The Ban on Illegal Mining in Ghana: Environmental and Socio-Economic Effect on Local Communities

The study was conducted to assess the effects of small-scale (artisanal) gold mining and its social and economic implications on the people in Amansie West District of Ghana. The artisanal gold mining communities were studied using secondary data from scholarly articles and journals, books, conference papers, research reports, policy documents, working papers, and briefs. Descriptive and systematic analyses were conducted. The result indicated that youth aged between 21 - 30 were most likely to engage in illegal mining operations in the selected study areas. The study revealed that farmland had been destroyed, making farming difficult for the inhabitants. It is evident from the review that dug-out pits from mining serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes and death traps for humans. The study, therefore, accentuates the need for illegal small-scale gold mining to be formalised and strategic interventions and policies proposed for the protection of Ghana’s Natural resources. Furthermore, community members should be involved in policy-making and environmental protection issues to help control the menace of landscape destruction. Although the ban on illegal gold mining activity by the government has caused more people to lose their jobs leading to livelihood challenges in mining communities, it is a step in the right direction, as the ban seeks to halt and check the illegal small-scale mining sector. The study recommended alternative livelihood and income-generating projects such as beekeeping, mushroom culture, grasscutter rearing, and agroforestry technologies including the growth of economic fruit trees as alternative livelihood ventures.

IMMIGRATION, GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION AND SOCIAL ECONOMIC STATUS OF AMERICAN CHINESE

In 1994, the total Chinese population in the United States were 2,017,799 which were 0.8 percent of the total US population. The Chinese population were highly concentrated by regions and among the total population. By states, 42 percent of total Chinese population were found in California, 17 percent in New York. More than 80 percent total Chinese population were concentrated in 9 states. By metropolitan areas, 14.73 percent of total Chinese population were found in Los Angeles and New York respectively. Compared with the total US population, 60 percent Chinese population were found in less than 20 percent total US population and 80 percent in 50 percent. By studying the Chinese population distribution and the reason behind it, we hope to find some interesting relationships among the characteristics of this distribution and the historical, cultural, social and economic factors influencing it.

Statistical Communique of the People's Republic of China on the 1998 National Economic and Social Development

In 1998, facing the complicated and severe domestic and internationaleconomic environment, people of all nationalities, under the correct lead-ership of the Central Party Committee and the State Council, implement-ed a series of policies aiming at increasing input and expanding domesticdemand. Difficulties brought about by the Asian financial crisis and dev-astating flooding were overcome, various reforms were further deepened,and economic growth was promoted, resulting in great achievements at-tracting worldwide attention.

Modern Electronic Information Industry to Promote Economic and Social Information—An Interview with Electronics Industry Minister Hu Qili

Spurred by the world information tide, China has organized a series of information projects, called the "Three Gold" projects. Recently I had an interview with Mr. Hu Qili, Minister of Electronics Industry, about the establishment of China’s modern Electronic Information Industry. Mr. Hu told me that information is the mark of development of a modern society and electronics is the major means of carrying information. Establishing

Social and Economic Bene-fits of the West-East Gas Pipeline Project

On July 4 2002, a project attracting world attention, i.e., the West-East Gas Pipeline Project was declared in full-scale commencement. The project will write history with its enormous social and economic benefits.

Regulatory Targets and Major Tacks for Economic and Social Development

The year 1998 was very unusual.Faced with the impact of the asian financial crisis,the central authorities resolutely made the

Five Years after the Entry of Force of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic,Social and Cultural Rights: Some Observations

The optional Protocol to the international covenant on economic, Social and cultural Right was adopted in 2008 and entered into force in 2013? During the five years after its entry into force, 23 States have ratified the optional Protocol, and 23 individual communications have been submitted to the committee on economic,Social and cultural Rights? comparing with the acceptance of individual communication procedures under other core international human rights treaties, the record of ratification of the optional Protocol is not satisfactory? in its examination of individual communications,the committee on economic, Social and cultural Rights has made detailed reasoning, extensively referred to its previous general comments, and in case of violations found, suggested both specific and general remedies? in its practice of examining individual communications, the committee on economic, Social and cultural Rights needs to clarify and define the rights under the covenant and their corresponding obligations, while maintaining its nature and role as a supervisory body, without expanding its competence to an unacceptable extent?

Study on the Impact of Beijing-Shanghai Highspeed Railway on Highquality Economic and Social Development

Based on the new development concept in China's new stage of high-quality development,this paper qualitatively analyzes the impact of Beijing-Shanghai Highspeed Railway(HSR)on high-quality economic and social development.We select the data of areas along Beijing-Shanghai HSR and adjacent unopened areas for quantitative comparative study,and summarize the important demonstration and enlightenment role of Beijing-Shanghai HSR.The results show that Beijing-Shanghai HSR,as an important national infrastructure project,not only improves the travel quality of people,but also drives the high-quality economic and social development,which is of great significance in promoting the formation of a new pattern of high-quality development along the line,especially in promoting green development.

BASF Issues First Report on Economic,Environmental,and Social Performance

Seven key indicators standardize and integrate transparency BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, will enhance its transparency in Greater China by reporting annually on seven key financial, social and environmental indicators: sales, number of employees,

Development Strategy of Urban Cultural Scene to Promote the Upgrading of Regional Cultural Consumption in Shaanxi

Regional cultural patterns and characteristics play a positive role in economic and social development.By planning and constructing cultural amenities and creating cultural scenes,the spatial quality and quality of life in a region can be enhanced,facilitating the expansion of cultural consumption.Shaanxi,with its rich historical and cultural resources,positions the capital city of Xi’an as a“world historical city”,boasting a vast number of cultural amenities represented by“cultural facilities”,“cultural activities”,“cultural experiences”,and“cultural services”.The development of urban cultural scene,with the aim of promoting the upgrading of regional cultural consumption in Shaanxi,requires comprehensive planning and a multifaceted approach,particularly in integrating provincial cultural scenes,clarifying the positioning of cultural scenes,innovating cultural scene experience projects,creating cultural scene intellectual property(IP),and empowering cultural scenes through the application of science and technology.

Why The Constitution Should Protect Personal Credit Information?——An Approach of Right Argumentation

Protecting personal credit information through constitutional rights is not only essemtial for individuals to defend against infringements on their personal credit information rights and interests by public power in the social credit system,but also a requirement for unified legislation on social credit to explore the basis for constitutional norms.In the era of the credit economy,personal credit information has become a vital resource for realizing personal autonomy.Along with the increase in the state’s supervision and control of personal credit,the realization of the autonomous value in the interests related to personal credit information has also set more obligations for the state.Therefore,interests related to personal credit information should be regarded as a constitutional right.Because of its significant economic interest and value,the right to personal credit information should be classified as a constitutional property right.As a constitutional property right,the right to personal credit information can not only help protect people’s economic interests,but also achieve the goal of safeguarding their personality interests.

基于云理论的区域水资源承载力评价模型研究

针对水资源承载力评价中存在不确定性的特征,将云模型引入到区域水资源承载力综合评价研究领域中,利用云理论实现评价等级的定性与定量转换。将云综合评判模型应用于海河流域的水资源承载力研究,结果表明:海河流域水资源承载力为"较弱"等级;南水北调中线调水100亿m^3后,海河流域水资源承载力介于"中等"和"较弱"等级之间,改善不明显。该模型可以将不确定性概念的模糊性和随机性有机地结合在一起,既用隶属函数描述了评价等级的模糊性,又利用超熵概念充分考虑了隶属度本身存在的随机性,是一种有效可行的水资源承载力评价模型。

Characterizing Economic and Social Properties of Trust and Reputation Systems in P2P Environment

Considering the fact that P2P （Peer-to-Peer） systems are self-organized and autonomous, social-control mechanism （like trust and reputation） is essential to evaluate the trustworthiness of participating peers and to combat the selfish, dishonest and malicious peer behaviors. So, naturally, we advocate that P2P systems that gradually act as an important information infrastructure should be multi-disciplinary research topic, and reflect certain features of our society. So, from economic and social perspective, this paper designs the incentive-compatible reputation feedback scheme based on well-known economic model, and characterizes the social features of trust network in terms of efficiency and cost. Specifically, our framework has two distinctive purposes： first, from high-level perspective, we argue trust system is a special kind of social network, and an accurate characterization of the structural properties of the network can be of fundamental importance to understand the dynamics of the system. Thus, inspired by the concept of weighted small-world, this paper proposes new measurements to characterize the social properties of trust system, that is, high global and local efficiency, and low cost; then, from relative low-level perspective, we argue that reputation feedback is a special kind of information, and it is not free. So, based on economic model, VCG （Vickrey-Clarke-Grove）-like reputation remuneration mechanism is proposed to stimulate rational peers not only to provide reputation feedback, but truthfully offer feedback. Furthermore, considering that trust and reputation is subjective, we classify the trust into functional trust and referral trust, and extend the referral trust to include two factors： similarity and truthfulness, which can efficiently reduce the trust inference error. The preliminary simulation results show the benefits of our proposal and the emergence of certain social properties in trust network.

The role of personality,social economic and prevention strategy effects on health-related quality of life among people living with HIV/AIDS

Background::HIV/AIDS has transformed into a chronic controllable but not yet curable infectious disease as other chronic diseases to some extent.The additional of so called fourth 90%that included the improved health-related quality of life(HRQoL)for people living with HIV(PLWHIV)required solutions beyond antiretroviral therapy and viral load suppression.This study will explore the role of personality,social economic and prevention strategy effection on HRQoL among people living with HIV/AIDS.Methods::A cross-sectional study was conducted among PLWHIV aged more than 16 years old in the 10 municipalities in Yunnan Province,China from October 2019 to May 2020,enrolling total 1997 participants.Individual-level HRQoL data were measured by 12-item Short Form Health Survey(SF-12)and EuroQol Five Dimensions Questionnaire(EQ-5D-5L).We assembled municipal-level data about social economic from Yunnan Statistical Yearbook in 2020 and strategy practice information from the self-evaluation system.We used the principal component analysis to build the social economic and strategy effect on each area respectively and one-way ANOVA was used to perform univariate analysis to identify the predictors with significant differences.Finally we used multi-level model(MLM)to explore the personality,social economic and strategy effects in health-related quality of life among PLWHIV.Results::The global score for quality of life measured using EQ-5D-5L had an estimated mean score(standard deviation,SD)of 0.901±0.146.The HRQoL score measured using PCS-12 had an estimated mean score(SD)of 46.62±8.55.The mean MCS-12 score(SD)was estimated to be 47.80±9.71.The area-level predictors explained a proportion of 13.6-17.2%for the between-area variation of the HRQoL scores,regardless of the total HRQoL,physical component and mental component.The impacts of stigma(P<0.01),social support(P<0.001),anxiety(P<0.001),depression(P<0.05)and social economic status(P<0.05)on HRQoL at the individual-level were significantly different.The plots visualized the impact of individual-level factors on a respondent’s HRQoL was modified by the area-level characteristics.Conclusions::The study identified the possible strategy determinant of individual HRQoL of PLWHIV and also the area effect on HRQoL.Stigma,social support,anxiety,depression and social economic status were the individual-level determinants on HRQoL.These could be a valuable resource for evaluating the overall health of the areas and help improve local decision making.

关于道德的历史思考

江泽民提出“以德治国”的重要思想 ,正确估量了道德的社会效用 ,告诫全党必须加强自身道德修养 ,这是从源头上防止政治腐败的治本之策 ;同时 ,提醒人们防止出现“道德政治化”、“道德经济化”倾向。在社会转型期 ,必须坚持正确的社会道德价值导向 。

Primary Analysis of Development Approach to Chinese Satellite Mobile Communication

The paper describes the development of mobile communication first and then points out that it is necessary for China to develop satellite mobile communication after comparing the cellular mobile communication with the satellite mobile communication. After comparing the geostationary satellite system with the low earth orbit satellite mobile communication system, as well as the single-beam system with the multibeams system, both used in satellite mobile communication, we suggest that China, according to its economic status and level of satellite technology, should develop a geostationary multibeam satellite for its domestic mobile communication.