Economic Growth Performance and Economic Activities in Kosovo During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Kosovo

The paper addresses economic growth and developments of economic activities during the Covid-19 crisis in Kosovo.After the last war,Kosovo continues to remain among the countries with a low level of development and a high rate of unemployment.The low level of economic growth and the high rate of unemployment remain among the main economic challenges for solution.The importance of the paper consists in addressing economic issues and processes including developments in economic activities during the Covid-19 crisis in Kosovo.Kosovo was affected by Pandemia Covid-19 starting from March 2020.Undoubtedly,the Covid-19 crisis has had effects on economic processes,affecting the activity of various sectors of the economy.The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the performance of economic growth and economic activities during the Covid-19 crisis in Kosovo.In order to achieve the objectives,the analysis method is mainly used,tabular and graphic separately,comparative method,analyzing in dynamics the issue related to economic activities in the Republic of Kosovo.Through this study,the results and recommendations given are considered to be considered by policy makers in the Republic of Kosovo.

An Evolutionary Economic Geography Perspective on Types of Operation Development in West Lake, China

The types of operation play a key role in facilitating tourism consumption and economic development in a tourism destination. By adopting evolutionary economic geography theory, the paper analyzes the types of operation in West Lake Scenic Area from 1978 to 2013. First, an evolution process consisting of four stages is underpinned, and they are: the new establishment stage, the preliminary development stage, the speedup development stage, and the stabilized maturity stage. Specifically, the distinct characteristics associated with operation types are compared and evaluated at different stages throughout the process. The evolution trees are introduced to scrutinize types of operation development. The results of evolution trees demonstrate the substantial increase in both numbers and types. Second, by applying GIS spatial analysis, the paper also analyzes the spatial evolution characteristics on the types of operation, and the results unveil the co-existence of centripetal and centrifugal forces: the processes of spatial agglomeration and spatial dispersion. More specifically, we recognize the spatial process includes the emergence of node and concentration(1978–1995), the sparse distribution and intensity reduction(1996–2002), the patchy distribution and spatial agglomeration intensification(2003–2008), the dispersed distribution and core area agglomeration(2009–2013). Lastly, path dependence on resource endowment, government and market innovation, knowledge learning and spillover can reasonably explain the types of operation evolution. In conclusion, the evolutionary economic geography theories provide new theoretical and empirical perspectives for tourism policy analysis. At the same time, our comprehensive evidences impart more comprehensive insights and offer useful managerial and policy implications.

Step-wise synthesis of work exchange networks involving heat integration based on the transshipment model

Due to the deterioration of serious energy dilemma,energy-conservation and emission–reduction have been the strategic target in the past decades,thus people have identified the vital importance of higher energy efficiency and the influence of lower carbon development.Since work exchange network is a significant part of energy recovery system,its optima design will have dramatically significant effect on energy consumption reduction in chemical process system.With an extension of the developed transshipment model in isothermal process,a novel step-wise methodology for synthesis of direct work exchange network(WEN)in adiabatic process involving heat integration is first proposed in this paper,where a nonlinear programming(NLP)model is formulated by regarding the minimum utility consumption as objective function and optimizing the initial WEN in accordance with the presented matching rules to get the optimized WEN configuration at first.Furthermore,we focus on the work exchange network synthesis with heat integration to attain the minimal total annual cost(TAC)with the introduction of heat-exchange equipment that is achieved by the following strategies in sequence:introducing heat-exchange equipment directly,adjusting the work quantity of the adjacent utility compressors or expanders,and approximating upper/lower pressure limits consequently to obtain considerable cost savings of expanders or compressors and work utility.Finally,a case taken from the literature is studied to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.