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This paper utilizes an improved undesirable output DEA model to measure the eco-efficiency of cities in five major urban agglomerations in China during 2006–2020. It employs the Theil Index and Geodetector to investigate the spatial-temporal distribution differentiation characteristics and driving factors of urban eco-efficiency. The main findings are as follows. Firstly, the eco-efficiency of all urban agglomerations showed a fluctuating upward trend, but the eco-efficiency performance of different urban agglomerations in China shows a stratification characteristic. Specifically, the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration consistently ranks first in China, while the mean values of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, and Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration are lower than the national average. Secondly, the overall differences in the urban eco-efficiency of all sample cities show a consistently fluctuating downward trend. The factor that affects the level differences of eco-efficiency in different cities is the intra-regional differences. Last but not least, the top three factors affecting the spatial distribution difference of urban eco-efficiency in the whole sample are environmental pollution control investments, innovation level, and environmental infrastructure investments. In the end, this paper proposes that reducing the intra-regional differences is the primary task to achieve the coordinated improvement of urban eco-efficiency in urban agglomerations, and then puts forward some policy suggestions to improve eco-efficiency for the five major urban agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of the era of Industry 4.0, big data and the Internet of Things came into being. The rise of big data and the Internet of Things has had an impact on all walks of life. The development of big data and the Internet of Things provides an opportunity for the evolution of street form. With the rapid development of smart cities, the street shape is also changing more and more towards the direction of intelligence. Taking Chunxi Road in Chengdu as an example, this paper studies the generation mechanism of street morphology. The factors influencing the generation of street form are divided into two categories: (1) legal factors. (2) Architectural design factors. By building a model, the article quantitatively analyzes the impact of these two types of factors on street form. At the same time, the article conducts an in-depth study on the evolution of ancient Chinese street morphology. The ancient Chinese street form is divided into four stages, namely the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Late Qing Dynasty, and the founding of New China. The influencing factors of street shape are divided into four categories, namely, the influence of commodity economy, the influence of foreign culture, the influence of building materials, and the influence of traffic. This paper elaborates the influence mechanism of these four factors on the street form in China. The article finally puts forward the development trend of my country's future street form, and points out that the evolution of my country's street form will develop in the direction of intelligence, and intelligent transportation, intelligent garbage classification system, etc. will be applied. The number of brick-and-mortar stores in my country's street layout may decrease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the deepening of urbanization in China, the coordinated development of cities in different regions is an important part of the sustainable development of the country, and the reasonable quantification of the unbalanced development of cities in different regions is an important issue facing the society nowadays. Previous studies usually use population data to analyze the power-law distribution law to quantify the imbalance of urban development in different regions, but China's population data span a large number of years and numerous division criteria, and the results obtained from different population data are widely disparate and have obvious limitations. The paper starts from a fractal perspective and utilizes OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to extract national road intersections from 2015 to 2022, calculates critical distance thresholds for eight years using urban expansion curves, generates urban agglomerations in China, and quantifies the imbalance of urban development in different regions by calculating the urban agglomeration power-law index. The results indicate that (1) the critical distance threshold of urban expansion curves exhibits a slight overall increase and stabilizes within the range of 120–130 m, (2) the number of urban agglomerations in China has been increasing significantly year by year, but the power-law index has been decreasing from 1.49 in 2015 to 1.36 in 2022, and (3) the number of urban agglomerations and the power–law index of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Chengdu–Chongqing regions, which is consistent with the national scale trend, indicates that the scale distribution of urban agglomerations in China at this stage does not conform to Zipf's law, and there is a certain Matthew effect among cities in different geographic areas with a large unevenness. The results of the study can provide new ideas for assessing the coordinated development of cities in different regions. It compensates for the instability of population and economic data in traditional studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In daily operation, urban rail transit (URT) systems often experience disturbances that result in a partial reduction in transport capacity [partial disturbances (PDs)] rather than disturbances leading to a complete reduction in transport capacity. However, research that assesses the resilience of URT networks under PDs remains limited. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a passenger-oriented resilience assessment model for URT networks under PDs, considering the travel behaviors of passengers and different relations (i.e., linear, concave, and convex) between the velocity coefficient and failure severity. A simulation-based assessment approach was developed to solve the resilience assessment model. A numerical experiment was conducted on the Chengdu subway network in China. The results demonstrate that the performance indicator employed herein reflects the impact of passenger travel time distribution on network performance. Deliberate PDs cause more significant performance losses than random PDs. Moreover, the network is the least resilient under PDs considering the convex relation between the velocity coefficient and failure severity. The resilience-based critical link of each line is not fixed and varies with the failure severity and disturbance occurrence time. Increasing the failure severity of PDs results in more severe performance losses than increasing the number of PDs. Additionally, the passenger-oriented resilience of a URT network can be enhanced by improving the passengers’ tolerable delay time and disturbance duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early work on China's Two-Child Policy identified cost as a major disincentive to having a second child, but financial constraints may work in tandem with cultural factors to shape childbearing desire. In addition, most research has excluded men from the sample. This paper develops Yan's (2003) concepts of 'new' and 'traditional' fertility cultures to childbearing desire, a key component of fertility decision-making that is poorly understood (Hayford & Agadjanian, 2017). In particular, we focus on how differing conceptions of children's needs relate to perceptions of cost. This paper reports on semi-structured interviews with 29 men and women in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. We found that interviewees who espoused views consistent with a traditional fertility framework were more interested in having a second child, and were less concerned about cost. In addition, men were more likely to espouse views consistent with a traditional fertility cultural framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important archaeological finds excavated from the Tianhui Laoguanshan Han tombs in 2012–13 was a manuscript on horse medicine, dated around the third century BCE. Prior to the discovery of this highly specialized veterinary text, only a handful of horse recipes from the Qin and Han periods had been found, and a sixth-century CE agricultural treatise, Essential Techniques for the Common People , was generally regarded as the earliest surviving source of extensive veterinary material, including various medical treatments for horses. Although the Laoguanshan manuscript – given the modern title Book of Treating Horses by the Team for Collating the Medical Bamboo Slips Excavated from the Han Tombs in Tianhui Town, Chengdu – has suffered significant damage, it nevertheless gives us an insight into the knowledge and treatments for horses during the Qin and early Han periods. A variety of ways of treating horses are recorded in Treating Horses , including herbal remedies, piercing, cauterization, hot packs, bandages, massage, and bathing. The use of gold needles is also mentioned in this text, echoing the gold and silver sewing needles excavated from Liu Sheng's (d. 113 BCE) tomb in Mancheng, Hebei Province. This paper offers a short introduction to this valuable text on horse medicine by examining the content of its fragments, including names of ailments, symptoms of certain diseases, etiologies, and treatment methods. The discovery of Treating Horses challenges the established view that horse treatment methods in ancient China were predominantly herbal and that techniques of bleeding and cauterization recorded in Essential Techniques were brought to China from elsewhere, together with the introduction of Buddhism. The paper argues that the "foreign influence" had already occurred at a much earlier date, in the form of interactions with nomadic tribes such as the Scythians, the horsemen par excellence of classical antiquity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A non-linear programming model to design full-day demand-adapted timetables is proposed. • The time-dependent maximum sectional passenger flow is used as input data. • A new algorithm is proposed to match demand and services' supply. • The algorithm uses a rolling-horizon mechanism to iteratively compute departure times. • The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is illustrated using real data of Chengdu Metro line 1. This paper focuses on the problem of designing the schedule of urban rail transit systems under dynamic passenger demand considering limited train capacity and congestion. From the point of view of operators, the goal of timetable optimization consists of using as few as possible service trains to transport the arriving passengers to their destinations securely and quickly. On the other hand, passengers want to spend the minimum time travelling to their destinations, including the time they wait on platforms until they board the first and successive trains in case of transferring between lines. Due to the variability of passenger flows and the difficulty in exactly solving full-day timetabling problems in short computation times, it is difficult in practice to use the approaches proposed in the literature. Moreover, when the capacity of trains is considered and oversaturation conditions emerge, the problem becomes even more complex, converting into a challenge the design of schedules from an operational point of view. By considering fixed train dwell times at stations and train running times between stations, we first propose a non-linear programming formulation to model the problem of determining the most convenient interdeparture times of services at the first station of a line, aiming at minimizing the waiting time of passengers. Since the dynamic behaviour of passenger demand and the maximum sectional passenger flow are approximately synchronous, an innovative method, the spatiotemporal synchronization coupling algorithm, based on working with the time-varying maximum sectional passenger flow instead of the demand patterns is proposed to quickly solve in an approximate way the demand-driven timetabling problem. The proposed approach is applied to a real case of Chengdu Metro Line 1 in China. The results show the effectiveness of the algorithm, both in terms of computational effort and in terms of reducing the waiting time currently experienced by passengers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification scheme is a vital method of building a category dataset for high-resolution urban land. For the development of urban meteorology, air pollution and related disciplines, the high-resolution classification data of urban buildings are very important. This study aims to create LCZ datasets with detailed architectural characteristics for major cities and urban agglomerations in China, and obtain more accurate results. We constructed 120 m resolution land use datasets for 63 cities (mainly provincial capitals, municipalities directly under the Central Government, important prefecture-level cities and special administrative regions) and 4 urban agglomerations in China based on the local climate zone (LCZ) classification scheme using the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools method (WUDAPT). Nearly 100,000 samples were used, of which 76,000 training samples were used to provide spectral signatures and 23,000 validation samples were used to ensure accuracy assessments. Compared with similar studies, the LCZ datasets in this paper were generally of good quality, with an overall accuracy of 71–93% (mean 82%), an accuracy for built classifications of 57–83% (mean 72%), and an accuracy for natural classifications of 70–99% (mean 90%). In addition, 35% of 63 Chinese cities have construction areas of more than 5%, and the plateaus northwest of Chengdu and Chongqing are covered with snow all year round. Therefore, based on the original LCZ classification system, the construction area (LZC H) and the snow cover (LCZ I) were newly added as the basic classifications of urban LCZ classification in China. Detailed architectural features of cities and urban agglomerations in China are provided by the LCZ datasets in this study. It can be applied to fine numerical models of the meteorological and atmospheric environment and improve the prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classical multi-period inventory routing problem (MIRP) combines inventory management and vehicle routing problems, attempting to maintain customer inventory levels via autonomous deliveries, with the assumption that stock-out never occurs at the supply side. While this is no more the truth when a common third-party logistics company operates a central warehouse for a group of small and medium sized retailing companies. Procurements have to be made to refill inventory at the central warehouse. This study thus extends the traditional MIRP by incorporating procurement decisions (MIRP-PD) and tries to minimize the total cost of procurement, inventory holding and transportation. To our knowledge, this paper is among the first to formally describe MIRP-PD and model it as a mixed integer linear program. A hybrid two-level heuristic is proposed to address large-scale instances. The upper level of the algorithm determines the visiting schedule while the lower level works out procurement and routing decisions accordingly. Components from tabu search and adaptive threshold acceptance are also embedded to help escape from local optima. Extensive numerical instances are generated from a real case in Chengdu (China), based on which the computational results reveal the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm compared with the commercial solver CPLEX. The comparison between MIRP and MIRP-PD has demonstrated the cost advantage of incorporating procurement decisions into inventory and routing plans. Impacts on costs of key factors including delivery frequency and buffer size of stores have also been examined to provide managerial implications to practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the government harnesses the development of social enterprises. Drawing on an in-depth qualitative study in Chengdu City, China, we find that institution building, financial supporting, incubation developing, systematical cultivating and resource matchmaking are the main strategies employed by the municipal government to promote the development of social enterprises, whereupon we argue that besides the role as referee and sponsor which are the governments' traditional roles in western countries, the government in China also play a role of coach in harnessing the development of social enterprises. This paper contributes to the literature by theorizing how administrative forces affect the growth of hybrid organizations and also contributes to providing empirical evidence of the institutional environment of social enterprises in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, traditional food is a significant element of culture that affects human behaviors. The point of interest (POI) of traditional food restaurants' location and their volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions affect the urban ecology. Rather than examine potential urban development patch (PUDP) based on land use data, the perspective of this paper is to examine the PUDP, air quality, and food culture in urban ecology in Chengdu, China. Methods: First, the research identifies three types of PUDP models (open PUDP, landscape PUDP, and conflict PUDP) with the weighted overlay of land use data, then uses machine learning to examine the relationship between PUDP, POI of traditional food restaurant, and VOCs. Results: The study generates three types of PUDP which are open PUDP, landscape PUDP, and conflict PUDP. VOCs and POI of traditional restaurant have a strong correlation, and both have a significant negative correlation with open PUDP. However, the landscape PUDP and conflict PUDP do not show an obvious relationship with food POI and VOCs. Conclusion: The results indicate that the future urban ecology should consider restaurant location, VOCs from restaurants, and their relationship to urban land use data as they have a strong relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the passenger railway network is expanding and improving, the internal connections and interdependence in the network are rising. Once a sudden geological hazard occurs and damages the network structure, the train service is prone to large-scale halt or delay. A geographical railway network is modeled to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of the railway network as well as its vulnerability under typical geological hazards, such as earthquakes, collapses, landslides and debris flows. First, this paper modeled the geographical railway network in China based on the complex network method and analyzed the spatial distribution characteristics of the railway network. Then, the data of geological hazards along the railway that occurred over the years were crawled through the Internet to construct the hazard database to analyze the time–space distribution characteristics. Finally, based on the data of geological hazards along the railway and results of the susceptibility to geological hazards, the vulnerability of the geographical railway network was evaluated. Among these geological hazards, the greatest impact on railway safety operation came from earthquakes (48%), followed by landslides (28%), debris flows (17%) and collapses (7%). About 30% of the lines of the geographical railway network were exposed in the susceptibility areas. The most vulnerable railway lines included Sichuan–Guizhou Railway, Chengdu–Kunming Railway and Chengdu–Guiyang high-speed Railway in Southwest China, Lanzhou–Urumqi Railway and Southern Xinjiang Railway in Northwest China, and Beijing–Harbin Railway and Harbin–Manzhouli Railway in Northeast China. Therefore, professional railway rescue materials should be arranged at key stations in the above sections, with a view to improving the capability to respond to sudden geological hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the Chengdu Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI) Plant in China as object, totally 100 ambient soil samples from 20 sampling points were taken for experiment. This paper analysed the characteristics of Cd in soil. By analyses, the distribution and health risk assessment were taken into consideration. The results demonstrated that the Cd value in soil in the surroundings of the MSWI plant was beyond the acceptable level according to standards (GB15618-2018). The risk assessment in this experiment showed that the carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks via inhalation exposure were in the accessible levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high environmental pollution load caused by the massive pollutant emissions and the accumulation of endogenous and cross-regional pollution has become an important obstacle to the current ecological civilization construction in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in China. Taking the YREB as an example, by using four environmental pollutant emission indicators, including chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx), this paper established an environmental pollution load index (EPLI) based on the entropy-based measurement. Moreover, the Spatial Durbin Model was used to quantitatively analyze the drivers and spatial effects of environmental pollution load. Finally, specific scientific references were provided for formulating environmental regulations of pollution source control in the YREB. The results showed that: 1) During 2011–2015, the EPLI in the YREB was reduced significantly and the environmental pollution load increased from upstream to downstream. Among them, the pollution load levels in the Upper Mainstream subbasin, Taihu Lake subbasin, and Lower Mainstream subbasin were the most prominent. 2) The environmental pollution load situation in the YREB was generally stable and partially improved. High load level areas were mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta Region and the provincial borders in upstream, midstream, and downstream areas. The high load level areas already formed in Chengdu and Chongqing were also the key regulatory points in the future. 3) The degree of local environmental pollution load was apparently affected by the adjacent cities. The population size, industrialization level, and the fiscal decentralization not only drove the increase of the local environmental pollution load level, but also affected the adjacent areas through the spatial spillover effects. The land development intensity mainly drove the increase in the local EPLI in the YREB. While factors such as economic development level and agricultural economic share could only act on the environmental pollution load process in adjacent cities. 4) According to the differentiation characteristics of drivers of each city, the YREB was divided into seven zones based on k-medoids cluster method, and targeted zoning control policy recommendations for alleviating environmental pollution load in the YREB were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business environment is becoming a yardstick for assessment of local governments in China, and thus the question of how to evaluate the business environment of urban agglomerations has become an important new issue. This paper proposes a quantitative method for the assessment of business environments in urban agglomerations for purposes of city ranking. First, a business environment evaluation index system for urban agglomerations, including the four dimensions of market, government, law, and humanistic, was established. Second, A hybrid model combined entropy weight method (EWM), genetic algorithm (GA), and back propagation (BP) neural network was constructed to quantise the business environment. Then, the Chengdu-Chongqing and Beibu Gulf urban agglomerations in China, the two most important urban agglomerations of the new western land-sea corridor, were selected as cast study. The results are as follows: (1) The business environments of the two most important urban agglomerations of the new western land-sea corridor have been improved, but the differences between them are significant. The level of development of the business environment of Chengdu-Chongqing is higher than that of Beibu Gulf; specifically, the biggest gap is of the rule of law environment. The gap in the governmental business environment is the smallest. (2) From 2015 to 2020, the difference in business environment between the two most important urban agglomerations in the new western land-sea corridor decreased. However, intra-group differences were the largest. (3) The spatial pattern of the business environment in the new western land-sea corridor shows a "northwest-southeast" distribution, with the center of gravity of the business environment moving to the southeast from 2015 to 2020. (4) Compared with focusing on the development of the business environment in large cities, promoting the business environment in small and medium-sized cities has a more significant effect on improving the business environment in urban agglomerations. • A quantification method is proposed. • Business environment in the corridor is uneven. • Small cities should develop firstly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Present a methodology for investigating ring road investment and cordon tolling problems in a congested ring-radial city. • Establish a two-dimensional urban system equilibrium for a ring-radial city. • Develop two social welfare maximization models (a short-sighted decision and a far-sighted decision) to optimize ring road investment and cordon tolling schemes. • Carry out a case study on the city network of Chengdu China. Ring roads, as candidate cordons, provide a convenient condition for implementing cordon tolling schemes. This paper presents a methodology for investigating the ring road investment and cordon tolling problems in a congested ring-radial city. A two-dimensional urban system equilibrium for a ring-radial city is first formulated, in which interrelated equilibria among stakeholders, including the authorities, property developers, households and commuters, are explicitly considered. Two social welfare maximization models for optimizing the ring road investment and cordon tolling schemes, a short-sighted and a far-sighted one, are then proposed. In the short-sighted model, the ring road investment decision is first made, and then the cordon tolling scheme is optimized based on the determined ring road locations as candidate cordons. However, in the far-sighted model, a simultaneous decision of the ring road investment and cordon tolling is made. The proposed models explicitly incorporate the estimation of the intra-area travel. A case study applied to the city network of Chengdu China shows that ring road investment and cordon tolling can reshape the urban spatial structure as a result of the tug-of-war between the dispersion effects due to ring road investment and the concentration effects due to cordon tolling. The far-sighted solution entails building more ring roads than the short-sighted solution, and is closer to the social optimum solution. Whether all ring roads are tolled, or just one, the far-sighted solution yields an appreciably higher welfare gain. The optimal single-cordon tolling scheme performs nearly as well as the optimal multi-cordon tolling scheme in terms of the social welfare. Ignoring the household residential relocation behavior leads to underestimates of total cordon toll revenue and welfare gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effect of government supervision on the development of FFBS by analyzing massive travel information data. Our identification strategy exploits a natural experiment focusing on Mobike in Chengdu. We find that supervision does not necessarily suppress the development of FFBS. It also allows FFBS to increase its focus on alleviating the pressure of public transport and reducing the consumption of public resources. Moreover, we identify that the impact of government supervision on weekends is considerably more significant than on weekdays given that government supervision has a significant suppression effect on the FFBS travel behavior of scattered parking, leisure, and long distance. In contrast, the effect of government supervision on the FFBS travel behavior of commuting and schooling is not significant. We finally present implications for government and operators of FFBS, especially in developing countries, on the sustainable development of FFBS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As low and lower-middle social groups account for a great proportion of the total population in China and their status in society is special, it is of great social and practical significance to study their housing conditions and characteristics. Based on research at home and abroad, this paper defines the basic characteristics of low and lower-middle social groups in China, and elaborates the definition and connotation of housing marginalization, thereby proposing that these residents in the Chinese city are facing a problem of housing marginalization. According to data from the fifth and sixth population census and statistical yearbooks of Chengdu, it reveals changes in housing location, housing tenure structure, and housing quality of the study group between 2000 to 2010 by means of spatial and statistical analysis, which indicates that the low and lower-middle social groups are facing the three trends of "living in outskirts," "predicament in tenure selectivity of housing," and "impoverishment of housing quality." In response to these trends, three planning suggestions are proposed: 1 to establish "housing policy areas" suitable for the group of residents to reside and work; 2 to innovate policy measures to support the low and lower-middle social groups to rent and purchase houses within these areas; 3 to guide the residents to integrate into the community life circle in these areas so as to avoid poverty concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[ Objective) This paper aimed to the quantification of the detailed ranges and dynamics of the environmental factors of the light, temperature, air and moisture in morel cultivation. ( Methods ] Environmental factors in greenhouses for Morchella importuna cultivation were collected in Chengdu plain area using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Illumination intensity, air temperature, air relative humidity, oxygen percentage in the air, carbon dioxide concentration in the air, soil temperature and soil water content were recorded every ten mi nutes, in greenhouses with different layers of sunshade-net. Fluctuation models in 24-hour cycle were established for the environmental fac tors at different stages. [ Results] The sunlight in the greenhouses showed a dynamic that indirectly regulated the fluctuating features of the ox Oxygen percentage, relative humidity and temperature in the air, while the average illumination intensity in the greenhouse with the highest mo rel yield were about 2500 - 3500 ks at the noon of sunny days. Sunshade-net effectively prevented over-heating during daytime and over-chill ing during night., diminishing the occurrence of extreme values of air temperature and soil temperature, whereas the cumulative temperatures of the air and the soil, as well as the cumulative values of the relative humidity. oxygen percentage and carbon dioxide concentration in the air, and the soil water content, showed no significant difference between the regimes of different sunshade net layers. The effects of the sunshade-net layers were attenus ting the fluctuations of the environmental factors, The air tem perature was either higher than or similar to the soil temperature during the fruiting stage. (Conclusion) Field conditions ideal for morel cultivation were summarized from the analytical results of the environmental factors, for the reference of field management of morel cul tivation in plain area of southwestern China, which further provided some inspirations for the engineers hoping to develop factory-mode tech nologies of morel production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are currently confronted with many urban problems, such as water shortages, water quality pollution, floods, and the loss of habitats of aquatic organisms, and badly in need of a more comprehensive solution. In this context, the concept of "sponge city" is proposed. This paper, based on the theory of sponge city and low impact development, elaborated the origin, development, connotation, and construction method of "sponge city" concept. In this paper, the urban design scheme of Renbei District in Chengdu was taken for example to analyze the geographical environment and climate characteristics of Chengdu and explain the formation and verification of the scheme. It is considered that the "sponge city" is different from the traditional urban infrastructure. It is essentially an ecological approach. It's core is to build a cross-scale urban water ecological infrastructure to comprehensively solve the prominent water-related problems of urban and rural areas in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aging and the urban development bring a great challenge to the residential facilities of the elderly community. By exploring the layout and current situation of the elderly residential facilities in Chengdu City, this paper stressed the key points in the layout of various facilities at the macro scale. Through the deep investigation of residential districts, the paper explored the community endowment mode that is between the organisation support and home-based for the aged, and proposed 3 modes on the basis of "visiting, day care and short-stay''. Considering the specific needs of the aged and the compound modes, compound community endowment mode was put forward as the future development direction of community endowment to contribute to the construction of the overall social endowment system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A wind-PV system for powering electrical facilities on highways is proposed. • The system is installed in the medians of highways to avoid occupying extra land. • The system is foldable for easy deployment and self-protection. • Estimation results show that the annual generation of the system reaches 356 GWh. In this paper, a portable wind-photovoltaic power generation system (WPPGS) based on the foldable umbrella mechanism is presented. The proposed WPPGS is installed in the medians of highways, and it can simultaneously capture the solar energy and wind energy produced by running vehicles. The studied system mainly consists of three submodules: a solar harvesting module, a wind-energy-harvesting module and an energy storage module. The whole system is foldable for easy deployment and self-protection. The electricity generated by the wind and solar energy harvesting modules is stored in the energy storage module, which can supply power to the electrical facilities on highways. The Chengdu-Chongqing highway is selected for case study. Theoretical and simulation results show that the annual power generation of the solar harvesting sub-module, wind collection sub-module and entire WPPGS system deployed on all highways in Mainland China can be up to 155 GWh, 201 GWh and 356 GWh, respectively. Furthermore, the wind and solar-energy-harvesting subsystems have appropriate complementarity in time, which indicates that the WPPGS has excellent technical performance throughout the entire year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jinsha River rail–road double-deck arch bridge (bridge designed to 250 km/h) of the Chengdu–Guiyang high-speed railway (HSR) (designed to 350 km/h) is a complex system with a novel structure in China. The upper deck carries a four-track railway while the lower deck carries a six-lane urban expressway, with a height difference of 32 m. The bridge is located in the mountainous river reach of the city of Yibin. The 336 m main span adopts a high-pier, rigid steel frame, parallel tied-arch structure, built using cantilevers and temporary stay cables with the cable crane method. The 116 m and 120 m side-arches are reinforced concrete, simply-supported, basket-lifting tied-arches built by the mass cast in situ method. The rare layered structure gathers different arch types (top-bared, bottom-bared and half-through arches) into one bridge, which brought significant challenges to its design and construction. Other innovative solutions included flexible hangers passing through rigid hangers for the layered stiffening decks, ultra-high-performance concrete for the steel orthotropic deck road pavement and the use of boat shipments to overcome the scarce availability of flat land at the site. This paper describes some of the salient design and construction challenges of this landmark structure, the world's first double-deck HSR arch bridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Samples of hydrogen and oxygen stable isotopes in precipitation collected and analyzed during the summer monsoon in 2017 and 2018 in Chengdu are reported in this paper. Increasing (decreasing) trends of isotope values (δD and δ18O) occur from May to June (September to October), and the valleys occur from July to August. The correlation between δD and δ18O for both precipitation events and monthly average precipitation is significant, with high R² values (≥0.98). The differences in regression lines may be due to the comprehensive influence of moisture sources, transport path and sub-cloud processes. Combining the d-excess values of precipitation and air mass trajectories generated by the HYSPLIT model, precipitation with a low (high) d-excess value and a more (less) negative δ18O corresponds to moisture from ocean (inland) sources. The δ18O–temperature (T) and δ18O–precipitation (P) correlations are not significant and vary greatly among different periods, which may be attributed to the mutual masking of different effects and the influence of atmospheric circulation processes. The results imply that the negative values in biological and geological proxies may be related to warmer climate, higher precipitation and a larger contribution of oceanic monsoon precipitation, but cannot indicate the changes in temperature and precipitation quantifiably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a location problem of public charging stations for electric vehicles with the objective of CO 2 emissions minimization through massive GPS-enabled trajectory data. The problem considers two distinct features, including CO 2 emissions generated in round trips to charging stations and remaining electricity restrictions on charging decisions. A data-driven and particle swarm optimization-based intelligent optimization approach is developed to handle this problem. We then present how to implement this approach by using taxi trip data in Chengdu, China as case data and explore how much data could reflect effectively the travel patterns of an area. The results of case study show that one-week taxi trip data are sufficient to handle the investigated problem. The results also validate the necessity of considering two realistic features, including CO 2 emissions in round trips to charging stations and remaining electricity restrictions on charging decisions, in charging station location problems. It can lead to (1) the reduction of daily CO 2 emissions captured by about 0.14–0.37 ha of forests in one year, and (2) 0.85%–2.64% more charging demands being satisfied per day. Flowchart of the proposed intelligent approach. Image 1010 • A location problem of public charging stations based on GPS-enabled trajectory data is studied. • A data-driven PSO-based intelligent optimization approach is proposed. • One-week data could reflect the travel patterns of a region well. • The impacts of two important realistic features are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of neoliberalisation is increasingly applied to China to explain its unprecedented urban transformation. This paper argues against fitting China into a prototype neoliberal model. Instead it proposes a fresh interpretation of its urban planning particularities within a continuity-contestation framework, embodied in the context, governance and practice of planning. Chengdu, the gateway in West China, is chosen as a case study to illustrate this framework. Analysing the successive city Master Plans of Chengdu, it was found that there was a strong path dependency in Chengdu's plan-making process. Yet contestations from the planning context and planning practice pressured for planning transformation. Interestingly, inconsistencies within its Master Plans sometimes worked in line with the market and mediated the conflicts between plan-led and market-led development logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed amount of studies on characteristics of public transport network and passengers' flows, however, most of them are discussed independently. An important criterion for evaluating public transport network is whether it could satisfy travel demand well. Therefore, in this paper, we study the interaction between public transport network and passengers' flow. Firstly, a layered network model is constructed for depicting public transport network, passengers' Origin–Destination (OD) flows and transfer flows. Based on that, we propose layer operations to analyze interaction between them and to evaluate suitability between traffic supply (physical infrastructure) and travel demand (passengers' OD trips and transfers). The proposed model is validated against empirical data from Chengdu and Qingdao, two metropolis cities in China. Results reveal the two cities have significant difference in suitability between travel demand and traffic supply. Although in contrast with Chengdu, Qingdao with advantages on transporting passengers by more straight lines and non-walking transfers, the average transfer flows and OD flows on stations in Qingdao are much heavier. The study demonstrates the importance of layer operations on exploring the interaction study of public transport network and traffic dynamics. • Public transport network, people's OD and transfer are studied by layered network. • Layer operations are proposed to explore the interaction between layers. • GPS and IC card data from Chengdu and Qingdao are used to validate our methods. • Layer operation is useful to study suitability between traffic supply and demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in land-use, caused by rapid urbanization, lead to changes in the supply and demand for ecosystem services. Significant research has been conducted to investigate the impact of changes in the physical supply of ecosystem services on their value. However, quantifying the effects of simultaneous changes in supply and demand on the scarcity value of ecosystem services can provides a more reasonable assessment of ecosystem services, guiding their sustainable use. Therefore, this paper analyzed the changing trend of ecosystem services value in Chengdu in southwestern China from 1995 to 2015 by adjusting the value coefficients with relative changes in scarcity value. Naïve assessment, without considering the supply and demand effect on scarcity value, quantified a decline in the total value of the physical supply of ecosystem services from 1995 to 2015, with a reduction in the areas of cultivated land and woodland. However, the scarcity value of ecosystem services increased from US$ 6.04 billion in 1995 to US$ 12.03 billion (+99.17%) in 2015, when the effects of changes in supply and demand were considered. In addition, the demand for all the public-good ecosystem services increased during the study period, consistenting with Maslow's hierarchy of need and indicating that the demand structure of residents had changed during the process of urbanization. • The value of physical supply of ecosystem services declines along with the development of urbanization. • The scarcity value of ecosystem services has experienced a dramatically increase. • People's demand structure has changed with the increasing value of all the public-good ecosystem services. • The price elasticity of different ecosystem services is a key factor of scarcity value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2010s, two worldwide trends have reshaped the urban housing system and induced drastic neighborhood change: the financialization of rental housing and the rise of the platform economy. In China, with continued investment from speculative financial institutions, platform companies aggressively acquired rental houses from individual landlords to develop a platform-based housing rental economy. How does this new rental economy affect housing supply, rents and inequality? This research answers this question by taking Chengdu, China as a case study. A mixed method approach of big data analytics, hedonic pricing model, and field investigations were used to unpack: (a) the pattern of platform houses distribution and its indication of spatial strategies of the financialized platform economy to grab land rent; (b) the effect of such new housing rental economy on housing rents; (c) the effect of the degree of financialization on platform houses' rental prices. The results inform the debate on the disrupt effect of platform economy and housing financialization on equitable urban development, particularly the heterogeneity among cities and countries. This paper contributes to understanding financial investors' glocalization strategy and the state's territorialization strategy as two crucial factors for the variegation of rental housing financialization. • Houses with small living room and more bedrooms that can generate more rent. • Platform companies tend to choose houses nearby public transport services. • High concentration of platform houses increases rental price of surrounding normal houses. • Degree of financialization significantly increases the price premiums of platform houses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1999, with the rapid expansion of enrollment scale, colleges have experienced fast development and construction of new campuses. However, the urgency of the demand for campus space at that time led to hie shortcomings of paying more attention to speed than connotation during the construction of the new campus. Even now the evaluation of new campuses which have been used for nearly twenty years and whether the space of new campuses has played its due role will affect the display of the heritage and temperament of colleges. This paper uses the typical spatial cognitive concept--spatial image to analyse the elements of spatial images on campuses, summarizes the perceptions of teachers and students towards the space of four new campuses in Chengdu through questionnaire survey and analysis, puts forward the principles of campus space design and the strategies of classification design, and intends to take spatial images as the research cut-in point to provide new ideas and suggestions for the design and improvement of campus space from the perspective of users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on the literature review and field investigation, studied the status quo of maker spaces in main urban district of Chengdu at a time when the development of the maker spaces has received strong support from national and local governments. In addition to introducing the related concepts and policy support of the maker space, it summarized its distribution characteristics, audience characteristics and status quo as well as problems and presented the direction for the development of the maker space in main urban area of Chengdu grounded on a survey of the status quo of national maker spaces in main urban area of Chengdu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Life Movement is remembered in Chinese history primarily as the movement which Chiang Kai-shek launched in Jiangxi province in 1934 to change Chinese people's habits. This paper makes a different case: it argues that the New Life Movement and its organisations were central into the Nationalist Government's wartime mobilisation, and that the involvement of the civil servants through the NLM prevented the disintegration of society and administrative institutions under the impact of the war. This paper focuses on Chongqing and Chengdu between 1938 and 1942 and draws on archival materials and official reports to assess the scope of the Nationalists' wartime mobilisation. It analyses the involvement of the NLM organisations in the fundraising effort, in the mobilisation of women civil servants, and in the organisation of relief work in the first phase of the war and challenge the long-held view that the Nationalists' wartime mobilisation was insubstantial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A hybrid deep learning model within decomposition-ensemble strategy named DEASeq2Seq is proposed for multistep metro passenger flow prediction. • DEASeq2Seq employs CEEMDAN and RQA to capture intrinsic dynamics. • An attention-based Seq2Seq model is developed to characterize temporal dependencies. • Real-world datasets to verify the proposed model and further model interpretation. Short-term passenger flow prediction has practical significance for metro management and operation. However, the complex nonlinear and non-stationary characteristics make it challenging to detect evolution characteristics of passenger flow. To address this problem, a hybrid short-term metro passenger flow prediction model named decomposition ensemble attention sequence to sequence (DEASeq2Seq) is proposed in this paper. The proposed DEASeq2Seq includes three phases: decomposition, ensemble, and prediction. First, complete empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) is utilized to decompose the original passenger flow data into several intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and a residue. Second, recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) is performed to reconstruct the decomposed modes into a stochastic part, a deterministic part, and a trend part via determinism evaluation. Third, a Seq2Seq model with the attention mechanism is proposed to execute multistep prediction for short-term passenger flow and explore the influence mechanism of the reconstructed components on the prediction targets. The real dataset from Chengdu metro, China, is used to verify the proposed model. The experiment results show that the proposed DEASeq2Seq model outperforms the benchmark models. Further model interpretations are conducted to analyze the impacts of decomposition strategy, ensemble strategy, and attention mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the case of West China Union University's Sociology Department as an example to study the mutually beneficial relationships that generally prevailed between Protestant colleges in China and local governments during the Republican era (1912-1949). In most cases, Protestant colleges and local administrations shared a vision of modern urban society that led quite naturally to collaboration. Drawing from modernist theologizing about the city, West China's Sociology Department played an important role both in research on and social work in Chengdu. To theorize this cooperative relationship, this paper takes West China's sociological work as an instrument of globalizing modernity, which was changing the West in many of the same ways as the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important variables that leads to effective individual and group tours is the tourism route planning approach, which enables tourists to engage with tourism with ease, speed, and safety. However, current methods of designing tourist routes have some glitches, such as relying only on external objectives to find the best route. In this paper, a novel urban tourism path planning method based on a multiobjective genetic algorithm is proposed. The main goal of this paper is to enhance the accuracy of the genetic algorithm (GA) by adopting new parameters and selecting the optimal tourism path by combining external and internal tourist site potentials. Moreover, the GA and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) were used in our proposed approach to evaluate urban tourism route planning under multiple conflicting objectives. To visualize and execute the proposed approach, the geographic information system (GIS) environment was used. Our suggested approach has been applied to develop the tourist road network of Chengdu City in China. Compared with existing tourism path planning approaches, our proposed approach is more accurate and straightforward than other approaches used to choose routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of studies on Chinese urbanization have been focused on coastal areas, with little attention given to urban centers in the west. Western provinces, however, will unquestionably undergo significant urban change in the future as a result of the 'Go West' policy initiated in the 1990s. In this paper the authors examine the relationship between drivers of urban growth and land- use outcomes in Chengdu, capital of the western province of Sichuan, China. In the first part of this research, remotely sensed data are used to map changes in land cover in the greater Chengdu area and to investigate the spatial distribution of development with use of landscape metrics along seven urban-to-rural transects identified as key corridors of growth. Results indicate that the urbanized area increased by more than 350% between 1978 and 2002 in three distinct spatial trends: (a) near the urban fringe in all directions prior to 1990, (b) along transportation corridors, ring roads, and near satellite cities after 1990, and, finally, (c) infilling in southern and western areas (connecting satellite cities to the urban core) in the late 1990s. In the second part of this paper the authors connect patterns of growth with economic, land, and housing market reforms, which are explored in the context of urban planning initiatives. The results reveal that, physically, Chengdu is following trends witnessed in coastal cities of China, although the importance of various land-use drivers differs from that in the east (for example, in the low level of foreign direct investment to date). The information provided by the land-use analysis ultimately helped tailor policies and plans for better land management and reduced fragmentation of new development in the municipality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the recent green turn in China by investigating a large-scale urban greenway project. Using the perspective of the socio-ecological fix, we demonstrate that multi-scalar states strive to upgrade environmental quality. Specifically, the local state seizes the opportunity for 'ecological civilisation' envisioned by the central state to carry out green infrastructure development. We reveal complex motivations to incorporate ecological changes into entrepreneurial urban governance instead of encroaching greenspace for economic growth. Our state-centred analysis reveals that such an environmental strategy, the making of Chinese green urbanism, is promoted like a political mission, despite its operation by the development corporation. We argue that, while the socio-ecological fix facilitates capital accumulation, its deployment must be understood through state politics and actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A spatial-temporal density-based clustering algorithm is proposed for trip end detection. • Three scenario optimization models are applied to improve the method capability. • A smartphone application is developed for GNSS data collection. • The potential of the method is demonstrated by comparing results with travel log. As a widespread portable probe, smartphone equipped with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) can continuously track individual's travel trajectory, it is potential for trip end information identification. Existing studies mostly use rule-based methods with specific dwelling time and distance thresholds for trip end detection, these methods are highly dependent on expert experience and lack universality across different traffic environments. Some density-based spatial clustering methods also have issues in the case of GNSS signal missing, traffic congestion, short-time stays and repeat visits to the same place etc. Therefore, this paper proposes a two-step method for trip end identification by using smartphone GNSS positioning data. First, a spatial-temporal density-based clustering algorithm (ST-DBCA) is proposed for trip end identification, the method considers both spatial and temporal travel trajectory point density at the same time, and performs much better than traditional clustering methods. Second, three optimization models are further proposed to optimize the identification results, including 1) a short time stay optimization model, 2) a redundant stay optimization model, and 3) a traffic congestion stay optimization model. Field tests in Chengdu China are conducted to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methods. Results show that the average trip end identification accuracy under different trip purposes reaches 92.8%, and the average errors of arrival and departure time are smaller than 150 s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there are many new academic researches about the tenant system, including many productive debates. Some debates are about experiential studies on various districts; other debates are about the application and interpretation on different materials. This paper intends to (1) analyze the tenant protection policy of the national government and how tenant disputes were settled in Chengdu Plain region; (2) observe, from the aspects of both policy and implementation, how the national government manipulated tenant-landlord relationship; and (3) explore the relationship among tenants, landlords, and nation. The article concludes that while it was traditionally regarded as siding with the landlord class, the GMD actually made significant effort to mediate the landlord-tenant relationship in order to guarantee and improve tax revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the metropolitan city in Western China, Chengdu has been suffered from serious traffic congestion. The strategy of urban public transport priority was put into agenda to relieve traffic congestion. But the public transport sharing rate is only 27% in Chengdu which is much lower than the developed country. Consequently, it is of great importance to study the measures to improve the service, and provide technical support to the policy-makers. This paper selected the traffic corridor between Southwest Jiaotong University district and downtown as the experiment subject. The orthogonal design was used to generate stated preference questionnaires in order to achieve the reliable parameter estimates. Some variables were used to define the utility of the three alternatives and construct the Logit model. Then, the relationships between the cost, time variable and the choice probability of the public transport were analyzed. According to the results, we found that the orthogonal design does improve the goodness-of-fit. The workability of Multinomial Logit Model was better than Nest Logit model. We also put forward some effective measures to improve the service level of public transit, including reducing the access time to Metro, limiting parking supply to control the car use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chengdu, located at the western edge of the Sichuan Basin, is the provincial capital of Sichuan Province. The fertile and well-watered basin has given the city a long and splendid history, which has left significant and lasting imprints on its urban form, landscape and cultural life. In the planned economy period, Chengdu serviced as the economic, cultural, logistical and technological center for southwest China, and built a competitive and broad industrial base which now helps the city maintain its leading position in the region. In 2007, Chengdu was assigned as one of two pioneer cities in coordinating urban–rural development. This paper introduces the urban development of Chengdu as a historical city, summarizes the city’s economic growth, urban spatial transformation and infrastructure construction as a major city in western China, and discusses its recent efforts in coordinating urban–rural development as a pioneering city in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite China's rapid economic growth and embedding into global value chains, not much is known about the primary places where buyers and sellers from China and abroad meet, do business, and circulate information and knowledge: that is, the national/ international trade fairs in the country. Previous reports suggest that the number and size of such events in China is growing and that the trade fair business is in the process of catching up. Under these circumstances, trade fairs may develop into import or export events, where buyers and sellers engage in transactions, or into temporary clusters, where they exchange knowledge for industrial upgrading and innovation. In this context this paper explores the interaction and communication patterns of firms at Chinese trade fairs and investigates whether these events are similar to those in Europe and North America. The analysis involves systematic comparison of the communication and interaction practices at three national/international trade fairs in Shanghai and Chengdu, based on a total of 102 semistructured interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the impact on house value of distance to stations of west extension line of metro line 2 in Chengdu within 800 meters radius area, this paper surveyed residential real estate data along the urban rail transit stations within 800 meters radius area, selected appropriate characteristics variables, and constructed semi-logarithmic equations and logarithmic equations based on hedonic price model, and then built overall equation and distance interval equation by a single distance variable and distance interval variables, and verified the impact on house value of distance to stations of west extension line of metro line 2 in Chengdu. Result shows that, within 800 meters to the metro stations, house values experience an overall downward trend with the increase of distance to the metro stations, the significance of the impact is high. But based on the different distance intervals, house values have seen a trend of "low in the two ends, high in the middle, declining in the overall". And the degree of impact on house value of distance variables, compare to other major variables (distance to the CBD, developer brand, etc.), is relatively low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, haze pollution is frequent, which seriously affects daily life and production process. The main factors to measure the degree of smoke pollution are the concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the prediction of PM2.5/PM10 concentration. Since PM2.5 and PM10 concentration data are time series, their time characteristics should be considered in their prediction. However, the traditional neural network is limited by its own structure and has some weakness in processing time related data. Recurrent neural network is a kind of network specially used for sequence data modeling, that is, the current output of the sequence is correlated with the historical output. In this paper, a haze prediction model is established based on a deep recurrent neural network. We obtained air pollution data in Chengdu from the China Air Quality Online Monitoring and Analysis Platform, and conducted experiments based on these data. The results show that the new method can predict smog more effectively and accurately, and can be used for social and economic purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we describe the development of superconducting magnets for high-field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) by various businesses and institutions in China. As the Chinese MR market rapidly expands, many foreign and domestic companies and research institutions are joining the race to meet the burgeoning demand by developing key MRI components for various magnetic field configurations. After providing a brief introduction to research on MRI superconducting magnets that dates back to the 1980s, the first large-bore 1.5T superconducting magnet with 50-cm DSV for whole-body MRI – successfully developed and manufactured by AllTech Medical Systems in Chengdu, China—is presented and its specifications are described. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: For decades the development of community health services has been emphasized in China to cope with the growing burden of chronic diseases by providing basic medical services. This survey aims at investigating factors associated with the use of Community Health Centers (CHCs) for the management of hypertensive patients in Chengdu, China. Methods: We used a systematic sampling method to select 2,030 patients with hypertension or diabetes registered in 29 CHCs in Chengdu in 2007. Researchers interviewed patients who consented to participate at their home. This paper reports findings from the survey of 1,716 hypertensive patients with completed questionnaires. Univariate analyses and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to explore factors influencing the use of CHCs for the management of hypertensive patients. Results: 81.4% of hypertensive patients regularly used CHCs for hypertension monitoring and treatment in Chengdu. Univariate analyses indicated that use of CHCs was associated with the education level, occupation, types of medical insurance, Body Mass Index(BMI), patients' knowledge on hypertension, awareness of CHCs functions, satisfaction of the service of CHCs. Multiple regression analyses found that use of CHCs was positively associated with the following factors: the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance(URBMI), knowledge on blood pressure, awareness of the sites in CHCs to measure blood pressure, awareness of having to take life-long antihypertensive medicine once the treatment started, awareness of the health records registration in CHCs, regular follow up, improved convenience of seeing doctor. Patients with professional job were less likely to use the services of CHCs. Conclusions: The use of CHCs for hypertension management could be increased by improving residents' knowledge on the monitoring and treatment of hypertension, and the awareness of CHCs functions. The CHCs could play an important role in providing medical care to low-income, unemployed and other disadvantaged patients with hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a distribution map of gravelly soil liquefaction that was caused by the Wenchuan Ms 8.0 earthquake in China is proposed based on a detailed field investigation and an analysis of geological soil profiles. The geological background of the earthquake disaster region is summarized by compiling geological cross sections and borehole logs. Meanwhile, four typical liquefied sites were selected to conduct sample drillings, dynamic penetration tests (DPT), and shear wave velocity tests, to understand the features of liquefied gravelly soil. One hundred and eighteen (118) liquefied sites were investigated shortly after the earthquake. The field investigation showed: (1) sandboils and waterspouts occurred extensively, involving thousands of miles of farmland, 120 villages, eight schools and five factories, which caused damage to some rural houses, schools, manufacturing facilities and wells, etc.; (2) the Chengdu plain is covered by a gravelly soil layer with a thickness of 0 m to 541 m according to the geological cross sections; (3) there were 80 gravelly soil liquefied sites in the Chengdu plain, shaped as five belt areas that varied from 20 km to 40 km in length, and about ten gravelly soil liquefied sites distributed within Mianyang area; and (4) the grain sizes of the sampled soil were relative larger than the ejected soil on the ground, thus the type of liquefied soil cannot be determined by the ejected soil. The gravelly soil liquefied sites are helpful in enriching the global database of gravelly soil liquefaction and developing a corresponding evaluation method in further research efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability assessments are an increasingly common tool for measuring progress towards sustainable development. Despite their popularity, sustainability assessments and the indicators that compose them are said to have had little impact on the policy arena. In this paper we discuss four attributes that we contend will improve the use of sustainability assessments to guide decision making: non-compartmentalization, site specificity, built-in guidance for target setting, and ability to measure active sustainability. We present a novel assessment tool for wastewater treatment infrastructure that illustrates these attributes. The assessment is composed of two-dimensional indicators we call “burden to capacity” ratios, that reveal and quantify the local value of resources embodied in wastewater and treatment byproducts, and the tradeoffs between designing systems for disposal versus reuse. We apply the sustainability assessment framework to an existing treatment plant in Chengdu, China and discuss the results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the 2010s, China witnessed a return of the state in land acquisition and urban (re)development processes. This return of the state has resulted in a new type of neighborhood, namely displaced villagers' resettlement community (DVRC), which is well built by the government and located close to middle-income communities' amenities. The displaced villagers are entitled to full ownership and sale right of their resettlement houses. However, these houses in DVRCs are depreciated in the housing market. This study examines and explains the housing depreciation in DVRCs with a combination of quantitative hedonic models and qualitative field investigations. We explain the housing depreciation in DVRCs through the lens of territorial stigmatization theory. Based on the findings, we argue that the housing depreciation DVRCs is caused by the entrenched prejudice towards the peasantry in Chinese society. This prejudice has mutated into territorial stigmatization of DVRCs as uncivilized and poor neighborhoods. This paper innovatively bridges territorial stigmatization thesis and housing price research to provide a new method to reveal territorial stigmatization in the context of rising market approach to social housing. It contributes to the debate on whether social mix development can avoid the stigmatization of social housing communities. • China witnessed a return of the state in land acquisition and urban (re)development processes. • This return of the state has resulted in a new type of urban neighbourhood, namely displaced villagers' resettlement community (DVRC). • This study examines and explains the housing depreciation in DVRCs. • The depreciation phenomenon in DVRCs is caused by the entrenched prejudice towards the peasantry in Chinese society. • This prejudice has mutated into territorial stigmatisation of DVRCs as 'uncivilised and poor neighbourhoods' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addressed the question of whether poor decision making would be associated with adolescent past 7-day smoking. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 208 10th-grade adolescents in Chengdu City, China. We used the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) to assess decision-making, and the Self-ordered Pointing Task (SOPT) to assess working memory capacity. Paper and pencil questionnaires assessed the school academic performance (SAP) and smoking variables. The results showed that a significantly higher proportion of past 7-day smokers (91.7%) were susceptible to future smoking and cigarette offers from best friends compared to other levels of smokers (never, ever and past 30-day smokers). Consistent with these behavioral data, the neuropsychological assessments revealed that relative to never smokers, past 7-day adolescent smokers (but not ever smokers or past 30-day smokers) demonstrated significantly lower scores on the IGT. Moreover, a higher proportion of past 7-day smokers (91.7%) performed poorly (no more than an overall net score of 10) on the IGT than nonsmokers and irregular (ever or past 30-day) smokers (about 65.3%). There were no differences on working memory performance for smokers (at any level) compared to never smokers after adjusting for school-type. In addition, logistic regression showed that the IGT significantly predicted past 7-day smoking after controlling for the working memory, school academic performance and demographic variables. These results suggest that poor affective decision making might predispose some adolescents to smoking in the future or in the social situations where their peers are smoking. Intervention targeting affective decision making might hold promise for reducing adolescents' risks for substance use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]