As a strategic mineral resource, nickel is widely used in the production of such products as alloys, electroplating, batteries and catalysts. With the rapid development of the new energy vehicle industry in recent years, the global demand for nickel metal has increased significantly. In this context, studying the evolution of global nickel trade patterns and its resilience is vital for obtaining an in-depth understanding the global nickel supply chain system. Therefore, taking international nickel trade as the research object, this paper constructs a long-time series global nickel trade network dataset, portrays the spatiotemporal patterns of the global nickel trade network, explores the topological structure of the global nickel trade network, and investigate the resilience changes of the global nickel trade network to deepen the knowledge of the global nickel trade system and supply chain security. The main research findings include the following: ①Global nickel trade volumes show a change in trend from one of rapid growth to one of stable development. ②Global nickel trade patterns have undergone an obvious spatial reconfiguration process, with the network's scale, density and linkage first rising rapidly and then diverging while showing a pattern of concentration in a few core countries. China has become the world's largest nickel importer and trader. ③The global nickel trade network shows clear hierarchical structures, with China, Germany, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Canada having high centrality and the major nickel importing countries having an important position in and being the core hubs of the global nickel trade network.④The global nickel trade network is characterized by prominent core–periphery structures and the ratio of core to peripheral countries basically remains stable, but the coreness of individual countries experiences structural changes. ⑤The resilience of the global nickel trade network shows a decreasing trend, with a few nodes and edges playing key roles for network connectivity. Finally, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions to promote international cooperation in global nickel trade and maintain the stability of the global nickel supply chain.

Ethnic proximity is considered a key factor contributing to the success of overseas Chinese businesses. Economic geographers often lean towards utilizing Chinese business networks as representative cases of relational proximity. Nevertheless, due to rapidly changing circumstances, overseas Chinese entrepreneurs are presently engaged in a proactive transformation of their businesses, and the influencing mechanism of ethnic proximity is also undergoing change. Based on the relational perspective of Relational Economic Geography and the multidimensional proximity theory of Evolutionary Economic Geography, this paper explores the dynamics of relational-geographical proximity patterns in Chinese business in response to changing circumstances. To understand the dynamics of relational-geographical proximity adopted by Chinese entrepreneurs, this paper studies two cases of overseas Chinese business: a traditional Chinese retail company in Italy and an online retail company in the USA. The finding reveals that their relational-geographic proximity patterns are both changing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethnic proximity facilitates the development of overseas Chinese business. However, when the previous pattern of ethnic proximity fails to cope with a public crisis, overseas Chinese entrepreneurs demonstrate adaptability by steering their business from ethnic proximity towards ethnic distance. Furthermore, overseas Chinese build ethnic proximity with diverse groups of actors, such as suppliers, employees, and customers. Differences in actors of ethnic proximity and firms' industrial characteristics lead to different transformation directions, either geographic proximity or geographic distance. The crisis-induced transformation of overseas Chinese businesses, fundamentally, is a result of the changing roles of ethnic proximity in cognitive, organizational, social, and institutional dimensions, which in turn lead to the changing relational-geographic proximity patterns adopted by firms. The contribution of this paper is to propose a multidimensional relational-geographical proximity framework and reveal the diversity and dynamics of the impact mechanism of ethnic proximity on overseas Chinese business by integrating research on non-geographic proximity from Relational Economic Geography and Evolutionary Economic Geography. It represents a positive cross-application of Relational Economic Geography and Evolutionary Economic Geography.

Social modernization is a core component of national modernization. The progress of promoting social modernization in China can be divided into three stages: the exploration stage, rapid development stage, and steady improvement stage. Chinese-style social modernization exhibits five major characteristics: it is rooted in a massive population base, guided by the goal of achieving shared prosperity for all, seeking the unity of economic development and social progress under resource constraints, and advocating for cultural cooperation and win-win development for humanity and peace. Building on the universal characteristics of social modernization evolution, a five-dimensional evaluation index system for social modernization has been proposed. These dimensions encompass technological and educational modernization, health and wellness modernization, cultural, tourism, and sports modernization, modernization in social governance and social security, and modernization of quality of life. Social modernization indices have been conducted for 60 countries in typical years, yielding the following results: Firstly, the process of social modernization has significantly accelerated in Asian and South American countries from 2000 to 2020. Secondly, Oceania and Europe exhibit the highest levels of social modernization, while Africa lags behind; Countries at the forefront of social modernization have maintained relative stability. Thirdly, China has achieved substantial progress in social modernization, with a notable reduction in the relative gap compared to leading countries worldwide since 2000. Finally, modernization in technology and education, as well as quality of life, represents weak areas in China's social modernization, and social governance and social security perform relatively better than other domains from a sectoral perspective. The four pathways to enhance China's level of social modernization, are to continue improving people's quality of life, accelerate technological innovation and talent development, vigorously implement the Healthy China strategy, and continually innovate social governance methods.

Viral hepatitis is one of the significant global disease burdens, and revealing its spatial patterns and influencing factors holds vital significance for reducing the disease burden caused by hepatitis. Based on global viral hepatitis mortality data, utilizing methods such as standard deviation ellipses, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and geographic detectors, this study investigates the spatiotemporal variation characteristics and influencing factors of global viral hepatitis from 2000 to 2019. The findings indicate: ①Global hepatitis mortality counts have remained relatively stable over the long term, while the mortality rate has shown a significant decline. ②There is a notable spatial disparity in hepatitis mortality rates, with hotspots concentrated in underdeveloped regions such as Africa and South Asia, while coldspots are concentrated in developed regions like Europe and the Americas. ③Countries and regions with high mortality rates experience significantly faster declines in mortality rates compared to those with lower mortality rates.④Various influencing factors exhibit spatial correlation or spatial effects on hepatitis mortality rate, among which the prevalence of hepatitis B and C, smoking rate, and indoor and ambient air pollution significantly affect hepatitis mortality rate. For countries with lower income, prioritizing economic development to enhance healthcare services is crucial for reducing mortality rates. The research findings of this paper can provide scientific basis and theoretical support for optimizing the allocation of healthcare resources, improving healthcare service quality, and lowering viral hepatitis mortality rates.

Taking the trade network between Caribbean countries and major powers as the research object, selects bilateral import and export trade data between the Caribbean countries and related major powers from 2001 to 2021, uses the social network analysis method to quantitatively study the degree of centrality and structural equivalence of the trade network between Caribbean countries and major powers, measures the economic dependence of Caribbean countries on major powers, and uses QAP regression model to explore GDP, population, distance, language, trade agreements and government efficiency index on the evolution of trade networks. Research has shown that:1)During the research period, the trade network density approached 1, and the trade intensity of the whole network continued to increase; The main trading partner of Caribbean countries is the United States, and the economic strength of countries within the network is severely uneven; There are differences in the roles of the six major countries (China, the United States, Russia, France, the Netherlands, and the UK) and the two major groups of Caribbean countries in the trade network. In comparison, the structures of Caribbean countries tend to be more similar, with greater similarity in roles and more similarity in trade partners. And the similarity between major countries is significantly lower than that of Caribbean countries. 2)At present, Caribbean countries have a high degree of economic dependence on the United States, but their economic dependence on China is deepening, and their dependence on Russia, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom is relatively close and remains low and stable. 3)GDP, population, common language and whether to sign an FTA have a significant positive impact on the evolution of this trade network; Geographical distance has a significant negative impact.

Singapore has made remarkable achievements in promoting national construction and economic development with its continuous educational transformation. Geography, as one of the core humanities subjects in basic education, deserves our attention. With the help of content analysis, this paper systematically combs the logic and dynamic mechanism of the development of geography education in Singapore. The findings are as follows: ① Geography education in Singapore has experienced descriptive geography teaching with regional geography as the core, conceptual geography teaching with systematic geography as the leading, thematic geography teaching with environmental education as the important content, and exploratory geography teaching with sustainable development as the main aim; ② The geography education in Singapore is driven by the global environmental crisis, the paradigm transformation of the geography discipline, and the reform of educational policies, to realize the innovation of the geography education system; ③ Taking the development of geography education in Singapore as inspiration, it is proposed that the development of geography education in China should fully integrate into sustainable development education, attach importance to geographical inquiry and connect with academic geography.

The rapid rise of digital economies has generated complex impacts on the spatial organization of economic activities, which has raised new issues for the research of urban networks. Taking the e-sports industry as a case, this paper investigates the spatial structure and impacting factors of China's urban network under the influence of the digital economy. It first collects information on the participating teams in the four major e-sports events in China from 2013 to 2022 to reveal the spatial structure of the e-sports-based urban network using the method of social network analysis. After that, the paper adopts the method of ridge regression analysis to explore the main factors affecting the geographic pattern of this inter-city network. The results of this study show that: 1) China's e-sports-based urban network generally shows a trend of continuous expansion, forming a "core-periphery" structure with Shanghai as the primary center and Beijing as the sub-center. The spatial diffusion of the urban network is relatively limited, whereas the proportion of inter-city connections is gradually increasing, which reflects the dual impacts of the digital economy on the organization of urban networks. 2) The connecting network between the cities where the events are held and the cities where the teams are located shows a relatively obvious hierarchical structure, while the connecting network between the cities where the teams are located shows a more evident trend of diffusion, indicating the divergent locational patterns of e-sports events and e-sports teams. 3) Local policies and urbanization economies are the main factors that shape the spatial structure of urban networks, while the impacts of localization economies and urban amenities are not obvious, reflecting the specialities of the e-sports industry in terms of its developmental stage and mechanism of talent generation in China. The results of this paper offer a new perspective for understanding the geographical reconstruction of urban networks in the context of digital economy, and also provide a reference for the formulation of urban digital economy development policies.

Under the constraint of the "dual carbon" goal, carbon emission reduction is an important strategic task for China to optimize the path of sustainable development. Based on the panel data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2003 to 2019,this paper conducted quasi-natural experiments on carbon trading pilot policy. Synthetic control method and difference-indifference model were used to evaluate the impact and mechanism of carbon trading pilot policy on carbon emission intensity, and the spatial spillover effect of policy space was further investigated. The results are as follows:① Carbon trading pilot policy can significantly reduce carbon emission intensity in each pilot region. ②The effect of carbon trading market mechanism on carbon emission reduction is limited, and government intervention is needed as a strong guarantee. At the same time, carbon emission intensity can also be significantly reduced by developing green finance and encouraging technological innovation.③The spatial and temporal distribution of carbon emission intensity has a significant positive correlation; In addition, on the basis of restraining the local carbon emission intensity, the pilot carbon trading policy also restrains the neighboring regions through spatial spillover effect.

The layout and construction of a batch of regional science and technology innovation centers is an important strategic arrangement for China's innovation-driven development strategy entering the second stage. The prerequisite for selecting cities as regional technological innovation center candidates is a topic of significant interest. Urban agglomerations are incubators of innovation, and the 19 urban agglomerations planned for development in China will become the engines of regional development, and also shoulder the main driving force of regional scientific and technological innovation. This paper puts forward the selection idea of "cultivating the core cities of urban agglomerations as regional science and technology innovation centers", selects the core cities of urban agglomerations by using the data of scientific and technological cooperation relations between cities in urban agglomerations from 2016 to 2020, and evaluates the radiation capacity of the core cities by entropy weight method. The research shows that the radiation capacity of core cities has obvious spatial heterogeneity, and the eastern region is obviously higher than the central and western regions. The core cities in the three major urban agglomerations play a good role in driving radiation, while the core cities in many urban agglomerations have not played a full role in driving radiation. It can be cultivated according to the construction mode of "single core", "double core" and "multi-center" regional science and technology innovation center. Making full use of the scientific and technological innovation foundation and connection of urban agglomeration contributes to realizing the radiation-driving effect of science and technology innovation center on regional innovation, and provides a new way of thinking for the construction of regional science and technology innovation center nationwide.

This study constructs a network of the Chinese game industry based on enterprise relations (2010—2020). Using kernel density estimation, social network analysis, and spatial autocorrelation, it explores the network structure, spatial distribution, and their correlation. The findings are: ①Game industry clusters exist at both city and regional levels; ②Three correlation patterns between spatial distribution and networks: developed local and external networks with high concentration; weak local, strong external networks with high concentration; weak networks with low concentration; ③In regions like Chengmai and Shenyang, weak local networks show no correlation with spatial distribution due to short development histories, weak foundations, and differing industrial focuses.

The top 1000 towns in finance in China from 2013 to 2020, the study analyzes spatial distribution characteristics and spatial and temporal changes of the top 1000 towns in finance by means of spatial autocorrelation analysis and average nearest neighbor analysis, and uses the geographic weighted regression and other methods to explore its influencing factors. The results show that: ① From the perspective of spatial distribution, it shows obvious characteristics of sea-trending. The top 1000 towns in finance present a spatial distribution pattern of "the core area of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Pearl River Delta, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong and other scattered distribution areas". In terms of frequency scale of the top 1000 towns in finance, the performance of the top 1000 towns in finance in the eastern region is significantly better than that of the western region, and the high-level economic zones such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta have high frequency and are relatively stable. ② From the perspective of entry and exit, it is mainly the result of the increase and decrease of villages and towns in the enclosed sea area and the relatively low comprehensive effect of the villages and towns in the northwest. ③ From the perspective of the ellipse range and the center of gravity reflecting the standard deviation, the range is generally expanding and the center of gravity moves northwestward. From the perspective of spatial tilt affecting the change of ellipse range, it is mainly the result of the increase and decrease of villages and towns in the enclosed sea area and the relatively low comprehensive effect of the villages and towns in the northwest. ④ From the perspective of spatial concentration, the R index generally shows a downward trend, showing the further enhancement of the concentration degree of towns in finance in space. From the spatial local LISA agglomeration map, significant HH area is mainly distributed in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration and local cities extending north to southern Jiangsu and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Significant LL area mainly forms a cluster area with Yunnan as the core, scattered in Chongqing and Hebei. ⑤ From the perspective of influencing factors, industrial potential, population support, and economic environment have a high degree of explanation of the top 1000 towns in finance. Urbanization, interpretation of elevation, and potential environment are the secondary important factors, while the business vitality, land environment, and have less explanatory power.

Tourists' pro-environmental behavior is a key factor affecting the sustainable development of natural heritage sites, and the correlation between individual physical and mental state and the external environment is an important prerequisite for affecting the environmental behavior of tourists in natural heritage sites. Under the guidance of embodied theory, this study integrates recreation involvement, self-efficacy, emotional involvement and pro-environmental behavior into the research framework, takes self-efficacy as the intermediary factor and emotional involvement as the adjustment factor, constructs the driving model of recreation involvement and pro-environmental behavior of tourists in natural heritage sites under the embodied situation, and takes Libo World Natural Heritage Site in Guizhou as a case study. The results show that in the context of natural heritage tourism, recreation involvement has a significant positive impact on tourists' pro-environmental behavior; self-efficacy plays a partial mediating role between recreation involvement and tourists' pro-environmental behavior. Natural intimacy has a significant positive moderating effect on the impact of recreation involvement on tourists' pro-environmental behavior, while ecological fear and ecological responsibility have no significant moderating effect in this process. Tourists' recreation involvement, self-efficacy, natural intimacy and pro-environmental behavior are connected under the interaction of physical and mental subjectivity, perception depth and situational connectivity. Based on this, it is proposed that natural heritage sites should create a good recreational involvement environment for tourists, enhance tourists' self-efficacy, strengthen the emotional connection between tourists and natural heritage sites, and promote the transformation of tourists to pro-environmental behavior.

Chinese new-style tea is an important carrier to inheriting tea culture, and also an important catering industry to meet the needs of young people. Based on theories of enterprise spatial growth and diffusion, taking the eight new-style tea brands as examples, this paper studies the spatial distribution, expansion characteristics and influencing factors of their chain stores. The results show that: ①The spatial distribution of new-style tea chain stores shows a pattern of "more in the southeast and less in the northwest" and a hierarchical distribution pattern. Both the low level brands and middle level brands have covered a large span of regions, while the premium brands are mainly locate in big cities. ②New-style tea brands basically follow the general rule of corporate expansion. In the initial stage, they tend to expand in proximity based on their founding locations. In the growth stage, the premium brands will be located in big cities, while the low and middle brands adopt jumping and contagious expansion at the same time. In the maturation stage, brands of each class show more significant path differences. ③The level of economic development, total retail sales of consumer goods, population and number of general undergraduate and college students in each city have the greatest influence on the layout of new-style tea chain shops. There are differences in the effects of each factor on different grades of brands, with proximity to the place of origin having weaker explanatory power on the layout of shops for all brands, especially for high-level new-style tea brands. ④Influenced by factors such as brand class and local tastes, the distribution range and key distribution areas of new-style tea shops are different compared to traditional restaurants and coffee shops.

The shift in tourism market preference and market structure adjustment caused by COVID-19 will reshape the spatial pattern of the tourism market. Based on the search data pointed out by Baidu, the spatial autocorrelation and social network analysis methods are applied to explore the evolution characteristics and patterns of the spatial and network structures of the tourism market under the influence of the COVID-19, using the Yangtze River Delta region as a case site. The results show that: ① under the influence of COVID-19, the spatial structure of the tourism market exhibits the characteristics of reduced overall agglomeration and less stable local structure. ② From January to October 2020, tourism market ties within the Yangtze River Delta region gradually strengthened, showing a pattern of gradual diffusion from provincial capitals to other cities and from proximity to distance. ③ Under the influence of COVID-19, the point-out and point-in degrees of most cities in the Yangtze River Delta are significantly reduced, and the diffusion and gathering functions for passenger flow are weakened. In addition, the growth rate of point-in degrees is significantly faster than point-out degrees, indicating that the gathering functions for passenger flow in most cities are more resilient under the influence of the epidemic. ④ Under the influence of COVID-19, the tourism market exhibits obvious proximity grouping characteristics with strong spatial dependence. This study can provide empirical evidence to fully understand the spatial evolution pattern of the tourism market under the influence of a mega public safety crisis and accelerate the recovery of the tourism economy.