Life makes cities greener: The impact of dual-policy of China in urban transformation on residents' green lifestyles.

Promoting the formation of the green lifestyle (GL) is a crucial step in achieving comprehensive green transformation of urban economic and social development. The widespread adoption of GL is influenced by various environmental regulations. Previous research mainly focused on the impact of individual policies on GL from the single policy perspective. The mechanisms of the combined effects of policies have not been thoroughly explored, particularly the contributions of each policy during periods of overlap. This paper takes the dual-policy of the New-type Urbanization Policy (NUP) and Smart City Policy (SCP) in China as an example. It employs panel data collected from 271 cities in China during 2007-2019 and establishes a multi-period difference-in-difference model to identify the combined effects of the dual-policy on residents' GL. Additionally, the Shapley value decomposition method is utilized to identify the contribution magnitude of each policy when they act simultaneously. The following conclusions are yielded. Firstly, the combined effects of dual-policy are more effective than a single policy in influencing residents' GL. Secondly, the Shapley value decomposition method reveals that when both policies are simultaneously implemented, SCP contributes a greater weight compared to NUP. Thirdly, the dual-policy can promote residents' adoption of GL through mechanisms such as green technological innovation, public participation in environmental protection, and the agglomeration of tertiary industries. Fourthly, the impact of dual-policy on residents' GL varies across different types and sizes of cities. This study attempts to unseal the "black box" of how the dual-policy influences residents' GL during the green transformation of cities in China, providing theoretical references for relevant urban policies in other countries and contributing to Chinese solutions and experience to global urban green development.

Shock or opportunity? Unveiling the effect of low-carbon transition on employment.

The stabilization of growth and preservation of employment are the primary objectives of the current new economic normal. Investigating whether the low-carbon transition can be an opportunity or a shock for employment expansion in green development requires thorough examination. This study utilizes multi-temporal difference-in-difference (DID) models, analyzing comprehensive panel data from China (2007-2019) to assess the impact of the Low-carbon City Pilot (LCCP) policy on employment at meso-regional and micro-firm levels. Empirical findings robustly reveal that LCCP significantly boosts employment, with average treatment effects of approximately 0.548% and 5.892% at regional and firm scales, respectively. Positive impacts vary based on ownership, location, industry type, and energy consumption within enterprises. Notably, state-owned enterprises, those in the eastern region, engaged in secondary industries, and with high energy consumption experience pronounced positive effects. Mechanism analysis further reveals that LCCP boosts employment via promoting government environmental subsidies and expanding enterprise investment scale to create more jobs. These findings provide policy recommendations for further promoting low-carbon transition and expanding employment to achieve the win-win goal of sustainable development.

Dynamic optimization of battery recycling e-platforms under non-equalizing supply and demand: Recycling price and service commissions.

With the rapid advancement of electric vehicles (EVs), the burgeoning increase in used power batteries necessitates the development of efficient battery recycling e-platforms. A key challenge in this field is the mismatch between supply and demand. In response, a dynamic optimization model is proposed to capture the non-equalizing supply-demand relationship and its linkage over continuous periods to enable dynamic simulations and predictions of transaction volume changes. Meanwhile, pricing and commission-setting strategies are optimized based on the objectives of maximizing social welfare and platform revenue. The result shows that due to the lower recycling volumes that result, increasing the recycling price usually increases platform revenues, exacerbates environmental costs, and leads to lower social welfare. Moreover, platform revenues are more sensitive to commission rates than social welfare, which is more vulnerable to recycling prices. Furthermore, prioritizing social welfare leads to a higher recycling volume compared to prioritizing revenue, but it also creates an imbalance between supply and demand, destabilizing the recycling market. With the dynamic pricing and commission strategies, this study enriches the literature in the third-party recycling mode for power batteries, offering a novel perspective that is more aligned with real-world operational conditions. Our findings help platforms clarify the impact of pricing and commission decisions on platform revenue and social welfare and thereby provide support for their decision optimization.

Does new energy demonstration city policy curb air pollution? Evidence from Chinese cities.

China has embarked on realizing a green-oriented energy structure transition with a series of policy tools. In 2014, the National Energy Administration launched a new energy demonstration city (NEDC) policy, but its effect on air pollution mitigation has not been fully examined. By employing the Difference-in-difference strategy, this study examines the effect of the NEDC policy on air pollution mitigation with Chinese prefecture-level city data. The results reveal that the NEDC policy can significantly lead to a 0.13-unit drop in SO2 emissions. The NEDC policy curbs pollution by stimulating green investments, promoting green technology innovation, advancing resource allocation efficiency, and reducing energy consumption. The effect of the NEDC policy appears to be heterogeneous under different conditions. Furthermore, this phenomenon is more conspicuous in prefectures led by older officials, where the age incentives nearing the promotion golden age threshold amplify the effects of air pollution mitigation, while those nearing retirement years exacerbate such effects. Notably, the interaction effect between environmental regulations and the NEDC policy on air pollution mitigation is elucidated. Moreover, positive spatial spillover effects extending to neighboring regions are identified, underscoring the imperative of regional collaboration and technological diffusion. Based on the findings above, several policy implications are proposed.

Fracturing Behaviors and Mechanism of Serial Coal Pillar Specimens with Different Strength.

The fracturing behaviors of serial coal pillars is significant for understanding their failure mechanism. To reveal this, the bearing stress, acoustic emission, electrical resistivity, local strain, force chain distribution, and cracks evolution of serial coal pillars under uniaxial compression were evaluated by experiment and numerical simulation. The results show that four bearing stages are observed during the fracturing process (i.e., nonlinear growth, linear growth, yielding growth, and weakening stages). The acoustic emission features, electrical resistivity responses, strain develops, force chain distributions, cracks evolutions, and local displacement are highly consistent to illustrate the fracturing behaviors. System fracturing of serial coal pillar specimens is appeared along with the collapse of lower uniaxial compressive strength coal pillar specimen. The limit bearing capacity of serial coal pillar specimens is almost equal to the strength of lower uniaxial compressive strength coal pillar specimen. The unbalanced deformation characteristics of serial coal pillar specimens are presented due to the strength differences. The evolution of the key deformation element is the rooted reason for the overall fracturing mechanism of serial coal pillar specimens. For serial coal pillar specimens with different strengths, the critical condition of system fracturing is that the sum of secant modulus of upper and bottom coal pillars is zero, which is expected to predict the system fracturing of serial pillars in the underground coal mining.

Emulsifying properties of naturally acetylated xylans and their application in lutein delivery emulsion.

Xylans play an important role in dispersing and lubricating cellulose fibrils in lignocellulosic plant cell walls. However, the effect of acetylation on the dispersing and emulsifying properties of xylan is still unclear. In this study, we show that the natural degree of acetylation is vital to ensure xylan an excellent water solubility and emulsifying ability. Alkali extracted xylans were artificially acetylated to degree of substitution (DSAc) between 0.12 and 2.00, while the DMSO extracted originally acetylated xylan (OAX) shows a DSAc of 0.18. Artificially acetylated xylans (AX) with DSAc value similar to OAX shows water solubility and emulsifying ability similar to those of OAX and the best among all the AX samples with different DSAc. They demonstrate excellent emulsifying properties with an emulsifying activity of ~1.3 and an emulsion cream index of ~5 %. AX with the natural DSAc value also demonstrates strong barrier effects in preparing lutein delivery emulsions.

Immunoadjuvant Nanoparticles as Trojan Horses for Enhanced Photo-Immunotherapy in the Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.

Treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) faces great challenges due to high invasiveness and poor prognosis. Therefore, effective treatment methods are urgently needed to control primary tumors and suppress distant tumors. Herein, we employed glycated chitosan (GC), a polysaccharide macromolecular immunoadjuvant, to construct a self-assembly GC@ICG nanoparticle which is accessible to tumor cells for synergistic cancer treatment based on the combination of phototherapy and immunotherapy. In this strategy, the self-associated synthesis of spherical GC@ICG significantly improved the stability of ICG and endowed GC with Trojan Horses in tumor cells to enhance tumor immunogenicity. A bilateral 4T1 tumor-bearing mouse model was established to evaluate the therapeutic outcomes and specific host antitumor immune response. Finally, GC@ICG-based phototherapy can directly eliminate primary tumors and resist the progression of untreated distant tumors. In addition, compared to the treatment of L + GC + ICG, GC@ICG-based phototherapy was evidenced to suppress lung metastasis and enhance infiltration of CD8+ T cells in untreated distant tumors. Therefore, this design shows promise in addressing the challenges of the treatment of TNBC.

Determinants and Willingness to Pay for Purchasing Mask against COVID-19: A Protection Motivation Theory Perspective.

Currently, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading globally, which poses great challenges to the whole world and human beings. The aim of this research is to understand the determinants and residents' willingness to pay (WTP) for purchasing masks against COVID-19 in China. On the basis of protection motivation theory and contingent value method, this research shows that most residents are willing to purchase masks against COVID-19. COVID-19 knowledge, perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, and response efficacy are positively and significantly associated with residents' WTP and the WTP value. However, self-efficacy is only significantly associated with residents' WTP while not with WTP value. Furthermore, compared with other residents, residents in Hubei province have a higher level of COVID-19 knowledge, perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, self-efficacy and response efficacy, and the WTP value is higher. The average value of residents' WTP value for purchasing masks against COVID-19 in Hubei province is ¥120.92 ($18.73) per month during the epidemic, while it is ¥100.16 ($15.50) for other residents. In addition, the effects of demographic factors such as age, gender, income, etc., on residents' WTP and WTP value have also been examined.

Uncertainty or trust? Political trust, perceived uncertainty and public acceptance of personal carbon trading policy.

Achieving carbon neutrality has become a global consensus, and plenty of measures and policies have been proposed in various industries to obtain this ambitious goal. As an innovative and radical environmental policy tool, personal carbon trading (PCT) policy which aims to reduce carbon emissions from the private consumption sector has aroused the attention. For a new policy tool, public support and acceptance is critical to obtain policy legitimacy and policy implementation. To implement PCT policy smoothly, the current research aims to explore the antecedents of public acceptance. From the emotional reaction perspective, this research mainly evaluated how political trust, perceived uncertainty and associated emotions matter for public acceptance of PCT policy. Based on the survey data, this research revealed that political trust has a direct positive impact on public acceptance of PCT policy. Meanwhile, political trust also has an indirect impact on public acceptance of PCT policy via emotions. Specifically, political trust is positively associated with positive emotions and negatively associated with negative emotions. Positive emotions promote public to accept PCT policy, while negative emotions inhibit public to accept PCT policy. The negative emotions exert a more powerful impact on public acceptance than positive emotions. Additionally, we found that perceived uncertainty exerts a negative effect on public acceptance and negatively regulates the relationship between political trust and public acceptance. That is, perceived uncertainty has a significant substitution effect on political trust. According to the research findings, policy implications to improve public acceptance of PCT policy were explored.

What drives resident acceptance of personal carbon trading policy in China?

Personal carbon trading (PCT) policy has been considered as an innovative and radical environmental policy tool to achieve carbon neutrality in private sector. For a new policy tool, resident acceptance is extremely vital and should be considered first and put in a vital position. The aim of this research is to understand resident acceptance of PCT policy and examine what drives resident acceptance and opposition of PCT policy. Based on a national survey in China, this research analyzed the level of resident acceptance toward PCT policy and its associated driving factors. Results delineated that residents are more likely to accept the piloting of PCT policy in other city and more positive toward the implementation of PCT policy in the next five years, but less likely to accept the piloting of PCT policy in their city and more negative toward the immediate implementation of PCT policy across the country. Furthermore, this research uncovered that residents from different regions and living areas and with different income level have different acceptable level to PCT policy. Additionally, this research found that resident acceptance of PCT policy is significantly affected by PCT knowledge, perceived benefit, perceived cost, perceived policy effectiveness and environmental awareness. However, compared with other factors, environmental awareness plays a limited role in improving resident acceptance of PCT policy. On the basis of research findings, measures to improve resident acceptance of PCT policy were discussed.

Does the EU emissions trading system help reduce PM2.5 damage? A research based on PSM-DID method.

Air quality issues, especially haze pollution, have become an important aspect that threatens the sustainable development and health of human beings. Previous studies on the environmental effects of emissions trading system (ETS) mainly focused on carbon emission reduction, instead of focusing on the synergistic governance effect between carbon emission and PM2.5 reduction. Based on the PSM-DID method and the World Development Index (WDI) database, this paper examines whether the EU ETS has a spillover effect on PM2.5 damage reduction, and discusses the related impact mechanisms. The research results show that the EU ETS promotes the reduction of PM2.5 damage, and in different phases of implementation, the impact of the EU ETS on the reduction of PM2.5 damage has a dynamic effect. The robustness test results also show that the research conclusions of this paper are highly reliable. Finally, this paper gives relevant policy suggestions, which can encourage countries to achieve carbon emission reduction targets while helping to reduce PM2.5 damage, and eventually achieve a win-win situation between economic growth and environmental improvement.

How does the ecological compensation mechanism adjust the industrial structure? Evidence from China.

The ecological compensation (EC) mechanism is an innovative institutional arrangement which can effectively realize the coordinated development of social-economic growth and ecological protection. The current research on the evaluation of the implementation effect of EC mechanism mainly focuses on its environmental performance, how the EC mechanism guides the economically underdeveloped areas in the upper reaches of the basin to embark on the road of high-quality economic development, especially the mechanism of how EC triggers the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, it is a topic worthy of in-depth discussion. This study takes China's first cross-provincial horizontal EC mechanism pilot (Xin'an River Basin EC) as the research object and regards it as a quasi-natural experiment. This paper selects the annual panel data of the 11 cities involved from 2009 to 2019 and builds a DID model to study the mechanism of EC affecting industrial structure adjustment systematically. The results show that the EC mechanism mainly promotes the adjustment of the industrial structure in the pilot area through two paths, this is achieved by triggering the transfer of backward or highly polluting industries and promoting the upgrading of the industrial structure. At the same time, technological innovation plays a part intermediary role in the impact of EC to promote the upgrading of industrial structure. Further analysis found that the larger the funds of compensation input, the higher the assessment intensity, the better the effects are. Finally, this study puts forward relevant policy recommendations to further release the potential of the horizontal EC for the reference of decision-makers.

How can government environmental enforcement and corporate environmental responsibility consensus reduce environmental emergencies?

Environmental emergencies have become a severe challenge to human society due to their great harmfulness, which seriously restrict the sustainable development of human society. Previous studies mainly focused on the pollutant sources and consequences of environmental emergencies, yet lacking highlight of the antecedents of environmental emergencies. Based on a panel data of 31 provinces in China, this paper establishes a mediating effect model to empirically investigate how government environmental enforcement and corporate environmental responsibility consensus (CCER) influence environmental emergencies. The results show that there exists a significant positive correlation between the intensity of government environmental enforcement and CCER, while CCER has negative influence on the frequency of environmental emergencies. In addition, CCER plays a full mediating role in the relationship between government environmental enforcement and environmental emergencies. In short, this research clarified the relationship between government environmental enforcement, CCER, and environmental emergencies, verified the intermediary role of CCER. This paper uncovers another "black box" of the mechanism of environmental emergencies, makes up for the limitations of previous studies from a single perspective, expands the scope of research on environmental emergencies, and proposes corresponding policy recommendations.

Highly Stable Pickering Emulsions with Xylan Hydrate Nanocrystals.

Xylan is a highly abundant plant-based biopolymer. Original xylans in plants are in an amorphous state, but deacetylated and low-branched xylan can form a crystalline structure with water molecules. The utilizations of xylan have been limited to bulk applications either with inconsistency and uncertainty or with extensive chemical derivatization due to the insufficient studies on its crystallization. The applications of xylan could be greatly broadened in advanced green materials if xylan crystals are effectively utilized. In this paper, we show a completely green production of nano-sized xylan crystals and propose their application in forming Pickering emulsions. The branches of xylan were regulated during the separation step to controllably induce the formation of xylan hydrate crystals. Xylan hydrate nanocrystals (XNCs) with a uniform size were successfully produced solely by a mild ultrasonic treatment. XNCs can be adsorbed onto oil-water interfaces at a high density to form highly stable Pickering emulsions. The emulsifying properties of XNCs were comparable to some synthetic emulsifiers and better than some other common biopolymer nanocrystals, demonstrating that XNCs have great potential in industrial emulsification.

Towards Sustainable Cities: The Spillover Effects of Waste-Sorting Policies on Sustainable Consumption.

The increasing amount of waste in cities poses a great challenge for sustainable development. Promoting waste sorting is one of the priorities for various levels of public authorities in the context of the rapid growth of waste generation all around China. To achieve this goal, waste-sorting policies should be precisely designed to ensure successful waste reduction at all stages. Previous studies have neglected the spillover effects of different regulatory policies, which may affect the overall goal of reducing waste by influencing different waste production stages. This paper fills this gap by comparing the spillover effects of two typical waste-sorting policies on sustainable consumption behaviours through a survey conducted in Shanghai and Beijing (control group). By combining quasi-natural experiment and questionnaire methods, this paper analyses data through a mediation test to explore the spillover effects between different regulatory policy groups and the effects of the mediation psychological factors. Results show that a penalty policy significantly decreases people's sustainable consumption behaviours through a negative spillover effect, while a voluntary participation policy significantly increases sustainable consumption behaviours through a positive spillover effect. Results can provide implications for policymaking in waste management and other pro-environmental fields to help cities become more sustainable by shifting multiple behaviours.

Dynamic characteristics and fractal representations of crack propagation of rock with different fissures under multiple impact loadings.

To investigate the influence of the fissure morphology on the dynamic mechanical properties of the rock and the crack propagation, a drop hammer impact test device was used to conduct impact failure tests on sandstones with different fissure numbers and fissure dips, simultaneously recorded the crack growth after each impact. The box fractal dimension is used to quantitatively analyze the dynamic change in the sandstone cracks and a fractal model of crack growth over time is established based on fractal theory. The results demonstrate that under impact test conditions of the same mass and different heights, the energy absorbed by sandstone accounts for about 26.7% of the gravitational potential energy. But at the same height and different mass, the energy absorbed by the sandstone accounts for about 68.6% of the total energy. As the fissure dip increases and the number of fissures increases, the dynamic peak stress and dynamic elastic modulus of the fractured sandstone gradually decrease. The fractal dimensions of crack evolution tend to increase with time as a whole and assume as a parabolic. Except for one fissure, 60° and 90° specimens, with the extension of time, the increase rate of fractal dimension is decreasing correspondingly.

Does ecological compensation have a spillover effect on industrial structure upgrading? Evidence from China based on a multi-stage dynamic DID approach.

China's rapid economic development has led to increasingly serious environmental problems, such as the deterioration of its ecology in important river basins. Adjusting the industrial structure through the mechanism of ecological compensation (EC) is a key measure for solving this economic and environmental dilemma. Early research on the impact of ecological compensation mechanisms has mainly focused on evaluating their performance in terms of the ecological environment, with little empirical evidence. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the economic effects of ecological compensation mechanisms in order to achieve sustainable economic and environmental development. Based on panel data from the Xin'an River Basin in China from 2009 to 2018, a multistage dynamic difference-in-differences (DID) model was constructed to systematically study the impact of the ecological compensation mechanism on the upgrading of the industrial structure. The research results show that due to the implementation of the policy, the industrial structure in pilot ecological compensation areas tends to be rational and advanced. The ecological compensation policy has dynamic effects on the upgrading of the industrial structure during the different stages of its implementation. This study is conducive to further enriching the relevant theories and practices underlying the study of ecological compensation mechanisms. At the same time, this paper provides operational suggestions for ecological protection, the adjustment of the industrial structure, and the formulation of relevant macroeconomic policies.

Transition to sustainable transport: understanding the antecedents of consumer's intention to adopt electric vehicles from the emotional research perspective.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are recognized as one of the effective measures to realize sustainable transport. Therefore, many countries have issued related policy initiatives and measures to promote EVs. However, consumer's cognition and acceptance of EVs is not ideal, which affects the early diffusion speed of EVs on the market. This research attempts to explore how consumer's driving experience affects EVs adoption intention from the perspective of consumer's emotional response (satisfaction and trust) by using stimulus-organism-response framework. Based on the analysis of 692 sample data collected through questionnaire survey, we found that consumer's driving experience has a significant and positive impact on EVs adoption intention. Meanwhile, driving experience also significantly and positively affects consumer's satisfaction while has no significant effect on trust. Furthermore, satisfaction has a significantly positive effect on trust, and satisfaction and trust are both significantly and positively associated with EVs adoption intention. The results further uncovered that satisfaction not only plays a mediating role between driving experience and adoption intention but also plays a multiple mediating role between driving experience and adoption intention together with trust. On this basis, relevant recommendations have been made to promote the development of EVs from the perspective of government and enterprise.

The Application of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives in Pigment, Barrier, and Functional Paper Coatings.

As one of the most abundant natural polymers in nature, polysaccharides have the potential to replace petroleum-based polymers that are difficult to degrade in paper coatings. Polysaccharide molecules have a large number of hydroxyl groups that can bind strongly with paper fibers through hydrogen bonds. Chemical modification can also effectively improve the mechanical, barrier, and hydrophobic properties of polysaccharide-based coating layers and thus can further improve the related properties of coated paper. Polysaccharides can also give paper additional functional properties by dispersing and adhering functional fillers, e.g., conductive particles, catalytic particles or antimicrobial chemicals, onto paper surface. Based on these, this paper reviews the application of natural polysaccharides, such as cellulose, hemicellulose, starch, chitosan, and sodium alginate, and their derivatives in paper coatings. This paper analyzes the improvements and influences of chemical structures and properties of polysaccharides on the mechanical, barrier, and hydrophobic properties of coated paper. This paper also summarizes the researches where polysaccharides are used as the adhesives to adhere inorganic or functional fillers onto paper surface to endow paper with great surface properties or special functions such as conductivity, catalytic, antibiotic, and fluorescence.

Intention to adopt bicycle-sharing in China: introducing environmental concern into the theory of planned behavior model.

Bicycle-sharing is regarded as a new mode of transportation with low-carbon and low-cost advantages, which could effectively alleviate traffic congestion. Understanding the factors and influence paths that affect users' willingness to adopt bicycle-sharing is of great importance. This study aims to investigate how users' environmental concern affects their willingness to adopt bicycle-sharing through the impacts of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control. The research model was constructed based on the theory of planned behavior model and validated by empirical data collected from 988 users in China utilizing structural equation modeling technique. The results show that users' environmental concern is positively and significantly related to their attitude (ß = 0.593, p < 0.001), subjective norm (ß = 0.358, p < 0.001), and perceived behavior control (ß = 0.508, p < 0.001) toward adopting bicycle-sharing. In turn, users' attitude (ß = 0.496, p < 0.001), subjective norm (ß = 0.209, p < 0.001), and perceived behavior control (ß = 0.206, p < 0.01) toward adopting bicycle-sharing all positively affect the intention to adopt bicycle-sharing. Based on these results, policy implications for improving the users' acceptance and usage rate of bicycle-sharing and suggestions for future research are discussed.