COVID Academic Pandemic: Techno Stress Faced by Teaching Staff for Online Academic Activities.

This paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of the teachers, specifically the techno stress arising in them as a result of issues faced by them in the use of technology when they conduct the online academic activities. It aims to assess the major factors related to the online teaching that specifically adds to techno stress on the teachers during the COVID-19 outbreak. Finally, the study aims to provide suggestions to the policymakers and the management of the universities so that the effect of the COVID-19's on teachers' mental health and the related techno stress can be reduced. This paper is a literature review of the articles on the notion of techno stress on teachers and their mental health by searching the related articles with these terminologies using the renowned search engines of Google Scholar and Web of Science. A combination of the terms such as Coronavirus, COVID-19, mental health, psychological distress, techno stress, and online teaching were used in the article search for the review. The literature has suggested that the COVID-19 outbreak has significantly affected the mental health of the employees in general and specifically, the teachers who are engaged in online academic activities and teaching in the universities. The paper has identified a few factors that are the cause of the techno stress and provides recommendations for the university management and the policy makers for minimizing their negative impact on the teachers, in terms of the techno stress and their mental health. Coronavirus is a new strain of the viruses that has badly engulfed the entire population of the world. It is even now badly rising and causing deaths while this article is in the writing phase. The article has addressed the mental health concerns of the university teachers as they are now working from home using ICT for delivering the lectures and conducting the online teaching and learning activities for the students at their universities. This is a matter of grave importance now and requires immediate attention. Hence, this article broadens the scope of the research on the corona virus and its impact on the university teachers.

An Optimal Pollution Control Model for Environmental Protection Cooperation between Developing and Developed Countries.

With the continuous increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the world and the United States announcing withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the conflicts between environmental protection and economic growth of developing and developed countries have become increasingly challenging. In this paper, following the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" specified in the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, we develop an optimal pollution control model based on a dynamic system for both developing and developed countries. We analyze how different perspectives of the developing and developed countries affect their investments in pollution control and how to determine their responsibilities based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Our aim is to obtain a stable equilibrium mechanism to maximize the social welfare between the developing and developed countries and explore the optimal pollution control and economic growth path. Our results show that it is optimal for the developed countries to help developing countries with pollution control in their initial stage of economic growth. Once the developing countries reach a certain economic development level, they can contribute more to pollution control, while the developed countries can reduce their environmental investment. We show that by following this optimal path, the developing and developed countries can effectively control environment pollution without significant loss of social welfare.

Environmental policy, tax, and the target of sustainable development.

This paper examines whether governments should adopt stricter environmental policies-such as raising environmental taxes-in closed and open economies. It reconsidered the policy effects of enterprise heterogeneity in an open economy and studied the relationship between environmental policies and sustainable development. In the case of self-sufficiency, it is possible to replace punitive environmental policies with environmental subsidies, which is beneficial to sustainable development. However, when trade is opened up, as less productive enterprises withdraw from local and export markets, the stricter environmental policy is the optimal strategy for environmental and energy sustainable development.

Correlation analysis of environmental treatment, sewage treatment and water supply efficiency in China.

With the rapid economic growth and a large number of industrial production activities in China in recent years, the public has paid more and more attention to the improvement of environmental quality. Issues such as control of pollution in water and air resources, solid waste and noise, as well as energy use and alternative energy development, have received increasing attention. How to effectively manage and utilize precious water resources is a major issue for China to achieve sustainable development. The present study tried to the concepts of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with slacks-based model (SBM) model under Constant Returns-to-Scale (CRS) technology (CRS-SBM-DEA) to find a solution, by estimating the total factor water usage efficiencies and sewage treatment efficiencies across Eastern, Central and Western areas in China. The results showed that, before 2007, the Eastern Area in China had the highest water usage efficiency, followed by the West Area and then the Central Area. After 2007, the Western area has gradually become the one with the highest water usage efficiency, followed by the East Area and then the Central Area. In addition, the empirical estimates also consider the impact of the social level. Through panel analysis, this paper finds that population pressure will significantly reduce the efficiency of water use in the region, and the government's actions can effectively boost the use and conservation of water resources.

How Does CEO's Environmental Awareness Affect Technological Innovation?

In this paper, we conduct an empirical study on the impact of CEOs' environmental awareness on technological innovation. To this end, we obtain a large sample with 7615 observations from Chinese A-share listed firms between the years of 2003 and 2014. Our empirical results show that a CEO's environmental awareness has a significant positive impact on technological innovation of his/her enterprise. Environmentally conscious CEOs will invest more in R&D and obtain more patents. This will help their enterprises achieve higher efficiency of technological innovation. Furthermore, the environmental awareness of a CEO has a more significant impact on technological innovation if his/her enterprise is subject to a higher level of monitoring. We also conduct robustness check of our findings and provide managerial insights and proactive government policies to raise the environmental awareness of CEOs and improve the innovation vitality of enterprises.

The Impact of Sustainable Development Technology on a Small Economy-The Case of Energy-Saving Technology.

We investigated the impact of a sustainable development technology on the macroeconomic variables in a small economy utilizing a case study with a stochastically improving energy saving technology and a stochastically increasing energy price. The results show the technological displacement effects of energy saving technology are stronger, but there are more ambiguous instantaneous returns to physical capital. However, the energy saving technology's displacement effects might not affect the conditions under which the Harberger-Laursen-Metzler (HLM) effect holds. The effects of rising energy prices on bonds are stronger, and there are more ambiguous instantaneous returns, but the conditions under which the HLM effect holds are different.