ABSTRACT
With the rapid development of information technology, the concept of e-commerce has entered thousands of households, especially since the outbreak of COVID-19, fresh products are sparing no effort to join the trend of online shopping. This paper mainly summarizes phase change materials' application and development prospects in fresh e-commerce cold chain logistics. By introducing the basic conditions of phase change temperature, heat conduction, and shape of organic phase change materials, inorganic phase change materials, and composite phase change materials, the advantages of composite phase change materials are compared. The practical application progress of composite phase change materials in the fresh e-commerce cold chain logistics process is reviewed. Composite phase change materials are widely used in “storage” and “last mile” in the cold chain logistics process of fresh e-commerce, and their application in pre-cooling and transportation will be the future research direction.
ABSTRACT
This paper integrates a low-carbon tourism supply chain consisting of a low-carbon tourist attraction (LTA) providing a low-carbon service and an online travel agency (OTA) responsible for big data marketing. Consumers may also encounter sudden crisis events that occur in the tourist attraction during their visit, and the occurrence of crisis events can damage the low-carbon goodwill of the tourist attraction to the detriment of the sustainable development of the supply chain. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate how tourism firms can develop dynamic strategies in the pre-crisis environment if they envision the occurrence of a crisis event and how crisis events affect interfirm cooperation. This paper uses stochastic jump processes to portray the dynamic evolution of low-carbon goodwill in the context of crisis events and introduces the methods of the differential game and Bellman’s continuous dynamic programming theory to study the sustainable operations of low-carbon tourism supply chains. Our findings provide important managerial insights for enterprises in the tourism supply chain and suggest that they need to not only become aware of the tourist attraction crisis events, but also, more importantly, they need to adjust their appropriate input strategies based on the degree of anticipation of the crisis.
ABSTRACT
Background This study primarily aimed to evaluate the associations between mental distress and COVID-19-related changes in behavioral outcomes, and potential modifiers (age, gender, and educational attainment) of such associations.Methods An online survey using anonymous network sampling was conducted in China during April-May, 2020 using a 74-item questionnaire distributed through social media. A national sample of 10,545 adults in 31 provinces provided data on socio-demographic characteristics, COVID-19-related mental distress, and changes in behavioral outcomes. Structural equation models were used for data analyses.Results About 13% of adults reported experiencing at least one symptom of mental distress. After adjusting for covariates, greater mental distress was associated with increased smoking and alcohol consumption (among current smokers and drinkers) and with both increased and decreased physical activity. Underweight adults were more likely to lose body weight (≥ 1 kg) whereas overweight adults were more likely to gain weight by the same amount. Association between mental distress and change in physical activity was stronger in adults aged 40 and above and those with high education.Conclusions Mental distress was associated with increased smoking in males but not females. These findings inform the design of tailored public health interventions aimed to mitigate long-term negative consequences of mental distress on outcomes.