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The exploration of ecological security patterns (ESPs) can help people find those areas that are in urgent need of restoration, which is an effective way to realize ecological protection. It is of utmost significance for promoting regional sustainable development to construct ESP and put forward sub-regional optimization suggestions based on the supply and demand ratio of ecosystem services (ESs). In this paper, we assessed the level of supply and demand for five ESs based on multi-source data in 2020 with the help of InVEST, ArcGIS, and IUEMS. Based on the results of supply and demand, we calculated the supply and demand ratio of ESs and extracted the ecological source areas (ESAs) on this basis. Then, we used the Linkage Mapper tool to construct the ESP based on the principle of the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model and circuit theory in the Chengdu–Chongqing economic circle (CCEC). Our results indicated that there were apparent spatial differences in the supply and demand of five ESs. There were 35 ESAs in the ESP network, covering an area of about 7914 km2, and most of their land use types were woodland. The CCEC was interconnected by a network of 91 ecological corridors (ECs), spanning a total length of approximately 10,701 km. From the ECs, we extracted 29 ecological pinch points (EPPs) and 16 ecological barrier points (EBPs), which each accounted for about 0.3% of the planned area of the CCEC. Finally, we divided the ecological spaces into four types and put forward the corresponding optimization suggestions. Among them, the proportion of ecological restoration area was 7.7%, which was located in Chengdu City, northwest of the study area. The findings of this paper can give some theoretical guidance and serve as a reference for making decisions in the pursuit of ecological civilization in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

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Industrial land is essential for supply-side structural reforms, particularly in the Chengdu–Chongqing area, Western China's most densely populated and industrially robust region. This area, a pivotal hub linking Southwest China with South Asia and Southeast Asia, is critical for the national strategic layout and regional economic restructuring. Despite its substantial industrial foundation as an old industrial base, internal developmental stagnation has led to an irrational industrial land use structure. This paper analyzed land transaction data from the China Land Market Network (2010–2021) using methods such as kernel density estimation, the standard deviation ellipse method, and Global Moran's I index. The analysis focuses on the spatiotemporal evolution of industrial land marketization and its driving factors in 44 cities within the Chengdu–Chongqing economic circle. The findings aim to enhance the strategic implementation of national policies and regional economic optimization, suggesting intensified development efforts in key cities and promoting integrated growth in potential areas like Suining and Ziyang to foster a conducive environment for high-quality regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization confronts the dual challenges of water scarcity and environmental degradation, prompting the exploration of diverse water sources for mitigating these impacts. Inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) has emerged as a solution to balance urban water demand and supply in areas with local water shortages. While IBWT can deliver high-quality water over long distances, it is costly, often contributing significantly to carbon emissions. Reclaimed water use (RWU) presents a promising alternative to address this dilemma. In this paper, a valley region of Chongqing municipality in Southwest China, which is confronted with water and environmental risks resulting from rapid urbanization, was explored and discussed as a case study to assess the potential impact of RWU on reducing carbon emissions as compared to IBWT. A method of accumulative accounting was adapted to calculate and sum up carbon emission intensities at various stages, revealing that the operational carbon emission intensities of IBWT and RWU are 0.7447 KgCO2/m3 and 0.1880 KgCO2/m3, respectively. This indicates that RWU substitution can reduce carbon emissions by 0.5567 KgCO2/m3 or 75%. This paper further elucidates the mechanism behind carbon emission reduction, highlighting the energy-saving benefits of using reclaimed water locally without recourse to extensive transportation or elevation changes. Additionally, this result presents three scenarios of reclaimed water use, including urban miscellaneous water, river flow replenishment, and agricultural irrigation in relation to their substitution effects and environmental impacts. Estimates of carbon emission reductions from reclaimed water use were projected at the planned scale, with the maximum potential of reclaimed water utilization predicted. Finally, this paper proposes an enhanced strategy to identify and prioritize factors affecting reclaimed water utilization and the effect of carbon emission reduction. This paper aims to facilitate the establishment of a robust legal, institutional, and managerial framework while fostering interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral cooperation mechanisms in valley urban areas. The methodology employed can be universally applied to other regions grappling with severe water stress, thereby facilitating endeavors toward carbon reduction and contributing significantly to the attainment of water sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As immovable stone cultural heritage is kept in the open air, they are more susceptible to damage, and damage detection is very important for the protection and restoration of cultural heritage. This is especially true for gold-overlaid stone cultural heritage, which is usually more complicated than ordinary stone carvings. However, the detection of cultural heritage damages is mainly based on expert visual inspection, which is often subjective, time-consuming, and laborious. This paper uses the Mask R-CNN algorithm to rapidly and accurately detect the gold foil shedding of stone cultural heritage through two-dimensional images. The research data are from the high-precision images of the Dazu Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva Statue (World Heritage, UNESCO) in Chongqing, China. After cleaning and augmentation, 1900 images are input into Mask R-CNN model for training. Finally, the average precision value (AP) for detecting gold foil shedding is found to be 0.967. In order to test the performance of the model, the new images that do not participate in the training period are used, and it is found that the model can still accurately detect the gold foil shedding even if there are interference factors. This is the first attempt to detect the damages of gold-overlaid stone cultural heritage based on a deep learning algorithm, and it has achieved good results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventionally, the 2-parameter Weibull model, Arrhenius-Weibull model, has been used vastly for transformer aging-dependent unavailability modeling. However, this model only uses the lifetime feature to describe the transformer's degradation process and to calibrate the Weibull parameters, which harms the accuracy of aging-dependent unavailability forecasting. In response, this paper develops a 3-calibratable-parameter Weibull model for evaluating the transformer aging-dependent unavailability. In the proposed model, both the individualized aging threshold and lifetime are taken into the calibration of the Weibull parameters to accurately characterize the heterogeneity in transformer populations. First, a degree of polymerization (DP) analysis and Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) based approach is proposed for estimating the transformers’ uncertain aging thresholds and lifetimes. Then, the Maximum Likelihood Estimate and Particle Swarm Optimization are jointly adopted to model the relationship among the calibratable Weibull parameters, aging threshold, and lifetime. Finally, the analytical formula of aging-dependent unavailability is derived from the established 3-calibratable-parameter Weibull model using an integral-discretization method. A real utility application example in China's Chongqing power system has been presented to validate and demonstrate the practicality and usefulness of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By leveraging a multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) model, this paper delves into the intricate factors that influence housing prices in the prototypical mountainous cityscape of Chongqing's central urban area. The key findings are as follows: Firstly, the distribution of housing prices in the study region exhibits pronounced spatial heterogeneity, with the core area exhibiting a distinct "high-high" clustering pattern and manifesting characteristics of a multicenter group distribution. Secondly, the MGWR model effectively assigns an individual bandwidth to each feature quantity, allowing for a more nuanced portrayal of the varying influence scales exerted by diverse variables. Lastly, the study reveals that factors such as property cost, greening rate, building age, and proximity to rivers have a notable negative impact on housing prices, whereas, educational facilities exert a marked positive influence. Elevation, floor area ratio, and distance from the Central Business District (CBD) exhibit a more complex influence on housing prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high-quality development of service industry has become an important engine for promoting sustainable economic development. This paper first constructed the evaluation index system of high-quality development of service industry, based on panel data from 2005 to 2020. Second, Kernel density, Markov chain and Dagum Gini coefficient were used to represent the regional differences and dynamic evolution of service industry, and the Koo method was used to explore the characteristics of spatial agglomeration. Finally, social network analysis was used to identify core indicators. The study found that: (1) From 2005 to 2020, the overall level of service industry first decreases and then increases, with Chengdu and Chongqing leading other cities. (2) The development of service industry in the CCEC has large spatial differences, mainly due to inter-regional differences. (3) The level of spatial agglomeration is less variable, with high agglomeration mainly in Chengdu. (4) Indicators such as the level of human capital are the core factors of its high-quality development. This study is of great theoretical and practical significance for the optimization and upgrading of service industry in the CCEC and the synergetic development of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid global urbanization has inevitably led to habitat fragmentation, and much research has focused on responding by building ecological networks and improving connectivity. The construction of such post-event ecological networks is sometimes not effective, and the identification and protection of important patches in the early urbanization period is more significant. Based on the redundancy theory, this paper explores the method of identifying potential critical habitat patches after future urban development. The paper takes the Longxing area of Chongqing city as an example and uses the cumulative current value results of circuit theory model simulations and patch characteristic attribute information as sample data, introduces a combination of the minimal-redundancy-maximal-relevance criterion and a support vector machine (mRMR + SVM) to discriminate the redundancy of patches in ecological networks, and ranks the importance of source patches. The results show that the mRMR criterion can exhibit a more realistic ranking of patch importance, allowing patches with better quality to achieve a higher ranking. Compared to the patch importance determined based on the magnitude of the cumulative current value, 66.34% of the patch importance order changed in the mRMR criterion ranking results. The mRMR + SVM method was effective in identifying individuals with redundancy from the set of source-site patches. The test found that ecological corridors still passed through or occurred near these redundant patches after their removal, demonstrating the substitutability of patches identified as redundant. The results of the study can help improve the knowledge of ecological networks and provide quantitative methodological support and decision-making reference for urban development and ecological conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of economy, the increasing number of motor vehicles and the total road mileage, which leads to the increasingly prominent traffic safety problems. In order to explore the quantitative relationship between the built environment and the risk of urban road traffic safety, this paper reconstructs the built environment system based on the '5D' element model of the built environment combined with the factors influencing traffic safety risks, and describes the built environment from multiple aspects such as density, diversity &traffic design etc, and then build the gradient lift decision tree model to explore the importance and dependency of variables. The empirical analysis selects a district in Chongqing as the research unit, and the results show that: the RMSE the model was 0.0036, the MAPE was 1.9%, and the determination coefficient R2 was 0.84. GBDT algorithm results shows: the cumulative importance of population density, road facilities, intersection density, secondary road and branch road density, average intersection distance, land use mix, and economic density reaches 77.87%. Some variables show obvious nonlinearity and threshold effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This paper summarizes the research progress into stimulation methods used in rehabilitation equipment for pediatric cerebral palsy (CP) for the past 20  years from 2003 to 2023. We also provide ideas for innovative research and development of artificial intelligence-based rehabilitation equipment. Methods: Through a certain search strategy, Keywords are searched in the China National Knowledge Network Database (CNKI), the Wanfang Database knowledge service platform, the Chongqing VIP information service, PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane, ScienceDirect, Medline, Embase, and IEEE database. A total of 3,049 relevant articles were retrieved, and 49 articles were included that mentioned research and development of rehabilitation equipment. We excluded articles that were not specific to children with CP, were duplicated or irrelevant literature, were missing data, the full article was not available, the article did not describe the method of stimulation used with the rehabilitation equipment on children with CP, were not Chinese and English, and were the types of reviews and commentaries. Results: Physical stimulation is the main stimulation method of rehabilitation equipment for children with CP. Force stimulation is the main mode of physical stimulation, and there are 17 articles that have verified the clinical efficacy of force stimulation-based equipment. Conclusion: Research on the stimulation mode of pediatric cerebral palsy rehabilitation equipment is likely to focus on simulating the force of the Chinese medicine called “tuina manipulation.” When this method is combined with artificial intelligence and personalized direction we believe this will lay the foundation for future development of a novel therapy for children with CP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rainstorm is one of the global meteorological disasters that threaten the safety of transportation infrastructure and the connectivity of transportation system. Aiming to support the resilience assessment of transportation infrastructure in three representative regions: Sichuan–Chongqing, Yangtze River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-Shandong, rainfall data over 40 years in the three regions are collected, and the temporal distribution of rainfall are analyzed. Prediction equations of rainfall are established. For the purpose of this, the probabilistic density function (PDF) is assigned to the rainfall by fitting the frequency distribution histogram. Using the assigned PDF, the rainfall data are transformed into standard normal space where regression of prediction equations is performed and the prediction accuracy is tested. The results show that: (1) The frequency of rainfall in the three regions follows a lognormal distribution based on which the prediction equations of rainfall can be established in standard normal space. The error of regression shows no remarkable dependence on self-variables, and the significance analysis indicates that the equations proposed in this paper are plausible for predicting rainfalls for the three regions. (2) The Yangtze River Delta region has a higher risk of rainstorm disaster compared to the other two regions according to the frequency of rainfall and the return period of precipitation concentration. (3) Over the period of 1980–2021, the Sichuan–Chongqing region witnessed an increase in yearly rainfall but a decrease in rainstorm disasters, whereas the other two regions experienced a consistent rise in both metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN) is a common chronic neurological complication of diabetes mellitus. Medications are often used to relieve pain, but with significant side effects. Acupuncture is now a component of pragmatic and integrative treatment for PDN. An increasing number of relevant randomized controlled trials have been published in recent years, but a comprehensive meta-analysis has not yet been performed. The aim of this paper is to verify the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for PDN by metaanalysis and trial sequential analysis (TSA). Methods: All participants in this study should have had a PDN diagnosis and the trial group was treated with acupuncture. Eight databases, including EMbase, PubMed, Web of science, Cochrane Library, China Biology Medicine disc (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang and Chongqing VIP (CQVIP) were retrieved from inception to 5 April 2023. Meta-analysis was conducted utilizing RevMan 5.3 and Stata 15.0. TSA was performed to assess the adequacy of sample size for the outcomes. Results: A total of 36 studies, comprising 2,739 PDN patients, were included. Among them, 1,393 patients were assigned to the trial group and 1,346 patients were treated in the control group. Outcomes covers the primary indicator Total effective rate (RR = 1.42, 95%CI [1.34, 1.52], p < 0.00001), with 21 studies reported, Pain intensity (SMD = -1.27, 95%CI [-1.58, -0.95], p < 0.00001), with 23 studies reported, and other outcomes, including motor nerve conduction velocity (MCV; MD = 3.58, 95%CI [2.77, 4.38], p < 0.00001), sensory nerve conduction velocity (SCV; MD = 3.62, 95%CI [2.75, 4.49], p < 0.00001), Depression score (SMD = -1.02, 95%CI [1.58, 0.46]), Toronto clinical scoring system (TCSS; MD = -2.41, 95%CI [-3.37, -1.45], p < 0.00001), Quality of life (SMD = 1.06, 95%CI [0.66, 1.46]), traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome score (MD = -4.99, 95%CI [-6.79, -3.18], p < 0.00001), suggesting that acupuncture have an ameliorating effect on PDN in various respect. Egger's test revealed publication bias for four outcomes. TSA showed that as for Total effective rate, Pain Intensity, MCV and SCV, the number of included studies was sufficient to support the conclusions. Conclusion: Acupuncture demonstrates significant effectiveness in improving PDN outcomes, including Total effective rate, Pain intensity, MCV, SCV, Depression score, TCSS, Quality of life, TCM syndrome score. But the Adverse events rate is no different in trail group and control group. The publication bias presented in Total effective rate, Pain intensity, MCV and SCV can be remedied by Trim and filling method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildfires cause great losses to the ecological environment, economy, and people's safety and belongings. As a result, it is crucial to establish wildfire susceptibility models and delineate fire risk levels. It has been proven that the use of remote sensing data, such as meteorological and topographical data, can effectively predict and evaluate wildfire susceptibility. Accordingly, this paper converts meteorological and topographical data into fire-influencing factor raster maps for wildfire susceptibility prediction. The continuous convolutional neural network (CCNN for short) based on coordinate attention (CA for short) can aggregate different location information into channels of the network so as to enhance the feature expression ability; moreover, for different patches with different resolutions, the improved CCNN model does not need to change the structural parameters of the network, which improves the flexibility of the network application in different forest areas. In order to reduce the annotation of training samples, we adopt an active learning method to learn positive features by selecting high-confidence samples, which contributes to enhancing the discriminative ability of the network. We use fire probabilities output from the model to evaluate fire risk levels and generate the fire susceptibility map. Taking Chongqing Municipality in China as an example, the experimental results show that the CA-based CCNN model has a better classification performance; the accuracy reaches 91.7%, and AUC reaches 0.9487, which is 5.1% and 2.09% higher than the optimal comparative method, respectively. Furthermore, if an accuracy of about 86% is desired, our method only requires 50% of labeled samples and thus saves about 20% and 40% of the labeling efforts compared to the other two methods, respectively. Ultimately, the proposed model achieves the balance of high prediction accuracy and low annotation cost and is more helpful in classifying fire high warning zones and fire-free zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing frequency of emergencies in recent years, the emergency response capacity of the emergency management system needs to be improved. Based on safety stock strategy, this paper proposes a multilevel siting model on the topic of mobile emergency response. We modeled the emergency response needs during emergencies by incorporating the population distribution of each region. The uncertainty of emergencies is modeled by aggregating the frequency of crises in each region over the past 20 years. The site selection model minimizes contingency logistics costs that include transshipment, deployment, inventory, and safety stock costs. In this paper, the IA (Immune Algorithm) is optimized to solve the constructed emergency site selection model. The experiments on the model were carried out with data from the area of Chongqing, Sichuan Province. The number of logistics centers and distribution storage warehouses was tested. The influence of safety stock strategy on the total cost of emergency logistics was analyzed. The research results found that the cost of safety stock is negatively related to the cost of transshipment. In addition, the total cost of emergency logistics has a lower bound. Adding distribution and storage warehouses does not further reduce the total emergency logistics cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Business incubators are advantageous to new venture legitimacy because they provide rich access to entrepreneurial resources, and their incubation networks can offer endorsement to incubatees. However, empirical evidence on this topic is limited, and the existing literature relies predominantly on the Western context. Given that not all developing country incubators have resourceful and reputable external entrepreneurial networks as in the industrialized countries, and that new ventures need to build legitimacy along cognitive and socio-political dimensions that require different actions to influence different stakeholders, this study investigates empirically how business incubators facilitate their incubatees to build legitimacy in a context where resource and reputation conditions are weak. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how business incubators perform legitimacy-building roles effectively. Design/methodology/approach: A multiple case study of business incubators in Chongqing, a second-tier Chinese city, is presented. Using grounded theory, this paper draws its findings from a synthesis of interviews and secondary data of seven incubators and their ten incubatees. Findings: The legitimacy-building role of business incubators is performed well in this research context. Evidence is presented that incubators play different roles in building different dimensions of incubatees' legitimacy. Government-associated incubators play a salient role in building incubatees' socio-political legitimacy whilst non-government related incubators shape their incubatees' cognitive legitimacy. Originality/value: This study contributes to the business incubators literature by revealing how incubators perform the legitimacy-building role when their resource endorsement is weak. The results suggest that incubators need to strengthen their ties with external stakeholders and that new ventures need to take key stakeholders into consideration when they select incubators to enter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Organic pollutants' transport, transformation, and biological effectiveness in soils depend mainly on their chemical forms. Therefore, in addition to studying the total content of pollutants, it is essential to understand the forms of organic pollutants in soils. In this study, we measured the speciations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), including desorbing fraction, non-desorbing fraction, and bound residues, in soil samples from the Zhongliangshan karst terrain in Chongqing, southwest China. We also investigated the occurrence of PAHs in soils of the region. Moreover, we used principal component analysis (PCA) to analyze the relationship between soil properties and different speciations of PAHs in soils. The contents of ΣPAH16 ranged from 319.69–1215.64 ng/g, with a mean value of 615.02 ng/g. Desorbing fraction PAHs were significant, accounting for 34–81% of the total PAHs. The ratio of different speciations ordered as soluble > organic solvent extracted > bound residues. 2-3-ring were the major components of the total PAHs content in soils and desorbing fraction. PCA analysis determined that soil organic matter (SOM), total nitrogen (TN), and soil bulk density significantly affected the non-desorbing fraction, and pH and total organic carbon (TOC) had a significant positive correlation with the bound residues. The karst area is a complex and fragile ecosystem. The speciation of PAHs in soils is of great importance for assessing their risk and for remediation. However, most studies have focused on the concentration and distribution of PAHs in karst soils. Therefore, in this paper, we investigated the distribution of PAHs in soils in karst areas by investigating the distribution of different speciations of PAHs in soils. We also investigated the key factors influencing the distribution of different speciations. Materials and methods: Ten sites were selected in Zhongliangshan karst terrain, where 0–20 cm of soil was collected and the concentrations of 16 PAHs were measured. Three speciations of 16 PAHs in soils were extracted by sequential extraction. And the standard methods recommended by the Chinese Society of Soil Science were used to determine the basic soil properties. Result and discussion: In this study, we measured the speciation of PAHs in soil samples from the Zhongliangshan karst terrain in Chongqing, southwest China, including desorbing fraction, non-desorbing fraction, and bound residues. The total content of the 16 PAHs ranged from 319.69 to 1215.64 ng/g, with an average value of 615.02 ng/g. The desorbing fraction was significant, accounting for 34–81% of the total PAHs. The ratio of different speciations is ordered as desorbing fraction > non-desorbing fraction > bound residues. 2–3-ring were the major components of the total PAHs content in soils and each speciation. The PCA results show a significant effect of soil organic matter, TN, and soil bulk density on the non-desorbing fraction. pH and TOC had a relatively significant positive correlation with bound residues. Conclusions: This paper investigated the contamination status of PAHs in surface soils in the karst terrain of southwest China, and the speciation of PAHs. Under the special geological structure background in karst areas, studying the occurrence forms and influencing factors of PAHs pollutants in soils is of great significance for a deeper understanding of the occurrence forms of pollutants and effective control of their diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: This paper takes the Yinchuan–Chongqing high-speed railway (HSR) as an example and proposes an auxiliary strategy for the traditional line planning scheme. With the increasing density of China's high-speed railway line network, this method can be applied to railway station selection, line design, and other similar practices. It may also be applied to other line scenarios such as highways in the future. The Yinchuan–Chongqing high-speed railway (HSR) is one of the "ten vertical and ten horizontal" comprehensive transportation channels in the National 13th Five-Year Plan for Mid- and Long-Term Railway Network. However, the choice of node stations on this line is controversial. In this paper, the problem of high-speed railway station selection is transformed into a classification problem under the edge graph structure in complex networks, and a Scatter-GNN model is proposed to predict stations. The article first uses the Node2vec algorithm to perform a biased random walk on the railway network to generate the vector representation of each station. Secondly, an adaptive method is proposed, which derives the critical value of edge stations through the pinching rule, and then effectively identifies the edge stations in the high-speed railway network. Next, the calculation method of Hadamard product is used to represent the potential neighbors of edge sites, and then the attention mechanism is used to predict the link between all potential neighbors and their corresponding edge sites. After the link prediction, the final high-speed railway network is obtained, and it is input into the GNN classifier together with the line label to complete the station prediction. Experiments show that: Baoji and Hanzhong are more likely to become node stations in this north–south railway trunk line. The Scatter-GNN classifier optimizes the site selection strategy by calculating the connection probabilities between two or more candidate routes and comparing their results. This may reduce manual selection costs and ease geographic evaluation burdens. The model proposed in this paper can be used as an auxiliary strategy for the traditional route planning scheme, which may become a new way of thinking to study such problems in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the two-way information flow between cities is of great significance to promote regional coordinated development, but the current mainstream non-directional network analysis method cannot analyze it effectively. In this paper, the quantities of relevant media articles in WeChat and Weibo between cities are taken as the traffic indices to construct a directional and weighted urban network of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle in China. Based on this network construction method, which adds direction thinking, we analyze the characteristics of information interconnection between cities. According to the analysis, we find that the provincial boundary hinders information interconnection, and the imbalance of external information interconnection is more serious in Chongqing's central urban area, Liangping, Ya'an and Mianyang. In addition, we analyze the centrality status of different cities in the outward and inward perspective and further explore the factors that cause these differences in centrality. The results show that the centrality of the information network is not sensitive to the basic strength of the city, and it is the accessibility, including high-speed rail transportation access and telecommunication access, which controls the centrality of the city network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of Chinese society, there is an increasing demand for emissions reduction and the stable operation of the power grid. Regional comprehensive energy supply systems have entered the public's view owing to their advantages of reducing capacity, unified dispatch, improving efficiency, and reducing energy consumption. This paper focuses on a system under construction in Chongqing, which adopts a combined gas tri-supply (combined cooling, heat, and power, CCHP) and dynamic ice storage cooling system as the research object. By establishing a mathematical model for the simulation research, this study examines the start–stop priority sequence of the gas tri-supply subsystem and the heat pump subsystem under the ice storage priority strategy in winter and summer and proposes corresponding optimization solutions. By comparing the annual operating energy consumption of the system, we conclude that the gas tri-supply composite system has good economic efficiency and peak-shaving capability, indicating that regional gas tri-supply composite systems have great application potential in the future. The proposed optimized operation strategy and simulated energy consumption calculation provide theoretical guidance for the construction and operation of both this project and similar projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the efficiency of the "last-mile" distribution in urban logistics and solve the problem of the difficult charging of electric logistics vehicles (ELVs), this paper proposes a charging station location optimization scheme for ELVs that takes into account time-window and load constraints (TW-LCs). Taking the optimal transportation path as the objective function and considering the time-window and vehicle load constraints, a charging station siting model was established. For the TW-LC problem, an improved genetic algorithm combining the farthest-insertion heuristic idea and local search operation was designed. Three different types of standardized arithmetic examples, C type, R type, and RC type, were used to test the proposed algorithm and compare it with the traditional genetic algorithm. The results indicate that, under the same conditions, compared to the traditional genetic algorithm, the improved genetic algorithm reduced the optimal path length by an average of 11.12%. It also decreased the number of charging stations selected, the number of vehicles in use, and the algorithm complexity by 22.97%, 13.71%, and 46.81%. Building on this, a case study was conducted on the TW-LC problem in a specific area of Chongqing, China. It resulted in a 50% reduction in the number of charging stations and a 25% reduction in the number of vehicles selected. In terms of economic indicators, the proposed algorithm improves unit electricity sales by 73.88% and reduces the total annualized cost of the logistics company by 18.81%, providing a theoretical basis for the subsequent promotion of ELVs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban regeneration is a sound, sustainable urban development strategy globally. In China, promoting urban regeneration has become the national sustainable urban strategy. Under the resource constraint, it is necessary to understand what benefits different types of urban regeneration projects can contribute to urban development. Much research has contributed to evaluating the benefits of urban regeneration on the project scale. The systematic investigation of their effects on surrounding economic vitality, especially the comparison between different types of projects, is relatively downplayed. This paper aims to evaluate and compare the effects of urban regeneration projects on surrounding economic vitality by calculating the change in housing prices. Chongqing is selected as the case city. Based on the housing transaction data from 2015 to 2021, a staggered difference-in-difference method is employed to capture the results. The finding shows that the overall effects are significantly negative, especially within a 400–800 m radius. Higher investment or better project location relates to stronger negative effects. Moreover, the differences in effects among the three types of urban regeneration projects are clearly revealed from diverse perspectives. It provides a valuable reference for policymakers and urban planners to make urban regeneration planning better by considering comprehensive benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the application of intergenerational theory as its analytical framework, this paper seeks to provide new insights into the social construction of sugar-sweetened food and food practices in the context of contemporary urban China, drawing on 16 months' in-depth qualitative research in the city of Chongqing. From an intergenerational perspective, it argues that although adults and children both typically construct sugar-sweetened food as "bad" for health based on the logic of its biological meaning, there are more generational differences in the understandings of sociocultural meanings associated with these foods, which are the main reasons may lead to intergenerational conflict. Caregivers tend to regard their control of children's sugar-sweetened food intake as a means to discipline their children's bodies and develop food moralities. However, children themselves are likely to perform sugar-sweetened food practices as a way of socializing and sometimes resisting the control of caregivers. Based on this, this paper further shows that these diverse views are rooted in the tension between caregivers' anxiety about the transmission of food moralities through intensive parenting practices and children's agency in food consumption in contemporary urban China. These findings enhance intergenerational-theoretical research and highlight the need to move beyond the analytical framework of "behaviour change" in related food and health studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The freshwater discharge from melting ice sheets in the deglaciation or glaciation is prone to anomalies in ocean-atmosphere transport between different latitudes, which can lead to a series of abrupt millennial-scale climate events, either obvious or not, such as the Younger Dryas (YD) events and YD-like events. Marine Isotope Stage 11c (MIS 11c) serves as one of the best references for the current Holocene, and the studies of possible YD-like events and their triggering mechanisms during Holocene are conducive to the understanding of the occurrence pattern of extreme climate events. In this paper, the results of the study on the J33 δ18O sequence records of stalagmites in Jinfo Cave, Chongqing, are shown: (1) Stalagmites in the Asian monsoon climate zone reveal a millennial-scale weak monsoon event that occurred around 410 ka BP prior to the Glacial Maximum of MIS 11 interglacial period. (2) Both the 410 ka weak monsoon event and the YD event occurred during the gradual strengthening of the monsoon and ascending branch of summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere prior to the Glacial Maximum of interglacial period. This was also a time when Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) disturbance occurred. The duration, internal structure, and pattern of the events were similar, with differences in the change magnitude and ice volume conditions. (3) The weak monsoon event that occurred in 410 ka BP was primarily influenced by the combined effects of insolation and AMOC. This event was characterized by a sustained warming process that accelerated the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, leading to the destabilization of this ice sheet. The continuous flowing of freshwater into the North Atlantic resulted in a short-lived AMOC oscillation. The weakening of the AMOC resulted in a cold anomaly over the North Atlantic. As a result of atmospheric telecorrelation, the weaker AMOC led to a weaker Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In tunnel smooth blasting, optimizing the water interval charging structure of peripheral holes is of great significance in improving the effect of smooth blasting and reducing the unit consumption of explosives. Addressing the issue of a single traditional evaluation standard, this paper proposes a composite index evaluation method for rock blasting damage in different zones, and the best charging structure is optimized according to the evaluation results. Taking Liyue Road Tunnel Light Smooth Blasting Project in Chongqing as the Research Background, the numeric models were established with ten kinds of charge structures, the charge structures and explosive quantity were optimized according to the evaluation results, and then the field tests were conducted. The results show that when the length of the water medium at the bottom of the hole is 20 cm, the damage range of the retained rock mass can be controlled while ensuring rock fragmentation. If the length of the water medium at the orifice and in the center of the hole is more than 30 cm, it will affect the superposition effect of the blast stress wave, resulting in under-excavation; in the preferred charge structure, the ratio of the length of the upper and lower explosives reaches 1:3, and the ratio of the length of the water medium is 2:2:1, which achieves a better rock-breaking effect in the field test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle in China, the recommended bearing capacity of a medium-weathering mudstone foundation is less than the capacity of the rock structure to withstand loads. The aim of this paper was to perform plate loading tests (PLTs) with binocular vision measurement (BVM) to obtain the accurate deformation of the foundation under vertical loading. The results revealed that vertical load–bearing foundations have a failure mode that can be reduced to that of thrust failures for thin bedded structures of mudstone foundations. By analyzing the differences in results between the PLTs and the uniaxial compressive strength tests under the same conditions, a new formalism for calculating foundation-bearing capacity was proposed; there is only a 5% difference compared to in situ tests. The results of this research provide theoretical support and a practical benchmark for the full development of the load-bearing capability of soft red rocks. As the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle progresses toward the international urban cluster, inevitably, soft rock is used as a foundation retaining layer in the construction of superhigh and super-rise buildings in the region. However, owing to antiquated testing methods and poor intelligibility of the testing equipment, the bearing capacity of such a mass of rock has yet to be fully developed and cannot meet the dual-carbon economic goals and sustainable development of architectural design. Based on this, the study introduces a noncontact method to measure the bearing capacity of soft rock within the traditional method of in situ testing and combines the concept of big data analysis to advance an empirical method for calculating the bearing capacity accurately. Based on the results of this study, the concept of natural foundations can be adopted and the engineering dilemma that the treatment of building foundations cannot be economical and practical can be solved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the cardinality constrained mean-variance portfolio optimization, in which only a small number of assets are invested. We first treat the covariance matrix of asset returns as a diagonal matrix with a special matrix processing technique. Using the dual theory, we formulate the lower bound problem of the original problem as a max-min optimization. For the inner minimization problem with the cardinality constraint, we obtain its analytical solution for the portfolio weights. Then, the lower bound problem turns out to be a simple concave optimization with respect to the Lagrangian multipliers. Thus, the interval split method and the supergradient method are developed to solve it. Based on the precise lower bound, the depth-first branch and bound method are designed to find the global optimal investment selection strategy. Compared with other lower bounds and the current popular mixed integer programming solvers, such as CPLEX and SCIP, the numerical experiments show that our method has a high searching efficiency. History: Accepted by Pascal Van Hentenryck, Area Editor for Computational Modeling: Methods & Analysis. Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 12101317, 12271071, and 11991024], the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [Grant BK20200819], the Team Project of Innovation Leading Talent in Chongqing [Grant CQYC20210309536], the Contract System Project of Chongqing Talent Plan [Grant cstc2022ycjh-bgzxm0147], and the Philosophy and Social Science Fund of Education Department of Jiangsu Province [Grant 2020SJA0168]. K.F.C. Yiu is supported in part by the Research Grants Council of Hong Hong [Grant PolyU 15223419], the Hong Kong Polytechnic University [Grants 4-ZZPT and 1-WZ0E], and the Research Centre for Quantitative Finance [Grant 1-CE03]. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplemental Information (https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2022.0344) as well as from the IJOC GitHub software repository (https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/2022.0344). The complete IJOC Software and Data Repository is available at https://informsjoc.github.io/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The medical field is facing a physician‐scientist shortage, threatening future medical research and development. Medical institutions can contribute to developing physician‐scientists by stimulating students' involvement in research. In this study, a medical undergraduate teaching module to develop research skills and encourage interest in research was held in Chongqing, China. Undergraduate medical students at Chongqing Medical University completed research skills training. Before and after the training, an online, anonymous, self‐reported questionnaire was administered. The self‐reported questionnaire investigated students' demographic characteristics, students' perception of attitudes toward conducting research, research skills (e.g., identifying and utilizing information, critical appraisal of literature, paper writing, and understanding of research), and feedback on scientific research training. The module was implemented with 25 students from July 2019 to October 2019, and 96.0% (N = 24) of participants responded to the questionnaire both prior to and after the training. In the evaluation of research skills, results showed that use of appropriate tools for research (Z = −3.340, p < 0.01), students' ability to undertake a focused literature search (Z = −3.40, p < 0.01), identifying and utilizing information (Z = −3.34, p < 0.01), and paper‐writing skills (Z = −3.49, p < 0.01) were significantly improved after the undergraduates participated in the scientific research training. A qualitative analysis of the feedback showed that students found that the training helped to enhance their knowledge, improve their study scores, and motivate them to conduct research in the future. Early scientific research ability training strengthened the research skills of medical undergraduates and motivated them to pursue research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though road authorities have well-defined inspection protocols for evaluating bridge serviceability, gaps remain in understanding optimal timing and the impact of maintenance strategies on an individual bridge and its subsystems and, consequently, on the holistic performance of a road network. This paper proposes an innovative model based on system reliability principles that develops optimized bridge maintenance strategies aimed at enhancing the overall reliability of a bridge-dominated road network by considering the quantified impact of bridge component deterioration. Using the first-order second-moment method, we initially determine the reliability index for each bridge based on condition ratings derived from routine inspections as outlined in the bridge inspection manual. Advanced optimization algorithms then formulate the optimal maintenance strategies for the bridge structures. Finally, we gauge the system reliability of the network using Ditlevsen bounds approximation, considering the impact of maintenance actions on varied bridge structural components. The developed model was implemented on a typical bridge-dominated road network in Chongqing, China. The results demonstrate the model has the capacity to quantify the impact of diverse bridge maintenance strategies on the total road network, offering valuable insights for decision makers to design effective, efficient maintenance strategies aimed at extending the lifespan of bridge-dominated road networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explored features of hedges in college students' English writing at different language levels and their differences from native students' writing. The 2000 writing texts by students from 3 key universities and 8 ordinary universities in Chongqing and Sichuan Province were offered by China Wordnet Company who initiated English writing campaign in 2016. The result showed that compared with native students, students from key and ordinary universities used more hedges, relied on a narrow range of hedges and offered stronger commitments to statements. Language level did not play a decisive role in these aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vast majority of rural settlements in Western China are located in the ecologically sensitive and diverse mountainous environment, which also experienced rapid changes in policy and institutional interventions over the past 40 years. At present, in the transitional period of "post-poverty alleviation," they have more opportunities to re-integrate themselves into the large regional development. However, there is a lack of systematic evaluation and cognition of the related functions of the spatial structure between the settlements at the regional village scale and town scale. Therefore, in this paper, the theory of complex adaptive system and its analytical NK model were introduced, and a quantitative measurement framework was constructed for the adaptability level of this kind of rural settlement spatial structure organization so as to explore the effective path for its global optimization. Taking Xinglong Town of Chongqing in the western mountainous area as an example, it was found from the analysis that (1) the number of villages at a high comprehensive adaptation level has increased over time, which has an obvious positive correlation with the construction of transportation network, and a structural adsorption effect. (2) The spatial structure of the rural settlement system in the region has changed from weak industrial nodes – traffic single branch connection – public service decentralized coverage in 2010 to the organizational adaptation characteristics of stable industrial agglomeration – traffic expansion and extension – public service continuous coverage in 2019. (3) The spatial elements related to industry and public service in each village have an increasingly significant impact on the reconstruction and differentiation of its spatial structure. Finally, based on the changing trend of adaptability level and the correlation characteristics of regional space, in this paper, the spatial structure optimization strategy of Xinglong Town is put forward, which provides a reference basis for the coordinated development of the town and village space under the township-level planning in the western region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle (hereinafter referred to as "Chengyu Region") is a key construction region of China's major development strategy. The development of regional tourism plays an important role in the optimization of regional economy and industrial structure. In this paper, ArcGIS 10.5 was used as the main analysis tool to analyze the temporal and spatial distribution of A-level tourist attractions in Chengyu Region, and makes factor analysis and interactive analysis on the factors affecting the distribution of tourist attractions by geographic detector model. The results show that: 1. The distribution of tourism attractions in Chengyu Region is mainly concentrated type, and the distribution of the natural landscape, cultural landscape, rural pastoral and modern entertainment in Chengyu Region are all concentrated type. 2. In terms of the distribution characteristics of kernel density, there is a significant deviation between the spatial distribution of A-level tourist attractions and tourism income in Chengyu Region. Through the analysis of the dynamic development of A-level tourist attractions in 2010, 2015 and 2021, tourism in Chengyu Region show a good situation of "driven by two cities and blooming in many places." Among them, Chengdu and Chongqing have obvious advantages, and Yibin has become an important city second only to Chengdu and Chongqing. 3. In terms of spatial correlation, the spatial distribution of A-level tourist attractions in Chengyu Region has a significant spatial autocorrelation. The local spatial autocorrelation of A-level tourist attractions includes H–H (high-high), H–L (high-low) and L–H (low–high) clustering types. 4. In terms of influencing factors, traffic location, water system, topography and social and economic development level are the important factors affecting the spatial distribution of regional A-level tourist attractions. Among them, the level of social and economic development has the greatest impact on regional tourism. Finally, based on relevant theories, this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions for regional coordinated development, so as to guide the sustainable development and management innovation of regional tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aims of this paper is to establish an appropriate physical-change-based renewal (PCBR) projects selection mechanism capable of selecting the combination of the PCBR projects that can make up an integrated urban renewal program in high-density cities. Design/methodology/approach: The research design follows a sequential integrated methodology that combines the calculation algorithms of Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (Fuzzy-ANP) with Zero-One Goal Programming (ZOGP) to support decisions for the selection of PCBR projects. In the first phase, general criteria for assessing the sustainability performance of PCBR projects were collected from relevant literature. In the second phase, the Fuzzy-ANP was used to identify the priority weights of the candidate projects through clarifying the interdependent degree between the criteria and candidate projects. Finally, ZOGP method was selected as a predetermined number of PCBR projects among candidate projects. Findings: The feasibility and effectiveness of this hybrid approach is then verified in a case study of Yuzhong District, Chongqing in China. The results of this study indicate that the integrated method is capable of directing the decision maker toward the best compromising solution of PCBR program that can achieve the maximization of sustainable benefits and allocate limited resources most efficiently. Originality/value: The novelty of this paper consists in combining the algorithms of the Fuzzy-ANP method with those of the ZOGP model that serves as an effective analysis tool to address practical decision problems. This is the first hybrid algorithms to make PCBR projects selection decision that reach the maximization of the sustainable benefits, both in economic and socio-environmental terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "14th Five-Year Plan" period is a crucial phase for China to achieve the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality (referred to as the "double carbon"). Thus, it is very important to analyze the main factors affecting carbon emissions and accurately predict the change of carbon emissions to achieve the goal of double carbon. For the slow data updates and the low accuracy of traditional prediction models about the carbon emissions, the key factors of carbon emissions change selected by gray correlation method and the consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas were input into four single prediction models: gray prediction model GM(1,1), ridge regression, BP neural network, and WOA-BP neural network to obtain the fitted and predicted values of carbon emissions, which serve as input to the particle swarm optimization–extreme learning machine (PSO-ELM) model together. Based on the PSO-ELM combined prediction method above and the scenario prediction indicators constructed according to relevant policy documents of Chongqing Municipality, the carbon emission values of Chongqing Municipality during the 14th Five-Year Plan period are predicted in this paper. The empirical results show that carbon emissions of Chongqing Municipality still maintain an upward trend, but the growth rate slow down compared with 1998 to 2018. In general, the carbon emission and GDP of Chongqing Municipality showed a weak decoupling state during 1998 to 2025. By calculation, the PSO-ELM combined prediction model is superior to the above four single prediction models in carbon emission prediction and has good property by the robust testing. The research results can enrich the combined prediction method about the carbon emissions and provide policy suggestions for Chongqing's low-carbon development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study takes 10 urban agglomerations in China as the research object, focusing on the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration, and applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure and compare their scientific input and output efficiency of universities. First, this paper analyzes the input and output of scientific research in universities in major provinces in China in detail. Second, according to the construction principles of the indicator system, using qualitative interview to construct evaluation indicators of university research efficiency. Third, using DEA method, first analyze the input and output profile of some urban agglomeration universities such as Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, measure and compare their research input and output efficiency, then compare and analyze the research efficiency of research-type sample universities within Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, and conduct a projection study of non-DEA effective sample universities. The main conclusions are as follows: first, the average efficiency of scientific research in universities in Chengdu-Chongqing and other urban agglomerations in 2020 has slightly increased compared with that in 2016, but the gap between urban agglomerations is prominent, and the innovation level of scientific research in higher education institutions in urban agglomerations needs to be improved. Second, there is a mismatch between the themes of research, funding and human resources in research-oriented universities in the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle. Third, there is considerable room for improvement in research efficiency, and the influence of scale on overall efficiency is weak. We found that excessive investment in scientific research in universities is the main reason for the non-effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on sorting out the architectural historical materials of Tang and Song Dynasties reflected in the rock caves of Sichuan and Chongqing area, this paper discusses the evolution of dougong [...], roof forms and architectural groups in the Tang and Five Dynasties Period in this area. At the same time, the paper compares some timber architecture features from Tang to Song Dynasties reflected in rock caves with existing buildings, so as to supplement and demonstrate the development process of some architectural features. The above research reveals the main historical value of these architectural historical materials: firstly, they supplement the absence of ancient wooden structures from Tang to Song Dynasties in Sichuan and Chongqing to some extent; secondly, they witness the spread of some architectural cultures between the northern and southwestern regions from Tang to Song Dynasties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings consume large amounts of energy resources and emit considerable amounts of greenhouse gases, especially existing buildings that do not meet energy standards. Building retrofitting is considered one of the most promising and significant solutions to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. However, finding suitable energy efficiency measures for existing buildings is extremely difficult due to the existence of thousands of retrofit measures and the need to meet various objectives. In this paper, a multi-stage decision framework, including a multi-objective optimization model, and a ranking method are proposed to help decision-makers select the optimal energy efficiency measures. The multi-objective optimization model considers the economic and environmental objectives, expressed as the retrofit cost and energy consumption, respectively. The entropy weight ideal point ranking method, an evaluation and ranking method that combines the entropy weight method and ideal point method, is adopted to sort the Pareto front and make a final decision. Then, the proposed decision framework was implemented for the retrofit planning of an educational building in Chongqing, China. The results show that decision-makers can quickly identify near-optimal energy efficiency measures through multi-objective optimization and can select suitable energy efficiency measures using the ranking method. Moreover, energy consumption can be reduced by building retrofitting. The energy consumption of the case building was 64.20 kWh/m2 before retrofitting, and the value can be reduced by 6.79% through retrofitting. Furthermore, the reduction in building energy consumption was significantly improved by applying the decision framework. The highest value of energy consumption was 59.84 kWh/m2, while the lowest value was 27.11 kWh/m2 when implementing the multi-stage decision framework. Thus, this paper provides a useful decision framework for decision-makers to formulate suitable energy efficiency measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overpasses and the terrain under them in Chongqing, a mountainous city in China, are complex and diverse, and some spaces under the overpasses are integrated and reconstructed into the underpass green space for citizens to stroll about or have a rest. From the perspective of visitor perception, this paper constructs a perception evaluation system of the environmental characteristics of underpass green space in mountainous cities from the following five environmental perception dimensions: path organization, security, aesthetic value, physical environment, activities and cultural. The IPA-Kano model is used to quantify environmental perception, and the main environmental factors affecting the improvement of recreation satisfaction of underpass green space in three types of terrain are explored, with a view to improving the environment and service functions of underpass green spaces in high-density interchange networks in mountainous cities, and enhancing the attractiveness of underpass green spaces. It can be found from the study that: (1) Among the five environmental perception dimensions, visitors pay more attention to the physical environment quality of the underpass green space and their physical and psychological activity experience, while their demands for visual senses are relatively low. Due to the deficiency or lack of leisure facilities, sports facilities, children's playgrounds and amusement equipment, the dimension of "activities and cultural perception" of the underpass green space has the lowest scores of all. (2) The existing sites, facilities and landscape resources of the underpass green space, different terrain types and underpass environment are the important reasons that affect the performance of environmental perception factors and their priority ranking results. (3) The improvement of security of the arrival path or sports facilities is beneficial to improve visitor satisfaction of underpass green space of three types of terrain. The number of environmental factors to be optimized of the three types of terrain are ranked as: mountainous green space > flat green space > concave green space. Among them, four environmental factors have a high priority in two kinds of underpass green space, which are the distribution and quantity of leisure facilities, the effect of noise reduction and sound insulation, the adequacy of activity venues and the distribution and quantity of sports facilities. Finally, according to the particularity of the underpass environment and the characteristics of three types of terrain, this paper puts forward some suggestions for optimizing the service function of underpass green space from five perceptual dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of the urban economy and service economy, the decoupling of service industry land expansion from economic growth has always been a key measure to evaluate sustainable and healthy development. Based on the decoupling model and GIS spatial analysis method, this paper conducted an empirical study of Chinese cities from 2012 to 2019. Results: (1) Increasing spatial heterogeneity, correlation and agglomeration of land expansion were found in China's urban service industry and its economic growth; (2) Most cities were in weak decoupling, with evolved, degraded and unchanged cities accounting for one-third each, and the number of cities in negative decoupling was increasing, leading to increasingly diverse and complex decoupling relationships; (3) From the perspective of changes in the urban service industry land and its decoupling from economic growth, HH cities were clustered in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomerations in a continuous belt pattern, while LL and HL cities were mostly in the north, especially in the northeast, creating many cluster-like agglomerations that have become problematic spaces; (4) A significant synergistic effect was identified between the factors of urban permanent population, value added of the secondary industry, per capita GDP, government financial expenditure, international trade, foreign direct investment, total retail of commodities, and authorized patents, with factor pairs formed showing nonlinear enhancement. The factor value added of the secondary industry had the largest direct impact, while urban permanent population and foreign direct investment led in terms of net synergies; (5) It is recommended to introduce classified and differentiated urban service industry land use policies, plan and build a number of national, provincial and municipal modern service industry clusters, demonstrate changes in land supply and use, build a scientific and efficient land resource allocation and management system, guard against and prevent recoupling and effectively improve the ability of cities to achieve high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilient cities provide a new operating mechanism for sustainable urban development and can effectively reduce urban disaster losses. Urban resilience has become an important research topic, but few scholars focus on the urban resilience of urban agglomerations in western China. Therefore, this paper takes the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration of China as the study area and aims to evaluate the resilience level of cities in typical regions of western China. This study uses multiple interdisciplinary methods, such as the entropy weight method, Theil index, and geographically and temporally weighted regression, to evaluate the resilience levels of 16 cities in the region and discuss the influencing factors of regional urban resilience. The results show that the urban resilience of cities in the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration has evolved from a low to high level. Additionally, there are significant spatial differences in urban resilience in the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration, and the resilience levels of cities in the east and west of the region are relatively high, while the resilience levels of cities in the south and north are relatively low. Further research found that factors such as administrative level, marketization level, industrial structure, population density, urbanization level, and emergency facility level all have a significant positive impact on the improvement of urban resilience, but this impact has spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Based on the above research results, the strategies have been proposed from the perspective of sustainable urban development to provide a new theoretical support and decision-making reference for improving the resilience level of urban agglomerations in western China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the global trend of actively promoting the participation of older adults in the digital age, the relevant negative issues featuring potential Internet Addiction (IA) among them has risen to be a new challenge facing the global public health. However, there is a severe lack of related research. This study aimed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon and process of IA among the elderly. The purpose of this paper is to introduce factors that may influence IA in the demographic. Methods: This study employed qualitative descriptive research methods to investigate older adults' perceptions and experiences of IA. Semi-structured in-depth personal interviews were conducted between March and June 2023 with 36 senior citizens from urban communities in Chongqing, Southwest China. Data were analyzed via inductive content analysis methods. Results: Through data analysis, 2 main categories concerning IA in older adults were identified: risk factors and protective factors. The risk factor categories include 5 individual factors (e.g., Internet as the major avenue for pursuing personal hobbies and interests, etc.), 3 family factors (e.g., household WIFI increasing the risk of prolonged Internet use indoors, etc.), 2 peer factors (e.g., peer recommendation and guidance as catalysts for intensified Internet engagement, etc.), 2 socio-environmental factors (e.g., the widespread daily Internet use spurs offline intolerance, etc.), and 3 Internet platform factors (e.g., the plenitude of online content triggers endless viewing/browsing behaviors, etc.). The category of protective factors encompasses 2 individual factors (e.g., a higher level of perceived risk regarding internet health hazards, etc.) and 2 family factors (e.g., more family commitment, etc.). Conclusions: Older adults' Internet addictive behaviors are shaped by multiple and complex internal and external factors. A higher level of online health risk perception is a key protective factor to effectively avoid the occurrence and deterioration of IA among the aged, a distinct finding from this study. It is believed that the "individual-family-peer-community" synergy strategy is expected to become an essential direction for IA intervention for older adults, in order to promote healthy Internet use among older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Based on the engineering background of shield construction of a subway section in Chongqing, which needs to pass through a park and there is a lake inside this park, this paper adopts theoretical analysis methods and numerical simulation calculation methods to explore the distribution law of the seepage field and the characteristics of water pressure in lining segments during shield tunneling. The results show that, during the whole excavation of a double-track tunnel with EPB shield, the maximum vertical effective stress is about 4.24 MPa, which is located at the arch foot of the tunnel. The maximum effective stress in the horizontal direction is about 3.61 MPa, which is located on both side walls of the tunnel in the horizontal direction; after the left and right tunnels are excavated in sequence, a "double precipitation funnel-shaped" pore pressure distribution is formed around the tunnel; during the construction of the shield tunnel, the vertical displacement and horizontal displacement of the surrounding rock show an increasing trend and gradually tend to be stable values of 24.09 mm and 25.28 mm; the segment vault has settlement, the maximum settlement is 21.8 mm, the arch bottom has uplift, and the maximum uplift is 24.4 mm. The maximum horizontal displacement of the segment appears on both sides of the arch waist, and the maximum horizontal displacement decreases with the increase of excavation steps; the positive bending moment of the lining segment is mainly distributed on both sides of the arch crown, and the negative bending moment is mainly distributed on both sides of the arch bottom. The axial force of the lining segment is compressive stress, and the maximum axial force is mainly distributed on both sides of the arch waist. The maximum normal shear stress occurs on both sides of the segment arch bottom. The study conclusions provide theoretical foundation and a new guidance for long-term safety evaluation of underwater tunnel structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's current urban gardening promotion policies mainly focus on community gardens and lack in-depth research on the differentiated needs of different urban gardeners. To meet the diverse needs of China's gardeners, this study proposes a typology that classifies gardeners into urban native and migrant ones based on their urban and rural living experiences in China. A questionnaire survey conducted in the core area of Chongqing city revealed significant differences and some similarities in gardening motivations and behaviors between urban native and migrant gardeners: (1) Although most of the gardeners approved of the value of food production and green scenery creation that Chinese urban gardening has, and disapproved of its value for family income generation, the urban native gardeners' disapproving attitude towards family income generation, and their approval of green scenery creation were more assertive, while on the contrary, the urban migrant gardeners had a more robust approval attitude towards food production. (2) The urban native gardeners preferred proximity and small private spaces for a combination of ornamental vegetation and edible vegetables. In contrast, the urban migrated gardeners preferred larger areas for gardening in non-community spaces and leaned towards edible vegetables. (3) Both have shared motivations related to the recreation and ecological conservation values of urban gardening. Given the above differences and similarities, this paper proposes an urban gardening development strategy that meets the needs of the two types of gardeners in China, including space planning and design, operation, and management of gardening spaces, and organization of activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of urbanization, frequent flood event have become the most common natural disasters, posing a significant challenge to human society. Considering the effects of urbanization on flood risk is critical for flood risk reduction and reasonable land planning strategies at the city scale. This study proposes an integrated approach based on remote sensing data using CA, Markov, and simplified hydrodynamic (FloodMap) models to accurately and effectively assess flood risk under urbanization. Taking Chongqing City as a case study, this paper analyzes the temporal and spatial variations in land use/land cover (LULC) in 2010, 2015, and 2018 and predicts the LULC for 2030, based on historic trends. Flood risk is assessed by combining the hazard, exposure, and modified vulnerability. The results suggest that the area of built-up land will increase significantly from 19.56% in 2018 to 25.21% in 2030. From 2010 to 2030, the area of medium and high inundation depths will increase by 10 and 16 times, respectively. Flood damage varies remarkably according to the LULC and return period. The expected annual damage (EAD) has been estimated to increase from USD 68 million in 2010 to USD 200 million in 2030. Flood risk is proportional to population and is significantly inversely proportional to socioeconomic level. The approach used here can provide a comprehensive understanding of flood risk and is significant for land-use policymaking and the management of flood control facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the political hierarchies of cities in China from different perspectives. First, we examine the economic disparities between prefectural cities and municipalities. Furthermore, this paper draws upon a quasi‐ experiment to analyze the impact of upgrading Chongqing to a municipality in 1997 using the synthetic control method. The city‐upgrading policy significantly increased Chongqing's gross domestic product (GDP) in the following 4 years. Finally, we find that the policy increased GDP in treated cities within 1200 km of Chongqing by about 10%–13% relative to the control cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban housing stock is of large scale and diversity, with low and uneven energy efficiency. In view of this situation, this paper investigates the urban housing of Chongqing during 1950 and 2000 with the typology approach and the CHAID decision tree algorithm, summarizes three major categories and 24 subcategories of building envelopes from 373 samples according to three attributesof construction year, unit type and unit composition, and constructs physical models of the archetypes. By simulation, it shows that classified evaluation can better explain the impact factors and their significance for various types of cooling and heating load demands, contributing to screening out the types with the worst energy efficiency, and the parts of each type that are most unfavorable for energy efficiency. The saving rates of retrofit measures with different depths on cooling and heating loads also depends on the contributions of different types and their different parts. It is proposed to subdivide the evaluation standards for energy-efficiency retrofitting based on CHAID decision tree, and to extrapolate to a larger area for energy-efficiency evaluation and retrofit potential prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A city bus carries a large number of passengers, and any traffic accidents can lead to severe casualties and property losses. Hence, predicting the likelihood of accidents among bus drivers is paramount. This paper considered occupational driving characteristics such as cumulative driving duration, station entry and exit features, and peak driving times, and categorical boosting (CatBoost) was used to construct an accident probability prediction model. Its effectiveness was confirmed by the daily management data of a Chongqing bus company in June. For data processing, Multiple Imputation by Chained Equations for Random Forests (MICEForest) was used for data filling. In terms of prediction, a comparative analysis of four boosted trees revealed that CatBoost exhibited superior performance. To analyze the critical factors affecting the probability of bus driver accidents, SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) was applied to visualize and interpret the results. In addition to the significant effects of age, rainfall, and azimuthal change, etc., we innovatively discovered that the proportion of driving duration during peak duration, the dispersion when entering and exiting stations, the proportion of driving duration within a week, and the accumulated driving duration of the previous week also had varying degrees of impact on accident probability. Our research and findings provide a new idea of accident prediction for professional drivers and direct theoretical support for the accident risk management of bus drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rapid prediction with near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy on quality traits is pretty popular recently, for the convenience and simple operation. But to make good use of this technology, precise and suitable calibration equations are very important to get dependable result. In this study, we mostly refer to the building of the equation and how the pretreatment effect them. Methods: In this paper, near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was used to simultaneously predict the quality traits of soybean, including oil content, protein content, oleic acid content, linoleic acid content, stearic acid content. Near infrared spectral data of a total of 112 samples is collected from given materials in Chongqing. Samples were scanned from 1000 nm to 2500 nm using a monochromator instrument (SuperNIR-2700). Calibration equations were developed from NIR data using partial least squares (PLS) regression with internal cross validation. In addition, in this study, we also cover the affection of different pre-treatments to the different calibration equations predicting different quality traits. And measure the effect with three indicators including R, SECV and RPD. Result: Eventually we find the most suitable combination of pre-treatments for each calibration equation predicting a certain trait soybean. The present study would lay the foundations of rapid detection of quality traits in soybean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]