The Comprehensive Human Essence and the New Evolution of Human Beings

Human beings have no absolute,fixed essence. The essence of human beings is the combination of an innate substrate and acquired creation. As the degree of machine intelligence in the development of human society continues to increase,human beings are constantly changing and creating their own essence,and they are also constantly liberated from the bondage of a certain single old essence,creating and enriching the richer and more diverse aspects of its essence. The transformation of labor from its alienation to its return is also a transformation of labor from the centralized form to the non-centralized form of human essence according to Karl Marx. The new fusion of artificial intelligence and bioengineering will lead to a new tracks of evolution that"reshapes and regenerates"life itself. This new evolutionary path will fuse the two-track evolution,biological evolution and cultural evolution,which have been relatively isolated in the traditional sense. If human beings are able to work hard together to design and implement a new social system that adapts to the future intelligent development,then what the comprehensive development of intelligence bring human beings about would be not a disaster,but a bright future.

Low-Impact Development(LID) of the Water Ecological Environment in Rural Areas: A Case Study of the Wei River Wetland in Fengxi New City of Xixian New Area

The problem of rural water ecological environment is becoming growingly prominent, and its ecological management is of great significance. From sponge cities to sponge villages, it is an effective way to use the low-impact development (LID) technology to solve rural water ecological environment problems. Through the investigation and analysis of the hydrology, soil, runoff, vegetation and other factors in the Wei River wetland of Fengxi New City of Xixian New Area, this study attempts to construct a LID route suitable for managing the rural water ecological environment in the northwest, so as to provide a reference for the construction of green infrastructure and sponge cities of rural areas in the northwest.

Exploring Green Development From the Perspective of Sociology:Logical Basis,Constraints,and Optimization Paths

With the advancement of ecological conservation in China,the concept of green development has gained extensive acceptance and recognition.Exploring green development from the perspectives of environmental protection and sociology holds great theoretical value and practical significance in studying the issues related to green development.Firstly,this paper examines green development in light of the objective needs of the economic and social transformation in the international community and China,and deconstructed its underlying social logic.Secondly,it further investigates the social factors that restrict green development,encompassing social structures,social concepts,social systems,and social behaviors.Finally,within the framework of the“green”discipline system in environmental sociology,this paper proposes specific measures such as restructuring social systems and transforming production modes,lifestyles,and consumption patterns to promote green development.

Psychosocial Stress Modifies the Acute Cardiac Health Effects of Traffic-Related Air Pollution

Previous studies have shown that exposure to black carbon(BC,a tracer of traffic-related air pollution)and psychosocial stress are both associated with adverse cardiac effects,but whether psychosocial stress could modify the cardiac effects of BC is unclear.To investigate the potential modifying effect of psychosocial stress on the associations between acute exposure to BC and typical cardiac health variables,real-time personal 24 h measurements were conducted in a repeated-measure study among adults with elevated blood pressure(high-risk group)and a panel study among normal adults(low-risk group)in China.Measured cardiac health variables included ST-segment depression events,heart rate,and heart rate variability(HRV)variables.Perceived Stress Scale,State Anxiety Inventory and Self-rating Depression Scale were used to assess the recent psychosocial stress status of the participants,and a composite stress index was established based on these scales.Generalized linear mixed-effects model was used to analyze the associations between BC exposure and cardiac health variables and potential effect modification by psychosocial stress.A total of 9724 h measurements among 97 participants in the repeated-measure study and 20224 h measurements among 87 participants in the panel study were included in the final analysis.Acute BC exposure was significantly associated with increased ST-segment depression events and heart rate and decreases in HRV in both studies.The marginal effects of acute BC exposure on most cardiac health variables generally tended to be amplified under higher vs low levels of psychosocial stress in both studies,with the composite stress index apparently modifying the associations of BC exposure with most ST-segment depression events and HRV variables.These findings suggest that psychosocial stress may increase the participants’cardiac susceptibility to BC exposure,which could be helpful for the identification of susceptible individuals in the context of traffic-related air pollution.

Key Elements of “Family” Life Style of Old-age Residential Facilities

The problem of old-age care in China is more and more serious. Under the background of continuous promotion of community old-age, the importance of research on the"family" life style of oldage residential facilities has become increasingly prominent. Through field survey of different types of oldage residential facilities and questionnaire interviews, the shortcomings of the old-age residential facilities in Xi’an were compared and summarized, and the key elements of "family" life style of the old-age residential facilities were concluded, which mainly include urban community embeddedness, family structure elements, indoor furnishings and accompanying care system. The "family" life style of the old-age residential facilities can not only maintain the "kinship" living needs, but also conform to the new direction of promoting the "community" of the old-age residential facilities in China.

Landscape Symbols and Cultural Exchanges in Central Asia

Cultural landscape is not only the objective environment for cultural exchanges on the Silk Road,but also an important medium for carrying multicultural information.From the perspective of cultural communication,this study took the cultural landscape as the media of cultural communication,and put forward the specific forms of landscape symbols in Central Asia.Relying on the unique natural and human characteristics of Central Asia,landscape elements such as architecture,sculpture and plants were respectively combed in terms of culture,and the cultural exchanges and communication of the Silk Road were peeped in the form of cultural landscape art.

Landscape Spatial Characteristics of Streets and Lanes in Traditional Towns of Sichuan and Chongqing in China

The physical space and viewing perception of streets and lanes in traditional towns of Sichuan and Chongqing in China are deeply influenced by the terrain conditions of the area.The adaptation of the geographical environment with the change of the terrain height difference creates rich spatial rhythm changes in the spatial continuity and opening and closing processing of streets and lanes.The aspect ratio of building elevation and street front of frontage makes the street and lane scale adapt to the different functional requirements of business and life.At the same time,the changeable terrain height difference creates the composition level of street landscape perception of close shot,medium shot and long shot,which constitutes the unique regional charm of streets and lanes in traditional towns of Sichuan and Chongqing.

Resource Delivery in Rural Families Involving Peidu—A Case Study Based on Peidu

Peidu(accompanying a child for study)is one of the outcomes of current unbalanced educational development in China.A field survey and a series of semi-structured interviews indicated that the resource delivery in rural families involving peidu mainly sources from four aspects:the spatial mobility of class pressure,the needs for the integration of family resources,the continuous increases in living costs,and the flexible feedback of educational expectations.The channel of resource delivery in rural families,namely peidu,displays characteristics including families’choice of conformity behavior and the singleness of estimate standard;the lack of professional support,and the inadequacy of family-school interactions;the conflicts of behaviors and habits,and poor intergenerational interactions.Restricted by the choice of delivery channel and family circumstances,peidu in rural families shows the Matthew effect,which increases disparities within the rural class,and thus exerts a three-level influence.At the individual level,it has a positive influence upon individuals’fulfilling their absolute mobility,but their relative mobility still faces various difficulties.Moreover,it means the relative deprivation of certain family members’benefits to a certain extent;at the family level,disadvantaged families are exposed to the risk of further marginalization;and at the social level,the“theater effect”from peidu exacerbates the inequality between classes.

Geographic information science in the era of geospatial big data: A cyberspace perspective

The advent of information and communication technology and the Internet of Things have led our society toward a digital era.The proliferation of personal computers,smartphones,intelligent autonomous sensors,and pervasive network interactions with individuals have gradually shifted human activities from offline to online and from in person to virtual.This transformation has brought a series of challenges in a variety of fields,such as the dilemma of placelessness,some aspects of timelessness(no time relevance),and the changing relevance of distance in the field of geographic information science(GIScience).In the last two decades,“cyber thinking”in GIScience has received significant attention from different perspectives.For instance,human activities in“cyberspace”need to be reconsidered when coupled with the geographic space to observe the first law of geography.

Promoting conservation or change? The UNESCO label of world heritage (re)shaping urban morphology in the Old Town of Lijiang, China

The UNESCO label of World Heritage can attract a high number of tourists to heritage properties for their Outstanding Universal Values(OUV).Although international studies have demonstrated the World Heritage system can contribute to stimulating cultural tourism and boosting the local economy,how this heritage-led development process promotes urban conservation and morphological changes in cities is yet to be explored adequately.This paper aims to explore the urban morphology of a historic Chinese city after its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List,taking the Old Town of Lijiang as case.The methods of spatial plan analysis and discourse analysis are used to analyse the data.The research findings have demonstrated that,theoretically,the Conzenian approach of urban morphology can be an effective framework for World Heritage OUV-monitoring.Methodologically,the analysis of spatial plans and multi-stakeholder interviews can reveal local urban morphology from macro to micro levels.Case-specifically in Lijiang,urban physical characteristics and building structures have been well maintained while traditional social fabric and neighbourhood networks have almost vanished.This research has incorporated the urban morphology approach into(world)heritage management in China,as well as worldwide,in order to maintain the balance between urban conservation and economic growth.