Safety accident analysis of power transmission and substation projects based on association rule mining.

To achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of power transmission and substation project construction, statistical analysis was used to provide an outline of safety accidents, the 4M1E method was applied for sorting out and analyzing the risk factors, and the Apriori algorithm was carried out for exploring the intrinsic interaction among risk factors based on association rule mining. The results showed that the safety accidents that happen in the construction of power transmission and substation projects were not much frequent, but deadly; the process of foundation construction and high fall was the most accident-prone process and injury type respectively. In addition, human behaviors were the foremost factors leading to accidents, and there was a strong correlation among the risk factors of low project management level, lack of safety awareness, and poor risk identification ability. For improving the security situation, measures should be taken for controlling human factors, performing flexible management, and strengthening safety training. In further research, more detailed and diversified accident reports and case data should be analyzed, and more consideration should be put on the weighted risk factor analysis to obtain more comprehensive and objective safety accident analysis results for power transmission and substation projects. This study highlights the risks in power transmission and substation project construction and introduces a novel method for better analyzing the intrinsic interaction among risk factors, which provides theoretical support for related departments to conduct sustainable safety management.

The Impact of Foreign Trade on Health Inequality in China: Evidence From China Family Panel Studies (CFPS).

Objectives: To assess the health inequality caused by foreign trade in China using individual self-rated health data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Methods: The GMM model was used to explore the direct and indirect effects of foreign trade on health level, and the concentration index method was then used to decompose the contribution of foreign trade to health inequality. Results: The direct effect of foreign trade does not contribute to the current health inequality, although the indirect effects of trade contribute to health inequality through inequalities in income and healthcare utilization. The indirect pollution effect of trade does not cause health inequality. Subsequently, the direct effect of trade aggravates the dynamic expansion trend of health inequality, whereas the indirect effects of trade alleviate the increasing trend of health inequality. Conclusion: Although foreign trade improves the overall health level in China, it contributes to health inequality. Optimizing product structure of trade, adjusting income distribution, and enhancing medical securities for low-income groups are necessary to alleviate the health inequality caused by foreign trade.

Policy Effects of Ecological Red Lines on Industrial Upgrading and Health Promotion: Evidence From China Based on DID Model.

The implementation of the Ecological Red Lines (ERL) policy in China is under the background that natural resources have been immoderately exploited for serving rapid economic growth in the last 40 years, where the ecosystem's degradation happened and people's health could be affected. As the secondary industry is the contribution source of rapid growth as well as the threat source that threatens the natural environment and public health, the delimitation of ERL can act as a legal restriction that forces the industries to control the emissions and to upgrade the industrial composition. This paper conducts an ex-post policy evaluation on the improvement effects of industrial structure and residents' health and through ERL's pilot scheme in four provinces of China. By using the difference-in-differences (DID) method, the estimation results show that: (1) The industrial upgrading effect exists but to a small extent, as the ERL policy has generally elevated the tertiary industry's output by only 0.033% and hardly shown any promotion effects on the ratio of the tertiary industry to secondary industry; (2) The residents' health has been significantly improved by 1.029% after ERL policy on the whole, and enhanced over time mostly; (3) The health promotion effects are similar among three out of the four pilot provinces, whereas the industrial upgrading effects performed large heterogeneities among the four. These empirical results may provide references for the wider extension of ERL policy with more practical execution solutions in developing economies.

Did an Ultra-Low Emissions Policy on Coal-Fueled Thermal Power Reduce the Harmful Emissions? Evidence from Three Typical Air Pollutants Abatement in China.

Thermal power generation based on coal-fired power plants has the advantages of stability and controllability and has been the largest source of electricity supply in China. Coal-fired power plants, however, are also accompanied by high carbon emissions and the release of harmful substances (mainly including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and smoke dust), and are even regarded as the "chief criminal" in terms of air pollution. However, thermal power is also a pioneering industry involved in several environmental regulations and cleaner production techniques before other industries. Evidence of this is China's ultra-low emissions (ULE) policy on coal-fired power plants, implemented in 2015. To verify this policy's effect, this study treats ULE as an exogenous impact variable, examining its emissions reduction effect on SO2, NOx, and smoke dust in Eastern and Central China using the difference-in-difference method (DID). The results show that the total emissions of the three pollutants were abated by 0.133%, 0.057% and 0.036% in Eastern, and by 0.120%, 0.035% and 0.043% in Central China at every 1% rise of thermal power generated after ULE. In addition, several other factors can also argue for the promotion of thermal power. Other industries, such as steel or chemical, have proven that they can contribute significant SO2 and NOx emissions. Based on these results, we provide suggestions on synergistic emissions reduction among multiple industries, as well as a discussion on the necessity of implementing ULE in Western China.