Humic-like substances (HULIS) are a class of high molecular weight, light-absorbing compounds that are highly related to brown carbon (BrC). In this study, the sources and compositions of HULIS ...isolated from fine particles collected in Beijing, China during the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit were characterized based on carbon isotope (13C and 14C) and Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) analyses, respectively. HULIS were the main light-absorbing components of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC), accounting for 80.2 ± 6.1% of the WSOC absorption capacity at 365 nm. The carbon isotope data showed that HULIS had a lower non-fossil contribution (53 ± 4%) and were less enriched with 13C (−24.2 ± 0.6‰) relative to non-HULIS (62 ± 8% and −20.8 ± 0.3‰, respectively). The higher relative intensity fraction of sulfur-containing compounds in HULIS before and after APEC was attributed to higher sulfur dioxide levels emitted from fossil fuel combustion, whereas the higher fraction of nitrogen-containing compounds during APEC may have been due to the relatively greater contribution of non-fossil compounds or the influence of nitrate radical chemistry. The results of investigating the relationships among the sources, elemental compositions, and optical properties of HULIS demonstrated that the light absorption of HULIS appeared to increase with increasing unsaturation degree, but decrease with increasing oxidation level. The unsaturation of HULIS was affected by both sources and aging level.
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•HULIS were the main light-absorbing components of WSOC, and depleted in 13C and 14C relative to non-HULIS.•The elemental compositions of HULIS were affected by sources and meteorological conditions.•The light absorption of HULIS appeared to increase with unsaturation degree, but decrease with oxidation level.
Afghanistan is geo-politically significant; despite two decade long imbroglio
and foreign occupation it has been a ground for major powers to establish their
influences and to counter their rivals. ...It is a hub having proximity to the South
Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Inside Afghanistan the interests of the
United States, China and Pakistan converges and diverges on multiple grounds
but for all the interests the peace and stability inside Afghanistan is crucial. The
research piece investigates strategic interests of Pakistan, China and the United
States in Afghanistan and also finds out grounds where these three countries
cooperate for the peace and stability of Afghanistan and the region. This
research is conducted through mixed method design by using both qualitative
and quantitative methods in order to investigate strategic interests of Pakistan,
China and the United States inside Afghanistan. These three countries have
some diverging interests but rational approach made them cooperate.
Accordingly, the grounds of convergence are counter-terrorism, curbing violent
extremism and cooperation for economic connectivity and regional relations
which are rational choices for players in order to secure win-win situation.
Peaceful and stable Afghanistan is the only way for access and utilization of
natural resources and for the feasibility of significant economic projects like
CASA-1000, China Pakistan Economic Cooperation and Belt Road Initiative.
Automatic Identification System (AIS) sensor, as a new navigation instrument, provides the possibility for mining the real situation of marine transportation. To find more interesting conclusions ...from a new perspective, we use AIS sensor trajectory data to explore maritime trade of containers, bulk and tanker between China and Maritime Silk Road (MSR) countries from two perspectives of time and space, and we demonstrate that: (1) In comparison with bulk and tanker market management, China's container market is more reasonable. And congestion in China's coastal ports caused excessive loading and unloading pressure on some ports, especially Hong Kong Port, Zhanjiang Port, and Zhenhai Port, etc. Additionally, there is an interesting phenomenon in bulk and tanker trade: export in the morning and import in the afternoon; (2) The polarization of China's foreign trade is severe. China is prone to trade with countries with high status in the maritime network. In addition, China's tanker import is highly dependent on Russia and the Middle East, which leads to insufficient capacity to address supply chain disruption. Therefore, the research results could provide the scientific basis for China to create opportunities and seek breakthrough points in the new situation.
Women represent a majority of the tourism workforce globally, yet they remain under-represented in management roles and over-represented in part-time/casual work and low paid jobs. Prior research ...suggests women in employment, generally, and in tourism employment, specifically, experience gender discrimination, labour market and workplace segregation, work/family conflict, and other barriers to their employment and career progression. This paper presents results from an international survey of women's employment in the tourism sector, and analyses 363 responses representing the views of employers, employees, government officials, non-government organization representatives and academics across a range of tourism industries in 21 APEC member economies. The results reveal continued segregation of women across the economies, but also highlight national cultural barriers and intersectionality which affect women's employment and progression in tourism employment. Human resource management strategies, policy interventions, and implications to reduce gender segregation, increase representation in management, and provide equal employment opportunities are presented.
•Largest cross-economy analysis of views of tourism officials, NGOs, businesses, and academics.•Finds horizontal and vertical segregation of women in tourism employment in 21 APEC economies.•National cultural barriers and intersectionality affect women's employment and progression.•Explains effect of HRM strategies and government policy interventions on women's career outcomes.•Identifies organizational practices to reduce gender segregation.
This paper presents an efficiency assessment of selected OECD countries using a Slacks Based Model with undesirable or bad outputs (SBM-Undesirable). In this research, SBM-Undesirable is used first ...in a two-stage approach to assess the relative efficiency of OECD countries using the most frequent indicators adopted by the literature on energy efficiency. Besides, in the second stage, GLMM-MCMC methods are combined with SBM-Undesirable results as part of an attempt to produce a model for energy performance with effective predictive ability. The results reveal different impacts of contextual variables, such as economic blocks and capital-labor ratio, on energy efficiency levels. web URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988315001814
This study investigates the relationship between oil price movements and macroeconomic aggregates, such as gross domestic product (GDP), consumer prices (CPI), and unemployment, for OECD countries. ...To do this, second generation econometric methods have been employed to panel data including panel unit root tests, panel cointegration tests, and panel long-run models. Panel unit root tests suggest that oil prices plus selected macroeconomic aggregates in OECD countries are non-stationary at levels but become stationary at first differences in the existence of multiple structural breaks. Five structural break points have successfully been investigated in the series of this study during panel unit root and panel cointegration tests. Durbin–H panel co-integration tests confirm that there is a long-term relationship between oil prices and those macroeconomic aggregates. On the other hand, results of this study reveal that the price of oil exerts statistically and negatively significant impacts on GDP, CPI, and unemployment in the case of OECD countries in general.
Reducing coal use and increasing renewable energy use are two major policies that have been recommended in many countries and regions to address climate change. However, the progress toward meeting ...these policy goals is unclear. Therefore, this study proposes the “C–R map”, which is a correlation map between the share of coal-fired plants and renewable energy in terms of annual consumption, and the “CR index”, which is an index composed of the above two indicators. The proposed methods objectively visualise and quantitatively analyse statistical data on global climate change associated with “reducing coal and increasing renewables”, whose trends or tendencies could only be obtained through fragmented statistical data and documents. Using the proposed C–R map and CR index, an international comparative analysis was conducted on the share of coal and renewables from 1990 to 2020 in 37 Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development member countries. The results quantitatively showed that 31 member countries clearly exhibited a trend of decreasing their share of coal and increasing their share of renewables, while only five countries, i.e. Chile, Turkey, Mexico, Japan, and Korea, showed unique and inconsistent trends relative to that of the other member countries. By using the highly transparent and simple map and index proposed here based on published statistical information and objective methods, the global trend of “reducing coal and increasing renewables” can be quantitatively visualised in graphs and numerical values, which are easily understood and interpretable, even for laymen.
•Global trend of “reducing coal and increasing RE” was analysed.•Correlation map and index are proposed to visualise and quantify coal and RE trends.•The coal and RE shares of 37 OECD countries are compared from 1990 to 2020.•C–R map and CR index may facilitate energy and climate change discussions.
The article examines the development of economic cooperation and trade exchange between Russia and Egypt over the past ten years. The most important joint projects of Russia and Egypt at the level of ...the public and private sectors, as well as the most important obstacles to expanding the scope of economic cooperation and trade exchange at the private sector level between the Egyptian and Russian parties are analyzed.
Aim
. This study aims to monitor the various forms of economic cooperation between Egypt and Russia, since the history of these relations goes back more tha n two centuries, and currently Russia is considered one of the strongest economies in the world, one of the ten strongest economies in the world, according to the latest report from the International Monetary Fund, and is also the strongest economy in the Eurasian Union.
Tasks
. Analysis of the most important economic projects in various sectors such as the agriculture and food sector, transport, free zones, energy and military cooperation, tourism between Egypt and the Russian Federation in the period from 2014 to the present, determining the degree of effectiveness of these joint projects and factors contributing to increase in the efficiency of the efficiency of the implementation of these projects and increase economic feasibility. Explore cross-culture barriers that hinder the establishment of closer contacts between the private businesses of both sides.
Methods
. In this work, using the methods of logical and statistical analysis, factors were identified that contribute to the effectiveness of economic and investment interaction used in the implementation of projects aimed at bilateral development at the state level. The problems arising at the level of interaction between the private sectors of the economy of both countries were also noted.
Results
. The study showed that economic projects between Egypt and the Russian Federation at the governmental level (governments, agencies, companies and public institutions) can still be considered essential for the Egyptian economy in order to achieve sustainable development, to which it aspires, but, on the contrary, for the private sector it is s till unsatisfactory and very small due to a group of intercultural obstacles, which, in our opinion, are not difficult to overcome.
Conclusions
. It is advisable to consider aspects of cooperation between Egypt and Russia on a wider and more comprehensive scale than at present, and to use the opportunities available at the level of the public sector on a wider scale. With regard to trade cooperation at the private sector level, it is necessary to develop a plan to increase the volume of trade between the two countries, and it would be useful to enlist the support of the government authorities of the EEA countries.
Great attention has been paid to the bilateral economic relations between India, Vietnam, and South Korea; however, only scant research has focused on the prospects of triangular economic cooperation ...among the three countries. Given the advantage and demand for the cooperation of each party, there is significant potential for trilateral economic cooperation among South Korea, Vietnam, and India. In this paper, we discover the prospects for their triangular economic cooperation in three aspects. First, this study examines the potential for cooperation in production networks and supply chains between the three countries in the context of reconfiguring the global value chains (GVCs), with a focus on the leading role of South Korean multinational enterprises (MNEs). Second, the study explores trilateral cooperation in the digital economy and connectivity, focusing on how South Korea and India can collaborate on investment projects in Vietnam. Third, this study discusses the rationale and possibility of forming a regional trade agreement (RTA) between the three countries. South Korea, Vietnam, and India have extant bilateral trade agreements between two of the three countries; however, there is no regional integration among the three countries discussed in specific. Considering the bilateral relations and domestic and external factors, the paper reckons that an RTA for starters between the three countries would be mutually beneficial to each of the corresponding economies.
The objective of this study was to assess the impacts of biogas production implemented by family farmers organized in a cooperative agroenergy condominium. Evidences of changes in socioenvironmental ...performance were obtained through field observations and queries to the farmers. Observed ‘change coefficients’ were inserted into multicriteria indicators, weighted by their spatial scale of occurrence in the rural establishments, and impact indices were calculated for a set of seven characterization aspects (technological efficiency, environmental quality, productive process, employment, income, health, and management, and administration), integrated in 23 criteria and 123 indicators. The resulting impact indices of the implementation of the cooperative agroenergy condominium pointed out to positive performances in most of the criteria, with occasional transitory negative indices in specific indicators, related to farmers' particular contexts. Statistically significant positive results were obtained for seven of the ten Ecological impact criteria, as follows (i) use of agricultural inputs and resources; (ii) energy consumption; (iii) self-generation, utilization, reuse, and autonomy in the agricultural area; (iv) energy security; (v) emissions to the atmosphere; (vi) soil quality, and (vii) water quality. In the Socioenvironmental impacts dimension, statistically significant positive results were found for the following criteria: (i) productivity; (ii) productive integration in the concept of biorefinery/Ecopark; (iii) training; (iv) qualification and availability of work; (v) income generation; (vi) waste disposal, and (vii) institutional relationship. The agroenergy condominium contributed to reducing environmental impacts, promoting productive efficiency and improving income generation in the cooperating family farms.
•Agroenergy condominiums may enhance socioenvironmental performance of small farms.•Waste management is improved and GHG emissions are mitigated by biogas production.•Firewood and LPG consumption is reduced in farms with agroenergy condominiums.•Specialized training programs are highly required in agroenergy condominiums.•Ambitec-Agroenergy is a valuable tool to asses agroenergy condominiums.
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