AN ASSESSMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPING CAPABILITY OF INTEGRATED AGRICULTURAL REGIONALIZATION IN CHINA

Based on the provincial units evaluation, this paper makes an assessment forsustainable developing capability of the integrated agricultural regionalization in China. At first,an index system of agricultural sustainable development in China is built up, which includes 5supporting subsystems of agricultural resources, agricultural development, environment andecosystem, rural society, sciences-education and management. We selected 95 factors on provinciallevel as basic indexes. Second, a relative assets/debt assessing method is used to gain relative netassets values (relative superiority) of every provincial unit, which are as supporting data forassessment. We also overlaid the Administrative Divisions Map of China and the Map of IntegratedAgricultural Regionalization of China by Geography Information System (GIS) to gain the area unitsof assessment. Third, according to the relative coherence principle of regionalizaticn, we transformadministration units to natural units through homogenizing all provincial relative net assetsvalues in every agricultural assessing unit. After making order and grade, we complete thesustainable developing capability assessment to integrated agricultural regionalization in China.The assessing outcome shows that the total sustainable agricultural developing capability of Chinais not high. Only about 1 /3 in number or in area has reached the level of agricultural sustainabledevelopment. The relative net assets values exists a reducing trend from East China to West China.It needs a long period and great efforts to realize sustainable agricultural development over allChina. Finally, there is a discussion to the study method.

Assessment of Sustainable Regional Development Policies： A Case Study of Jambi Province, Indonesia

This paper presents a study of sustainable regional development using multi-criteria analysis. The aim of this paper is to provide an evaluation framework that can be used for the assessment of sustainable regional development using multi criteria linked to development scenarios set by stakeholders. This study was carried out in Jambi Province in Indonesia where balancing sustainable development is constrained by the fact that conservation areas make up the majority of the region. The study employs four alternative policy scenarios for regional sustainable development： （1） business as usual; （2） development based on regional competitiveness; （3） development based on local resources; and （4） regional development based on non-extractive scenario. These four scenarios were assessed using the FLAG Model and the Imprecise Decision Model. Results from analysis show that development policy scenarios based on utilization of local resources and non-extractive economic activities are the most sustainable way of regional development. The study shows the trade-off among policy scenarios must be faced by policy makers in the region either to pursue high economic growth at the cost of the environment or vice versa.

SUSTAINABLE VALUE ON CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS AND LEAN CONSTRUCTION

Lean production is a systemic approach to meeting customer expectations, whatever they value, by reducing waste.At fi rst glance, lean then could only contribute to sustainability, while sustainability is achieved only if the customervalues sustainability. The paper has two objectives. One is to examine whether sustainability is feasible using leanproduction with sustainability as an added value. The second objective is to examine how current lean constructiontools and methods impact the construction and operation of sustainable facilities. The authors also suggest how theselean construction tools and methods have evolved to contribute to green construction. For this study, the authorsinterviewed lean adopters and conducted literature surveys on lean principles and methods, and its impacts on theeconomic, social and environmental sustainability.

Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators:A semantic similarity analysis

Urban sustainability assessment is an effective method for objectively presenting the current state of sustainable urban development and diagnosing sustainability-related issues.As the global community intensifies its efforts to implement the sustainable development goals(SDGs),the demand for assessing progress in urban sustainable development has increased.This has led to the emergence of numerous indicator systems with varying scales and themes published by different entities.Cities participating in these evaluations often encounter difficulties in matching indicators or the absence of certain indicators.In this context,urban decision makers and planners urgently need to identify substitute indicators that can express the semantic meaning of the original indicators and consider the availability of indicators for participating cities.Hence,this study explores the relationships of substitution between indicators and constructs a collection of substitute indicators to serve as a reference for sustainable urban development assessment.Specifically,building on a review of international and Chinese indicators related to urban sustainability assessment,this study employs natural semantic analysis methods based on the Word2Vec model and cosine similarity algorithm to calculate the similarity between indicators related to sustainable urban development.The results show that the Skip-gram algorithm with a word vector dimensionality of 600 has the best performance in terms of calculating the similarity between sustainable urban development assessment indicators.The findings provide valuable insights into selecting substitute indicators for future sustainable urban development assessment,particularly in China.

Integrated Futures for Europe’s Mountain Regions: Reconciling Biodiversity Conservation and Human Livelihoods

Europe＇s mountains cover nearly half of the continent＇s area and are home to one fifth of the European population. Mountain areas are hotspots of biodiversity and agriculture has played a multifunctional role in defining and sustaining mountain biodiversity. Ongoing trends of agricultural decline are having negative impacts on mountain biodiversity. This paper presents results from an interdisciplinary European research project, BioScene, which investigated the relationship between agriculture and biodiversity in six mountain study areas across Europe to provide recommendations for reconciling biodiversity conservation with social and economic activities through an integrated rural development strategy. BioScene used scenario analysis and stakeholder participation as tools for structuring the analysis of alternative mountain futures. Three main BioScene scenarios were evaluated： Business as Usual （BAIT）, Agricultural Liberalisation （Lib）, Managed Change for Biodiversity （MCB）. BioScene brought together ecologists, economists, sociologists and rural geogra- phers, to carry out interdisciplinary analysis of the scenarios： identifying key drivers of change, assessing the biodiversity consequences and evaluating costeffectiveness. BioScene used a sustainability assessment to integrate the research outputs across natural and social science disciplines to assess the broader sustainability of the scenarios in terms of biodiversity, natural resources, rural development, social development, economic development and institutional capacity. The sustainability assessment showed that the MCB scenario was potentially the most sustainable of the three BioScene scenarios. Through the reconciliation of potentially conflicting objectives, such as conservation, economic development and human livelihoods, and with a strong participatory planning approach, the MCB scenario could represent an alternative approach to BaU for sustainable rural development in Europe＇s mountains. BioScene confirms the necessity for natural and social scientists to work together to seek solutions to environmental problems. Interdisciplinary research can assist with the definition of integrated strategies with the potential to reconcile the ecological, social and economic parameters that determine a sustainable future for European mountain areas.

Hepatitis C virus induced insulin resistance impairs response to anti viral therapy

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is an important risk factor for insulin resistance (IR). The latter is the pathogenic foundation underlying metabolic syndrome, steatosis and cirrhosis, and possibly hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The interplay between genetic and environmental risk factors ultimately leads to the development of IR. Obesity is considered a major risk factor, with dysregulation of levels of secreted adipokines from distended adipose tissue playing a major role in IR. HCV-induced IR may be due to the HCV core protein inducing proteasomal degradation of insulin receptor substrates 1 and 2, blocking intracellular insulin signaling. The latter is mediated by increased levels of both tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOC-3). IR, through different mechanisms, plays a role in the development of steatosis and its progression to steatohepatitis, cirrhosis and even HCC. In addition, IR has a role in impairing TNF signaling cascade, which in turn blocks STAT-1 translocation and interferon stimulated genes production avoiding the antiviral effect of interferon.

FROM DESIGN TO PRE-CERTIFICATION USING BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING

Designs which address sustainability requirements are becoming increasingly desirable,as the objectives of sustainable design reduce resource depletion of energy,water,and raw materials;prevent environmental degradation caused throughout their lifecycle;provide safe,comfortable and healthy living environments.Currently,sustainability in the building domain is judged against standards codified in rating systems.That is,design choices are validated,by measuring design performance against criteria specified by the rating system.Advances in building technologies,design and evaluation tools,and government policies together with tools to benchmark sustainability have created the momentum which fuels an increasing trend towards sustainable building design.However,certification is expensive.It is labor intensive,involving large volumes of data aggregation and information accounting,which,despite the best of intentions,often become a deterrent to designers and the design process.Compliance with a sustainability rating system is not mandatory;increasingly,it is becoming a goal that many designers and authorities would like to achieve.In turn,this demands a cost lowering improvement to the certification process.Since designers mainly tend to employ commercial design tools,it becomes imperative to create a general approach that utilizes information already available in digital form and combine it with rating system information requirements.The challenge lies in identifying informational requirements from rating systems,representing them in computable forms,mapping them to information available from a commercial design tool and evaluating the performance of the design.In this paper we present an overall framework for organizing,managing,and representing sustainability information requirements;to demonstrate an approach to integrating sustainability evaluations in a design environment.We employ a commercially available building information modeler and a sustainable building rating system to develop a process that bridges sustainability assessment requirements with information from the model for pre-evaluation prior to submission for certification.This will enable designers,owners,contractors and other professionals to communicate strategies and make informed decisions to achieve sustainability goals for a project.

Select indicators and prioritize solutions for desertification and drought in Binh Thuan,Vietnam

The link between climate change and desertification is an important global problem for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification(UNCCD).The coastal provinces in Southern Centre Vietnam are strongly influenced by desertification,which is further exacerbated by climate change.The Delphi method was used to select sustainability indicators and then a method of an analytical hierarchy process was applied to prioritize sustainable solutions in Binh Thuan experts to elicit the causes and effects of desertification.According to the panel of 23 experts,27 cause(e.g.rainfall and sunshine duration) and 22 effect(e.g.rice and agriculture) indicators were of particular importance to desertification and drought in the province.The highest priorities for cause are given to emigration,followed by income from industry and water supply for household use.The highest priorities for effect in the area are given to socioeconomic criteria,and in particular to the sub-criteria resettlement due to development projects,building hydropower reservoirs,and implementing irrigation schemes.The system of indicators provides useful information for the future studies.This study provides a means to uncover the most important criteria perceived as major contributors to desertification and as such enables policy-makers to prioritize solutions for Binh Thuan(Vietnam) by 2015 and a vision in 2020.

Green Barriers： Obstacle or Stimulation ？

Most viewpoints in China consider green barrier is one kind of non-tariff barriers imposed by developed countries and is unfair to developing countries. Different from these, this paper points out that green barriers, evolving from the background of sustainable development theory and the principle of environment protection, have positive effect on ideology, international institutional arrangement and innovation stimulation. Demonstrating the rationality of green barriers, the paper puts forward that green barriers should be regarded as the stimulation for technology innovation and industrial restructure rather than obstacles. The best way to surmount the green barriers for Chinese government and enterprises is to implement circular economy and clean production so as to achieve the harmony of trade, environment and economic development.

Economic Sustainability Assessment of Groundwater Resources： Case Study of Hanoi, Vietnam

The most useful indicators should be established, designed and customized based on local issues of a target area. In order to establish groundwater sustainability indicators for the Vietnam capital, Hanoi, in this study, the sustainability assessment framework of groundwater resources from an economic perspective is proposed for the first time with the focus of Hanoi current groundwater problems. An AHP （Analytical Hierarchy Process） approach is employed to generate the main components （aspects and indicators） of this framework, because development of composite indicators is considered to be a best approach for sustainability evaluation. To do this, the current problems of Hanoi groundwater resources were carefully reviewed and explored to propose three main aspects （quantity, quality and management） and appropriately construct their 9 MESIs （Macroeconomic Sustainability Indicators）. As for the results, the sustainability indices of the quantity, quality and management aspects were appropriately assessed as good, excellent and good sustainability levels, respectively. As a result, the sustainability of Hanoi groundwater resources development is economically good, indicating that there has been a big effort to improve the groundwater sustainability from both sides, the local government and communities.

Sustainability Assessment for Wastewater Treatment Systems—Case Studies in Egypt

Low sanitation coverage is a significant problem in Egypt, especially in rural areas. The Rapid Sustainability Screening (RSS) model was developed to assess the sustainability of wastewater treatment systems (WWTS), both planned and existing, and support decision-makers in selecting alternatives. The model considers the three fundamental sustainability dimensions, namely, environmental, social, and economic. In the present paper, the model was successfully tested by evaluating the sustainability performance of three operating rural WWTS in Egypt (Constructed Wetland (CW)-BeniSuef, Constructed Wetland (CW)-Dakahlia, and Activated Sludge (AS)-Gharbia). CW-BeniSuef was the most sustainable system based upon environmental and social considerations with values of 2.50 and 2.71, respectively. On the other hand, CW-Dakahlia is the most economically sustainable system, with a value of 2.25. The highest sustainability overall ranking system was CW-BeniSuef with overall sustainability of 2.81, followed by CW-Dakahlia with a value of 2.18, and the least sustainable technology is AS-Gharbia (1.72). The RSS model can support the decision-makers and operators during the different phases of a wastewater treatment project development (e.g., feasibility, operation). The model has been developed in a user-friendly and straightforward manner. The simplicity of the model may encourage the decision-makers and EIA practitioners to expand the assessment to consider sustainability rather than focusing on one or two aspects only (i.e., environment and society) in isolation of the possible interaction between them.

Indicators and Influence Factors for Sustainability Assessment of Inclusive Smart Innovation Clusters

A new manufacturing and business infrastructure industrial ecosystem model with the state-of-the art core infrastructure and smart applications in the form of inclusive smart innovation cluster is seen as a powerful tool to drive industrial symbiosis, economic, social and inclusive development. Essentially an integrated eco-industrial park, these clusters demonstrate applications of industrial ecology principles among the occupant units, besides promoting sustainable societies from economic, environmental and social perspectives. The holistic planning and development of these clusters from economic, environmental and social sustainability considerations or alternatively, the sustainability assessment of these clusters is highly complex. The research reported upon forms part of a larger study that aims to develop an integrated decision support system for sustainability assessment of inclusive smart innovation cluster. The paper discusses the conceptual model of the cluster and the need to establish context specific key indicators and influence factors from economic, environmental and social sustainability considerations. The paper proposes a structured methodology for development of key indicators and influence factors. The paper concludes by identifying a set of 184 key indicators and influence factors for comprehensive sustainability assessment of inclusive smart innovation cluster.

A Matrix-Based Approach for Sustainability in Product Design

The paper proposes a matrix-based approach that a designer can use to evaluate the sustainability of one or more design solutions in the conceptual phase of a product development process. The methodology is structured in two main phases. In the first one, a data structure, called Augmented-DSM （Design Structure Matrix）, has to be drawn in order to collect design information such as functional links among product components, indicators that provide information about the life cycle of each element, connections with the environment and toward other systems. The matrix is based on a DSM format, where new records were introduced to store and organize different types of data and an editing protocol was formalized. In the second stage, a set of procedures have to be applied in order to evaluate sustainability of a design solution and compare it with the others. The presented procedures, in fact, allow designers to assess a product in its proper characteristics, evaluate a device during its use stage and verify the coherence of links present in the functional model. This new approach is conceived to manage different performance indicators and, as a support tool, it is an attempt to aid designers in a quantitative evaluation.

Indicators and tools for assessing sustainability impacts of the forest bioeconomy

The sustainable use of renewable resources has become an important issue worldwide in the move towards a less fossil-fuel-intensive future.Mainstream method for fulfilling this aim is to increase the share of renewable energy and materials to substitute fossil fuels and to become fully independent from fossil fuels over the long-term.However, the environmental sustainability of this endeavor has been questioned.In addition,economic and social sustainability issues are also much debated topics in this particular context.Forest resources are often thought to contribute partially to achieving a so-called ＂carbon-neutral society＂.In this review, we discuss sustainability issues of using forest biomass.We present several sustainability indicators for ecological,economic and social dimensions and discuss the issues in applying them in sustainability impact assessments（SIAs）.We also present a number of tools and methods previously used in conducting SIAs.We approach our study from the perspective of the Finnish forestry; in addition, various aspects regarding the application of SIAs in a broader context are also presented.One of the key conclusions of the study is that although sufficient data are available to measure many indicators accurately, the impacts may be very difficult to assess（e.g.impact of greenhouse gases on biodiversity） for conducting a holistic SIA.Furthermore, some indicators, such as ＂biodiversity＂, are difficult to quantify in the first place.Therefore, a mix of different methods, such as Multi-criteria Assessment, Life-cycle Assessment or Cost-Benefit Analysis, as well as different approaches（e.g.thresholds and strong/weak sustainability） are needed in aggregating the results of the impacts.SIAs are important in supporting and improving the acceptability of decision-making, but a certain degree of uncertainty will always have to be tolerated.

RESILIENCE COVERAGE OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORKS:A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Sustainable development has been a popular concept since 1987 and the issuance of the Brundtland report.A diverse number of sustainability assessment frameworks are available to examine the environmental performance of buildings and communities.With the current pace of climate change and the increasing threat of stronger,more frequent natural hazards,however,there are doubts that sustainability alone is an effective response.Sustainability assessment frameworks in recent years have been criticized for not incorporating hazard resilience.To better understand the current level of emphasis put on resilience to natural hazards in green building rating systems,this study aims to assess the level of resilience integration in existing sustainability assessment frameworks.The results demonstrate an overall lack of resilience coverage in the frameworks with only four frameworks,CASBEE,LEED,Green Globes,and DGNB having resilience coverage of 27.5%,15%,2.6%,and 1.1%respectively.This confirms a need for more systematic integration of resilience indicators into sustain-ability rating systems to create combined frameworks for sustainability and resilience.

Assessment of the agricultural sustainability of Shaanxi Province,China

It is significant for the study on the sustainable development of regional agriculture to monitor and measurethe trend of agricultural development with an effective method. The sustainable development of regional agricultureshould accord with regional population, rural economic development, social progress, resource and environmentalsupport. This paper establishes the evaluating indicators system of sustainable development of regional agriculture,evaluates the agricultural sustainable development in Shaanxi Province with a comprehensive multi-indicator method,analyzes the support of resource and environment for regional agriculture by the resource-development index and theenvironment-development index, and gets the conclusion that the indicators, such as education level, the income gapbetween urban and rural residents, the per capita area under cultivation and the consumption of pesticides and chemicalfertilizers per hectare, are the main factors to restrict agricultural sustainability, and that the pressure of the developmentof subsystems of population, economy and society on the subsystems of resource and environment turns out to bestronger and stronger. Agricultural environment gets better, but resource becomes one of the important factors to restrictthe development of regional agriculture. In a word, this paper highlights the potentials and limitations of sustainableagriculture of Shaanxi and helps identify the development direction in the future.

MEASURING UP: A CASE FOR REDRAWING THE SYSTEM BOUNDARIES OF SUSTAINABILITY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

The primary goal of this paper is to examine the role that sustainability assessment and reporting plays in creating a sustainable campus for academic excellence. A prototype sustainability assessment and reporting system is developed for triple bottom line impact analysis of the built environment of the newly expanded and renovated Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky. The prototype system utilizes a toolkit to collect environmental, social, and economic data of the building’s built environment for sustainable design performance analyses. The system also employs a comprehensive set of sustainability metrics to measure and report the building’s triple bottom line impacts on academic success. In sum, our study succeeds in (1) expanding the definition and evaluation of campus buildings’ sustainability to include environmental, social, and economic factors, (2) providing campus stakeholders with a toolkit for assessing the sustainability of campus buildings, and (3) creating a comprehensive sustainability metric for benchmarking and tracking campus buildings’ triple bottom line impacts on academic success.

Quantifying the impacts of COVID-19 on Sustainable Development Goals using machine learning models

The COvID-19 pandemic has posed severe threats to global sustainable development.However,a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)is still lacking.This research quantified the post-COVID-19 SDG progress from 2020 to 2024 using projected GDP growth and population and machine learning models including support vector machine,random forest,and extreme gradient boosting.The results show that the overall SDG performance declined by 7.7%in 2020 at the global scale,with 12 socioeconomic SDG performance decreasing by 3.0%-22.3%and 4 environmental SDG performance increasing by 1.6%-9.2%.By 2024,the progress of 12 SDGs will lag behind for one to eight years compared to their pre-COVID-19 trajectories,while extra time will be gained for 4 environment-related SDGs.Furthermore,the pandemic will cause more impacts on countries in emerging markets and developing economies than those on advanced economies,and the latter will recover more quickly to be closer to their pre-covID-19 trajectories by 2024.Post-COVID-19 economic recovery should emphasize in areas that can help decouple economic growth from negative environmental impacts.The results can help government and non-state stakeholders identify critical areas for targeted policy to resume and speed up the progress to achieve SDGs by 2030.

Effective and Sustainable Flood and Landslide Risk Reduction Measures:An Investigation of Two Assessment Frameworks

Natural events such as floods and landslides can have severe consequences.The risks are expected to increase,both as a consequence of climate change and due to increased vulnerabilities,especially in urban areas.Although preventive measures are often cost-effective,some measures are beneficial to certain values,while some may have negative impacts on other values.The aim of the study presented here was to investigate two frameworks used for assessing the effectiveness and sustainability of physical and nonphysical flood and landslide risk reduction measures.The study is based on literature,available information from authorities and municipalities,expert knowledge and experience,and stakeholder views and values.The results indicate that the risks for suboptimization or maladaptation are reduced if many aspects are included and a broad spectrum of stakeholders are involved.The sustamability assessment tools applied here can contribute to a more transparent and sustainable risk management process by assessing strategies and interventions with respect to both short- and long-term perspectives,including local impacts and wider environmental impacts caused by climate change,for example.The tools can also cover social and economic aspects.The assessment tools provide checklists that can support decision processes,thus allowing for more transparent decisions.

The sustainable development of innovative cities in China： Comprehensive assessment and future configuration

Innovative cities not only constitute an important basis for innovation activities, but also play a strategically critical role in constructing an innovative country, producing new forms of urban development, and fostering urban sustainable development. Currently, China is marching toward the goal of establishing an innovative country by 2020, but in the start-up phase of this process of innovative city construction, the fundamental transition from factor-driven development to innovation-driven development is not being realized. As a result,a wide gap currently exists between China＇s innovative cities and the advanced innovative cities in developed countries. This paper argues that this necessary transition is being constrained by a series of bottlenecks in investment, income, techniques, contributions, and talents. The article takes 287 prefecture-level cities as its object of comprehensive assessment, developing a comprehensive assessment system for innovative cities and devising innovative monitoring system software in order to evaluate the current situation in China＇s innovative city construction. The analysis addresses four key aspects – namely,independent innovation, industrial innovation, living environmental innovation, and institutional innovation – as well as the spatial heterogeneity of the innovative city construction process. The results demonstrate that the level of innovation in Chinese cities is low, and the paper warns that building an innovation-oriented country will, as a consequence,be difficult. Some 87.8% of the cities studied maintained comprehensive levels of innovation that were lower than the national average. The level of comprehensive innovation in a city was found to have close and positive correlation with economic development. The level of the eastern region of China was, in particular, found to be significantly higher than that of the central and western regions. The levels of urban independent innovation, industrial innovation,environmental innovation, and institutional innovation showed consistent spatial heterogeneity, as did the comprehensive level of innovation in cities. In the future, the authors suggest, China should speed up the construction process in accordance with the basic principles of ＂independent innovation, breakthroughs in key fields, market-oriented, regional interaction, talent-supported,＂ with the purpose of building up Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai,and Guangzhou as global innovation centers; and Nanjing, Suzhou, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Wuxi,Xi＇an, Wuhan, Shenyang, Dalian, Tianjin, Changsha, Qingdao, Chengdu, Changchun, Hefei,and Chongqing as national innovation centers, by 2020. Through this process, China will finally build a national urban innovation network that includes 4 global innovative cities, 16 national innovative cities, 30 regional innovative cities, 55 local innovative cities, and 182innovation-driven development cities, thereby contributing to the establishment of an innovative country by 2020.