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This paper aims to demonstrate the impact of coal enterprises’ vertical integration on the performance of innovation corporate social responsibility (ICSR) and to elaborate its specific transmission path through financing structure and market power. This paper takes the data of A-share listed coal company from 2008 to 2017 as samples, uses input-output table method to measure the degree of vertical integration, and explores the relationship between the four factors through multiple linear regression and Bootstrap method. We found that: (1) the vertical integration of coal enterprises has positive incentives for the promotion of ICSR. (2) Financing structure and market power play a chain intermediary role in this process of incentive. (3) In areas with high marketization process, vertical integration has more significant incentive effect on ICSR. The paper extends the research on the relationship between vertical integration and innovation, which provides a reference for the improvement of China’s supply-side reform and corporate social responsibility (CSR) fulfillment policy. It is helpful to promote the sustainable development of the coal industry, stimulate the innovation vitality of enterprises, and improve the fulfillment of CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) universities are important bases for science and technology research and play a critical role in China’s National Innovation System. Based on the Web of Science (WoS), this article analyzes the statistics of paper published by MIIT universities and universities from across China including MIIT universities. The results are as follows: (1) Both the MIIT universities and universities nationwide in China have increased their international academic publications, and MIIT have shown a greater increase for the past decade. (2) In terms of U-I-G interaction, for UG relations, the Tug value of MIIT universities has remained stable, while that of universities in China has become declined. For UI relations, the Tui value of both MIIT universities and universities in China has shown steady growth. For UIG relations, MIIT universities have a greater synergistic effect of Triple Helix relationship than universities in China. (3) For more details in seven MIIT universities, universities elected into “Project 985”, including HIT, BUAA, BIT and NPU, have published more papers, and been more synergistic with government and industry (UIG relations) than other three universities, including NUAA, NUST and HEU. Based on the empirical results, we discuss our findings, and make certain suggestions regarding policy incentives, reasonable administrative system and U-I-G interaction mode, which is significant not only for Chinese universities but also for universities in other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: International collaboration (IC) is essential for the advance of stem cell research, a field characterized by marked asymmetries in knowledge and capacity between nations. China is emerging as a global leader in the stem cell field. However, knowledge on the extent and characteristics of IC in stem cell science, particularly China’s collaboration with developed economies, is lacking. Methods and Findings: We provide a scientometric analysis of the China–Canada collaboration in stem cell research, placing this in the context of other leading producers in the field. We analyze stem cell research published from 2006 to 2010 from the Scopus database, using co-authored papers as a proxy for collaboration. We examine IC levels, collaboration preferences, scientific impact, the collaborating institutions in China and Canada, areas of mutual interest, and funding sources. Our analysis shows rapid global expansion of the field with 48% increase in papers from 2006 to 2010. China now ranks second globally after the United States. China has the lowest IC rate of countries examined, while Canada has one of the highest. China–Canada collaboration is rising steadily, more than doubling during 2006–2010. China–Canada collaboration enhances impact compared to papers authored solely by China-based researchers This difference remained significant even when comparing only papers published in English. Conclusions: While China is increasingly courted in IC by developed countries as a partner in stem cell research, it is clear that it has reached its status in the field largely through domestic publications. Nevertheless, IC enhances the impact of stem cell research in China, and in the field in general. This study establishes an objective baseline for comparison with future studies, setting the stage for in-depth exploration of the dynamics and genesis of IC in stem cell research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate Origin-Destination (OD) prediction is significant for effective traffic monitor, which can support operation decision in traffic planning and management field. The enclosed expressway network system like toll gates system in China can collect mounts of trip records which can be gathered for OD prediction. The paper develops a novel neural network, which is named Expressway OD Prediction Neural Network (EODPNN) for toll data-based prediction. The network consists of the following three modules: The Feature Extension Module, the Memory Module, and the Prediction Module. In the process, the attributes data which can reflect the city attribute such as GDP, population, and the number of vehicles are considered to embeded into the notwork to increase the accuracy of the model. For the applicability improvment of the model, we categorize the cities in multiple classes based on their economy and population scales in this paper, which can provide a higher accurate prediction of OD by EODPNN. The results shows that, comparing to the traditional model like ARIMA and SVM, or typical neural networks like Bidirectional Long Short-term Memory, the EODPNN delivers a better prediction performance. The method proposed in this paper has been fully verified and has a potential to transplant to the other OD data-based management systems for a more accurate and flexible prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to effectively solve traffic congestion and transportation pollution in urban development is a main research emphasis for transportation management agencies. A carbon emissions tax can affect travelers’ generalized costs and will lead to changes in passenger demand, mode choice and traffic flow equilibrium in road networks, which are of significance in green travel and low-carbon transportation management. This paper first established a mesoscopic model to calculate the carbon emissions tax and determined the value of this charge in China, which was based on road traffic flow, vehicle speed, and carbon emissions. Referring to existing research results to calibrate the value of time, this paper modified the traveler’s generalized cost function, including the carbon emissions tax, fuel surcharge and travel time cost, which can be used in the travel impedance model with the consideration of the carbon emissions tax. Then, a method for analyzing urban road network traffic flow distribution was put forward, and a joint traffic distribution model was established, which considered the relationship between private cars and taxis. Finally, this paper took the city of Panjin as an example to analyze the road traffic carbon emissions tax’s impact. The results illustrated that the carbon emissions tax has a positive effect on road network flow equilibrium and carbon emission reduction. This paper will have good reference value and practical significance for the calculation and implementation of urban traffic carbon emissions taxes in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the InCites tool of Thomson Reuters, this study compares normalized citation impact values calculated for China, Japan, France, Germany, United States, and the UK throughout the time period from 1981 to 2010. InCites offers a unique opportunity to study the normalized citation impacts of countries using (i) a long publication window (1981 to 2010), (ii) a differentiation in (broad or more narrow) subject areas, and (iii) allowing for the use of statistical procedures in order to obtain an insightful investigation of national citation trends across the years. Using four broad categories, our results show significantly increasing trends in citation impact values for France, the UK, and especially Germany across the last thirty years in all areas. The citation impact of papers from China is still at a relatively low level (mostly below the world average), but the country follows an increasing trend line. The USA exhibits a stable pattern of high citation impact values across the years. With small impact differences between the publication years, the US trend is increasing in engineering and technology but decreasing in medical and health sciences as well as in agricultural sciences. Similar to the USA, Japan follows increasing as well as decreasing trends in different subject areas, but the variability across the years is small. In most of the years, papers from Japan perform below or approximately at the world average in each subject area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to establish a mathematical model to design a maximizing social welfare intervention mechanism of healthcare service goods in China. The intervention mechanism is helpful to facilitate the adoption of the healthcare service goods. We consider a research problem that regulates the supply chain system for healthcare service goods by an intervention mechanism, and two intervention strategies composed of demand-growth strategy and subsidy strategy are used to the combination of intervention mechanism. Then this paper presents a new method based on fuzzy set and bilevel programming to design the intervention mechanism. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, we conduct a case study for Wudang personalized health package and verify our model by the specific result analysis, the result indicates that our joint intervention mechanism is helpful to achieve the target and increase social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s fast economic growth contributes to the rapid development of its urbanization process, and also renders a series of industrial accidents, which often cause loss of life, damage to property and environment, thus requiring the associated risk analysis and safety control measures to be implemented in advance. However, incompleteness of historical failure data before the occurrence of accidents makes it difficult to use traditional risk analysis approaches such as probabilistic risk analysis in many cases. This paper aims to develop a new methodology capable of assessing regional industrial safety (RIS) in an uncertain environment. A hierarchical structure for modelling the risks influencing RIS is first constructed. The hybrid of evidential reasoning (ER) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is then used to assess the risks in a complementary way, in which AHP is hired to evaluate the weight of each risk factor and ER is employed to synthesise the safety evaluations of the investigated region(s) against the risk factors from the bottom to the top level in the hierarchy. The successful application of the hybrid approach in a real case analysis of RIS in several major districts of Beijing (capital of China) demonstrates its feasibility as well as provides risk analysts and safety engineers with useful insights on effective solutions to comprehensive risk assessment of RIS in metropolitan cities. The contribution of this paper is made by the findings on the comparison of risk levels of RIS at different regions against various risk factors so that best practices from the good performer(s) can be used to improve the safety of the others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to optimize a desirable fare structure for the public transit service along a bus-subway corridor with the consideration of those factors related to equity in trip, including travel distance and comfort level. The travel distance factor is represented by the distance-based fare strategy, which is an existing differential strategy. The comfort level one is considered in the area-based fare strategy which is a new differential strategy defined in this paper. Both factors are referred to by the combined fare strategy which is composed of distance-based and area-based fare strategies. The flat fare strategy is applied to determine a reference level of social welfare and obtain the general passenger flow along transit lines, which is used to divide areas or zones along the corridor. This problem is formulated as a bi-level program, of which the upper level maximizes the social welfare and the lower level capturing traveler choice behavior is a variable-demand stochastic user equilibrium assignment model. A genetic algorithm is applied to solve the bi-level program while the method of successive averages is adopted to solve the lower-level model. A series of numerical experiments are carried out to illustrate the performance of the models and solution methods. Numerical results indicate that all three differential fare strategies play a better role in enhancing the social welfare than the flat fare strategy and that the fare structure under the combined fare strategy generates the highest social welfare and the largest resulting passenger demand, which implies that the more equity factors a differential fare strategy involves the more desirable fare structure the strategy has. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is few significant attempt to integrate environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation in a methodological framework. Employing the data of the industrial enterprises with an annual turnover of over 20 million yuan from 30 Chinese provinces or municipalities between 2008 and 2016, this paper applies the fixed effect regression model to reveal the relationships between environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation simultaneously. Results show that: (1) there exists a U-shaped relation between environmental regulation intensity and technological innovation of enterprises which declines first and then climbs up, and China is still at the stage of inhibition before the “inflection point”. (2) government financial support does not significantly work on technological innovation directly, but environmental regulation drives this effect to be achieved; when the value of lnER is higher than 3.69, government financial support can significantly facilitate corporate technological innovation. (3) the comparison between regional samples reveals that heterogeneity exists in the influence of environmental regulation intensity and government financial support on corporate technological innovation. The threshold value of enabling effects of environmental regulation in eastern region is higher than that of the central and western region. These results remain consistent after we experiment several robustness checks. Theory and policy implications of our work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative analysis of the contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology and analysis of the underlying reasons behind changes provide an important foundation upon which the government can formulate water policies. This paper abandons the assumption of a scale economy and separates the changes of benefits brought about by the scale from scientific and technological progress, thus changing the C-D production function from linear to nonlinear. Based on a feedforward neural network, it calculates the coefficient of the output elasticity, the economic contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology and the scale economies for each year using relevant data from 1981 to 2016. The results show that (1) the average contribution rate of capital investment from 1981 to 2016 was 47.3%, and the average contribution rate of labor from 1981 to 2016 was 9.1%. It is not obvious that the significant increase in the labor force has contributed to the growth of China’s water conservancy industry. (2) The average contribution rate of scale economies in 1981–2016 was 26.7%, and the contribution rate of scale economies is negatively correlated with the capital contribution rate. (3) The average contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology was 43.6% from 1981 to 2016, and the average contribution rate of the total factor productivity after removing scale economies from 1981 to 2016 was 16.9%. During the period of the 6th Five-Year Plan(1981~1985), the contribution rate of water conservancy science and technology was relatively high. Since that time, it has remained at 40%. In recent years, as water conservancy reforms in key areas have made positive progress, scientific and technological progress has increased the growth of water conservancy benefits annually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of November 1, 2018, China's "One Belt and One Road" Initiative has involved 123 countries and promoted worldwide communication, cooperation and trade exchange. This paper constructs correlation networks of exchange rates among the countries along “The Belt and Road” and analyzes the risk contagion structure. It is found that when “The Belt and Road” initiative is initialized, countries in Eastern Europe occupy important positions in the network and play a vital role in the spreading of exchange rate risks; however, during the process of “The Belt and Road” initiative, the exchange rate risks are decentralized geographically, whereas they are centralized in countries that have in-depth communication and cooperation. The minimum Spanning Tree method is also proposed to investigate the structure of complex networks. It is found that the geographical link between exchange rate fluctuations and correlations among the countries has been strengthened while China has become an important node in the exchange rate network after the launch of “The Belt and Road” initiative. In addition, the influence and promotion of RMB has rapidly benefited from the initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is facing severe pressure on its water resources and water environments. Calculating the industrial water efficiency of each province is an important index for the central government to evaluate local governments. In the traditional water resources evaluation index, the industrial water use efficiency and pollutant discharge are evaluated separately. In this paper, we collected industrial input data, output data and pollutant discharge data with a four-stage data envelopment analysis to calculate China's industrial water use efficiency with and without considering pollutant discharge, and then analyzed the factors influencing the industrial water use efficiency. The results show that the eastern coastal provinces of China have the highest water use efficiency and are less affected by pollutant discharge than other provinces. The industrial water use efficiency of the central and western provinces is lower than that of the other provinces, and the industrial water use efficiency in the central provinces is greatly affected by pollutant discharge. Factor endowment, economic development level, scientific and technological progress, industrial structure, proportion of foreign investment, water consumption per 10000 yuan of value-added by industry, industrial sewage treatment capacity and educational investment have a significant influence on the industrial water use efficiency of China. We suggest that the government strengthen the construction of sewage plants and other related infrastructure in central provinces when conducting the industrial transfer of heavy polluting enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the heterogeneous effects of exchange rate and stock market on carbon emission allowance price in four emissions trading scheme pilots in China. We employ a panel quantile regression model, which can describe both individual and distributional heterogeneity. The empirical results illustrate that the effects of explanatory variables on carbon emission allowance price is heterogeneous along the whole quantiles. Specifically, exchange rate has a negative effect on carbon emission allowance price at lower quantiles, while becomes a positive effect at higher quantiles. In addition, a negative effect exists between domestic stock market and carbon emission allowance price, and the intensity decreasing along with the increase of quantile. By contrast, an increasing positive effect is discovered between European stock market and domestic carbon emission allowance prices. Finally, heterogeneous effects on carbon emission allowance price can also be proved in European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, with the rapid development of China's air transport industry and the change in market consumption structure, service quality has become one of the important factors affecting airline revenue. How to formulate a reasonable pricing strategy and maintain competitiveness in the fierce market competition has become an urgent problem for airlines. First, the impact factor of service quality level in the traditional pricing model is introduced and a static price competition model for multi-oligopoly airlines based on service quality is established in this paper. And then, a dynamic pricing model based on service quality of the multi-oligopoly airlines is established. The model incorporates the weight factor of service quality impact, which is used to indicate the weight of the service quality level in the process of airline dynamic pricing. The research results show that the service quality level of airlines has an indispensable influence on its development. Airlines should improve service quality as soon as possible to enhance market competitiveness and achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban heat islands (UHIs) have a significant and negative impact on the urban ecological environment and on human health, and it is imperative to examine factors that lead to UHIs. Although numerous studies have been conducted in this field, little research has considered seasonal variations in UHIs in coastal cities. Moreover, parametric statistical analyses, such as regression and correlation analyses, have been typically applied to examine the influential factors. Such analyses are flawed because they cannot uncover the complicated relationships between UHIs and their factors. Taking Dalian, a coastal city in China, as an example, this paper reveals the dynamic mechanism of the UHI effect for different seasons using the cubist regression tree algorithm. Analyses suggest that the UHI effect only exists in spring and summer, and no obvious UHIs can be found in autumn and winter. The adjacency to the sea leads to moderate UHI effects in spring and summer and no UHI or urban cooling island (UCI) effects in autumn and winter. The distance to the coastline, however, does not play a role in the UHI effect. Furthermore, as one of the most important factors, the vegetation coverage plays a significant role in the UHI effect in spring and summer and significantly mediates the UHI in autumn and winter. Comparatively, the elevation (e.g., digital elevation models (DEMs)) is consistently negatively associated with the land surface temperature in all seasons, although a stronger relationship was found in spring and summer. In addition, the surface slope is also a significant factor in spring and winter, and the population density impacts the UHI distribution in summer as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the calculation of the inclusive financial development level of 22 provinces and 4 municipalities in China from 2004 to 2017, this paper uses the Kernel density estimation method to further analyze the evolution of the inclusive financial index. Based on the above analysis, we make empirical analysis of the impact of China's inclusive financial inclusion development index on farmers' entrepreneurship using static panel and dynamic panel estimation method. The empirical conclusions show that there are certain differences in inclusive financial inclusion development level in various provinces in China. Improving the inclusion development level of inclusive finance can better promote farmers' entrepreneurship. Urbanization level, economic openness and regional economic development level have a significant positive effect on farmers' entrepreneurship, while farmers' income and education level have a significant negative effect on farmers' entrepreneurship. It is possible to promote farmers' entrepreneurship by improving the inclusive development level of inclusive finance, combining urbanization, increasing government investment in productive fixed assets, increasing economic openness and improving regional economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing population age structure has a significant influence on the economy, society, and numerous other aspects of a country. This paper has innovatively applied the method of compositional data forecasting for the prediction of population age changes of the young (aged 0–14), the middle-aged (aged 15–64), and the elderly (aged older than 65) in China, India, and Vietnam by 2030 based on data from 1960 to 2016. To select the best-suited forecasting model, an array of data transformation approaches and forecasting models have been extensively employed, and a large number of comparisons have been made between the aforementioned methods. The best-suited model for each country is identified considering the root mean squared error and mean absolute percent error values from the compositional data. As noted in this study, first and foremost, it is predicted that by the year 2030, China will witness the disappearance of population dividend and get mired in an aging problem far more severe than that of India or Vietnam. Second, Vietnam’s trend of change in population age structure resembles that of China, but the country will sustain its good health as a whole. Finally, the working population of India demonstrates a strong rising trend, indicating that the age structure of the Indian population still remains relatively “young”. Meanwhile, the continuous rise in the proportion of elderly population and the gradual leveling off growth of the young population have nevertheless become serious problems in the world. The present paper attempts to offer crucial insights into the Asian population size, labor market and urbanization, and, moreover, provides suggestions for a sustainable global demographic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourist satisfaction has always been a crucial research issue in the tourism economy. This paper utilizes the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) to analyze the impact of urban tourism satisfaction on urban macroeconomics from a macro perspective, using quarterly data on tourist satisfaction in 35 large and medium-sized cities along with major urban macroeconomic variables. This study is quite distinct from previous research that focused on constructing a tourist satisfaction index and analyzing the influence factors of tourism satisfaction from the perspective of the micro-level internal composition of tourism. The empirical results show: Firstly, in respect of the impact of urban tourists' satisfaction on the GDP income of cities, the SDM and the SDM with a lagged first-order dependent variable (SDM_dlag) show that the short-term and long-term indirect effects of log-tourist satisfaction are significantly positive, indicating that city satisfaction has a significant positive spatial spillover effect on GDP growth in other cities; Secondly, in respect of the influence of urban tourist satisfaction on the cost of urban life in the SDM, the long-term direct and indirect effects of logarithmic satisfaction are significantly positive, implying, in the long run, that tourist satisfaction has a positive intraregional spillover effect and spatial spillover effect on urban living costs; Finally, the SDM_dlag for the regression of urban tourist satisfaction on the cost of urban daily life shows that the short-run direct and indirect effects of city tourist satisfaction are significantly negative, indicating that tourist satisfaction has intra-regional and spatial spillover effects, and its rise will reduce the cost of living expenses in local and other cities in the short term. Overall, we have further elucidated the role of different levels of urban tourist satisfaction in city macroeconomics from the spatial dimension, thereby enriching the existing research on tourist satisfaction to some certain extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accidents, bad weathers, traffic congestions, etc. led to the uncertainties of travel times in real-life road networks, which greatly affected the quality of individual’s life and the reliability of transportation system. This paper addressed the school bus routing problem in such a stochastic and time-dependent road environment. Firstly, the problem was set based on a single-school configuration, and the students were picked up at their homes, which was in line with the current situation of school bus systems in China. Thus, it could be regarded as an independent problem of school bus route generation in random dynamic networks, which could be solved as a variant of extended Vehicle Routing Problem. However, due to the fluctuation and uncertainty of link travel times, the arrival time at each stop including the destination was varying. Therefore, the selection of optimal path connecting the current service node with the next one was treated as a sub-problem in this study, where the reliability of travel times in the stochastic and time-varying network was highly concerned by such time-rigid commuters. To this end, a Robust Optimal Schedule Times model with a hard time windows constraint was built to generate a most cost-reliable route for school buses. By the use of Robust Optimization method, it was intended to minimize the worst-case total cost which combined the cost of earlier schedule delays with the disutility of travel times. It was also proved that the proposed model could be converted into solving a conventional problem in deterministic dynamic networks for a reduction of computation complexity, which provided the potential of applying to the practical problems. Finally, the validity of the proposed model and its performance evaluation was analyzed through a small-scale computational instance, where all the link travel times in the simulated network were attributed to both time-varying and stochastic. Then, a mathematical programming solver was used to find the exact optimal solution. The results indicated that the model was valid, and the necessity of considering the stochastic and time-dependent nature of transportation networks was also confirmed in the case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming to solve the safety problems of high-speed railway operation and management, one new method is urgently needed to construct on the basis of the rough set theory and the uncertainty measurement theory. The method should carefully consider every factor of high-speed railway operation that realizes the measurement indexes of its safety operation. After analyzing the factors that influence high-speed railway safety operation in detail, a rough measurement model is finally constructed to describe the operation process. Based on the above considerations, this paper redistricts the safety influence factors of high-speed railway operation as 16 measurement indexes which include staff index, vehicle index, equipment index and environment. And the paper also provides another reasonable and effective theoretical method to solve the safety problems of multiple attribute measurement in high-speed railway operation. As while as analyzing the operation data of 10 pivotal railway lines in China, this paper respectively uses the rough set-based measurement model and value function model (one model for calculating the safety value) for calculating the operation safety value. The calculation result shows that the curve of safety value with the proposed method has smaller error and greater stability than the value function method’s, which verifies the feasibility and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the database data of Chinese industrial enterprises from 2000 to 2007 and the LP method, this paper measures the total factor productivity of enterprises and investigates the effect of different mixed ownership forms on enterprises’ efficiency and the effect of heterogeneous ownership balance on the mixed ownership enterprises’ efficiency. The state-owned enterprise and mixed ownership enterprise are identified by the enterprise’s paid-up capital. The results show that, on the whole, for the mixed ownership enterprise, the higher the diversification degree of the shareholders is, the higher the efficiency becomes, and in different types of industries, the mixed forms of shareholders have different effects on the efficiency of enterprises. The heterogeneous ownership balance and the enterprise efficiency show nonlinear U-type relationships. Both the higher and lower heterogeneous ownership balance degrees will promote the enterprise’s efficiency. However, when the ownership balance degree is in the range of [0.2 0.5], the increase in ownership balance will lead to the decline of enterprise efficiency. Therefore, when introducing non-state-owned capital, state-owned enterprises should take full account of their own characteristics by rationally controlling the shareholding ratio of non-state-owned capital and play the positive role of a mixed ownership structure in corporate governance with appropriate ownership balances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, entrepreneurship has been gaining more prominence as a potential tool for solving poverty in developing countries. This paper mainly examines the relationship between farmer entrepreneurship and rural poverty alleviation in China by assessing the contribution of farm entrepreneurs towards overcoming poverty. Data were collected from 309 employees of farmer entrepreneurships in Guangxi Province through survey questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used to conduct an analysis of the effects of three identified capabilities of farm entrepreneurs—economic, educational and knowledge, and socio-cultural capabilities—on attitude towards farmer entrepreneurship growth and the qualitative growth of farmer entrepreneurship and how these in turn affect rural poverty, using AMOS 21. The findings show that socio-cultural capability has the greatest influence on farmer entrepreneurship growth (β = 0.50, p<0.001). The qualitative growth of farmer entrepreneurship also more significantly impacts rural poverty (β = 0.69, p<0.001) than attitude towards farmer entrepreneurship growth. This study suggests that policy makers in China should involve more rural farmers in the targeted poverty alleviation strategies of the government by equipping rural farmers with entrepreneurial skills. This can serve as a sustainable, bottom-up approach to alleviating rural poverty in remote areas of the country. The study also extends the literature on the farmer entrepreneurship-rural poverty alleviation nexus in China, and this can serve as a lesson for other developing countries in the fight against rural poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The relations between geographical proximity and spatial distance constitute a popular topic of concern. Thus, how geographical proximity affects scientific cooperation, and whether geographically proximate scientific cooperation activities in fact exhibit geographic scale features should be investigated. Methodology: Selected statistics from the ISI database on cooperatively authored papers, the authors of which resided in 60 typical cites in China, and which were published in the years 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010, were used to establish matrices of geographic distance and cooperation levels between cities. By constructing a distance-cooperation model, the degree of scientific cooperation based on spatial distance was calculated. The relationship between geographical proximity and scientific cooperation, as well as changes in that relationship, was explored using the fitting function. Result: (1) Instead of declining, the role of geographical proximity in inter-city scientific cooperation has increased gradually but significantly with the popularization of telecommunication technologies; (2) the relationship between geographical proximity and scientific cooperation has not followed a perfect declining curve, and at certain spatial scales, the distance-decay regularity does not work; (3) the Chinese scientific cooperation network gathers around different regional center cities, showing a trend towards a regional network; within this cooperation network the amount of inter-city cooperation occurring at close range increased greatly. Conclusion: The relationship between inter-city geographical distance and scientific cooperation has been enhanced and strengthened over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of rapid rail transit system is analyzed using tools of complex network for the first time. We evaluated the effectiveness of the system in Beijing quantitatively from different perspectives, including descriptive statistics analysis, bridging property, centrality property, ability of connecting different part of the system and ability of disease spreading. The results showed that the public transport of Beijing does benefit from the rapid rail transit lines, and the benefit of different regions from RRTS is gradually decreased from the north to the south. The paper concluded with some policy suggestions regarding how to promote the system. This study offered significant insight that can help understand the public transportation better. The methodology can be easily applied to analyze other urban public systems, such as electricity grid, water system, to develop more livable cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although studies have increasingly linked air pollution to specific health outcomes, less well understood is how public perceptions of air quality respond to changing pollutant levels. The growing availability of air pollution measurements and the proliferation of social media provide an opportunity to gauge public discussion of air quality conditions. In this paper, we consider particulate matter (PM) measurements from four Chinese megacities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu) together with 112 million posts on Weibo (a popular Chinese microblogging system) from corresponding days in 2011–2013 to identify terms whose frequency was most correlated with PM levels. These correlations are used to construct an Air Discussion Index (ADI) for estimating daily PM based on the content of Weibo posts. In Beijing, the Chinese city with the most PM as measured by U.S. Embassy monitor stations, we found a strong correlation (R = 0.88) between the ADI and measured PM. In other Chinese cities with lower pollution levels, the correlation was weaker. Nonetheless, our results show that social media may be a useful proxy measurement for pollution, particularly when traditional measurement stations are unavailable, censored or misreported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is becoming a major threat to people’s life in China. Screening methods adopted by many other countries as effective counter-cancer methods have not been explicitly explored for people there. Thus, we present a Markov model with detailed precancerous adenoma states and then evaluate various screening strategies in this paper. Different from current researches, our model considers the population’s heterogeneous risk of developing adenomas and observation-based screening strategies. Furthermore, we also give a new cost-effectiveness metric. After calibrating, the model is simulated using the Monte Carlo method. Numerical results show that there are threshold values of compliance rates below which strategy with every ten-year colonoscopy becomes the most cost-effective method; otherwise, an observation-based screening strategy is the most cost-effective. We also find that strategy with single colonoscopy for adenoma-free individuals and every three-year colonoscopy for those with adenoma is recommended when the observation-based strategy is not considered. Our findings give an explicit and complete instruction in CRC screening protocol in average-risk Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition (Ndep), an important component of the global N cycle, has increased sharply in recent decades in China. Although there were already some studies on Ndep on a national scale, there were some gaps on the magnitude and the spatial patterns of Ndep. In this study, a national-scale Ndep pattern was constructed based on 139 published papers from 2003 to 2014 and the effects of precipitation (P), energy consumption (E) and N fertilizer use (FN) on spatial patterns of Ndep were analyzed. The wet deposition flux of NH4+-N, NO3--N and total Ndep was 6.83, 5.35 and 12.18 kg ha-1 a-1, respectively. Ndep exhibited a decreasing gradient from southeast to northwest of China. Through accuracy assessment of the spatial Ndep distribution and comparisons with other studies, the spatial Ndep distribution by Lu and Tian and this study both gained high accuracy. A strong exponential function was found between P and Ndep, FN and Ndep and E and Ndep, and P and FN had higher contribution than E on the spatial variation of Ndep. Fossil fuel combustion was the main contributor for NO3--N (86.0%) and biomass burning contributed 5.4% on the deposition of NO3--N. The ion of NH4+ was mainly from agricultural activities (85.9%) and fossil fuel combustion (6.0%). Overall, Ndep in China might be considerably affected by the high emissions of NOx and NH3 from fossil fuel combustion and agricultural activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hypochondriac symptoms are commonly reported in health science students. With their incomplete medical knowledge, they may compare their own bodily symptoms with disease symptoms during the process of learning, which can lead to mental distress and the need for repeated medical reassurance. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of hypochondriac symptoms in Chinese health science students. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted on PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Biology Medicine disc, and Wanfang Data on July 1, 2018. Additionally, the references of the retrieved papers were searched. Cross-sectional studies published in either English or Chinese that reported the prevalence of hypochondriac symptoms in health science students were included. The selection process was executed based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis, and study quality was assessed with the checklist recommended by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for cross-sectional studies. A random-effects model according to the DerSimonian-Laird method was used to calculate the pooled prevalence. Results: Seven cross-sectional studies involving 6,217 Chinese health science students were included. The pooled prevalence of hypochondriac symptoms among health science students was 28.0% (95% CI = 19.0%–38.0%). The symptoms were a little more common in females (30.0%, 95% CI = 19.0%–42.0%) than in males (29.0%, 95% CI = 16.0%–42.0%), but the difference was not significant. No significant differences were found between participants grouped by study year. Only three studies explored the coping styles of students with hypochondriasis, and these revealed a high tendency toward help-seeking behaviors. Conclusion: Our systematic review and meta-analysis showed a high prevalence of hypochondriac symptoms among health science students, indicating that it is a noteworthy phenomenon. We suggest that counseling and other support services are necessary for health science students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s transport sector is facing enormous challenges from soaring energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Transport electrification has been viewed as a major solution to transportation decarbonization, and electric vehicles (EVs) have attracted considerable attention from policymakers. This paper analyzes the effects of the introduction of EVs in China. A system dynamics model is developed and applied to assess the energy-saving and emission-reducing impacts of the projected penetration of EVs until the year 2030. Five types of scenarios of various EV penetration rates, electricity generation mixes, and the speed of technological improvement are discussed. Results confirm that reductions in transport GHG emissions and gasoline and diesel consumption by 3.0%–16.2%, 4.4%–16.1%, and 15.8%–34.3%, respectively, will be achieved by 2030 under China’s projected EV penetration scenarios. Results also confirm that if EV penetration is accompanied by decarbonized electricity generation, that is, the use of 55% coal by 2030, then total transport GHG emissions will be further reduced by 0.8%–4.4%. Moreover, further reductions of GHG emissions of up to 5.6% could be achieved through technological improvement. The promotion of EVs could substantially affect the reduction of transport GHG emissions in China, despite the uncertainty of the influence intensity, which is dependent on the penetration rate of EVs, the decarbonization of the power sector, and the technological improvement efficiency of EVs and internal combustion engine vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To balance the supply and demand in China's beef market, beef consumption must be scientifically and effectively forecasted. Beef consumption is affected by many factors and is characterized by gray uncertainty. Therefore, gray theory can be used to forecast the beef consumption, In this paper, the structural defects and unreasonable parameter design of the traditional gray model are analyzed. Then, a new gray model termed, EGM(1,1,r), is built, and the modeling conditions and error checking methods of EGM(1,1,r) are studied. Then, EGM(1,1,r) is used to simulate and forecast China’s beef consumption. The results show that both the simulation and prediction precisions of the new model are better than those of other gray models. Finally, the new model is used to forecast China’s beef consumption for the period from 2019–2025. The findings will serve as an important reference for the Chinese government in formulating policies to ensure the balance between the supply and demand for Chinese beef. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With green development becoming a global movement, environmental tax has been adopted by many governments to promote green development. This study analyzes the impact of environmental tax on green development by using a four-dimension dynamical system. The establishment of the system is based on the complex and dynamic interactions among economic development, pollution emissions, resources consumption, and environmental tax, where roles of environmental tax are reflected by the linear parameters. A theoretic analysis shows the complexity of the behavior of the system. Mainly, the existence of chaos is inferred by Lyapunov exponent spectrum and bifurcation diagram, then verified by the presence of a chaotic attractor. An empirical study of the green development dynamical system in China demonstrates the particular evolution paths of economic growth, pollution intensity, and resource intensity under different environmental tax parameters. Results indicate a robust beneficial role of environmental tax on green development. Furthermore, when an environmental tax is imposed, a firm government control, an active consumer awareness, an advanced technology level can stimulate economic growth, decrease pollution intensity, and control the resource intensity. But the government control has a stronger effect. This study provides a viable and promising approach to analyze the role of imposing an environmental tax on green development and may have potential application in other areas and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an evaluation of the effectiveness of two types of deceleration markings on freeways in China: fishbone-shaped (FS) markings and edge-rate (ER) markings. An actual 4-lane, 6-km long freeway in Province Hebei was created in a driving simulator and used for the experiments. Three scenarios of deceleration markings were adopted: one without markings, one with FS markings, and the third with ER markings. For each scenario, three traffic flow levels were adopted (low, medium, and heavy). The appropriate dimensions of deceleration markings were first established using relevant design guidelines and then used to develop the simulation scenarios using Multigen Creator software. Sixty drivers carried out the simulation experiments with eye tracker equipment. The adequacy of deceleration markings was analyzed with respect to speed, perceived distance, pupil diameter, and geometric parameters. The results showed that both types of deceleration markings made a certain effect on vehicle speed, drivers’visual behavior, and mental characteristics. However, the effect of the FS markings was more pronounced than that of the ER marking. Specifically, the FS markings showed a speed reduction of 12.3 km/h to 15.2 km/h and a perceived distance of 70 m to 90 m, compared with 6.7 km/h to 9.9 km/h and 40 m to 60 m, respectively, for the ER markings. Application comments of the results are provided in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the development and baseline data of a vignettes-based measure of gender equality. Methods: Vignettes were developed through 3-day long focus groups. After piloting in 13 sites and repiloting a revised version in 6 countries, responses were categorized by the construct tapped and a scoring system developed. Finalized vignettes were then tested in DR Congo, Ecuador and China. Results: Young adolescents can successfully respond to vignettes; and can differentiate self from hypothetical protagonists of same and opposite sex. Response differences by sex of respondent and protagonist were statistically significant across a range of scenarios and settings. Conclusion: This is the first vignettes-based measure for young adolescents assessing young adolescent perceptions of relationships differentiated by sex of the protagonist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops two-stage inverse data envelopment analysis models with undesirable outputs to formulate resource plans for 16 Chinese listed commercial banks whose outputs are increased and overall efficiency is kept unchanged in the short term. We use these models to meet three different output targets, namely, increasing both the desirable and undesirable outputs by the same percentage, increasing these outputs by different percentages, and increasing only the desirable outputs while keeping the undesirable outputs unchanged. We find that operation cost and interest expense are more flexible than labor in the adjustment process and that deposits have no obvious law of change. The findings of this work provide some suggestions for bank managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deterioration of water quality has become a primary environmental concern worldwide. Understanding the status of water quality and identifying the influencing factors are important for water resources management. However, reported analyses have mostly been conducted in small and focused areas. It is still unclear if factors driving spatial variation in water quality would be different in extended spatial scales. In this paper, we analyzed spatial pattern of inland surface water quality in China using a dataset with four water quality parameters (i.e., pH, DO, NH4+-N and CODMn) and the water quality level. We tested the effects of anthropogenic (i.e., land use and socio-economic) and natural (i.e., climatic and topographic) factors on spatial variation in water quality. The study concluded that the overall inland surface water quality in China was at level III (fair). Water quality level was strongly correlated with CODMn and NH4+-N concentration. In contrast to reported studies that suggested land use patterns were the determinants of inland surface water quality, this study revealed that both anthropogenic and natural factors played important roles in explaining spatial variation of inland surface water quality in China. Among the tested explanatory variables, mean elevation within watershed appeared as the best predictor for pH, while annual precipitation and mean air temperature were the most important explanatory variables for CODMn and DO, respectively. NH4+-N concentration and water quality level were most strongly correlated with the percent of forest cover in watershed. Compared to studies at smaller spatial scales, this study found different influencing factors of surface water quality, suggesting that factors may play different roles at different spatial scales of consideration. Therefore management policies and measures in water quality control must be established and implemented accordingly. Since currently adopted parameters for monitoring of inland surface water quality in China are largely influenced by natural variables, additional physicochemical and biological indicators are needed for a robust assessment of human impacts on water quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the causality between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is helpful for policymakers to formulate energy, environmental and economic policies. For the first time, based on nonlinear dynamics, this paper employs multispatial convergent cross mapping (CCM) to revisit the energy-carbon-economy causation for China, India and the G7 countries using both aggregate data and per capita data. The findings indicate that there are significant differences between developing countries and developed countries. A bidirectional nexus between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is found in China and India, but various causal relationships are identified in the G7 countries, including bidirectional, unidirectional and neutral nexus. The results confirm that the decoupling phenomenon is common in most G7 countries. By leveraging a variety of samples and a new approach, this study provides new evidence for policy authorities to formulate country-specific policies to obtain better environmental quality while achieving sustainable economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines a Granger causality test and a VAR model to investigate the relationships among oil price shocks, global economic policy uncertainty (GEPU), and China’s industrial economic growth. Based on monthly data from 2000 to 2017, we reveal that GEPU and world oil prices jointly Granger cause China's industrial economic growth; world oil prices have a positive effect on China's industrial economic growth, while GEPU has a negative effect. Further analyses investigate the asymmetry effect of oil prices and find that the negative component shows a more significant impact on China's industrial economic growth. The results are robust to different oil price and EPU proxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A well reasoned lead (Pb) isotope-driven provenance study lies in concert with a comprehensively evaluated database of geological ore sources and accompanying archaeological and contextual information. In this paper we have compiled and evaluated all currently available Pb isotope data for galena and K-feldspars in China, and provided geological interpretations for how their ore-forming substances evolved across relevant tectonic terrains. We pay particular attention to the geological settings of host ore deposits that were likely exploited in ancient and historic China, detailing the heterogeneity and homogeneity of their ore formation across different metallogenic provinces and belts. Using the isotope database, and supportive geological and archaeological background information, three case studies are presented that detail the provenancing of Chinese cultural materials. The isotope data themselves are presented in ternary diagrams that allow for their concise and accurate comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reasonable micro-pits texture has been initially proved that it can improve friction characteristics between wood and cemented carbide surface and reduce surface friction coefficient. In order to study the cutting performance of the micro-texture when it is applied to the cutting tool for cutting wood more effectively, this paper selected micro-pit texture for studying influence of surface micro-texture cutting tool on wood cutting performance and cutting temperature, finding that when micro-pit cemented carbide cutting tool is adopted for turning the northeast China ash (Fraxinus spp.), it can reduce cutting force of turning and surface friction coefficient between rake face and cuttings. Moreover, for type A and type B cutting tools, when the texture parameters are that the diameter of the micro-pit is 80μm, the depth of the micro pit is: 10μm, area occupancy is 20% and the diameter of the micro-pit is 120μm, the depth of the micro-pit is 10μm and the area occupancy is 20%, the effect generated is the best. When a texture cutting tool is used for cutting, the decrease of the highest temperature in the cutting area is not very great, but the average temperature in the cutting area changes a lot, which is mainly caused by that micro-texture is processed at a position of the rake face close to the main cutting edge and that the highest temperature of cutting is mainly generated on the contact point between tool tip and wood. A reasonable micro-texture parameter can form a layer of liquid lubricating film on the up and down contact surfaces such that the direct contact between cemented carbide and northeast China ash is changed into indirect contact between lubricating films formed by the liquid so as to reduce the surface friction coefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited data exist related to low birth weight (LBW) incidence and risk factors in Western China. This paper aims to assess LBW and its relationship with antenatal care (ANC) in the poor counties of Western China. A community-based study in rural Western China was conducted in 2011. A kernel distribution was used to estimate the adjusted LBW incidence, and associations between LBW and socio-demographic or maternal factors were examined using multilevel logistic regression. Among 8,964 participants, 65.7% were weighed at birth. Crude LBW incidence was 6.6% and the adjusted rate was 9.3%. The study revealed that risk factors of LBW are being female, raised within a minority group, and with a family income below the national poverty line. For maternal risk factors, LBW was positively associated with not attending at least five or eight ANC visits, not receiving any ANC during the first trimester, and not having access to assess certain ANC content (weight, blood pressure, blood test, urine test, B-scan ultrasound, and folic acid supplement). There is urgent need to promote quality ANC in poor and rural areas of Western China and to prioritize vulnerable women and children who will benefit from quality ANC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The glycoprotein known as glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) is abundantly produced on the hyphae and spores of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in soil and roots. Few studies have focused on its amount, composition and associations with soil properties and possible land-use influences, although the data hints at soil rehabilitation. By choosing a primary forest soil as a non-degraded reference, it is possible to explore whether afforestation can improve degraded farmland soil by altering GRSP. In this paper, close correlations were found between various soil properties (soil organic carbon, nitrogen, pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and bulk density) and the GRSP amount, between various soil properties and GRSP composition (main functional groups, fluorescent substances, and elements). Afforestation on farmland decreased the EC and bulk density (p < 0.05). The primary forest had a 2.35–2.56-fold higher GRSP amount than those in the plantation forest and farmland, and GRSP composition (tryptophan-like and fulvic acid-like fluorescence; functional groups of C–H, C–O, and O–H; elements of Al, O, Si, C, Ca, and N) in primary forest differed from those in plantation forest and farmland (p < 0.05). However, no evident differences in GRSP amount and composition were observed between the farmland and the plantation forest. Our finding highlights that 30 years poplar afforestation on degraded farmland is not enough to change GRSP-related properties. A longer period of afforestation with close-to-nature managements may favor the AMF-related underground recovery processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many steel-based cities in China were established between the 1950s and 1960s. After more than half a century of development and boom, these cities are starting to decline and industrial transformation is urgently needed. This paper focuses on evaluating the transformation capability of resource-based cities building an evaluation model. Using Text Mining and the Document Explorer technique as a way of extracting text features, the 200 most frequently used words are derived from 100 publications related to steel- and other resource-based cities. The Expert Evaluation Method (EEM) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) techniques are then applied to select 53 indicators, determine their weights and establish an index system for evaluating the transformation capability of the pillar industry of China’s steel-based cities. Using real data and expert reviews, the improved Fuzzy Relation Matrix (FRM) method is applied to two case studies in China, namely Panzhihua and Daye, and the evaluation model is developed using Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE). The cities’ abilities to carry out industrial transformation are evaluated with concerns expressed for the case of Daye. The findings have policy implications for the potential and required industrial transformation in the two selected cities and other resource-based towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmentally extended input-output analysis (EEIOA) has long been used to quantify global and regional environmental impacts and to clarify emission transfers. Structural path analysis (SPA), a technique based on EEIOA, is especially useful for measuring significant flows in this environmental-economic system. This paper constructs an imports-adjusted single-region input-output (SRIO) model considering only domestic final use elements, and it uses the SPA technique to highlight crucial routes along the production chain in both final use and sectoral perspectives. The results indicate that future mitigation policies on household consumption should change direct energy use structures in rural areas, cut unreasonable demand for power and chemical products, and focus on urban areas due to their consistently higher magnitudes than rural areas in the structural routes. Impacts originating from government spending should be tackled by managing onsite energy use in 3 major service sectors and promoting cleaner fuels and energy-saving techniques in the transport sector. Policies on investment should concentrate on sectoral interrelationships along the production chain by setting up standards to regulate upstream industries, especially for the services, construction and equipment manufacturing sectors, which have high demand pulling effects. Apart from the similar methods above, mitigating policies in exports should also consider improving embodied technology and quality in manufactured products to achieve sustainable development. Additionally, detailed sectoral results in the coal extraction industry highlight the onsite energy use management in large domestic companies, emphasize energy structure rearrangement, and indicate resources and energy safety issues. Conclusions based on the construction and public administration sectors reveal that future mitigation in secondary and tertiary industries should be combined with upstream emission intensive industries in a systematic viewpoint to achieve sustainable development. Overall, SPA is a useful tool in empirical studies, and it can be used to analyze national environmental impacts and guide future mitigation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: The provision of affordable health care is generally considered a fundamental goal of a welfare state. In addition to its role in maintaining and improving the health status of individuals and households, it impacts the economic prosperity of a society through its positive effects on labor productivity. Given this context, this paper assesses socioeconomic-differentials in the impact of out-of-pocket-health-expenditure (OOPHE) on impoverishment in China and India, two of the fastest growing economies of the world. Data and Methods: The paper uses data from the World Health Organisation’s Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (WHO SAGE), and Bivariate as well as Multivariate analyses for investigating the socioeconomic-differentials in the impact of out-of-pocket-health-expenditure (OOPHE) on impoverishment in China and India. Results and Conclusions: Annually, about 7% and 8% of the population in China and India, respectively, fall in poverty due to OOPHE. Also, the percentage shortfall in income for the population from poverty line due to OOPHE is 2% in China and 1.3% in India. Further, findings from the multivariate analysis indicate that lower wealth status and inpatient as well as outpatient care increase the odds of falling below poverty line significantly (with the extent much higher in the case of in-patient care) due to OOPHE in both China and India. In addition, having at least an under-5 child in the household, living in rural areas and having a household head with no formal education increases the odds of falling below poverty line significantly (compared to a head with college level education) due to OOPHE in China; whereas having at least an under-5 child, not having health insurance and residing in rural areas increases the odds of becoming poor significantly due to OOPHE in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important method to obtain the continuous surfaces of soil properties from point samples is spatial interpolation. In this paper, we propose a method that combines ensemble learning with ancillary environmental information for improved interpolation of soil properties (hereafter, EL-SP). First, we calculated the trend value for soil potassium contents at the Qinghai Lake region in China based on measured values. Then, based on soil types, geology types, land use types, and slope data, the remaining residual was simulated with the ensemble learning model. Next, the EL-SP method was applied to interpolate soil potassium contents at the study site. To evaluate the utility of the EL-SP method, we compared its performance with other interpolation methods including universal kriging, inverse distance weighting, ordinary kriging, and ordinary kriging combined geographic information. Results show that EL-SP had a lower mean absolute error and root mean square error than the data produced by the other models tested in this paper. Notably, the EL-SP maps can describe more locally detailed information and more accurate spatial patterns for soil potassium content than the other methods because of the combined use of different types of environmental information; these maps are capable of showing abrupt boundary information for soil potassium content. Furthermore, the EL-SP method not only reduces prediction errors, but it also compliments other environmental information, which makes the spatial interpolation of soil potassium content more reasonable and useful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest fires can cause catastrophic damage on natural resources. In the meantime, it can also bring serious economic and social impacts. Meteorological factors play a critical role in establishing conditions favorable for a forest fire. Effective prediction of forest fire occurrences could prevent or minimize losses. This paper uses count data models to analyze fire occurrence data which is likely to be dispersed and frequently contain an excess of zero counts (no fire occurrence). Such data have commonly been analyzed using count data models such as a Poisson model, negative binomial model (NB), zero-inflated models, and hurdle models. Data we used in this paper is collected from Qiannan autonomous prefecture of Guizhou province in China. Using the fire occurrence data from January to April (spring fire season) for the years 1996 through 2007, we introduced random effects to the count data models. In this study, the results indicated that the prediction achieved through NB model provided a more compelling and credible inferential basis for fitting actual forest fire occurrence, and mixed-effects model performed better than corresponding fixed-effects model in forest fire forecasting. Besides, among all meteorological factors, we found that relative humidity and wind speed is highly correlated with fire occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the emergence of H7N9 influenza in March 2013, local animal and public health authorities in China have been closing live bird markets as a measure to try to control the H7N9 influenza epidemic. The role of live bird market (LBM) closure on the spread of N7N9 influenza following the closure of LBMs during March to May 2013 (the first wave) and October 2013 to March 2014 (the second wave) is described in this paper. Different provinces implemented closure actions at different times, and intensive media reports on H7N9 in different provinces started at different times. Local broiler prices dropped dramatically in places with outbreaks and more live chickens were transported to other LBMs in neighboring areas without human cases from infected areas when live bird markets were being closed. There were six clusters of human infection from March to May 2013 and October 2013 to March 2014 and there may have been intensive poultry transportation among cluster areas. These findings provide evidence that the closure of LBMs in early waves of H7N9 influenza had resulted in expansion of H7N9 infection to uninfected areas. This suggests that provincial authorities in inland provinces should be alert to the risks of sudden changes in movement patterns for live birds after LBM closure or increased publicity about LBM closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catastrophic flooding resulting from extreme meteorological events has occurred more frequently and drawn great attention in recent years in China. In coastal areas, extreme precipitation and storm tide are both inducing factors of flooding and therefore their joint probability would be critical to determine the flooding risk. The impact of storm tide or changing environment on flooding is ignored or underestimated in the design of drainage systems of today in coastal areas in China. This paper investigates the joint probability of extreme precipitation and storm tide and its change using copula-based models in Fuzhou City. The change point at the year of 1984 detected by Mann-Kendall and Pettitt’s tests divides the extreme precipitation series into two subsequences. For each subsequence the probability of the joint behavior of extreme precipitation and storm tide is estimated by the optimal copula. Results show that the joint probability has increased by more than 300% on average after 1984 (α = 0.05). The design joint return period (RP) of extreme precipitation and storm tide is estimated to propose a design standard for future flooding preparedness. For a combination of extreme precipitation and storm tide, the design joint RP has become smaller than before. It implies that flooding would happen more often after 1984, which corresponds with the observation. The study would facilitate understanding the change of flood risk and proposing the adaption measures for coastal areas under a changing environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies indicated that industrialization and urbanization caused serious soil heavy metal pollution from industrialized age. However, fewer previous studies have conducted a combined analysis of the landscape pattern, urbanization, industrialization, and heavy metal pollution. This paper was aimed at exploring the relationships of heavy metals in the soil (Pb, Cu, Ni, As, Cd, Cr, Hg, and Zn) with landscape pattern, industrialisation, urbanisation in Taiyuan city using multivariate analysis. The multivariate analysis included correlation analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), independent-sample T test, and principal component analysis (PCA). Geographic information system (GIS) was also applied to determine the spatial distribution of the heavy metals. The spatial distribution maps showed that the heavy metal pollution of the soil was more serious in the centre of the study area. The results of the multivariate analysis indicated that the correlations among heavy metals were significant, and industrialisation could significantly affect the concentrations of some heavy metals. Landscape diversity showed a significant negative correlation with the heavy metal concentrations. The PCA showed that a two-factor model for heavy metal pollution, industrialisation, and the landscape pattern could effectively demonstrate the relationships between these variables. The model explained 86.71% of the total variance of the data. Moreover, the first factor was mainly loaded with the comprehensive pollution index (P), and the second factor was primarily loaded with landscape diversity and dominance (H and D). An ordination of 80 samples could show the pollution pattern of all the samples. The results revealed that local industrialisation caused heavy metal pollution of the soil, but such pollution could respond negatively to the landscape pattern. The results of the study could provide a basis for agricultural, suburban, and urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]