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Paper mill sludge (PMS) is featured with a high content of cellulose and hemicellulose, and using its characteristics to make paperboard can achieve a high-value utilization of PMS, which has attracted growing interest. In this study, currently prevalent landfill, incineration technologies (generating heat and electricity by incineration), and three paperboard technologies (medium density fiberboard, pulp board, and corrugated paper) were evaluated and compared via life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) methods. LCA results show that the PMS-to-pulp board outperforms others with an energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER) value of − 2.86 × 10−8, while the landfill exhibits the highest overall environmental impact with an ECER value of 4.80 × 10−9. LCC results reveal that the PMS-to-pulp board delivers the highest economic profit with $257.357, while the landfill is the lowest with $ − 35.63. The PMS paperboard technologies are more economically friendly than the incineration technologies due to additional electricity/steam consumption during the PMS pre-drying process in incineration. In addition, different scenarios were set up to explore national GHG emission reduction potential by increasing paperboard technologies application rate and reducing the proportion of landfill and incineration. The scenario analysis suggests that replacing 90% of landfill and incineration ratio with PMS paperboard technologies could tremendously improve the overall emission reduction performance with − 9.08 × 1010 kg CO2 eq. This result indicates that the PMS treatment technology transformation has a significant favorable impact on the achievement of the "carbon neutrality" target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some ancient Chinese paper artifacts dyed with amur cork tree bark extracts are currently preserved to different extents in museums and libraries worldwide. As traditional natural plant dyes, the long-term performance of the amur cork tree bark extract-dyed handmade paper has been questioned under a preserved environment. The photodegradation process of the extract-dyed papers was examined under accelerating artificial UVA irradiation conditions according to China national standard-paper and board- accelerated aging (exposure to light). Changes during aging were analyzed by optical observation and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), pH, and tensile strength and folding endurance tests. The results showed that the main components from extracted dyes played an important role in affecting the photodegradation properties of dyed paper. The changes in surface color, pH, morphology and mechanical properties after the artificial UVA accelerated degradation tests revealed that a suitable concentration of the extract dyes for maintaining the long-term irradiation stability of the paper is important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congestion is a well-known economic phenomenon in which excessive inputs lead to a decrease in the maximum possible outputs. This study analyzes the relationship between congestion and overinvestment using a data envelopment analysis framework to reveal that some congestion can be eliminated by increasing inputs. The proposed approach classifies congestion into two categories, relative and absolute congestion, depending on the possibility of eliminating congestion by increasing inputs. Corresponding methods for identifying and measuring congestion are proposed and employed for empirical analyses examining China's papermaking and paper products industry. We find that most congestion in 2013–2016 is in the relative congestion and could be eliminated by increasing inputs. The primary causes of congestion are identified based on our analysis and corresponding policy suggestions are proposed for eliminating congestion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Paper mills" are unethical outsourcing agencies proficient in fabricating fraudulent manuscripts submitted to scholarly journals. In earlier years, the activity of such companies involved plagiarism, but their processes have gained complexity, involving the fabrication of images and fake results. The objective of this study is to examine the main features of retracted paper mills' articles registered in the Retraction Watch database, from inception to the present, analyzing the number of articles per year, their number of citations, and their authorship network. Eligibility criteria for inclusion: retracted articles in any language due to paper mill activity. Retraction letters, notes, and notices, for exclusion. We collected the associated citations and the journals' impact factors of the retracted papers from Web of Science (Clarivate) and performed a data network analysis using VOSviewer software. This scoping review complies with PRISMA 2020 statement and main extensions. After a thorough analysis of the data, we identified 325 retracted articles due to suspected operations published in 31 journals (with a mean impact factor of 3.1). These retractions have produced 3708 citations. Nearly all retracted papers have come from China. Journal's impact factor lower than 7, life sciences journals, cancer, and molecular biology topics were common among retracted studies. The rapid increase of retractions is highly challenging. Paper mills damage scientific research integrity, exacerbating fraud, plagiarism, fake images, and simulated results. Rheumatologists should be fully aware of this growing phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A PVA matrix was used to suppress infiltration and coffee-ring effects during colorimetric analysis on a paper substrate and improve the trace-level detection of nickel ions (Ni2+) in environmental samples. To improve the color response, a cross-linked PVA matrix was used to anchor the indicator reagent of Ni2+ on the surface of the porous paper substrate as well as reduce evaporation flow by increasing hydrogen bonding in the sample droplet. These phenomena mitigated the loss of color signal by suppressing infiltration and coffee-ring effects. Under optimized conditions, including crosslinker concentration and addition order, type of commercial filter paper, and loading volume of the PVA/indicator mixture, the sensor obtained a limit of detection (LOD) as low as 0.92 ppm and a notable linear behavior of R2 > 0.97 at a linear range of 0.5–50 ppm, which is sufficient for the detection of legal maximum residue limit (MRL) of Ni2+ in wastewaters in China. The PVA-assisted sensor showed good selectivity to most metal ions and could work at different pH levels ranging from 3 to 9. The sensor also exhibited highly sensitive and stable performance in repetitive measurements and had a shelf-life of more than 3 months. These results suggest that our work provides a facile approach to improving the sensitivity and reliability of paper-based sensors for monitoring trace-level Ni2+ concentration in aqueous samples with good selectivity and prolonged shelf-life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's pulp and paper industry (CPPI) has been always the main carbon emission source in recent years. However, the analysis on influencing factors of carbon emissions from this industry is insufficient. To address the issue, the CO2 emissions from CPPI are estimated in the period of 2005–2019, the driving factors of CO2 emissions are investigated by the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method, the decoupling state of economic growth and CO2 emissions is determined by Tapio decoupling model, and finally, future CO2 emissions are predicted under four scenarios by the STIRPAT model to explore the potential of carbon peaking. The results show that CPPI exhibits a rapid increase and a fluctuating downward trend in CO2 emissions during the period of 2005–2013 and 2014–2019, respectively. The main promoting and inhibiting factors to the increase of CO2 emission are per capita industrial output value and energy intensity, respectively. There are five decoupling states of CO2 emissions and economic growth during the study period, and the CO2 emissions exhibit a weak decoupling state with the industrial output value growth in most years of the study period. It is very difficult to realize the carbon peaking goal by 2030 under the baseline and fast development scenarios. Therefore, efficient low carbon and strong low-carbon development policies are necessary and urgent for the realization of carbon peaking goal and the sustainable development of CPPI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Over the last few decades, gut microbiota research has been the focus of intense research and this field has become particularly important. This research aimed to provide a quantitative evaluation of the 100 most-cited articles on gut microbiota and IBS and highlight the most important advances in this field. Methods: The database Web of Science Core Collection was used to download the bibliometric information the top 100 most-cited papers. Microsoft Excel 2021, CiteSpace, VOSviewer, R software, and an online analytical platform (https://bibliometric.com/) were was applied to perform bibliometric analysis of these papers. Results: The total citation frequency in the top 100 article ranged from 274 to 2324, with an average citation of 556.57. A total of 24 countries/regions made contributions to the top 100 cited papers, and USA, Ireland, and China were the most top three productive countries. Cryan JF was the most frequently nominated author, and of the top 100 articles, 20 listed his name. Top-cited papers mainly came from the Gastroenterology (n = 13, citations = 6373) and Gut (n = 9, citations = 3903). There was a significant citation path, indicating publications in molecular/biology/immunology primarily cited journals in molecular/biology/genetics fields. Keywords analysis suggested that the main topics on gut microbiota and IBS were mechanisms of microbiome in brain-gut axis." Behavior" was the keyword with the strongest burst strength (2.36), followed by "anxiety like behavior" (2.24), "intestinal microbiota" (2.19), and "chain fatty acid" (1.99), and "maternal separation" (1.95). Conclusion: This study identified and provided the bibliometric information of the top 100 cited publications related to gut microbiota and IBS. The results provided a general overview of this topic and might help researchers to better understand the evolution, Influential findings and hotspots in researching gut microbiota and IBS, thus providing new perspectives and novel research ideas in this specific area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic waste is always a big problem when it comes to the disposal of electronic appliances, and they pose a significant threat ecologically. New technology replaces the existing one, and the older one is discarded. Biodegradable electronics, as an emerging research area, gives viable solutions to the problem of E-waste. It mainly deals with the development of transient electronic devices, i.e., getting decomposed gradually or dissolvable in an eco-friendly way when their purpose has been achieved. This paper presents a scientometric analysis of the research in biodegradable electronics by employing a Scopus database of more than 1109 research articles, conference papers, review papers, and books published on this topic. This study is done over two decades of data from 2003 to 2023 on biodegradable electronics. It describes the trends and future of the research area using keyword analysis, citation network, and bibliometric tools. The study of the number of papers shows a 68%, 75%, and 55% increase in research articles, conference papers, and review documents in 2022. The country-wise contribution to the research shows that China, the USA, India, and South Korea are the major contributing nations. China is the most productive nation, with 297 publications. This paper reveals that the research area has increased the interest of researchers, and countries are collaborating to achieve sustainable development goals. The bibliometric analysis identifies various challenges to biodegradable electronics, such as degradation diversity, integration, fabrication and scalability. Based on these, the future aspects of biodegradable electronics are identified in organic bioelectronics, soft electronics, novel fabrication mechanisms, and Innovative chemistry for green electronics. This study will aid academia, researchers and government agencies in exploring biodegradable electronics with multifaceted society-wide applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive daytime radiative cooling (PRDC) is a promising technology providing a cooling strategy that radiates heat directly into outer space without additional energy consumption, a crucial consideration in controlling construction energy consumption. However, the preparation of PRDC materials with controlled radiative properties is still challenging because the radiative interface must be maintained in a clean environment. Herein, a densely distributed porous hybrid aerogel with controlled radiative properties was fabricated using the wollastonite and cellulose as building blocks for building energy-saving applications. To do this, the cellulose pulp was obtained by using waste paper as raw material. Then, the hybrid aerogels, comprising paper cellulose and wollastonite particles, were fabricated by combining the acrylic acid polymers (PAA) bonding, freeze drying and vapor deposition modification. The radiative cooling hybrid aerogel exhibits high solar reflectivity (94.6%) and high atmospheric emissivity (95.1%), due to the laminated design of wollastonite randomly dispersed in the radiative hybrid aerogel. The excellent PRDC capability is also proven by outdoor tests where practical temperature difference is ~ 6.3 ℃ and the maximum cooling power of 147.4 Wm−2 under direct sun irradiance. Wettability test infers that the hybrid aerogel has a static water contact angle of 144.07° ± 2°, thereby indicating its hydrophobicity. In addition, based on the Energyplus simulation, the hybrid aerogel exhibits an average annual cooling energy saving of 8% in buildings across China. The excellent radiative cooling and self-cleaning properties of hybrid aerogel make it durable for long-term outdoor PRDC applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature ignores to consider multiple types of pollutants when analyzing energy efficiency and its convergence. Under this background, using SuperSBM-GML model, the improved entropy method, and convergence model, this paper calculates the green total-factor energy efficiency and its evolution trend of 35 China's industrial sub-sectors considering multiple pollutants, and analyzes its convergence. The results indicate that the average score of industrial green total-factor energy efficiency is low, and there are significant differences among sub-sectors: "Utilization of waste resources" is the highest, while "Manufacture of paper and paper products" is the lowest. The green total-factor energy efficiency shows an overall upward trend from 2006 to 2021, the main driving force comes from technological progress, but numerous sub-sectors have not sufficiently caught up with existing cutting-edge technologies. Specifically, the growth rate of green total-factor energy efficiency in high-energy-consumption sub-sectors is higher than low-to-medium-energy-consumption sub-sectors. There are both σ-convergence and β-convergence in low-to-medium-energy-consumption group, indicating that development of sub-sectors is stable and outstanding. Nevertheless, the high-energy-consumption group only exhibits conditional β-convergence, revealing an imbalance in energy efficiency development. Consequently, formulating the benchmark level of energy efficiency and developing energy efficiency "leader" system are suggested for low-to-medium and high-energy-consumption sub-sectors, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "Eliminating congestion in China's papermaking and paper products industry: from both the perspective of increasing and decreasing inputs" published in the Journal of Productivity Analysis. The authors acknowledge that there is overlap and duplication between their paper and a previously published paper, and they apologize for not acknowledging this in their article. The correction notice provides the correct citation for the original article and states that the authors regret the lack of transparency regarding the similarities between the two papers. [Extracted from the article]

Improving carbon emission efficiency is crucial for achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality. This paper analyzes the carbon emission efficiency of Chinese cities using panel data from 275 prefecture-level cities between 2006 and 2020. The super-efficiency SBM (undesirable slacks-based measurement) model of undesired output, combined with kernel density estimation and exploratory data analysis, is employed. This study finds, firstly, from 2006 to 2020, the average efficiency of carbon emissions in Chinese cities declined from 0.53 to 0.48, indicating a downward trend. Secondly, from a temporal perspective, the level of dispersion in urban carbon emission efficiency has become increasingly distinct over time, coupled with a decrease in polarization. Thirdly, in terms of spatial analysis, urban carbon emission efficiency in China shows a positive correlation in a global context. In terms of local spatial correlation, it primarily exhibits high-high and low-low clusters, with a few instances of low–high and high-low clusters. Finally, based on the research findings, this paper proposes suggestions to improve urban carbon emission efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital finance generated by technology empowerment profoundly affects the innovative behavior of micro-enterprises. To estimate how digital finance influences the quantity and quality of green technological innovation, this paper introduces digital finance into endogenous economic growth model and further conducts correlation analysis with the combination of fixed effects model (FE) and panel threshold model (PTM). Moreover, this paper investigates the action mechanism from the perspective of financial constraint and financial cost. The empirical results indicate that digital finance improves the quantity and quality of green technological innovation significantly. Compared with the coverage of digital finance and digital services, the impact of usage depth on green innovation accumulates dynamically superimposed in the long term. The digital finance contributes to correct the mismatch of financial resources and further induces inclusive green innovation in the dimension of ownership, growth cycle, and enterprise scale. Mechanism analysis shows that the relief of financial constraint, environmental information disclosure, and increase of R&D investment are the main paths for digital finance to drive green innovation. With the different thresholds, the dynamic evolution process of green innovation driven by digital finance is characterized by "first quantitative change and then qualitative change." This paper suggests that the integration of technological innovation and digital financial services needs to build an inclusive digital financial service system, cultivate diversified financial formats, and improve the market environment of digital financial services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maritime sector plays a key role in transportation in the world, and over 90% of world trade is carried by ocean shipping. However, ships are large contributors to global emissions. Hence, a vast majority of research publications have focused on different emission monitoring techniques, which are essential to establishing required policies and regulations that reduce maritime transport emissions. Various documents have been published on monitoring maritime transport emissions affecting air quality since 1977. This paper presents a bibliometric analysis to explore evolution trends, gaps, challenges, and productive countries, as well as the most cited publications with high scholarly impacts. The annual growth of 9.64% in publications demonstrates an increasing interest in reducing maritime vessel emissions. Journal articles constitute 69% of publications, followed by conference papers (25%). China and the USA play a leading role in this field of research. Regarding active resources, the "Atmospheric Environment" journal accounts for the highest relevant publications, H-index, and total citations. Eventually, the temporal evolution of keywords shows the increasing trend towards sustainable maritime transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon abatement efforts in China are penetrating to sub-national level. Zhejiang province, as the 4th wealthy region in China and important player in global market (e.g., textiles, cloth, petroleum, and chemical products), lacks in-depth study of its climate change mitigation efforts, especially after China's accession to the WTO in 2001. This paper analyzed carbon emissions and intensity in Zhejiang province using most comprehensive and time-series dataset available to date since 2002. Its carbon emissions were growing at a declining speed, and carbon intensity was almost halved. The leading emitters largely agglomerate around Hangzhou Bay, close to Zhoushan Port and Shanghai Port. The growth in absolute emissions primarily arose from higher investment (323.1 Mt) and exports (280.6 Mt), while the slower growth was mainly due to efficiency improvements (− 245.7 Mt) stemming from energy and carbon abatement policies and inflows of emission-intensive products from the rest of China. Similarly, declined carbon intensity was mainly attributed to efficiency improvement. Major contributors were sector S13-Non-metallic minerals, S12-Chemicals, S26-Transport, storage and post, S07-Textiles, and S10-Paper. Economic restructuring played different roles on emissions and intensity during various development stages. Policy implications of the findings are discussed for future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the carrier of enterprise water resources management disclosure, water information disclosure is a means of expression of enterprises' environmental responsibility. First, a corporate water information disclosure quality evaluation index system and evaluation method are established, and with the help of the projection tracing method of accelerated genetic algorithm, 27 paper companies in China are selected as a sample and the disclosure quality level is analyzed empirically. Then, the analysis is carried out in terms of three changes in vertical trends, horizontal trends and changes in laws, regulations and policies, and the results show that Chinese paper and paper product enterprises have low quality of water information disclosure, weak disclosure content and low voluntary disclosure. Finally, feasible suggestions are made based on the evaluation of disclosure issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer-based testing (CBT), which refers to delivering assessments with computers, has been widely used in large English proficiency tests worldwide. Despite an increasing CBT in China, limited research is available concerning whether CBT can be used for the Test for English Majors-Band 4 (TEM 4). The current study investigated whether testing mode impacted TEM 4 score and factors (i.e., computer familiarity level and attitude towards CBT) that might correlate with performance on CBT of TEM 4. Overall 92 Chinese undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of the groups, i.e., CBT or paper-based testing (PBT), and took the test. A mixed method was employed, including (1) quantitative and qualitative analysis of test performance in two modes, as well as CBT group participants' computer familiarity and attitudes towards the mode; and (2) thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that (1) test scores in CBT and PBT were comparable; (2) two items in the computer familiarity questionnaire, i.e., comfort level of reading articles on the computer and forgetting time when using computers, positively correlated with CBT scores; and (3) participants' attitude towards CBT did not impact test performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, being the world's largest exporter, has now certain environmental commitments such as to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. These commitments of China has raised a reasonable concern regarding the expected reduction in the production and export of pollution intensive goods in the future. Besides China, the most efficient countries in the region to produce these goods are most of the member countries from ASEAN. The current study therefore aims to analyze if in the future, China reduces the production and export of these goods, whether the selected ASEAN countries can be the next choice for the export of pollution intensive goods. Based on the data availability for the period 1990–2019, this study considers five selected ASEAN countries (ASEAN-5). The results are based on the Auto Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to cointegration and Error Correction Modeling (ECM). The aggregate analysis of five pollution intensive goods (pulp and paper (341), industrial chemicals (351), non-metallic minerals products (369), iron and steel (371) and non-ferrous metals (372)) suggests that Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow can significantly increase the export of pollution intensive goods only in case of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. However, there is no significant effect of FDI on the export of pollution intensive goods in case of Philippines and Singapore. The disaggregate analyses of the five pollution intensive goods suggest that in each of the ASEAN-5 countries, FDI inflow can significantly increase the export of pollution intensive goods in some of these industries rather than in all of them. In nutshell, it is concluded that ASEAN-5 countries can be a potential choice for the export of pollution intensive goods in some of the pollution intensive industries but not in all of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuous expansion of the construction scale of smart city has reconstructed the urban information pattern. How to maintain the stability of information security while giving full play to the role of information sharing is a practical problem that must be solved for the sustainable development of smart city. Based on the information ecology theory, this paper construct the smart city information security risk evaluation system from six aspects. Then, zGT2FSs is established based on type-2 fuzzy set theory and IAA method, which fully considers the internal and external uncertainty of expert decision-making. According to the calculation results, the key influencing factors of information security risk of smart city are analyzed to provide suggestions and guidance for the formulation of information security control in the process of smart city construction in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on mountain ecosystem services (MES) under the influence of climate change and human activities has gradually become the focus of academic attention in recent years. Here, this study analyzes the research hotspots and frontiers of this field based on metrics including main research forces, core journals and papers, research hotspots and topics by using the methods of bibliometrics and text mining. The results revealed the following: (1) the number of papers is increasing rapidly in recent years. From 2015 to 2019, 929 papers were published, with an average of 185 papers per year. But the average cited times of those papers is declining, dropped from 6.01 in 2016 to 4.2 in 2019. The USA, UK, and China rank the top three of the number of papers. Univ Maryland, Univ Oxford and Univ Wisconsin have the greatest influence, with an average of more than 77 citations per paper; (2) The most cited journals are PNAS, WETLANDS, ECOLOGY, AND SOCIETY, which are cited 191.54, 53.91, and 40.00 respectively. Most papers were published in OA journals including SUSTAINABILITY, WATER, Forests since 2017. Ten core papers undertaking knowledge transfer in this field have been identified; (3) analysis of the keywords found a new trend of integration of natural science and humanities. In two development stages of 2000–2014 and 2015–2019, the research hotspots mainly focused on mountain water resources, forest resources, land resources and the impact of climate change and human activities, and there are obvious differences and characteristics in different stages. The hotspot worthy of attention in the near future is the assessment of mountain ecosystem services capacity and value. This is the first comprehensive visualization and analysis of the research hotspots and trends of mountain ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with financial information, whether corporate social responsibility disclosure has impacts on debt financing cost has obviously become a heated topic in the academic. This paper selects A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets of China from 2013 to 2017 as sample to study the impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure on debt financing cost, including bond financing cost and bank loan cost. In addition, this paper divides the sample into voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure group and mandatory corporate social responsibility disclosure group and studies whether the effects of voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure and mandatory corporate social responsibility disclosure on bond financing cost and bank loan cost are different. The empirical results are presented as follows: Firstly, enterprise disclosing high-quality corporate social responsibility report is more conducive to reducing the debt financing cost. Specifically, corporate social responsibility disclosure significantly lowers both the bond financing cost and bank loan cost. Moreover, the reduction impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure on bond financing cost is greater than that of bank loan cost. Secondly, enterprises voluntarily disclosing corporate social responsibility reports are more conducive to reducing the debt financing cost than that of enterprises mandatorily disclosing corporate social responsibility reports. Thirdly, non-state-owned enterprises are more conducive to reducing debt financing cost than that of state-owned enterprise. The enterprises with more market competition are more conducive to reducing the debt financing cost than the oligopolistic enterprises. Finally, this paper concludes and gives policy implications. This paper amplifies the literature regarding the economic consequences of corporate social responsibility disclosure and improves the understanding of the impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure on debt financing cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy shortage and excessive carbon emissions have become the main constraints to the sustainable development of China's logistics industry. Improving the efficiency of the logistics industry is crucial to promoting regional ecological environment protection and sustainable development of the logistics industry. In this paper, the efficiency of China's logistics industry in 2013–2019 is evaluated by using the non-oriented EBM model considering the unexpected output, and then the influencing factors of the efficiency of the logistics industry in the central region are analyzed by using the panel Tobit model. The results show that the logistics industry in the central region is at a low efficiency level. Factors, such as the level of economic development, industrial structure and technical level have a significant positive impact on the efficiency of the logistics industry in the central region, while factors such as government support and logistics infrastructure have a significant negative impact on the efficiency of the logistics industry in the central region. Finally, the paper puts forward some targeted recommendations for the sustainable development of the logistics industry in the central region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to clarify the suction characteristics of unsaturated clay under different conditions of water and salt, taking soil in western Jilin province, China as the research object, the suctions (matrix suction and osmotic suction) of samples with different water content, salt type, and salt content were determined by filter paper method. The results indicate that salt type and content have insignificant influence on the matrix suction. With the increase of water content, the matrix suction decreases at different rates in different suction regimes. When water content is constant, the osmotic suction increases with the increase of salt content, and under the condition of a constant salt content, the osmotic suction first increases and then decreases with the increase of ion concentration of the pore water, and can reach tens of MPa. The concept of suction equilibrium water content is proposed. When water content of sample is higher than this value, the magnitude of osmotic suction will always be greater than that of matrix suction. This indicates the necessity to consider osmotic suction in the presence or change of salt in soil. The applicability of the traditional models of matrix suction and osmotic suction in the full suction range of clay is discussed, and it is found that the traditional models cannot make a full explanation to the variation in suction. Based on the experimental data, an improved van Genuchten matrix suction model and an osmotic suction model, transformed by the Planck blackbody radiation formula, are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU and China are both partners and competitors. They share certain common interests but have disagreements on some other issues. Both sides have published a number of policy papers in the past three decades: six by the EU and three by China. This paper will first examine the EU's policy papers one by one to find how the EU's China policy evolves and then look at China's EU policy papers to understand its objectives in relationship with the EU and compare the convergences and divergences between the EU and China revealed by these policy papers. In doing so, some keywords are selected from these documents. Some of them demonstrate how the relationship evolves and some others reveal the rising differences between the two. As the policy papers are important official documents to understand the objectives and actions of both the EU and China, a study of these policy papers would help highlight from where the relationship came and to where it is going. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green bonds, a new green financial instrument, encourage enterprises to achieve high-quality development through green technology innovation. However, a lack of research is currently being conducted into the effect of green bond issuance in China. Can green bonds effectively empower enterprises to green innovation? What is the underlying mechanism? In the context of carbon-neutral strategies, it is significant to answer these questions scientifically. This paper uses a quasi-natural experiment of the launch of the green bond market in China in 2016 to conduct empirical studies based on the panel data of 1 558 non-financial Chinese-listed enterprises from 2015 to 2020 with the multi-period difference-in-difference model. The results show that ① issuing green bonds can significantly empower enterprises' green technology innovation. The empowering effect is mainly for green utility patents rather than green invention patents. This result remains after dynamic heterogeneity analysis, placebo test, and other tests. In addition, the effect has a lag. ② Heterogeneity tests show that this empowerment effect varies across enterprises with different property rights, industries, and regions. ③ In terms of the mechanism of action, green bonds can enhance enterprises' ability to innovate green technology by increasing the proportion of long-term loans and improving their debt structure. This paper broadens the relevant literature on the economic consequences of green bonds and the influencing factors of enterprises' green technology innovation and provides policy suggestions for further improving the analysis of green bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the theory of developmental evaluation, this paper develops a new development-oriented research evaluation model called "four abilities", with "basic development ability", "process development ability", "achievement ability" and "influence ability" as key dimensions, which can be applied in different situations such as recruitment, performance appraisal, promotion evaluation, tenure review, and selection of honorary academic awards. Based on the data from the Youth Fund of the Ministry of Management Science of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) from 2014 to 2018, this paper takes the developmental evaluation of early career researchers as an example, treating the existing research output as the development goal and the "development ability" of early career researchers as the explanatory factor. Then the propensity score matching method (PSM) method is adopted to control the sample self-selection bias in the way of reverse order evaluation, so as to explain whether the guiding indicator "development ability" is conducive to the development of researchers. The results indicate that strong "process development ability" of newly recruited researchers in the first 3 years of employment period can significantly promote their future research performance, which has important implications for the current evaluative culture overemphasizing short-term output. Through the application of the "four abilities" model integrating various dimensions composed of potential, capacity, output and impact, researchers at different career stages are guided to concentrate more on long-term academic mission and to achieve better career development based on their differentiated development needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of society, the number of female-headed households is on the rise. Based on the data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2019, this paper establishes a Tobit model to study the influence of female-headed households on household debt risk. Results indicate that female-headed households can substantially reduce household debt risk, and this conclusion still holds after overcoming endogeneity issues. Further tests on the mediating effect reveal that risk aversion and housing property holding have partial mediating effects and masking effects, respectively, in the path of female-headed households affecting household debt risk. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis indicates that the influence of female-headed households on household debt risk is more significant in third-tier cities, as well as in families without children, families without elderly members, and families with more than two elderly members. The conclusions of this paper provide a reference for the relevant policy measures to reduce household debt risk and promote gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1990, a large and dynamic global science system has evolved, based on grass roots collaboration, and resting on the resources, infrastructure and personnel housed by national science systems. Euro-American science systems have become intensively networked in a global duopoly; and many other countries have built national science systems, including a group of large- and middle-sized countries that follow semi-autonomous trajectories based on state investment, intensive national network building, and international engagement, without integrating tightly into the global duopoly. The dual global/national approach pursued by these systems, including China, South Korea, Iran and India, is not always fully understood in papers on science. Nevertheless, China is now the number two science country in the world, the largest producer of papers and number one in parts of STEM physical sciences. The paper investigates the remarkable evolution of China's science funding, output, discipline balance, internationalisation strategy and national and global networking. China has combined global activity and the local/national building of science in positive sum manner, on the ground of the nationally nested science system. The paper also discusses limits of the achievement, noting that while China-US relations have been instrumental in building science, a partial decoupling is occurring and the future is unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic relationship has been the cornerstone of the China-EU relation as well as the China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership which was established in 2003. On the other side of the coin, economic relations have been main sources of disputes between China and the EU since the 2005–2006 textile disputes. This paper examines their mutual perceptions in this field as one way of explaining the development of the bilateral relationship, supported by substantial empirical data. It is found that the successful economic development of China has generated different perceptions between the EU and China. With the difference in the development level reducing, the EU side was concerned more about the rise of China, while the Chinese side emphasised more the relative decline of the EU's economic might. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important foundation of cargo transportation, logistics plays a vital role in developing international trade. Based on the international logistics performance index (LPI) and the sample data of the "Belt and Road" initiative countries from 2011 to 2022, this paper uses the extended trade gravity model to explore the impact of the logistics performance of the "Belt and Road" initiative countries on China's import and export trade. The empirical results show that the improvement of the logistics performance level of the countries along the "Belt and Road" Initiative has a certain role in promoting the growth of China's trade volume to the country, and the improvement of LPI has a more significant positive impact on China's import and export to large-scale countries along the route. Finally, according to the analysis of empirical results, this paper puts forward specific suggestions to promote the development of logistics performance and import and export trade, which provides some reference value for implementing the "Belt and Road" initiative and improving national logistics and trade level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud model similarity algorithm is an important part of cloud modelling theory. Most of the existing cloud model similarity algorithms suffer from poor discriminability, poor classification, unstable results, and low time efficiency. In this paper, a new similarity algorithm is proposed that considers the triangular cloud model distance and shape. First, according to the D T distance formula, a new exponential closeness measure is defined, with which the distance similarity of cloud models is characterized. Then, the shape similarity is calculated according to the variance of the cloud model cloud drops. Finally, the two similarities are synthesized to define a similarity algorithm for determining the distance from the D T distance formula and shape based on the triangular cloud model (DDTSTCM). In this paper, discriminability, stability, efficiency and theoretical interpretability are taken as the evaluation indices. Equipment security system capability evaluation experiment, cloud model differentiation simulation experiment and time series classification accuracy experiment are set up to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm in terms of the four above aspects. The experimental results show that DDTSTCM has good differentiation and excellent classification effects. In the classification experiment for the time series, the average classification accuracy of DDTSTCM reaches 91.78%, which is at least 2.78% higher than those of the other seven commonly used algorithms. The CPU running efficiency of DDTSTCM is also extremely high, and the average CPU running time of group training is always on the order of milliseconds, which effectively reduces the time cost. Finally, a case study is conducted to analyse a risk assessment problem for China's island microgrid industry, and the evaluation results based on DDTSTCM are in line with human cognition and have good value for engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to evaluate the beneficiation plant environment in a more scientific and reasonable way, this paper took the workshop environment of the beneficiation plant as the research object. This paper divided the beneficiation plant into 7 evaluation units according to its functions. The evaluation indices are dust, noise, light environment, microclimate, benzene, toluene and xylene. This paper combines the G1 method and the entropy weight method to evaluate the weight of each evaluation index, the element extension model of the concentrator working environment is established by the element analysis method, and the matter element analysis method is used to establish an evaluation index system of a beneficiation plant in East China. The results show that the evaluation level of the breaking workshop and the auxiliary facilities are unqualified, the auxiliary facility is qualified, the culling workshop, culled yard and accessory building are medium, the screening workshop and grinding workshop are good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the internal heterogeneity within the informal economy by examining the working conditions of migrant informal workers in China. It presents the first attempt to test the WIEGO model on the relationship between informality, income, poverty and gender. Based on 107,020 samples of informal workers from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS), economic, social and occupational health components of working conditions of migrant informal workers in five employment-status tiers are analysed. The results show the significant heterogeneity within informal workers in terms of their income, working intensity, labour contracts, social security, union and community support. The relationships between the informal employment tiers and income, poverty and gender show a pattern that is not fully in line with the WIEGO model, suggesting the complexity and plurality of heterogeneities in informal employment. The paper concludes by calling for research on regional varieties of the heterogeneity in informal employment worldwide to better understand the unfolding of the inequality-informality nexus in specific contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deep sea has abundant resources and is regarded as the "sixth continent" that humans can use. Although research on the deep sea has made some progress, its exploration is not deep enough. The acquisition and analysis of deep-sea images can provide important technical means for deep-sea exploration and the acquisition of information. However, there is currently no complete underwater image dataset. For this reason, this paper is the first deep-sea visual dataset of the South China Sea, contains over 100 TB videos and 1 million high quality images. This paper also applies the dataset to underwater image enhancement and image superresolution, and the experiment proves the effectiveness of the dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, there exists a huge debate for a long time on whether a double dividend, reducing pollution emissions and boosting employment, can be achieved by intensifying environmental regulations. In this paper, we use two data sets on provincial environmental legislation and Chinese manufacturing firms during 1998–2013, to estimate the impact of provincial environmental legislation on the firms' employment growth with a difference-in-difference (DID) model. Results showed that (1) after the implementation of environmental legislation, the employment growth of regulated manufacturing firms decreases significantly by 3.07%, and this result is robust to alternative tests. (2) Local environmental legislation reduces employment growth mainly via the influencing mechanism of the firm's entry and exit, export, and innovation. (3) The local environmental legislation has heterogeneous impacts on employment growth in different industries and different regions, and the estimated effect is more obvious in high-pollution industries and areas with strong enforcement. (4) Environmental legislation significantly improves job destruction and reduces job creation, resulting in a − 3.86% job net increase. Due to the long-term implementation of extensive economic growth mode, China's ecological environment has been deteriorating since the 1990s, and environmental pollution has attracted more and more social attention. Until 2013, the Communist Party of China put forward 'ecological civilization', and building a beautiful new China with harmonious coexistence between man and nature has become an important development strategy. Meanwhile, starting from the implementation of the Two-Control-Zone policy in 1998, China has implemented numerous environmental policies in just ten years. These environmental policies have greatly improved the quality of China's ecological environment, but their economic effects have been controversial. Given the special historical period, this paper helps assess the impact of Chinese environmental policies on employment and provides a more objective policy evaluation and implications for improving existing laws and regulations to achieve higher social welfare. To achieve this goal of balancing the improvement of the ecological environment and high employment level, environmental policies firstly should be flexible to ensure that the environmental standards follow the firm's characteristics and regional characteristics to avoid "one size fits all". Particularly, for regions with poor economic development or having a single industrial structure, the implementation cycle of the environmental policies should be extended to ensure that they have enough time to achieve industrial restructuring and complete the environmental protection goals. Secondly, we find that environmental legislation hurts employment growth by limiting export decisions, so the government should use multiple channels to stabilize export when implementing environmental legislation. Thirdly, technological R&D and innovation play an important role in the effect of environmental legislation on firms' employment growth. Therefore, the government should provide a more flexible environment for firms' R&D and innovation with appropriate fiscal policies and technical support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to enlighten current and future research trends on political connections by providing complete bibliometric mapping through network studies on political connections. Utilizing Biblioshiny, the Bibliometrics R package, multi-perspective research publications on political connections from 2003 to the third quarter of 2023 were discovered and analyzed. This bibliometric analysis provides valuable insights regarding current and future publications on political connections. The most prolific contributors, the most used keywords, the most productive countries and sources, the most cited publications, and the most productive sources of information are network analysis data about co-occurrence networks. The discourse revolves around issue mapping data on political connection studies. The search method used to find related literature is the Scopus database. This research contributes valuable information to help other researchers map ongoing and future investigations into political connections. This bibliometric analysis of 294 documents is the first regarding political connections known to researchers. This evaluation emphasizes annual publication trends, authors, publications, countries, organizations, and most productive sources, determining potential future research objectives. The research on political connections was published in early 2003. No papers were released on this subject for 3 years after 2003 (2003–2005), which shows that the growth of this academic field slowed down for ten years. There were significant changes in 2011, and many more linked papers have been released. Authors from the USA and China significantly contributed to the initial scientific journal papers on their political connections. Hong Kong, China, and Australia are recognized as leading nations in scholarly contributions to studying political connections. Chinese scholars spearheaded the collaborative publication effort focused on political connections, with the USA and Australian experts following suit. Based on indexed terms, political connections, sustainable development, and financial performance are trending keywords. These results show possible directions for further research into political connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on China's political influence in international affairs, as mediated by Chinese economic integration with the BRI countries. We propose that the BRI plays a role in influencing partner countries to support China's presence in the international community, and the economic integration of the BRI positively mediates the willingness of partner countries to align with China in international affairs. This paper uses panel data from 147 BRI countries collected between 2009 and 2020, and the difference-in-differences method, to estimate the political influence of the BRI. The results suggest that the BRI motivates partner countries to support the growth of China's influence in international affairs. The results of the causal mechanism analysis indicate that a significant and positive association between the implementation of the BRI and China's influence is mediated by promoting Chinese contracts, trade overseas, and outward FDI. The examinations of heterogeneity demonstrate that BRI countries that are developing, non-landlocked, non-neighboring, having signed the memorandum of understanding or cooperation memorandum of understanding, or lacking a Chinese investment guide are more likely to support China's political presence. This paper concludes with insights into how China implements the BRI to enhance its political ascent in the global order by facilitating economic integration of the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Chinese government has initiated assertive centralization efforts in its approach to environmental governance. However, the efficacy of these initiatives demonstrates marked variability across different sectors. While the central-local relational framework has traditionally been employed to elucidate these disparities, its explanatory power is showing signs of strain. This paper, through policy analysis and field interviews, investigates regulatory conflicts in land use for ecological and agricultural purposes within China. The findings highlight instances of overlapping jurisdictions and discordant policy objectives among agencies responsible for delineating ecological spaces and agricultural zones. While these conflicts seem to stem from the dynamics between the central and local governments, they more accurately reflect the inherent characteristics of fragmented authoritarianism. This paper aims to expand the theory of fragmented authoritarianism by incorporating the dimension of inter-departmental competition into environmental governance, moving beyond the traditional binary analysis framework of central-local relations. It seeks to understand and critique its limitations from a broader perspective, emphasizing the role of departmental competition within fragmented authoritarianism. By analyzing this internal mechanism, the paper reveals a more nuanced governance landscape, essentially replacing the traditional central-local paradigm with a model that situates departmental competition within the overall context of fragmented authoritarianism. We propose two models for delineating competition among governmental institutions: the bureaucratic model and the charisma model, thereby advancing and deepening the application of fragmented authoritarianism theory in China's environmental governance. This provides new theoretical insights for understanding the current challenges and developments in China's environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Unlike ordinary products, festival food gifts like mooncakes in China are prone to excessive packaging, using various materials and complicated decorations, which increases the resource and environmental burdens of consumption. This study evaluated the environmental impacts of different mooncake packaging options, including metal, wood, and paper-based packaging. Methods: This study sampled 64 mooncake packaging types (with low, medium, and high prices) in the Chinese market and employed life cycle assessment modeling to quantify and analyze the environmental impacts of different mooncake packaging types. Based on these results, this study identified environmental-friendly options and shed light on directions to alleviate unnecessary environmental impacts associated with the packaging of massive seasonal festival food. Results and discussion: The weight of packing materials associated with 1 kg of mooncake product ranged from 0.5 to 2.5 kg (with a mean value of 1.2 kg), resulting in average greenhouse gas emissions of 2 kg of CO2-eq, or approximately 67 times the value of ordinary food packing (0.03 kg of CO2-eq). Among the three packaging types, metal-based packaging had the highest environmental impacts, followed by wood and paper-based packaging. The outer packaging was the dominant contributor to the environmental impacts of metal-based packaging, while the impacts of wood and paper-based packaging were primarily derived from the middle packaging materials, which mainly consisted of individual packaging boxes and fixed pallets. Higher-priced mooncakes had heavier packaging weight and greater environmental impacts, suggesting that they bear more environmental responsibility. Conclusion: Excessive and extravagant packaging was responsible for the increasing environmental burden associated with mooncakes. For both mooncake producers and consumers, turning back to the essence of the festival itself will be crucial for mitigating the environmental impacts of packaging. This study is an initial attempt to quantify the environmental impacts of traditional festival food packaging, and the study results facilitate evidence-based policymaking to transition the festival commodity packaging sector in a more sustainable direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green development is the main theme of modern development in China and even the world. Green development depends on green technology innovation (GTI). Therefore, for developing countries like China in the stage of economic transition, it is urgent to accelerate GTI to gain sustained advantages in the new round of international competition. As an important representative of contemporary rapid transportation, high-speed railway (HSR) can not only alleviate the rapidly growing transportation demand of the public, but also have potential benefits to the energy consumption structure and environmental quality. Whether and how HSR affects GTI has become the focus of this paper. Hence, by employing the panel data of 286 cities in China from 2007 to 2018 with the time-varying DID model, this paper verifies that HSR development can contribute to GTI. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (1) The operation of HSR can not only make the incremental development of GTI, but also improve the quality of GTI simultaneously. Moreover, the quality improvement effect of HSR is greater than the quantity increment effect. (2) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive effect of HSR on GTI is more significant for cities that have implemented LCCP. (3) This paper verifies the mediating effect of high-quality human capital. The opening of HSR further stimulates GTI by improving the level of high-quality human capital in cities and increasing the opportunities for knowledge exchange and diffusion. Based on the above findings, this paper proposes some policy recommendations to help developing countries achieve GTI with positive externalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To clarify the enrichment characteristics of uranium and radon in deep-buried geothermal water, 39 geothermal water samples with a buried depth of more than 800 m in the Kaifeng geothermal system in China were collected. According to the test results of uranium concentration, radon activity and other conventional chemical indicators of the water samples, the source of uranium and radon in geothermal water was obtained. Also, the influence of the redox environment, temperature and hydrochemical parameters on the occurrence characteristics of uranium and radon was analyzed. This study has indicative significance to the migration of geothermal water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the exogenous shock of China's formal implementation of the environmental information disclosure system in 2008 to construct a quasi-natural experiment. Based on the panel data of prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019, the propensity score matching and difference in difference (PSM-DID) approach was used to systematically evaluate the impact of environmental information disclosure on energy efficiency. Overcoming the difficulties in measuring environmental information disclosure and the endogenous problem, this paper investigates the energy-saving effect of environmental information disclosure and illustrates its mechanism for the first time. The results show that environmental information disclosure significantly improved energy efficiency, and public participation played an important role in energy conservation, a conclusion that remained true after a series of robustness tests. The test of the impact mechanism shows that environmental information disclosure can achieve the goal of improving energy efficiency by promoting industrial structure upgrading and technological innovation. This paper enriches the discussion on the relationship between environmental information disclosure and energy efficiency, and provides useful policy inspiration for improving the level of energy efficiency and achieving sustainable economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To understand the current status of research in the field of metaverse, and to analyze the research progress and evolutionary trends in this field. Methods: Based on the bibliometric analysis, a total of 921 papers were obtained by searching the Web of science core database for the keyword "metaverse". CiteSpace was used to visualize and analyze the current status and trends of metaverse research in China. Results: Ireland is currently the country with the highest research impact. China is currently the country with the largest number of publications in this field, but the impact of the research is insufficient. The current research in the highly cited literature focuses on technical and history reviews of the metaverse as well as its development in the field of education. Artificial Intelligence and utaut2 are the underlying clusters of cited literature in this research area. Several research hotspots have been formed, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, digital twins and artificial intelligence. Conclusion: The current research on metaverse in various fields is basically in its infancy, but has a great potential for future development and will gradually penetrate into many different directions with many challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radical innovation is necessary for firms to transform existing markets or create new ones, which has critical impact on firm performance. Therefore, there is a need to explore how radical innovation can be successfully achieved. Entrepreneurial orientation reflects a firm's willingness to be innovative, proactive and risk-taking, which has been recognized as a key factor contributing to firm innovation. However, the specific focus on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and radical innovation is very limited. This paper therefore investigates how entrepreneurial orientation affects radical innovation by considering the contingency effects of board characteristics. Using the panel data of listed manufacturing firms in China from 2013 to 2019, this paper found that entrepreneurial orientation has a significant positive impact on radical innovation. Furthermore, different board characteristics play asymmetric moderating roles in that relationship in such a way that CEO duality and board independence play positive moderating roles, while board ownership and board size play negative moderating roles. This paper contributes to the entrepreneurial orientation literature by providing a finer-grained understanding of the role of entrepreneurial orientation on radical innovation. This paper also contributes to the corporate governance literature by revealing the asymmetric contingency effects of different board characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rapid economic development has attracted worldwide attention, but the resulting environmental problems also cannot be ignored. Whether environmental regulations can achieve a win–win situation between "green" and "economic growth" has become the focus of academic circles. While related studies have examined environmental regulation through the "Cost-following theory" and "Porter hypothesis", they have mostly focused on a particular region or province, thus neglecting the spatial effects. The spatial effects of environmental regulation are important to study because of the overall environmental correlation across regions and especially adjacent provinces. This paper extends the "cost-following theory" and the "Porter hypothesis" to the spatial perspective and proposes two hypotheses, respectively. Through the spatial expansion of environmental regulation theory, this paper not only analyses the direct effect of local environmental regulation on local economic growth, but also the spatial spillover effect of adjacent provinces' environmental regulation on local economic growth. The empirical results show that the relationship between environmental regulation and economic growth in China is consistent with the spatial perspective of "Cost-following theory", but not with the spatial perspective of "Porter hypothesis". Through the above analysis, this paper is able to address the issues of how to make environmental regulation policies in adjacent provinces or regions as a whole, and how to coordinate environmental regulation with economic growth in adjacent regions. The findings of this paper also suggest that spatial effects need to be sufficiently considered in future studies on environment-related issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil–water characteristic curve (SWCC) and suction stress characteristic curve (SSCC), as the core of unsaturated soil mechanics, are important constitutive relationship curves for unsaturated soils, which can accurately describe the stress state in the soil. This paper examines the pore size distribution curves (PSD) of loess collected from Yan'an, China, by performing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tests. In this paper, the Young–Laplace theory and the fractal model are combined with the PSD to establish the relationship between matric suction and volumetric water content. Finally, it establishes a mathematical model for predicting SWCC and SSCC. In addition, the evolution of SWCC and SSCC under different dry densities of compacted loess was studied based on the predictions. The study found that pore volumes with pore diameters smaller than the critical pore diameter could be used to predict the residual water content. Additionally, the water-holding capacity can be expressed in terms of the fractal dimension, which is controlled by the PSD. Based on the rapid characteristics of the NMR test, this paper makes a rapid prediction of SWCC and SSCC. It gives a new idea for the subsequent rapid testing of SWCC and SSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese scholars' performance in international academic community and research on foreign archaeology has brought hot discussion about the internationalization of Chinese archaeology. Based on the databases of the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and the Web of Science core collection (WoS), this paper collected archaeology-related papers published by Chinese scholars in Chinese and world core journals (CCJs and WCJs for short), then filtered translated and original articles about foreign archaeology in CCJs, as well as all original archaeological articles in WCJs. Using Excel, CiteSpace and VOSviewer visualization software, we analyzed these data to give a bird's-eye view of how archaeology research in Mainland China has become internationalized. Chinese archaeology has seen active-interrupt-active phases characterized by learning from foreign academics in the last century. Over the past two decades, the number of articles published in WCJs by scholars from Mainland China has increased significantly, and most research topics are at the forefront of international scholarship. Collaboration networks largely expanded, with the number of Mainland China–led articles increasing significantly. Archaeological papers written by researchers from Mainland China have appeared in a more extensive range of journals, including those with high impact factors. However, articles related to joint Sino-foreign archaeological projects were mostly published in CCJs. The archaeology-related articles published by Chinese scholars in WCJs occupied only a small proportion of all archaeological articles in WCJs. Compared to articles in CCJs, the number of those published by Chinese scholars in WCJs is a drop in the ocean. Therefore the internationalization is not yet a dominant trend and with the introduction of the new inward-looking policy we need more time to observe where the trends of internationalization and localization in Chinese archaeology are heading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How has China's privacy protection strategy been developed, with its broad scope and stringent requirements for data localization and cross-border data flows? What are the broader geopolitical implications of its divergence from Western models of data privacy? This paper argues that China's privacy protection strategy, characterized by its comprehensive regulatory framework and government access to data, is redefining the contours of global data governance and creating new geopolitical fault lines. Drawing on official documents, laws, regulations, and a case study, this paper highlights the evolution of the regulatory framework in response to emerging challenges posed by technological innovations and the wider geopolitical environment. This paper contributes to the broader discussion regarding the implications of China's privacy protection approach, highlighting potential normative clashes with countries that favor a more open digital economy. China's efforts in developing its own privacy protection strategy have also resulted in the formulation of global standards for data privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental protection supervision is an important manifestation of ecological accountability system reform. Taking the implementation of China's central environmental protection inspection (CEPI) policy as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper applies the time-varying difference-in-difference (DID) model to identify the impact of the CEPI policy on the likelihood of enterprises' environmental violations. The main conclusions include: (1) the implementation of CEPI policy is conducive to inhibiting environmental violations. After a series of robustness tests, including the parallel trend test, the placebo test, the exclusion of policy interference, and the replacement of explained variables, the result remains robust. In terms of dynamic perspective, there is a lag in the impact of CEPI policy on enterprises' environmental violations. (2) The effect of CEPI policy is more prominent on samples of large enterprises, enterprises with highly concentrated equity, enterprises that polluted heavily, enterprises owned by executives with a political background, and enterprises that are situated in regions with higher level of marketization and more developed information infrastructure. (3) The CEPI policy can restrain the environmental violations of enterprises by a dual mechanism of releasing punishment and deterrence signals from the external governance, and forcing enterprises to enhance environmental management system from the internal governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carrying out low-carbon economic cooperation under the belt and road initiative (BRI) is an important measure to actively respond to climate change and maintain global ecological security. With the continuous development of national strength, the Chinese government should actively fulfill environmental responsibility in the BRI economic cooperation. Existing studies have pointed out that the Chinese government can promote low-carbon economic cooperation in BRI through outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), and emphasized the significance of the Chinese government's participation. However, they have not revealed the relationship between China's environmental responsibility and the construction of a green BRI. To fill this gap, this paper analyzes the strategic choices and relevant influencing factors of the Chinese government, governments of countries along the BRI, and Chinese OFDI enterprises in the BRI low-carbon economic cooperation. Through parameter assignment and simulation, this paper draws the following conclusions: (1) The Chinese government should decide whether to take the initiative to fulfill environmental responsibility according to the economic development level of countries along the BRI; (2) The Chinese government fulfilling environmental responsibility is positive and effective for the responsible investment of Chinese OFDI enterprises; (3) The Chinese government fulfilling environmental responsibility can enhance the initiative of countries along the BRI to positive governance, but this enhancement is not last. More importantly, the environmental responsibility of the Chinese government is not simply to provide subsidies to countries along the BRI. Various measures must be taken by the Chinese government to fulfill its environmental responsibility in the BRI economic cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]