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Energy contributes greatly to every aspect of life and other activities, and is the main source of economic development of any country. Globally, the demand for electrical power has increased in recent times, causing a major increase in the price of various fuels. Energy production from various renewable and non-renewable resources is not new. However, its impact on the environment is a major concern. Several power plants from large hydro, wind, thermal and others are being used for energy generation, nevertheless the depletion of the environment is the major global concern. The challenges posed to the environment need to be tackled to protect our environment. This study evaluates the state of energy generation and distribution, and its potential environmental impacts on biodiversity, climate change, aquatic life, land use, emission generation, etc. We also propose some environmental management strategies that can help overcome these challenges.

Ecological security is gaining importance for its role in human development, as traditional risk factors are being increasingly replaced by threats such as ecological and environmental changes. Taking the example of Xiamen estuary, a typical estuary in southern China, our research focused on the problems related to ecological security, caused by the degradation of ecosystem service and function. We propose an evaluation index system for assessing the ecological services, and standardize ways to determine the evaluation standards and weights. The results show that the ecological security index for Xiamen estuary is 57.1, indicating a “warning” state. This implies that the ecosystem there has been damaged to some degree, and its systematic structure is deteriorating. Twelve indices showed a score below 60, four of which belong to the category of supply services. The study shows that there are some problems associated with the ecological services in Xiamen estuary. The indices that were considered as unsecure include fish density, marine trophic level, primary productivity of water bodies, alien species invasion risk, and species diversity. We conclude that these problems are mainly caused by human activities such as over-fishing, reclamations, and industrial and agricultural pollution.

Synthesizing theories of ethical leadership, psychological climate, pro-environmental behavior, and gender, first, we proposed and tested a model linking supervisors’ ethical leadership and organizational environmental citizenship behavior via a green psychological climate. Then, we tested the moderating effect of gender on the indirect (via a green psychological environment) relationship between supervisors’ ethical leadership and organizational environmental citizenship behavior. Time-lagged (three waves, 2 months apart) survey data were collected from 447 employees in various manufacturing and service sector firms operating in China. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling, bootstrapping, and multigroup techniques to test the hypothesized relationships. The results showed a positive relationship between employee ratings of supervisors’ ethical leadership and organizational environmental citizenship behavior. Moreover, a green psychological climate mediates the relationship between supervisors’ ethical leadership and organizational environmental citizenship behavior. Importantly, the multigroup analysis revealed that gender moderates the indirect relationship (via green psychological climate) between supervisors’ ethical leadership and organizational environmental citizenship behavior. The study carries useful practical implications for policymakers and managers concerned about environmental sustainability.

The concentrations of nutrients (NO2-N, NO3-N, NH4-N, PO4-P, and SiO3-Si) and their ratios in the Lembeh Strait were estimated in April 2013, off the northeastern coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) (NO2-N+NO3-N+NH4-N) and PO4-P were low, with a maximum of 0.181 and 0.007 mg/L, respectively. P was found to be the limiting factor controlling phytoplankton growth overall. According to a potential eutrophication assessment model, both the surface water and the water at a depth of 15m were classified as water 1 (poor nutrition). This study provides baseline information including chemical datasets for future pollution monitoring and management programs in this area.

This paper analyzed how consumer brand loyalty influences brand remanufacturers’ market strategy when independent remanufacturers (IRs) enter the market and when they do not. The authors developed ...

Muhammad Aamir Shafique Khan,1 Du Jianguo,1 Ahmed Abdul Hameed,2 Tehseen UL Mushtaq,2 Muhammad Usman2 1School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore, Pakistan Purpose: The purpose of the present study is twofold. First, we examined the relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance and tested the role of affective commitment foci – namely, affective coworker commitment, affective supervisor commitment, and affective organizational commitment – as parallel mediators in the relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance. Second, we tested the moderating role of culture on the interrelationships between workplace romance, affective commitment foci, and employee job performance. Methods: A two-wave (3-month interval) survey data were collected from 312 paramedics– 162 and 150 from Pakistani and Chinese public-sector hospitals, respectively. The first and second waves of data collection took place in January and May 2017, respectively. Structural equation modeling (SEM), bootstrapping technique, and multigroup analysis were used to test the interrelationships between workplace romance, affective commitment foci, and employee job performance and to examine the cross-cultural differences in these interrelations. Results: Results obtained using SEM show that workplace romance positively influences employee performance. Importantly, the study revealed that the three foci of affective commitment – namely, coworker affective commitment, supervisor affective commitment, and organizational affective commitment – as parallel mediators fully mediate the relationship between workplace romance and employee performance. Moreover, national culture moderates the indirect relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance, where workplace romance is stronger for the Chinese data sample. Conclusion: It is concluded that workplace romance is positively related to employee job performance and that affective commitment foci fully mediate the positive relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance. Moreover, culture moderates the indirect relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance. The study contributes to theory and practice by studying an essential but largely ignored aspect of the workplace and portraying it as a constructive influence on employee job performance and their affective commitment to coworkers, supervisor, and organization. Keywords: workplace romance, job performance, affective commitment, paramedical staff, health sector, cross-cultural comparison, People’s Republic of China, Pakistan

Neutrosophic sets are powerful logics designed to facilitate understanding of indeterminate and inconsistent information; many types of incomplete or complete information can be expressed as interval valued neutrosophic sets (IVNSs). This paper proposes improved aggregation operation rules for IVNSs, and extends the generalized weighted aggregation (GWA) operator to work congruently with IVNS data. The aggregated results are also expressed as IVNSs, which are characterized by truthmembership degree, indeterminacy-membership degree, and falsity-membership degree. The proposed method is proved to be the maximum approximation to the original data, and maintains most of the information during data processing. Then, a method is proposed to determine the ranking orders for all alternatives according to their comparative advantage matrices based on their general score, degree of accuracy and degree of certainty expressed by the aggregated IVNSs. Finally, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed approach.

The trophic structure of a subtropical bay in Taiwan Strait was analyzed by using two methods: mass balance modeling (Ecopath) and stable isotopic analysis (SIA). Trophic levels (TLs) of main functional groups estimated from the two methods were compared. The Ecopath model was built based on the fishery resource survey in Xiamen Bay in 2009. Specifically, data on species composition, biomass, mortality rates, diet composition and fisheries catches were obtained from the survey in and around the bay. The model consisted of 26 functional groups, including plankton, benthos, fish, cephalopods, shrimps, crabs and marine mammals. TLs of the main functional groups were estimated to be between 2.89 (cephalopods) and 3.94 (congers), with an average of 3.11. Trophic transfer efficiencies from levels II to V were 12.8%, 19.2%, 19.7% and 12.1%, respectively. Catfish (Tachysurus sinensis and Netuma thalassina) and the fisheries have major trophic impacts on most functional groups in the Xiamen Bay ecosystem. Total system throughput was estimated to be 411 t km−2year−1. TLs derived from isotopic analysis were highly correlated with those estimated from Ecopath (Linear regression: R2 = 0.696, n = 23, p

Studying the long-term effects of fishing on the marine mean trophic level (MTL) is very important for understanding the status of marine ecosystems, and it will help in the design of appropriate conservation management strategies. Using data on fishery landings from the FAO Fishery Statistics (FishStatJ_2.0.0_win32, 1950 to 2011), we analyzed changes in the fishery landings of 51 marine species/groups in the Chinese marine area and their impacts on MTL. We obtained the following results: China's fishery landings increased gradually from 0.72 × 106 t to 3.29 × 106 t between 1950 and 1977; it increased sharply from 2.74 × 106 t to 13.21 × 106 t between 1981 and 1998, declined to 12.00 × 106 t in 2002 and remained relatively stable until 2008, and increased again to 12.86 × 106 t between 2009 and 2011. The percentage of landings from species/groups whose trophic level was higher than 3.5 was about 28% in 1975–1977; it declined to 17.1% in 1979–1981, increased to 27.00% in 1979–1981, declined from 24.57% to 13.64% in 1982–1988, fluctuated around 19.43% in 1997, and then increased steadily to 35.8% from 1997 to 2011. China's MTL remained stable from 1950 to 1974, fluctuated slightly around 3.45, declined to 3.35 in 1975–1978, and increased to 3.45 in 1979–1981. However, the MTL declined sharply to 3.25 in 1982–1987 and remained stable 10 years afterwards. The decreasing rate of MTL was 0.05 per decade during 1950–1997; it increased gradually to 3.34 from 1997 to 2011, during which the increasing rate was 0.12 per decade. The fishing in balance index of Chinese marine area showed a clear increasing trend since 1950; the trend was greater than 0.5 since 1959, and it increased to greater than 1 since 1995. The changes in MTL were closely related to the composition of the fish species/groups in the total fishery landings, especially the fish species/groups of which the MTL was greater than 3.5, such as Trichiurus haumela, Larimichthys polyactis, Larimichthys crocea, Engraulis japonicas, and Decapterus spp. The general declining trend of MTL indicates that the dominant fishery landings changed from benthic fishes with a long life span and high trophic level (e.g., T. haumela) to invertebrates and pelagic fishes with a short life span and low trophic level (e.g., Decapterus spp.). The increase in MTL in China from 1997 to 2011 may be attributable to a series of fishery management countermeasures, such as setting up closed fishing seasons and non-fishing zones, establishing marine protected areas for fishery restoration. We also found that MTL may differ when statistical landings data and species richness data are used, and may be affected by the quality of the fisheries statistics. Moreover, species' trophic level, which is assumed to be constant, may have changed over time. The effects of these factors on MTL should be explored in the future.