Green transformation paths of resource-based cities in China from the configuration perspective

Green transformation is an unavoidable choice for resource-based cities(RBCs)that face resource depletion and environmental pollution.Existing research has focused primarily on specific RBCs,making it challenging to apply green transformation strategies universally across cities.The fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis(fsQCA)is a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses that can handle multiple concurrent causality problems and determine how different conditions combine into configurations and generate an outcome.Thus,to address this gap,in this study,we established a research framework for green transformation and utilized the fsQCA to examine the configurations of 113 RBCs in China.By incorporating the element of time,this study explored the dynamic evolution of solutions in 2013,2016,and 2019.The main findings indicate that individual elements do not constitute the necessary conditions for improving the green transformation efficiency(GTE),and the systematic combination of multiple conditions is an effective path for realizing the improvement of the GTE in RBCs.Green transformation paths of RBCs exhibit the same destination through different paths.Additionally,the combination of system environment elements and system structure elements is both complementary and alternative.Differences in RBCs have led to various factor combinations and development paths,but there are some similarities in the key elements of the factor combinations at different stages.Economic environment,government support,and technological innovation are key factors that universally enhance the GTE in RBCs.These insights can assist city managers in formulating policies to drive green transformation and contribute to a better theoretical understanding of green transformation paths in RBCs.

Saving Money

For some people,spending money is easy,butsavingitishard.Saving is easier when you have a goal.Maybe your goal is to save for a new phone,a scooter or a fun trip.You can open asavings account.It gives you a place to save yourmoney.When you earn money,put some in the bank.Remembering your goal will help you savemoney.

Be Wise with Money

Money plays an important role in our lives.Many of us receive pocket money from our parents,but how do we manage it?Do we spend it on everything we like,or do we use it wisely?Being wise with money is crucial,and here are some tips to help you do just that.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Consultants’ Roles in Improving Value for Money in Public Infrastructure Projects in Ghana

Ghanaian construction projects encounter a number of challenges, including low health, safety, and environmental requirements, poor performance, and time and cost overruns. To provide value for money (VFM) on government infrastructure projects in Ghana, this research assesses the roles of project consultants, specifically architects and quantity surveyors, and highlights important obstacles. A cross-sectional survey design involving architects and quantity surveyors yielded a 96% response rate after 100 questionnaires were distributed. Consultants’ responsibilities also include monitoring standards compliance, providing advice on delays, controlling budgets, and advising on project completion dates. Difficulties encompass a lack of promptness in decision-making, unethical conduct, political pressure, and inadequate focus on contract administration and construction audits. Project urgency, longevity, political clout, timely decision-making, and team experience are important variables that impact VFM. Policy makers and construction management practitioners should take note of the implications for Ghana’s public infrastructure projects.

China’s Monetary Policy Impacts on Money and Stock Markets

This study investigated the impact of China’s monetary policy on both the money market and stock markets,assuming that non-policy variables would not respond contemporaneously to changes in policy variables.Monetary policy adjustments are swiftly observed in money markets and gradually extend to the stock market.The study examined the effects of monetary policy shocks using three primary instruments:interest rate policy,reserve requirement ratio,and open market operations.Monthly data from 2007 to 2013 were analyzed using vector error correction(VEC)models.The findings suggest a likely presence of long-lasting and stable relationships among monetary policy,the money market,and stock markets.This research holds practical implications for Chinese policymakers,particularly in managing the challenges associated with fluctuation risks linked to high foreign exchange reserves,aiming to achieve autonomy in monetary policy and formulate effective monetary strategies to stimulate economic growth.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Economic Resilience of Resource-based Cities： Case Study of Northeast China

This paper develops a conceptual model and an indicator system for measuring economic resilience of resource-based cities based on the theory of evolutionary resilience and the related concepts of persistence, adaptation, and transformation. Nineteen resource-based cities in Northeast China were analyzed using the indicator system. The results showed that Liaoning and Jilin provinces had higher economic resilience than Heilongjiang Province. Panjin, Benxi, and Anshan in Liaoning Province were the top three cities, while Shuangyashan and other coal-based cities in Heilongjiang Province ranked last. Metals-and petroleum-based cities had significantly higher resilience than coal-based cities. The differences in persistence, adaptability, transformation, and resilience among resource-based cities decreased since the introduction of the Northeast Revitalization Strategy in 2003. Forestry-based cities improved the most in terms of resilience, followed by metals-based and multiple-resource cities; however, resilience dropped for coal-based cities, and petroleum-based cities falling the most. The findings illustrate the importance and the way to develop a differentiated approach to improve resilience among resource-based cities.

Countermeasures for Stressing Industry but Disregarding Agriculture in Resource-based Counties: A Case Study of Fugu County in Shaanxi Province

Industry re-feeding agriculture is an important strategy to boost agricultural modernization[1]. As to resource-based regions, the key thing is the way to implement the strategy of resource-based industry re-feeding agriculture. In fact, as a typical resource-based county, Fugu County realizes its quick economic development mainly depending on the local resources and industrial development. And the agricultural development is relatively lagging in the county, more people are beginning to denote themselves to industrial development due to high return brought by resource exploitation, which results that the contradiction between industry and agriculture is gradually prominent in the county. Therefore, it is necessary to seek for a new way to develop industry and agriculture in resource-based counties. This article mainly introduces the mode and method of "industry re-feeding agriculture" in Fugu County, analyzes and summarizes the implementation effects and achievements of modes as well as discusses the problems produced in the course of policy implementation and tries to find countermeasures to coordinate the contradiction between industry and agriculture, then further discuss the development perspective of industry and agriculture in Fugu County.

The Evolution and Differentiation of Economic Convergence of Resource-based Cities in Northeast China

A key target of the overall strategy implementation for regional development since the 18th Party Congress of China has involved taking measures to narrow regional disparities. This is because resource-based cities' economic development has fallen below general levels due to resource exhaustion and an unbalanced industrial structure, among other factors. Further, an economic gap has long existed between Northeast China's large number of resource-based cities and non-resource-based cities. This article comprehensively studies the economic convergence of Northeast China's resource-based cities and non-resource-based cities from 1996 to 2015 by using a dynamic panel to analyze not only the economic development of different industries and types of cities, but also the main factors that influence economic development. The empirical results demonstrate that economic convergence exists in both resource-based and non-resource-based cities, but the economic gap between them has clearly narrowed since the implementation of a strategy to revitalize the Northeast's old industrial base. Shrinking cities are the fastest to converge, as mature cities are slower and regenerating cities are the slowest; regarding industry structure, the secondary industry dominates the economy in mature and shrinking cities, and the tertiary industry in regenerating cities. The primary stimulus in resource-based cities' economic development involves upgrading the industrial structure and investing in human capital. As China faces a ‘new normal' economy, resource-based cities in Northeast China should restructure the economy and perfect their market system to avoid again widening the economic gap.

A Resource-Based Pricing Collaborative Approach for Mitigating DDoS Attack in Mobile Edge Computing

Resource-constrainted and located closer to users,edge servers are more vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS)attacks.In order to mitigate the impact of DDoS attacks on benign users,this paper designed a Resource-based Pricing Collaborative approach(RPC)in mobile edge computing.By introducing the influence of resource prices on requester in economics,a collaboration model based on resource pricing was established,and the allocation of user request was regarded as a game strategy to obtain the overall minimum offloading cost of the user in network.The article theoretically proved the existence and rationality of the Nash equilibrium.Finally,simulation results verified the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed approach in two experimental scenes.Experimental results shows that RPC can effectively improve the network ability to mitigate DDoS attacks,and alleviate the adverse effects of server attacks under delay constraints.

Discussion on the Problems and Path of Characteristic Town Construction in Underdeveloped, Resource-Based Cities: A Case Study of Ganzhou City

Characteristic towns as a characteristic industry are one of the important measures of China's new urbanization strategy. The construction of characteristic towns in different regions needs to pay attention to regional differentiation. At present, the research on characteristic towns focuses on the developed the developed central and eastern regions. There are still few studies on characteristics towns in underdeveloped areas. Starting from the analysis of the concept of the characteristic town, this paper sorted out the general situation of the construction of characteristic towns in China based on the existing research literature, selected Ganzhou City for research, pointed out there were "two restrictions and two singles" in the construction of characteristic towns in Ganzhou City, and clarified that the characteristic towns of Ganzhou City should adhere to the construction path of "two characteristics and two integrations", with a view to providing a useful reference for in Ganzhou City the construction of characteristic towns, industrial transformation and upgrading, and poverty alleviation in such underdeveloped, resource-based cities.

Analysis of Industrial Transformation of Resource-based Towns in Qingyang City:Taking Qingcheng County as an Example

As people exploit resources vigorously,the amount of exploitable resources is decreasing.Due to long-term unsustainable development,resource-based cities and towns have encountered problems such as lack of resources and slow economic growth.Faced with the"resource curse"phenomenon,the transformation of resource-based cities and towns is an inevitable trend to achieve sustainable development.In this article,taking Qingcheng County as an example,by analyzing and researching the development status and existing problems of resource industry,the stage of industrial development in Qingcheng County is discussed to prove the importance of industrial transformation to the sustainable development of Qingcheng County,the experience and lessons that Qingcheng County can learn are summarized,and the objective laws and influencing factors in the acceleration of industrial transformation in Qingcheng County are analyzed in depth.Using SWOT analysis,specific countermeasures are explored to realize the industrial transformation of Qingcheng County.

Analysis on the Transition of Resource-based Rural Land Use in the Context of Rural Revitalization:A Case Study of Taolingou Village,Yangquan City,Shanxi Province

The key to the transformation of resource-based rural economy lies in the land use transition,which has important theoretical and practical significance for the reconstruction of rural values and the promotion of rural revitalization.Taking Taolingou Village in Yangquan City,Shanxi Province as an example,on the basis of expounding the concept and connotation of land use transition,this paper analyzes the evolution trend of resource-based rural land use transition,explores the driving force of resource-based rural land use transition and clearly puts forward the measures to strengthen the transformation of resource-based rural land use in the context of rural revitalization.The analysis shows that the land use of Taolingou Village is transforming towards the trend of sustainability,putting people first and multi-function,which is consistent with the strategic goal of rural revitalization.The driving force of land use transition in Taolingou Village includes four aspects,namely,industrial structure,economic factors,development policy and contradiction between human and land.Adjusting and optimizing the industrial structure,protecting the ecological environment,perfecting relevant policies and regulations,and controlling the overall population are the effective measures for Taolingou Village to realize the land use transition.This case study is expected to provide a useful reference for the land use transition in other resource-based rural areas.

The Dynamics Mechanism of Vulnerability for Resource-based Enterprise Communities in China

This paper has analyzed the dynamics mechanism of resource enterprises community vulnerability,selected the key factor of resources to establish a nonlinear dynamical model.The model reveals the constrained relationship between the number of vulnerable enterprises and resource shortage rate,and the same relationship between t vulnerable enterprise numbers and the owning rate of resource market by the biggest enterprise in resource-type enterprises community of China.The results showed that,the shortage rate of resources take up more percentage than the occupancy of resource rate of the strongest enterprises in Enterprise community when D>q.the characteristics and patterns of the Chinese enterprise evolution are as follows,(1)The strongest enterprises n1 will decline or transform in the enterprise community.(2)The enterprises which survived after the shortage of resources will go through three stages:①resistance stage;②recovery stage;③stable stage.We believe that there are three movements that can make sure the resource-based enterprises community keep growing continuously in the competitive market for resources,(1)understand the enterprise resources shortage rate and the strongest enterprises share in resource rate in enterprise community,(2)follow the even-odd symmetry or odd-even symmetry laws based on the familiarity of a resource economy,(3)put the enterprises in the suitable position.

Resource-based City Type and Reforming Strategy Discussion and Research

The resource-based city can divides according to the Israeli resource type and development phase two big standards. The resource-based city economic transformation strategy first should from the macroscopic level, seek for the regional economic development the new superiority, next should act according to the new regional development favorable condition that establishes the pattern of industrial transformation from the microscopic level.

Research Progress of Maternal Environmental Effects in Resource-based Regions

Heavy metal pollution is common in resource-based regions.However,the morphological,physiological and biochemical mechanisms of plants transmitting environmental information to their offspring in environments polluted by heavy metals have not been studied yet.Taking soybean,an annual self-pollinated plant in Huang-Huai-Hai region,as the research object,the morphological,physiological and biochemical indexes and heavy metal enrichment and distribution characteristics of plants under heavy metal stress were monitored continuously for about three generations,and the trans-generational differences of soybean reproduction,vegetative growth,stress resistance and life cycle in heavy metal stress environment were elucidated.The results will be helpful to better understand the long-term adaptive strategy of plants to heavy metal stress and provide the theory basis for ecological security of soybean and other crops under heavy metal stress.

The Impact of Lean Manufacturing Practices on Sustainability Performance:A Natural Resource-Based View

Drawing upon a Natural Resource-Based View(NRBV),this paper aims to propose a quantitative model that could be used to investigate whether Lean Manufacturing(LM)practices/tools can improve the three aspects of corporate sustainability performance(economic,environmental,and social).This paper is based on a theoretical study to develop a new model by reviewing the literature and proposing new ideas according to the Natural Resource-Based View(NRBV).Reviewing the literature showed that there is a significant association between LM practices/tools implementation and the improvement on three aspects of corporate sustainability performance(economic,environmental,and social).This paper provides insights to manufacturing managers about the ability of LM practices to reduce cost of operations and maximize the value provided to customers.Further,it highlighted the importance of LM practices implementation to manage organizations’activities responsibly in terms of their environmental,social,and economic effects.By proposing such a quantitative model according to a NRBV,this study contributes to a broader understanding of how LM practices affect three pillars of sustainability.

Study on Correlative Issues about State-owned Enterprises Restructuring in Resource-based Cities in China

The ＂sediment＂ formed in the process of long-term development of the resource-based cities not only restricts the economic structure trans/brmation, but also increases the difficulties for restructuring the state-owned enterprises. Furthermore, it makes current ways of reforming staffs＇ identity replacement and managers＇ shareholding mode inefficient in state-owned enterprises reformation in resource-based cities. According to the characteristics of resource-based cities and property right reform theory, cash and share right compensation for the different staffs in the process of staffs＇ identity replacement have been identified. In addition, different profitable investment policies have also been suggested. For managers＇ share holding, the stimulant share ownership should be adopted principally, at the same time corresponding restrictions should be set up for managers＇ investment share ownership due to share ownership structure.

Quantitative Easing: Money Supply and Commodity Prices of Oil, Gold, and Cocoa in Ghana

This study investigates the dynamic relationships between the money supply (M2) and key commodity prices (Cocoa, Gold, and Crude) in the context of Ghana. Utilizing Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) analysis, we analyze the short-term and long-term Granger causality relationships among these variables, aiming to shed light on the potential linkages between monetary policy and commodity markets. The analysis covers the period from December 1999 to April 2023, using lag structures of 1 and 8 to capture both short-term and more enduring effects. Our findings reveal significant Granger causality relationships between the money supply and various commodities, with nuanced patterns emerging across different lags. In the short-run, our results suggest bidirectional causal relationships between COCOA and M2, CRUDE and M2, and GOLD and M2. Additionally, M2 Granger causes changes in COCOA, CRUDE, and GOLD. However, the causal relationship between COCOA and GOLD appears to be unidirectional, with COCOA not significantly Granger causing changes in GOLD. The short-term findings highlight the intricate interplay between monetary policy and commodity markets. In the long-run (lag 8), our analysis unveils robust Granger causality relationships between the variables. Past values of COCOA, CRUDE, and GOLD Granger cause changes in M2, indicating a notable influence of commodity markets on the money supply. Similarly, M2 Granger causes changes in CRUDE and GOLD. Notably, the findings underscore a more comprehensive and intertwined relationship between monetary policy and commodity prices in the long-run. Based on these results, we derive several policy implications. Policymakers should carefully consider the potential impact of monetary policy decisions, such as quantitative easing, on commodity markets and price dynamics. Measures to stabilize commodity prices, promote export diversification, manage inflation expectations, and enhance economic resilience are recommended. Additionally, effective data monitoring, international collaboration, and proactive risk management strategies are essential components for navigating the complex interactions between monetary policy and commodity markets. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate connections between monetary policy and commodity prices in Ghana, offering insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders seeking to promote sustainable economic growth and stability. Further research can delve into the mechanisms underlying these relationships and explore their broader implications for trade balances, economic performance, and policy formulation.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Combat Money Laundering

Banks and other financial institutions handle sensitive records regarding people, trusts, and corporations. Money, as a sensitive and useful commodity, makes financial organizations valuable and prone to criminal elements. Common criminal activities that target the banking sector include money laundering, identity and personal records theft, and terrorism financing. These are global issues that have garnered the attention of international bodies and governments. One method proposed to deal with illicit finance and money laundering is artificial intelligence (AI). AI implements various algorithms and techniques to monitor customers, markets, and financial transactions that help identify various banking habits. Understanding clients’ transactions and the nature of bank transfers enables AI to prevent and combat money laundering. This research offers an understanding of how artificial intelligence is used in the financial system to combat fraudulent activities such as money laundering. It is organized into five chapters covering various aspects of artificial intelligence and money laundering.

Time is Not Money!——It Is a Providence of Opportunities

The essay discusses the interrelations between Time and Money and the right ways for managing them.Additionally it discusses other aspects of life and time,such as:definition of time,smart use of time,use of time as distincting between men and animals,time,age and responsibility,time and the“meaning of life”,quality and quantity of lifetime,social aspects of time and science,technology and time.The author clearly expresses his opinion,that Time is a neutral abstract entity,exists in free democratic regimes and in less-liberatated autocracies.It is the explicit responsibility of every man and woman,anywhere,and everywhere,to prepare and train themselves for a smart use of the time awarded to them.On the other hand,Time is available for everyone and everything.The busy diligent hard-working person always seeks more challenging missions,while the less-energetic idle person,is always busy and tire of doing nothing.The author also claims that Time is an opportunity.It is available and inviting every active person,a thinker,a doer,and an entrepreneur to use and have it to achieve their goals.The author advises:Do not complain I have no time-dare to make the first step and“the other will come,tumbling after”.Active individuals have time for every challenging initiative;passive ones have no time for anything.