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The construction of specialty towns is positioned as an important breakthrough and down-to-the-ground path in the implementation of China's new-type urbanization strategy. It highlights the roles of place-based industrial specialization and agglomeration economics. In this process, the Chinese government plays a supportive and guiding role in enabling and aligning multiple actors to engage with to build new platforms for innovation and entrepreneurial activities that integrate the functions of production, living, and ecology. The specialty towns construction strategy is aimed at promoting people-based urbanization and the regional ability of endogenous development. Given the "top-down" and standardization-led nature of the specialty towns policy program, implementation and practices at the local level are both challenging and problematic. This paper adopts perspectives and concepts from evolutionary economic geography and agglomeration economics to explore the antecedents and mechanisms of urbanization. It emphasizes the geographical spatiality of the program in local implementation. Taking 134 provincial specialty towns of Zhejiang province as research cases, the paper refers to a mixed set of methodologies of on-site, interview-based fieldwork; an online survey; and a document analysis to identify the historical foundations, industry attributes, and development objectives of the specialty towns. It also generates a typology of the 134 specialty towns, as well as a typological guideline regarding policy intervention for the broader implementation of specialty towns in China. Three main types of specialty towns are identified in our study: The first type is built on the basis of state-led, sci-tech industrial parks/new towns, whose development aims are oriented toward the development of new industrial paths. The second type is based on firm-led specialized markets located in small administrative towns that support the upgrading and renewal of existing local traditional industries. The third type is featured by the local presence of place-specific natural or sociocultural resources, and it is based on scenic spots. It is oriented to the development of the tourism economy. In conclusion, this study promotes the incorporation of evolutionary economic geography perspectives into the policy implementation of specialty towns and calls for taking the concepts of history, space, and place into account for a better understanding of these towns. By so doing, future policy methods will not be standardized, quota-based, and top-down.

Taking Zhejiang province as an example, based on county-level economic and social statistics, we established an index system for main factors driving the development of the digital economy. We used entropy, spatial autocorrelation, a Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model, and cluster analysis to explore the spatial differences between the development level and driving factors of the digital economy in Zhejiang. First, we observed spatial differences in the development of the digital economy in Zhejiang, with the level being high in the northeast and low in the southwest. Second, the influence of each driving factor represents strong spatial characteristics, and industrial innovation was the most important factor, with a distribution pattern of high in the east and low in the west. As a secondary driving factor, government input is consistent with the spatial layout of the economic factors. Commercial culture is strong in the south and weak in the north. Third, we observed multiple combinations of characteristics in the spatial differences of the four driving factors to establish the mechanism that drives the development of the digital economy in Zhejiang: the local digital economy/new business type is driven by the coupling of industrial innovation atmosphere and consumer demand, formed by developed market advantages. The three main bodies of consumers, government, and enterprises have formed a virtuous circle, promoting each other through the digitization of traditional industries and emerging digital industries, leading the development in the surrounding counties. Fourth, under the action of the four factors, three types of regional development types and 13 subcategories have generally been formed in Zhejiang: enterprise-consumer-led, business-government-led, government-consumer-led. Certain places, such as Hangzhou and Ningbo, are leading the implementation of the concept of digital development, creating the core of the digital economy in Zhejiang; Jiaxing and Jinhua are relying on transportation hub cities or global wholesale centers to rapidly develop intelligent logistics and transportation. In addition, with the support of the government, the later-developing areas are improving their infrastructure and developing the digital industry represented by ecology and tourism. For this reason, in the process of empowering digital economy development, complete attention should be paid to the development path of ecology, tourism, and other suitable digital industries in underdeveloped areas under the leadership of the government. We observed that enterprises and consumers create emerging digital industries in the leading areas of the digital economy in Zhejiang and then promote the digital transformation and upgrading of industries and governments. However, in the later-developing areas dominated by policy investment, the development of the digital economy is mostly oriented toward meeting the needs of industries and consumers, and the force driving emerging digital industries is weak.

Faced with infectious bone defects, the development of a thermosensitive hydrogel containing icariin (ICA) represents a promising therapeutic strategy targeting infection control and bone regeneration. In this study, we prepared and evaluated the physicochemical properties, in vitro and in vivo drug release, antimicrobial activity, anti-inflammatory properties, and bone repair effects of ICA/Chitosan/β-Glycerophosphate (ICA/CTS/β-GP) thermosensitive hydrogel. Our findings demonstrate that the ICA/CTS/β-GP thermosensitive hydrogel undergoes a liquid-to-gel transition at body temperature, which is crucial for maintaining local drug release at the defect site. Additionally, the hydrogel exhibited sustained release of ICA over 28 days, showing high antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and good biocompatibility in blood compatibility tests. In a canine model of infectious bone defects, the ICA/CTS/β-GP thermosensitive hydrogel showed effective infection control and modulated inflammation, vascular formation, and bone factor expression, while also activating the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. In conclusion, the ICA/CTS/β-GP thermosensitive hydrogel could control infection and repair bone tissue. Its antimicrobial and osteogenic properties provide hope for its clinical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial distribution of tourist attractions plays a critical role in the development of coastal cities. Qingdao, with its coastal geography, rich cultural heritage, and rapid urbanization, serves as a representative case. This study integrates POI and multi-source data, employing methods such as the average nearest neighbor index, kernel density estimation, standard deviational ellipse, and Geodetector to analyze the spatial characteristics and influencing factors of Qingdao's tourist attractions. Additionally, path dependence theory is innovatively applied to elucidate the mechanisms of the city's development trajectory. Both natural and social factors influence this distribution, where the resource environment forms the foundational basis, the economic development provides impetus, and the urban development orientation exerts a regulatory effect. The findings are broadly applicable to other coastal tourist cities and offer strategic insights for sustainable development in such contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]