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Highlights • The internal relationship between decoupling theory and EKC hypothesis was studied. • A two-dimensional decoupling theory was established. • China and US were taken as a case to study. Abstract The current decoupling theory cannot distinguish the decoupling state of a region with different economic development level. To overcome this problem, this paper first studies the internal relationship between decoupling theory and EKC hypothesis. Furthermore, we establish a two-dimensional decoupling theory of economic development and CO 2 emissions. Finally, taking China and US as a case, this theory is used to explore the decoupling relationship between economic development and CO 2 emissions over the period 1965–2016. If the EKC curve satisfies the inverted U type characteristic, the critical point between strong decoupling and weak decoupling can be approximately obtained at the extreme point of EKC curve. Based on the Tapio decoupling theory and extreme point of EKC curve, the two-dimensional decoupling model with 16 kinds of decoupling sates is established. For China and the United States, the EKC curve of carbon emissions and per capita GDP satisfies the inverted U type characteristic. The threshold value of per capita GDP for China and the United States are $7999.5 and $50980.52, respectively. At present, China's economy is experiencing a low level of economic development. The development of the United States in 2014–2015 and 2015–2016 presented strong decoupling with high level of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers more than 2000 dust explosion accidents that occurred worldwide between 1785 and 2012. The statistical features of these cases are first examined spatially and temporally. Accident frequencies at different levels of economic development are further discussed. China and the United States are chosen as examples to represent the differences in distribution features of dust explosions in countries with different economic development levels. Data for combustible dusts leading to dust explosions in both China and the United States are also collected and categorized. The features of ignition sources for dust explosions, the types of enterprises with high risk, and the critical equipment in such enterprises are also analyzed. The results could help identify hazards of dust explosions in various industries, monitor the critical equipment, and further suggest safety improvement procedures to reduce the probability and damage of dust explosions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Coal production is an activity with marketable output and safety output, and the interaction between coal production and safety inputs reflects the relationship between economic development and occupational safety. Through analysis of the long-term interaction between coal production and safety inputs, this paper divides a country’s stages of safety level into developing stage, stable stage and transcending stage. According to the basic principle of the Cobb–Douglas production function, a coal production model is set up, and regression analysis is conducted using EViews software. The results indicate that China has not yet achieved the best balanced status but has remained in the developing stage; while the US has been in the stable stage. The impulse response curves indicate that the rate of technological progress had the most obvious response and that technological progress was an important support of economic output. For China, the safety input showed a secondary effect and was also an effective method for improving economic output. However, the labor growth rate had little influence on coal production and no direct impact on economic output at this stage. If the difference in development stages is measured only by labor productivity, then China needs at least 30years to reach the safety production level of the US. Some suggestions to enhance Chinese coal-mine safety are proposed through learning from the US and Australian experience. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Economic contribution rate of education (ECRE) is the key factor of education economics. This article selected China, South Korea, United States and other countries for a total of 15 samples, and put the data of the same period under the framework of soft computing, to simulate the production chain of “education–potential human capital–actual human capital–economic growth”. The basic idea is: Firstly, 15 countries are softly categorized according to the level of science and technology (S&T) progress. Secondly, potential human capital and actual human capital establish the internal correlation (fuzzy mapping) in the same classification, and we conceptualize actual human capital as one production factor, joined with the other two production factors, fixed asset and land, to set up the fuzzy mapping to economic growth., and then calculate economic contribution rate of education of China and foreign by two fuzzy mapping of them. Thirdly, this paper analyzes the present state and differences in the development of education between China and foreign according to different ECRE, and offers proposals for promoting the education in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This article investigates agricultural productivity growth over several decades, emphasizing to a great extent the agricultural economic development condition for the nine agricultural divisions of the United States, and China''s 27 provinces in terms of Malmquist productivity growth index. The paper sets up a technique to make use of two-stage linear programming method, based on sequential production technology, to estimate the most fitted and reliable distance functions in relevant agricultural sectors, and thus to compute the Malmquist productivity indexes. Especially, it proposes to decompose the productivity growth index into two major components, technical progress and efficiency improvement, and their sub-components, to study the sources of growth in productivity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The rapid growth of energy consumption in conjunction with economic development during past decades in East Asia, especially China, caused severe air pollution problems at local and regional scales. Understanding of the meteorological conditions for air pollution is essential to the understanding of the formation mechanism of air pollutants and the development of effective emission control strategies to reduce air pollution. In this paper, the Fifth Generation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)/Pennsylvania State University (PSU) Mesoscale Model (MM5) modeling system is applied to simulate meteorological fields during selected six 1-month periods in 2007/2008 over a triple-nested modeling domain covering East Asia, the eastern China, and Shandong Province at horizontal grid resolutions of 36-, 12-, and 4-km, respectively. MM5 generally reproduces well the observations in the eastern China but performs worse in the western China and northeastern China. Largest biases occur in 2-m temperatures (T2) and wind speed and wind direction at 10-m in haze months (i.e., winter) and daily mean precipitation (Precip) in non-haze months (i.e., summer), due to limitations of the model in simulating snow cover and convective precipitation. Meteorological predictions agree more closely with observations at urban sites than those at the coastal and mountain sites where the model performance deteriorates because of complex terrains, influences of urban heat island effect and land/sea breezes, and higher elevations. Model results at 12-km in Shandong Province show an overall better performance than those at 4- or 36-km while the results at 4-km show worst performance due to inaccurate land use and the model’s incapability in simulating meteorological processes at a fine scale. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: China’s emergence has raised pointed questions about the future of manufacturing in Latin America. This paper looks at this challenge and its implications. It begins by asking: Does manufacturing still matter for Latin America? It argues that the region cannot afford to turn its back to a well-proven road to development. It then moves on to show that endowments, productivity, scale and the government’s role, all work together to make China a formidable competitor. The importance of this challenge is confirmed by an analysis of the trade data, which suggests a small impact so far, but a disquieting trend. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]