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This paper systematically examines Chinese academic discourse that concurrently addresses Indonesia and Timor-Leste, analysing 137 articles from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and indexed by the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI). The analysis reveals significant publication trends, particularly during periods of heightened geopolitical and economic engagement, such as the global expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It identifies predominant themes such as economic cooperation, security concerns, and historical–cultural dynamics. The findings highlight China's strategic interests and leadership aspirations in Southeast Asia, providing insights into how Chinese scholars perceive and articulate China's strategic interests and diplomatic efforts in the region involving Indonesia and Timor-Leste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of the Metaverse, a convergence of virtual and physical realities, presents unprecedented opportunities for promoting cultural tourism along the historic Silk Roads within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) framework. However, this emerging technology's potential remains largely unexplored in the context of cultural heritage preservation and its promotion. The aim of this study is to address this gap by empirically examining how the Metaverse can be harnessed to improve tourists' experiences, support sustainable tourism development, and promote cultural exchange along the Silk Roads. In this study, we employed a mixed-methods approach grounded in attribution theory, using both surveys and semi-structured interviews with Silk Road tourists who had been exposed to Metaverse applications. To investigate the relationships between Metaverse features, tourists' attributions, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions, we used structural equation modeling and thematic analysis. The findings revealed that perceived immersion, avatar identification, and cultural authenticity significantly influenced tourists' internal, stable, and controllable attributions. Interviews further highlighted the Metaverse's potential to promote accessibility, interpretation, and engagement with Silk Road heritage, while also raising sociocultural and ethical considerations. This paper also showcases the development of Metaverse digital twin prototypes for several iconic Silk Road cities to demonstrate the potential for participatory virtual environments to promote cultural heritage preservation, accessibility, and sustainable tourism. The study's findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of Metaverse tourism and the application of attribution theory, offering practical insight for the responsible and effective harnessing of this transformative technology. This research provides actionable recommendations for policymakers, destination managers, and technology providers to optimize the Metaverse's potential for cultural tourism along the Silk Roads. This has great potential in promoting the BRI's connectivity and cooperation objectives. This paper lays the foundation for future research and responsible innovation at the intersection of emerging technologies, cultural heritage, and sustainable tourism development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, air pollution in Xinjiang, the core region of the Silk Road Economic Belt, has become increasingly severe, posing a more significant threat to human health. This paper selects the tropospheric ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and formaldehyde datasets under OMI remote-sensing monitoring and the PM2.5 dataset in China High Air Pollutants (CHAP) for 2018–2021. The spatial and temporal distribution of multi-pollutants, the spatial autocorrelation of Moran's I index pollutants, and the correlation between pollutants in the warm period were studied in southern Xinjiang. Meanwhile, the geographical and temporal weighted regression (GTWR) model was used for influencing factor analysis, and the BenMap-CE model was used for health benefit analysis. The results showed that the spatial distribution of ozone concentration values in southern Xinjiang shows a decreasing distribution pattern from the east–central region to the western and southern regions. The spatial distribution of formaldehyde concentration values is opposite to that of ozone. There is a clear high-value area in the ozone concentration value in April–September. The NO2 column concentration values were in the range of 0.55~1.09 × 1015 molec/cm2 in most parts of southern Xinjiang. The area of high concentration values is located in the northeast of the study area; PM2.5 concentration values are higher in the middle area of southern Xinjiang. The spatial autocorrelation characteristics showed that the spatial aggregation of O3 and NO2 displayed a slow increasing trend year by year. The spatial aggregation of HCHO and PM2.5 fluctuated slightly in four years. The overall trend of HCHO is slowly decreasing, while PM2.5 is fluctuating and increasing. In the GTWR model analysis, overall, the atmospheric pressure has a strong influence on all pollutants. The effect of NO2 on O3 was higher than that of HCHO among the four pollutants. The correlation between O3 and PM2.5 was as high as −0.7872. The BenMap-CE health benefits assessment concluded that the number of premature deaths caused by ozone pollution was much higher than that of premature deaths caused by PM2.5. The highest number of premature deaths for both pollutants occurred in Kashgar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the most important forest product in the export of China, wooden furniture is facing increasingly fierce international competition and has a strong need for quality improvement. Based on the endogenous determination model of quality, this paper measures the quality of Chinese wooden furniture in exports from 1998 to 2017, by using product-level trade data of BACI CEPII. From the perspectives of the overall and sub-category quality, it examines the characteristics of dynamic changes in the product quality and its regional distribution of "the Belt and Road Initiative" countries. The results show that the quality of Chinese wooden furniture in exports is lower than that of wood-based panels and paper products. It remains stable after a slight increase from 2001 to 2005, but the quality level is always low. Among the sub-categories, wooden furniture not for kitchens, offices, or bedrooms has the lowest quality, while wooden office furniture has the highest one. The three dominant sub-categories that account for a high export share are all low in quality, while the small proportion sub-categories are all of higher quality, implying a strong imbalance. In particular, the quality of the main export products, upholstered wooden seats and wooden furniture not for kitchen, office, or bedroom use, has continued to decline, highlighting the plight of the quality growth of Chinese wooden furniture. For the BRI markets, the quality of Chinese wooden furniture exported to the region has declined slightly since 2012. However, different markets have shown different characteristics in the quality level and the direction of change. In terms of quality level, the qualities of wooden furniture exported to Malaysia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and the Philippines are relatively high. In terms of changing trends, the qualities of wooden furniture to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Israel are showing a rising trend. In this case, accurately identifying the quality of different export categories of furniture products and their changing characteristics can help furniture enterprises make better production and operation decisions, promote the formation of a good business environment, and foster new comparative advantages and international competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the proposal of the "One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative", the Chinese architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry has increasingly been exploring the overseas markets. This paper adopted the propensity score matching and difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) method to evaluate the impact of the OBOR Initiative on Chinese international contractors and consulting firms, respectively. The results shows that the OBOR Initiative significantly stimulated the overseas market development of contractors, whereas it had no positive impact on consulting firms. The results may provide comprehensive guidance for industry practitioners, policymakers, and scholars to correctly understand the different characteristics of international contractors and consulting firms, thereby formulating a targeted development strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of international students has become a new challenge that China and most countries in the world must face in the context of the "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI) and the globalization of higher education. In this paper, we conducted an empirical study on international students in China (ISC) based on a combination of spatial econometric models and analytical methods such as BCG, GeoDetector, and DDCAM, trying to provide a basis for "evidence-based decision-making" by the government in the management of international students and talents. Quantitative analyses revealed significant diversity and spatial effects in the spatio-temporal dynamics of ISCs, with the emergence of star, gazelle, cow, and dog types, suggesting that the scientific management of ISCs requires both local adaptation (spatial differentiation and heterogeneity) and regional collaboration (spatial correlation and autocorrelation). There were many factors affecting the spatio-temporal dynamics of ISCs, and the force of different factors varied considerably, with the key factor more than 0.5 but the auxiliary factor being less than 0.2. Moreover, the factors had significant interaction effects, and a large number of super-interacting factor pairs emerged, with a joint force of more than 0.9, twice the force of a single factor. Generally, the factors had a complex driving mechanism, suggesting that ISC management requires identifying the key and important factors, while attaching emphasis to the synergistic effects among different factors. The recommendation is that China should manage ISCs in spatial zones and introduce differentiated development strategies and policies in different zones. In conclusion, this paper proposes a technical route integrating "dynamic analysis-driving mechanism-policy design" for international students, which is applicable to China, while providing a reference for the management and spatial planning design of international students in other countries in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geopolitical conflicts and power games among major nations present substantial challenges to cross-border trade and global economic development; however, the existing literature has paid limited attention to the role of geopolitical risk in agricultural exports, especially the underlying macroimpact mechanisms from the perspective of agricultural land. This paper utilizes China's agricultural export data spanning 1995–2020 to empirically investigate the influence of geopolitical risk on China's agricultural exports and unveil its specific internal mechanisms. The findings reveal that China's agricultural exports are negatively affected when its trading partners are exposed to geopolitical risk. Notably, trading partners' agricultural land is instrumental in mitigating the adverse effects of geopolitical risk on China's agricultural exports. Moreover, a heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of geopolitical risk on China's agricultural exports is more significant in non-Belt and Road countries than in Belt and Road countries. Given China's status as one of the world's major agricultural exporting nations, the results of this study hold significant importance in proactively addressing and alleviating the impact of geopolitical risks on both Chinese and global agricultural exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology is recognised as one of the most important factors in world economic development, particularly contributing to the trade growth of information and communications technology (ICT) products. The decomposition of export growth has been a popular way to analyse how trade has been influenced since 2000. However, there is little investigation regarding the structure of ICT product trading of China, which is the de facto largest trader of ICT goods export and import. This paper contributes to the existing methods with a non-parametric model. The coefficient estimates which functions of their factors represent a dynamic analysis of the factors' influence on decomposed trade growth. The empirical study shows that China's strategy tends to be conservative, as the growth of trade to developed countries mostly came from the volume increase of existing trade lines instead of the increase of trade varieties. Suggestions include that the trade growth could benefit from resource reallocation in ICT industries and the procedure simplification of exporting ICT products. This paper also provides empirical evidence that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) increased the trading volume and frequency by completing the transportation chain and decreasing the variable trade costs. Furthermore, suggestions are provided on improving the impact on the globalisation of ICT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To this end, they employed a fractal perspective, shifting the analysis from structural-fractal-based to spatial-fractal-based. 10.3390/ijgi9080483 21 Ma D., Guo R.Z., Zheng Y., Zhao Z.G., He F.N., Zhu W. Understanding Chinese urban form: The universal fractal pattern of street networks over 298 cities. The two papers on spatial entropy also are novel and groundbreaking, enabling vastly more efficient calculation of landscape entropy and, for the first time, a clear connection between landscape entropy and land use sustainability. Zhang et al. [[12]] reduced the computational complexity of calculating the Boltzmann entropy of spatial data. [Extracted from the article]

China's special economic zones have been hailed as a flagship of her policy on 'opening up' to the outside world, as well as the China-led global Belt and Road Initiative. In this paper, we conceptualize the internationalization of Chinese SEZs, and frame the genealogy and underpinning dynamics of China's international SEZs, both domestically and overseas. The paper critically probes the underlying logics of three parallel international developments of Chinese SEZs: (1) capital-oriented land expansion in the form of international SEZs combining both 'bring in' and 'going out', especially since BRI; (2) different industrial landscapes at various timelines and sites; (3) variegated transnational SEZs governance, bilateral central governments governance, marketized state or entrepreneurship state, or private ventures. We contribute to the SEZ land literature by delivering a novel framework which encompasses variegated internationalization trends among China's vast domestic and overseas SEZs. These internationalization trajectories in turn contour and entrench global variegated capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: The platform is applied in the Maritime Silk Road Transport environmental security service system. This system provides global navigation assurance and environmental protection services. Since the e-Navigation strategy was put forward, various countries and regions in the world have researched e-Navigation test platforms. However, the sources of navigation data are multi-source, and there are still difficulties in the unified acquisition, processing, analysis and application of multi-source data. Users often find it difficult to obtain the required comprehensive navigation information. The purpose of this paper is to use e-Navigation architecture to design and develop maritime data security management platform, strengthen navigation safety guarantee, strengthen Marine environment monitoring, share navigation and safety information, improve the ability of shipping transportation organizations in ports, and protect the marine environment. Therefore, this paper proposes a four-layer system architecture based on Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technology, and designs a unified maritime data storage, analysis and management platform, which realizes the intelligent, visualized and modular management of maritime data at shipside and the shore. This platform can provide comprehensive data resource services for ship navigation and support the analysis and mining of maritime big data. This paper expounds on the design, development scheme and demonstration operation scheme of the maritime data security management platform from the system structure and data exchange mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving mutualistic symbiosis is the core concept of China's promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Therefore, how to guide China's OFDI location decision-making in the Belt and Road (B&R) countries from the perspective of mutualistic symbiosis is of great significance. This paper constructs the B&R symbiotic system based on symbiotic system theory, to establish the investment suitability index from three dimensions: stability, coordination, and sustainability, then uses the entropy weight, TOPSIS, and GIS method to assess and analyze the investment suitability index of 60 major countries in B&R's six economic corridors. The findings indicate that Russia, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia have the highest investment suitability and are China's most favorable OFDI destinations for achieving mutualistic symbiosis. Conversely, Syria, Lebanon, Jordon, and Yemen have the lowest investment suitability. Based on these results, policymakers can formulate more scientific and reasonable policies to guide China's OFDI to make location decisions in B&R countries with high investment suitability, so as to promote the high-quality and sustainable development of B&R construction. However, due to data acquisition and technical reasons, this study does not analyze investment suitability from time trends. The analysis of investment suitability from more B&R countries or different types of industries is an important direction for further research in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offshore wind energy has become a hot spot in new-energy development due to its abundant reserves, long power generation time, high unit capacity and low land occupation. In response to the current situation whereby wind energy, and natural and human factors have not been taken into account in the selection of sites for offshore wind-energy-resource development in the traditional "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" region, this paper intends to establish a new risk assessment framework that comprehensively considers the influence of wind resources, the natural environment, and the geopolitical and humanistic environment. The rationality of the new index system and weight determination methods are separately investigated. Some interesting results are obtained by comparing the new framework with traditional frameworks. The results show that the Persian Gulf, the Timor Sea in northern Australia, and the northern part of Sri Lanka in southern India are rich in wind-energy resources and have a low overall risk, making them recommended sites. In addition, unlike the results of previous studies, this paper does not recommend the Somali Sea as a priority area for wind-energy siting due to its high geographic humanity risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy infrastructure connectivity is a key implementation area for the success of the Belt and Road Initiative. In the current complex international environment, China's energy infrastructure investment in the countries along the Belt and Road is often restricted due to varying degrees of heated disputes with the host countries, thus facing the political risk of investment loss or even failure. This paper used the Heckman two-stage selection model to overcome the sample selection problem in traditional literature and systematically studied the political risks to China's energy infrastructure investment in countries along the Belt and Road within a unified framework. The results showed that Chinese energy infrastructure investments exhibited market-seeking and energy resource-seeking features; while political risks had a significant impact on choosing the locations of energy infrastructure investments, socio-environmental factors were not given sufficient attention. At the national level, the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative was beneficial to China's foreign energy infrastructure investments under certain regulatory levels and environmental policy performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The China–Australia Route, which serves as the southern economic corridor of the '21st Century Maritime Silk Road', bears great importance in safeguarding maritime transportation operations. This route plays a crucial role in ensuring the security and efficiency of such activities. To pre-assess the risks of this route, this paper presents a two-stage analytical framework that combines fault tree analysis and Bayesian network for evaluating the occurrence likelihood of risk of transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) on the China–Australia Route. In the first stage, our study involved the identification of 22 risk influencing factors drawn from a comprehensive review of pertinent literature and an in-depth analysis of accident reports. These identified factors were then utilized as basic events to construct a fault tree. Later, we applied an expert comprehensive evaluation method and fuzzy set theory, and by introducing voting mechanism into expert opinions, the prior probability of basic events was calculated. In the second stage, a fault tree was transformed into a Bayesian network, which overcame the deficiency that the structure and conditional probability table of the Bayesian network find difficult to determine. Consequently, the employment of the Bayesian network architecture was applied to forecast the likelihood of LNG maritime transport along the China–Australia shipping pathway. The probability importance and critical importance of each basic event was calculated through an importance analysis. The development of a risk matrix was achieved by considering the two primary dimensions of frequency and impact, which were subsequently utilized to categorize all relevant risk factors into high, moderate, or low risk categories. This allowed for effective risk mitigation and prevention strategies to be implemented. Finally, assuming that the final risk occurs, we calculated the posterior probability of the basic event to diagnose the risk. The research findings indicate that the primary reasons for the risk of transporting LNG on the China–Australia Route are the impact of natural forces and epidemics, piracy and terrorist attacks, and the risk of LNG explosions. In the final section, we provide suggestions and risk control measures based on the research results to reduce the occurrence of risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Middle Corridor, a transport route from Asia to Europe that also facilitates major energy projects through the Caspian Sea and its surrounding countries, has gained even more attention after the intensification of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022. Methods: On the basis of major scientific papers on the topic, foreign policy addresses from The Diplomat and studies by the United Nations and Asian Development Bank Institute, a framework with five aspects was created. In addition, two interviews with sector stakeholders were conducted to apply the framework and determine the relevance of the route to Finnish and Estonian economies. Results: A multifaceted overview of the current economic, political, and infrastructural state of the Trans-Caspian trade route is given. The practical value of the article lies in creating a framework for evaluating the route for related economies and testing this out for the Finnish and Estonian economies. Conclusions: Despite the challenges, there are enormous opportunities in this logistics route, especially with the restrictions facing Russia due to western bloc sanctions. Finland and Estonia, however, are suffering under the effects of war in Ukraine and the related sanctions, which has hindered the capacity to further enhance development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of global energy transition and the imperative for sustainable development, the trade dynamics of solar photovoltaic (PV) products among "Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)" countries gained momentum. This study investigates the evolving trade patterns of PV products within BRI nations, alongside the underlying determinants. The paper constructs and analyzes a solar PV product trade network, elucidating evolutionary trends, structural complexities, and clusters. A novel centrality influence model explores influencing factors across five dimensions. Methodologically, trade data, the "Five Connectivity" framework, and socio-economic indicators from 2001 to 2022 across 65 BRI countries underpin the study. Empirical insights reveal a robust PV product trade network with density exceeding 0.4 and reciprocity surpassing 0.38. China's rising centrality, reflected in a weighted degree surge from 14.38 to 79.37 since 2011, signifies its consolidation within the network. Results show sustained high density and reciprocity in the PV trade network, signaling robust communication among BRI countries. China's centrality in the network has consistently grown since 2011. Trade cluster analysis reveals isolated segments predominant, depicting emerging economies with limited photovoltaic exchanges, mainly export-focused. The study highlights the pivotal role of "Five Connectivity" dimensions in promoting PV trade, while financial connectivity's impact remains modest. The emergence of PV product centers challenges traditional energy hubs, prompting the need for new energy trading paradigms and robust financial hubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a bridge for international trade, maritime transportation security is crucial to the global economy. Southeast Asian waters have become a high-incidence area of global piracy attacks due to geographic location and complex security situations, posing a great threat to the development of the Maritime Silk Road. In this study, the factors affecting the risk of pirate attacks are analyzed in depth by using the Global Ship Piracy Attacks Report from the IMO Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS) database (i.e., 2013–2022) in conjunction with a Bayesian Network (BN) model, and the Expectation Maximization algorithm is used to train the model parameters. The results show that piracy behaviors and the ship's risk are the key factors affecting the risk of pirate attacks, and suggestions are made to reduce the risk of pirate attacks. This study develops a theoretical basis for preventing and controlling the risk of pirate attacks on ships, which helps maintain the safety of ship operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When studying an unfamiliar system, we first look for the symmetry that the system has so that we can make many predictions about the possible properties of the system. The symmetry in transport network security needs to maintain a stable state and maintain a constant state of transport network security. With the development of China–Europe freight trains, the transport between Asia and Europe has gradually formed the Belt and Road (B&R) land–sea transport network. In order to analyze the cascading failure mechanism of the B&R land–sea transport network, a network cascading failure model is constructed. Then, the quantitative analysis of the connectivity indicators of the land–sea transport network is conducted from the node attack strategy, and it is compared with the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) shipping network. Finally, the robustness of the land–sea transport network under emergencies is analyzed. From the results of deliberate attacks, the attack threshold of the B&R land–sea transport network is the same as that of the MSR shipping network, and the maximum number of attacks is slightly less than that of the MSR shipping network. The Russia–Ukraine conflict has a minimal impact on the robustness of cascading failure in the land–sea transport network. The Red Sea crisis may have a significant impact on the robustness of cascading failure in the land–sea transport network. The research results can provide suggestions for improving the robustness of the B&R land–sea transport network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social responsibility strategies are indispensable for the sustainable development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Nonetheless, the application of social responsibility (SR) policies in such mega infrastructure projects remains a pressing concern since a number of barriers impede the effective integration of SR practices. Therefore, this paper seeks to identify these barriers and determine the interrelationships among them. A list of barriers was first identified from a literature review and expert consultation. Subsequently, a survey was designed to collect experts' views on the interrelations among these barriers. The Fuzzy DEMATEL method was employed to analyze these barriers' causal relationships and interdependencies. Subsequently, the ISM approach was used to develop a hierarchical structure and establish the driving and dependence relationships among them. The classification of barriers, based on driving power and dependence power, was accomplished using the MICMAC analysis. The results reveal that barriers such as "The diverse institutions, cultures, and social conditions among BRI countries", "Lack of robust social responsibility laws and regulations in the host countries", "Lack of stringent and legally binding BRI policies and guidelines governing social responsibility", "The diverse environmental and social frameworks and standards among BRI countries", "The diverse international, national, and private funds for BRI projects", and "Lack of customer awareness and knowledge of CSR" are the most critical barriers and have the greatest influence on social responsibility implementation. Identifying these key barriers and their interrelationships will assist decision-makers, policymakers, and other stakeholders involved in BRI mega infrastructure projects in minimizing or overcoming them, hence increasing the chances of successfully integrating social responsibility practices within these projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Belt and Road" has developed from a Chinese initiative to an international consensus, and Silk Road cities are becoming a strategic step for its high-quality development. From the perspective of industrialization, the "Belt and Road" can be regarded as a "spillover" effect of the industrialization process in China. With the spatial shift of Chinese industries along the "Belt and Road" and their clustering in Silk Road cities, the development and change of industrial land in Silk Road cities has become a new area of concern for governments and scholars. In this paper, the driving mechanism of industrial land change in 129 cities along the Silk Road in China is empirically studied by the GeoDetector method. The findings include: first, the development and changes of industrial land in Silk Road cities are significantly spatially heterogeneous, and the "Belt and Road" reshapes the town system and economic geography along the route by virtue of the differentiated configuration and changes of industrial land, changing the social, political, landscape and spatial relations in cities on the line. Second, the driving forces of industrial land change in Silk Road cities under the influence of the "Belt and Road Initiative" are increasingly diversified and differentiated, with significant two-factor enhancement and non-linear enhancement interaction between two driving factors, and growing complexity of the driving mechanisms, requiring policy makers to design policies based on key factors, comprehensive factors and their interaction. Third, the environmental effect of industrial land change is highly complex. The industrial land quantity has a direct impact on the ecological state parameter and plays a decisive role in the quality of the ecological environment and its changes in Silk Road cities. However, changes in the industrial land affect the ecological state change indirectly, mainly interacting with it through the coupling of pollutant and carbon dioxide emissions, energy use, ecological planning and landscape design and policy interventions. Finally, this study provides a new framework and method for Silk Road scholars to analyze the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of land use and coverage in cities along the "Belt and Road" and their influence mechanisms, and provides a basis for the government to make decisions on industrial land supply and layout planning and spatial governance policy design, which is of great theoretical significance and practical value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the financial market data of 35 countries along the Belt and Road (B&R), this paper constructs an imported financial risk network based on the conditional expected shortfall (CoES) to measure the systemic financial risk of the countries along the B&R. Furthermore, complex network theory is combined with spatial econometrics to construct a spatial, financial network panel model to measure the spatial spillover effects of imported financial risks and further explore the macroeconomic influences on systemic financial risks. The results show that among the countries along the B&R, the level of systemic financial risk in the European region is higher than that in the Asian region from the imported risk perspective. The spatial spillover effect of financial risk and the spatial spillover effect from the imported risk perspective have time-varying characteristics, with the spatial spillover effect increasing significantly during crisis periods. In addition, indicators of the three dimensions of economic openness, the institutional environment, and the external policy environment all have significant effects on systemic financial risk, but the effects differ across regions and periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade facilitation is essential to lowering overall trade costs and increasing economic returns on both the multilateral and regional levels. Trade facilitation is also an integral part of trade agreements and has become an important component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This paper adopts a time-varying stochastic frontier gravity model and a trade inefficiency model and assigns values to different trade facilitation provisions to construct relevant indicators to assess the impacts of the trade facilitation provisions of the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA) and regional trade agreements (RTAs) on trade efficiency between China and BRI countries, as well as on the current conditions and challenges of fresh agricultural product trade between China and countries of the BRI, using data from 2011 to 2020. The results show that the size of domestic markets and population positively affect agricultural trade between China and BRI countries, while geographical distance has a negative impact on their scale of trade. Moreover, this study finds that the obligations set out in trade facilitation provisions of RTAs play an important role in improving trade efficiency, and among these trade facilitation obligations improving the legal provisions of "information transparency", "customs cooperation" and "advance ruling" can significantly improve trade efficiency, however, some measures relating to "formalities" could potentially constitute barriers to trade. This study innovatively carried out an analysis of the impact of trade facilitation provisions on agricultural trade flows and efficiency from the perspectives of international trade law and economics and provides new policy recommendations for BRI countries to support agricultural trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, in order to comply with the development of the "the Belt and Road Initiatives", the country is accelerating the pace of construction and increasing the demand for construction river sand. However, the quality of construction river sand is uncontrollable, and its shape is very similar to that of weathered sand. Therefore, using inferior weathered sand and mixed sand as inferior substitute sand in the market is prohibited, resulting in an increase in the difficulty coefficient of quality control of concrete fine aggregate in actual projects. This lays hidden dangers for the construction quality of the project. It is urgent to improve the quality control, testing, and detection process of river sand. Due to the long-term weathering of weathered sand, its density is small, and there are many pores, which leads to the material's water absorption rate is higher than that of standard sand and river sand during fluidity tests. This paper takes this as a breakthrough point, reveals the variation law of fluidity loss under different variables, and explores a method for effectively screening low-quality sand and gravel. Through the silt content test (screening and washing method), the low-quality sand is preliminarily screened out, the mortar ratio is designed, and the fluidity test is carried out to compare the difference in fluidity loss of different types of mortar; determine the loss threshold range (mobility loss ≤ 15 mm) according to the mobility test results of the control group, and determine the qualification standard by comparing the measured mobility loss of the unknown sample with the loss threshold range. When the mobility loss is within the loss threshold range, the sample is qualified river sand. Otherwise, it is weathered sand or chowder sand. This method establishes a complete detection scheme for distinguishing weathered sand and river sand through mud content tests and mobility loss tests, solves the difficult problem of river sand quality control in engineering applications, and effectively eliminates the phenomenon of using low-quality weathered sand as river sand in the sand and gravel material market, thus avoiding congenital defects in concrete homogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013, China proposed the "Belt & Road Initiative" which aims to invest the "Belt & Road" countries so as to help them develop their infrastructure and economy. China consumes the largest part of fossil energy of the whole world, so it is China's priority to consider its energy supplying security. Therefore, it becomes urgent for China to invest the "Belt & Road" countries' energy facilities. There comes a question: how to evaluate the overseas energy investment risk? To answer this question, this paper proposes a deep learning method to assess such risk of the 50 "Belt & Road" countries. Specifically, this paper first proposes an indicator system in which 6 main factors are separated into 36 sub-factors. This paper makes use of hierarchical convolution neural networks (CNN) to encode the historical statistics. The hierarchical structure could help CNN handle the long historical statistics more effectively and efficiently. Afterward, this paper leverages the self-attention layer to calculate the weights of each sub-factor. It could be observed that the resource potential is the most important indicator, while "years of China's diplomatic relations" is the most important sub-indicator. Finally, we use a conditional random field (CRF) layer and softmax layer to compute the assessment scores of each country. Based on the experimental results, this paper suggests Russia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan to be China's most reliable choices for energy investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at investigating whether and how the intensity of trade between a pair of countries changes when they experience improvements in their infrastructural systems. We carry out our analysis considering countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a project specifically designed to promote infrastructural connectivity and therefore boost trade among the countries involved. Our empirical strategy relies on a particular specification of the gravity model, in which the dependent variable consists in an index of revealed trade preferences, calculated by comparing the actual value of trade flows between two countries with their expected value, proportional to the two countries' total trade. Such methodology allows us to estimate bilateral trade intensity without resorting to the traditional "size" variables of the gravity model, taking the entire network of multilateral trade into account. We then study the possible impact of an improvement in infrastructure on a 'gravity-adjusted' measure of trade preferences, given by the residuals of our first estimations. Our results indicate that bilateral preferences among BRI countries will intensify inasmuch as they succeed in coordinating their infrastructural projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development and plans for the implementation of a cloud-based logistics platform to enable and optimize cross-border shipping, using the China Railway Express (CR Express) in the context of China's recent One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative as an example of an extremely complex system that is running at suboptimal efficiency. We design a cross-border logistics information cloud platform (CLICP) and its architecture. The proposed CLICP comprises a hybrid cloud model with three layers of cloud services. We also examine the CLICP's operation and the design of the platform's functions, including core business and value-added service functions, such as real-time bidding, freight information push, and carrier one-stop service management functions. Finally, we propose a model for deploying our CLICP. Our study makes a significant contribution to the literature because of its hybrid cloud model architecture and for the completeness of its functionality. The study also has a good application prospect for the operation of CR Express and will play a better supporting role in cross-border logistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the spillover effects of Chinese real and monetary sector shocks on the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) economies. The study adopted a panel vector autoregression (PVAR) estimation technique to analyse the dynamic propagation of Chinese shocks in the real sector (gross domestic product (GDP) and trade openness (OPEN)) and monetary sector (nominal interest rate (NIR)) for a sample of 50 BRI countries from 2000 to 2017. The main results revealed that Chinese income shocks positively spill over to all macroeconomic variables except BRI countries' consumer price index (CPI). However, the Chinese trade openness shock only has a temporary positive spillover to BRI international trade and a temporary negative spillover on its monetary policy. In addition, the Chinese monetary policy shock has a negative spillover on GDP and a positive spillover on CPI in BRI economies. Chinese shocks, however, do not constitute a significant source of variation in any interest variable. As explained by the Chinese income shock, the BRI interest rate is the highest percentage of variable variation accumulated over time. Further, the highest variation of Chinese trade shock is BRI trade openness, and lastly, the highest variation of Chinese interest rate shock is CPI in BRI economies. The beggar-thy-neighbour effect may dominate the positive trade effect and is a negative impact of the Chinese shocks. Hence, BRI economies should alleviate the adverse shocks since the upcoming rapid growth from the Chinese has disturbed the BRI economies. Our results reveal the importance of Chinese development on BRI partners' economies and the significance of Chinese shocks in real and monetary sectors in assisting policymakers in designing international and monetary policy for BRI economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the Belt and Road Initiatives, China's overseas cooperation in constructing mining projects has developed rapidly. The development and utilization of mining resources are essential requirements for socio-economic development. At the same time, the ecological impacts of the exploitation and utilization of mining resources have increasingly aroused the widespread concern of the international community. This paper uses Landsat images, high-resolution images, and nighttime light (NTL) data to remotely monitor Sino Iron in Australia and Taldybulak Levoberezhny in Kyrgyzstan in different development periods to provide a reference for the rational development of mineral resources and environmental management. The results show that the Chinese enterprises have achieved good results in the ecological protection of the mining area during the construction period. The development of the mine has caused minor damage to the surrounding environment and has not destroyed the local natural ecological pattern. The different NTL indices show an overall rising trend, indicating that the construction of mines has dramatically promoted the socio-economic development of countries along the Belt and Road in both time and space. Therefore, relevant departments should practice green development in overseas projects, establish a scientific mine governance system, and promote a win-win economic growth and environmental governance situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important hub in the maritime transportation system, ports are vulnerable to events such as terrorist attacks, security accidents and bad weather. The failure of port nodes to function effectively affects the connectivity and efficiency of the shipping network and impedes trade between countries. In view of this, in this paper, we constructed the Maritime Silk Road shipping network based on route data and used transmissibility and diversity to represent the resilience of the network and nodes. Then, we analyzed the variation characteristics of resilience using disruption simulation and identified 9 dominant nodes and 15 vulnerable nodes that could help to accurately determine the factors that affect the resilience of the MSR shipping network structure. The results show that the Maritime Silk Road shipping network structure is vulnerable, and the failure of ports to function has different effects on network transmissibility and diversity. In terms of node transmissibility and diversity, there are differences in the resistance of port nodes to interventions. In addition, the failure of dominant ports to function and the emergence of vulnerable ports are significant factors that weaken the resilience of the network structure. When dominant ports are interrupted, this greatly affects the resilience of the network structure. It is necessary to reduce the possibilities of the failure of dominant ports. Vulnerable ports are weaknesses in the resilience of the network structure, which weaken the ability of the network to function. The centrality of these ports should be strengthened, and their relation to regional and trans-regional links should be enriched. The research results provide a scientific basis for ensuring the structural resilience of the Maritime Silk Road shipping network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of the global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus, 3D digitisation of selected museum artefacts is becoming more and more frequent practice, but the vast majority is performed by specialised teams. The paper presents the results of comparative studies of 3D digital models of the same museum artefacts from the Silk Road area generated by two completely different technologies: Structure from Motion (SfM)—a method belonging to the so-called low-cost technologies—and by Structured-light 3D Scanning (3D SLS). Moreover, procedural differences in data acquisition and their processing to generate three-dimensional models are presented. Models built using a point cloud were created from data collected in the Afrasiyab museum in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) during "The 1st Scientific Expedition of the Lublin University of Technology to Central Asia" in 2017. Photos for creating 3D models in SfM technology were taken during a virtual expedition carried out under the "3D Digital Silk Road" program in 2021. The obtained results show that the quality of the 3D models generated with SfM differs from the models from the technology (3D SLS), but they may be placed in the galleries of the vitrual museum. The obtained models from SfM do not have information about their size, which means that they are not fully suitable for archiving purposes of cultural heritage, unlike the models from SLS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dalian Island, located in the northwest of Pingtan County, Fujian Province, China, has been an important junction on the Maritime Silk Road since the Tang dynasty. This study focuses on sauce-glazed ceramic ware from the Song dynasty salvaged from the waters near Dalian Island Wharf. The composition, phase attributes, and microstructures of the marine organism remains attached to the ceramic ware were analyzed using an optical microscope, scanning electron microscope, and micro-Raman spectrometer to investigate the influence of marine organisms on the degradation of the ceramic ware. Long-term abrasion by sea wave-borne debris led to the increased surface roughness and wettability of the ceramic ware, facilitating the attachment of marine organisms. Differences in surface roughness between the inner and outer walls led to varying levels of biomass. Coralline algae secreted inducers to attract the larvae of macrofoulers. The attachment of different types of marine organisms had varying effects on the degradation of the ceramic ware. Firmly attached unitary organisms could alleviate the scouring of sea wave-borne debris and hinder the intrusion of foreign pollutants, thereby playing a 'bio-protective' role. In contrast, the group skeletons of modular organisms could reinforce the mechanically damaged surface but failed to block the intrusion of iron rust and other pollutants, resulting in chemical alterations of the glaze. Therefore, the specific species of the attached marine organisms should be considered in subsequent conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the interplay between innovation, economic systems, governance structures, and law, and how they interact with one another in the context of China and Ethiopia's investments in the Digital Silk Road. The way cutting-edge methods related to governance and economic systems might help lower the risks involved in major infrastructure projects, like the Digital Silk Road, particularly in light of law and 5G developments, is investigated. China–Africa connections are to be strengthened, sustainable development is to be encouraged, and healthy economic progress is the goal of the partnership between Ethiopia and the Hainan Free Trade Port. The impact of these transnational investments on fair growth and sustainable development is assessed, while exploring the evolving agendas and procedures governing investments. This research draws attention to how the law and legal cooperation between Ethiopia and China may promote mutually advantageous outcomes, promote transparency and governance mechanisms, and lessen the likelihood of disputes. This research on the factors influencing the future of the Digital Silk Road and its consequences for long-term, sustainable economic growth, and business in the area, aims to provide valuable insights for policymakers, development professionals, and academics, and for the copromotion of China and Ethiopia in terms of digital investment. This research relates to the promotion of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), in terms of construction and economic development. It also examines how the DSR raises concerns about data security and privacy, cross-border transactions, technology transfer, and cyberterrorism, as well as encourages digital investment, such as through enhancing digital governance regulations, modernizing international investment agreements (IIAs), and bolstering global health, coordination, and cooperation; the article concludes by analyzing the implications for Africa. The findings show that such cooperation would support Africa's digital transformation and sustainable development, while strengthening China–Africa cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use/cover change(LUCC) has a significant impact on the ecological environment. Within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as the largest cross-spatial cooperation initiative in human history, one of the core issues is how to scientifically and effectively use and manage the land in the region to prevent the destruction of important ecological and environmental resources. In order to reduce impact on the latter, in this study, we used the bivariate choropleth–multiple-criteria decision analysis (BC-MCDA) method based on the connotation of the sustainable development goals to construct an ecological and environmental risk warning framework. We found that in the study area, 10.51% of the land has high ecological and environmental risk and importance, corresponding to conflict zones, which require special attention. Conflict areas are mainly distributed in the Gangetic Plain in India, the plains in central and southern Cambodia, the Indonesian archipelago, and the southern coastal areas of China. Due to the uneven spatial distributions of population and important ecological and environmental resources, the pressure on this type of land use is very high. A share of 8.06% of the land has high risk–low importance, corresponding to economic development zones. Following years of human development, the ecological and environmental value of this type of land is low. A share of 58.75% of the land has low risk and importance, corresponding to wilderness areas. The natural climatic conditions of this type of land are relatively poor, often characterized by a cold climate or water scarcity, and the human interference index is low. A share of 22.68% of the land has low risk–high importance, corresponding to ecological conservation areas, which are the most important areas for ecological function services for humans at present. Finally, we proposed development suggestions for each type of land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

10.3390/w12051264 20 Julio N., Figueroa R., Ponce Oliva R.D. Water Resources and Governance Approaches: Insights for Achieving Water Security. Water-secure basins are a lifesaving goal of society that can be accomplished if political and water authorities, stakeholders, and the general public are networked and committed to effectively improve water security, river basin management, and water resource policies and governance. However, even with these operational conditions ensured, river basin management can only succeed if political will and innovative water resource policies and governance approaches are capable to create a favorable legal atmosphere and respond to current water-born challenges. If, as usual, the geographic space is a watershed, then water security overlaps the scope of river basin management as the later contributes to the former through a "coordination amongst operating and water management entities within a river basin, with a focus on allocating and delivering reliable water-dependent services in an equitable manner" [[2]]. [Extracted from the article]

Carbon emission efficiency, which is mainly affected by economic output, energy efficiency and energy structure, is the effect of carbon emissions generated in economic activities. Improving carbon emission efficiency and narrowing regional differences are very important for green development in Belt and Road Initiative regions with developing countries as the main body. The existing literature mostly uses the Theil index to study the temporal differences in carbon emission efficiency, but spatial differences and the reasons for the differences have rarely been examined. This paper measures the differences of carbon emission efficiency using the Theil index and examines the reasons based on the Logarithmic Mean Divisia index (LMDI) method in five groups of 60 Belt and Road Initiative countries. The results show that the Theil index of carbon emission efficiency in these countries is 0.196, with an intra-group difference of 0.165 and an inter-group difference of 0.031. Between most of the groups, energy efficiency is the dominant factor affecting carbon emission efficiency differences, especially between East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, South Asia and East Asia. Between most of the countries with the highest and lowest carbon emission efficiency in the same group, such as Singapore and Vietnam in East Asia, energy efficiency is still the primary factor affecting the differences. Only some differences between a few groups, countries and sectors have been caused mainly by energy structures. Therefore, improving energy efficiency is the first way for those countries with low carbon emission efficiency to catch up other countries with high carbon emission efficiency, followed by improving the energy structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Belt and Road, the Air Silk Road has also been proposed. The coordinated development of multiple transportation modes, including air, land, and water, will create a strong transportation force in node cities. However, the current insufficient supply of cargo in various regions and the lack of integration among different transportation modes result in low transportation efficiency, which in turn affects the further advancement of the Belt and Road. To investigate these issues and attempt to find a solution, we selected 44 candidate cities from the prefecture-level cities in China as nodes based on relevant government policies, and constructed an integrated transportation network. For each node city, we first calculated the values of six classical indicators and then used the CRITIC to assign weights to each indicator. Subsequently, we employed the TOPSIS method combined with Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) to compute the comprehensive score for each node city. Based on the spatial layout and government policies under the BRI, eight cities, including Wuhan, Chongqing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Lianyungang, Hefei, and Dalian, were finally recommended as the consolidation centers of the integrated transportation network. It is hoped that the results of this analysis can provide some insights for the government to outline and build the consolidation centers of the integrated transportation network composed of railway, air, highway, and water routes, which in turn can offer insights for elevating the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to a new level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of Iraq's evolving transportation landscape and the strategic implications of the Belt and Road Initiative, this study pioneers a comprehensive framework for optimizing multimodal transportation systems. The study implemented a decision-making framework for multimodal transportation, combining data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency scores and a Markov decision process (MDP) to optimize transportation strategies. The DEA scores captured decision-making unit (DMU) performance in various aspects, while the MDP rewards facilitated strategic mode selection, promoting efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and environmental considerations. Although our method incurs a total cost approximately 29% higher than MRMQoS, it delivers a nearly 26% reduction in delay compared to MCSTM. Despite MRMQoS yielding an 8.3% higher profit than our approach, our proposed scheme exhibits an 11.7% higher profit compared to MCSTM. In terms of computational time, our method achieves an average CPU time positioned between MCSTM and MRMQoS, with MCSTM showing about 1.6% better CPU time than our approach, while our method displays a 9.5% improvement in computational time compared to MRMQoS. Additionally, concerning CO2 emissions, the proposed model consistently outperforms other models across various network sizes. The percentage decrease in CO2 emissions achieved by the proposed model is 7.26% and 31.25% when compared against MRMQoS and MCSTM for a network size of 25, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tumushuke, a significant node of "the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor" and "the Silk Road Economic Belt", is strategically located in the southern region of Xinjiang. Due to the widespread distribution of its salty soils, concrete construction safety is significantly compromised. The construction of this project used sulfate-resistant cement, which was costly to construct. Six groups with varying sulfate immersion concentrations were set up to perform sulfate erosion tests and sulfate freeze–thaw coupling tests, respectively, based on the survey of the distribution of sulfate concentration in the area. The Tumushuke area's concrete erosion kinds were classified using a microanalysis of the degraded concrete. The findings indicate that the concrete primarily exhibits gypsum-type erosion when the sulfate concentration is greater than 20,000 mg/kg, ettringite–gypsum-type erosion when the sulfate concentration is between 15,000 and 20,000 mg/kg, and ettringite-gypsum-type erosion when the sulfate concentration is less than 15,000 mg/kg. The erosion product, carbon–sulfur silica-calcite, also occurs under sulfate freeze–thaw coupling. In the Tumushuke area, ettringite-type erosion damage is primarily found in low-sulfate areas in the southwest and a small portion of the northeast. In contrast, higher-sulfate areas in the central northward area are primarily affected by ettringite–gypsum and gypsum-type erosion damage. The results of this study can provide a basis for adopting different anti-sulfate erosion measures for engineering construction in different regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has significantly transformed the traditional energy market and reshaped international cooperation and conflict dynamics through its expanding trade in renewable energy resources. This study focuses on examining the complex and evolving nature of coopetition relationships in the renewable energy trade among BRI countries from 2013 to 2020. Understanding the interplay between cooperation and competition in this sector is crucial for comprehending the dynamics and stability of these trade relationships. Using a signed network approach, the findings of this study reveal that the countries predominantly exhibit a cooperative relationship. However, as time progresses, a notable pattern emerges, characterized by the coexistence of "competitive cooperation" and "cooperative competition". In addition, coopetition group clustering is strongly influenced by geographical location. China, as a key player in the BRI, demonstrates a coopetition group characterized by a high inflow and low outflow pattern. Furthermore, the implementation of the BRI has greatly improved the overall stability of trade along the route. However, the coexistence of competition and cooperation among nations has increased the uncertainty of trade relations, thereby exerting a certain level of influence on their stability. Based on these findings, this study proposes policy recommendations to strength renewable energy trade relationships along the BRI route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-precision land use/land cover classification mapping derived from remote sensing supplies essential datasets for scientific research on environmental assessment, climate change simulation, geographic condition monitoring, and environmental management at global and regional scales. It is an important issue in the study of earth system science, and the coastal area is a hot spot region in this field. In this paper, the coastal areas of the Maritime Silk Road were used as the research object and a fusion method based on agreement analysis and fuzzy-set theory was adopted to achieve the fusion of three land use/land cover datasets: MCD12Q1-2010, CCI-LC2010, and GlobeLand30-2010. The accuracy of the fusion results was analyzed using an error matrix, spatial confusion, average overall consistency, and average type-specific consistency. The main findings were as follows. (1) After the establishment of reference data based on Google Earth, both the producer accuracy and user accuracy of the fusion data were improved when compared with those of the three input data sources, and the fusion data had the highest overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient, with values of 90.37% and 0.8617, respectively. (2) Various input data sources differed in terms of the correctly classified contributions and misclassified influences of different land use/land cover types in the fusion data; furthermore, the overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient between the fusion data and any one of the input data sources were far higher than those between any two of the input data sources. (3) The average overall consistency of the fusion data was the highest at 89.29%, which was approximately 5% higher than that of the input data sources. (4) The average type-specific consistencies of cropland, forest, grassland, shrubland, wetland, artificial surfaces, bare land, and permanent snow and ice in the fusion data were the highest, with values of 69.95%, 74.41%, 21.24%, 34.22%, 97.62%, 51.83%, 84.39%, and 2.46%, respectively; compared with the input data sources, the average type-specific consistencies of the fusion data were 0.61–20.32% higher. This paper provides information and suggestions for the development and accuracy evaluation of future land use/land cover data in global and regional coastal areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inter-country input–output table is appropriate for presenting sophisticated inter-industry dependencies from a global perspective. Using the above table one can perceive the amount of production resources that sectors obtain from their upstream ones, as well as the number of productive capacities that sectors provide for their downstream ones. In other words, competition/collaboration occurs when sectors share the same providers/consumers because all sectors' products and services outputted to downstream ones are limited. Thus, inter-industry competition for inputs from upstream sectors, or collaboration on outputs to downstream sectors, may be quantified with input–output matrix transformation. In this paper, a novel analytical framework of inter-industry collaborative relations is established based on the bipartite graph theory and the resource allocation process. The Collaborative Opportunity Index and Collaborative Threat index are designed to quantitatively measure the industrial influence hidden in the topological structure of the global value chain (GVC) network. Scenario simulations are carried out to forecast the potential and trends of international capacity cooperation within Asian, European, and African nations related to the Belt and Road Initiative, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the acceleration of the Belt and Road Initiative, Poland–China agricultural trade has increasingly strengthened, but there is little exchange or cooperation in agricultural machinery. China's agricultural UAV industry has flourished over the past 7 years. In China, by using typical food crops and economic crops to control diseases and pests, agricultural drones can reduce the use of fertilizer, pesticides, and water, improve operational efficiency, open up new markets through the 'sale + services' mode, and reduce production costs and labor shortages. The spraying of agricultural UAVs and related pest-disease-defense services applied in China are also suitable for Poland's decentralized, small-scale production modes. By learning from China's development progress of precision-agriculture aviation, Poland can develop 5th-generation (5G) unmanned intelligent organic farms from traditional organic agriculture, use agricultural UAVs in the spraying of Plant Protection Products (PPPs), and carry out special protection or loss management on typical fruits. Furthermore, by building its own spraying system, aviation industry, and service team, Poland can realize resource optimization, technological empowerment, application expansion, and industrial innovation. Therefore, this paper focuses on the development experience of Chinese agricultural UAVs and discusses its enlightenment to the precision-agriculture aviation application of Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of the Belt and Road economics has generated a considerable energy demand. Under the general trend of the global energy transition, natural gas resources are becoming the main driving force. The limited natural gas resources are posing a significant risk to economies, and this risk may also be transferred to other distant regions through economic trade. The aim of this study is to explore the trans-regional (sectoral) transmission pattern of natural gas scarcity risk. The main contribution of this paper is the assessment of the local natural gas scarcity risk (LGSR) and cross-region transfer relationship of embodied natural gas scarcity risk (EGSR), which are evaluated for the BRI economies. In addition, the network amplification effect is considered when evaluating the cross-regional impact of natural gas scarcity risk. The results show that, at the national level, Turkey, Ukraine, and Bulgaria have significant EGSR related to exports activities. The natural gas scarcity risks (GSRs) originating from these countries are mainly transferred to Turkmenistan, Georgia, and Albania, with large EGSR imports. Moreover, by comparing the ranking changes of EGSR imports, EGSR exports, and LGSRs at the national and sectoral levels, countries or sectors with higher LGSRs also have higher EGSR exports. The Top EGSR import and export network consisting of top EGSR flow relationships can well reflect countries' preferences in choosing EGSR transfer partners. The results suggest that upstream countries and sectors should strengthen cooperation to manage natural gas resources, and provide references for decision makers in highly vulnerable downstream countries and sectors to formulate strategies to avoid the large-scale spread of economic losses caused by natural gas scarcity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study focuses on an assemblage of glass finds from the citadel of Kafir Kala, Uzbekistan, located along one of the major Eurasian branches of the "Silk Roads" with a consistent occupation between the 8th and 12th century CE. Glass fragments for this study were selected based on marked surface alterations they showed, with stratified deposits of different thickness and colours. Starting from a preliminary observation under Optical Microscope, fragments were clustered into four main groups based on the surface appearance of the alterations; Scanning Electron Microscopy investigations of the stratigraphy of the alteration products were then carried out, to evaluate micro-textural, morphological and compositional features. Data from the analyses allowed identifying preferential patterns of development of the various degradation morphologies, linkable to compositional alterations of the glass due to burial environment and the alkali leaching action of the water. Iridescence, opaque weathering (at times associated with black stains), and blackening were identified as recurring degradation morphologies; as all but one sample were made of plant ash-based glass, results show no specific correlation between glass composition and the occurrence of one or the other degradation pattern, often found together. Framed in a broad scenario, the paper aims to set the basis for the development of a study approach dedicated to the degradation morphologies affecting archaeological glasses, a topic still lacking systematisation and in-depth dedicated literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times, there has been a growing interest in the role of food trade in achieving food security. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between food trade and food security within the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This study employs complex networks alongside the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) regression method on trade data of 46 countries under BRI for the period 2008 to 2018. The resulting complex network showed an enhancement in the food trade relationships and food security levels after BRI, indicating a mutually positive effect. In addition, the closeness centrality measure showed a strong correlation with food security, indicating that food trade has positive spillovers on food security in the proximate countries. Using geographical distance as an instrumental variable, the QAP regression model proved the positive effects of food trade on food security. More investment in trade infrastructure is recommended to reduce the negative effect of geographical distance on food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing economic and population growth has put immense pressure on energy, water and land resources to satisfy national and supra-national demand. Through trade, a large proportion of such a demand is fulfilled. With trade as one of its key priorities, the China Belt and Road Initiative is a long-term transcontinental investment program. The initiative gained significant attention due to greater opportunities for economic development, large population and different levels of resource availability. The nexus approach has appeared as a new viewpoint in discussions on balancing the competing sectoral demands. However, following years of work, constraints exist in the scope and focus of studies. The newly developed multi-regional input–output (MRIO) models covering the world's economy and its use of resources permit a comprehensive analysis of resource usage by production and consumption at different levels, and bring more knowledge about resource nexus problems. Using the MRIO model, this work simultaneously tracks energy, water and land use flows and investigates the transnational resource nexus. A nexus strength indicator is proposed which depends on ternary diagrams to grade countries based on their combined resources' use and sectoral weighting. Equal sectoral weighting is assigned. The analysis presented a sectorally balanced nexus approach. Findings support existing work by recognizing energy, water and land as the robust transnational connections, from both production and consumption points of view. Resource nexus issues differ from country to country owing to inequalities in industrial set-up, preferences in economic policy and resource endowments. The paper outlines how key resource nexus problems can be identified and prioritized in view of alternative and often opposing interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Belt and Road Initiative' (B&R) countries play critical roles in mitigating global carbon emission under the Paris agreement, but their driving factors and feasibility to reduce carbon emissions remain unclear. This paper aims to identify the main driving factors (MDFs) behind carbon emissions and predict the future emissions trajectories of the B&R countries under different social-economic pathways based on the extended STIRPAT (stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, and technology) model. The empirical results indicate that GDP per capita and energy consumption structure are the MDFs that promote carbon emission, while energy intensity improvement is the MDF that inhibits carbon emission. Population, as another MDF, has a dual impact across countries. The carbon emissions in all B&R countries are predicted to increase from SSP1 to SSP3, but emissions trajectories vary across countries. Under the SSP1 scenario, carbon emissions in over 60% of B&R countries can peak or decline, and the aggregated peak emissions will amount to 21.97 Gt in 2030. Under the SSP2 scenario, about half of the countries can peak or decline, while their peak emissions and peak time are both higher and later than SSP1, the highest emission of 25.35 Gt is observed in 2050. Conversely, over 65% of B&R countries are incapable of either peaking or declining under the SSP3 scenario, with the highest aggregated emission of 33.10 Gt in 2050. It is further suggested that decline of carbon emission occurs when the inhibiting effects of energy intensity exceed the positive impacts of other MDFs in most B&R countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will inevitably affect global energy cooperation. Along the Belt and Road, there are many developing countries. To understand the energy cooperation and development of these countries comprehensively is of great significance to guide their development and evaluate the impact of the BRI on the world energy and economic pattern. However, there is insufficient attention on those countries. Based on embodied energy analysis, a method which can track direct and indirect energy consumption in the economic system, effectively linking energy with the economy and environment, this paper proposes an evolution model of the embodied energy flow of the countries. Then, it simulates the evolution of the embodied energy flow under different cooperation strategies. The results show that if cooperation between countries positively affects their cooperation with other countries, adopting a mixed strategy is an advisable choice. On the contrary, cooperation with "powerful" countries in the network will be more conducive to the embodied energy flow. This article provides a new perspective and foundation for further discussion on the economy, trade, and energy cooperation along the Belt and Road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Maritime Silk Road (MSR) is an important channel for maritime trade between China and other countries in the world. Maritime piracy has brought huge security risks to ships' navigation and has seriously threatened the lives and property of crew members. To reduce the likelihood of attacks from pirates, it is necessary to study the risk to a ship exposed to attacks from pirates on the MSR. Firstly, risk factors were established from three risk component categories (hazard, mitigation capacity, and vulnerability and exposure) and the risk index system of piracy and armed robbery events was founded. Secondly, the dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) method was introduced to establish a pirate attack risk assessment model ad to conduct a quantitative analysis of the process risk of a ship being attacked by pirates. Finally, combined with the scene data of the MSR, the process risk of a ship being attacked by pirates was modeled and applied as an example. The results showed that the overall risk of a ship being attacked by pirates is the lowest in July and the highest in March. In the whole route, when the ship was in the Gulf of Guinea, the Gulf of Aden–Arabian Sea, and the Strait of Malacca, the risk of pirate attack was the highest. This dynamic network model can effectively analyze the level of risk of pirate attacks on ships, providing a reference for the safety decision-making of ships on ocean routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]