The Impact of Air Quality on Inbound Tourist Arrivals over China Based on Grey Relational Analysis

Air pollution has a significant impact on tourism; however, research in this area is still limited. In this study, we applied grey relational analysis to panel data from 31 provinces in China and evaluated the relationship between air quality and inbound tourist arrivals. The study focused on provincial-level disparities for the different key air quality evaluation standards during 2009–2012 and 2013–2019. For instance, we considered PM10, SO2, NO2 and the excellent and good ratings of Air Pollution Index (API) during 2009–2012 and the additional PM2.5, CO, O3 and the excellent and good ratings of Air Quality Index (AQI) from 2013 to 2019. Results indicate that: (1) Inbound tourist arrivals are significantly and positively affected by ambient air quality, and the impact from 2013 to 2019 was greater than that from 2009 to 2012; (2) there is regional diversity in inbound tourist arrivals, and the impact of the different air quality indicators varies; (3) inbound tourists showed greater sensitivity to air pollution under the AQI standard; (4) the impact of air quality indicators on the inbound tourist arrivals shows grey relational order, and the concentration of PM2.5, PM10 and SO2 have less impact than NO2, CO and O3 on changes in tourism numbers; (5) consistency in the air quality impact on foreign tourists and compatriot tourists from HK, MO and TW varies by air quality indicators. This study highlights the need for appropriate measures to improve air quality for high-quality and sustainable development of inbound tourism.

Time and Life in the Relational Universe: Prolegomena to an Integral Paradigm of Natural Philosophy

Relational ideas for our description of the natural world can be traced to the concept of Anaxagoras on the multiplicity of basic particles, later called “homoiomeroi” by Aristotle, that constitute the Universe and have the same nature as the whole world. Leibniz viewed the Universe as an infinite set of embodied logical essences called monads, which possess inner view, compute their own programs and perform mathematical transformations of their qualities, independently of all other monads. In this paradigm, space appears as a relational order of co-existences and time as a relational order of sequences. The relational paradigm was recognized in physics as a dependence of the spatiotemporal structure and its actualization on the observer. In the foundations of mathematics, the basic logical principles are united with the basic geometrical principles that are generic to the unfolding of internal logic. These principles appear as universal topological structures (“geometric atoms”) shaping the world. The decision-making system performs internal quantum reduction which is described by external observers via the probability function. In biology, individual systems operate as separate relational domains. The wave function superposition is restricted within a single domain and does not expand outside it, which corresponds to the statement of Leibniz that “monads have no windows”.

The Gray Relation Analysis of Non-Coal Mine Accidents Causation

The Gray Relation Analysis is applied to the casualty analysis of non-coal mine accident in four certain years in China to export grey relational order to determine the main related factors in the non-coal mine accident, obtaining quantitative analysis results of the relationship between non-coal mine accident and multiple factors, introducing the concept of mine accident risk correlation degree.

Young children in Kyrgyzstan: Agency in tight hierarchical structures

This article focuses on preschool children in Kyrgyzstan, a poor country of the former Soviet union. What are children’s views on the relational order in this transition society, and what is their contribution to the reproduction or challenging of this order? The authors use and elaborate the theoretical concepts of ‘agency’ and ‘collectivism-individualism’ to develop age-appropriate research instruments and to interpret children’s views. Data were collected in a mixed-method field study. The presented results show children’s agency in a tight hierarchical structure, revealing both complicity and self-assertion, occasionally resulting in opposition.

Directed, ordered and related: The male and female interpersonal relation in Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics

This article examines Karl Barth's conception of the interpersonal relation of male and female and demonstrates that, although Barth superimposes the concept of order within the Trinity onto the specific interpersonal relation of male and female, there is provision within his anthropology concerning interpersonal relations in general (i.e. interpersonal relations which are irrespective of sexual distinctions) to correct this error. I focus on Barth's exegesis of the creation narratives in Church Dogmatics III/1 and his discussion of the interpersonal relation of male and female in Church Dogmatics III/4. Then, because of Barth's principle of analogia relationis, I will briefly examine his doctrine of the Trinity in Church Dogmatics I/1. Whereas the role of christology in Barth's anthropology is frequently highlighted, there is often little regard for the trinitarian grounding of Barth's anthropology, especially with regard to the interpersonal relation of male and female. Finally, I will look at Barth's discussion of interpersonal relations in general in Church Dogmatics III/2 where he delineates a principle of the ‘priority of the other’, which serves to redeem his anthropological statements on the humanity of male and female. I contend that the recognition of the imago Dei in the interpersonal relation of male and female, sustained by the priority of the other, is a better way to achieve the personhood of both sexes than Barth's proposed static relational order.