements in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Using Guangdong and Yunnan as examples, this paper casts light on the plural occasions in which the de-centralized state control of foreign affairs and the growing external activism of provincial entities have worked in tandem to widen the footprints of said provincial entities in the countries of the BRI. Drawing on Guangdong-Hong Kong competition and Yunnan-Guangxi rivalry, this paper unpacks the motivations of provincial engagements in the BRI by exploring the utility of imitation tactics used to gain comparative advantages vis-à-vis their domestic counterparts. While comparing the Guandong and Yunnan's leveraging of strategic instruments, this paper also reveals Guangdong's strong globalist, mercantile mentality in its external interactions, in contrast with the more regionalist and stability-oriented approach of Yunnan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how four indicators of economic/financial openness, namely, trade openness, actual tariff rate, financial openness, and investment openness have shaped the world's four major bay area's urban agglomerations. The study considers four key bay areas, New York, Tokyo, San Francisco and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, over the period 2005–2018. Using the panel data fixed effect model analysis, our study finds that: the interaction of comprehensive openness, investment openness, trade openness and comprehensive openness plays a positive role in economic growth, while the actual tariff rate and financial openness play a negative role. In the long run, each bay area should expand their opening-up to the outside world and promote economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classification of urban functional areas plays an important role in urban planning and resource management. Although previous studies have confirmed that different urban functional areas have different morphological structures and Land Surface Temperature (LST) characteristics, these two types of characteristics have rarely been fully integrated and used for functional area classification. In this paper, a new framework for classifying urban functional areas is proposed by combining urban morphological features and LST features. First, metrics are constructed from three levels, namely, building, road and region, which are used to portray urban morphology; LST is retrieved using thermal infrared remote sensing to reflect LST features with four metrics: the average temperature, maximum temperature, temperature difference and standard deviation of temperature. Then, the functional areas are classified into four categories: service/public land, commercial land, residential land and industrial land. A random forest algorithm is used to effectively fuse the features of these two categories and classify the functional areas. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is tested in the study area of Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province. The results show that the combined classification accuracy of the proposed classification method is 0.85, which is 0.26 higher than that of the classification model based on urban morphology and 0.1 higher than that of the classification model based on LST features. The proposed framework verifies that the integration of LST features into urban functional area classification is reliable and effectively combines urban morphology and LST features for functional area classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate price prediction for carbon trading is essential to provide the guidance for investment and production. The current prediction methods mainly depend on the carbon price itself, from which the change pattern of carbon price is studied. However, fusing the multi-source data, e.g. trading message and public sentiment, and taking proper data processing to improve the prediction accuracy need in-depth research. In this paper, a hybrid price prediction method utilizing both the statistical and intelligent models is established on multi-source data, and the data characteristics are fully explored by correlation analysis and multi-frequency analysis. The study on Guangdong market show that: the accuracy of proposed method is superior to the benchmark ones: root mean square error and mean absolute percentage error are reduced by 19.27% and 7.16%, while determination coefficient and trading return are increased by 8.31% and 25.11%. The proposed method is helpful for stakeholders to manage their trading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transmitting traditional music for sustainability has been a common theme in global music education. Recently, the school systems of Hong Kong and Guangdong have been encouraged by governmental authorities to teach Cantonese opera aiming at enhancing the sustainability of the genre and promote a Chinese cultural identity within students. This paper details a survey of school music teachers working in Hong Kong and Guangdong examining the current state of Cantonese opera teaching in the schools of both regions and investigate how it is affected by teacher variables including their interest in Chinese opera, the confidence in teaching the subject, and their perceptions of their Chinese cultural identities. A total of 1,974 valid questionnaires were received and examined. Descriptive and inferential statistics including MANOVA and chi-square tests were used to analyze the data. Findings reveal that Cantonese opera teaching is limited in both regions. While teachers are modestly interested, confident, and knowledgeable about teaching the genre, there is a significant relationship between the music backgrounds of teachers and their interest in Cantonese opera. The article discusses the findings within the context of a historical predominance of Western music within music education curricula and wider societies. Implications for policy makers are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on one-year's ethnographic fieldwork, this article unpacks experiences of assisted reproductive technology (ART) among queer parents and queer wannabe parents in Guangdong, China. Although existing state regulation on the use of ART and birth planning tends to deny parenthood to single and queer people and further limits their ability to form legible family units, queer parents who have had children through ART are growing in number in urban China. This research delineates how state and cultural conventions, together with market and economic conditions, have shaped queer individuals' decision making regarding whether, when and how to have children. Findings make an original contribution to studies of the use of reproductive technology in Chinese queer lives. Narratives regarding how queer parents employ ART services unscramble links between sexual citizenship and reproductive agency, as individuals make consumer choices and reproductive decisions synchronously. The paper also explores alleged LGBT-friendly ART companies and the image of a desirable 'rainbow baby' they have created. Chinese queer parents' participation in assisted reproduction has destabilised the dominant hetero-reproductive family matrix while simultaneously contributing to stratified reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a flexible market mechanism based on the control of total quantity, the carbon emission trading system aims to achieve economic development while reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption. How to improve the effectiveness of carbon emission trading (CET) policy and achieve the established emission reduction targets have attracted widespread attention from scholars. Taking Guangdong Province as an example, this paper constructed a system dynamics (SD) model to investigate the interaction between internal factors of CET system and simulated the effectiveness of CET policy from 2016-2026. The results indicate that (1) Relative errors between historical data and simulated data are controlled within 5%, which indicates that the system model is suitable to simulate real system. (2) The average sensitivity of the quota variation rate, paid ratio and penalty coefficient are 0.42, 0.56 and 0.29, respectively, indicating that these three parameters can be identified as leverage parameters affecting the efficiency of the CET policy. (3) A single type of policy is difficult to achieve emission reduction targets. The policy portfolio scenario will achieve the reduction target in Thirteenth Five-Year plan of Guangdong, that is, the total amount of quota decreases by 0.5% per year, the paid ratio rises 2% in that ratio per year, and the penalty coefficient is triple the carbon price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GM crops, as a widely researched and applied biotechnology, hold significant strategic and practical implications for promoting the commercialization of GM crops in China, driving agricultural industry upgrading, and fostering economic and social development. However, despite their potential benefits, the commercialization of GM crops in China has been consistently delayed. Therefore, this study aims to explore the trust relationship between the government and the public in the field of genetically modified organisms and the heterogeneous impacts generated at the production and consumption ends. We primarily focus on insect-resistant cotton and genetically modified papaya as representatives and base our research on survey data from Xinjiang and Guangdong. By employing factor analysis and establishing multiple Probit models with government trust, crop purposes, and farmer expectations as independent variables, and the commercialization of GM crops as the dependent variable, we conduct two sets of empirical analyses. The study finds that government trust has a more significant impact on consumer concerns about whether to consume GM products than on producers, who prioritize farmers' desire for agricultural product profitability. Age and education levels also influence the public's acceptance of planting GM crops, but the effects are not as significant as the core variables mentioned earlier. Based on this, we conclude that consumers and farmers have different positions and contradictions in the specific scenario of delayed GM commercialization in China. In this context, this paper argues that diversified strategies should be adopted to address the issue of commercialization of GM crops in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the remote sensing data plays an increasingly significant role in Land use prediction modeling. The effects of land conversion and agricultural bio production are evaluated using remote sensing and economic analysis. It is impossible to over-emphasize the advantages of the vibrant, efficient hybrid mortgage market in Guangdong as it is inseparably linked to economic development. This paper explores specifically the main variables affecting residential mortgage demand and other restrictions on households' use of a mortgage using the Fuzzy Systematic Evaluation System (FSES). Furthermore, this objective has been accomplished by examining and analyzing the available mortgage products in Guandong through questionnaire survey responses. In addition, the high-interest rates, low income, and house prices result in high and unreasonable repayment-to-earnings mortgages ratios. Moreover, the cumulative effect of this is to make households on low and mid-income prices to the mortgage market. While higher house prices are found in this study to increase mortgage demand, they trigger banks to offer fewer and charge higher rates, particularly after the boom, and especially for highly leveraged households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is one of the most active innovation areas in China, but the complex institutional and cultural environment makes innovation cooperation among the cities challenging. Based on 2001–2019 data, this study analyses the spatial pattern and externalities of GBA's knowledge innovation network using a social network method and spatial econometric model. Results show that Guangzhou and Hong Kong have always been the cores of knowledge innovation in network. Shenzhen emerged as an innovation centre after 2012, and other cities have become peripheral areas in the network. Small- and medium-sized cities do not benefit from the innovative development of core cities but are trapped in their agglomeration shadow. Institutional and cultural differences are the main obstacles hindering innovation cooperation between cities. In comparison, distance has fewer limitations on innovation cooperation. The negative externality of knowledge innovation network indicates that this region should narrow the gap of spatial differences, optimise the innovation network pattern to improve the network externalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To contribute to the debate on the importance of state vis-à-vis inter-firm competition in regional development, this paper examines a representative dataset of the relocation of manufacturing firms in Guangdong province of China with multinomial logistic regression models. To improve the competitiveness of manufacturing in the Pearl River Delta, the Guangdong government implemented pro-active policies to encourage the relocation of existing manufacturing firms to their designated industrial parks during the 2000s. Although the initial results appear to support the usefulness of relocation policy, further examination reveals its effectiveness depends on the industrial sector and profiles of the relocated firms. In fact, the relocation of large-scale labor-intensive firms is not driven by local government initiatives. The physical proximity of high-technology parks to airports/ports has a bigger impact on the relocation of small-scale locally-funded high-technology firms into designated parks. In the case of locally-funded firms in polluting sectors, they are expanding rather than relocating to designated industrial parks. The empirical evidence indicates the non-binary nature of the industrial relocation policy. The nuances of relocation policy and its multi-scalar effects on relocated firms rejects any simplistic generalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains failures of large-scale anti-corruption campaigns in reducing corruption? Theories on developing country corruption see corruption as either a problem of weak formal institutions that incentivize naturally opportunistic actors or as remnants of traditional behaviors that persist despite changing modern state boundaries and regulations. Neither helps explain how participants continuously strategize to reframe and articulate the morality of those questionable transactions. This paper, through multi-year fieldwork and 34 interviews with business elites in China's Guangdong province, examines how officials and businesses reconfigured their strategies of corruption during a recent anti-corruption campaign. We find that key actors engaged in 'moral articulation' – devising moral repertoires and realigning common exchange practices to accepted meaning frames to safeguard interests and obfuscate their activities. In doing so, they challenged some aspects of state-initiated definitions of corruption while embracing others. Rather than eliciting conformity, the campaign prompted new ingenious action frames that helped internally justify corruption and allowed questionable exchange practices to continue on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the forecasting power of some of the most informative indicators of economic uncertainty on carbon emission price volatility. We use one- and two-component GARCH-MIDAS models based on mixed frequency data and Model Confidence Set (MCS) testing with 'rolling scheme' forecast method to examine the forecasting performance of economic uncertainty indicators. We employ an economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indicator with China, US and global economic policy uncertainty constituents together with traditional uncertainty indicators, such as macroeconomic and financial market volatility. Our empirical findings show that generally economic policy uncertainty indicators contain more information of carbon emission price volatility than other indicators. Specifically, one-component GARCH-MIDAS model with the EPU indicator with China constituent and two-component model with EPU indicator have superior performance in forecasting carbon emission price volatility of the Guangdong pilot in China. Our study adds insights into factors that affect carbon emission price movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remains a global pandemic at present. Although the human-to-human transmission route for this disease has been well established, its transmission mechanism is not fully understood. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model for COVID-19 which incorporates multiple transmission pathways and which employs time-dependent transmission rates reflecting the impact of disease prevalence and outbreak control. Applying this model to a retrospective study based on publicly reported data in China, we argue that the environmental reservoirs play an important role in the transmission and spread of the coronavirus. This argument is supported by our data fitting and numerical simulation results for the city of Wuhan, for the provinces of Hubei and Guangdong, and for the entire country of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the question of extended urbanization by arguing for the need to overcome dualistic views to properly address the political specificities of urbanization in China. To this end, this paper understands state-territorial relations as a process of étatization by drawing on the particular literature on the role of the party-state in urbanization. Through a brief history of Guangdong, it elaborates on the political modalities of territorialization through China's administrative rank system. This has enabled the party-state to mediate the production of urban space. From this, I arrive at the concept of "territorially-nested urbanization", moving beyond limited accounts of hierarchical state powers in Chinese urban studies. Next, from a short periodization of Dongguan's urbanization, the paper exemplifies how a particular mode of territorialization has evolved into tense relationships between the city and towns in the ongoing dilemma of multi-centered versus concentrated direction of urbanization. Based on insights from in-depth fieldwork, the last part of this paper illustrates the contradictory mobilization of village collectives within extended state power through local government, and the development of villagers' politics and activism in contested land transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A primary method of mitigating environmental problems in industrial districts, or so-called industrial clusters, in emerging economies is through shared environmental infrastructure. Yet the social justice and equity aspects of these projects claiming to be green and sustainable have rarely been investigated and interrogated, especially in authoritarian systems. Drawing on actor-network theory and environmental politics, this article examines how unjust sustainability may occur in collective environmental solutions such as shared environmental infrastructure in China. Through a case study of a furniture-coating centre to be built in a well known furniture manufacturing cluster in the Shunde District of Guangdong Province, this article investigates how the resulting local controversy unfolded and how the power dynamics between the local state and the protesting communities played out. The result shows that power asymmetry in collective environment actions may result in injustice and inequity concerns that trigger local controversies. Controversies, in turn, offer an opportunity for the power struggle between enrolment and counter-enrolment, which may challenge unequal power relations. The behaviours and tactics deployed by different actor groups in local controversies depend to a certain extent on the constraints and opportunities present within China's multi-scalar environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how perceived risk influences epidemic information seeking behaviour, which in turn helps us understand public information seeking generally. To this end, the effects of perceived risk, information needs and negative emotions on public epidemic information seeking were examined using a structural equation model (SEM) based on data collected via an online survey (N = 407) covering two regions in China, Guangdong and Hubei, and based on the Risk Information Seeking and Processing Model (RISP). The results show that the epidemic risk perceived by citizens impacts information seeking based on the mediating effects of information needs and negative emotions. Furthermore, perceived risk has positive effects on information needs and negative emotions in that higher levels of information needs and stronger negative emotions positively facilitate the seeking of epidemic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and the strongest economic vitality in China. In this paper, the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) model is used to calculate the Ecological Traffic footprint of the Greater Bay area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, and the remote sensing data of the Greater Bay area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao is used to analyse and evaluate the development and evolution of Ecological Traffic in the Greater Bay area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. The results show that the ecological traffic environment of the Greater Bay area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao is good, and it is getting better. The poor areas are mainly concentrated in the central region, which is also improving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studied the CO2 emission scenarios of Guangdong province in 2020 and divided the CO2 emission increment and reductions into various departments and driving factors. Based on the Extended Snapshot model, two CO2 emission scenarios, Business as Usual (BaU) and Counter Measure (CM) scenario were constructed. CM scenario was completed by using reduction technical measures to achieve the reduction emission goal. The results showed that the amount of CO2 emission is less 189 million tonne in 2020 CM scenario than BaU scenario. By decomposing the emission reduction measures in CM scenario, it showed that the main means to reduce CO2 emissions were the industrial structure adjustment, the advanced energy efficiency and the power sector structure adjustment, and the emission reduction contribution rates were 36.85%, 34.55% and 21.74%, respectively. The analysis results could be recommended to the government to make the low-carbon development policy and path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has established seven pilot carbon markets and has made efforts to establish a national carbon market. This paper constructs an AR-GARCH model and adopts bilaterally modified dummy variables to investigate the impacts of regulatory update events (allowance allocation plans and allowance auctions) on the pilot carbon markets in China. The pilots of Guangdong, Shanghai, and Hubei are chosen as case studies. We find that each pilot reacted differently to the same events due to mechanism design diversity. The allowance allocation plan in the Shanghai and Guangdong pilot markets generated relatively distinct influences on the carbon price. Furthermore, to a certain extent, allowance auctions played a role in carbon price discovery in Guangdong and Hubei. However, such an impact was not remarkable in the Shanghai pilot market. Based on the empirical results, policy recommendations are presented for the establishment of a national carbon market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatially targeted policies have been a crucial component of the development strategy pursued by the Chinese government. This paper provides novel empirical evidence in the debate on place-based policy by testing whether the presence of economic development zones is associated with higher values of industrial output and their impact is heterogeneous across territories in the counties/districts in Guangdong province during the period 2000–14. The results show that the level of industrial output is positively correlated with the presence of economic development zones and offer support to the idea that place-based policies have heterogeneous effects across territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food taste should be considered in-place. This paper employs a regional analytical framework that is suggested by new regional geography to analyze relations between taste and place, and broadly, people and cuisine. We problematize fixed links between place and taste by asking how tastes are developed as rooted qualities of a place and its cuisine. Focusing on spicy taste as a cultural construct in China's context, climate and landscape characteristics, geographical proximity, and inhabitants' collective engagement are examined and identified as three factors that co-influence the construct of spicy taste, which we see as a vital shaper of the cuisine of Nanxiong in the mountainous north of China's southern Guangdong Province. We build a spatial regional hierarchy centered on spicy taste and find a correct and meaningful scale – the region of Guangdong Province. In highlighting the importance of considering the flavor principle in place, we call for more efforts to adopt a regional perspective in exploring multi-scalar and place-bounded food and taste issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes four new species ofmorrisi-group earthworms from Hainan and Guangdong Provinces, China:Amynthas instabilissp. nov,Amynthas dilatatussp. nov,Amynthas infuscuatussp. nov. andAmynthas qiongzhongensissp. nov. All four species have two pairs of spermathecal pores in 5/6–6/7; male pores in XVIII, 0.33 circumference ventrally apart, each on the top of a slightly raised porophore, surrounded by several tiny genital papillae, in a pulvinate pad with three to six circular folds. Characters of the spermathecae, prostate glands and other anatomical features easily distinguish the new species from earthworms previously reported from themorrisi-group. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:545E9152-C826-44A2-949E-402434D8493D. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper interrogates the impact of policy events on the efficiency of carbon market in China. The analysis covers five piloting emission trading schemes (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Shenzhen and Hubei), particularly focusing on Guangdong pilot for its weak form efficiency and the richness of policy events. Twenty-five policy events between 2014 and 2016 are categorized into seven groups. The efficiency test indicates that only Guangdong ETS has reached weak form efficiency. After exploring the policy events occurred in Guangdong ETS, it finds that although a clear long-term climate policy has been set up over the country, China's carbon market still has a conservative risk appetite and its governing institutions still needs further development. The policy makers need to be aware of and avoid the negative impacts of policy events to the market evolvement, by introducing effective consultancy process with the stakeholders and nurturing market expectations in the long run. We also find that events like allowance auctions have considerably less impacts than previously expected and argue that auction approach should be considered a preferable option over a free allocation system in the future policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a full-scale test on a very soft clay ground around 70,000 m2, which is conducted in Huizhou of Guangdong Province, China, to present a new method of vacuum preloading method. A novel moisture separator was developed, which can automatically regulate the vacuum pressure variation by changing the volume of the gas inside it. A large quantity of water drained by the proposed moisture separators can be directly used as a surcharge loading, which would shorten the ground improvement time and save costs as well. Three levels of silt-prevention prefabricated vertical drains were used in the treating process to accelerate the consolidation. In addition, the vacuum preloading method also included an effective radial drainage device which would strengthen the dredged soft clay fill in a deep layer. In the in situ test, tens of piezometers and settlement plates were installed to measure the variations of excess pore water pressures and settlement of two stages of observation points at different positions in the ground. The results show that the largest average consolidation settlement was 314.1 cm and made a saving of more than 66% in power consumption compared with traditional method. It demonstrates that this adopted method is an efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly method for improving sites with low bearing capacity and high compressibility soils. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Megaregion has emerged as a global urban form, typically based on the polycentric strategy to enhance regional development. How to measure megaregional spatial structure and discriminate different roles of cities has become increasingly important to enrich the knowledge of the formation of a megaregion. Meanwhile, various indices have been used to identify vital nodes in the field of complex network. Which indices, however, are suitable for megaregion analysis remain unsolved. To address this requirement, this study first reviewed the typical indices for identifying vital nodes in the complex network theory, and pointed out that in a weighted city network scenario, weighted degree centrality, hub & authority score, and S-core decomposition (which represent network centrality, connectivity, and structures, respectively) are suitable for analyzing megaregional spatial structures. Then, we explored the city hierarchies and spatial structure in Guangdong Province, China, using the three indices. The hierarchical structure of the weighted city network in Guangdong Province had been identified using S-core decomposition. From the perspective of polycentric structure, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have the strongest node degrees and strength of mobility flows, while the Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen corridor has been identified via the hub & authority score which is designed to evaluate the connectivity in a weighted network. Moreover, we conducted a comparison analysis of three indices. The findings of this study not only enrich the understanding of city hierarchies and the structure of a megaregion, but also highlight that although various indices are available, they should be applied selectively in accordance with the study context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research selects art museums in four cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) region for relevant research, namely Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao and Shenzhen, which are important representatives of the artistic, cultural, economic and technological development of the GBA. It examines the digital technology strategies used by six selected art museums within the four GBA cities to promote the co-development of collections, exhibitions and audience engagement. The objective of the study has been approached through the following research question: How are art museums using digital technology to improve the relationship among collections, exhibitions and audience engagement from the perspective of online exhibitions? In this article, online exhibitions are seen as an invaluable virtual platform for art museums to display art to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. The necessity for art museums to use digital technology to develop online exhibitions in the face of the plight of the COVID-19 pandemic is first introduced in this article. It then addresses how online exhibitions and online technologies in art museums have influenced the development of collections from offline to online, as well as how to further strengthen the relationship between collections, exhibitions and the audience. Some of the key challenges for art museums in developing online exhibitions using digital technology are also mentioned, and possible future developments of online exhibitions in art museums are discussed. At the same time, there is a need to consider the issues faced by art museums in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as they continue to use digital technology to develop collections, exhibitions and audiences in the post-COVID-19 pandemic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the changes in the nature and the society, risks will inevitably change. It implies that, with the passage of time, some historical data would be invalid for probabilistic risk analysis. In this paper, a model to acquire the valid data is suggested, which is based on the Mann- Kendall test to detect abrupt change-point on time series data. What's more, the typhoon risk analysis in Guangdong Province, China is used as a case study to show how to apply the model. The valid data of the intensities of typhoons and the related losses in the province for the probabilistic risk analysis is obtained from the data during the time from 1984 to 2012. Comparing with the results based on the set of invalid data and the set of all collected data, the assessed risk based on the valid data is more reliable, which could reflect the dynamics of the typhoon risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows an association between vaginal microbiota and the development of cervical cancer, but the role of altered microbiota in cancer development remains controversial. In this study, we attempted to reveal the vaginal microecological changes in cervical lesions by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Vaginal secretions were collected from Hakka women in Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, China. The diversity, composition and the correlations among species of the vaginal microbiota were determined by sequencing the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. The microbial functional abundance was detected via KEGG and COG (Clusters of Orthologous Groups). The results showed that the Cancer group was characterised by evident changes in the composition of the vaginal microbiota, increased alpha diversity, and altered community structure distribution and microbial interaction network. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size showed that 21 bacterial species were abundant in the Cancer group. In addition, the loss of Lactobacillus stimulated other flora proliferation, resulting in a microecological disturbance. KEGG and COG analysis indicated the cancer group is mainly concentrated in energy metabolism. In short, the vaginal microecology of Hakka women in Meizhou City presents with different degrees of cervical lesions, and the flora imbalance is an important factor in the development of cervical cancer. What is already known on this subject? Cervical cancer is one of the most common gynecological malignancies worldwide and has become a prominent public health problem. What the results of this study add? Our study showed that the type of vaginal community status of Hakka women in Meizhou area was characterised by L. Iners predominates, and the gradual loss of Lactobacillus dominance in vaginal bacteria is key to microecological imbalance. What the implications are of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Disturbances in vaginal microecology can stimulate energy metabolism and lipid metabolism to induce cervical cancer development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'Industry's Going Upstairs (IGU)' represents an innovative usage of industrial land that transfers the enterprises' production to high-rise industrial buildings. It is emerging in the developed areas of eastern China. This study discusses IGU policies to promote local economic development and conducts an empirical test using Guangdong city-level data and a difference-in-differences model. Theoretical analysis shows that IGU can broaden the development space of enterprises and realise industrial and labour agglomeration under supporting policies provided by local governments. The empirical results demonstrate that IGU can improve land-use efficiency and promote local industrial development. IGU is a feasible approach for addressing the current shortage of industrial land in China and is worthy of promotion and replication in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates how economic restructuring in Guangdong is entwined with the politicisation of state rescaling during and after the global financial crisis of 2008. It shows how a key industrial policy known as ‘double relocation’ generated tensions between the Guangdong government, then led by Party Secretary Wang Yang, and the senior echelon of the Communist Party of China in Beijing. The contestations and negotiations that ensued illustrate the dynamic entwinement between state rescaling and institutional path-dependency: the Wang administration launched this industrial policy in spite of potentially destabilising effects on the prevailing national structure of capital accumulation. This foregrounds, in turn, the constitutive and constraining effects of established, national-level policies on local, territorially specific restructuring strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the urbanization impacts on tourism development in four regions Guangdong province, using time-series data of Guangdong province in China in 1996–2011. Urbanization has been operationalized by population, economic, geographical landscape and social cultural dimensions. This study suggests that urbanization, though in general increases tourism development, does not affect different regions in Guangdong uniformly. Tourism development in different regions will receive different impacts from urbanization. Therefore, policy-makers, while promoting tourism development, should be aware of the different levels of impact of urbanization towards tourism development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Highly pathogenic (HP) avian influenza viruses (AIVs) of the clade 2.3.4.4 goose/Guangdong/1996 H5 lineage continue to be a problem in poultry and wild birds in much of the world. The recent incursion of a H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b HP AIV from this lineage into North America has resulted in widespread outbreaks in poultry and consistent detections of the virus across diverse families of birds and occasionally mammals. To characterize the pathobiology of this virus in mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), which are a primary reservoir of AIV, a challenge study was conducted with 2-week-old birds. The 50% bird infectious dose was determined to be < 2 log10 50% egg infectious doses (EID50) and all exposed ducks, including ducks co-housed with inoculated ducks, were infected. Infection appeared to be subclinical for 58.8% (20/34) of the ducks, one duck was lethargic, about 20% developed neurological signs and were euthanized, and 18% developed corneal opacity. The mallards shed virus by both the oral and cloacal routes within 24–48 h post-infection. Oral shedding substantially decreased by 6–7 days post-infection, but 65% of the ducks continued to shed virus cloacally through 14 days post-exposure (DPE) for the direct inoculates and 13 DPE for contact-exposed ducks. Based on the high transmissibility, high virus shed titres, and mild-to-moderate disease, mallards could serve as efficient reservoirs to amplify and disseminate recent North American clade 2.3.4.4b viruses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical cyclone (TC) disaster loss assessment is an important and difficult problem in TC prevention and disaster mitigation. Few studies have focused on combined model in this area. This study introduced a new combination model method to predict TC disaster loss, taking Guangdong province as an example. We analysed and collected 67 TC data from 1993 to 2009, which had impact on Guangdong province, in which 60 were randomly for training data and another 7 were for testing data. We conducted three models - GA-Elman neural networks, support vector regression (SVR) and generalized regression neural networks (GRNN), and the root mean square error (RMSE) value we got are 5.05, 7.85 and 3.82, respectively. Then the three models are combined into a comprehensive evaluation model by model combination method. The RMSE of the test results is 3.30. The results show that the combined model is superior to one individual model and it is a more accurate and stable method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The upgrading of traditional chiller plants to the high-efficiency refrigerator room is conducive to effective utilization and conservation of energy. An energy-saving method of chiller plants group control based on Kernel Ridge Regression and Genetic Algorithm are presented. Combined with machine learning and the classic model of the chiller plants, the multiple nonlinear problems between the system parameters of the chiller plants are solved. A more detailed group control model of chiller plants is established, which is suitable for multiple chillers, variable-speed pumps, and variable-frequency fans. Incorporate the startup time of the chiller, the difference between the actual cooling capacity and the target cooling capacity into the penalty function, and use the Genetic Algorithm for multi-dimensional optimization to find the best efficiency point of the entire refrigeration room and achieve the goal of energy saving. A comparative analysis of the actual operation of the cold room system of a large electronics factory in Guangdong for three months is carried out. Compared with the traditional PID algorithm, the three-month power saving rate of this group control energy saving method is: 31.34%, 14.33%, 19.22%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed a novel method for retrieving land-surface albedo (LSA) based on 338 groups of meteorological and NPP-VIIRS albedo data. Results showed that the LSA retrieval model calibrated using therandom forest (RF) machine-learning regression algorithm performed well. The RF-based LSA retrieval model explained approximately 84% of the NPP-VIIRS albedo variation (R2 = 0.8429; N = 236) and yielded satisfactory validation accuracy (RMSE = 0.0167; MRE = 15.82%; N = 102). The original and retrieved albedo were also compared with the MODIS albedo product, which further validated the accuracy and effectiveness of the approach (RMSE = 0.0091; RME = 8.2%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staurogyne concinnula (Hance) O. Kuntze (Acanthaceae) is an important ornamental herb mainly distributed in the southern region of China, including Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, and Taiwan provinces. However, the complete chloroplast genome of S. concinnula, which could serve as a genetic resource for studies on its taxonomy and evolution, is poorly studied at present. In this study, we reported the complete chloroplast genome of S. concinnula that was assembled using high-throughput sequencing data. The chloroplast genome was 153,783 bp long, with a typical quadripartite structure containing a small single-copy region (SSC; 17,855 bp), a large single-copy region (LSC; 84,636 bp) and a pair of inverted repeats (IRs; each 25,646 bp). The overall GC content of the chloroplast genome was 38.04%. A total of 86 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 8 rRNA genes, and 37 tRNA genes were predicted. Phylogenetic analysis based on the combined sequences of 86 PCGs with the other 16 closely related species of Acanthaceae indicated that S. concinnula is closely related to Avicennia marina. The genomic data and finding from the phylogenetic studies of S. concinnula could provide useful information and give light to in-depth studies on the evolution pattern of the understudied species, as well as Staurogyne. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case of 21 cities of Guangdong Province, China, this study uses the Harken model to evaluate the level of regional economic synergistic development from 2000 to 2019 and three economic synergistic development drivers, including comparative advantage, economic linkage, and industry. The study finds that the regional industrial division of labor is the main regional economic synergistic development driver in Guangdong. It also finds that the overall level of synergistic development has evolved from an intermediate diffusion stage to an advanced, symbiotic one. However, apparent differences exist in the gradient of the East Guangdong – West Guangdong – North Guangdong – Pearl River Delta. The results of this study and their implications are also explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spiraea×vanhouttei (Rosaceae) is a frequently planted Spiraea species that is distributed in Shandong Province, Jiangsu Province, and Guangdong Province, China. The first complete chloroplast genome of Spiraea×vanhouttei was determined and described in this study. The genome is 155,957 bp in length and contained 129 encoded genes in total, including 84 protein-coding genes, eight ribosomal RNA genes, and 37 transfer RNA genes. The phylogenomic analysis showed that Spiraea×vanhouttei was closely related to Spiraea blumei according to the current sampling extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land subsidence, a common geological phenomenon in deltaic regions, poses significant risks to infrastructures, environments, and human lives. Monitoring and understanding land subsidence are crucial for establishing resilient, adaptive, and sustainable environments. In this study, a robust multi-temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (MTInSAR) method was employed to monitor land subsidence in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) using 541 Sentinel-1 SAR images. Spatial auto- and cross-correlation analysis were applied to select the most reasonable explanatory variables from nine candidates in each city of the GBA. City-level geographically weighted regression (GWR) models were then constructed to explore the spatially nonstationary effects of natural and human-induced factors. The findings revealed subsidence velocities ranging from 0 to 83.7 mm/yr in the GBA from 2015 to 2021, with the dominant factors affecting subsidence varying among regions. Natural and human-related factors accounted for 51.13% and 48.87%, respectively. Further analysis of representative subsidence areas highlights the importance of continuous monitoring of ground deformation using MTInSAR, region-specific land subsidence mitigation strategies, and regular maintenance of urban infrastructure. These insights are valuable for policymakers and urban planners in comprehending the complex processes underlying land subsidence and informing decision-making processes for sustainable and resilient urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arrival of the dual-carbon era indicates that it is imperative to reduce industrial carbon emissions with high carbon emissions. The implementation of carbon emission reduction will inevitably have an impact on industrial development. Three different carbon emission scenarios were established. Based on the average annual carbon emission growth rate of the past decade, it is set as a medium carbon scenario. According to the economic development stage and actual social development situation of each region, the corresponding annual average carbon emission growth rate is increased and decreased to set up high carbon and low carbon scenarios. The adjacent accumulation gray multivariate model for industries is established based on different scenarios. The results indicate that the carbon emission scenarios most suitable for industrial development in various regions are different. Heavy industrial provinces and cities such as Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei have the highest industrial output value under high carbon scenarios; Provinces and cities with high levels of industrialization, such as Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangdong and Chongqing have the highest industrial output value under low-carbon scenarios. The industrial output value of Hebei is expected to grow the fastest under the high carbon scenario, reaching 2.15 trillion yuan by 2030. The industrial output value of Guangdong achieves the greatest improvement under low-carbon scenario. It is expected that the industrial output value of which will reach 6.86 trillion yuan by 2030, ranking first in the country. Therefore, the setting of carbon emission scenarios needs to be tailored to local conditions, increase technological innovation efforts, and further promote industrial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural solid waste (RSW) treatment is a key part in waste management. Current research on pollutant emissions from the thermal treatment of RSW is scarce. This study aimed to investigate the effects of different thermal treatments on the pollutant emission characteristics of RSW in Guangdong, China. Rubber, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and food waste (FW) were selected as the source enriched materials for SO2, HCl, and NOx, respectively. Firstly, the impact of combustion and gasification-combustion on pollutant formation characteristics was compared. With the application of gasification-combustion, total NO and NO2 emissions from FW reduced by 60.3% and 40%, respectively. In contrast, SO2 and HCl emissions increased slightly by 1.67% and 5.49% for rubber and PVC, respectively. Besides, the reaction temperature and atmosphere of gasification-combustion were investigated. When the temperature exceeded 700°C with proportion of air (PA) fixed at 0.5 no NO2 was detected. The synergy among the components and the catalytic contribution of ash had been identified as important factors influencing the pollutant emission characteristics, and the application of gasification-combustion can effectively improve NOx emission characteristic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jurassic and Cretaceous tetrapod track record in China has incrementally expanded due to the discovery of small sites in widely dispersed geographical locations, which often lack body fossils. Many of these are theropod dominated tracksites where, despite morphological variation, identification of ichnotaxa is difficult at low taxonomic levels (i.e., ichnogenus/ichnospecies assignments). Here we report on an Early to mid-Cretaceous site from the Mawu Formation (Zhagang Group) in Guangdong Province, China, a region thus far scarcely known from dinosaur fossils. The new site yielded three different morphotypes tentatively labelled as a Paracorpulentapus-eubrontid-grallatorid assemblage. It is noted that similar assemblages have been identified from Cretaceous deposits in Sichuan and Anhui provinces of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 2020, when COVID-19 was ravaging China, there were suggestions that bats might have transmitted the virus to humans. In western Guangdong Province, people were contemplating the eradication of the thousands of wild bats that inhabited Pineapple Sinkhole Cave on Yusun Mountain in S County. In an effort to save the bats and the local ecosystem, a team consisting of a life sciences professor, a young Chinese literature instructor, and a fruit farmer embarked on an adventure into Sinkhole Cave. Along the way, they discovered many significant contributions that bats make to agriculture, ecology, and culture. At the end of the story, the government ultimately decided to move forward with the extermination of the bats, but the team found the bats had already mysteriously vanished from the cave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new species of the genus Trimeroptes Keifer (Acari: Diptilomiopidae; Diptilomiopinae) from Guangdong Province, South China are described and illustrated: Trimeroptes malabathricumsp. nov. infesting Melastoma malabathricum L. (Melastomataceae), T. tristylaesp. nov. infesting Saurauia tristyla DC. (Actinidiaceae). Both new species described herein are vagrants on their host plant and induce the leaves to turn yellow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Government plans to create a world-class city cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA). The GBA is a very attractive destination for both national and international businesses to profit in trading and investment activities. To realize the anticipated profit potential, existence of purchasing power parity (PPP) is a necessary condition for a favorable prospect of closer economic cooperation and integration in the GBA city cluster. Research study that investigates the PPP relationships among the GBA cities is scarce. To fill this research gap, our study aims to examine validity of the PPP and the extent of goods market integration in the GBA. Since the functional form of the cointegrating relationship may not be exact or linear, we adopt the rank tests for analysis without prior knowledge and specification of the functional form. We also address the rank problems that occur in multivariate rank tests. Results of the rank tests confirm validity of the PPP relationships among the GBA cities with some empirical evidence of nonlinearity that clear the doubt concerning the potential barriers to goods market integration in the GBA. There are policy implications for the local and central authorities in justifying further integrated development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To mitigate risk and enhance safety in oil ports, this study proposes a method to analyse the civil liability risk and criminal liability risk of oil spills in oil ports. Based on scenario analysis and data analysis, the probability, spill size, number of casualties, actual compensation and total spill cost are estimated for different scenarios, including loading arm/hose rupture and hull failure when a vessel is berthing, manoeuvring near a berth and moving through the port. Based on these estimated factors and legal liability, the civil liability risk and criminal liability risk borne by oil ports and ship owners are estimated. Finally, data from an oil terminal in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are used to verify the applicability of the proposed method. The estimated probability and corresponding consequences can be used to determine which scenario would result in criminal liability and provide a reference for emergency capacity planning. The estimated risks are useful for loss mitigation and crime prevention. The findings and analysis reveal the current low compensation ratio and the inconsistency in criminal standards for oil spills in China. Therefore, the enforcement of civil compensation and unity among criminal standards should be prioritized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]