Evaluation of tourism competitiveness and mechanisms of spatial differentiation in Xinjiang, China.

Evaluation of tourism competitiveness is useful for measuring the level of regional tourism development. It is of great importance to understand the advantages and disadvantages of tourism development correctly and formulate corresponding development strategies. To investigate tourism competitiveness, this paper established an evaluation index system, including tourism development competitiveness, tourism resource competitiveness, and tourism-support competitiveness, for 14 prefectures and cities in Xinjiang in China. The characteristics and laws of spatial differentiation were analyzed. Factor analysis was applied to examine the spatial differentiation of regional tourism competitiveness. The results showed an obvious spatial differentiation in tourism competitiveness among the 14 prefectures and cities. In terms of development competitiveness, Yili and Urumqi constituted the spatial center, followed by Changji, Altay, and Ba Prefecture. As the provincial capital, Urumqi has political, economic, cultural, transportation, and geographic advantages, but its competitiveness is not prominent in terms of monopoly and efficiency. In terms of resource competitiveness, Yili is the core attraction, while Urumqi, Kashgar, Altay, and Ba Prefecture are dominant attractions. With respect to supporting competitiveness, Bo Prefecture has high value, followed by Urumqi City and Aksu. Hetian and Ke Prefecture have the lowest values. The comprehensive competitiveness of tourism is centered on Yili. Urumqi and Bo Prefecture are subcenters, and Changji, Altay, Ba Prefecture, Aksu, and Kashgar are characterized as multi-polar competition areas. Using the KMO and Bartlett's sphericity tests, the cumulative contribution variance of the eigenvalues of the eight factors extracted by the maximum variance rotation method was found to be 92.714%. Socio-economic conditions, tourism resources, infrastructure construction, regional cultural influence, ecological environment carrying capacity, tertiary industry development, tourism service level, and living security system are the main driving factors affecting the spatial differentiation of tourism competitiveness in Xinjiang. Analyzing the spatial evolution characteristics and the driving factors of the regional tourism competitiveness in Xinjiang, this paper seeks to promote the optimal allocation of tourism production factors in the macro regional system, and provide theoretical guidance and an empirical basis for the comprehensive and harmonic development of regional tourism.

Industrial agglomeration and air pollution: A new perspective from enterprises in Atmospheric Pollution Transmission Channel Cities (APTCC) of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and its surrounding areas, China.

Air quality in China has gradually been improving in recent years; however, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region continues to be the most polluted area in China, with the worst air quality index. BTH and its surrounding areas experience high agglomeration of heavy-polluting manufacturers that generate electric power, process petroleum and coal, and carry out smelting and pressing of ferrous metals, raw chemical materials, chemical products, and non-metallic mineral products. This study presents evidence of the air pollution impacts of industrial agglomeration using the Ellison-Glaeser index, Herfindahl-Hirschman index, and spatial autocorrelation analysis. This was based on data from 73,353 enterprises in "2+26" atmospheric pollution transmission channel cities in BTH and its surrounding areas (herein referred to as BTH "2+26" cities). The results showed that Beijing, Yangquan, Puyang, Kaifeng, Taiyuan, and Jinan had the highest Ellison-Glaeser index among the BTH "2+26" cities; this represents the highest enterprise agglomeration. Beijing, Langfang, Tianjin, Baoding, and Tangshan also showed a low Herfindahl-Hirschman index of pollutant emissions, which have a relatively high degree of industrial agglomeration in BTH "2+26" cities. There was an inverted U-shaped relationship between enterprise agglomeration and air quality in the BTH "2+26" cities. This means that air quality improved with increased industrial agglomeration up to a certain level; beyond this point, the air quality begins to deteriorate with a decrease in industrial agglomeration.

Analyzing the regional economic changes in a high-tech industrial development zone using machine learning algorithms.

The aims are to improve the efficiency in analyzing the regional economic changes in China's high-tech industrial development zones (IDZs), ensure the industrial structural integrity, and comprehensively understand the roles of capital, technology, and talents in regional economic structural changes. According to previous works, the economic efficiency and impact mechanism of China's high-tech IDZ are analyzed profoundly. The machine learning (ML)-based Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist index measurement algorithms are adopted to analyze the dynamic and static characteristics of high-tech IDZ's economic data from 2009 to 2019. Furthermore, a high-tech IDZ economic efficiency influencing factor model is built. Based on the detailed data of a high-tech IDZ, the regional economic changes are analyzed from the following dimensions: economic environment, economic structure, number of talents, capital investment, and high-tech IDZ's regional scale, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed model further. Results demonstrate that the comprehensive economic efficiency of all national high-tech IDZs in China is relatively high. However, there are huge differences among different regions. The economic efficiency of the eastern region is significantly lower than the national average. The economic structure, number of talents, capital investment, and economic efficiency of the high-tech IDZs show a significant positive correlation. The economic changes in high-tech IDZs can be improved through the secondary industry, employee value, and funding input. The ML technology applied can make data processing more efficient, providing proper suggestions for developing China's high-tech industrial parks.

Relationship between FDI, fiscal expenditure and green total-factor productivity in China: From the perspective of spatial spillover.

Deeply investigating the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), fiscal expenditure and green total-factor productivity (GTFP) is beneficial to formulating effective policies to promote the high-quality development in China. Based on theoretical mechanism analysis, with panel data of China's mainland 30 provinces during 2003-2017, this paper utilizes spatial econometric model to empirically explore the effects of FDI, fiscal expenditure and their interaction item on the growth of GTFP in China. The results show that FDI significantly promote the growth of the local and its neighboring GTFP, and both fiscal expenditure and the interaction between FDI and fiscal expenditure exert significantly negative effects on the growth of GTFP in the local and its neighboring regions. A series of robustness checks and the endogeneity test can ensure the reliability of these results. In addition, great heterogeneity can be found across China's different regions in the relationship between FDI, fiscal expenditure and GTFP. The conclusions suggest that it is necessary to give fully play to the synergy between FDI and fiscal expenditure and formulate regionally targeted policies to improve GTFP and promote high-quality development in China.

Stakeholder Analysis and Social Network Analysis in the Decision-Making of Industrial Land Redevelopment in China: The Case of Shanghai.

Currently, many large Chinese cities have entered the postindustrial era, leaving a large amount of vacant, inefficiently utilized industrial land and buildings in the inner cities. Industrial land redevelopment (ILR) can benefit cities in multiple ways, such as by increasing urban public space, improving the quality of life of citizens, and improving the environment, and is considered an effective approach to enhance people's wellbeing. However, large-scale ILR projects often raise a series of social issues in practice, such as injustice and inequality. To address complex urban issues, ILR requires multifaceted, coordinated, and comprehensive strategies involving multitudinous stakeholders. A profound understanding of diverse stakeholders in the decision-making of ILR is a vital step in enhancing the sustainability of ILR. The aim of this paper is to use Shanghai as a case study to understand the diverse stakeholders and their participation during the decision-making of ILR in China. Interviews and questionnaires were used to collect data. Stakeholder analysis (SA) and social network analysis (SNA) were used as complementary research methodologies in this paper. First, stakeholders who participated in the decision-making of ILR were identified. Then, the characteristics of various stakeholders, including power, interests, and knowledge, were analyzed. Following this, the interactive relationships among stakeholders were explored, and their network structure was examined. Finally, policy recommendations were presented regarding stakeholder participation problems in the decision-making of ILR in China.

Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Construction within the Industrialized Building Process: A Monetization and Building Information Modelling Approach.

Industrialization has been widely regarded as a sustainable construction method in terms of its environmental friendliness. However, existing studies mainly consider the single impact of greenhouse gas emissions or material consumption in the construction process of industrialized buildings, and pay less attention to ecological pollution and community interest, which leads to an insufficient understanding. There is an urgent need to systematically carry out accurate assessment of comprehensive construction environmental impact within industrialized building processes. Various methods, including face-to-face interviews, field research and building information modeling (BIM), were used for data collection. Four categories selected for the study included resource consumption, material loss, ecological pollution, and community interest. A life cycle assessment (LCA) model, namely input-process-output model (IPO), is proposed to analyze the construction environmental impact of the standard layer of industrialized buildings from four life cycle stages, namely, transportation, stacking, assembly and cast-in-place. The monetization approach of willingness to pay (WTP) was applied to make a quantitative comparison. Results reveal that the assembly stage has the largest impact on the environment at 66.13% among the four life cycle stages, followed by transportation at 16.39%, stacking at 10.29%, and cast-in-place at 7.19%. The key factors include power consumption, noise pollution, material loss, fuel consumption and component loss, which altogether account for more than 85% of the total impact. Relevant stakeholders can conduct their project using the same approach to determine the construction environmental performance and hence introduce appropriate measures to mitigate the environmental burden.

Magnitude, demographics and dynamics of the effect of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality in 21 industrialized countries.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed many social, economic, environmental and healthcare determinants of health. We applied an ensemble of 16 Bayesian models to vital statistics data to estimate the all-cause mortality effect of the pandemic for 21 industrialized countries. From mid-February through May 2020, 206,000 (95% credible interval, 178,100-231,000) more people died in these countries than would have had the pandemic not occurred. The number of excess deaths, excess deaths per 100,000 people and relative increase in deaths were similar between men and women in most countries. England and Wales and Spain experienced the largest effect: ~100 excess deaths per 100,000 people, equivalent to a 37% (30-44%) relative increase in England and Wales and 38% (31-45%) in Spain. Bulgaria, New Zealand, Slovakia, Australia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Denmark and Finland experienced mortality changes that ranged from possible small declines to increases of 5% or less in either sex. The heterogeneous mortality effects of the COVID-19 pandemic reflect differences in how well countries have managed the pandemic and the resilience and preparedness of the health and social care system.

Hypothesis: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and environmental pollutants.

Genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors are relevant in the causation of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in a multistep cascade. We suggest that exposure to environmental pollutants in early life is one such factor. ALS was first described in the 19th century in the context of the Industrial Revolution that began more than 50 years earlier. The rising incidence of ALS thereafter correlates with increasing longevity, but this is an incomplete association. We suggest that increasing exposure to environmental pollutants due to industrial activity, acting over a lifetime, is also important. The combination of genetic mutations and pollutant exposure, with increased life expectancy, may account for the apparent variations in incidence of the disease in different countries and continents and even regionally within a given country. This hypothesis is testable by focused epidemiological studies, evaluating early and lifelong industrial pollutant exposure of differing types, within the Bradford Hill framework.

Quantifying the Impacts of Economic Progress, Economic Structure, Urbanization Process, and Number of Vehicles on PM2.5 Concentration: A Provincial Panel Data Model Analysis of China.

With the rapid development of China's economy, the environmental problems are becoming increasingly prominent, especially the PM2.5 (particulate matter with diameter smaller than 2.5 µm) concentrations that have exerted adverse influences on human health. Considering the fact that PM2.5 concentrations are mainly caused by anthropogenic activities, this paper selected economic growth, economic structure, urbanization, and the number of civil vehicles as the primary factors and then explored the nexus between those variables and PM2.5 concentrations by employing a panel data model for 31 Chinese provinces. The estimated model showed that: (1) the coefficients of the variables for provinces located in North, Central, and East China were larger than that of other provinces; (2) GDP per capita made the largest contribution to PM2.5 concentrations, while the number of civil vehicles made the least contribution; and (3) the higher the development level of a factor, the greater the contribution it makes to PM2.5 concentrations. It was also found that a bi-directional Granger causal nexus exists between PM2.5 concentrations and economic progress as well as between PM2.5 concentrations and the urbanization process for all provinces. Policy recommendations were finally obtained through empirical discussions, which include that provincial governments should adjust the economic and industrial development patterns, restrict immigration to intensive urban areas, decrease the successful proportion of vehicle licenses, and promote electric vehicles as a substitute to petrol vehicles.

The impacts of urbanization on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations: Empirical evidence from 135 countries worldwide.

Few attempts have been made to systematically investigate the impacts of urbanization on PM2.5 concentrations in countries at different stages of economic development. In this study, a broad concept of urbanization that considers the transformations in the urban economy and the transport sector induced by urbanization is proposed to investigate the influence of urbanization on national PM2.5 concentrations for underdeveloped, developing and developed countries during 1998-2014. The results indicate that urbanization has a significant relationship with PM2.5 concentrations, but the magnitude of its influence varies among groups of countries with different development levels. First, the positive response of PM2.5 concentrations to increased urbanization and transport-related emissions in underdeveloped countries are noticeably stronger than that in developing and developed countries. Second, for developing countries, urbanization, transport-related emissions and industrialization all have a significant positive effect on national PM2.5 concentrations increase, although their impacts are unexpectedly smaller than those in the other groups of countries. Finally, increasing urbanization and the decrease in CO2 emissions from manufacturing industry appear to reduce national average PM2.5 concentrations in developed countries, while the decrease in transport-related CO2 emission is likely to cause the rise in national average PM2.5 concentrations.

Responses of Ecosystem Services to Urbanization-Induced Land Use Changes in Ecologically Sensitive Suburban Areas in Hangzhou, China.

Ecologically sensitive suburban areas provide important ecosystem services and protect urban ecological security because of their multiple functions in natural and human systems. The research on the ecological environment effects of land use activities in ecologically sensitive suburban areas is important in guiding the healthy and sustainable development of cities. Taking the west suburbs of Hangzhou in China as a case study, we quantified land use changes from Landsat satellite imagery and calculated the value of ecosystem services using the well-established equivalent factor table for land use/cover change (LUCC) and ecosystem services value (ESV). The impacts of LUCC on the ecological environment were analyzed using the transfer matrix of land use and coefficient of elasticity. Results revealed the following. (1) The total ESV in the western suburban area of Hangzhou decreased from $109.95 million in 2000 to $87.09 million in 2016. Moreover, the ESV of gas regulation, climate regulation, soil formation and protection, as well as biodiversity conservation presented a large decrease of more than 25%, especially between 2010 and 2016. (2) The spatial distribution of ESV was high in the west and low in the east. The regions with a significant reduction in ESV were mainly distributed in the eastern town of Wuchang and in Jincheng Town located in the midwest valley. (3) Industrial agglomeration activities in the ecologically sensitive suburban area emerged as the primary factor influencing ESV for various land uses. The elasticity indicator for assessing the responses to ESV changes relative to LUCC showed that 1% of the land conversion in this area resulted in average changes in ESV of 4.1% after the establishment of the industrial agglomeration area. (4) The increase in construction land was associated with a significant decrease in forest area because of the policy of cultivated land requisition⁻compensation balance and development strategies for low-slope hilly lands. Consequently, the ESV in the ecologically sensitive suburban areas rapidly declined.

University-industry-government relations of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) universities: The perspective of the mutual information.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) universities are important bases for science and technology research and play a critical role in China's National Innovation System. Based on the Web of Science (WoS), this article analyzes the statistics of paper published by MIIT universities and universities from across China including MIIT universities. The results are as follows: (1) Both the MIIT universities and universities nationwide in China have increased their international academic publications, and MIIT have shown a greater increase for the past decade. (2) In terms of U-I-G interaction, for UG relations, the Tug value of MIIT universities has remained stable, while that of universities in China has become declined. For UI relations, the Tui value of both MIIT universities and universities in China has shown steady growth. For UIG relations, MIIT universities have a greater synergistic effect of Triple Helix relationship than universities in China. (3) For more details in seven MIIT universities, universities elected into "Project 985", including HIT, BUAA, BIT and NPU, have published more papers, and been more synergistic with government and industry (UIG relations) than other three universities, including NUAA, NUST and HEU. Based on the empirical results, we discuss our findings, and make certain suggestions regarding policy incentives, reasonable administrative system and U-I-G interaction mode, which is significant not only for Chinese universities but also for universities in other developing countries.

Wood Waste and Race: The Industrialization of Biomass Energy Technologies and Environmental Justice.

In the 1980s, engineers developed new ways to use one of humanity's oldest fuel sources-wood-to create electrical power. This article uses envirotechnical analysis to examine the development of a wood-burning power plant in Flint, Michigan, and argues that when public officials began working with major energy corporations to build industrial biomass facilities in the 1980s and 1990s, new energy technologies designed to run on renewable fuels became part of an entrenched fossil fuel-based power structure that maintained deep historical inequalities. Like other examples of environmental injustice, the burdens of industrial-scale biomass power systems tended to fall on poor, nonwhite communities. By exploring the creation of the Genesee Power Station as part of an envirotechnical regime in Flint, this research seeks to develop conceptual bridges between the history of technology, environmental history, and environmental justice, and demonstrates the use of history to inform contemporary debates about sustainability.

Mortality Characteristics of Two Populations in the Northern Mediterranean (Croatia) in the Period 1960⁻2012: An Ecological Study.

In the second half of the 20th century, the town of Bakar (Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Croatia), where a coking plant was operational 1978⁻1994, experienced intensive industrialisation. The town of Mali Losinj (Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Croatia) in this period based its economy on non-industrial sectors. The study goal was comparing mortality characteristics of these populations in the northern Mediterranean for 1960⁻2012. An ecological study design was used. Data were analysed for 1960⁻2012 for the deceased with recorded place of residence in the study area. Data on the deceased for 1960⁻1993 were taken from death reports, for 1994⁻2012 from digital archives of the Teaching Institute of Public Health, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County. Data on causes of death for 1960⁻1994 were recoded to the three-digit code of underlying cause of death according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD⁻10). Among studied populations significant difference was found among the causes of deaths coded within ICD⁻10 chapters: neoplasms (particularly stomach carcinoma), mental and behavioural disorders and diseases of the respiratory system (particularly chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, (COPD)). Increase in mortality from neoplasms, increase in respiratory diseases for the area exposed to industrial pollution, also stomach carcinoma and COPD particularly in the town Bakar require further research.

Use of evidential reasoning and AHP to assess regional industrial safety.

China's fast economic growth contributes to the rapid development of its urbanization process, and also renders a series of industrial accidents, which often cause loss of life, damage to property and environment, thus requiring the associated risk analysis and safety control measures to be implemented in advance. However, incompleteness of historical failure data before the occurrence of accidents makes it difficult to use traditional risk analysis approaches such as probabilistic risk analysis in many cases. This paper aims to develop a new methodology capable of assessing regional industrial safety (RIS) in an uncertain environment. A hierarchical structure for modelling the risks influencing RIS is first constructed. The hybrid of evidential reasoning (ER) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is then used to assess the risks in a complementary way, in which AHP is hired to evaluate the weight of each risk factor and ER is employed to synthesise the safety evaluations of the investigated region(s) against the risk factors from the bottom to the top level in the hierarchy. The successful application of the hybrid approach in a real case analysis of RIS in several major districts of Beijing (capital of China) demonstrates its feasibility as well as provides risk analysts and safety engineers with useful insights on effective solutions to comprehensive risk assessment of RIS in metropolitan cities. The contribution of this paper is made by the findings on the comparison of risk levels of RIS at different regions against various risk factors so that best practices from the good performer(s) can be used to improve the safety of the others.

Exploring the Driving Factors of Construction Industrialization Development in China.

Construction industrialization (CI) has been adopted worldwide because of its potential benefits. However, current research shows the incentives for adopting CI may differ in different regions. While the promotion of CI in China is still at the initial stage, a systematical analysis of the driving factors would help decision makers get a comprehensive understanding of CI development and select proper strategies to promote CI. This research combines qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the construction industrialization driving factors (CIDFs) in China. The grounded theory method (GTM) was employed to explore CI concepts among 182 CI-related articles published in 10 top-tier journals from 2000 to 2017. A total of 15 CIDFs were identified, including one suggested by professionals during a pre-test questionnaire survey. The analysis showed that the development of CI in China is pushed by macrodevelopment and pulled by the government and is also a self-driven process. The major driving factors for CI adoption in China are the transformation and upgrade of the conventional construction industry and the solution of development dilemmas. Our study also suggests that pilot programs are, currently, the most effective method to promote CI in China and to accumulate experience so to gain recognition by the society. This research is also of value for CI promotion in other developing countries.