Yinsheng Yang

Incorporating carbon footprints into the production efficiency framework to construct a standardized technology model for cleaner production in black soil regions is of great significance for improving the soil environment and the sustainable development of agriculture. This study used an orthogonal experimental design and the DEA–Malmquist method to calculate the carbon footprint and total factor productivity of orthogonal experimental groups of cleaner production technologies for maize cultivation in China’s black soil region and then identified integrated models of cleaner production technology in the black soil region. The results showed that the carbon footprint of maize cultivation and total factor productivity were generally higher in the experimental group using cleaner production techniques than in the control group. Still, none of them reached the optimum. In the future, the synergistic effect of technological progress and technological efficiency enhancement should be brought into play, and the integrated models of “Soil testing and formulation + Full mobile sprinkler irrigation + Straw tilling and field return” and “No tillage in spring + Soil testing and formulation + Straw tilling and field return” should be promoted in semi-arid and semi-humid black soil regions, which can improve the low carbon productivity of maize by 20.3% and 15.4%, respectively.

In the context of China’s agricultural labor shortage and the pressure of aging, this paper uses the land fragmentation index and the intermediary efficiency model to measure the degree of land fragmentation based on farmer-level data from the main garlic producing area in Lanling County in Shandong Province in 2020. The direct effect of labor structure on land-use efficiency and the mediating effect through land fragmentation are analyzed. The research results show that: (1) the average land-use efficiency of the sample farmers is relatively low; (2) the change in labor structure has an “inverted U”-shaped direct effect on land-use efficiency; and (3) the change in land fragmentation in the labor structure has a direct effect on land-use efficiency. The influence of land-use efficiency played a nonlinear mediating effect. The change in labor structure with the degree of land fragmentation showed an “inverted U”-shaped relationship, and the degree of land fragmentation and land-use efficiency had a “U”-shaped relationship. In order to improve land-use efficiency, two aspects of policy support should be increased: encouraging farmers to integrate land and supporting specialized and diversified planting.

This work proposes a capacitated fuzzy disassembly scheduling model with cycle time and environmental cost as parameters, which has broad applications in remanufacturing and many other production systems. Disassembly scheduling is not always given accurately as a time quota in a production system, particularly in the obsolete product remanufacturing process. It is important to study novel models and algorithms based on uncertainty processing time to solve uncertainty disassembly scheduling problems. In this paper, a mixed-integer mathematical programming model is proposed to minimize the cycle time and environmental cost, whilst a metaheuristic approach based on a fruit fly optimization algorithm (FOA) is developed to find a fuzzy disassembly scheduling scheme. To estimate the effectiveness of the proposed method, the proposed algorithm is tested with different size cases of product disassembly scheduling. Furthermore, experiments are conducted to compare with other multi-objective optimization algorithms. The computational results demonstrate the proposed algorithm outperforms other algorithms on computational efficiency and applicability to different problems. Finally, a case study is described to illustrate the proposed method. The main contribution of this current work shows the proposed algorithm to solve the problem of disassembly scheduling in an uncertain environment practically and efficiently.

While the aging of agricultural labor force and its impact on agricultural production have been attracting extensive attention, little is known about the relationship between aging of agricultural labor force and technical efficiency in the garlic production. Based on the survey data of garlic growers in Lanling County, Shandong Province, the Data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is used to measure the production technical efficiency of garlic growers in 84 villages in Lanling County, Shandong Province, with the aging of the labor force. The distribution characteristics and changing trends of garlic production technology efficiency are analyzed in terms of family characteristics and garlic planting characteristics, and regression analysis is performed on the differences of the results. The study found the following: (1) Garlic growers in Lanling County, Shandong Province, accounted for a high proportion of laborers over 60 years old, and their physical health status was weaker than that of young laborers, which reduced the technical efficiency of garlic planting and production. (2) The number of garlic varieties grown by garlic growers and the number of garlic planted in acres have a significant negative impact on the technical efficiency of garlic planting by farmers. (3) There is a significant positive correlation between the annual household income of farmers and the production technology efficiency of garlic growers; when the number of garlic training is not more than three times, it has a positive impact on the production technology efficiency of garlic planting by farmers, and more than three times are related to garlic production technology. The efficiency is negatively correlated.

This work proposes a capacitated fuzzy disassembly scheduling model with cycle time and environmental cost, which has broad applications in remanufacturing and many other production systems. Disassembly scheduling is not always given accurately as a time quota in a production system, particularly in the obsolete products remanufacturing process. It is meaningful to study a novel model and algorithm based on uncertainty processing time to solve uncertainty disassembly scheduling problems. Therefore, a mixed-integer mathematical programming model is proposed to minimize the cycle time and environmental cost, whilst a metaheuristic approach based on a fruit fly optimization algorithm is developed to find a fuzzy disassembly scheduling scheme. To estimate the effectiveness of the proposed method, the proposed algorithm is tested with different size cases of products disassembly scheduling. Furthermore, experiments are conducted to compare with other multi-objective optimization algorithms. The computational results demonstrate the proposed algorithm outperforms other algorithms on computational efficiency and applicability performance. Finally, a case study is described to illustrate the proposed method. The main finding of this current work is to provide a new idea to solve the problem of disassembly scheduling in an uncertain environmental practically and efficiently.