Evaluation and Scale Forecast of Underground Space Resources of Historical and Cultural Cities in China

Following economic growth in the past three decades, rapid urbanization has caused many pronounced issues, such as spatial scarcity and cultural discontinuity, in Chinese historical and cultural cities. In order to better deal with the diversification of underground space resources, data and information, this study introduces a random forest algorithm and proposes a multi-layer information superposition method. According to the characteristics of different information, starting from qualitative and quantitative aspects, we explore the effective performance of the rational development of underground space resources. Taking Yangzhou City, China, as an example, this paper evaluates the suitability and calculates the development volume of urban underground space. The development capacity, potential value, and comprehensive quality of underground space resources are explored in an attempt to demonstrate the practicality and scientificity of the evaluation method for achieving the developmental goals of urban space reconstruction and historic preservation. On this basis, an underground space scale forecast is carried out to provide decision support for relevant planners, managers, and construction personnel that is conducive to the orderly development of urban space, alleviation of increasing human–land conflicts, and coordination of the protection and development of underground space resources in historical and cultural cities, ultimately promoting sustainable development of cities.

3D Printing and Product Assortment Strategy

3D printing, as a production technology, differs from conventional technologies in three characteristics: design freedom—that is, it can handle certain product designs that conventional technologies cannot; quality distinction—that is, depending on the focal quality dimension, it can lead to a quality level superior or inferior to that of conventional technologies; and natural flexibility—that is, it is endowed with capacity flexibility without sacrificing operational efficiency. This paper investigates the joint impact of these characteristics when a firm selects conceptual designs to form its product assortment, taking into account the production-technology choices available for each design: 3D printing and two conventional technologies (dedicated and traditional flexible). Some designs can be processed by using any technology (generic), whereas others are specific to 3D printing (3D-specific). The firm selects designs to be handled by each technology and then invests accordingly in technology adoption, product development, capacity, and production. We characterize the structure of the optimal assortment based on the popularity of each design. Within the sets of generic designs and 3D-specific designs, respectively, the most popular designs should be included in the assortment; under a mild condition, the optimal assortment comprises the most popular ones among all the designs. Within the optimal assortment, 3D printing should handle the less popular generic designs than conventional technologies. We further demonstrate that the design freedom or improved quality associated with 3D printing may reduce the firm’s optimal product variety. In the absence of design freedom and quality distinction, natural flexibility by itself always enhances product variety; by contrast, traditional flexible technology may reduce product variety. Numerical study shows that 3D printing tends to be more valuable when popularities of the generic designs are distributed more evenly and when popularities of the 3D-specific designs are distributed less evenly. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

Achievements, experiences and challenges of the battle against poverty in China’s ethnic minority areas: focusing on the “three areas and three prefectures”

The incidence of poverty in three of China’s provinces (Qinghai, Guizhou and Yunnan) and five of its autonomous regions (Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia, and Xinjiang) is greater than the national average. As severely impoverished areas in China and top priorities in the country’s battle against poverty, ethnic minority areas, especially the most impoverished “three areas” (the Tibet Autonomous Region, prefectures and counties with large Tibetan populations in the provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan, and the Hotan, Aksu, Kashgar prefectures and Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in southern Xinjiang) and the “three prefectures” (the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, and the Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province) showed a significant reduction in poverty and achieved decisive progress in poverty elimination from 2018 to 2019. This laid a solid foundation for the building of a moderately prosperous society in an all respects by 2020. By reviewing and explaining methods and measures of targeted poverty alleviation used in ethnic minority areas of China, this paper summarizes the most successful experiences of these areas, particularly the “Three Areas and Three Prefectures”, in the process of alleviating poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. These successful experiences consist of four aspects: roles of national systems, promotion of key poverty alleviation efforts, improved mechanisms and systems for targeted poverty alleviation, and specific innovative methods and measures. While examining the difficulties of eliminating poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in China’s ethnic minority areas, especially in the “Three Areas and Three Prefectures”, this article also discusses practical challenges and problems yet to be solved, such as follow-up adjustments of poverty alleviation policies, cultivation of self-development capacity and weak educational foundations. Ultimately, this paper offers relevant solutions and suggestions in relation to macro policies, government officials and impoverished groups.

Cooperative Development: Sustainability Agricultural Planning Viewed Through Cooperative Equilibrium Management Theory in Togo, Africa

Cooperative economics looks at market failures as areas for development. The cooperative development process, however, requires member engagement or cohesion in the process according to the Cooperative Management Equilibrium Theory. This cohesion requires an awareness and understanding by the cooperative members of the market failure to develop the capacity to address the failure. This article looks at the effects of government agricultural programs on economic, environmental and social sustainability. The questions we ask is how does a focus on economic development push against social and environmental sustainability within the agricultural sector in Togo? Does member cohesion within a cooperative represent a form of Polanyian double movement through social and environmental cohesion? The current development models utilize what Sen refers to as an austere mode of development which forgoes social or environmental considering them luxuries. Does the focus of economic development build capacity only for economic performance within the Togo agricultural sector at the expense of social and environmental sustainability? Utilizing Deep Participatory Indicator Approach (DPIB) approach this paper examines the economic, environmental and social indicators within two prefectures in the Plateaux Region of Togo. Indicators were separated to show the differences between individual or cooperative producers. As cooperatives it was anticipated that a greater emphasis on social and environmental sustainability would be created through cohesive social action. This study found that the emphasis on economic development included in government programs built development capacity within cooperatives emphasizing their cooperative market cohesion.

Marae Ora Kāinga Ora: Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Solutions via Time-Honored Indigenous Spaces

Marae Ora, Kainga Ora (MOKO) is a three-year research study established as a marae-led intervention project to strengthen the provision of housing with five urban marae in South Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. In brief, marae are primarily places for cultural gatherings and are the centres of activity for Māori communities. Though just one of the marae involved is part of a pre-European tribal settlement, the four other marae were established to meet the cultural needs of Māori who had relocated many decades ago from their tribal areas outside of the Auckland region. The project works with Marae Research Coordinators (MRC) nominated by each marae to build research and development capacity and capability through the sharing of skills, information, and resources. Each MRC is affiliated with their respective marae, either through whakapapa (genealogical links) or through their contributions of service and leadership. The role of the MRC is critical in capturing the lived realities, experiences, and aspirations of their marae community. This was evident in the first year of the project (2020) when three of the five marae actively responded to the needs of their communities during COVID-19 lockdowns in Auckland. While the project has a housing focus, the marae involved demonstrate, in their own distinctive ways, how health and wellbeing is intrinsic to their core function.

How Officials’ Competitive Pressure Affects Sustainable Development Capacity From a Spatial Perspective: Empirical Evidence From China

The view of political achievements suggests that officials will prefer to implement measures that benefit their own development in order to seek promotions. In the past, GDP weighed heavily in officials’ appraisals, leading them to develop the economy without regard to sustainability. Now that the central government has incorporated environmental indicators into the officials’ appraisal system, will this lead officials to implement sustainable development strategies to the fullest extent? Are there spillover effects and regional heterogeneity in this role? This paper discusses these questions with the help of entropy method and a spatial Durbin model using data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2006 to 2016. The conclusions show that, firstly, the officials’ competitive pressure is beneficial to enhance the sustainable development capacity of the province, but this effect is only effective in western China. Secondly, there is no spillover effect of officials’ competitive pressure on sustainable development capacity; thirdly, foreign direct investment, the proportion of state-owned enterprises and environmental regulations have their own unique effects on sustainable development capacity, and there are spillover effects. Based on these findings, this paper proposes corresponding policy recommendations in terms of officials’ appraisal system, talent training, foreign investment introduction, and state-owned enterprise reform.

P.A.S.T. in Coast Project: A Tool for the Research and Enhancement of Prehistoric Archaeology on the Amalfi Coast

The archaeological complex of the Amalfi Coast represents a sector of great development capacity within an area defined as a UNESCO World Heritage site on the basis of the typical stratified cultural landscape. The project presented in this report acts in a specific field of archaeology, prehistoric and protohistoric, of which there are many examples in the Amalfi Coast, even if they are not always clearly legible, and focuses on the analysis of old data, on the acquisition of new information and on their processing through an open-source GIS database. The project seeks results on two different levels: the purely scientific and the more sociocultural.

Towards access for all: 1st Working Group Report for the Global Gene Therapy Initiative (GGTI)

The gene and cell therapy field saw its first approved treatments in Europe in 2012 and the United States in 2017 and is projected to be at least a $10B USD industry by 2025. Despite this success, a massive gap exists between the companies, clinics, and researchers developing these therapeutic approaches, and their availability to the patients who need them. The unacceptable reality is a geographic exclusion of low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) in gene therapy development and ultimately the provision of gene therapies to patients in LMIC. This is particularly relevant for gene therapies to treat human immunodeficiency virus infection and hemoglobinopathies, global health crises impacting tens of millions of people primarily located in LMIC. Bridging this divide will require research, clinical and regulatory infrastructural development, capacity-building, training, an approval pathway and community adoption for success and sustainable affordability. In 2020, the Global Gene Therapy Initiative was formed to tackle the barriers to LMIC inclusion in gene therapy development. This working group includes diverse stakeholders from all sectors and has set a goal of introducing two gene therapy Phase I clinical trials in two LMIC, Uganda and India, by 2024. Here we report on progress to date for this initiative.

Heterogeneous Effects of the Belt and Road Initiative on Energy Efficiency in Participating Countries

The Belt and Road investment involves a large number of renewable energy projects, but whether the energy efficiency is linked to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation has yet to be established in the literature. This research attempts to close this gap by looking at how the BRI affects the energy efficiency of participating nations after the fact through a counterfactual analysis. Based on the Difference-in-Difference-in-Difference (DDD) and quantile DID methods for the panel dataset covering 178 nations and areas for the period of 2002 to 2018, we explored the impacts of BRI on energy efficiency vary by different energy efficiency quantiles, resource endowments, and income levels. First, the positive effects of BRI are significant in medium-and high-energy efficiency quantiles but are not significant in low-energy efficiency quantiles for up to 30%. Second, the BRI tends to increase more energy efficiencies in resource-rich BRI countries than those in resource-poor BRI countries. Third, the BRI tends to increase more energy efficiencies in low-income BRI countries than those in high-income BRI countries. The findings can assist BRI countries in improving energy efficiency and sustainable development capacity under the initiative, thus resolving the increasing anxieties in climate change and environmental pollution in this area.