Analysis of the Applicable Rate of Environmental Tax through Different Tax Rate Scenarios in China

Faced with increasing conflicts between economic and environmental development, it is extremely urgent to promote the green growth of enterprises. As an incentive environmental regulation measure, an environmental tax has been proven to effectively alleviate environmental problems and reduce corporate pollutant emissions. From the perspective of environmental tax equity and efficiency, this study collects more than 100,000 enterprises’ pollutant-discharge and pollutant-discharge fee data from 4300 pollutant disposal enterprises in Yunnan Province, China in 2017. The study analyzes the marginal abatement cost (MAC) of water pollution and air pollution in key industries by using the MAC accounting method. Under the three scenarios of low, medium and high tax rates set by the study, the study evaluates the applicable tax rates of environmental tax of enterprises under different tax rates. The main findings of the study are: (1) the MAC of pollutants in various industries is quite different in different industries; (2) the environmental tax rate of 2018 is generally low and is not enough to encourage enterprises to reduce more pollution; (3) most enterprises will not invest a large amount of funds to carry out technological transformation for green production, without the government’s mandatory environmental regulation measure. The study recommends that the government needs to increase the environmental tax rate, gradually approach the cost of corporate pollutant-treatment and force the technological transformation of enterprises. At the same time, the government itself needs to do a good job of tax neutrality, increase the compensation for environmental protection behaviors of enterprises, and encourage green development of enterprises. Finally, the taxation supervision should be strengthened, and the tax violations of enterprises should be checked strictly for avoidance of tax cuts against rules

Textbook use within and beyond Chinese mathematics classrooms: A study of 12 secondary schools in Kunming and Fuzhou of China

This chapter presents a study which investigated how teachers and students used textbooks within and beyond Chinese mathematics classrooms. Data were collected from 36 mathematics teachers and 272 students in 12 secondary schools in Fuzhou and Kunming, two major cities in Mainland China, through questionnaires, classroom observations, and interviews. The study provided a general picture of the textbook use by Chinese teachers and students of mathematics. The results showed that textbooks were the main but not the only source for teachers to make decisions about what to teach and how to teach. For students, textbooks were their main learning resource for both in-class exercise and homework. No significant differences were found between teachers with different genders, experiences, from different regions and schools in their use of textbooks, though some significant differences were found between students in the two cities in their use of textbooks. Explanations for the results are offered in the chapter

An Acceleration Denoising Method Based on an Adaptive Kalman Filter for Trajectory in Merging Zones

Vehicle trajectory data can reveal naturalistic driving behaviour trends. However, owing to measurement and processing errors, the trajectory data extracted from videos often contain obvious noise. In merging zones, vehicles tend to accelerate and decelerate frequently, leading to poor denoising performance of the linear Kalman filter (KF). To address this issue, this study proposes a new denoising method based on the adaptive Kalman filter, which automatically switches between KF and Unscented KF to accommodate car-following and merging behaviours, respectively. A merging behaviour detection method was designed based on the PELT method and normalized innovation squared (NIS). The F1 score of 92.9% shows the accuracy of behaviour detection. According to our results, the proposed method minimizes the range of jerk compared with other methods, reducing it from −4927.78 to 4960.72 of raw data to −44.92 to 47.14, indicating a significant improvement in denoising and trajectory smoothing. The goal of this study is to achieve high-precision trajectory data under complex real traffic scenarios

Analysis on the Dynamic Evolution of Bioenergy Industry in the Yangtze River Delta Based on Multilevel Social Network Theory

This paper aims to explore the evolution of bioenergy from a comprehensive and dynamic perspective and study how stakeholders in the industry exert influence during the development. Taking the development of bioenergy in the Yangtze River Delta as an example, the research builds a dynamic network of bioenergy stakeholders from a social network analysis method. This paper selects six typical cities and six stakeholder groups in the Yangtze River Delta to conduct field surveys and interviews. This study integrates social network analysis with multilevel perspective theory to analyse the evolution of bioenergy from a dynamic perspective. The results show that the relationship among the stakeholders is a network based on central stakeholders involved in the material flow and is affected by multiple peripheral stakeholders. Through the analysis of the dynamic evolution relationship between stakeholders, this paper reveals the existing problems during the development of bioenergy in the Yangtze River Delta. The research results also show that the development of bioenergy has the following characteristics: (i) It is initiated by technological development during the energy transition period; (ii) It is led by policy formulation; (iii) It has evolved with the development of material flow, marketing, infrastructure, and social awareness

Optimization dispatch rule of the Three Gorges Reservoir considering ecological and power generation benefit

This paper focus on optimization operation problem of ecology and power generation considering uncertainty of inflow on the Three Gorges reservoir. A model with constraint violation as objective is proposed to obtain ecological and power generation optimization dispatch rule of the Three Gorges Reservoir using stochastic dynamic programming. In the model, minimization of ecological water shortage and constraint violation and maximization of power generation benefit are taken as objective, simple discrete-time Markov chain and stochastic dynamic programming take into account the uncertainties of inflow. A case study shows that the proposed approach is feasible and efficient to produce a dispatch rule to balance ecological and economic benefits. Some conclusions of the influence of ecology and power generation are finally drawn

Huguangyan Maar Lake (SE China): A solid record of atmospheric mercury pollution history in a non-remote region

Mercury is a highly toxic metal that can cause harm to environment and human health. As atmospheric deposition is the main source of total Hg input to aquatic system in remote and pristine regions, almost all the studies on atmospheric Hg pollution history concentrated in these areas, while the studies in non-remote areas are much limited, especially for the long history records. In this study, Huguangyan Maar Lake, an undisturbed lake system at low altitude in China, was selected to reconstruct the atmospheric mercury pollution history. Variation patterns of TOC, Hg and non-residual Sr in the sediment core indicated that, compared to the direct atmospheric Hg deposition, the effect of either Hg scavenging from water column by algae or the catchment inputs of previously deposited Hg on the Hg accumulation in the lake sediment was limited. The sediment Hg content in Huguangyan Lake was mainly controlled by the atmospheric Hg deposition, and thus accurately reflected the atmospheric Hg pollution history. The Hg-a (Hg content from atmospheric deposition) in Huguangyan Lake presented a comparable variation pattern to that in remote sites. It had the same variation trend as the global atmospheric Hg before 1950 CE, which could be attributed to the Industrial Revolution. After that, it was mainly controlled by Hg emissions from Asian countries. The variation of Hg-a also indicated that atmospheric Hg deposition accelerated significantly since 2000 CE. This study, along with other investigations in remote sites in China, showed that the sediment Hg in Huguangyan Lake responded to the atmospheric Hg pollution more sensitively than in the alpine regions. It should be noted that, the more intensive acceleration of Hg deposition in Huguangyan Lake may imply that the South of China suffered from much more serious atmospheric Hg pollution than previous studies revealed

Social Network Relationships between Biomass Industry Stakeholders in the Agricultural Waste Power Generation Industry—A Case of Northern Jiangsu, China

This study aimed to explore the impact of the interaction between stakeholders in the sustainable development of the biomass industry and to reveal network issues relating to material flow and information flow under the current biomass energy development model. This study focused on the agriculture and forestry waste power generation industry. Taking the biomass industry in Nanjing, Suqian, and Yancheng as examples, the study selected six stakeholder groups involved in the industry and conducted field investigations by using semi-open interviews and questionnaires. The research mainly applied social network analysis methods, combined with UCINET software, to draw a network diagram of the stakeholder relationships and to quantitatively analyze stakeholder centrality and overall network density. The results revealed that (1) the biomass enterprises had the highest centrality in the overall network, which played a vital role in the construction of the overall network; (2) the farmers were positioned at the outer fringes of the industrial social network and their information acquisition capabilities and degree of control over the network were the lowest; and (3) the overall network density was low, which showed that the connections between stakeholders were not close enough to support the circulation of material and information in the overall network

Determining an Improved Traffic Conflict Indicator for Highway Safety Estimation Based on Vehicle Trajectory Data

Currently, several traffic conflict indicators are used as surrogate safety measures. Each indicator has its own advantages, limitations, and suitability. There are only a few studies focusing on fixed object conflicts of highway safety estimation using traffic conflict technique. This study investigated which conflict indicator was more suitable for traffic safety estimation based on conflict-accident Pearson correlation analysis. First, a high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle was used to collect multiple continuous high-precision videos of the Jinan-Qingdao highway. The vehicle trajectory data outputted from recognition of the videos were used to acquire conflict data following the procedure for each conflict indicator. Then, an improved indicator Ti was proposed based on the advantages and limitations of the conventional indicators. This indicator contained definitions and calculation for three types of traffic conflicts (rear-end, lane change and with fixed object). Then the conflict-accident correlation analysis of TTC (Time to Collision)/PET (Post Encroachment Time)/DRAC (Deceleration Rate to Avoid Crash)/Ti indicators were carried out. The results show that the average value of the correlation coefficient for each indicator with different thresholds are 0.670 for TTC, 0.669 for PET, and 0.710 for DRAC, and 0.771 for Ti, which Ti indicator is obviously higher than the other three conventional indicators. The findings of this study suggest TTC often fails to identify lane change conflicts, PET indicator easily misjudges some rear-end conflict when the speed of the following vehicle is slower than the leading vehicle, and PET is less informative than other indicators. At the same time, these conventional indicators do not consider the vehicle-fixed objects conflicts. The improved Ti can overcome these shortcomings; thus, Ti has the highest correlation. More data are needed to verify and support the study

Self-optimization system dynamics simulation of reservoir operating rules

Operating rules have been used widely in the reservoir long-term operation duo to its characteristics of coping with inflow uncertainty and easy implementation. And implicit stochastic optimization (ISO) has been widely applied to derive reservoir operation rules, based on linear regression or nonlinear fitting method. However, the maximum goodness-of-fit criterion of fitting method may be unreliable to determine the effective rules. Therefore, this paper develops a self-optimization system dynamics (SD) simulation of reservoir operation for optimizing the operating rules, by taking advantages of feedback loops in SD simulation. A deterministic optimization operation model is firstly established, and then resolved using dynamic programming (DP). Simultaneously, the initial operating rules (IOR) are derived using the linear fitting method. Finally, the refined optimal operating rules (OOR) are obtained by improving the IOR based on the self-optimization SD simulation. China’s Three Gorges Reservoir is used as a case study. The results show that the SD simulation is competent in simulating a complicated hydropower system with feedback and causal loops. Moreover, it makes a contribution to improve the IOR derived by fitting method within an ISO frame. And the OOR improve effectively the guarantee rate of power generation on the premise of ensuring power generation