Suchergebnisse

Under different carbon regulatory policies, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities will have different impacts on the environmental benefits of the supply chain and corporate carbon emission reduction decisions. In this study, we examine a dual-channel closed-loop supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer selling re-products generated from waste products and a single retailer selling new products and consider two settings: enforcing a carbon tax policy or enforcing a subsidy policy. Under each setting, we put CSR into account, construct two models for the retailer to implement or not implement CSR activities, and analyze the decisions obtained under optimal solutions. Through numerical simulation and comparative research, we observe that the carbon tax policy applies to the supply chain where CSR activities are implemented, while the subsidy policy applies to the supply chain where CSR activities are not implemented. Reasonable selection of CSR implementation methods with low-cost coefficients by the retailer is conducive to eliminating profit conflicts among supply chain members. The government should fully consider the decision-making thresholds of supply chain members to ensure the maximum effectiveness of the policy.

Life Cycle Assessment(LCA), objective of which is to elucidate the impact of biodiesel on energy supply and natural environment and its economic value while giving an assessment on commercialization application of biodiesel, is performed in this study. Based on LCA methodology, production cost and CO2 emission estimation of rapeseed biodiesel industry were conducted. Results of the assessment indicate that the total amount of absorbed CO2 during the whole life cycle of rapeseed biodiesel is much larger than that has been emitted and rapeseed biodiesel is really an environment-friendly energy source. With the contribution of biodiesel derived from rapeseed oil made during the process of its full life cycle, green house emissions could be enormously reduced. However, in terms of production cost, the phenomenon that considerable portion of the total cost is occupied by the cost of raw material is observed in rapeseed biodiesel. Specifically, the portion of raw material cost is larger than 89% while the portion of crew oil is larger than 87%. The improvement of economical efficiency in the commercialization application of rapeseed biodiesel depends on the reduction of raw material cost. If we want to develop rapeseed biodiesel in China, government's encouraging policies, such as tax exceptions and financial subsidies, are necessary.

This article tracks the origin of modern public history in China. Through a critical survey of the landscape, the article focuses on why public history has such a widespread appeal among ordinary Chinese, and how it is used for social cohesion and identity building to mobilize a general population. The author argues that public history has flourished in the last two decades alongside a deteriorating notion of national identity unified by the state; the genesis of this can be traced back to the turn of the twentieth century. Three propositions are suggested for further developing public history in China, namely writing differently, a broader and more liberal understanding of history, and an emphasis on rigour.

With state control being a consistent pattern for more than 2,000 years, family ( jia) and state ( guo) seem inseparable in China. During the twenty-first century, media technology, freer access to information, and increasing mobility have tilted this delicate balance. At a massive scale and in various forms and genres, family history and genealogy are flourishing. Why has family history had such a mobilizing effect on ordinary people over the last two decades? How does family history contribute to our understanding of historical and societal changes? This article traces the history of family history in China and pinpoints where the traditional family history fails. With a critical survey of the emerging family history practices, it argues for a more practical-oriented approach, with which family history can connect personal narratives, family memories, and public history.

Situated within the interpretive and critical traditions, this study aims to contribute to one of the continuing primary themes in urban preservation: how to interpret and preserve the intangible values of built environments. A comprehensive analysis of dominant theories of urban preservation forms the conceptual framework within which this dissertation takes place. It starts by locating the intellectual context of preservation in North America, and examines its basic premises and core issues. It identifies three limits to the traditional approach to preservation planning. The complexity and fragility of history, its narrative quality and its particularities, its emotional content and economic values, all connect urban preservation with public history. Therefore, in the spirit of communicative democracy and "a shared authority", the study incorporates collective memory as an essential construct in urban landscapes, and suggests a culturally sensitive narrative approach (CSNA). The study employs an in-depth case study. The setting is Kensington Market in Toronto, Canada. It examines retrospectively the urban renewal planning of Kensington Market in the 1960s, identifies the pivotal events that prompted the change of urban renewal policies, and demonstrates, through the interpretive policy analysis, that sometimes urban renewal plans that fail to be implemented can become success stories in how to preserve urban neighborhoods as a kind of public history. To probe deeper into the sources of conflict between the professionals and the public, the study further explores the mutual relationship between collective memory and urban landscapes. It takes a selective look at some significant sites of memory, and connects them into a narrative path. Through oral history interviewing, field observation, and material cultural analysis, this part of the analysis constitutes an empirical study of CSNA. A proposition is derived from this critical case study. The study concludes with seven steps of CSNA, a guide for urban landscape preservation and planning.

China's impressive growth has been accompanied by huge rural-urban divide and social sacrifice of many including rural-urban migrants. Reflecting on the documentary Last Train Home (2009) by Lixin Fan, this paper identifies and examines the life of rural-urban migrants in China in terms of poverty-reduction, child-care, education and equal opportunities for a better life. By comparing the seemingly difficult and tragic life of the Zhang family against statistical facts, it shows that their suffering and struggles are common to most migrants. In essence, by creating an interactive dialogue between the film and the economic reality in China, this paper highlights the severe constraints on the Chinese peasantry and discusses the implications of limited choices and social injustice towards rural-urban migrants. It argues that the inequality in opportunities and the lack of social care for migrants has created huge social cleavage that not only reduces social welfare but may also impede further development.

Making the distinction between drought and water scarcity is not trivial, because they often occur simultaneously. In this study, we used Copulas to quantify the relationship between drought and water scarcity. Beijing&ndash ; Tianjin&ndash ; Hebei Metropolitan Areas (BTHMA) was chosen as the study area. Standard Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and water exploitation index plus (WEI+) was chosen to represent metrological drought and water scarcity. Inverse Distance Weighted method was used for spatial analysis of SPEI and WEI+, and Archimedean Copula was used to establish two-dimensional joint probability distribution of SPEI and WEI+. The results are as follows: (1) The southern part of the study area was wetter. The middle part was drier, with moderate drought happened for most times. (2) WEI+ of Beijing and Tianjin showed significant decreasing trends from 2000 to 2015, while WEI+ of Hebei Province did not, which indicated that Hebei Province is facing much severer water scarcity situation than Beijing and Tianjin. (3) Gumbel copula was the best-fitting model to establish the joint probability distribution of SPEI and WEI+. The condition probability provided a probability distribution of water scarcity under different drought conditions, which can provide technical support for government managers during policy making.