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[Display omitted] • 28 out of 57 target PFAS were detected in paper products from China. • 9 groups of PFAS with 1–3 confidence levels were identified by non-target analysis. • Ethanol in food simulants can increase the migration of PFAS. • Long-chain PFAS in popcorn bags can be degraded by microwave heating. • PFAS in some paper products exceeded the recommended daily intake values. The contamination characteristics, migration patterns and health risks of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were investigated in 66 Chinese paper products by using target and non-target screening methods. Among 57 target PFASs, 5 and 6 PFASs were found in the hygiene paper products (

Guiding industries to produce in an effective and environmentally sustainable manner has become a key issue for governments around the world. Over the past 15 years, series of regional and industrial development policies have been introduced by the Chinese government. This has influenced the geographical distribution and energy efficiency performance of China’s industries. This paper quantifies the influence of enterprises geographical distribution on energy efficiency improvement in the paper industry and aims at providing some helpful suggestions on industrial development to policy makers. The main results show that, firstly, the paper industry in eastern China shows obvious characteristic of agglomeration. The average location quotient is 1.2278. However, following the industrial and regional development policies, the characteristic of agglomeration is weakening. Secondly, only when agglomeration reaches a certain level (location quotient is above 0.5447) will industrial agglomeration positively impact on industrial energy efficiency improvement (a 1% increase in agglomeration will increase dynamic energy efficiency by at least 0.23%). Thirdly, the regional development policies carried out by the government slow the pace of energy efficiency improvement in China’s paper industry. The empirical results indicate that the government needs to consider regional characteristics and consciously guide industrial enterprises to concentrate in the dominant area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s paper industry consumes a lot of energy and emits huge amounts of pollutions. The Chinese government over the past decades has done a lot to promote energy efficiency of the industry. This paper studies the impact of industrial polices to improve energy efficiency. The energy efficiency change is firstly studied under a framework of total factor efficiency. On this basis, different econometric models are built to discuss the detailed energy efficiency characteristics of the paper industry. The main results are as follow: (i) ownership structure did influence the energy efficiency, but the influence is different in different conditions; (ii) energy efficiency of the paper industry can be improved by economies of scale; (iii) market competition can to some extent overcome the motivation and supervision problem that often occur in state-owned companies; (iv) energy price cannot play the role of resource allocation well in China. Finally, based on our findings, some suggestions are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papermaking industry has developed rapidly in recent years in China. Papermaking is a high-energy-consuming process. Consequently, large-scale paper mills usually have cogeneration systems that supply both electricity and steam for the papermaking process. In China, almost all these cogeneration systems in paper mills are powered by coal combustion, which consumes a large amount of energy and emits large amounts of greenhouse gas. The Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology is regarded as a clean and efficient method of coal utilization. In this work, an IGCC process for application in paper mills was designed and modeled. An IGCC coupled with a cascade refrigeration process (CRP) was further proposed in order to reuse the waste heat from the dryer section and improve the energy efficiency of the papermaking process. A paper with a conventional cogeneration system, one with an IGCC cogeneration system, and one with an IGCC coupled with a CRP cogeneration system were analyzed and compared in terms of energy efficiency, capital investment, operational cost, and dynamic payback period. The results showed that the integration of IGCC technology allows paper mills to be more competitive than those featuring conventional cogeneration systems in terms of energy efficiency and operational cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's paper industry accounts for a larger proportion of the global paper industry and consumes large amounts of energy. Energy conservation and pollution reduction of the industry have become the focus of China's national development strategy. Energy efficiency is an important index which directly determines the amounts of energy consumption and pollution emissions. To understand the energy efficiency evolution of China's paper industry, this paper establishes an input-output data of the paper industry for 29 provinces in China and applies DEA method and econometric models to estimate and comprehensively discuss the energy efficiency issues based on the framework of total factor efficiency. Our results indicate that China's paper industry has a large energy saving potential even though its energy efficiency has improved during the period 1990–2013. The saving potential is about 65% under the meta-frontier and 44% under the group-frontier. Moreover, there are significant differences between different regions in production technology and energy efficiency. The performance of eastern China is better than other regions. But the technology gaps between the different regions are shrinking and converging over time. Finally, some policy recommendations are proposed to improve the energy efficiency of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Straw pulp in China, which is the world's largest producer of this material, suffers from water and energy shortages during its entire life cycle. However, limited systematic studies have focused on these issues, and decision makers need be provided with improvement methods for the environmental performance. Thus, an impact-oriented energy and carbon coupled water footprint analysis was conducted in this study based on ISO standards. Results showed that the impact of energy consumption and carbon emissions exceeded that of water footprint. Carcinogens, non-carcinogens, and freshwater ecotoxicity also played effective roles in improving the environmental performance. Optimizing key indirect processes, including chemicals production, steam preparation, electricity generation, wood pulping, and fertilizer recovery, dominated the reduction in environmental burdens. Direct freshwater consumption and wastewater disposal played additional effective roles in controlling water footprint. The water network was thus optimized by a water pinch analysis to decrease the freshwater consumption and pollutant emissions by maximum values of 91.5% and 99.7% after optimization, respectively. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide, methane, chromium, arsenic, mercury, titanium, copper, strontium, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, BOD 5 , and COD were the main pollutants. Overall, the environmental impact can be further reduced by diminishing coal power ratio in national energy structure, adopting recovered steam, and considering multistage regeneration water network to cope with different water use demands. • LCA-based energy and carbon coupled water footprint of straw pulp paper was applied. • Optimizing water network by water pinch method gained marked environmental benefit. • Electricity, steam, and chemicals exerted high impact among all inputs considered. • CO 2 , CH 4 , heavy metals, coal, and water were key contributors to footprint impact. • Improving national energy structure and adopting recovered steam were recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has become the world largest paper and paperboard producer. However, pulp and paper industry has involved high resource consumption and severe pollution especially for water. This research has assessed the eco-efficiency of China's pulp and paper industry at the national level and provincial level. An overview regarding the cleaner production of China's pulp and paper industry was presented to reveal the measures for reducing environmental impact in the last two decades. Slacks-based measure was used to analyze the efficiency levels of 16 provinces' pulp and paper industries. To uncover the underlying causes of eco-efficiency performance, Malmquist–Luenberger index was calculated to discover the drivers of productivity growth of pulp and paper industries. Our results showed that the pollution treatment of China's pulp and paper industry has made progress in terms of water consumption and water pollution, although the absolute amount of pollution discharge is still large. Chemical oxygen demand emissions are still the first critical influencing factor of pulp and paper industry's inefficiency. Furthermore, efficiency progress was the dominating contribution of the industry's productivity growth between 2010 and 2013. The policies for adjusting the industrial structure of pulp and paper industry have resulted in the scale effects through eliminating backward production capacity and accelerating merger and acquisitions. Moreover, the productivity of pulp and paper industry was underestimated when the undesirable outputs were ignored. It indicates that the stricter environmental regulations have positive effects on paper companies to internalize environmental pressures in the production activities through environmental management. In the future, pulp and paper companies should further internalize the cost of pollution treatment through scale effects and technology improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on soil microplastics is currently at an early stage, and there is no widely approved sampling protocol. Even so, any basic research should minimize errors to ensure that they are not amplified in future research. This paper examines some weaknesses of the original research paper 'Soil microplastic pollution under different land uses in tropics, southwestern China' recently published in this journal. The authors neglected to report the equipment used for soil sampling and did not use field blank samples. There is also a soil layer that was incorrectly named. The type and pore size of filter paper used for filtration during pre-analytical soil sample preparation is very important. In this paper the nature of the filter paper used, and its larger pore sizes are questionable by today's scientists. In addition, the authors in the original paper also overlooked reporting the statistical package used for statical analysis and ensuring if all data sets obey normality, homogeneity, and equality before running the one-way ANOVA test. This statistical step is widely considered mandatory, especially in the soil science community. So, this makes it difficult to trust the results documented. Furthermore, in the original paper, the needle and stereo microscope instruments used to sort microplastic-like materials prior to proper analysis are not reliable. [Display omitted] • A dissecting needle and stereo microscope shouldn't be used to sort out soil microplastics. • Gold-coated filter paper with smaller pore size is better than nitrocellulose filter paper. • The 0–10cm is the top soil layer and 10–20cm is the subsoil layer not a deep soil layer. • The statistical package used for analysis must be documented accordingly. • If the dataset is a normal distribution prior to ANOVA testing, it must be confirmed and reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a traditional energy and carbon intensive sector, it becomes imperative for the global paper industry to realize green development. This paper aims to provide guidance for the green transformation of global paper industry by evaluating the global paper industry green development level in a systematic and dynamic way. This paper employs text-mining method to develop paper industry green development evaluation indicator system and adopts market-extended LCA model and entropy-TOPSIS method to calculate the paper industry green development level of 48 countries/regions. The results show that during 2000–2030 the paper industry green development level of developing countries improves faster than developed countries, where those of developing and developed countries increase from 0.3369 to 0.3938 and from 0.5120 to 0.5517 respectively and the gap between them narrows from 0.1751 to 0.1579. The comparative analysis reveals that the paper industries of developed and developing countries are in different green development stages. Developing countries, represented by China, improve greatly in economic and social dimensions, but decline seriously in ecological dimension due to enlarging resource consumption and environmental damages. On the contrary, developed countries tend to saturate in economic and social dimensions and have been improving fast in ecological dimension, gradually realizing the decoupling of industrial economic development and environmental damages. To further promote the global paper industry green development, developing countries should focus on promoting the coordinated development between economic growth and environment protection and developed countries should play a leading role in the global green transformation by promoting optimal allocation of resources and cross-regional communications of green technologies. • A paper industry green development indicator system is developed based on text mining. • A global paper industry green development model is built with market-extended LCA. • Complex interactions among the indicators are internalized in the evaluation. • A spatial-temporal analysis is performed on global paper industry green development level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a traditional energy and carbon intensive sector, it becomes imperative for the global paper industry to realize green development. This paper aims to provide guidance for the green transformation of global paper industry by evaluating the global paper industry green development level in a systematic and dynamic way. This paper employs text-mining method to develop paper industry green development evaluation indicator system and adopts market-extended LCA model and entropy-TOPSIS method to calculate the paper industry green development level of 48 countries/regions. The results show that during 2000–2030 the paper industry green development level of developing countries improves faster than developed countries, where those of developing and developed countries increase from 0.3369 to 0.3938 and from 0.5120 to 0.5517 respectively and the gap between them narrows from 0.1751 to 0.1579. The comparative analysis reveals that the paper industries of developed and developing countries are in different green development stages. Developing countries, represented by China, improve greatly in economic and social dimensions, but decline seriously in ecological dimension due to enlarging resource consumption and environmental damages. On the contrary, developed countries tend to saturate in economic and social dimensions and have been improving fast in ecological dimension, gradually realizing the decoupling of industrial economic development and environmental damages. To further promote the global paper industry green development, developing countries should focus on promoting the coordinated development between economic growth and environment protection and developed countries should play a leading role in the global green transformation by promoting optimal allocation of resources and cross-regional communications of green technologies. • A paper industry green development indicator system is developed based on text mining. • A global paper industry green development model is built with market-extended LCA. • Complex interactions among the indicators are internalized in the evaluation. • A spatial-temporal analysis is performed on global paper industry green development level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization and the release of carbon emission are two significant features of contemporary economic and social progress in China. However, there are few studies that consider how urbanization policy goals affect carbon emission. This paper aims to study the nonlinear effects of urbanization policy goals on carbon emission in 13 cities of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. In this paper, a multi-dimensional spatial disturbance grey model is proposed. Based on matrix perturbation theory, this paper explores the spatial perturbation bounds of the novel model and verifies that the spatial property of the model is consistent with the viewpoint of the First Law of Geography. Then, the novel model is used to predict the urban carbon emission under different urbanization policy goal scenarios. The results showed that the novel model has spatial regional correlation in spatial region prediction. With the development of urbanization level, carbon emissions show a downward trend in more than 50% of cities from 2022 to 2025. In addition, the improvement of urbanization policy goals will promote the carbon peak time of most cities. The carbon emission intensity will exhibit an inverted U-shaped trend distribution in space. The research results are conducive to providing scientific guidance for the formulation of new-type urbanization policies and helping to achieve the dual carbon goals. • A multi-dimensional spatial disturbance grey model is proposed. • The novel grey model is consistent with the viewpoint of the First Law of Geography. • The spatial distribution of carbon intensity showed an inverted U-shaped pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The pulp and paper industry is one of the most energy-intensive industries worldwide. In 2007, it accounted for 5% of total global industrial energy consumption and 2% of direct industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. An energy audit is a primary step toward improving energy efficiency at the facility level. This paper describes a plant-wide energy audit aimed at identifying energy conservation and CO2 mitigation opportunities at a paper mill in Guangdong province, China. We describe the energy audit methods, relevant Chinese standards, methods of calculating energy and carbon indicators, baseline energy consumption and CO2 emissions of the audited paper mill, and nine energy-efficiency improvement opportunities identified by the audit. For each of the nine options, we evaluate the energy conservation and associated CO2 mitigation potential. The total technical energy conservation potential for these nine opportunities is 967.8terajoules (TJ), and the total CO2 mitigation potential is equal to 93,453tonnes CO2 annually, representing 14.4% and 14.7%, respectively, of the mill’s total energy consumption and CO2 emissions during the audit period. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Papermaking is a water intensive industry. The growth of paper demand will further intensify the need of fresh water resources. Papermaking involves complex processing routes. Previous investigations of water consumption in papermaking industry have focused primarily on key processes and pathways, ignoring the impacts of many intermediate and inter-related processes in paper production cycles and there underestimating the sustainability impacts. Herein, the results of a life cycle analysis of water consumption for papermaking industry in China using an extensive system boundary that includes the water embedded in intermediate processing are presented. The results show the life cycle water consumption and water saving potentials for different papermaking pathways. The advocacy of "forest pulp and paper integration" may have few practical contribution to reducing water consumption due to the low indirect water consumption of raw materials and energy for transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuing increase of the popularity of mobile phones generates a large volume of waste mobile phones. The efficient collection of this waste has become a focus and frontier of both academic research and related business. This paper reviews the waste mobile phone collection in Dalian, China. The findings show that several challenges currently impede the implementation of collection, including unsmooth collection channels, poor convenience, and low environmental awareness of residents. A new joint collection mode is put forward to increase the waste mobile phone collection rate. In the mode, the responsibilities of each stakeholder (including the collecting enterprise, the third-party logistics company, the government, and the resident) are clarified. Moreover, a conjoint analysis method is applied to identify residents' willingness for collection. The obtained results show that compensation mode, collection price, and convenience degree are the three factors that influence the prevailing preferences of residents. Collection services with high market share must satisfy the concourse of three conditions. The collection price exceeds 30% of the mobile phone's original price, the compensation mode is cash and information service is provided. These results can provide a reference for the service design of collection mode and the formulation of relevant corporate strategies. • Waste mobile phones are an environmental problem if not handled appropriately. • Collection is the critical bottleneck of waste mobile phones managements. • A new joint collection mode aiming at increasing collection rate was put forward. • Conjoint analysis was applied to investigate residents' willingness for collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recovered paper is one of the major raw material for recycled papermaking industry. In China, the domestic recovered paper recycling system is incomplete and the amount of recyclable recovered paper cannot satisfy the papermaking demand. Therefore, the recycled papermaking industry is extremely dependent on imported recovered paper as their raw fiber source. In 2018, Chinese government announced a ban on unsorted recovered paper and tightened the import quota for recovered paper, which resulted in a dramatic drop in the importing amount of recovered paper. It is an urgent issue to explore alternative production routes that are more economical and environmentally friendly. Herein, life cycle cost assessment is used to compare and analyze the recycled papermaking industry based domestic recovered paper and three alternatives (including straw, imported deinked pulp and imported wood pulp) as the raw materials. The results show that the life cycle cost of domestic recycled paper based recovered papermaking is significantly lower than the other three alternatives, whereas its external cost is higher than that of the production routes based on the imported deinked pulp and imported wood pulp. With the increasing price of the domestic recovered paper, imported deinked pulp is the trend of recycled papermaking industry in China. • Life cycle cost assessment is applied to the recycled paper industry in China. • LCC of four papermaking schemes based on different raw materials were assessed. • LCC for six types of paper products ranges from 924 to 1227 USD/t in 2017. • Imported recovered pulpboard is the best choice of wastepaper material supplement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Variable stiffness design for a 3-legged asteroid probe. • Landing dynamics for soft landing on the 2016HO3 asteroid is modeled. • Response surface surrogate model is established for optimization. • Variable stiffness leg and pressing force are optimized. China plans to launch a probe to detect and sampling on the near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3 around 2025. In view of this, this paper discusses an alternative landing strategy with passive variable stiffness landing gears, which help to land the probe stably on the asteroid for sufficient sampling time. First, a three-legged lander is introduced, following which, a four-bar-linkage-based variable stiffness leg is designed considering the design constraint of landing clearance. Then, a numerical model of the probe for landing simulation is established. Moreover, a surrogate model is obtained using the second-order response surface method (RSM) to improve computational efficiency. Based on the surrogate, the variable stiffness leg and the pressing force are optimized to reduce the impact forces at touchdown and the landing time. Finally, the optimal solution is validated using the dynamics analysis model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With large volume of passengers boarding and alighting through subway platforms, the stations are getting crowded, resulting in drops in the level of service and safety concerns, especially for subway systems operating at capacity during peak hours. Thus, it is crucial for subway agencies to sense changes in travel demand and adjust their management schemes accordingly. In this paper we propose a statistical approach to estimate dynamic passenger flows with automated data. First, we develop a dynamic logistic model for calculating passenger tap-out times, which can be employed to infer passenger flow characteristics at the aggregate level. In addition, a new passenger-to-train assignment model for any subway route is derived based on the dynamic model. Subsequently, we apply an expectation-maximization algorithm to estimate the model parameters with automated fare collection and automated vehicle location data. Finally, a cross-validation method is employed to validate our approach with data obtained from several routes in Beijing subway system in China. Results of 95% prediction intervals indicate the effectiveness of the models and the proposed estimation methods. • Propose a dynamic logistic model for inferring and predicting subway passenger tap-out times. • Apply an expectation-maximization algorithm for model parameters estimation. • Develop a novel passenger-to-train assignment strategy. • No prior distributions of parameters or additional information required in the proposed methods. • Results show good effectiveness of the models and acceptable accuracy of the prediction methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the rising technological applications of China's satellite systems, their applications and impacts in modern Chinese Society, particularly in the legal and administrative forums, have largely escaped under the radar. Specifically, the use of satellite outputs can now be found within a number of administrative and legal activities within China - including policy and rule-making, administrative investigations, and the production of court evidence. At the same time however, outdated legal practices, ambiguous status, and lack of guidance has prevented China's legal system from fully capitalizing on the advantages of satellite technologies. Therefore, to fill these legislative gaps, this review provides a comprehensive overview on the applications of satellite technologies within China's legal system, and provide important insights as to their current developments, legal framework, and legal issues. Additionally, having identified the aforementioned issues, this paper offers policy recommendations for the purposes of legislation. • Satellite applications in China's policy and rule-making processes. • Investigatory applications of satellite technologies within China's administrative organs. • Emerging evidentiary applications of satellite technologies in Chinese court systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The model for multiple horizontal wells considers heterogeneous fracture network. • The number of frac hits is determined by pressure differentials and derivatives. • Higher conductivity promotes inter-well pressure equilibrium. • Lower conductivity is beneficial to extended interference testing. Frac hits can significantly impact the final development results. Therefore, accurately and quickly understanding the frac-hit interference between wells is crucial for efficient development. At present, traditional pressure/production data analysis methods and numerical simulation methods can characterize the frac-hit interference. However, challenges such as quantitatively assess interference, high uncertainty in modeling parameters and computational time still exist. A quantitative evaluation method for the interference between wells with complex fracture networks has not been reported yet. This paper takes shale oil reservoir with three production wells as an example and establishes a semi-analytical model (frac-hit semi-analytical model, FSM) based on the linear flow characteristics. The model accurately characterizes the non-uniform distribution of complex fracture networks in the stimulated reservoir volume by introducing fractal theory. A quantitative evaluation index, interference coefficient, is defined to assess the interference. The coupled flow model is applied to evaluate the effects of interference in three typical wells in a continental shale oil field in China. We can see from the actual data fitting of the FSM model that the interference coefficients between target well A and adjacent wells B and C are 0.1 and 0.05, respectively, which means there are about 8–10 and 3–5 frac hits, respectively. Comprehensive analysis for the effects of interference shows that the current inter-well interference is beneficial for production in low-pressure areas but detrimental to new well production. Based on this, sensitivity analysis is generated to illustrate the relationship between the conductivity of combined fractures arising from hits and the interference coefficient. As the interference increases, the propagation of inter-well pressure accelerates, significantly reducing the time required for inter-well pressure equilibrium. The research findings have important guiding implications for the quantitative evaluation of inter-well interference in field operations of horizontal shale oil and gas wells and optimization of fracturing operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) technology is one of the main technologies in the field of space geodesy, it has played an extremely important role in laser ranging data application and research. As a commonly used geodynamic satellites, the main contribution of LAGEOS and LAGEOS-2 is the solution of orbit determination and station coordinates. At present, there are 8 analysis centers of the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS) to release the precise orbit products for the two LAGEOS satellites. However, there is currently no relevant research on the analysis of the consistency of these orbits. So, the authors would evaluate the accuracies of them, and the results show that the orbital accuracies of the two LAGEOS satellites are 3 ∼ 5 cm. SLR is regarded as one of the important input data of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF), the analysis center of ILRS provides weekly solutions of station coordinates for ITRF. But, due to the limitation of SLR observation conditions, for example most observations of Chinese SLR stations can be made at night, and laser ranging test cannot be conducted in rainy days, the orbit solution of the seven-day arc may have the problem of less data. Therefore, this paper proposed a method for computing the station coordinates based on long arc orbit determination, and we developed the LAODGEO software (Long Arc Orbit Determination Software for Geodynamic Satellite), which is used to solve the orbits of two LAGEOS satellites and station coordinates of five SLR stations in China. The results show that the obtained orbital precision is basically superior to 3.70 cm, and the 3DRMS values between station coordinates solved by us and the coordinates published by SLRF2014 are mostly smaller than 0.013 m, which is consistent with research results domestic and overseas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have investigated the spatial variations of the ionosphere, but the quantitative characteristics of the ionosphere are rarely reported. In this paper, we utilize the total electron content (TEC) data to evaluate the latitudinal gradient of the ionosphere within 10°-50° N over the China sector. It is found that the magnitudes of latitudinal gradient are significantly higher within 10°-40° N and 45°-50° N, respectively. The database of TEC from 1 November 2018 to 31 October 2022 is processed to figure out the local time, seasonal, and solar activity dependency of the latitudinal gradient. The results suggest that the gradient within 10°-40° N is higher in the daytime and during high solar activity period. They are more noticeable in the spring and autumn, and least visible in the summer. Conversely, the gradient within 45°-50° N strengthens in the nighttime and under lower solar activity, and has larger values in the summer months. Furthermore, the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI-2020) model is assessed in terms of the reproducibility of latitudinal gradient. The IRI-2020 basically represents the latitudinal gradient within 10°-40° N, whereas it overestimates the gradient in the low solar activity period and misses the gradient features near 45°–50° N. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China's ecological environmental problem becomes severe, corporate environmental behavior (CEB) has become the focus of a range of stakeholders, policy makers and the whole society since the operating activities of companies is the main source of environmental pollution. This study used a questionnaire survey and structural equation model (SEM) to examine the relative importance of external and internal pressures (EIP) on driving CEB. Data was obtained from 702 papermaking companies in China. The mechanism of EIP effects on CEB was tested employing SEM through path analysis, using AMOS 21.0. The results showed that government pressure, economic pressure and internal pressure played significant positive roles in environmental behavior of papermaking companies in China. Economic pressure was the most important factor on environmental behaviors (including defensive, accommodative and proactive behaviors) of papermaking companies. Furthermore, the role of internal pressure on CEB (defensive and proactive) was second only to economic pressure, while the role of government pressure on CEB was much weaker than our expectation. However, the role of social pressure, which was imposed by general public and environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), was not significant. Thus, policy makers should emphasize on the interactions of economic mechanism, government regulation and internal incentive mechanism to stimulate firms to adopt active environmental behavior. More concerns from the general public shall be addressed to enhance their driving effect on CEB in Chinese papermaking industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to help control the spread of space debris and junk, deorbit sail devices have been used for deorbiting techniques; however, this approach is still considered risky due to potential failure or malfunction as it need to be exposed to the harsh space environment for a prolonged period of time, particularly in low-Earth orbit. China has made new strides forward in managing space junk, as it has successfully unfolded a 25-square-meter deorbit sail developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spacecraft Technology in-orbit for the payload capsule of a recently launched rocket. Accordingly in this paper, a full life-cycle modelling based on Monte Carlo method is developed to reveal the damage behavior of the 25-square-meter deorbit sail surface under the combined effects of atomic oxygen erosion and deorbit sail defects. The simulation results show that as the atomic oxygen fluence increases and the material defect width widens, the interaction effect of the two factors becomes more and more pronounced, which decisively influences the erosion rate of the sail surface. Morphological characterization of aluminized film PET material, activated silanisation modified material and plasma-polymerization coating material before and after atomic oxygen erosion combined defects is carried out and the atomic oxygen erosion of the deorbit sail surfaces is quantitatively assessed. The assessment results show that compared to the PET material and activation silanisation surface modification material, the plasma polymeric coated material showed much better flexibility, folding resistance and irradiation resistance to prevent geological fold and to shield from the atomic oxygen erosion in space. The atomic oxygen erosion combined defects assessment method studied in this paper provides valuable reference data for the subsequent serialisation of deorbit sail products and other typical lightweight film materials for space applications. • Introduction of Monte Carlo method for material surface damage simulation analysis. • Compare the performance of off-orbit sail surface materials under different protection treatments. • Standardize the process of space flexible film material performance evaluation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To reduce energy use and achieve a low carbon production in pulp and paper industry (PPI), it is essential to improve energy efficiency in pulp and paper production. In this study, the energy savings from the PPI were estimated based on a techno-economic analysis by EAGER tool for PPI at the factory level. The structure and implement procedure were introduced initially. Two typical pulp and paper mills from China were determined to estimate the impact of selected energy efficiency technologies (EETs) on energy savings as the cases in the base year. One Factory (A) only produced paper products (i.e. corrugated paper and Kraft linerboard) while the other Factory (B) also produced market pulp besides sack paper. In totally 22 selected EETs were applied to assess their saving potential in Factory A, and 29 measures were applied in Factory B. The results show that 2290 TJ and 1179 TJ of final energy could be saved annually in Factory A and B, corresponding to reduction of 29.4% and 13.6% total energy consumption respectively for the case factories. The CO 2 reduction potential was 32.3% for Factory A compared with that of 16.6% in Factory B. It suggests that the pulp and paper mills should encouraged to use this method estimating energy saving potential, and improve their energy efficiency with suggested measures in order to reduce energy consumption and related carbon emissions further in the coming years. • Energy savings of pulp and paper production were estimated at the factory level. • A techno-economic evaluation tool was applied to access the energy savings and carbon emission reductions. • Two typical pulp and paper factories from China were investigated to estimate their energy savings in the base year. • It is useful to assess energy savings and select feasible EETs in achieving energy saving and emission reduction targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

High precision ionospheric Total Electron Content(TEC) prediction is of great significance for improving the accuracy of Global Navigation Satellite System(GNSS), preventing natural disasters, and ensuring wireless communication. Given the varying frequencies of TEC signals, a hybrid CEEMDAN-BiLSTM-PSO-LSSVM-FE model for predicting ionospheric TEC content is proposed in this paper. Firstly, complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) is used to decompose the extracted hourly TEC sequence and calculate the fuzzy entropy (FE) of the subsequences. Then, the signal is divided into high-frequency and low-frequency parts based on the fuzzy entropy value, for the high-frequency component, Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory network (BiLSTM) is used for prediction; for the low-frequency component, Particle Swarm Optimization-based Least Squares Support Vector Machine (PSO-LSSVM) is used for prediction. The hourly TEC values collected from six evenly distributed GPS stations in China are used as the main input variable for the proposed model, with solar and geomagnetic activity data used as auxiliary data, using the TEC data from the previous 48 h to forecast the TEC content for the next hour. The performance of the model is evaluated by comparing it with other models under different geographical locations, seasons, solar and geomagnetic activity conditions. Experimental results show that the proposed hybrid model outperforms other models, with a correlation coefficient R2 and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.99 and 0.20 TECU, respectively. The model effectively overcomes the problem of low TEC prediction accuracy and can provide more precise ionospheric delay correction services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the ionospheric responses to the February and April 2023 geomagnetic storms using Total Electron Content (TEC) derived from the 10 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations at the transition of low to mid-latitudes (Approx. 20 ∼ 30°N) across different longitudes in the American and Asian sectors. Significant variations in both sectors were recorded during the recovery phase and were mainly attributed to the Prompt Penetration Electric Field (PPEF), Disturbance Dynamo Electric Field (DDEF) and the thermospheric neutral composition changes as O/N 2 depletion. Similarly, the American and Asian sectors showed TEC enhancements, primarily attributed to the PPEF, during the main phase of the April storm. The negative TEC variations during the recovery phase were observed due to the DDEF and changes in O/N 2. In the Asian sector, positive and negative variations were recorded over Pakistan and China, respectively, during the main phase of the April storm. These variations resulted in high and low concentrations of the O/N 2 ratio due to Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere coupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

Abstract: The study reported in this paper tested the hypothesis that the developmental and reproductive health of mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) exposed to pulp and paper effluent in the Dengcun River would differ from that of mosquitofish living in a reference site. We also studied whether morphological characteristics such as the anal fin and hemal spines of mosquitofish could serve as indicators for evaluating the androgenic effect and mosquitofish population security in the Dengcun River. Male and female mosquitofish were captured at three sites contaminated by pulp and paper effluent in the Dengcun River in Sihui, South China, and at a nearby uncontaminated reference site. Samples were collected from the sampling sites on the same day in August 2009. We compared the populations by total length, wet body and liver mass, gonad mass, and population composition. We also compared the populations according to number of anal fin segments, oocyte and embryo count, anal fin and hemal spine morphology among females, and by sperm count and viability among males, and observed the gonadal and liver histology of both males and females. Female mosquitofish exposed to pulp and paper effluent in the Dengcun River were generally smaller in length and mass, had a greater number of anal fin segments and more embryos, but had significantly fewer oocytes in comparison with those living at the reference site. The higher number of anal fin ray 3 segments and the increased ray 4:6 length ratio observed among fish taken from the Dengcun River sites indicated that they might be subject to the androgenic effect. Furthermore, the significantly different hemal spine morphology of the effluent-affected females also indicated the pulp and paper mills effluents in Dengcun River might contain androgenic substance(s). Male mosquitofish at the sites exposed to effluent had a higher number of anal fin segments and greater testis mass in comparison with those living at the reference site. No evidence of intersex was found in either males or females, although histopathological tests on females revealed histologic abnormalities in the liver and gonads. It can be concluded that pulp and paper effluent contamination in the Dengcun River has affected a number of developmental parameters and reproductive characteristics in mosquitofish, with possible adverse effects on reproduction in this population. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Industrial wastewater discharge has become the main cause of water pollution in China. However, the spatial interaction mechanism between industrial structure and water pollution is still unclear. Accordingly, we evaluated and analyzed spatiotemporal changes of the agglomeration pattern of pollution-intensive industrial enterprises and the evolution of the water environmental pollution pattern, as well as the correlation between them. The study results show that the polluting industrial enterprises were located mainly along the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake Basin in southern Jiangsu in 2013 and 2018. However, we observed a spatial trend of pollution transfer to northern Jiangsu. The industrial water pollution discharge presents the distribution pattern of facing rivers, seas, lakes and cities. Papermaking and paper products industry are the leading factors of COD and NH 3 –N pollution, with explanatory power of 0.3666 and 0.6201 respectively. The spatial positive coupling effect between the concentration degree of polluting enterprises and the intensity of water environment pollution discharge is 94.95% of the region. The spatial agglomeration of polluting industrial enterprises is an important cause of water environment pollution. They promote and couple each other, proving the existence of "Pollution haven" and "Porter hypothesis". [Display omitted] • The polluting industrial enterprises are located mainly along the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake Basin. • Papermaking and paper products industry are the leading factors of COD and NH 3 –N pollution. • The spatial agglomeration of polluting industrial enterprises is a significant cause of water environment pollution. • This study proves the existence of "Pollution haven" and "Porter hypothesis". • This study fills the gap in the spatial response mechanisms of different industrial structures and pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ever-increasing challenges related to water security and climate mitigation underscore the pressing need for forward-thinking systems planning tools to drive urban sustainability transitions. In this study, we propose a novel city-level multi-objective planning framework that explores the nexus between carbon trading and water management, with the aim of facilitating water-efficient urban industrial restructuring. The framework integrates cap-and-trade mechanisms into a two-layered optimization model, creating an integrated approach to optimizing carbon emissions and generating economic opportunities for improving water efficiency. To illustrate the potential application of this framework, we conducted a case study focusing on Dongguan City, a water-stressed industrial metropolis in southern China. The results illustrate potential synergies between water planning strategies and carbon trading schemes, which could be harnessed to enable targeted reductions in water usage and carbon emissions. Furthermore, our findings identify the textile, apparel, and paper products manufacturing industries as primary candidates for strategic production scale reduction, emphasizing the importance of sustained support for the development of the computer and electronic manufacturing sector as a catalyst for urban sustainability transitions. By pioneering this new nexus-based perspective, our study offers valuable insights into long-term strategic planning for a low-carbon and resource-efficient urban economy. • Synergizing carbon trading and water management within a novel integrated planning framework. • Implementing resource-efficiency-driven optimization for water- and carbon-intensive manufacturing sectors. • Gaining insights into the specific roles of key manufacturing sectors in water management and carbon trading. • Introducing carbon trading systems may help in promoting water-efficient industrial restructuring. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nine paddy straw-degrading microbial consortia were isolated from 253 paddy straw samples from northern China and the Yangtze River Valley, which are two major rice production regions in China. The microbial consortia completely degraded filter paper within 15 d at 25 °C. The V4 region of the microbial consortia 16S rRNA gene was amplified, and the amplicons were sequencing using the Illumina Miseq high-throughput platform. Compilobacterota and Bacteroidota were the predominant phyla in the samples. At the genus level, the relative abundance of Macellibacteroides was the highest in Y2, and Arcobacter was predominant in the other samples. Analysis of the microbial community structure revealed that the diversity and richness in samples from the Yangtze River Valley were significantly higher compared with those of the samples from northern China, and the community structure of the four microbial consortia from the northern region had higher similarity than the five consortia from the Yangtze River Valley. • Campilobacterota and Bacteroidetes were the predominant phyla of microbial consortia. • The major genera in the two regions were significantly different. • Pseudomonas , Comamonas , Fibrobacter , Sphingobacterium , Ruminiclostridium , and Ruminococcus are the functional bacteria. • The northern bacterial community richness and diversity were lower than the Yangtze River Valley. • The northern microbial community structure was higher in similarity than the Yangtze River Valley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boosted by a huge potential market and government funding, China is fast developing compound manufacturing, especially for LED lighting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The ionospheric foF2 prediction model GWO-ALSTM is proposed in this paper, which combines the Gray Wolf Optimization (GWO) algorithm and the attention mechanism based on the long short-term memory (LSTM) model. The datasets used in this model were obtained from the oblique ionosondes of the China Ground-based Seismo-ionospheric Monitoring Network. The data from 2010 to 2012 was used for training, and the data of 2013 was used for verification. The input parameters of the model include local time, day number, sunspot number, F10.7 solar flux, Ap index, Dst index, and foF2 at the previous moment, and the output parameter is foF2 at the current moment. The IRI2016 model, GABP model, LSTM model and GWO-ALSTM model were compared with the observed results for analysis. The results show that the GWO-ALSTM model is superior to the LSTM model, the GABP model and the IRI2016 model. Meanwhile, the comparative analyses of the diurnal variations of foF2 show that the curve of the GWO-ALSTM model fits the observed values more closely than the curve of any other model under the geomagnetic quiet and storm conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Milk fan is an acid-curd cheese with strong national characteristics (a traditional dairy product of the Bai nationality with a shape like a piece of paper) and a long history in Yunnan province, China. In our previous study, we characterized the microbial community diversity of milk fan, but the succession of microorganisms associated with flavor formation in milk fan is still unknown. Therefore, we examined the predominant microorganisms and their correlations with the formation of flavor in the fermentation of sour juice and drying of milk fan by gas chromatography mass spectrometry, high-throughput 16S rDNA sequencing, intergenic spacer sequencing and metatranscriptome analysis. We found that the relative abundances of Lactobacillus and Issatchenkia initially decreased and then increased with time during the fermentation of sour juice. However, the relative abundances of Acetobacter , Leuconostoc , Lactococcus, Geotrichum , and Dipodascus initially increased and then decreased. During the drying step, the relative abundances of Lactobacillus and Issatchenkia continuously increased and became the dominant microorganisms in the milk fan. The metatranscriptomes generated from the milk fan showed that "carbohydrate metabolism," "translation," and "signal transduction" were the main metabolic functions of the microbial communities. Rhodotorula and Yarrowia contained more differentially expressed genes than other genera, which indicated they may be associated with the production of the characteristic flavor. Furthermore, a Pearson correlation analysis showed that Lactococcus , Rhodotorula , Candida , Cutaneotrichosporon , and Yarrowia were significantly positively correlated with more aroma-active compounds, mainly ethyl acetate, 2-heptanone, isovaleraldehyde, butyric acid, nonanal, and hexanal. In conclusion, these findings contribute to a better understanding of the flavor production mechanism during the production of milk fan. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A simple, large-scale fabrication of cooling paper via pulping and papermaking technology. • The cooling paper is facilely deconstructed and regenerated to architect the secondary cooler. • The cooling paper features a high solar reflectance of 94% and emissivity of 0.95. • The cooling paper shows the sub-ambient temperature drop of 6 ∼ 8.8 °C under directly solar radiation at daytime. Passive radiative cooling materials provide coldness without energy consumption for all-day thermal comfort by reflecting solar irradiation and emitting heat into the 3 K universe. However, the conventional radiative cooling materials involve complex multilayer structures and unsustainable polymers, showing the non-recyclable disadvantage, which induces resource waste and environmental issues. Herein, we reported a low-cost, scalable, and eco-friendly radiative cooling material (namely cooling paper), consisting of the delignified, fibrillated cellulose fibers and nano-sized hydroxyapatite (HA) via the mature pulping and papermaking process. The resulting cooled paper can be recycled, and it can be easily deconstructed to harvest cellulose fibers and HA, individually. The recovered source materials can be reused to prepare secondary products that show comparable performance to the original cooling paper, including a high solar reflectance of ∼94% and an infrared emissivity of ∼0.95 in the atmospheric transparency window. Such cooling paper enables superior cooling performance with the temperature drop of 6 ∼ 8.8 °C under directly solar radiation. Based on the EnergyPlus simulation, our cooling paper shows a average cooling energy saving of ∼29 % in buildings across China. The recyclable cooling paper with high cooling capability and scalability, as well as environmental friendliness, shows promising potential for sustainable energy-efficient buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With commercial participants now undertaking an ever-expanding role within the development and supply-chains of China's space industry post Document No. 60, the resulting legal challenges relating to this emerging industry status-quo has garnered much academic discussion. Specifically, while China's space industry has grown at a rapid pace within the past few decades, China's legislative framework has remained largely silent over matters relating to space. Instead, China continues to remain as the only major space-faring nation without a national space law and regime. This substantive legislative gap over China's space related activities has negatively impacted the industry's current deregulation process. While it has been the academic community's primary solution to address the industry's current substantive legislative gap through coordinated rulemaking activities, this paper aims to advance the current academic discussion by taking an alternative approach and arguing that the fundamental legislative challenge and solution to China's emerging commercial space industry, is not substantive, but rather procedural by nature. Importantly, by reconceptualizing the industry's substantive gap from one that is determined by the number of missing legal instruments, to one determined by the rate of legislative activity i.e., the pace of law-making activities vis-à-vis commercial expansion, this paper argues that only through the implementation of legal procedural rulemaking mechanisms will China's space law regime be able to sufficiently address the current substantive legislative gap at a pace matching commercial expansion. • The deregulation of China's space industry. • Regulatory structure and legal challenges of China's space industry. • A procedural argument to resolve China's substantive space law gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid waste recycling in developing countries has been largely relying on the informal recycling sector which intelligently uses the tacit knowledge within the hierarchical network of labor division to capture the value from the geographically uneven distribution of waste generation and demands on secondary materials. Previous studies on solid waste recycling mainly have a material-centric view on economic value. In this paper, an entropy-weighted recyclability index (EWRI) is developed to quantify the recyclability of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in China at the prefectural city level by integrating the road transportation density and regional recycling capability into the categories of waste physical components regarding the cost to deliver the waste from generating sources to the conversion sites for recycling. The result confirms the existence of an east-west gradient regional disparity in recyclability of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) among cities for the recyclable components. The 339 prefectural cities were classified into 4 grades, namely "best, good, normal, and difficult" for the recyclability of local MSW with guidelines for planning of regional recycling infrastructure, respectively. In conclusion, general guidelines for the building of wise-waste city infrastructure to fit the local context in developing countries is advised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of China's national resources in the space domain may change the gap in power between China and the United States in relevant international rulemaking. This article proposes an analytical framework for identifying, comparing, and analyzing states' power resources critical to international rulemaking and uses the framework to compare the relevant resources between China and the United States in the space domain. First, this paper develops a method for identifying resources crucial to international rulemaking in outer space. The relevant resources of the two countries are then compared in this article. Finally, the article explores comparative advantages, consensus, differences, and cooperation possibilities of the two countries in specific international space rules. The framework could be adapted to compare diverse nations' resources critical to international rulemaking in other fields; it contributes to research on space law, international legislation, and national power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the interaction-speech act-ritual integrative approach, this paper investigates the pragmatic properties, functions and socio-cultural mechanism of fù 賦, a special kind of historical poem-quoting 賦詩 interaction in the Spring and Autumn Period of ancient China, from the historical sociopragmatic perspective. The study shows that, firstly, the historical interaction of fù features both rituality and strategicality. The rituality manifests how fù is used to initiate the ritual speech acts of Greet and Leave-take in the opening and closing phases of interaction. The use of fù as a greeting compulsorily calls for another fù as a response, violation of which will incur negative evaluation while the use of fù as a leave-taking potentially evokes positive evaluation; the strategies are shown in the core phase where fù performs the informative speech act of Opine to express political orientation on the one hand and the attitudinal speech acts of Request, Refusal and Resolve to strategically achieve diplomatic negotiation on the other. Secondly, fù mainly performs in interaction as three social actions: institution-maintaining for bureaucratic institutes and hierarchies, virtue-favoring for the five moral virtues of Confucianism, "Gong" 恭, "Ken" 寬, "Xi" 信, "Min" 敏, and "Hui" 惠 and face-upholding for self and others to re-enact the institutionalized and interpersonal aspects of moral order of li in interaction. Third, the moral order of li in turn provides the basis for the evaluation of fù as social action, between which the dynamic socio-cultural mechanism of fù in interaction emerges. • The study provides the interaction-speech act-ritual evidences on fù historical Chinese poem-quoting interaction. • Fù interaction contains both ritual and strategical aspects. • Fù performs as the institution-maintaining, virtue-favoring and face-upholding actions to re-enact the moral order of li. • The moral order of li provides the basis for the evaluation of fù , from which its socio-cultural mechanism emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An improved singular spectrum decomposition is proposed. • High complexity components are secondarily decomposed to reduce its complexity. • An improved prediction model of optimization algorithm is proposed. • Intelligent weighting strategy is introduced to overcome traditional weighting problem. • A combined prediction model for carbon emission is proposed. Accurate prediction of carbon emission is critical for the development of low-carbon economy. However, most carbon emission prediction studies use a single model with low prediction accuracy, and do not consider the instability of carbon emission. Therefore, this paper proposes a combined prediction model of carbon emission. Firstly, the original data is decomposed by singular spectrum decomposition to obtain a limited amount of singular spectrum components. Secondly, high complexity components are secondarily decomposed by variational mode decomposition. Then, chameleon swarm algorithm and carnivorous plant algorithm are used to train the regularization coefficients and kernel parameters of kernel extreme learning machine and least squares support vector machine respectively, and the trained model is used to predict the decomposition components. Finally, induced ordered weighted averaging operator is used to calculate the weight of single model, and error correction is introduced to further promote the prediction accuracy. The carbon emission data of China and the United States is used to make a prediction experiment. The results indicate that the proposed model is superior to other comparative models in different indexes, which provides a new idea for carbon emission prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of cataloged debris produced, the anti-satellite test carried out by Russia, in November 2021, at an altitude of about 480 km, leading to the destruction of the old satellite Cosmos 1408, was the second worst to date and represented the third worst fragmentation in orbit. It generated more than 1/4 of the cataloged debris produced over 55 years by all such tests and almost twice as many as were produced by all previous Soviet tests. After placing this event in its historical context, this paper analyzes in detail how the evolution of the Cosmos 1408 debris cloud affected the environment below 600 km in the first seven months, focusing on the two operational space stations and the Starlink large constellation of satellites. During the first six months following the test, the Cosmos 1408 cloud of fragments nearly doubled the average flux of cataloged objects on the International Space Station and increased by about 3/4 that on China's Tiangong. In the same period, the Starlink large constellation saw an average increase in the flux of cataloged objects of about 20%. Some orbital planes, the "counter-rotating" ones with respect to the Cosmos 1408 debris cloud, were more affected than others, and the affected planes gradually changed over time, due to the differential precession of cloud and constellation nodes. However, being the Starlink constellation 70 km higher up, the flux of Cosmos 1408 cataloged debris steadily decreased over the period analyzed, due to the cloud orbital decay, reducing to just over a quarter of its extrapolated initial value after seven months. • A review of ASAT tests as a source of orbital debris was presented. • The impact of the Cosmos 1408 destruction was put into context. • The cataloged debris flux increase on space stations was computed and discussed. • The debris flux increase and evolution on Starlink orbit planes was analyzed. • A moratorium on this type of ASAT tests was recommended, including low LEO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A non-linear programming model to design full-day demand-adapted timetables is proposed. • The time-dependent maximum sectional passenger flow is used as input data. • A new algorithm is proposed to match demand and services' supply. • The algorithm uses a rolling-horizon mechanism to iteratively compute departure times. • The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is illustrated using real data of Chengdu Metro line 1. This paper focuses on the problem of designing the schedule of urban rail transit systems under dynamic passenger demand considering limited train capacity and congestion. From the point of view of operators, the goal of timetable optimization consists of using as few as possible service trains to transport the arriving passengers to their destinations securely and quickly. On the other hand, passengers want to spend the minimum time travelling to their destinations, including the time they wait on platforms until they board the first and successive trains in case of transferring between lines. Due to the variability of passenger flows and the difficulty in exactly solving full-day timetabling problems in short computation times, it is difficult in practice to use the approaches proposed in the literature. Moreover, when the capacity of trains is considered and oversaturation conditions emerge, the problem becomes even more complex, converting into a challenge the design of schedules from an operational point of view. By considering fixed train dwell times at stations and train running times between stations, we first propose a non-linear programming formulation to model the problem of determining the most convenient interdeparture times of services at the first station of a line, aiming at minimizing the waiting time of passengers. Since the dynamic behaviour of passenger demand and the maximum sectional passenger flow are approximately synchronous, an innovative method, the spatiotemporal synchronization coupling algorithm, based on working with the time-varying maximum sectional passenger flow instead of the demand patterns is proposed to quickly solve in an approximate way the demand-driven timetabling problem. The proposed approach is applied to a real case of Chengdu Metro Line 1 in China. The results show the effectiveness of the algorithm, both in terms of computational effort and in terms of reducing the waiting time currently experienced by passengers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Q-SAT, a small spherical satellite designed and developed by Tsinghua university, was successfully launched on Aug 6, 2020 at Jiuquan satellite launch center in China. The mission of Q-Sat is the joint measurement of long-wavelength Earth gravity field and upper atmosphere density, which is of great significance for improving spacecraft orbit prediction and promoting the development of satellite gravity measurement technology. The satellite is designed in spherical shape innovatively and deploys high dynamic dual-frequency GPS as the main payload. On-orbit data shows that the atmospheric density detection precision is in the order of 10−14kg/m3 and the gravity recovery precision achieves the level of 30 orders. All mission success criteria and objectives were achieved. This paper presents the design, space mission, key technologies, science capabilities and preliminary results of the satellite. • Q-SAT, a spherical satellite for the joint measurement of long-wavelength Earth gravity field and upper atmosphere density, was launched in 2020. • An electromagnetic separation system with point connection-release structure is designed for the Q-Sat. • As secondary payload a powerful GPU module is implemented to validate artificial intelligence computing capabilities in orbit. • Modifications for the Jacchia-Roberts atmospheric density model are proposed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the ability to detect low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs), space-borne detectors will play an important role in exploring the universe in the future. The TianQin project proposed in China participates in this challenge by aiming to detect millihertz GWs. The TianQin GW detector consists of three spacecraft forming a triangular constellation. Each spacecraft carries a pair of test masses (TM) which, inside shielding cages, are left to free fall along the local geodesic. In this way, a pair of TMs on two separate spacecraft can be each other aligned to become the gravitational references of the GW detector, made by an inter-satellite laser interferometer. Each free-falling TM is limited by parasitic forces to be appropriately bounded. The relevant acceleration bound has been fixed to 10−15 m/s2/ Hz within the TianQin measurement bandwidth (MBW) ranging from 0.1 mHz to 0.1 Hz. In turn, TM to cage fluctuations must be kept below 4nm/ Hz to limit the stiffness coupling with the spacecraft displacement caused by non-gravitational disturbances, such as solar radiations and the thruster noise. Suppression of such disturbances calls for a challenging drag-free control technology, since the center of mass (CoM) of a single spacecraft cannot track the separated CoMs of two TMs simultaneously, and consequently tracking must be limited to three degrees of freedom (DoF): two non-orthogonal sensitive axes (one for each TM) and the perpendicular direction to their plane. Control design and simulated tests of this paper will be restricted to the drag-free control along the sensitive axes. The remaining nine DoFs of the two TMs (position and attitude) are controlled by electrostatic suspensions, not to be treated here, but accounted for in the simulated trials. The design of the two-DoF drag-free control relies on a model-based control methodology, the Embedded Model Control (EMC), capable of predicting and suppressing unknown disturbances within the required bandwidth and of decoupling the TM dynamics along the non-orthogonal sensitive axes. The paper starts with the nonlinear model of the TM to cage dynamics, followed by the relevant EMC design, restricted to the sensitive axes. Numerical simulations are employed to validate closed-loop performance and robust stability. Simulated results show that the residual TM to cage fluctuations can be kept below 3nm/ Hz , which leaves a margin within the required spectral bound. The EMC methodology discussed in the paper can provide a reference for future developments and implementations. • Test mass dynamics can be decoupled by 'thruster coupling' or 'sensor coupling'. • Embedded Model Control predicts and compensates unknow disturbances. • Reference generator smooths test mass centering process. • Test mass to cage displacement has satisfied TianQin requirement. • Monte Carlo trails have validated the closed-loop robust stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freshwater resources are scarce globally, and the increase in carbon dioxide (CO 2) concentration leads to both a decrease in soil moisture and arid climate, further limiting agricultural production. Therefore, it is critical to achieve water efficiency in agriculture under elevated CO 2 concentration. A comprehensive analysis was conducted on the research topic of efficient agricultural water under elevated CO 2 concentration using bibliometric methods. The results show that the number of papers on this research has changed from an accumulation phase (1992–2005, 395) to a growth phase (2006–2023, 963). "Carbon dioxide", "water-stress", "growth", "photosynthesis", "yield", and other keywords have been the focus of past research in this area. Kimball BA and Ainsworth EA are the most influential authors in this area. Leakey's (2009) paper in "Experimental Botany" was the most contributing study, summarizing six lessons about the effects of CO 2 enrichment on the relationship among carbon, nitrogen, and water in plants. The United States and China were the most influential countries. Over time, research has shifted from an early focus on atmospheric CO 2 change itself to the response of crops to elevated CO 2 in agricultural production. The efficient crop production strategy under the interaction of environmental factors is becoming a hot spot for future research, and the emission and use of greenhouse gases, the improvement of crop quality, and the efficient guidance of models are also worth exploring. Overall, this study presents a quantitative analysis and comprehensive review of past research conducted on the effect of water and fertilizer on agricultural production under CO 2 enrichment. It also offers suggestions and expectations for future research on the hot spot direction of efficient crop production under climate change. • The continuous research attention is closely related to climate change caused by CO 2 enrichment. • The main research fields included CO 2 enrichment, water stress, crop growth and photosynthesis. • The co-citation analysis reveals broad research clusters in the literature. • The new research focus will be interactive climatic factors, greenhouse gas recycling, and modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With global climate change posing a major threat to human society, a growing number of countries have taken "carbon-neutral" as a national strategy and proposed a vision of carbon-free future. As an important supplement to traditional fossil energy, renewable energy is the main force to reduce the use of high-carbon energy and carbon dioxide emissions, which will become the trend of social development in the future. Finding the optimal renewable energy source is of particular significance for achieving the net zero emissions. However, the existing evaluation methods of renewable energy sources have obvious shortcomings. In terms of weight calculation methods, such as the randomness of the subjective method is strong and the index weights do not reflect the small changes of the evaluation matrix, which affect the reliability and accuracy of the evaluation result. The existing ranking methods can only achieve the complete ranking of the different objects, but cannot classify the renewable energy technical alternatives into different grades. Given this background, this paper proposes a novel evaluation method for renewable energy plans based on improved sparrow search algorithm and projection pursuit model. Firstly, this paper improves the traditional sparrow search algorithm from three aspects: population initialization, population update and population variation. Then, the projection pursuit model is constructed, and the improved sparrow search algorithm is applied to optimize the projection target to find the optimal projection direction, so as to determine the weight values of each evaluation index. Finally, the weighted rank-sum ratio method is used to select the best renewable energy technical plan, which can not only realize the complete ranking of different plans, but also classify the technical plans into different levels. Based on the actual renewable energy development data from a province in China, experiments were carried out to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs better than some existing evaluation methods of renewable energy technical plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on achieving a win-win situation regarding the economic, environmental, and social impacts of the cold chain logistics terminal distribution system. This paper proposes three multi-objective models to investigate the above effects by incorporating soft time windows, heterogeneous fleets, and path flexibility, with defining the objectives of examining logistics costs, fuel consumption, carbon emissions, quality damage to perishable commodities, and customer satisfaction using six evaluation functions. To solve the proposed models, an efficient optimization framework is developed by combining domain operators with versatile multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEA) to obtain Pareto solutions. Extensive experiments are conducted to test the validity of the concerned model and algorithms. The results demonstrate that: (1) the proposed algorithm is effective in solving the proposed model; (2) the proposed multi-path strategy can effectively improve the performance of cold-chain logistics systems compared to single-path strategies; (3) evaluation functions that assess customer satisfaction greatly affect the performance of cold-chain logistics systems; and (4) the trade-off relationship between the objectives should be investigated to define the model. The paper also provides valuable managerial insights for improving the efficiency and sustainability of cold-chain logistics operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fluctuation of oil futures price greatly influences the market investment sentiment, which can cause credit risk and capital pressure risk of various financial institutions, and ultimately affect the idiosyncratic risk and systemic risk of financial institutions. This paper adopts MES to measure the systemic risk of Chinese financial institutions and proposes a high-dimensional time-varying parameter spillover network matrix to identify the infection route and source of systemic risk. Finally, the paper investigates the mechanism by that oil futures affect the contagion effect of systemic risk across institutions. The results show that banking financial institutions are the main exporters of risk while insurance is the main absorber, and after the outbreak of COVID-19, the risk contagion capacity of institutions generally increased, the network structure became more complex, and the risk spillover level was pro-cyclical. The empirical results show that the rise of oil futures will promote the (net) risk spillover capacity of institutions and inhibit the risk absorption capacity, and the above process can be transmitted through the stock market, bond market, and foreign exchange market. • Banking institutions are transmitters of risk, while insurance are receivers; • Financial institutions' risk contagion network becomes more complex after COVID-19; • The systemic risk spillover level of Chinese financial institutions has obvious pro-cyclical; • Higher oil futures price promotes the (net) risk spillover capacity of institutions and inhibit the risk absorption capacity; • The above impacts involve three possible transmission mechanisms: the stock market, bond market and foreign exchange market; [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early childhood education programs have been found to effectively promote children's social and cognitive development. However, the health impact of these programs is less understood. Using a quasi-experiment of the first universal child care reform in China from 2010, this paper aims to identify whether the preschool reform produces any short-term effects on health-related outcomes of preschoolers (3-6 years old). Specifically, this reform expands access to affordable preschools that provide full-day center-based education, with school meals and essential health services on campus. I exploit the variation in the number of newly established preschools across provinces and implement difference-in-differences and triple-difference strategies. Results confirm the effectiveness of this reform by showing a strong and positive impact on preschool attendance. This paper then documents the benefits to alleviating underweight among preschoolers. Estimates show a larger effect in rural areas, suggesting that the reform narrows rural-urban disparities in education access and undernutrition prevention. I also explore the impact on caregivers' health consciousness and find improved health-seeking behavior when children get sick. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]