Suchergebnisse

China's newly proposed carbon neutrality target in September 2020 requires deep decarbonization with an interim goal of peak carbon emissions approximately by the year 2030. At the same time, although significant results have been achieved in recent years in the prevention and control of air pollution, the air quality situation remains serious, with PM2.5 concentrations as high as 34ug/m3 in 2020 even under the impact of the COVID-19. How to achieve carbon neutrality and air quality goals simultaneously in a cost-effective way is essential for China, and it is important to understand better how such strategies would be achieved at the provincial level. This study explores cost-optimized pathways for achieving the dual targets in the rapidly developing but unevenly balanced southern China including Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Hainan, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces. We use a multimodel assessment approach which consists of the macro-economic model (IMED|CGE), the GAINS model, multi-objective cost optimization model and public health model (IMED|HEL) to investigate the costs and benefits of achieving carbon neutrality and the PM2.5 air quality goal. We found that in the baseline without carbon emission constraint under the current legislation, all 6 provinces cannot achieve China's National Ambient Air Quality Standard class I (15ug/m3 ) by 2050. Only by implementing the strictest air pollution control measures can it be possible to approach the air quality level under the carbon-neutral scenario, which will increase the control cost by 20%~200%. While in the Net zero carbon scenarios, Fujian, Guangxi, and Hainan are expected to reach the WHO guidance value under the current control measures with substantial health co-benefits. Furthermore, in order to achieve the same air quality goals, the air pollution control cost under the carbon neutrality scenario would also be significantly lower than the baseline scenario. The contribution of end-of-pipe measures will gradually decrease, due to the cleaner energy mix. In the long term, the transition of the transportation, industrial and energy structure in line with the carbon neutrality target would lay an important foundation for further improvements in air quality.

This commentary reviews An et al.'s (2021) article, 'Towards Confucian Geopolitics'. It first acknowledges the article's achievement in highlighting the importance of reading geopolitics by excavating the Chinese traditions and cultural perspectives. However, the commentary also points out that An et al.'s article has failed to understand the complex nature of the Confucian ideology by differentiating between real-world political struggle and cultural idealism. The lack of an evolving political geography has made their reading of Confucianism as either an official ideology or spatialisation unable to correspond with concrete historical realities. Specifically, it has resulted in over-simplification in benchmarking Chinese history and the dichotomous understanding of Hua-Yi division. The commentary further points out that the above problem is a general issue with the culturalist approach to world politics.

China's newly proposed carbon neutrality target in September 2020 requires deep decarbonization with an interim goal of peak carbon emissions approximately by the year 2030. At the same time, although significant results have been achieved in recent years in the prevention and control of air pollution, the air quality situation remains serious, with PM2.5 concentrations as high as 34ug/m3 in 2020 even under the impact of the COVID-19. How to achieve carbon neutrality and air quality goals simultaneously in a cost-effective way is essential for China, and it is important to understand better how such strategies would be achieved at the provincial level. This study explores cost-optimized pathways for achieving the dual targets in the rapidly developing but unevenly balanced southern China including Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Hainan, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces. We use a multimodel assessment approach which consists of the macro-economic model (IMED|CGE), the GAINS model, multi-objective cost optimization model and public health model (IMED|HEL) to investigate the costs and benefits of achieving carbon neutrality and the PM2.5 air quality goal. We found that in the baseline without carbon emission constraint under the current legislation, all 6 provinces cannot achieve China's National Ambient Air Quality Standard class I (15ug/m3 ) by 2050. Only by implementing the strictest air pollution control measures can it be possible to approach the air quality level under the carbon-neutral scenario, which will increase the control cost by 20%~200%. While in the Net zero carbon scenarios, Fujian, Guangxi, and Hainan are expected to reach the WHO guidance value under the current control measures with substantial health co-benefits. Furthermore, in order to achieve the same air quality goals, the air pollution control cost under the carbon neutrality scenario would also be significantly lower than the baseline scenario. The contribution of end-of-pipe measures will gradually decrease, due to the cleaner energy mix. In the long term, the transition of the transportation, industrial and energy structure in line with the carbon neutrality target would lay an important foundation for further improvements in air quality.

Currently, more and more Chinese tourists choose to have outbound tourism as a way to relax themselves from daily stressful work. The purchasing power of Chinese tourists is noticeable, so that they strongly boost local economy and promote the development of tourism industry. Consequently, an increasingly number of countries realize the great potential of Chinese tourists and take measures to attract Chinese tourists. Finnish government also make great efforts to attract more Chinese tourists, such as setting up more visa centers in China and strengthening the marketing of Finland from tourism perspective by launching many campaigns. Accordingly, this thesis is aimed to contribute to the branding of Finland as a destination to attract more Chinese tourists. The thesis has a very solid theoretical background. It is supported by numerous previous academic achievements and main schools of thoughts in its field, featured by relational network destination branding model, image forming agents' theory, framework of destination competitiveness. Many related concepts have been mentioned under the three main ideas, structured by destination branding, destination image, destination competitiveness. From this perspective, the thesis exhibits the comprehensive understanding of past literatures and paves the way to the empirical study. The study applies to in-depth interviews to collect data. The interviewee can be classified as two groups. One is from the actual tourists, the other is from practitioners who work in Finnish tourism bureau and are responsible with marketing Finland as the destination. The common findings are expected to generate in the aspect of Chinese tourists and Finland as a destination. Since this thesis is abductive by nature, a new model of destination branding process is proposed to enrich the knowledge in this field. It acknowledges the great importance of Word- of-Mouth in the process of destination branding and connects destination competitiveness with destination branding. Moreover, the study figures out how the destination branding of Finland is conducted in China and examines the effect of current destination branding channels. Suggestions have been proposed in order to get an effective destination branding, represented by expanding the content of destination branding, building psychological link between Chinese tourists and Finland as destination, strengthening the cooperation with destination management organizations. This study has not only theoretical implication in destination branding research field, but also it offers practical and adaptable tools to improve the tourism development of Finland to Chinese tourists.

Shanxi, one of China's provinces, has been approved by the State Council as the only state-level comprehensive reform zone for resource-based economic transformation in 2010. Consequently, the implementation of National Resource-based Cities Sustainable Development Planning (2013–2020) and The State Council on Central and Western Regions Undertaking of Industrial Trans-formation Guide were also introduced. As a result, many agricultural lands were urbanized. The question is whether the transformed land was used efficiently. Existing research is limited re-garding the impact of the government-backed transformation of the resource-based economy, industrial restructuring, and urbanization on land use efficiency. This research investigates urban land use efficiency under the government-backed resource-based economy transformation using the Bootstrap-DEA and Bootstrap-Malmquist methods. The land use efficiency and land produc-tivity indexes were produced. Based on the empirical study of 11 prefectural cities, the results suggest that the level of economic development and industrial upgrading are the main determi-nants of land use efficiency. The total land productivity index declined after the economic reform was initiated. The findings imply that the government must enhance monitoring and auditing during policy implementation and evaluate the policy effects after for further improvement. With the scarcity of land resources and urban expansion in many cities worldwide, this research also provides an approach to determining the main determinants of land use efficiency that could guide our understanding of the impact of the future built environment. Keywords: land use efficiency; land productiv

Shanxi, one of China's provinces, has been approved by the State Council as the only state-level comprehensive reform zone for resource-based economic transformation in 2010. Consequently, the implementation of National Resource-based Cities Sustainable Development Planning (2013–2020) and The State Council on Central and Western Regions Undertaking of Industrial Trans-formation Guide were also introduced. As a result, many agricultural lands were urbanized. The question is whether the transformed land was used efficiently. Existing research is limited re-garding the impact of the government-backed transformation of the resource-based economy, industrial restructuring, and urbanization on land use efficiency. This research investigates urban land use efficiency under the government-backed resource-based economy transformation using the Bootstrap-DEA and Bootstrap-Malmquist methods. The land use efficiency and land produc-tivity indexes were produced. Based on the empirical study of 11 prefectural cities, the results suggest that the level of economic development and industrial upgrading are the main determi-nants of land use efficiency. The total land productivity index declined after the economic reform was initiated. The findings imply that the government must enhance monitoring and auditing during policy implementation and evaluate the policy effects after for further improvement. With the scarcity of land resources and urban expansion in many cities worldwide, this research also provides an approach to determining the main determinants of land use efficiency that could guide our understanding of the impact of the future built environment. Keywords: land use efficiency; land productiv

Objective. Theoretically informed models of the relationship between stigmatized personal identities & participation in collective social action are tested. Methods. Data from a longitudinal study of participants (N = 4,169) followed between adolescence & the fourth decade of life are used to estimate structural equation models. Results. The data support hypotheses that perceived rejection during adolescence anticipates participation in social action under conditions when respondents reported during adolescence that (1) many of their schoolmates participated in social movements (p is greater than .10) & (2) they perceived themselves as having personal control over adverse outcomes (p is greater than .05), but not under mutually exclusive conditions. In all models, gender, mother's education, & minority status were specified as control variables. Conclusions. Early experiences of rejection & failure dispose people to engage in collective social action if they perceive social support for such action & anticipate that action will be effective. 2 Tables, 28 References. Adapted from the source document.

Introduction -- Atmospheric Changes and Observations -- Atmospheric Changes and Observations -- GNSS Ionospheric Sounding -- Detection methods for ionospheric disturbances -- Seismic lower-atmospheric anomalies -- Pre-seismic Ionospheric Anomalies -- Co-/Post-seismic Ionospheric Disturbances -- Two-mode seismo-ionospheric disturbances -- Seismo-ionospheric Rayleigh waves -- Epicenter from Ionospheric Disturbances -- Tsunami Ionospheric Disturbances -- Volcano Atmospheric Disturbances -- Volcanic Plumes Detection from GNSS SNR -- Summary and Prospective -- Index

© 2017 Taylor & Francis. Long-term care (LTC) policy is at an experimental stage in China, characterized by various regional pilot programs. The public cost of LTC is difficult to estimate due to a lack of clarity about policy detail from the central government. This article analyzes the current disabled status for vulnerable older people without sufficient financial resources and family supports. It focuses on estimating a safety net public subsidy policy for LTC services in China, both for today and into the future, using China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS) data, 2011 wave, with the methods of multinomial logistic regression and simulation. The key contribution is to estimate the future disability trend and LTC public cost based on changes in education, population ageing, and urbanization. Disability prevalence might be decreasing partly due to higher education, urbanization, and better health care, and the overall public LTC costs might be growing by the results of projection.

Abstract. Dynamic collapses of deeply mined coal rocks are severe threats to miners; in order to predict collapses more accurately using electromagnetic radiation (EMR), we investigate the spatiotemporal multifractal characteristics and formation mechanism of EMR induced by underground coal mining. Coal rock in the burst-prone zone often exchanges materials (gas, water and coal) and energy with its environment and gradually transitions from its original stable equilibrium structure to a nonequilibrium dissipative structure with implicit spatiotemporal complexity or multifractal structures, resulting in temporal variation in multifractal EMR. The inherent law of EMR time series during damage evolution was analyzed by using time-varying multifractal theory. Results show that the time-varying multifractal characteristics of EMR are determined by damage evolution processes. Moreover, the dissipated energy caused by the damage evolutions, such as crack propagation, fractal sliding and shearing, can be regarded as the fingerprint of various EMR micro-mechanics. The dynamic spatiotemporal multifractal spectrum of EMR considers both spatial (multiple fractures) and temporal (dynamic evolution) characteristics of coal rocks and records the dynamic evolution processes of rock bursts. Thus, it can be used to evaluate the coal deformation and fracture process. The study is of significance for us to understand the EMR mechanism in detail and to increase the accuracy of the EMR method in forecasting dynamic disasters.

Concurrent sessions 4C - Auditing / Audit ; This study examines the impact of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on audit fee. We first build an analytical audit fee model to analyze the impact on audit fee of the change in both audit complexity and financial reporting quality brought about by IFRS adoption. We then develop our hypotheses based on the model's predictions, and test the hypotheses using audit fee data from European Union countries that mandated IFRS adoption in 2005. We find that mandatory IFRS adoption has led to an increase in audit fees. We also find that the IFRS-related audit fee premium increases with the increase in audit complexity brought about by IFRS adoption, and decreases with the improvement in financial reporting quality arising from IFRS adoption. Finally, we find some evidence that the IFRS-related audit fee premium is lower in countries with strong legal regimes. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks. ; published_or_final_version