The impact of Chinese airport infrastructure on airline pollutant emissions: A hybrid stochastic-neural network approach based on utility functions

With China being the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and its aviation sector burgeoning, the environmental performance of Chinese airlines has global significance. Amidst rising demands for eco-friendly practices from both customers and regulators, the interplay between airport infrastructure and environmental performance becomes pivotal. This research offers an innovative methodology to gauge the environmental performance of Chinese airlines, emphasizing the distance traveled between airports using weighted additive utility functions. Leveraging neural networks, the study investigates the impact of various airport infrastructural characteristics on environmental performance. Noteworthy findings indicate that ground control measures, automatic information services at origin airports, surface concrete on runways at both ends, and a centerline lighting system in destination airports positively influence environmental performance. In contrast, longer and wider runways at origin airports, increased distances to control towers, and asphalt runways at destination airports adversely affect it. These insights not only underscore the importance of strategic infrastructure enhancements for reducing carbon footprints but also hold profound policy implications. As global climate change remains at the forefront, fostering sustainable airport infrastructure in China can significantly contribute to worldwide mitigation efforts.

Dynamic assessment of economic and environmental performance index and generation, composition, environmental and human health risks of hospital solid waste in developing countries; A state of the art of review

Many studies have been conducted on hospital solid waste management (HSWM) throughout the world, especially developing countries. This interdisciplinary study aims to summarize the available knowledge on the health and environmental risks of hospital solid waste (HSW) and also, develop a dynamic associational assessment among hospital solid waste generation rate (HSWGR), hospital solid waste composition (HSWC), gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and environmental performance index (EPI) in some developing countries for the first time. The results of this study showed that researchers from India, China, Pakistan, Brazil, and Iran had found more evidence about the health, economic, and environmental issues in HSW than the other developing countries. The literature showed that the highest and lowest reported HSWGR (in national average level) belonged to Ethiopia (6.03) and India (0.24) kg bed ^-1 day^-1, respectively. It has also been shown that all studied countries except Serbia, have higher levels of hazardous waste in their HSWC, based on the WHO's standard. Furthermore, the quantity and quality of HSW in developing countries depend on the service provided by the hospital, type of hospital, HSWM system, and the level of regional economic and culture. The association analysis showed that the EPI and GDP per capita of developing countries were significantly (p-value <0.05) associated with HSWGR, non-hazardous HSW, and hazardous HSW by the Spearman coefficients equal to 0.389, 0.118, -0.118, and 0.122, 0.216, and -0.346, respectively. However, it can be concluded that GDP per capita and EPI have a weak correlation with hazardous HSW and non-hazardous HSW. Moreover, HSW has many hazardous health and environmental risks such as dioxin and furan, that must be controlled and managed through implementing programs and policies based on sustainable development. As a final point, we believed that the present study can be considered to be a guide for future studies on HSWM in developing countries.