Linkage Effects Research Articles

Linkage effect in the bandgap-broken V2O5-GdCrO3 heterojunction by carbon allotropes for boosting photocatalytic H2 production

Refining carrier transfer in bandgap-broken heterojunctions, which consist of two semiconductors with broken bandgaps, is crucial yet highly challenging for photocatalysis. Herein, we incorporated amorphous carbons (AC) into the bandgap-broken V2O5/GdCrO3 heterojunctions, inducing a linkage effect to facilitate photoexcited carrier transfer. The created V-O-C and Cr-O-C bonds in V2O5-AC-GdCrO3 interfaces show almost identical orbital energies to overcome the broken-gap energy barriers at interfaces. The holes at GdCrO3’s valence band and electrons at V2O5’s conduction band tent to migrating toward the carbon ring of amorphous carbon via Cr-O-C and V-O-C bonds, thereby enhancing carrier separation of bandgap-broken V2O5/AC/GdCrO3 heterojunction. By controlling the relative amount of metal-O-C bonds in the interface, the modulation of charge transfer kinetics was also achieved on V2O5/AC/GdCrO3, resulting in ∼7 times higher of H2 generation than V2O5/GdCrO3. The concept could be expanded to the other carbon allotropes, including graphene, carbon nanotube, and graphdiyne conjugated structures, demonstrating a universal strategy in reaching optimal charge transfer of broken-bandgap heterojunctions for photocatalytic H2 production.

How does the Chinese pilot policy on information consumption affect carbon emissions?

The information consumption pilot policy deeply integrates information technology and traditional consumption, providing a strong impetus for China to achieve the strategic goal of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.” Based on panel data from 280 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this paper explores the effect of the information consumption pilot (ICP) policy on carbon emissions in China using a difference-in-differences method. The results indicate that: (1) the ICP policy can significantly reduce total carbon emissions and carbon intensity, and this finding remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Furthermore, (2) the results of mechanism analysis show that the ICP policy primarily reduces carbon emissions by promoting technological innovation, empowering industrial transformation, and upgrading. Additionally, (3) heterogeneity analysis reveals that the ICP policy exhibits more pronounced inhibitory effects on carbon emissions and intensity in regions characterized by high levels of network infrastructure development, cities located in the eastern and central, and experiencing high-pollution levels. Conversely, the impact of the ICP policy is not significant in regions with low levels of network infrastructure development, cities situated in the western, and those with lower pollution levels. Finally, (4) there are spatial spillover effects of the ICP policy and policy linkage effects with broadband China policy and big data comprehensive experimental zone policy. This paper's discoveries provide a new perspective for developing countries to achieve carbon emission reduction.

A study on forward and backward linkage effects in South Korea's telecom industry across generations

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the spillover effect of South Korea's telecom industry on other industries until its evolution to the 4th generation. By using Input-Output Table Data to compute Forward and Backward Linkage Effects in South Korea's telecom industry throughout Generational Changes, this study aims to analyze South Korea's telecom industry's impacts and changes on upstream and downstream industries to offer implications for its evolution to the 5th generation. This study used empirical input-output data for the period between the years 2000–2014 to conduct input-output analysis to evaluate forward and backward linkages in South Korea's telecom industry for each generation of it. The results revealed that (1) Korea's telecom industry can be defined as a dependent manufacturing industry due to its below-average forward linkage and above-average backward linkage over the whole study period, and (2) backward linkage in South Korea's telecom industry was higher than the economy-wide average value during our study period although it decreased with the industry's generational shifts. The results indicate that telecommunications companies should create new markets in which they can propagate emerging technologies of the 4IR (4th Industrial Revolution) to other industries, in order to ensure that the 5th generation telecom industry maintain its position as a key industry. On the other hand, the government should make policies to support start-ups and SMEs in telecom industry and implement structural reforms in Korea's oligopolistic telecom market.

Long-range linkage effects in adapting sexual populations

In sexual populations, closely-situated genes have linked evolutionary fates, while genes spaced far in genome are commonly thought to evolve independently due to recombination. In the case where evolution depends essentially on supply of new mutations, this assumption has been confirmed by mathematical modeling. Here I examine it in the case of pre-existing genetic variation, where mutation is not important. A haploid population with N genomes, L loci, a fixed selection coefficient, and a small initial frequency of beneficial alleles {f}_{0} is simulated by a Monte-Carlo algorithm. When the number of loci, L, is larger than a critical value of {text{4log}}^{2} left( {Nf_{0} } right), simulation demonstrates a host of linkage effects that decrease neither with the distance between loci nor the number of recombination crossovers. Due to clonal interference, the beneficial alleles become extinct at a fraction of loci 1-2mathrm{log}left(N{f}_{0}right)/{L}^{0.5}. Due to a genetic background effect, the substitution rate varies broadly between loci, with the fastest value exceeding the one-locus limit by the factor of {[{L}^{0.5}/mathrm{log}left(Nsright)]}^{0.75}. Thus, the far-situated parts of a long genome in a sexual population do not evolve as independent blocks. A potential link between these findings and the emergence of new Variants of Concern of SARS-CoV-2 is discussed.

Key local factors, supplier and linkage effectiveness: Evidence from the upstream petroleum sector of Ghana

This paper examines the role of the key local factors, local supplier effectiveness on local linkage effectiveness to support local content requirements, in-country spending and value retention. Drawing on extant literature and linkage and spill-over effect theory, this study developed a conceptual framework and measurement items, which were validated by 205 responses from randomly sampled upstream petroleum firms supplemented with key informant interviews. Quantitative data was analysed using PLS-SEM with the help of SmartPLS3. Overall, all the results suggest highly satisfactory model fit. Furthermore, the results confirmed a statistically significant positive direct relationship between the key local factors and local linkage factors (0.573), key local factors and supplier effectiveness (0.699), supplier effectiveness and local linkage factors (0.369) and, indirectly, the key local factors impact local linkage factors via local supplier effectiveness (0.258). The policy and management implications of the findings are well noted, while further research is proposed based on the limitation of this study.

Cellulose-Br-initiated imidazolium cation and ether linkage regulation of all-solid-state polymer electrolyte for advanced lithium transfer and battery performance

The all-solid-state polymer electrolyte (SPE) with superior electrochemical performance and stability is the most significant part for the development of high safety and reliable batteries. In this work, the ether linkage and imidazolium ionic liquid are incorporated into the modified macromolecular cellulose network via atom transfer radical polymerization for the construction of brush-like cellulose bromide-poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate@1-vinylimidazole ionic liquid (CB-PEGMA@IL) and cellulose bromide-1-vinylimidazole ionic liquid@poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (CB-IL@PEGMA) composite polymers. The crystallinity of pristine CB is largely decreased on account of the synergistic effect of ionic liquids and ether linkage. In particular, CB-PEGMA@IL presents a lower crystallinity and superior electrochemical performances than that of the CB-IL@PEGMA. With a wide electrochemical stability window (5.3 V vs Li/Li+), the CB-PEGMA@IL based SPE presents a high ionic conductivity (1.2 × 10−4 S cm−1) and record Li+ transference number (0.32). LiFePO4/Li battery assembled with CB-PEGMA@IL-SPE shows excellent cycling performance (beyond 150 cycles at 0.2 C) and good rate capacity. Moreover, the overpotential of CB-PEGMA@IL-SPE based symmetric battery can keep ∼0.03 V even after 200 h cycling (100 μA cm−2). The soft-packed battery based on CB-PEGMA@IL-SPE can withstand bending and present stable voltage output upon folding at various angles. This rigid-flexible hybrid SPE provides a unique candidate for the fabrication of wearable high-tech electronic devices.

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Technology Stimuli on Sustainable Consumption Behavior: Evidence from Ant Forest Users in China.

With the global economy and population growing rapidly, the problems of excessive resource consumption and environmental pollution have become increasingly serious. Thus, the need to promote sustainable development has become more urgent. Sustainable consumption behavior plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable development goals as it can significantly reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption. Artificial intelligence technology has broken the limitations of time and space in environmental protection. For example, the Ant Forest leverages the design of "green energy" to inspire the public to engage in energy-saving and emission-reducing activities. To examine the impact mechanisms of customers' sustainable consumption behavior, this study applies the stimulus-organism-response theory and the theory of planned behavior. The study conducts regression analysis and bootstrapping methods on a sample consisting of 280 Ant Forest users to explore the influence of artificial intelligence technology stimuli on sustainable consumption behavior and the mediating effects of customer-perceived value and customer stickiness. The results demonstrate a "linkage effect" between online green consumption habits and offline sustainable consumption behavior. Moreover, the study finds that passion and usability indirectly promote offline sustainable consumption behavior through customer-perceived value and customer stickiness. Specifically, the influence of customer-perceived emotional value (β = 0.121; β = 0.100) is stronger than that of customer-perceived social value (β = 0.043; β = 0.038). Due to the limitation of the sample size, future research should broaden its scope by incorporating additional variables, specifically customer-specific factors. Furthermore, more advanced research methods, such as big data analysis, should be employed to comprehensively explore the influencing factors of sustainable consumer behavior.

Mechanism of pin thread and flat features affecting material thermal flow behaviors and mixing in Al-Cu dissimilar friction stir welding

Three different features of pin models in Al-Cu dissimilar friction stir welding processes are established to analyse the effects of threads and flats on the two-phase material thermal flow behaviors. Based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD), a simulation methodology that calculates pins with complex morphologies through an adaptive force boundary is proposed. The pin characteristics are gradually optimized from “conical contour” to “conical-thread” and then to “thread-flats”. For dissimilar Al-Cu materials, the physical properties are weighted by the volume fractions of two-phase materials in the mixing zone. To build a dynamic adaptive contact model that varies with the material flow state, the interfacial friction shear stress is calculated by using the relative slip between the tool and material. The linkage effects between the “thread + flats” on the dissimilar Al/Cu welding mechanisms are systematically analysed. The enhancing mechanisms of the thread and flats on the material flow are different. The thread mainly reinforces the longitudinal migration of the Al/Cu materials, which is perpendicular to the horizontal plane. The flats effectively expand the plastic flow range and material mixing zone on the horizontal plane. These flow expanding effects are observed on the Z = 1 mm plane since the radial range of material flow enlarges from 2 mm to 3 mm under the action of the flats, while the horizontal flow range undergoes little change with the thread. The coupled mechanism of the “thread + flats” shows 0.06 s periodic strengthening, and the fluctuation threshold of the material flow velocity is wider, significantly improving the upwards stirring of the bottom material. The enhanced horizontal flow and vertical migration are beneficial to the uniform dispersion of the second-phase material (Cu) and local material softening for the formation of Al-Cu heterogeneous joints. Moreover, the accuracy of the model is verified by comparing the simulated and experimental TMAZ boundaries.

Study on fuzzy comprehensive competitiveness evaluation of urban exhibition industry with hesitant fuzzy information

With the development of socialist market economy, the exhibition industry has emerged as the tertiary industry matures in a globalized economic environment. As a new economic form, the exhibition economy presents new opportunities for economic development. The research on the exhibition industry at home and abroad has been relatively mature, and there has been a scientific analysis of the industrial linkage effect of the exhibition industry. The strong industrial linkage effect has made the exhibition industry occupy a very important position in the economic development of cities. However, in the development of China’s urban exhibition industry today, it is no longer a simple question of developing and enhancing the strategic position of the exhibition industry in economic development, but rather a question of how to enhance the competitiveness of China’s urban exhibition industry. Only when the level of competitiveness is improved can the economic and social benefits brought by the exhibition industry be brought into full play. The fuzzy comprehensive competitiveness evaluation of urban exhibition industry is a classical multiple attribute decision making (MADM) problems. Recently, the TODIM and VIKOR method has been used to cope with MAGDM issues. The hesitant fuzzy sets (HFSs) are used as a tool for characterizing uncertain information during the fuzzy comprehensive competitiveness evaluation of urban exhibition industry. In this manuscript, the hesitant fuzzy TODIM-VIKOR (HF-TODIM-VIKOR) method is built to solve the MADM under HFSs. In the end, a numerical case study for fuzzy comprehensive competitiveness evaluation of urban exhibition industry is given to validate the proposed method.

Ultrasensitive recognition performance of a folded π-based 1,8-naphthalimide-phthalocyanine fluorescence sensor

Designing ultrasensitive and smart molecules as molecular switches is highly valued in molecular recognition. In this work, a folded π-based molecular switch (NAPC) containing 1,8-naphthalimide and zinc(II) phthalocyanine functional modules was synthesized via cyclo tetramerization of four synthesized 1,8-naphthalimide sensors (NA). The photophysical properties of the folded molecular switch were investigated. This peripherally 1,8-naphthalimide substituted zinc(II) phthalocyanine possessed superior sensitivity in near-infrared “off-on” detection of Al3+, Fe3+, and Cr3+ compared with NA, and the detection limits were calculated to be 0.077 μmol/L for Al3+, 0.073 μmol/L for Fe3+ and 0.067 μmol/L for Cr3+, which were far less than that of NA. Due to the sensitive detection of Fe3+, NAPC was also applied in detecting NO2−. The ultrasensitive recognition mechanism of NAPC was determined to be the level-by-level linkage in the molecule in which the photo-induced electron transfer process in 1,8-naphthalimide sensor module was inhibited by complexing with metal ions first and then caused the inhibition of π-π stacking between two modules. This new folded molecule with a cascade linkage effect has the potential as an excellent fluorescence switch that could be applied in molecular recognition and environmental management.

Spatio-temporal heterogeneity of the coupling between digital economy and green total factor productivity and its influencing factors in China.

The synergy of the digital economy and green total factor productivity (TFP) is the foundation for achieving beneficial outcomes for both the economy and environment. This synergy is also the catalyst for high-quality development and sustainable economic growth in China. The study applied a modified Ellison-Glaeser (EG) index, super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) with a Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index, coupling coordination degree, and other models to explore the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the coupling between the digital economy and green TFP from 2011 to 2020 and also analyzed the influencing factors of the coupling. The results show that the coupling between the digital economy and green TFP showed an overall upward trend from imbalance to synergy during the study period. The distribution of the synergistic coupling expanded from point-like to band-like, and there was a significant spreading pattern from the east to the center or west China. The number of cities in a transition state decreased significantly. Spatial jumps, a coupling linkage effect, and evolution in time were prominent. Additionally, the absolute difference among cities expanded. Although coupling in the west experienced the fastest growth rate, the coupling in the east and resource-based cities showed significant benefits. Coupling did not reach an ideal coordinated state, and a neutral interaction pattern remains to be formed. Industrial collaboration, industrial upgrading, government support, economic foundation, and spatial quality all positively impacted the coupling; technological innovation had a lagged effect; and environmental regulation has not reached its full potential. Further, the positive effects of government support and spatial quality performed better in the east and in non-resource-based cities. Due to the optimization of industrial structure, the coupling of the west and resource-based cities achieved better dividends; however, spatial quality needs further improvement. Therefore, the efficient coordination of China's digital economy and green TFP requires a scientific, reasonable, localized, and distinctive approach.

Turbidite system controlled by fault interaction and linkage on a slope belt of rift basin: Zhanhua depression, Bohai Bay Basin, China

Although the relationship between faulting and sedimentation has been extensively studied and discussed over the past decades using a variety of examples and surface and subsurface data. However, limited information is available regarding the evolutions within the interaction zones in sedimentary processes, depositional architecture and sand bodies dispersal, which are crucial for hydrocarbon exploration, specifically in deep-water sedimentary system. To investigate the effects of fault interaction and linkage on the sedimentary processes and architecture of deep-water turbidite systems and explore the impact of fault linkage patterns on the dispersal of sand bodies, 3D seismic data, cores and logging data were collected from the southern slope zone of the Zhanhua Depression, Bohai Bay Basin. The Kenxi area exhibits two typical fault-reworked geomorphologies (i.e. slope geomorphology with weak reworking and fault-trough geomorphology with strong reworking), which control the development of fan depositional architecture dominated by turbidity current and fault-confined channel depositional architecture dominated by mixed traction current and turbidity current, respectively. These turbidite systems indicate that they are connected to flood occurrence based on systematic lithofacies analysis. Nevertheless, two distinct sediment grain sizes and drainages have been formed and may be related to fault confinement and slope gradients. Additionally, we propose conceptual fault linkage models that regulate drainage and the dispersion of sand bodies, highlighting the effects of fault evolution stages and separation distance on local geomorphology. First, the region with relatively unconfined geomorphology, dominated by non-separated faults in the soft linkage stage, is where lobe deposits are more likely to have formed. The relay ramps, shaped by separated faults in the soft linkage stage, control the direction of the transportation of sediments in the proximal area. Second, the distribution of fault-confined channels is laterally confined by long extended fault-trough geomorphology formed following hard linkage by non-separated faults. The local footwall hump (i.e. local topographic high) formed in an overlapped zone by separated faults provides frontal confinement for sand bodies in the hard linkage stage. This study reveals that in addition to onshore river systems, the architecture and distribution of deep-water turbidite systems are significantly influenced by fault interaction and linkage patterns. Meanwhile, it provides a new model for facilitating the prediction of the reservoir distribution of turbidite systems in the slope zone of rift basins.

FDI and Firm Productivity: A Comprehensive Review of Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Models

This paper reviews the literature on foreign direct investment (FDI), productivity, and technology upgrading, with a focus on macroeconomic and microeconomic models. It compares the performance of various models used to study FDI and its effects on firms’ productivity, via skill and technology upgrading, offshoring, institutional quality, and other related factors. This review highlights the differences and similarities between macroeconomic and microeconomic models, their empirical strategies, and their ability to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms through which FDI affects productivity and other variables. The empirical literature on the impact of FDI on the productivity of local firms is derived from association studies, which use a neoclassic production function and an augmented Solow-type equation. These models have been shown to be inadequate in capturing the dynamic and complex nature of FDI and the associated externalities, particularly vertical externalities. This paper identifies three criticisms of the literature on pecuniary externalities, including a lack of models that focus specifically on the mechanism of forward linkages, inadequate measures to assess linkage effects, and the failure to include crucial determinant factors in empirical models. Overall, this paper calls for more comprehensive and nuanced models that incorporate the dynamic and complex nature of FDI and its externalities.

William George Hill. 7 August 1940—17 December 2021

William (Bill) Hill was an internationally acclaimed statistical, population and quantitative geneticist. His work was inspired by practical problems in animal breeding, but is widely applicable to evolutionary biology and human genetics. Bill's work focused on the joint effects of linkage, mutation and genetic architecture in finite populations. He showed that linked loci under selection can interfere with each other, reducing the rate of response to selection. He derived a widely used metric for linkage disequilibrium and showed that there is likely to be substantial linkage disequilibrium between closely linked variants in finite populations. He also showed that the sampling variance of linkage disequilibrium is very large, hampering its use in estimating effective population size or recombination rates. Bill derived sampling variances for inbreeding and realized relatedness between individuals with the same expected degree of relatedness. He raised awareness about the importance of new mutations for quantitative genetic variation and the response to artificial selection, and developed models for the maintenance of quantitative genetic variation by a balance between mutation and stabilizing selection. His experimental designs for estimating heritability and conducting artificial selection experiments have been widely adopted, and were utilized in his own long-term mouse selection experiments. Bill influenced animal breeding directly through consultancies with breeding companies, and his influence on quantitative genetics continues today via his numerous mentees.

Improved Structural Stability of Charged Hydrogels under Organic CO2 Reduction Products: Effect of Acrylate and Methacrylate Backbone Linkages

Understanding the mixed solute transport behavior of CO2 reduction products (methanol and formate) in ion exchange membranes (IEMs) is of interest for CO2 reduction cells (CO2RCs). The role of an IEM in a typical CO2RC is to suppress the crossover of all CO2 reduction products while allowing the transport of electrolytes. Tuning the polymer rigidity of the membrane is a key contributor to such highly controlled transport of organic solutes in a dense hydrated membrane. Here, we investigate the mixed solute transport behavior of methanol and formate in a series of tough phenyl acrylate-based cross-linked IEMs. We then investigate the effects of a structural modification on mixed solute transport behavior by introducing quaternary carbons within the membrane. We measured the relative permittivity properties of swollen films to determine if the water hydrogen bonding environment within the IEMs, which is related to maintaining selective ion transport within the membrane (electrolytes over CO2 reduction products), was impacted by various organic solutes. We observed films with methacrylate backbone linkages have effectively constant relative permittivities when exposed to solutions containing methanol, formate, and a mix thereof. These findings may assist in designing membranes for applications, including CO2 reduction cells and water–organic separation.

Economic Policy Uncertainty: Cross-Country Linkages and Spillover Effects on Economic Development in Some Belt and Road Countries.

With the increase of economic environment uncertainty, it is of great importance to study the linkage and spillover effects of economic policy uncertainty among countries. Especially, this article selects eight countries along the Belt and Road as the core countries (China, Korea, Croatia, India, Russia, Greece, Pakistan, and Singapore) and four countries (Germany, France, Japan, and UK) as the peripheral countries, and then copula technique and mixed-frequency global vector autoregressive model are employed to analyze the correlation and the spillover effect of the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) for the twelve selected countries, respectively. The proposed empirical findings show clearly that the EPU correlation among the eight core Belt and Road countries is stronger and the spillover effect of the core countries to the peripheral countries is statistically significant. As a result, for harmonious and win-win development, the Belt and Road countries should pay a close attention to the EPU, because the stability of the EPU promotes greatly the economy development.

The divergence of mean phenotypes under persistent directional selection.

Numerous organismal traits, particularly at the cellular level, are likely to be under persistent directional selection across phylogenetic lineages. Unless all mutations affecting such traits have large enough effects to be efficiently selected in all species, gradients in mean phenotypes are expected to arise as a consequence of differences in the power of random genetic drift, which varies by approximately five orders of magnitude across the Tree of Life. Prior theoretical work examining the conditions under which such gradients can arise focused on the simple situation in which all genomic sites affecting the trait have identical and constant mutational effects. Here, we extend this theory to incorporate the more biologically realistic situation in which mutational effects on a trait differ among nucleotide sites. Pursuit of such modifications leads to the development of semi-analytic expressions for the ways in which selective interference arises via linkage effects in single-effects models, which then extend to more complex scenarios. The theory developed clarifies the conditions under which mutations of different selective effects mutually interfere with each others' fixation and shows how variance in effects among sites can substantially modify and extend the expected scaling relationships between mean phenotypes and effective population sizes.

Determinants of rapid adaptation in species with large variance in offspring production.

The speed of population adaptation to changing biotic and abiotic environments is determined by the interaction between genetic drift, positive selection and linkage effects. Many marine species (fish, crustaceans), invertebrates and pathogens of humans and crops, exhibit sweepstakes reproduction characterized by the production of a very large amount of offspring (fecundity phase) from which only a small fraction may survive to the next generation (viability phase). Using stochastic simulations, we investigate whether the occurrence of sweepstakes reproduction affects the efficiency of a positively selected unlinked locus, and thus, the speed of adaptation since fecundity and/or viability have distinguishable consequences on mutation rate, probability and fixation time of advantageous alleles. We observe that the mean number of mutations at the next generation is always the function of the population size, but the variance increases with stronger sweepstakes reproduction when mutations occur in the parents. On the one hand, stronger sweepstakes reproduction magnifies the effect of genetic drift thus increasing the probability of fixation of neutral allele and decreasing that of selected alleles. On the other hand, the time to fixation of advantageous (as well as neutral) alleles is shortened by stronger sweepstakes reproduction. Importantly, fecundity and viability selection exhibit different probabilities and times to fixation of advantageous alleles under intermediate and weak sweepstakes reproduction. Finally, alleles under both strong fecundity and viability selection display a synergistic efficiency of selection. We conclude that measuring and modelling accurately fecundity and/or viability selection are crucial to predict the adaptive potential of species with sweepstakes reproduction.

The influence of tourism and hospitality students’ perceived effectiveness of outcome-based education on their VUCA skills

The mismatch between supply and demand in the tourism and hospitality labor markets becomes increasingly serious in the past few years. The main reason for such a problem is that tourism and hospitality students are equipped with academic knowledge but lack VUCA skills. VUCA are the acronyms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. However, little research has explored the antecedent mechanism of tourism and hospitality students’ VUCA skills. Hence, the purpose of the present study is to clarify the leading factors that would enhance tourism and hospitality students’ perceived VUCA skills. This study collected data by distributing questionnaires to senior students majoring in tourism and hospitality management (THM) from five universities in China. The results show: First, students’ perceived the effectiveness of outcome-based education (PEOBE) has a significant effect on their perceived VUCA skills and self-concept including cognitive self-concept (CSC) and affective self-concept (ASC). Second, THM students’ CSC is positively related to their perceived VUCA skills. Finally, the relevance of ASC and students’ perceived VUCA skills was not significant. The present study further justified that PEOBE is the prepositive variable of THM students’ cognitive self-concept, supporting the linkage effect of “PEOBE → CSC → self-efficiency → perceived VUCA skills”. From the practical implications, this study focuses on OBE as the entry point to explore the antecedent mechanism of THM students’ perceived VUCA skills, supplying a basic formulation of educational reform policies for the administrative department of higher education around the world.

Diversification effects of China's carbon neutral bond on renewable energy stock markets: A minimum connectedness portfolio approach

Socially responsible investment (SRI) is becoming increasingly popular in China, with the announcement of carbon dioxide peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 (30–60 targets). As a conventional underlying asset of SRI, renewable energy stocks are attractive, but with higher price volatility than many other traditional industrial stocks. This paper aims to investigate the interaction and diversification effects of China's Carbon Neutral Bond (CNB), a new SRI underlying asset just launched in 2021, on renewable energy stocks using a novel minimum connectedness portfolio approach recently proposed by Broadstock et al. (2020). The empirical results show that, first, China's CNB is weakly related to renewable energy stocks, whether in the time or frequency domain, and is the main recipient of the net linkage effect. Second, different renewable energy stocks benefit differently from the diversification effect of CNB. However, in extreme market conditions, the diversification effect of the CNB is reduced. Third, the newly developed minimum connectedness portfolio approach can outperform traditional minimum variance and correlation methods by achieving higher cumulative portfolio returns. Finally, the Sharpe ratios of renewable energy stock portfolios with CNB are significantly higher than those without it across different allocation methods. These findings have important implications for policy makers and SRI investors.