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The relationship between environmental regulation and firm productivity has been widely debated but inconsistencies in findings across different studies. Using detailed firm-level micro-data from 2000 to 2007, this paper employs difference-in-difference combined with matching based on entropy balancing method to explore the effect of environmental regulation on firm total factor productivity (TFP) in pulp and paper industry in China. Our main findings are as following: Firstly, stricter environmental regulation, as represented by the Wastewater Discharge Standards for Pulp and Paper Industry in Shandong province, increases firm TFP significantly. Moreover, the coefficients of interest are robust to multiple robustness checks. Secondly, dynamic effects estimates reveal that when faced with this phase-in environmental regulation, firms take the foreseeably increasing strictness into account from the very beginning and prefer to take one-step adjustment to reach full compliance. Thirdly, potential mechanism analysis finds that the positive effect mainly comes from the improvement of resource allocation efficiency within firms. Fourthly, the heterogeneity test indicates that the effect of environmental regulation on firm TFP is heterogeneous across firms with different sizes, ages, ownerships, capital intensity, and export status. Finally, this paper provides convincing and insightful evidence that environmental regulation has the potential to achieve the dual goals of environmental sustainability and economic growth and is thus of broader significance for understanding the enforcement of environmental regulation in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies on environmental policy implementation in China have largely been focused on the inadequacy of environmental policy implementation at local levels and the adversarial campaign‐style enforcement used to remedy it, while overlooked other approaches to addressing environmental issues. We present a case in which a consensual approach was used to control water pollution and identify key factors contributing to the adoption and success of such an approach. The research unit is the process of water pollution control in Shandong Province from 2002 to 2011. During the case period, the pulp and paper industry (the leading polluting source) was regulated with gradually tightened water pollution discharge standards which were made and implemented in a consensual way, surface water quality was greatly improved, and the economic output of the regulated industry grew rapidly. Key factors contributing to the adoption and success of such an approach include the presence of a capable policy entrepreneur who played an important role in policy innovation, forging consensus building in policy making and facilitating consensual policy implementation; the deep and wide involvement of the regulated firms in the policy making process which allowed them to share know‐how and express preferences; and the strong political support from provincial higher‐ups which signaled strong political wills. The findings enrich our understanding of environmental policy enforcement in China by adding a set of internal factors to a literature pool focusing more on the the influence of such external factors as institutional incentiveson policy processes and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Papermaking enterprises are major polluters that cause water pollution and air pollution. This paper aims to provide analysis of the energy saving and emission reduction in papermaking enterprises.It is the inevitable choice of establishment industrial ecology park as the leading of the papermaking industry by the implementation of cleaner production and circulation economy. Shandong Haiyun efficient ecological park is taken for example.Researches of the developing strategies and policy support of energy saving and emission reduction is discussed. The paper is divided into five parts, the first part is the preface, the second part introduces the general of Haiyun efficient industrial park, the third part puts forward the scheme of clean production of Haiyun efficient ecological industrial park, the fourth part puts forward ecological industry pattern of Haiyun efficient ecological industrial park, the fifth part puts forward policy guarantee measures, and the sixth part makes the summary. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Dentification of the water intensive industry—pulp and paper industry (PPI) at the firm level. • The partial static equilibrium model was applied to explore the economic effects. • Environmental regulation shows positive impacts on multiple indicators. Whether environmental regulation has negative impact on the economic performances of manufacturers in the real world cannot be concluded without reliable policy evaluations. The regional policy experimentation on raising the wastewater discharge standard in the pulp and paper industry in Shandong Province, China in the early 2000′s has been considered a success and has provided lessons for the crafting and strengthening of water pollution regulation for the whole country at a later stage. There has been, however, long lack of rigorous study that comprehensively evaluates the environmental and economic consequences of the policy experiment. The question about whether cleaner water came at a substantial economic cost remained unanswered. This may hinder cumulative policy learning and development. In this article, we adopt plant-level economic and environmental statistics and a difference-in-differences design to examine the economic effect of the Shandong wastewater policy in the 2000′s. Our results revealed that on average the environmental regulation enhanced the economic performances of pulp and paper plants. The regulation had positive effects on total output, total assets, and total profit, and it did not cause a statistically significant decline in employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Engineering Management / Gongcheng Guanli Xuebao is the property of Journal of Engineering Management Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: There has been much debate on the topic of whether stricter environmental regulations can promote environmental performance and economic performance at the same time. Different researchers have used different indicators to measure environmental performance and economic performance in their empirical studies. However, it is a surprise that few studies have checked the relationship between environmental regulation and eco-efficiency, as the latter is widely regarded as a quite powerful tool of considering ecology and economy together. In this study the background is the implementation in 2003 of the Stricter Discharge Standard (SDS) in Shandong Province’s Pulp and Paper Industry (SPPI), compared to the national standards of China. The stricter regulations were intended to promote corporate change from passive management to active control and from end-of-pipe treatment to cleaner production. This study investigated the eco-efficiency trends of SPPI from 2001 to 2008 in three fields: water efficiency, energy efficiency and environment efficiency. A “de-linking” and “re-linking” tool was used to attain a further evaluation. The study showed that with the implementation of stricter regulation most of the efficiency indicators (except CO2 emission and energy consumption) had achieved significant improvements, and the overall environmental performance trends of SPPI showed it to be more sustainable. However, the study also found that it was not enough to address a single indicator in the environmental regulation of the pulp and paper industry. More holistic eco-efficiency indicators need to be further considered and introduced to the industry as the next step to create true sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China eliminated rural poverty under current poverty standards in 2020. However, compared with rural poverty, urban poverty in China has been somewhat neglected. This paper aims to discover the changes and determinants of multidimensional urban poverty in Shandong Province, a representative province in Eastern China. Using a nationally representative panel dataset, the China Family Panel Studies, and the Dual Cutoff method, this study creates a multidimensional poverty index with four dimensions and 11 indicators to measure urban poverty in Shandong Province. This paper discovers that while the incidence of multidimensional urban poverty in Shandong Province decreased from 47.62% in 2010 to 36.45% in 2018, the intensity of multidimensional poverty only decreased from 41.27% to 37.25%, which indicates the inadequacy of urban anti-poverty efforts in Shandong Province. This paper also uses logistic regression to identify the determinants of multidimensional urban poverty. The findings suggest that income, health, drinking water, and durable goods are the main determinants of multidimensional urban poverty in Shandong Province. Based on these findings, this study provides targeted recommendations for future urban anti-poverty policies in Shandong Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the opening of a new branch office by Metso Paper Inc. in Jinan, Shandong Sheng, China.

Three-dimensional (3D) mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM) uses mathematical models to integrate different types of 3D data related to mineralization to obtain mineral prospectivity information in 3D space. Existing geological data contain known deposits, non-deposits and unknown ore-bearing data, corresponding to positive samples, negative samples and unlabeled samples respectively in MPM. Different sample combination types require different mathematical models. In this paper, support vector machine class (SVMC) machine learning method is selected to compare the influence of different sample combination types on prediction results. The SVMC is a one-class SVM (OCSVM) model based on positive-only samples, the SVM is based on both positive and negative samples, and the bagging-based positive-unlabeled learning algorithm with SVM base learner (BPUL-SVM) is based on both positive and unlabeled samples. The study area is in the Sanshandao-Cangshang offshore and onshore Au district, where there are Sanshandao, Cangshang and Xinli large- and super-large-scale Au deposits. Moreover, the discovery of large-scale Sea Au deposits in the sea area indicates the great potential for mineralization in the district. According to the metallogenic geological characteristics, the Au deposits in the Sanshandao-Cangshang district are controlled by the NE-striking fault and are closely related to the Linglong intrusions and Guojialing intrusions. The ore-bearing intrusion shows low density and low-moderate magnetic susceptibility. Because the Au orebodies hosted in the Sanshandao fault and its secondary faults, the NE-striking faults are key to delineating the targets. In this paper, weights of evidence (WofE), OCSVM, SVM and BPUL-SVM are used to MPM, and the prediction-area (P-A) plot method is used to delineate the targets. According to the ROC curve, F1 score and P-A plot evaluation methods, the model performance from high to low is BPUL-SVM13, SVM12, WofE and OCSVM. The BPUL-SVM model performance with samples combination types of positive samples and unlabeled samples was optimum in SVMC prediction models. The Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation and return-risk evaluation model are used to evaluate the return and risk of the targets and finally determine the I-level targets with high return and low risk. The delineated targets are mainly distributed along the F2 and F3 faults (Sanshandao-Cangshang fault). Combined with the mineralization regularity, the deep and periphery space of the known deposits are important to explore Au orebodies. The delineated targets are important to explore offshore and onshore Au orebodies in the Sanshandao-Cangshang district. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Rural & Community Development is the property of Brandon University, Rural Development Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Simple Summary: Most management methods for poultry farming currently rely on human labor. Such management is labor-intensive and inefficient, especially in identifying poultry growth stages. Given the lack of a high-precision artificial method for chick's day-age detection, a high-performance day-age classification and detection model for chicks was proposed based on artificial intelligent techniques. This method can detect and classify chicks in six different living stages from 1 to 32 day-ages, and the accuracy is 95.2%, superior to other current ones. In order to apply this method in practical scenarios, it has been deployed into an application based on the IOS system, which can recoganize the day-age of chicks by capturing real-time photos. The system is currently deployed in Rizhao City, Shandong Province, China. It helps chicken farm staff automatically detect the behavior of chickens, whose excellent working effect proves the robust availibility of the proposed method. Thanks to the boom of computer vision techniques and artificial intelligence algorithms, it is more available to achieve artificial rearing for animals in real production scenarios. Improving the accuracy of chicken day-age detection is one of the instances, which is of great importance for chicken rearing. To solve this problem, we proposed an attention encoder structure to extract chicken image features, trying to improve the detection accuracy. To cope with the imbalance of the dataset, various data enhancement schemes such as Cutout, CutMix, and MixUp were proposed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed attention encoder. This paper put the structure into various mainstream CNN networks for comparison and multiple ablation experiments. The final experimental results show that by applying the attention encoder structure, ResNet-50 can improve the accuracy of chicken age detection to 95.2%. Finally, this paper also designed a complete image acquisition system for chicken houses and a detection application configured for mobile devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Winter wheat is a significant global food crop, and it is crucial to monitor its distribution for better agricultural management, land planning, and environmental sustainability. However, the distribution style of winter wheat planting fields is not consistent due to different terrain conditions. In mountainous areas, winter wheat planting units are smaller in size and fragmented in distribution compared to plain areas. Unfortunately, most crop-mapping research based on deep learning ignores the impact of topographic relief on crop distribution and struggles to handle hilly areas effectively. In this paper, we propose a cross-modal segmentation network for winter wheat mapping in complex terrain using remote-sensing multi-temporal images and DEM data. First, we propose a diverse receptive fusion (DRF) module, which applies a deformable receptive field to optical images during the feature fusion process, allowing it to match winter wheat plots of varying scales and a fixed receptive field to the DEM to extract evaluation features at a consistent scale. Second, we developed a distributed weight attention (DWA) module, which can enhance the feature intensity of winter wheat, thereby reducing the omission rate of planting areas, especially for the small-sized regions in hilly terrain. Furthermore, to demonstrate the performance of our model, we conducted extensive experiments and ablation studies on a large-scale dataset in Lanling county, Shandong province, China. Our results show that our proposed CM-Net is effective in mapping winter wheat in complex terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of e-commerce participation on household development resilience using a sample of 1229 households in the Shandong and Shaanxi provinces of China in 2022. It constructs the developmental resilience index of farm households from three dimensions of economy, society and culture using the entropy method, and establishes a counterfactual framework using the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method. The results suggest that participation in e-commerce has a significant and positive impact on farming household development resilience. The PSM method estimates that participation in e-commerce increases the developmental resilience of farming households by 9.63% compared to non-participation, with economic, social, and cultural resilience increasing by 9.29%, 9.84%, and 9.92%, respectively. The robustness test results confirm the findings. Further analysis reveals that participation in e-commerce enhances farm household development resilience through three mechanisms: improving economic efficiency, network relationship linkage, and risk appetite. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of e-commerce participation on household development resilience varies among farmers with different endowment constraints. In particular, farmers with more years of education and cooperative members benefit more from e-commerce participation, especially live and platform e-commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, private-owned cooperatives are becoming increasingly involved in agricultural production. In order to find the key characteristics of smallholders' social networks after the appearance of cooperatives and better organize different farmland operators, this study completed a field survey of 114 smallholders who adopted farmland trusteeship service of a private-owned cooperative in China and applied the social network analysis to reveal the following results. (1) Compared to the theoretical ideal value, smallholders' social networks showed low network density, efficiency, and little relevancy. (2) In the social network of mechanical-sharing, neighbor, kinship, and labor-sharing relationships, some isolated nodes existed, but no isolated nodes are found in the synthetic network. (3) The mechanical-sharing relationship among smallholders was stronger than the other relationships. (4) Machinery owners, farmers whose plots are on the geometric center and experienced older farmers showed higher centralities in the network, but village cadres did not. (5) The centralities and QAP correlation coefficients among different networks inside the cooperative were lower than that inside a single village. As a result, this paper confirmed that the ability of cooperatives to organize farmers' social networks is not ideal. Farmers' trust of farmland to a cross-village cooperatives does not help them to form a larger social network than their villages. In the future, the answer to the question of "who will farm the land" will still lie with the professional farmers and highly autonomous cooperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital Surface Model (DSM) is a three-dimensional model presenting the elevation of the Earth's surface, which can be obtained by the along-track or cross-track stereo images of optical satellites. This paper investigates the DSM extraction method using Gaofen-6 (GF-6) high-resolution (HR) cross-track images with a wide field of view (WFV). To guarantee the elevation accuracy, the relationship between the intersection angle and the overlap of the cross-track images was analyzed. Cross-track images with 20–40% overlaps could be selected to conduct DSM extraction. First, the rational function model (RFM) based on error compensation was used to realize the accurate orientation of the image. Then, the disparity map was generated based on the semi-global block matching (SGBM) algorithm with epipolar constraint. Finally, the DSM was generated by forward intersection. The GF-6 HR cross-track images with about 30% overlap located in Taian, Shandong Province, China, were used for DSM extraction. The results show that the mountainous surface elevation features were retained completely, and the details, such as houses and roads, were presented in valleys and urban areas. The root mean square error (RMSE) of the extracted DSM could reach 6.303 m, 12.879 m, 14.929 m, and 19.043 m in valley, ridge, urban, and peak areas, respectively. The results indicate that the GF-6 HR cross-track images with a certain overlap can be used to extract a DSM to enhance its application in land cover monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on China's green energy development strategy, this paper constructs a basic model of recycling and a channel expansion model for the circular economy foundation of Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, China. Through numerical simulation, it is found that each member of the supply chain should control the rate of price adjustment, otherwise it will cause market disruption. The model is controlled based on a chaos control method. Then, based on the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, an early warning system for the circular economy of Zaozhuang City is constructed. It is found that the economic development of Zaozhuang is a serious warning, resources are moderate warning, and the environment is not in an alarm state. In addition to paying attention to energy conservation and emission reduction of enterprises, the government should pay attention to creating awareness of energy conservation and emission reduction in society, and strengthen the technological investment in reducing pollutant emissions. This paper provides a strategic reference for the circular economy model in Zaozhuang, Shandong, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to realize rapid and accurate evaluation of drinking water quality, a small-scale water quality detection instrument is designed in this paper that can detect two representative water quality parameters: the permanganate index and total dissolved solids (TDS). The permanganate index measured by the laser spectroscopy method can achieve the approximate value of the organic matter in water, and the TDS measured by the conductivity method can obtain the approximate value of the inorganic matter in water. In addition, to facilitate the popularization of civilian applications, the evaluation method of water quality based on the percent-scores proposed by us is presented in this paper. The water quality results can be displayed on the instrument screen. In the experiment, we measured the water quality parameters of the tap water as well as those after the primary and secondary filtration in Weihai City, Shandong Province, China. The testing results show that the instrument can quickly detect dissolved inorganic and organic matter, and intuitively display the water quality evaluation score on the screen. The instrument designed in this paper has the advantages of high sensitivity, high integration, and small volume, which lays the foundation for the popularity of the detection instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health of young people is crucial for the future and development of a nation. It is the collective responsibility and imperative mission of society to ensure the holistic well-being, both physically and mentally, of young individuals. Therefore, it is essential to thoroughly comprehend the factors that influence their health in order to expedite the exploration of effective solutions. The objective of this study is to comprehend the mechanisms that underlie the correlation between physical exercise behavior and psychological resilience among teenagers, while also examining the mediating role played by social sensitivity and need to belong. So put forward the hypothesis: (1) physical exercise behavior can positively predict the psychological resilience. (2) Social sensitivity and need to belong plays a mediating role between physical exercise behavior and psychological resilience. (3) Social sensitivity and need to belong plays a chain mediating role between physical exercise behavior and psychological resilience. Using the cluster sampling method, a total of 1106 students (with an average age of 15.7 and a standard deviation of 0.598) who met the requirements were surveyed from Shandong Province in China. Standard scales were utilized to assess Physical Exercise Behavior, Psychological Resilience, Social Sensitivity, and Need to Belong. For data analysis, Pearson's correlation analysis and bias-corrected percentile Bootstrap method were sequentially conducted. (1) The present study did not find any significant methodological bias, and the observed correlations between physical exercise behavior, psychological resilience, social sensitivity, and need to belong were all statistically significant; (2) Based on the self-determination theory, this study elucidates the relationship between physical exercise behavior and psychological resilience among teenagers. The findings indicate that physical exercise behavior positively predicts the need to belong and psychological resilience, while negatively predicting social sensitivity. Similarly, social sensitivity negatively predicts the need to belong and psychological resilience. Moreover, the need to belong directly and positively predicts psychological resilience. Importantly, all hypotheses proposed in this paper were empirically supported. (3) The indirect effect of the path mediated by social sensitivity is 0.009, while the indirect effect of the path mediated by need to belong is 0.033. Additionally, the combined indirect effect of both social sensitivity and need to belong as mediating variables is 0.014. (4) The cumulative sum of all these indirect effects amounts to 0.056. Based on the self-determination theory, we propose a chain mediation model, specially, physical exercise behavior can significantly positively predict psychological resilience, among which, social sensitivity and need to belong play a significant mediating role between Physical exercise behavior and psychological resilience. In addition, the adoption of good physical exercise behavior can enhance the psychological resilience of adolescents by diminishing social sensitivity and augmenting the need to belong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is actively heeding the call and striving for a low-carbon and environmentally friendly development route as part of the general trend toward a global low-carbon economy. The rapid economic development of our nation has brought to light the issue of carbon emissions resulting from the consumption habits of residents. This paper delves into the topic by conducting a thorough analysis of the carbon emission of residents' consumption using the input-output method. Based on the survey findings, the disparity in carbon emission between urban and rural communities in Shandong Province is evident not only in terms of total emissions but also in different categories and regions. Urban residents generate a total carbon emission of approximately 70.2921 million tons, which is three times higher than that of rural residents at 23.7846 million tons. The carbon emission of both urban and rural residents is primarily attributed to their embodied carbon emission. In examining the composition of the implied carbon emission of residents' consumption in Shandong Province, urban residents' carbon emission is concentrated in three areas, namely, food, culture, education, entertainment, transportation, and communication, accounting for 21.45%, 20.88%, and 15.10%, respectively. Conversely, rural residents' carbon emission is concentrated in four areas, including clothing, food, culture, education, entertainment, transportation, and communication, accounting for 29.01%, 17.45%, 15.43%, and 13.36%, respectively. Finally, according to the characteristics of the consumption carbon emission of urban and rural residents in Shandong Province, we give corresponding emission reduction strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining an effective approach to replacing chemical fertilizer with organic fertilizer is a difficult challenge for the Chinese government. This paper constructs a dynamic analysis framework with broader application than previous statistical and case studies by theoretically deriving the impact of farmers' participation in contract farming on their organic fertilizer application behavior. The framework analyzes farmers' intertemporal organic fertilizer application behavior under the two scenarios of participation and nonparticipation in contract farming. Participation in contract farming positively impacts organic fertilizer application behavior in both the short and long terms. Survey data from 473 vegetable farmers in Shandong province of China were used to conduct an empirical analysis, and the endogenous switching probit model was used to solve the endogeneity problem of farmers' participation in contract farming. The empirical analysis supports the above results: farmers' participation in contract farming increases their probability of applying organic fertilizer by 50.7%. Robustness tests conducted using the recursive bivariate probit model and replacing the dependent variable (the intensity with which farmers replace chemical fertilizer with organic fertilizer) confirm the research results. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that farmers' participation in contract farming has a more obvious promoting effect on organic fertilizer application behavior in the older group, the group with an education level of primary school or below and the small-scale farming group. Therefore, the government should promote participation in contract farming, especially among elderly, low-education and small-scale farmers, to improve the adoption level of organic fertilizer in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some subtle features of planting structures in irrigation areas could only be visible on high-resolution panchromatic spectral images. However, low spatial resolution multispectral image makes it hard to recognize them. It is challenging to accurately obtain crop planting structure when using traditional methods. This paper proposes an extraction method of crop planting structure based on image fusion and U-Net depth semantic segmentation network, which can automatically and accurately extract multi-category crop planting structure information. This method takes Landsat8 commercial multispectral satellite data set as an example, chooses RGB pseudo-color synthetic image which highlights vegetation characteristics, and uses HLS(Hue, Luminance, Saturation), NND(Nearest-Neighbor Diffusion) and G-S(Gram-Schmidt) methods to fuse panchromatic band to obtain 15m high-resolution fusion image to obtain training set and test set, six types of land features including cities and rivers were labeled by manual to obtain the verification set. The training and validation sets are cut and enhanced to train the U-Net semantic segmentation network. Taking the Xiaokaihe irrigation area in Binzhou City, Shandong Province, China, as an example, the planting structure was classified, and the overall accuracy was 87.7%, 91.2%, and 91.3%, respectively. The accuracy of crop planting structures (wheat, cotton, woodland) was 74.2%, 82.5%, 82.3%, and the Kappa coefficient was 0.832, 0.880, and 0.881, respectively. The results showed that the NND-UNet method was suitable for large-scale continuous crop types (wheat, cotton), and the GS-UNet method had a better classification effect in discrete areas of cash crops (Jujube and many kinds of fruit trees). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this special issue focus on modelling knowledge and innovation spillovers with an emphasis on the context of China. The first paper decomposes the relative importance of economic growth into knowledge spillovers and technical diffusion, using cross-country data on a worldwide scale, as well as provincial data at the regional scale of China. The second paper investigates whether the economic and financial performances of reformed state-owned enterprises are affected by the presence of non-state-owned enterprises from related industries. The final paper examines how the spatial spillovers from inward and outward foreign direct investment affect the innovation activities of domestic firms in China's Shandong province. This special issue contributes to a better understanding of the channels for transferring knowledge and innovation spillovers in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the largest carbon emitter in China's manufacturing sector, the low-carbon transition of the steel industry is urgent. CO2 capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology is one of the effective measures to reduce carbon emissions in steel industry. In this paper, a comprehensive assessment model of source–sink matching-levelized cost in China's steel industry is constructed to evaluate the potential, economy, and spatial distribution of CCUS retrofits of blast furnaces in the BF-BOF steel industry. The results show that, if no extra incentive policy is included, the levelized cost of carbon dioxide (LCOCD) of 111 steel plants with a 420.07 Mt/a CO2 abatement potential ranges from −134.87 to 142.95 USD/t. The levelized cost of crude steel (LCOS) range of steel plants after the CCUS retrofits of blast furnaces is 341.81 to 541.41 USD/t. The incentives such as carbon market and government subsidies will all contribute to the early deployment of CCUS projects. The CCUS technology could be prioritized for deployment in North China, Northwest China, and East China's Shandong Province, but more powerful incentives are still needed for current large-scale deployment. The research results can provide references for the early deployment and policy formulation of CCUS in China's steel industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid and precise acquisition of the agricultural plastic greenhouse (PG) spatial distribution is essential in understanding PG usage and degradation, ensuring agricultural production, and protecting the ecological environment and human health. It is of great practical significance to realize the effective utilization of remote sensing images in the agricultural field and improve the extraction accuracy of PG remote sensing data. In this study, Landsat operational land imager (OLI) remote sensing images were used as data sources, and Shandong Province, which has the largest PG distribution in China, was selected as the study area. PGs in the study area were identified by means of contour recognition, feature set construction of the spatial structure, and machine learning. The results were as follows. (1) Through an optimal segmentation parameter approach, it was determined that the optimal segmentation scale for size, shape, and compactness should be set at 20, 0.8, and 0.5, respectively, which significantly improved PG contour recognition. (2) Among the 72 feature variables for PG spatial recognition, the number of features and classification accuracy showed a trend of first gradually increasing and then decreasing. Among them, fifteen feature variables, including the mean of bands 2 and 5; six index features (NDWI, GNDVI, SWIR1_NIR, NDVI, and PMLI); two shape features, the density and shape index; and two texture features, the contrast and standard deviation, played an important role. (3) According to the recall rate, accuracy rate, and F-value of three machine learning methods, random forest (RDF), CART decision tree (CART), and support vector machine (SVM), SVM had the best classification effect. The classification method described in this paper can accurately extract continuous plastic greenhouses through remote sensing images and provide a reference for the application of facility agriculture and non-point-source pollution control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corn thrips do serious harm to the yield and quality of corn. In this paper, the Shandong Province of China was taken as the study area. Based on the data of the occurrence of corn thrips in Shandong Province, a risk regionalization model was established by using eight indicators under four categories of hazard, sensitivity, vulnerability and the disaster prevention and mitigation capacity of diseases and pests on a monthly time scale. Firstly, the cloud model was introduced to determine the weight of each indicator, and then the risk regionalization of the corn thrips disaster in Shandong Province was carried out using the weighted percentage method, the weighted comprehensive evaluation method and the natural disaster risk index method. Finally, combined with the collected data, the disaster prediction of corn thrip occurrence degree was realized based on multiple linear regression, genetic algorithm optimized back-propagation neural network and genetic algorithm optimized support vector machine methods. The results show that: (1) the risk of Corn thrips disaster is mainly concentrated in the central and western parts of Shandong Province. Heze City is a high-risk area. Liaocheng City, Dezhou City, Jinan City and Weifang City are relatively high-risk areas. (2) By comparing the prediction accuracy of the three models, it was determined that the genetic algorithm optimized support vector machine model has the best effect, with an average accuracy of 79.984%, which is 7.013% and 22.745% higher than that of the multiple linear regression and genetic algorithm optimized back-propagation neural network methods, respectively. The results of this study can provide a scientific basis for fine prevention of corn thrips in Shandong Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The rich financial knowledge of small and micro business owners helps to enhance the formal credit demand of small and micro enterprises and change the credit channel preference of small and micro enterprises. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between financial knowledge and the credit practices of 290 small and micro enterprises in China's Jiangsu and Shandong provinces based on their formal credit needs and preferred channels of credit. Design/methodology/approach: To measure the degree of the credit constraints of small and micro enterprises, this study applied questionnaire surveys to obtain information on the credit demand and supply of 363 small and micro enterprises in the Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. Firstly, a probit model is used to study the influence of financial knowledge on the formal credit demand and credit acquisition possibility of small and micro enterprises, and tool variables and a biprobit model are used to deal with the possible errors of endogenesis and sample selection. Secondly, a tobit model is used to study the influence of financial knowledge on the credit access of small and micro enterprises in different channels, and tool variables and a Heckman two-stage model are used to deal with endogenesis and possible errors in sample selection. Finally, this study carried out a series of robustness tests to make the conclusions more reliable. Findings: This study is based on the perspective of the knowledge-based view to explore the impact of financial knowledge on the credit behaviour of small and micro enterprises. This study found that financial knowledge can increase a small and micro enterprise's formal credit needs and drive the small and micro enterprise to actively apply for loans. Furthermore, financial knowledge has a significant and positive influence on the acquisition of formal credit and approved lines of formal credit and a significant and negative influence on the acquisition of informal credit and approved lines of informal credit. Research limitations/implications: The results indicated that increased financial knowledge can increase the likelihood of a small and micro enterprise to prefer formal credit and reduce the likelihood of it to prefer informal credit channels. Originality/value: Financial knowledge is the ability to master basic economic knowledge and financial concepts as well as the ability to use knowledge to manage and allocate financial resources. The rich financial knowledge of small and micro business owners helps to enhance the formal credit demand of small and micro enterprises and change their credit channel preference. This paper offers a new perspective on the problems of credit constraint, low participation in formal credit markets and high participation in private credit markets among China's small and micro enterprises and valuably supplements the research literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In November 2015, China launched a pilot program for its Drug Marketing Authorization Holder (MAH) system, aiming to integrate production and research and development resources to spur drug innovation. While many scholars have examined the theoretical relationship between the MAH system and pharmaceutical manufacturing innovation, empirical studies have been scarce. Methods: This study uses inter-provincial panel data on China's pharmaceutical manufacturing industry from 2009 to 2019, along with synthetic control methods, to offer a robust analysis of the impact of the MAH paradigm on innovation quality in pilot provinces. We treat the 2015 MAH system implementation in ten provinces as a natural experiment and account for the mediating effects of R&D investments, allowing us to discern the underlying mechanisms. Results: Our findings demonstrate a significant positive effect of China's MAH system on innovation quality in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Specifically, the system is most effective in Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Shandong provinces. We also identify R&D investments as playing a mediating role in facilitating the favorable impact of the MAH system on innovation quality. Conclusion: Our study highlights the crucial importance of the MAH system in promoting innovation quality in China's pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, providing vital empirical support for its adoption and further enhancement. This research also offers practical insights for policymakers and R&D decision-makers in the pharmaceutical sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a method of combining phase space reconstruction and symbolic dynamics to study the causality between urbanization and economic growth at different regional levels in Shandong Province and finds that there is a strong positive relationship between urbanization and economic growth from China, indicating that the development of urbanization can drive the economic growth. Then, according to the results of correlation analysis between respective subvariables belonging to urbanization and economic growth and the principle of "deleting strong and reserving weak," the paper selects the independent variable and dependent variable to explore the hidden causal mechanisms that drive the developing of urbanization and economic growth from China. The results show that (1) the pattern causality between the independent variable and the dependent variable is dominated by dark causality at the provincial level; (2) the pattern causality between the independent variable and the dependent variable is dominated by dark causality at the Jinan economic circles and the Lunan economic circles, but the positive causality is dominated at the Jiaodong economic circles; (3) the types of causality between the same evaluation index and PU in different regions are different, and furthermore the degrees of positive, negative, and dark causality are different at two levels and three regions. The conclusion shows that although there is an obvious positive interaction between urbanization and economic growth, the influences of many factors are neither positive nor negative causality, but dark causality, which plays an important role in developing urbanization and economic growth. This work is useful for studying the law of causality between urbanization and economic growth, and this interesting result can be extended to other economic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of China's agricultural labor shortage and the pressure of aging, this paper uses the land fragmentation index and the intermediary efficiency model to measure the degree of land fragmentation based on farmer-level data from the main garlic producing area in Lanling County in Shandong Province in 2020. The direct effect of labor structure on land-use efficiency and the mediating effect through land fragmentation are analyzed. The research results show that: (1) the average land-use efficiency of the sample farmers is relatively low; (2) the change in labor structure has an "inverted U"-shaped direct effect on land-use efficiency; and (3) the change in land fragmentation in the labor structure has a direct effect on land-use efficiency. The influence of land-use efficiency played a nonlinear mediating effect. The change in labor structure with the degree of land fragmentation showed an "inverted U"-shaped relationship, and the degree of land fragmentation and land-use efficiency had a "U"-shaped relationship. In order to improve land-use efficiency, two aspects of policy support should be increased: encouraging farmers to integrate land and supporting specialized and diversified planting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of happiness and subjective wellbeing (SWB) has received increased interest among scholars in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), who published their findings nationally in Chinese language journals. This paper introduces their work to the international audience. The first study appeared in the journals in 1999, and about 800 research papers have been published to date. The field is anchored in ten areas: the most salient are the general surveying of SWB; areas within health psychology; and personality research. There was a paucity of research in most areas, and a disproportional amount of research in relation to geographical area. Most research was conducted in Shandong (North East China) and Guangdong (South China), whereas no studies reported in the Chinese journals have been conducted in regions such as Inner Mongolia and Tibet. The majority of studies used augmented versions of Western scales as their measurement instrument, although Chinese scholars have developed their own scales. The research field is developing rapidly, but is limited currently by its infancy, overuse of student samples, inadequate descriptions of research methodology, and isolation from studies published outside the country. Recommendations are provided to overcome these issues and to advance the field further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind gusts are common small‐scale weather phenomena characterized by a rapid increase in wind speed over a short period of time. Wind gusts affect a wide range of interests, including aviation safety, wind energy and professional skiing, while strong gusts can also cause severe weather events and limit visibility. However, the characteristics of gusts in the lower troposphere are not yet well understood, especially at the top of the boundary layer. In this paper, the gust parameters in the lower atmosphere at different heights and their diurnal variation characteristics are examined based on Doppler lidar data from the gentle coastal topography of Shandong Province, China. The results show that all the gust parameters have distinct stratification characteristics, with significantly different diurnal variations below 400 m, between 400 and 1,200 m, and above 1,200 m (above the ground, same below). Wind gusts are considered to be the result of turbulent disturbances superimposed on the background airflow, and strong turbulence could cause the instantaneous winds to significantly deviate from the mean airflow. The magnitude of the peak gust is mainly controlled by the mean flow, but the gust factor, which is the ratio of the peak gust to the mean flow, is almost independent of the mean flow and has a strong positive correlation with the turbulence intensity. These results imply that gusts of different properties occur at varying altitudes, with differences depending on turbulence intensity and mean airflow, and provide an observational basis for studies of gust structure. Plain Language Summary: Wind gusts are phenomena where sudden increases in wind speed occur over a short duration, and these gusts may threaten aviation safety and wind energy security. Near‐surface gusts have been noticed and studied widely; however, gusts occurring above hundreds of meters in altitude remain poorly understood. Based on Doppler lidar data from the coastal plain of Shandong, China, gusts occurring at different heights in the lower troposphere can be monitored continuously. The results indicate that wind gusts show obvious stratification characteristics, with significant diurnal variations at different levels. Gust magnitude is influenced by background wind and turbulence. Peak gusts are dominated mainly by the mean wind. However, when turbulence is strong, gusts may deviate significantly from the mean wind. The gust factor shows an obvious positive correlation with turbulence intensity. These results may enhance the understanding of wind gust characteristics in the lower troposphere and provide an observational basis for structural studies of gusts. Key Points: The gust parameters in the lower troposphere exhibit special vertical three‐layer stratification characteristics and diurnal variationThe gust amplitude and gust factor demonstrate different characteristics with height in the lower troposphereThe peak gust depends mainly on the background wind field, but its amplitude is significantly correlated with turbulence intensity [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a focus on the Cu isotope geochemistry of chalcopyrite, this paper analyzed the Cu isotope geochemistry of the Qibaoshan crypto-explosive breccia-type Cu–Au polymetallic ore district in Wulian, Shandong Province, North China Craton (NCC). Combined with the results of the in situ sulfur isotope analysis of sulfides, a certain reference and evidence for the study of the genetic mechanism of the epithermal-porphyry Cu polymetallic metallogenic system were provided. The results of the in situ isotope analysis show that the δ34S values of the main sulfides in the Qibaoshan Cu–Au polymetallic ore district range from −6.81‰ to +3.82‰ and are likely to be attributed to the mixing of the derived mantle with the surrounding sedimentary rock assimilation. The ore-forming mechanism may be related to the progressive cooling and transition of the earliest hydrothermal fluids that were dominated by H2S under relatively reducing conditions, followed by a gradual transition from oxidation to reduction. The Cu isotopic composition of the sulfides in ores (δ65Cu = +0.169‰–+0.357‰) decreases with depth, which is likely caused by the upward transport of heavier Cu isotopes. The upper part of the crypto-explosive breccia pipe in the Qibaoshan area may be relatively more gaseous, resulting in the enrichment of δ65Cu. As the gas phase decreases and the liquid phase increases with depth, the δ65Cu value gradually decreases. This indicates the transition from a low-temperature phyllic alteration to a high-temperature K-feldspar alteration. Large, concealed pluton intrusions or orebodies may be present at a depth of the Qibaoshan area. The heavy δ65Cu characteristic is a potential indicator for tracing the fluid activity of the porphyry system and searching for Cu mines. The results provide a reference for the study of the genetic mechanisms of the epithermal-porphyry Cu polymetallic metallogenic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Block Adjustment (BA) is one of the essential techniques for producing high-precision geospatial 3D data products with optical stereo satellite imagery. For block adjustment with few ground-control points or without ground control, the vertical error of the model is the decisive factor that constrains the accuracy of 3D data products. The elevation data obtained by spaceborne laser altimeter have the advantages of short update periods, high positioning precision, and low acquisition cost, providing sufficient data support for improving the elevation accuracy of stereo models through the combined BA. This paper proposes a geometric positioning model based on the integration of Optical Satellite Stereo Imagery (OSSI) and spaceborne laser altimeter data. Firstly, we elaborate the principle and necessity of this work through a literature review of existing methods. Then, the framework of our geo-positioning models. Secondly, four key technologies of the proposed model are expounded in order, including the acquisition and management of global Laser Control Points, the association of LCPs and OSSI, the block adjustment model combining LCPs with OSSI, and the accuracy estimation and quality control of the combined BA. Next, the combined BA experiment using Ziyuan-3 (ZY-3) OSSI and ICESat-2 laser data was carried out at the testing site in Shandong Province, China. Experimental results prove that our method can automatically select LCPs with high accuracy. The elevation deviation of the combined BA eventually achieved the Mean Error (ME) of 0.06 m and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 1.18 m, much lower than the ME of 13.20 m and the RMSE of 3.88 m before the block adjustment. A further research direction will be how to perform more adequate accuracy analysis and quality control using massive laser points as checkpoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of China's rural homestead withdrawal policy has been a topic of great interest in recent years. However, little is known about its impact on farmers' homestead withdrawal behavior from the perspective of psychological resilience. This study aims to evaluate the impact of psychological resilience on farmers' homestead withdrawal behavior and to explore its mechanism and heterogeneity, as well as its impact on compensation choices. The research data was collected through a survey of 657 rural households in Shaanxi and Shandong provinces. The probit model and mediation effect model were used to analyze the data. The results demonstrate that psychological resilience positively affects farmers' homestead withdrawal behavior; this finding is robust. Specifically, the positive influence of stability and adaptability dimensions of psychological resilience is more significant. Moreover, the effect of psychological resilience varies across different family life cycles, and it has a stronger promoting effect on the homestead withdrawal behavior of child-raising families. Mechanism analysis indicates that psychological resilience can promote homestead withdrawal behavior by reducing farmers' land dependence consciousness and improving farmers' risk preferences. Finally, farmers with strong psychological resilience are more inclined to choose cash compensation. Based on these findings, this paper proposes targeted policy recommendations for rural homestead system reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil salinization is a critical and global environmental problem. Effectively mapping and monitoring the spatial distribution of soil salinity is essential. The main aim of this work was to map soil salinity in Shandong Province located on the Yellow River Delta of China using Sentinel-1/2 remote sensing data and digital elevation model (DEM) data, coupled with soil sampling data, and combined with four regression models: support vector regression (SVR), stepwise multi-regression (SMR), partial least squares regression (PLSR) and random forest regression (RFR). For these purposes, 60 soil samples were collected during the field survey conducted from 9 to 14 October 2019, corresponding to the Sentinel-1/2 and DEM data. Then we established a soil salinity and feature dataset based on the sampled data and the features extracted from Sentinel-1/2 and DEM data. This study adopted the feature importance of the RF model to screen all features. The results showed that the CRSI index made the greatest contribution in retrieving soil salinity in this region. In this paper, 18 sampling points were used to validate and compare the performance of the four models. The results reveal that, compared with the other regression models, the PLSR model has the best performance (R2 = 0.66, and RMSE = 1.30). Finally, the PLSR method was used to predict the spatial distribution of soil salinity in the Yellow River Delta. We concluded that the model can be used effectively for the quantitative estimation of soil salinity and provides a useful tool for ecological construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper collects eight years of data from 2007 to 2014 from seven major types of registered seaport enterprise s in Shandong Province in China, by using the production function method to calculate seaport enterprise s' capacity utilization performance, and further analyze and compare difference between different types of seaport enterprise s. In terms of capacity utilization distribution, the current overcapacity phenomenon is more concentrated in large and medium-sized state-owned seaport enterprise s. In the new round of de-capacity progress, state-owned seaport enterprise s will face greater pressure. In the 13th Five Year Plan period, actively and properly handle this overcapacity issue existing in seaport enterprise swill be significant for economy to maintain a medium and high growth speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, extreme rainfall events have frequently occurred frequently, and heavy rainfall can cause drastic changes in the troposphere. Therefore, achieving to achieve real-time high-precision numerical prediction of key tropospheric parameters during heavy rainfall has become a major problem in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) meteorology. In this paper, two extreme rainfall events in southern China (Guangdong region) and northern China (Shandong region) in 2022 are used as case studies. Twenty-four-hour real-time numerical forecasts of key tropospheric parameters (atmospheric weighted mean temperature (Tm), precipitable water vapor (PWV), and GNSS zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD)) are obtained using three models, namely, the HGPT2, GPT3, and WRF models. Two optimization models, i.e., WRFDA (am) and WRFDA (pre), are then constructed by assimilating two types of data (global upper air and surface weather observations and daily advanced microwave sounding unit A (AMSU-A) brightness temperature) based on the WRF model. The experimental results for heavy rainfall show that (1) the WRF model predicts the key tropospheric parameters with better accuracy than the HGPT2 and GPT3 models, and the WRFDA (pre) model predicts PWV and ZTD with the highest accuracy; (2) the WRFDA (pre) model achieves a higher accuracy than the WRF model in predicting PWV and ZTD, where the PWV prediction accuracy is improved relative to the WRF model (in the south: MAE: 32.7 %; RMSE: 33.9 %; MAPE: 36.8 %; in the north: MAE: 27.3 %; RMSE: 24.2 %; MAPE: 28.0 %); this model achieves an MAE of 2.17 cm and an RMSE of 2.70 cm in 24-h ZTD prediction in the south, while the MAE reaches 2.48 cm, and the RMSE is 3.18 cm in the north; (3) the models provide a higher forecast accuracy in the southern region than in the northern region for heavy rainfall. The WRFDA (pre) model provides a favourable ZTD accuracy at GNSS stations near the ocean, while the WRFDA (am) model provides a satisfactory ZTD accuracy at inland GNSS stations, and the WRFDA (am) model provides the highest ZTD prediction accuracy at GNSS stations above 100 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many deep mining mines in southwestern Shandong Province of China are covered with thick loose layers. When mining near the loose layers, there is a risk of water and sand inrush, which threatens the personal safety of miners. The prediction of sudden water and sand inrush is difficult due to the comprehensive influence of many factors, and the influencing factors are fuzzy and random. To solve this problem, in this paper, a new risk assessment method of water and sand inrush based on comprehensive weight and cloud model was proposed. Seven factors are selected as indexes: the aquifer thickness, the thickness ratio of sand layer to clay layer, the thickness of bottom clay layer, the coal seam thickness, the percentage of core recovery, the geological structure, and the bedrock thickness. The assessment index system is established, and the index is divided into three grades. A comprehensive weighting method, which combines analytic hierarchy process (AHP), entropy weight method (EWM), and minimum entropy principle, is used to reasonably assign the weight of index. Based on the cloud generator equation, the membership function is obtained. The assessment result of the assessment object is obtained by combining the membership degree and the weight of index. The comprehensive weight-cloud model assessment method is applied to the risk assessment of water and sand inrush in the 6311-2 working face in the sixth mining area of Baodian Coal Mine. According to the assessment results, the following conclusions can be drawn: (1) the bedrock thickness and the coal seam thickness are the main factors of water and sand inrush under loose layer mining; (2) the assessment results obtained by the comprehensive weight-cloud model method are consistent with the actual situation. The assessment method can provide scientific reference for the safe mining under the thick loose layer in the deep mines of southwest Shandong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dendrolites composed of light gray massive micrite limestone occur at the top of the Cambrian Zhangxia Formation in Houziyu Section, Zibo, Shandong Province. Because it is very difficult to study the genesis of microbial rocks through "the function of diagenesis filter," this paper analyzes its genetic mechanism by characterizing the sedimentary fabric and formation environment of dendrolites and it is of great significance to study microbial carbonate deposited in geological history in oil exploration. The Cambrian Zhangxia Formation in the Houziyu section is a marine deposit. The macroscopic shrub-like fabric of centimeter scale can be seen on the surface of the tree-shaped stone, with small biological burrows and remnants of calcareous mud components after filling. The microstructure observation shows that the main fabric of the dendrolites is a dark micrite matrix, bright calcite cement, clastic particles, and a calcified cyanobacteria biological community. Detailed supplementary information on the diversity of calcified microorganisms in dendrolites has been made through the study of various types of calcified cyanobacteria and calcified residual substances in the microbial membrane of calcified cyanobacteria in the dendrolites of the study area. It is clear that dendrolites are the product of the calcification of biofilms or microbial mats dominated by cyanobacteria. With the deepening of this kind of research, it is bound to raise the research of microbial carbonate to a new level in China and provide great help to find oil and gas resources in marine strata of microbial origin in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Engineering Management / Gongcheng Guanli Xuebao is the property of Journal of Engineering Management Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Shallow geothermal energy (SGE) is a renewable energy source that has the advantage of being low-cost, clean, and locally sourced compared to fossil fuels, and is thus significant for China to achieve its future goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. However, determining how to improve the operational efficiency of SGE systems is a key factor in the sustainable development and utilization of geothermal energy. This study examined the long-term operational efficiency of SGE systems and applied numerical simulation methods of hydro-thermal coupling to a SGE utilization project in Shandong Province, China. The effect of the distribution of pumping and injection wells on the operation efficiency of the SGE system was analyzed, and the parameter of operation efficiency, defined by the ratio of the practical minable shallow geothermal energy to the theoretical shallow geothermal energy, was applied to quantify the operation efficiency of the SGE system. The simulated results show that the phenomenon of heat transfixion is significant in the current operation scheme, where one of three pumping wells is located downstream of the study area, which indicates that the local groundwater flow field mainly controls the operation efficiency of the SGE system. In the optimized operation scheme, the distribution of pumping and injection wells can be adjusted according to the feature of groundwater flow and temperature fields. The degree of heat transfixion significantly declines and the operation efficiency increases by 71.5%. In addition, further improvements in the operational efficiency of the SGE system can be considered through the running time. The findings of this paper will be useful for the construction and management of SGE systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic shed vegetable (PSV) cultivation has become an important vegetable production system in China, which accounts for about 1/4 of the total vegetable production of China. Shandong is the largest facility vegetable growing area in China. Continued years of high-input, high-output planting methods have brought some problems to the surrounding environment. Salinization has not only affected the soil and groundwater environment, but also the growth of vegetables. A comprehensive understanding of soil salinization in plastic shed vegetable fields is important for the sustainable development of the vegetable farming industry. In this paper, random survey sampling was used to collect soil samples from representative PSV production areas in Shandong Province, and the soil salinization status, acidification status, salt ion composition, and the main causes of soil salinity were studied in the survey area. Our study found that the salinized soils (mild, moderate, and severe levels) in the surveyed areas accounted for 40% of the total samples, and the total soluble salt (TSS) increased with the increase of the planting years. After continuous planting for 10 years, the soil pH showed a downward trend, indicating that salinization and acidification occurred simultaneously. A significant positive correlation was observed between TSS and soil organic matter (SOM) (r = 0.4773**). Principal component analysis found that , , , , Ca2+, K+, Mg2+, and Na+ had higher positive loads on principal component 1, the factor loads were 0.557–0.927, and the contribution rate reached 34.928%. Correlation analysis also showed that TSS was positively correlated with the concentrations of these ions (P < 0.01). The soil salinization status should be closely monitored and regulated by regulatory authorities to improve environment and soil health through balanced fertilization, thereby improving the yield and quality of vegetables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land expropriation has always been a hot spot of social conflicts. The land expropriation policy of Merging Villages and Living Together (MVLT) in rural areas has intensified conflicts due to insufficient financial compensation and "demolishing old houses before building new ones". The current research most simply assesses the degree of conflict and the influencing factors but rarely includes farmers, governments at all levels, the strength of policy tools, and policy perceptions in a unified quantitative research framework, which is not conducive to conflict resolution and policy improvement. This paper adopts the institutional credibility theory, incorporates the policy instruments of higher-level governments, administrative instruments of lower-level governments, and farmers' credibility of policies into a unified accounting framework, constructs a conflict stress index, evaluates the role of each subject's characteristics, policy perceptions, and policy instruments in the process of conflict generation and resolution, and analyzes the methods of conflict resolution from the perspective of different stakeholder conflicts. The theoretical analysis framework and the quantitative analysis of the indicators are verified by using a case study of MVLT policy in Shandong Province, China. The results show that the credibility of the policy of "village integration" is influenced by individual characteristics and varies significantly. The administrative means and different combinations of lower-level government are significantly related to an increase in farmers' credibility, which can significantly improve the success rate of policy implementation. The effect of administrative means of higher-level government on the credibility of farmers is limited. The highest value of the conflict index was observed when the administrative instruments reached the maximum value without a marginal increase in farmers' credibility. Based on the quantitative evaluation of conflict generation and resolution mechanisms, recommendations for policy implementation and improvement were made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Infectious diseases are a major threat to public health, causing serious medical consumption and casualties. Accurate prediction of infectious diseases incidence is of great significance for public health organizations to prevent the spread of diseases. However, only using historical incidence data for prediction can not get good results. This study analyzes the influence of meteorological factors on the incidence of hepatitis E, which are used to improve the accuracy of incidence prediction. Methods: We extracted the monthly meteorological data, incidence and cases number of hepatitis E from January 2005 to December 2017 in Shandong province, China. We employ GRA method to analyze the correlation between the incidence and meteorological factors. With these meteorological factors, we achieve a variety of methods for incidence of hepatitis E by LSTM and attention-based LSTM. We selected data from July 2015 to December 2017 to validate the models, and the rest was taken as training set. Three metrics were applied to compare the performance of models, including root mean square error(RMSE), mean absolute percentage error(MAPE) and mean absolute error(MAE). Results: Duration of sunshine and rainfall-related factors(total rainfall, maximum daily rainfall) are more relevant to the incidence of hepatitis E than other factors. Without meteorological factors, we obtained 20.74%, 19.50% for incidence in term of MAPE, by LSTM and A-LSTM, respectively. With meteorological factors, we obtained 14.74%, 12.91%, 13.21%, 16.83% for incidence, in term of MAPE, by LSTM-All, MA-LSTM-All, TA-LSTM-All, BiA-LSTM-All, respectively. The prediction accuracy increased by 7.83%. Without meteorological factors, we achieved 20.41%, 19.39% for cases in term of MAPE, by LSTM and A-LSTM, respectively. With meteorological factors, we achieved 14.20%, 12.49%, 12.72%, 15.73% for cases, in term of MAPE, by LSTM-All, MA-LSTM-All, TA-LSTM-All, BiA-LSTM-All, respectively. The prediction accuracy increased by 7.92%. More detailed results are shown in results section of this paper. Conclusions: The experiments show that attention-based LSTM is superior to other comparative models. Multivariate attention and temporal attention can greatly improve the prediction performance of the models. Among them, when all meteorological factors are used, multivariate attention performance is better. This study can provide reference for the prediction of other infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is an important precursor of atmospheric aerosol. Forecasting urban NO2 concentration is vital for effective control of air pollution. This paper proposes a hybrid deep learning model for predicting daily average NO2 concentrations on the next day, based on atmospheric pollutants, meteorological data, and historical data during 2014 to 2020 in five coastal cities of Shandong peninsula, northern China. A random Forest (RF) algorithm was used to select input variables to reduce data dimensionality trained by the sequence to sequence (Seq2Seq) the model and describe how the Seq2Seq model understands each predictor variable. The hybrid model combining an RF with Seq2Seq network (RF-S2S) was evaluated and achieved a Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.93, a Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient (NS) of 0.79, a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 5.85 µg/m3, a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 4.50 µg/m3, and a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 20.86%. Feature selection by an RF model improves the performance of the Seq2Seq model, reducing errors by 19.7% (RMSE), 20.3% (MAE), and 29.3% (MAPE), respectively. Carbon monoxide (CO) and PM10 are two common, important features influencing the prediction of NO2 concentrations in coastal areas of northern China. The results of RF-S2S models can capture general trends and disruptions more accurately than can long-short term memory (LSTM) models with and without feature selection. The decreasing tendency of NO2 from 2014 to 2020 illustrated by the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method is one important obstacle to improving the RF-S2S prediction accuracy. An EMD-based RF-S2S model could help to perform the short-term forecast of NO2 concentrations efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Rural Water & Hydropower is the property of China Rural Water & Hydropower Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Jar burial is a particular burial practice generally used in the Neolithic period of China. However, the rarity of finding prenatal individuals limits the ability to study their treatment in jar burial contexts. In this paper, to study the postmortem treatment of this specific age further, we focus on three jar burials of infant individuals excavated in 2021 at the Gangshang site in China, where the skeletal remains were relatively well preserved. The skeletal remains of three well‐preserved individuals are presented into inverted ceramic tripods near the residential area and with a crouched posture. In terms of this condition, we apply the osteometric method to estimate the range and mean of age at death for each individual investigated. Meanwhile, we use micro‐computed tomography (CT) scans to help judge the degree of microbial bioerosion. Besides, histological analysis on skeletal remains combined with the Oxford Histological Index (OHI) assessment allows us to estimate the developmental stage at the time of death by analyzing the results of micro‐CT scans. By using osteometric methods, the results show that the gestational age of the three individuals is 22–26, 24–28, and 22–26 weeks, respectively. The results of the micro‐CT scans indicate that all three fetuses died shortly after birth, or had died in their mother's uterus before birth, with the OHI score of 5. Moreover, we indeed observe infant skeleton remains with no bacterial bioerosion, indicating that it is effective using this method to judge the developmental stage at the time of death with a specific taphonomic environment in the Gangshang site of the Dawenkou culture period. Combined with the placement of the jars in which the three infants were buried, it is believed that this unique placement method was intentional and specific to the infant deaths. These results are instructive for exploring the postmortem treatment of dead infants by ancient residents of the Dawenkou culture period (4200 bc–2600 bc) in Shandong Province, China, and the significance and possible causes of the unique burial type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many young women were believed to die due to pregnancy and childbirth in the past, yet few cases of pregnant female burials have been reported in bioarcheological literature. Therefore, this paper reports the burial of an adult female (H49‐1) and her infant (H49‐2), who were buried together in an early Western Zhou pit at the Sanbulijia site, Jiaodong Peninsula, Shandong Province, China. It is the first reported case of obstetric death in thePre‐Qin Period in Shandong Province. The mother–child relationship was proved by ancient DNA evidence and archeological context. The infant's remains were placed between the adult's lower legs. Skeletal histological evidence suggests that the infant died during or shortly after childbirth. Sacroiliac fusion of individual H49‐1 may have resulted in dystocia. Furthermore, a special postmortem burial ritual—pit burial, was carried out for both the infant and the mother. H49 is the first Zhou Dynasty pit burial (multiple burial) with an exact radiocarbon date in the Shandong Peninsula. The case under review suggests that both the adult and the infant may have died due to special events, which may be related to obstetric death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the tourism industry is embedded in the countryside, space, which is an important means of production of modern industries, has undergone significant changes in the models and trends of spatial transform. This paper aims to analyze the development pattern of rural economic and social structure driven by the tourism industry. Based on the spatial syntax model, it takes Matao Village of China as the research sample and decomposes the evolutionary process of rural space transform. Firstly (1) in the self-driven development stage, the rural space presented a polar core development trend with high intelligibility and obvious agglomeration. Secondly (2) in the tourism-driven development stage, firstly, the driving force of the tourism industry was relatively weak, whereas the traditional spatial core still occupied an absolute advantage in the whole village space. However, with further development, the spatial scope of high Integration and Choice Values has expanded, resulting in multiple spatial development agglomeration centers. Based on this, it is proposed that a village with a tourism industry should integrate village spatial development planning with landscape style, focus on the regeneration and development of the old space core, and strengthen the integration and correlation of the old and new space clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the main factor of China's higher education, effective evaluation of the scientific research efficiency of domestic universities is extremely significant to improve the scientific research management system of local universities, optimize the allocation of scientific research resources, and promote regional economic development. Based on the ten-year statistical data of the compilation of science and technology statistics of colleges and universities, this paper adopts the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to study the scientific research efficiency of 31 provincial universities in Shandong Province from three dimensions: level, type, and region. The results show that, first, the overall scientific research efficiency of the sample universities is not high and takes on a downward trend; there are some differences, changes in the same direction, and level convergence in each dimension of scientific research efficiency. Second, there is a positive correlation between the comprehensive scientific research strength of the sample universities and the technical efficiency. Third, the level of regional economic development has a positive impact on the scale efficiency of scientific research, which is closely related to the technical efficiency, and there is no positive correlation between these two. Thus, the research suggests that, in the future, colleges and universities should formulate differentiated management policies, build a "Government University" two-level scientific research performance evaluation system guided by scientific research quality, change the concept of scientific research managers, and improve the ability of personnel to improve the efficiency of scientific research in colleges and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]