Green ecological development has become an inevitable choice to achieve sustainable urban development and carbon neutrality. This paper evaluates the level of green ecological city development in the Xin'an watershed as measured by green total factor productivity (GTFP), analyzes the direct and spatial effects of the Watershed Horizontal Ecological Compensation policy on GTFP, and further examines the moderating effect of the Research and Development (R&D) incentives, industrial structure, and income gap. This paper conducts difference-in-differences (DID) and spatial regression analysis on 27 cities from 2007 to 2019. The results show that GTFP progresses to varying degrees across cities over time, especially in the pilot cities. Crucially, the Watershed Horizontal Ecological Compensation policy significantly improved GTFP, although the effect was slight. Interestingly, the increase in GTFP in pilot cities that implemented the policy spatially suppressed the increase in GTFP in cities that did not implement the policy. Our evidence also shows that the positive effect of the policy is higher in regions with higher R&D incentives and industrial structure upgrading, which indicates that R&D incentives and industrial upgrading are crucial. In comparison, the income gap has not made the expected negative adjustment effect under the Chinese government's poverty alleviation policy. However, the positive policy effect is heterogeneous in the downstream and upstream pilot cities. The "forcing effect" of the policy on the downstream cities is more favorable than the "compensating effect" on the upstream cities. Therefore, policymakers should pay more attention to ensuring the effectiveness of the Watershed Horizontal Ecological Compensation policy in enhancing GTFP as a long-term strategy to guarantee the sustainability of green ecological development in Chinese cities.
Insufficient physical activity is a common problem for university students because they may engage in sedentary lifestyle owing to excessive time spent on their smartphones and social media use. This may result in problematic internet use (PIU) and nomophobia (fear of not having a mobile phone). Moreover, prior evidence shows that weight-related self-stigma is an important factor contributing to low physical activity. Therefore, the present study examined the associations between PIU, nomophobia, and physical activity among university students across mainland China, Taiwan, and Malaysia. Participants (3135 mainland Chinese, 600 Taiwanese, and 622 Malaysian) completed the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS), Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale (SABAS), Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMPQ), Weight Self-Stigma Questionnaire (WSSQ), and International Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Form (IPAQ-SF). The measurement invariance of the assessed questionnaires was supported across the three regions. The present findings analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling showed that (i) greater nomophobia was associated with higher levels of physical activity, (ii) greater weight-related self-stigma was associated with higher levels of physical activity, and (iii) greater nomophobia was associated with greater weight-related self-stigma. Although the present findings suggest the possibility that experiencing some level of nomophobia or weight-related self-stigma appears to help improve physical activity, it is not recommended that these be encouraged, but reducing PIU should be targeted as a means to improve physical activity.
This study analyzed 1,739 papers on medicinal mushrooms published from 1999 to July 18, 2022 based on Web of Science (WoS). Papers were mainly written in English (1,733, 99.655%), from 6,502 authors, 92 countries or territories, 1,862 organizations and published in 311 journals and 3 book series. International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms published 1,069 (61.472%) papers. Top 5 countries or regions were P.R. China, India, Taiwan, USA, and Malaysia; each published more than 87 papers. From the average citations, papers from Ukraine, Israel, Netherlands, Serbia, and Thailand show the highest citations per paper (more than 22.9 times per paper). The top five affiliations were Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Malaya, University of Haifa, National Chung Hsing University, and Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, each with more than 49 papers. Top five authors are Wasser SP, Hyde KD, Mau JL, Sabaratnam V, Yang Y; each published more than 26 papers. The paper with the most was Wasser SP in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology (2002), which has 1442 citations and the average number of citations is 68.67 times per year. Based on the ESI database, there are 13 top papers with 13 highly cited papers and 1 hot paper. All keywords in medicinal mushrooms research were separated into ten clusters according to different research topics. The results will help researchers clarify the current situation and provide guidance for future research.
Researchers have broadly studied textile waste, but the research topics development and performance trends in this study area are still unclear. A bibliometric analysis was conducted to explore the global scientific literature to determine state of the art on textile waste over the past 16 years. Data of publications output are identified based on the Web of Science (from 2015 to 2020). This study used VOSviewer to analyse collaboration networks among authors, countries, institutions, and author's keywords in identifying five main clusters. A total of 3296 papers in textile waste research were identified. In this study, a total of 10451 authors were involved in textile waste research, and 36 authors among them published more than ten research publications in the period of this study. China has been in a top position in textile waste research moving from 3 output publications in 2005 to 91 output publications in 2020. Indian Institute of Technology System IIT System was ranked first in terms of the total publication number (85 publications, 2.45%). Textile wastewater and adsorption are the most commonly used keywords that reflect the current main research direction in this field and received more attention in recent years. Based on keyword cluster analysis outputs, textile waste research can be categorized into five types of clusters, namely (1) pollutant compositions, (2) component of textile wastewater, (3) treatment methods for textile wastewater, (4) effect mechanism of textile wastewater, and (5) recyclability of textile waste.
China's green growth has shown a trend of fluctuation year by year. Simultaneously, Chinese local governments have pursued simple economic growth driven by the interests of "political competition" for a long time, while the supervision of the ecological environment has been loosened and tightened. In this environment, financial development and technological innovation may easily become the accelerator of this phenomenon, thus exacerbating the fluctuation of green growth. To deeply excavate the key factors to achieve stable and sustained growth of green economy, based on the annual panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2018, this paper studies the impact of financial development and technological innovation on the volatility of green growth using dynamic system GMM method. The findings of this paper are shown as follows: First, the expansion of financial institutions' scale will significantly enhance the volatility of green growth. Second, the increase in the scale of the stock market will also significantly cause green growth fluctuations. Third, the interaction between financial development and technological innovation can significantly weaken the volatility of green growth. Fourth, financial development measured by stock market indicators is more efficient than financial development measured by financial institutions indicators to curb the volatility of green growth. Fifth, the fluctuation of green growth in the previous period will reduce the volatility of green growth in the current period. This study provides new evidence for exploring the power source to promote the stability and sustainable growth of the green economy in the special stage of financial and technological integration. Controlling the development scale of financial institutions and removing their state preferences, expanding the development of capital markets, and deepening the integration of financial development and technological innovation are conducive to achieve stable green growth.
This paper investigates the efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) growth of the Pakistani banking industry and determines the impact of risk and competition on the efficiency and TFP growth. The data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based Malmquist productivity index is used to measure efficiency and TFP growth of the Pakistani banking industry. The generalized method of moments (GMM) model is applied to observe the impact of risk and competition on efficiency and TFP growth. The motivation behind the use of GMM model is its ability to overcome unobserved heterogeneity, autocorrelation, and endogeneity issues. The results of the study show that the credit and liquidity risks have positive while insolvency risk has negative effect on the efficiency and TFP growth. The competition leads to improve technological efficiency but declines the technical efficiency growth. Among other explanatory variables, operational cost management, banking sector development, GDP growth rate, and infrastructure development show significant relationships with various efficiencies and TFP growth. The banks also facilitate for the purchase of carbon-intensive products in order to reduce carbon emissions. Strong banking development successfully allocate their financial resources for the development of energy-efficient technology while banking sector development is found to be negatively related with environmental sustainability. The strong banking sector possesses a significant negative influence on carbon reduction and environmental degradation.
Against the backdrop of current global collaboration on mitigating carbon emissions, how to reduce the energy uses in the Belt and Road Initiative area becomes an urgent and big challenge facing the global community. Using the Eora input-output database, this paper accounts the embodied energy trade between Belt and Road countries in 2015, followed by an investigation of the factors influencing the embodied energy trade through a panel gravity model. Global value chain participation and position are two newly considered factors in analyzing the determinants of embodied energy flow. We find that the main bilateral embodied flow paths are from South Korea to China, China to South Korea, Singapore to China, Ukraine to Russia, and Malaysia to Singapore. Five percent embodied energy flow paths account for 80% of the total bilateral embodied energy flow volume between Belt and Road countries. The gravity model results indicate that gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, population, global value chain participation are the key drivers of bilateral embodied energy trade, while the industrial share of GDP and global value chain position are negatively related to the trade. Energy intensity plays a crucial role in reducing the bilateral embodied energy flow. These results are useful in the policymaking of sustainable development for the Belt and Road Initiative.
Non-point source (NPS) pollution has become a vital contaminant source affecting the water environment because of its wide distribution, hydrodynamic complexity, and difficulty in prevention and control. In this study, the identification and evaluation of NPS pollution risk based on landscape pattern were carried out in the Hanjiang River basin above Ankang hydrological section, Shaanxi province, China. Landscape distribution information was obtained through land use data, analyzing the contribution of "source-sink" landscape to NPS pollution through the location-weighted landscape contrast index. Using the NPS pollution risk index to identify and evaluate the regional NPS pollution risk considering the slope, cost distance, soil erosion, and precipitation erosion affect migration of pollutants. The results showed that (i) the pollution risk was generally high in the whole watershed, and the sub-watersheds dominated by "source" landscapes account for 74.61% of the whole basin; (ii) the high-risk areas were distributed in the central, eastern, and western regions of the river basin; the extremely high-risk areas accounted for 12.7% of the whole watershed; and the southern and northern regions were dominated by forestland and grassland with little pollution risk; (iii) "source" landscapes were mostly distributed in areas close to the river course, which had a great impact on environment, and the landscape pattern units near the water body needed to be further adjusted to reduce the influence of NPS pollution.
After the cold war, some countries gradually seek to regional cooperation when they could not handle various transnational challenges alone. Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a good example. It brought Central Asian countries together. This paper applies the text-mining method, using co-word analysis, co-occurrence matrix, cluster analysis, and strategic diagram to analyze the selected articles from newspapers quantitatively and visually. In order to investigate the Chinese government's attitude toward the SCO, this study collected data from the China Core Newspaper Full-text Database, which contains high-impact government newspapers revealing the Chinese government's perception of the SCO. This study characterizes the changing role of SCO as perceived by the Chinese government from 2001 to 2019. Beijing's changing expectations in each of the three identified subperiods are described.
As an important indicator of sustainable development, industrial eco-efficiency (IEE) has aroused growing attention from governments all over the world including China, in recent decades. The Chinese government has introduced numerous environmental regulations; however, the environmental pollution issue does not appear to have been solved. Moreover, although several earlier studies have shown that environmental regulations may promote innovation, there is no consensus on their ultimate effects on IEE. Therefore, this study took a critical look at the connection between environmental regulations and IEE in 36 Chinese sub-sectors from 2009 to 2018. Based on the weak Porter hypothesis (weak PH) and strong Porter hypothesis (strong PH), this paper constructed two panel regression models and conducted group analysis by pollution intensity to check the relationships among environmental regulations, technological innovation, and IEE. It was found that environmental regulations can improve technological innovation and IEE, but these impacts vary across different pollution groups. Specifically, environmental regulations have a U-shaped or inverted U-shaped relationship with technological innovation and IEE. Of the 36 sub-sectors, 26 prove the existence of the Weak PH while 10 verify the Strong PH, indicating that environmental regulations generally advocate technological innovation for most sub-sectors but only promote IEE in a few sub-sectors at present. Finally, differentiated policy implications for environmental regulations and technological innovation are provided for decision-makers.
Long-term monitoring of sea turtle aggregations is critical for understanding the impacts of environmental changes on their population health and habitat suitability. Brunei Bay is a significant foraging ground for green turtles in the South China Sea. We analyzed the body size, hematology and body condition of green turtles for their health status in their foraging ground in Brunei Bay over a period of nine years (2011-2019). Additionally, we used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to evaluate changes in the size and genetic composition of green turtle aggregations. Our findings revealed that the size composition of the green turtle population varied seasonally, but there were no significant temporal changes in genetic and size compositions. Hematology parameters and Fulton's body condition index were consistent with those reported for apparently healthy green turtles. Furthermore, we found that blood reference intervals indicated the turtles were healthy. These results provide valuable baseline data for future comparisons with other foraging aggregations and for long-term monitoring of green turtles in Brunei Bay.
The burden of leukemia and related diseases is rapidly growing in Asia. Currently, there is a paucity of regional collaborative groups/initiatives that focus exclusively on the management of leukemia in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The Asia-Pacific Leukemia Consortium (APLC) was established on the 8 September 2021 to understand the status quo, unmet needs, and ways to improve the management of leukemia and related diseases in the APAC region. The APLC working group set up a group of experts from various countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Australia) to discuss on the status of: (i) clinical trials; (ii) disease registry database; (iii) genetic and tissue repository; (iv) patient advocacy and care; and (v) disease prevention and education in the APAC region. Low levels of awareness about leukemia amongst the public, lack of financial support, and limited access to newly approved therapies were identified as barriers to the implementation of effective leukemia management in low- or mid-income Asian countries. Patients often enroll in clinical trials to gain access to novel/approved therapies. The APLC group aims to address the growing threat of leukemia through a collaborative approach to advance disease prevention, research, clinical trials, and education.
The stress of environmental regulations, sustainable development objectives, and global warming is becoming more prominent now. Most studies conclude that the industrial sector is largely at fault and under tremendous pressure to address these climate change issues. This study highlights the significance of green innovation to Chinese firms in mitigating these conservational challenges, and the study probes the association between green innovation and absorptive capacity. Additionally, board capital (the social and human capital of directors) and environmental regulation-both drivers of green innovation-are explored as moderators between green innovation and absorptive capacity. With appropriate econometric methods and theoretical support from the natural resource-based review, the resource dependency theory, and the Porter hypothesis, the results indicate the positive relationship between green innovation and absorptive capacity. They also reveal board capital and environmental regulation as positive moderators, emphasizing their significance to green innovation. This study offers several suggestions and directives for stakeholders, such as businesses, policymakers, and governments, to foster green innovation for greater profitability, minimizing negative industrial consequences.
As a means of enhancing food security, efficient agricultural processing and the maintenance of a smooth supply chain are essential for ensuring food quality and reducing food wastage. Agricultural enterprises play a crucial role in the processing and transportation of food from farms to dinner tables. Operating income growth plays the vital role of ensuring that agricultural enterprises function in a stable manner while also indicating the quantity and quality of market food supply. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the impact of digital inclusive finance on food security by analyzing the effect of digital inclusive finance on the operating income of agricultural enterprises in China. By applying pooled OLS analysis to Chinese agricultural enterprises that are listed in the National Equities Exchange and Quotations, this study finds that digital inclusive finance can help improve agricultural operating income. The results reveal that digital inclusive finance can facilitate the promotion of agricultural operating income by increasing the supply of financing, accelerating inventory liquidity, and supporting investment in research and development. In addition, this study concludes that digital inclusive finance is more effective for increasing agricultural operating income as a result of its wider coverage and deeper utilization. Furthermore, the development of traditional finance is still necessary for the digitization of digital inclusive finance to be effective.
Green finance can promote economic transformation and technological innovation and play a key role in solving the ecological environment and energy crisis. This paper constructs a comprehensive ecological livable environment evaluation system based on the provincial panel data in China from 2011 to 2019. At the same time, the panel mediation effect and spatial econometric model are used to test the impact of green finance on the ecological and livable environment. The main research conclusions include the following: (1) green finance has significantly improved China's ecological and livable environment; (2) green finance improves the ecological and livable environment by improving the level of technological innovation; (3) the impact of green finance on the ecological livable environment has regional heterogeneity, and green finance in the central provinces has a better effect on the improvement of the ecological livable environment; and (4) the ecological livable environment among Chinese provinces has a significant positive spatial correlation. Among them, green finance has significantly improved the local ecological livable environment but reduced the ecological livable environment of surrounding provinces. Based on the above conclusions, this paper suggests that the government should pay more attention to green finance and technological innovation and coordinate the development of the ecological livable environment among provinces. The research results provide empirical evidence for better developing green finance and improving the ecological livable environment and also provide certain theoretical guidance for China's coordinated regional development and high-quality economic development.
The recently described genus Spinomarmessoidea is comprised of only 2 species from Peninsular Malaysia. The 3rd species of this genus, Spinomarmessoidea damingensis sp. nov. is described from Guangxi Province, China. The new species represents the first record of this genus in China. The granulose head of new species without large spines and mesonotum with short spines are distinguished from the other 2 species. A key to the female of this genus is compiled. Type materials are deposited in the Yunnan Agricultural University (YNAU).
Global economies have recently been concerned about sustainable environmental management by reducing emissions and tackling ecological footprints. The rapid economic expansion and investment in traditional manufacturing further raises environmental degradation. China surpasses other emerging economies in the economic growth race yet has remained the top pollution-emitting economy for the last few decades, necessitating scholarly attention. This study examines the influencing factors of ecological footprints in China from the perspective of COP27. Using the extended dataset from 1988 to 2021, this study uses several time series diagnostic tests and verifies the existence of the long-run association between the study variables. Consequently, the non-linear scattered data leads to non-parametric (method of moment quantile regression) adoption. The empirical results indicate that only economic growth is a significant factor in environmental quality degradation in China. However, improving renewable energy usage, research and development, and foreign direct investment reduces the country's ecological footprint. Hence, the latter variables substantially lead to environmental sustainability. The robustness of the results is confirmed via a robust non-parametric estimator and causality test. Based on the empirical results, this study recommends increased investment in research and development, renewable production, and foreign direct investment enhancement.
'The Belt and Road Initiative' (B&R) was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September and October 2013 and is now actively supported and participated by more than 100 countries and international organizations. B&R has become a hot topic all over the world since its inception. However, the environmental issues arising from this Initiative should not be underestimated. The concept of 'A Community of Shared Future for Mankind' is being promoted under the context of globalization, and there has been a lot of coverage in the mainstream media from various countries on the topic of environmental cooperation along B&R. This study takes a sample of reports on the 'Belt and Road Environmental Cooperation' from July 2021 to August 2022 and uses Van Dijk's theory of news discourse analysis to analyze 20 articles in depth. This study attempts to explore the kind of thematic structure and lexical style that the mainstream newspapers from different countries use to report the environmental cooperation among the countries along B&R, also the implications of such a thematic structure and lexical style, and the characteristics of the discourse construction of mainstream newspapers in different countries. The research has found that B&R countries are used to holding a positive attitude to make a report and seek international cooperation. The headlines are mostly made up of nouns, and both direct and indirect quotations are used. Besides, to enhance the truth of the report, different number types are also involved; the theme structures are often made up of a two-level hierarchy.
At present, there are widespread financing difficulties in China's trade circulation industry. Supply chain finance can provide financing for small- and medium-sized enterprises in China's trade circulation industry, but it will produce financing risks such as credit risks. It is necessary to analyze the causes of the risks in the supply chain finance of the trade circulation industry and measure these risks by establishing a credit risk assessment system. In this article, a supply chain financial risk early warning index system is established, including 4 first-level indicators and 29 third-level indicators. Then, on the basis of the supply chain financial risk early warning index system, combined with the method of convolution neural network, the supply chain financial risk early warning model of trade circulation industry is constructed, and the evaluation index is measured by the method of principal component analysis. Finally, the relevant data of trade circulation enterprises are selected to make an empirical analysis of the model. The conclusion shows that the supply chain financial risk early warning model and risk control measures established in this article have certain reference value for the commercial circulation industry to carry out supply chain finance. It also provides guidance for trade circulation enterprises to deal with supply chain financial risks effectively.
Grassland degradation poses a serious threat to biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. In this study, we investigated grassland degradation in Zhaosu County, China, between 2001 and 2020, and analyzed the impacts of climate change and human activities using the Miami model. The actual net primary productivity (ANPP) obtained with CASA (Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach) modeling, showed a decreasing trend, reflecting the significant degradation that the grasslands in Zhaosu County have experienced in the past 20 years. Grassland degradation was found to be highest in 2018, while the degraded area continuously decreased in the last 3 years (2018-2020). Climatic factors for found to be the dominant factor affecting grassland degradation, particularly the decrease in precipitation. On the other hand, human activities were found to be the main factor affecting improvement of grasslands, especially in recent years. This finding profoundly elucidates the underlying causes of grassland degradation and improvement and helps implement ecological conservation and restoration measures. From a practical perspective, the research results provide an important reference for the formulation of policies and management strategies for sustainable land use.