Constructing a standard system of city sustainable development assessment technology based on the SDGs

Given the rapid development of China’s new urbanization,cities with different locations and varying functional positioning,resource endowments,and development stages have insufficient scientific and applicable technical tools for implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).City managers and policymakers must urgently establish SDG benchmarks to diagnose city development.Moreover,successful experiences from similar cities regarding sustainable development and self-improvement must be learned from to promote diversified,sustainable development across the country.Furthermore,emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence,the Internet of Things,big data and 5G are widely used in smart cities.Therefore,there is a growing need for“knowledge-based,personalized and intelligent”technologies to support monitoring,evaluation,and decision-making processes facilitating sustainable development in cities.This paper uses standardization as the theoretical support and technical basis.This approach can help clarify the sustainable development processes in China and clarify the evaluation results of and provide data on horizontal city comparisons,which can be used to develop evaluation technology for sustainable development in cities and construct a standardized system.The results provide a standard framework for intelligent assessment and decision-making regarding cities’sustainable development capabilities in China.Evaluating major international standardization institutions reveals that the practices of Chinese national standards should be fully absorbed and integrated to guide the evaluation of smart,resilient,and low-carbon cities.To this end,an indicator library of city sustainable development is proposed to provide standard evaluation technology methods.Finally,analyzing the response relationship of the indicator library to SDGs reveals the need for a standardized knowledge map of sustainable development assessment techniques and methods from the perspective of integrated management for sustainable development in cities.

Digital psychiatry in low-and-middle-income countries:New developments and the way forward

Low-and middle-income countries(LMICs)bear the greater share of the global mental health burden but are ill-equipped to deal with it because of severe resource constraints leading to a large treatment gap.The remote provision of mental health services by digital means can effectively augment conventional services in LMICs to reduce the treatment gap.Digital psychiatry in LMICs has always lagged behind high-income countries,but there have been encouraging developments in the last decade.There is increasing research on the efficacy of digital psychiatric interventions.However,the evidence is not adequate to conclude that digital psychiatric interventions are invariably effective in LMICs.A striking development has been the rise in mobile and smartphone ownership in LMICs,which has driven the increasing use of mobile technologies to deliver mental health services.An innovative use of mobile technologies has been to optimize task-shifting,which involves delivering mental healthcare services in community settings using non-specialist health professionals.Emerging evidence from LMICs shows that it is possible to use digital tools to train non-specialist workers effectively and ensure that the psychosocial interventions they deliver are efficacious.Despite these promising developments,many barriers such as service costs,underdeveloped infrastructure,lack of trained professionals,and significant disparities in access to digital services impede the progress of digital psychiatry in LMICs.To overcome these barriers,digital psychiatric services in LMICs should address contextual factors influencing the delivery of digital services,ensure collaboration between different stakeholders,and focus on reducing the digital divide.

Vulnerability and Sustainable Development Mode of Coal Cities in Northeast China

In this study, by carrying on the spot investigation to the seven coal cities in Northeast China and interview-ing with the local authority and the residents, the authors definite the vulnerability that is closed to exposure, sensitiv-ity and resilience, and set up vulnerability model of coal cities in Northeast China. At the same time, the authors broadly illustrate how the components of natural-social-economic system act in the coal area, so as to probe the ways to reduce vulnerability more effectively, such as preferential national policy and so on. Furthermore, the article studies the relationship between vulnerability and sustainable development. Vulnerability is a spatio-temporal function of sus-tainable development. The regional sustainable development refrains the spiral ascending of vulnerability. And the re-gional vulnerability and sustainable development appear in turn. Then the article analyzes the natural vulnerability, so-cial vulnerability and economic vulnerability of coal cities in Northeast China. At last, combing vulnerability model and situation of coal cities in Northeast China, the authors put forward regional technology innovation mode, multi-dimension structure transformation mode, attracting investment mode and recycling economy mode to reduce vulnerability.

Spatiotemporal Differences and Classification Regulation of Urbanization Impact on Agricultural Development in Shrinking Areas:A Case Study of 15 Shrinking Cities in Three Provinces of Northeast China

Studying the impact of urbanization on agricultural development in shrinking areas is important for maintaining food security and promoted agricultural development in China.Based on the measurement results of the shrinking cities in the three provinces of Northeast China,this paper selects 15 shrinking cities as the research object,and constructs a multi-dimensional index system to explore the impact of the urbanization level of the shrinking areas on the agricultural development in the region since 2007–2019,analyzes the influencing factors and their differences by using the geographically-weighted regression model and Geodetector,and proposes a targeted regulation strategy.The results show that:1)overall,there is a negative correlation between the urbanization level and the agricultural development level in the contracted areas of the three northeastern provinces.The urbanization level in these areas has a certain negative impact on the overall level of agricultural development;2)regarding the time dimension,the impact of urbanization level on the agricultural development level in the contracted areas of the three northeastern provinces gradually increases over time;3)regarding the spatial pattern,the overall impact of shrinking urbanization levels in the three provinces of Northeast China on the agricultural development shows a significant distribution pattern of high in the east and low in the west;4)the total population and natural population growth rate at the end of the year were the main factors influencing a certain level of urbanization on agricultural development in the shrinking cities while population density and the urban fixed asset investment rate were the secondary factors;and 5)the main reasons why the level of agricultural development in different cities was affected by the level of urbanization were different.However,they can be categorized into areas of population loss and spatial construction,which can be further divided into area of population loss in the northeast,areas of negative population growth in the west,and areas of urban spatial change in the south.According to the causes of the impact,this paper adopted targeted regulation strategies and formulated relevant policies and solutions that cater to local conditions.

The Development Trend of Developed Countries to Invest in Education of Disadvantaged Groups and the Enlightenment to Our Country

Educational investment is the material basis for developing intelligence and educational cause and also an important factor for the development of economic and society.This paper argues that educational investment is an important strategy to solve the problem of disadvantaged groups in our country,and hopes that through the analysis of the structure and the trend for educational investment in developed countries,and it can provide reference and valuable suggestions for our country.

THE UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT AND SPATIAL DIFFUSION OF CHINESE CENTRAL CITIES

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Protection, Development and Utilization of Industrial Heritage Under the Background of Transformation of Exhausted Cities: A Case Study of Construction Planning of Anyuan National Mine Park

Firstly,the status quo of Pingxiang City as a resource-exhausted city was introduced firstly,and then the development situation of Anyuan Coal Mine,which is the representative of traditional coal industry in Pingxiang,was summarized.Moreover,the classification and value of mining heritage were analyzed,and it is proposed that the development of mine heritage tourism and urban transformation should be combined.The planning of Anyuan National Mine Park under the background of urban transformation was analyzed to provides an idea for the protection and utilization of industrial heritage.

Problems in the Development of Small Cities and Towns in West China and Countermeasures: A Case Study of Luzhou City, Sichuan Province

New urbanization targets at coordinated urban-rural development, and construction of ecological and livable environment, it is the foundation for breaking urban-rural dual structure of China and promoting the agricultural modernization. Small cities and towns as carriers of new urbanization have already become important paths of realizing new urbanization and solving problems concerning 300 million peasants in China. Considering the requirements of new urbanization, this paper took Luzhou City in Sichuan Province for example to explore development path suitable for small cities and towns in west China and gave pertinent suggestions.

Green development of western cities from the perspective of informatization and greenization

The Fifth Plenary meeting of the 18 th Central Committee put forward the idea of creative green development, which become the guide which is important concept of economic and social development in our country in the future. The contradiction between resource environment and economic development is becoming more and more outstanding with the speeding up of urbanization process in western region. The coming of big data and information age, makes the wisdom of ecological city construction to be the mainstream direction of urban development, and green development also become the core of the ecological city wisdom. In ecological concept gradually deepening of the information age, the construction of smart ecological city becomes the mainstream direction, green development also becomes the core of the smart ecological city. The path and strategies of promoting green development of western cities based on the smart ecological cities were presented in this paper, through the analysis of the background of the smart ecological city construction, the calculation of the environment carrying capacity and the ecological footprint, as well as the target for the sustainable green development of the western cities.

A Summary of the Developments Regarding the Economic Regime Implemented in Developed and Developing Countries

Since the developments regarding the economic regime in developed countries follow a different path as opposed to those in developing countries, in this article, these two groups of countries will be examined separately. Priority will be given to investigate the economic regime in developed countries due to historical and theoretical reasons. Today, both in developed and developing countries the economic activities basically are taken up by the private sector, nevertheless the government contributes to these activities through intervention, guidance, protectionism, and investment. Still the level of government intervention, protection and public investments in developed countries appears to be at the minimum. The role of government in developing countries, however, seems to be more significant. The gravity of the government＇s role depends on the degree of development for the countries concerned In the countries where the level of development is low, the role of government increases, in other words, the improvement in development decreases the role government.

CONSTANTLY IMPROVE AND DEVELOP INTERNATIONAL PATENT SYSTEM,PROMOTE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD

When the human society steps into a new epoch, we, in cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), hold the Sino-African Intellectual Property Forum, on which we may exchange experiences in developing intellectual property systems and discuss issues of common concern. The themes listed in the agenda not only mirror the emerging issues of the development of the international intellectual property system, but also carry significant weight to

Protection and Development of Children's Creativity Based on the Creation of Child-friendly Cities

The present society values the protection and development of children’s creativity,and adopted measures in many aspects,but there are still many children’s ideas that are guided by mechanization,so that their creativity is bound,eventually making less likely to children’s development.Therefore,in the construction of children’s friendly cities,it is necessary to pay special attention to the protection and development of children’s creativity.In this paper,through a large number of cases,the protection and development of children’s creativity under the establishment of child-friendly cities were studied and discussed,and the construction principles and methods for this problem,as well as specific measures were put forward.

Impact of taxes on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development:Evidence from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD)countries

Multiple ecological and socioeconomic problems have occurred worldwide,raising the awareness of sustainability.This study aims to examine the impact of taxes on Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)in the context of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD)countries.This research used effective average tax(EAT),tax on personal income(TPI),tax on corporate profits(TCP),and tax on goods and services(TGS)as the variables of taxes,and employed secondary data from 38 OECD countries covering 2000–2021.The study also used Breusch-Pagan Lagrange Multiplier(LM),Pesaran Scaled LM,Bias-Corrected Scaled LM,and Pesaran Cross-sectional dependence(CSD)tests to analyze the existence of crosssectional dependency.Then,we established the stationarity of variables through second-generation panel unit root tests(Cross-sectional Augmented Dickey-Fuller(CADF)and Cross-sectional Im,Pesaran,and Shin(CIPS)),and confirmed the long-run cointegration of the variables by using secondgeneration panel cointegration test(Westerlund cointegration test).The results showed that EAT,TPI,TCP,and TGS are positively associated with SDGs.However,the change in TPI has a smaller effect on SDGs than the change in EAT or TCP or TGS.The result of panel causality indicated that EAT,TPI,and TGS have a unidirectional causal relationship with SDGs.The study also found that TCP has a bi-directional causal relationship with SDGs.Moreover,the finding indicated that the OECD countries need to focus on tax policies to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.This study is based on the theory of optimal taxation(TOT),which suggests that tax systems should be designed to maximize social welfare.Finally,we suggests the importance of taking a comprehensive approach for the managers and policy-makers when analyzing the impact of taxes on SDGs.

Strenghthening Understanding Improving Cooperation and Promoting Development──Highlights on the Seminar “Social Security Systems in Asian Countries，a Comparison of Problems and Perspectives”

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A robust method for evaluating the potentials of 15-minute cities:Implications for sustainable urban futures

The‘15-minute city’(15minC)concept,which aspires to bring essential services within reach via a 15-minute walk for all residents,represents a pivotal paradigm shift in sustainable urban development.However,the achievability of this concept for different cities varies considerably across diverse population distributions,urban contexts,and development priorities.In this study,we propose a robust method for evaluating a city’s 15minC potential-a city’s capability to achieve widespread 15-minute accessibility while maintaining an optimal balance between resource efficiency and resident accessibility.We employ the Location Set Covering Problem optimization model to analyze the resources required to achieve full coverage of 15-minute accessibility and the knee point detection algorithm to assess a city’s 15minC potential.Across 23 major Chinese cities,our method exhibits a sharp sensitivity to delineate distinct 15minC potentials.It reveals that cities’current 15minC development level doesn’t align with their inherent potential uniformly.Key determinants include how well current facility locations match population centers and the population density in remote areas.Further,reducing facility constructions by twothirds has only a marginal impact on accessibility,emphasizing the need for tailored,data-driven planning in effective and sustainable urban development based on the distinct potentials of cities.Our approach prioritizes resource efficiency,minimizing the inefficient use of facilities that serve only a small portion of residents while maximizing the benefits of the 15minC and therefore has significant implications for a sustainable urban future.

Snapshot Survey of the Presence of Perfluoroalkyl Substances in Products, Articles, and the Environment in Ecuador

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants(POPs)is a legally binding instrument for 186 Parties(status:April 2023).Accordingly,among other responsibilities,countries are obliged to report the production,import,or export of the POPs listed in Annexes A,B,or C;provide information to registers;maintain inventories;and monitor the presence of POPs in the environment.In the broader context of international chemicals and waste management,producer responsibilities,harmonized reporting,and compliance with national and international regulations,Ecuador has addressed the newly listed group of perfluorinated alkyl substances(PFAS)in its national implementation plan and sent selected products from its national market for PFAS analysis.The products analyzed came from the initially listed fields of specific exemptions and acceptable purposes,including:fire-fighting foams;photographic aids;greasers/degreasers;various kinds of paper/packaging;textiles;and leather,coatings,cleaners,metal plating,and pesticides.Our results showed that the three PFAS presently listed in the Stockholm Convention could be quantified in only a few samples;additional PFAS,not yet listed in the Convention also had low detection frequencies.Although the number of samples was limited,the samples covered a large spectrum of sample matrices,making it possible to conclude that—once these products become waste and are regulated under the Basel Convention—they would not constitute a disposal problem.Nevertheless,verification of the presence of PFAS in products on the market is expected to pose an analytical challenge for both,developed and developing countries.

Construction of an indicator library for cities’sustainable development

Cities are key to countries’strategies for achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals(SDGs).In China,evaluating cities’sustainable development(CSD)processes and abilities requires establishing an indicator library for cities’sustainable development(ILCSD).Based on the SDG framework,and referring to typical evaluation systems and international standards,this study proposes an ILCSD,aiming to promote new urbanization and high-quality development in China.Using a step-by-step“eliminate-replace-augment”indicator selection method that takes mature indicators from existing standards for city evaluation,we form an ILCSD that responds to the SDGs while meeting China’s specific needs.Using the ILCSD,cities can select a set of indicators to assess and monitor their strengths and weaknesses.Through empirical analysis,we verify the feasibility of using ILCSD to construct a CSD evaluation system for Beijing,China.For the first time,ILCSD has established a mapping relationship between the core indicators from domestic and foreign standards of city development and the SDGs.It provides a tool for cities in different regions,at different stages of development and with different endowment types to select high-quality indicators according to local conditions,effectively solving the“last mile”problem of SDGs implementation at the city level.In the process of implementing indicators,we further suggest that important indicators with incomplete statistical data should nevertheless be included in the scope of cities’statistical monitoring.This study’s findings can facilitate China’s contribution to global sustainable development indicators and to future revisions of international standards.

Thoughts on Pairing Assistance to Tibet for Promoting Agricultural High-quality Development in Southern Tibet from the Perspective of Agricultural Power

In the new era,there is an urgent need to further promote pairing assistance to Tibet,promote the simultaneous construction of a strong agriculture in Tibet and the China's Mainland,and compose a Chinese-style modernization.Southern Tibet,located in the southeastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region,includes Shannan City and Nyingchi City,is a region assisted by four provincial partners including Hubei Province.This paper introduces the agricultural environment in southern Tibet,studies its agricultural characteristics,and analyzes the main issues of its pairing assistance.Taking forging the strong consciousness of the Chinese national community as the main line,the paper explores strategies for promoting agricultural high-quality development in southern Tibet through pairing assistance to Tibet from the perspective of agricultural power,and proposes some strategies,such as inheriting agricultural cultural heritage,promoting the upgrading of modern seed industry,enhancing the characteristic advantages of highland barley(naked barley)and animal husbandry industries,and developing edible fungi and cold water fish industries.

An Analysis of Liberia’s Vulnerability to Climate Change in the Context of Least Developed Countries (LDCs): A Review

Climate change is an alarming global challenge, particularly affecting the least developed countries (LDCs) including Liberia. These countries, located in regions prone to unpredictable temperature and precipitation changes, are facing significant challenges, particularly in climate-sensitive sectors such as mining and agriculture. LDCs need more resilience to adverse climate shocks but have limited capacity for adaptation compared to other developed and developing nations. This paper examines Liberia’s susceptibility to climate change as a least developed country, focusing on its exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. It provides an overview of LDCs and outlines the global distribution of carbon dioxide emissions. The paper also evaluates specific challenges that amplify Liberia’s vulnerability and constrain sustainable adaptation, providing insight into climate change’s existing and potential effects. The paper emphasizes the urgency of addressing climate impacts on Liberia and calls for concerted local and international efforts for effective and sustainable mitigation efforts. It provides recommendations for policy decisions and calls for further research on climate change mitigation and adaptation.