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Author(s): Jin Guo [sup.1] , Noman Arshed [sup.2] , Kamran Hameed [sup.3] , Mubbashir Munir [sup.4] , Asma Seher [sup.5] , Yousaf Ali Khan [sup.6] [sup.7] Author Affiliations: (1) https://ror.org/03yeq9x20, [...], Empirical studies provide a convincing argument that a cleaner environment ensures a better standard of living and has far-reaching economic gains. Researchers have widely tested the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) to identify the link between emissions and economic activity. Still, they majorly ignored exploring the factors that could work as policy interventions in shifting or flattening the EKC curve for human wellbeing. This study has explored selected 50 countries for exploring the potential of leadership in moderating the EKC relationship. The Panel data model results showed that leadership is instrumental in moderating EKC. Some of the prominent indicators, like Team-Oriented Leadership and Participatory Leadership have shown an ability to reduce the net Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions in the economy. Policymakers could inculcate a sustainable/green leadership environment in achieving several Sustaimable Development Goals (SDGs).

Author(s): Yunpeng Sun [sup.1] , Haoning Li [sup.1] , Yousaf Ali Khan [sup.2] [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.464478.d, 0000 0000 9729 0286, School of Economics, Tianjin University of Commerce Tianjin, [...], The present research aims to shed light on the effects of monetary policy on China's tourism market development from 2004 to 2016. Monetary policy plays an increasingly important role in China's economy. With the Chinese economy in rapid development, the country's tourism market experienced significant growth. This study uses the Granger Causality test and factor-augmented vector auto-regression (FAVAR) model to identify the effects of monetary policy on China's tourism market through four transmission mechanism channels. Our results show that macroeconomic growth promotes China's tourism market development. Moreover, the money supply channel, exchange rate channel, and other assets channel have significant and adverse effects on China's tourism market development.

Author(s): Fengjiao Zheng [sup.1] , Zhiying Zhao [sup.2] , Yunpeng Sun [sup.3] , Yousaf Ali Khan [sup.4] [sup.5] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.5475.3, 0000 0004 0407 4824, Centre for environment and [...], Motivated from the shortage of the existing research studies on impacts of dangerously contagious diseases on firms' financial performance, this study sheds light on the impacts of Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak on financial performance upon on the quarterly data of 126 Chinese listed firms across 16 industries. Overall, the Covid-19 outbreak reduced Chinese listed firms' financial performance proxied by the revenue growth rate, ROA, ROE, and asset turnover. This outbreak's negative effects on Chinese firms' profitability were much smaller than that on their revenue growth rates. While this outbreak's negative effects on financial performance of Chinese listed firms were bigger for those that were seriously affected by this pandemic like airlines, travel, and entertainment (ATE), this pandemic's effects were positive for the medicine industry. In the meanwhile, Chinese listed firms that located in high-risk regions suffered a bigger financial loss during the outbreak, and especially there was a strong Hubei effect. The corporate culture and CSR moderated the inverse relationship between this outbreak and Chinese firms' financial performance. Findings of this study contribute to enrich the existing literature on impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak on firms' financial performance worldwide and suggest helpful practical and theoretical implications.

Author(s): Sun Yunpeng [sup.1] , Yousaf Ali Khan [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.464478.d, 0000 0000 9729 0286, School of Economics, Tianjin University of Commerce, , Tianjin, China (2) grid.453548.b, 0000 [...], In today's dynamic environment, delivering exclusive and meaningful consumer interactions is critical for brands to stand out. In this sense, we suggested that consumer loyalty is influenced by online brand interactions due to brand familiarity. In a cross-sectional study conducted on 307 customers of leading and popular online selling brands in China across different industries, we found that online brand experience has significant and positive effect on customer satisfaction. Affective brand experience has a statistically negligible direct impact on customer satisfaction, emotional brand experience has a substantial and optimistic direct effect on customer satisfaction, and behavioural brand experience has a significant and harmful direct effect on customer satisfaction. In addition, it was discovered that brand awareness has a major mediating impact in the relationship between affective and behavioural brand experiences and consumer satisfaction, but no significant mediating influence in the relationship between emotional and cognitive brand experiences and customer satisfaction.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are typically non-coding RNAs of 18-26 nucleotides (nts) that are produced endogenously and regulated post-transcriptionally through degradation or translational repression. Since miRNAs are evolutionarily conserved, their preservation is essential for important regulatory functions in plant development, growth, and responses to environmental stress. Sorghum bicolor (sbi) is a valuable food and fodder crop which is grown worldwide. A range of sbi miRNAs were identified so far as being connected to plant development and stress responses. Herein, we employed a variety of bioinformatics tools for miRNA profiling in sbi and a PCR-based platform for the validation of these miRNAs. In total, 74 new conserved sbi miRNAs from 52 miRNA families have been predicted. Using the psRNA Target method, 10613 different protein targets of these predicted miRNAs have been attained. These targets include 54 GO-terms which have substantial targets in the biological, molecular, and cellular processes. We particularly found that the sbi-miR1861c and sbi-miR5050 are involved to regulate sulphur compound biosynthetic process, while the significant spliceosomal complex is regulated by sbi-miR815b and sbi-miR7768b. Also, we report that the pre-ribosome, electron transport chain, cell communication, cellular respiration, protein localization, and photosynthesis are controlled by sbi-miR2907b, sbi-miR530, sbi-miR7749, sbi-miR1858a, sbi-mi7729a, and sbi-miR417, respectively. The identification and validation of these novel sbi miRNAs shall contribute a lot in improving the crop yield and ensure sustainable agriculture., Competing Interests: Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. Ethical approval: Not Applicable., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

This research aims to develop an ecological carrying capacity index for the ecological environment under the principle of the pressure-state-response framework model and discusses the coupling coordination of ecological environment pressure, state, and response system of the urban region in china from 2011 to 2020. Furthermore, predicated the degree of security warning for each year while establishing the ecological carrying capacity index and the urban ecological coupling model. Results specify that the coordination degree of urban ecological development in Nanchang, Jiangxi has been improved year by year, the ecological carrying capacity security index shows an upward tendency from the overall view, and the security warning degree rises from comparative insecurity to comparative security. The analysis demonstrates that in the process of national ecological civilization construction demonstration zone construction, the ecological resources and environmental policies adopted by Nanchang city have played a great role in promoting ecological security. However, the ecological security index in Nanchang is still below 0.6, far from the high-security level (0.77), and the government and the public still need to do a lot to improve ecological security., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The popularity of green economy as an innovative technique and financial mechanism has soared as a result of this exchange, the gross domestic product (GDP); transition economy (TE); CO 2 emissions; human capital (HC); Government Fund Strategy (GFS); green finance (GF) play a very important role. When it comes to advancing genetic civilization, China's achievements in the field of green money have become firm proof of the country's progress. China has come to terms with the fact that it cannot continue on its current path of promoting monetary development at the expense of the environment, both for its own people and for the sake of the global community. The country has prioritized environmental concerns over equality with others through economic, political, social, and other factors. Furthermore, in order to accomplish the enormous goal, China's cross-country coal use must be covered to allow it to peak before 2020, and fossil fuel byproducts must peak before 2030. This article argues that China's "green drive" is a cause for optimism and concludes by arguing that the top 2030 goal for fossil fuel byproducts is ambitious but doable., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This research aims to investigate the effect of foreign direct investment on carbon emissions through the panel ARDL method using annual data for the 1990-2016 period for the newly industrialized countries (NICs), including China, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, India, and Brazil. The stationarity of the series was obtained through LLC, IPS, and Fisher ADF panel unit root tests, the cointegration relationship with the panel ARDL-PMG approach, and the causality relationship with Dumitrescu and Hurlin (DH) tests. As a result of the long-term analysis, the foreign direct investment, energy consumption, and trade openness have a positive and significant impact on carbon emissions, whereas economic growth has a negative and significant impact on carbon emissions. The result shows that a percent increase in foreign direct investment increases carbon emissions by 0.03%. As a result of the short-term analysis, it was seen that the coefficient of the error correction term (ECT) was negative and statistically significant. According to DH panel causality test results, there exists a bidirectional causality relationship among energy consumption and carbon emissions, and a unidirectional causality relationship from economic growth and trade openness to carbon emissions and from carbon emissions to foreign direct investment. As policy implication, in industrialized countries especially China and India, there is a greater need to invest in green energy consumption at a larger scale to achieve future sustainable development goals., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

For nations already facing pollution issues, fossil fuel energy consumption is deteriorating living standards. Though prevailing infrastructure makes fossil fuel energy use feasible for production, it still pollutes our environment. This study in the domain of environment and development assesses the impact of fossil fuel energy consumption on the infant mortality rate in 15 Asian economies during 1996 and 2019. The living standards are assessed using infant mortality rate, while non-linear fossil fuel energy consumption is used with gross capital formation, employment, and preprimary education as independent variables. The feasible generalized least square method evaluates the effects. The study concludes that fossil fuel energy consumption follows a U-shaped relationship explaining infant mortality. The results point out that over-consumption of fossil fuel energy is deteriorating the living standards considering low air quality levels in Asian economies., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental challenges are as vast as the universe, allowing for numerous studies on their various dimensions. Using 17 data sets from Asia-Pacific countries between 2000 and 2017, this study attempted to investigate the economic factors influencing the ecological footprint of the fishing sector. The primary contribution of this study is to examine the effects of nine economic freedom indicators, as well as other control variables, on the status of fishery resources due to environmental pressure. The findings confirm the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the fishing grounds footprint, indicating that GDP per capita growth has a positive and significant effect, even though its squared form coefficient is negative. Other control variables, including natural resource rents, urbanization, and energy intensity, do not significantly affect the fishing footprint. The different components of economic freedom show different effects, while their cumulative effects in the form of the total economic freedom index positively affect the footprint of fishing and lead to increased extraction from fishing resources. The results show that the government integrity, tax burden, business freedom, and monetary freedom indices increase the fishing footprint. In contrast, indices of trade freedom and investment freedom, by highlighting the adverse effects of fishing on the environment, help countries reduce pressure on their aquatic resources. The findings of this study highlight the importance of examining how various dimensions of economic freedom affect the ability to manage fishery resources effectively., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The present research aims to investigate the impact of air pollution on the number of mortalities caused by COVID-19 per Pakistani province. To do so, for each independent area of Pakistan, the observed mortality due to COVID-19 has been standardized over the entire population using standard age groups ranging from 0 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 14,…, 65, and above years, supported by the 2017 state people census. The impact of air pollution and COVID-19 transience among Pakistani areas, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), and the Federally Administered Tribal Region (FATA) was analyzed by a multiple-linear regression model, while the broad collection of attributes was observed by the resources of local spatial autocorrelation indicators, including the spatial portion of COVID-19 association. The result indicates that the observed mortality rate is much higher than predicted in certain provinces, namely, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces, and the prevalence of PM 10 was independently linked to mortality due to the corona virus. Additionally, the results of the local spatial autocorrelation indicators on the standardized mortality rate and PM 10 define a collection of very higher ideologies in the broad range of KPK and the southern part of Punjab province, respectively, with a definite degree of connection between the two distributions in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. In brief, this research seems to find a justification for confirming the existence of a correlation between the possibility of COVID-19 mortality and air pollution, more precisely considering air pollutants (i.e., particulate (PM 10 ) and land take-over. To this end, the need to mediate in favor of measures aimed at eliminating emissions in the environment will be reiterated by speeding up current proposals and policies aimed at all causes of atmospheric pollution: urbanization, water and manufacturing, home heating, and transportation., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In Wuhan city, China, a pneumonia-like disease of unknown origin triggered a catastrophe. This disease has spread to 215 nations, affecting a diverse variety of persons. It was formally called extreme acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2), also known as coronavirus disease, by the World Health Organization as a pandemic. This pandemic forced countries to enforce a socio-economic lockdown to avoid its widespread presence. This study focuses on how the pollution of particulate matter during the coronavirus pandemic in the period from 23 March 2020 to 31 December 2020 was reduced compared to the pre-pandemic situation in the country. The improvement in air quality and atmosphere due to the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan was identified by both ground-based and satellite observations with a primary focus on the four provincial capitals and country capitals, namely, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta, Lahore, and Islamabad, and statistically verified through paired Student's t test. Both datasets have shown a significant decrease in the levels of PM 2.5 pollutions across Pakistan (ranging from 15 to 35% for satellite observations, while 27 to 61% for ground-based observations). The result shows that poor air quality is one of the key factors for a higher COVID-19 spread rate in major Pakistani cities. By extending the same investigation across the nation, there is a greater need to investigate the connections between COVID-19 spread and air pollution. However, both higher population density rates and frequent population exposure can be partially attributed to increased levels of PM 2.5 concentrations before the pandemic of the coronavirus., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Our research examined the renewable energy consumption, foreign direct investment, international trade, and tourism impact on carbon dioxide discharge using system GMM, FMOLS, and DOLS models in selected developed countries of Europe and developing countries of Asia Pacific of the global employment for a period spanning 2000 to 2020. The results indicate that foreign direct investment and tourism comprise a positive affiliation with carbon discharge. Simultaneously, renewable energy utilization with international trade significantly negatively relates to carbon emissions in developed countries. On the other hand, renewable energy consumption, tourism, and global trade play an essential role in increased carbon emissions. Still, carbon dioxide emission decreases by foreign direct investment in developed countries. It is discovered that with long-run estimators, the long-run relationship of variables through carbon discharge in developed and developing countries. The study findings are considered useful in future planning of renewable energy utilization, FDI, tourism policies, and trade openness to improve ecological excellence.

Purpose: Intrafollicular fluid (IFF) melatonin plays a decisive role in maintaining granulosa cells' DNA integrity and protects them against apoptosis. It reduces oxidative stress and improves the oocyte quality with a higher fertilization rate., Method: This prospective study investigated the antioxidant property of IFF melatonin and its impact on IVF outcome parameters. We also explored the relative expression of five microRNAs (miR-663b, miR-320a, miR-766-3p, miR-132-3p, miR-16-5p) and levels of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) by real-time PCR in unexplained infertile patients. We collected 425 follicular fluid (FF) samples containing mature oocytes from 295 patients undergoing IVF., Results: Patients were subgrouped based on IFF melatonin concentration (group A ≤ 30 pg/mL, group B > 70 to ≤ 110 pg/mL, group C > 111 to ≤ 385 pg/mL). Our results showed that patients with ≤ 30 pg/mL IFF melatonin levels have significantly higher oxidative stress markers, cfDNA levels, and lower relative expression of miR-663b, miR-320a, miR-766-3p, miR-132-3p, and miR-16-5p compared to other subgroups (p < 0.001). Similarly, they have a low fertilization rate and a reduced number of high-quality day 3 embryos., Conclusion: Findings suggest that the therapeutic use of melatonin produces a considerable rise in the number of mature oocytes retrieved, fertilization rate, and good-quality embryo selection. Furthermore, miRNA signature enhances the quality of embryo selection, thus, may allow us to classify them as non-invasive biomarkers to identify good-quality embryos.