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Introduction: The Green Finance Pilot Policy is a crucial initiative in China’s green finance reform, playing a significant role in reducing energy consumption and achieving carbon neutrality goals. This study examines whether the establishment of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones effectively reduces energy consumption and explores the underlying mechanisms of its impact.

This paper examines the direct and spatial impacts of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on China’s OFDI globally and tests the moderating effect of the BRI, considering economic development, resources and institution quality for 186 countries from 2008 to 2019. The results imply that the BRI has significantly improved China’s OFDI globally, with a much larger effect in Asia and Africa. This study finds that institutional quality has no direct impact on OFDI, with the exception of the corruption index, where China’s OFDI seem to favour countries with higher corruption. However, when institutional quality is used as an interactive term that controls heterogeneity, the results suggest that institutional quality significantly strengthens the effects of the BRI on OFDI. In other words, in countries that engage with BRI, higher institutional quality positively improves the attractiveness of China’s OFDI. The results also reveal that the impact of the BRI is moderated by higher levels of economic development but not by resource-rich host countries. Interestingly, the increasing Chinese OFDI in BRI countries has a spatial suppression effect on OFDI in non-BRI countries, suggesting industrial agglomeration effects due to the BRI. The results are validated by various robustness tests, and this study concludes with policy implications. Plain Language Summary BRI, Institution Quality and China’s OFDI This study looks at how China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) affects its overseas investments (OFDI) in 186 countries between 2008 and 2019. We explore whether the BRI boosts investments directly and whether factors like a countrys economy, natural resources, or government quality influence this effect.

Efficient maintenance in the face of complex and interconnected industrial equipment is crucial for corporate competitiveness. Traditional reactive approaches often prove inadequate, necessitating a shift towards proactive strategies. This study addresses the challenges of data scarcity and timely defect identification by providing practical guidance for selecting optimal solutions for various equipment malfunction scenarios. Utilizing three datasets—Machine Sound to Machine Condition Monitoring and Intelligent Information (MIMII), Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), and Machinery Failure Prevention Technology (MFPT)—the study employs the Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) as a preprocessing method to enhance feature extraction. To determine the best preprocessing technique, Gammatone Transformation, and raw data are also considered. The research optimizes performance and training efficiency by adjusting hyperparameters, minimizing overfitting, and using the KERAS Early Halting API within resource constraints. To address data scarcity, which is one of the major obstacles to detecting faults in the industrial environment, Few-shot learning (FSL) is employed. Various architectures, including ConvNeXt Base, Large MobileNetV3, ResNet-18, and ResNet-50, are incorporated within a prototypical network-based few-shot learning model. MobileNet’s lower parameter count, high accuracy, efficiency, and portability make it the ideal choice for this application. By combining few-shot learning, MobileNet architecture, and STFT preprocessing, this study proposes a practical and data-efficient fault diagnosis method. The model demonstrates adaptability across datasets, offering valuable insights for enhancing industrial fault detection and preventive maintenance procedures.

Although exploring the homestead withdrawal (HW) mechanism can optimize the allocation of land resource elements, the livelihood sources of farmers will change and face different sources of risk. Many studies have explored various factors affecting the HW. However, studies simultaneously exploring the relationship among farmers’ internal livelihood capital and external risk prevention capabilities and HW including differences among various HW models are still limited. The present study constructed a simple theoretical framework and used the probit model to analyze the decision-making behavior of 367 farmers in the Jinjiang Pilot in Fujian Province of China. Specifically, this study explored the impact of farmers’ livelihoods including natural, financial, and human capitals and risk expectations. Such risk expectations involve living conditions, social security, residential environment, and psychological conditions on HW in asset replacement, index replacement, and monetary compensation model. The empirical findings indicated that the farmers’ livelihoods and risk expectations have inconsistent effects on farmers’ HW decision-making in all the models, except for risk expectations. In other words, social security and residential environment have a significant inhibitory effect. These results implied that differentiated policies for HW should be considered to enhance the farmer’s sustainable livelihood capacity and controllability of risk. First published online 21 January 2022

The \"Second Sophistic\" traditionally refers to a period at the height of the Roman Empire's power that witnessed a flourishing of Greek rhetoric and oratory, and since the 19th century it has often been viewed as a defense of Hellenic civilization against the domination of Rome. This book proposes a very different model. Covering popular fiction, poetry and Greco-Jewish material, it argues for a rich, dynamic, and diverse culture, which cannot be reduced to a simple model of continuity. Shining new light on a series of playful, imaginative texts that are left out of the traditional accounts of Greek literature, Whitmarsh models a more adventurous, exploratory approach to later Greek culture. Beyond the Second Sophistic offers not only a new way of looking at Greek literature from 300 BCE onwards, but also a challenge to the Eurocentric, aristocratic constructions placed on the Greek heritage. Accessible and lively, it will appeal to students and scholars of Greek literature and culture, Hellenistic Judaism, world literature, and cultural theory.

In recent years, with the continuous development of social productivity and improvements in living standards, the issue of population aging has intensified. As the elderly are susceptible to cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and other conditions, the economic and resource burdens associated with treating, caring for, and supporting this demographic rise with their growing numbers, imposing significant pressure on societal development. In light of these challenges, research on natural products possessing anti-aging properties for treating aging-related chronic diseases has gained prominence. Flavonoids, a class of natural bioactive compounds abundantly found in plants, exhibit diverse pharmacological effects, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-osteoporosis activities. Therefore, studying the anti-aging effects of flavonoids is of significant value. This paper reviews recent research on the anti-aging effects of flavonoids by searching databases including CNKI, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The findings are summarized based on research subjects (C. elegans, animal models, and cells), effects, and mechanisms, to provide references for future in-depth research on the anti-aging effects of flavonoids.

Patient‐derived tumor xenograft (PDX) models, a method involving the surgical extraction of tumor tissues from cancer patients and subsequent transplantation into immunodeficient mice, have emerged as a pivotal approach in translational research, particularly in advancing precision medicine. As the first stage of PDX development, the patient‐derived orthotopic xenograft (PDOX) models implant tumor tissue in mice in the corresponding anatomical locations of the patient. The PDOX models have several advantages, including high fidelity to the original tumor, heightened drug sensitivity, and an elevated rate of successful transplantation. However, the PDOX models present significant challenges, requiring advanced surgical techniques and resource‐intensive imaging technologies, which limit its application. And then, the humanized mouse models, as well as the zebrafish models, were developed. Humanized mouse models contain a human immune environment resembling the tumor and immune system interplay. The humanized mouse models are a hot topic in PDX model research. Regarding zebrafish patient‐derived tumor xenografts (zPDX) and patient‐derived organoids (PDO) as promising models for studying cancer and drug discovery, zPDX models are used to transplant tumors into zebrafish as novel personalized medical animal models with the advantage of reducing patient waiting time. PDO models provide a cost‐effective approach for drug testing that replicates the in vivo environment and preserves important tumor‐related information for patients. The present review highlights the functional characteristics of each new phase of PDX and provides insights into the challenges and prospective developments in this rapidly evolving field.

As global energy grows short and environmental governance pressure increases, the automotive industry, a major energy consumer and pollution emitter, must enhance vehicle aerodynamics to cut energy use and emissions. This study creates an open-domain and virtual wind tunnel dual-computational-domain setup. It optimizes mesh refinement and boundary conditions, and evaluates the k-ε, k-ω, and Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) turbulence models. These models predict vehicle aerodynamic resistance, lift, and wake flow structure. The k-ε model best predicts the steady-state drag coefficient (Cd) (error 0.0009). DES excels in transient conditions (Cd error −0.4%, lift coefficient Cl matching experiments). The k-ω model, with its near-wall flow capture ability, has the lowest lift prediction error (−2.7%). Moreover, open-domain simulations align more closely with real free-flow environments and experimental data than virtual wind tunnel simulations. Overall, the study clarifies the varying applicability of turbulence models in complex flows, and offers a basis for model selection and technical support for vehicle aerodynamic optimization. It is highly significant for reducing fuel consumption, boosting the range of new-energy vehicles, and promoting sustainable industry development.

Taiwan has cultured milkfish for longer than hundreds of years. Given its long and narrow terrain surrounded by sea and location in a subtropical monsoon area, it has developed a unique culture bounded by the Erren River in the south. The Yunjianan area in the north is cold in winter and thus follows the “current year harvest” culturing model. In contrast, the Gaoping area in the south is warmer in winter and follows the “overwinter harvest” culturing model. This paper evaluated the production efficiency by using the stochastic metafrontier production model and the multi-input-multi-output distance function using input from in-person interviews with 100 current year harvest farmers and 70 overwinter harvest farmers from 2017 to 2019. In the first stage, the environmental variables of various regions were internalized into the model to obtain the group technical efficiency (GTE) of different farming models. In the second stage, the common environmental variables were re-internalized to evaluate the metafrontier technical efficiency (MTE) of both culturing modes. In this way, the technical efficiency and production technology of the two different culturing model are reasonably evaluated by taking into account not only the difference between their input and output, but also their environmental difference during their farming periods. The results show that in spite of the environmental difference between th two culturing models, shallower pond, smaller size of fish fry and lower shrimp density should make culturing more technically efficient. When cultured in a common environment, the lower the temperature, the worse the culture efficiency is. It indicated that milkfish are highly sensitive to low temperature. Therefore, the MTE and technical gap rate (TGR) of current year harvest farming are significantly higher than those of overwinter harvest farming. Finally, the regression analysis showed that the younger the farmers were, the lower the average pond age was, the larger the freshwater culture area was, and the greater the experience in fish farming was. Thus, the relatively better the MTE is; the younger the farmers, the higher the education level is and the more years of experience in fish farming they have, thus the relatively better the production technology level is.

In its advisory opinion, OC-24/17 (Advisory Opinion), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR or Court) addressed globally debated issues concerning gender identity, same-sex relationships, and the rights of LGBTI persons. As discussed below, the Court reached conclusions more progressive than those of its European counterpart, due to its finding that the principle of individual autonomy is embedded in the foundations of human rights law and permeates individual self-determination, the free development of one's personality, and the protection of different models of the family. In line with an apparent trend in the Court's case law, the Advisory Opinion rejects the idea that domestic societies are sometimes entitled, by virtue of a margin of appreciation, to choose among different possibilities for protecting human rights, provided that certain international legal limits are observed—an idea addressed in the dissenting opinion.