This paper reviews and compares the opportunities and challenges in terms of port and intermodal development in China and India—the two fast-growing economic giants in the world. The study analyzes the future direction of these two countries’ port-hinterland intermodal development from the sustainability perspective. Both China and India face some major opportunities and challenges in port-hinterland intermodal development. The proposal of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), offers plentiful opportunities for China. A challenge for China is that its development of dry ports is still in the infancy stage and thus it is unable to catch up with the pace of rapid economic growth. As compared with China, India focuses more on the social aspect to protect the welfare of its residents, which in turn jeopardizes India’s port-hinterland intermodal development in the economic sense. The biggest challenge for India is its social institution, which would take a long time to change. These in-depth comparative analyses not only give the future direction of port-hinterland intermodal development in China and India but also provide references for other countries with similar backgrounds.

The expansion of road networks, taken place during the last decades, was driven by technological progress and economic growth. The most innovative products of this trend—modern motorways and international road corridors—provide an excellent level of service, traffic safety and necessary information to travelers. However, despite this undeniable progress, major impediments and respective challenges to road authorities and operators still remain. The present paper analytically presents the main current challenges in the road engineering field, namely: a) financing new projects, b) alternative energy resources, especially renewable energy, c) serviceability, including maintenance of road infrastructure, traffic congestion and quality of the network, d) climate change hazards due to greenhouse gas emissions increase, e) environmental impacts, f) safety on roads, streets and motorways, and g) economy and cost-effectiveness. In each country and over each network, challenges and concerns may vary, but, in most cases, competent authorities, engaged in road development policies, have to deal with most of these issues. The optimization of the means to achieve the best results seems to be an enduring stake. In the present paper, the origin and the main features of these challenges are outlined as well as their tendency to get amplified or diminished under the actual evolving economic conditions worldwide, where growth alternates with crisis and social hardship. Moreover, responses, meant to provide solutions to the said challenges, are suggested, including research findings of Aristotle University and innovative technological achievements, to drive the transition to a more sustainable future.

In the new century, the traditional model of enterprise human resource management is facing the challenge of the times, improving the human resource management of enterprises, and must innovate the concept of enterprise human resource management. After the 1950s, some economists established the theory of human capital, not only can more effectively explain the problems of modern social economic growth, but also on the enterprise's human resources management contribution to a positive impact. This paper introduces the concept of human capital and human capital investment into enterprise human resource management, which opens up a new perspective for enterprise human resource management. In this paper, we will first define the characteristics of human capital and the main body of human capital investment, and then analyze the meaning of various human resource management behaviors from the perspective of capital investment, estimate their benefits, costs and risks, and finally use scientific means to establish investment decision model and risk control mechanism, to maximize the effectiveness of human resources, so that the management behavior of enterprise's human can bring more revenue for the enterprises, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises. At present, the scientific operation of human resources is the key to the healthy development of enterprises.

With the advent of knowledge economy, international competition is becoming increasingly fierce, human resources management in the role of enterprise management is growing. In the 21st century, the trend of globalization of the world economy has been strengthened, and the development of science and technology has been changing with each passing day. The essence of comprehensive national competition is becoming the competition of human resources. Similarly, enterprises in order to compete in the fierce and healthy development, we must reduce costs and improve management efficiency, must have a set of their own talent management methods. Human resources are the most important resources in all resources, effectively play the important role of human resources in the core competitiveness, and formulate the countermeasures of human resource competition, which is of great significance to improve the core competitiveness of enterprises. In the new century to further improve the management of human resources in state-owned enterprises, improve China's enterprise human resources management system is to enliven the state-owned enterprises, improve our comprehensive national strength of the top priority, to promote China's economic development is of great significance.

This work investigates epoxy composites reinforced by randomly oriented, short glass fibres and silica microparticles. A full-factorial experiment evaluates the effects of glass fibre mass fraction (15 wt% and 20 wt%) and length (5 mm and 10 mm), and the mass fraction of silica microparticles (5 wt% and 10 wt%) on the apparent density and porosity, as well as the compressive and tensile strength and modulus of the hybrid composites. Hybrid epoxy composites present significantly higher tensile strength (9%) and modulus (57%), as well as compressive strength (up to 15%) relative to pure epoxy.

Cucumis sativus is an important vegetable crop in the world. Agrobacterium mediated transgenic technology is an important means to study plant gene function and variety improvement. In order to further accelerate the transgenic research and breeding process of cucumber, aiming at the Agrobacterium mediated genetic transformation method of cucumber, this paper expounds the research progress and existing problems of Agrobacterium mediated transgenic cucumber from the aspects of influencing factors of cucumber regeneration ability, genetic transformation conditions and various added substances in the process, and prospects the future of improving the efficiency of cucumber genetic transformation and the application of safety screening markers, in order to provide reference for cucumber stress resistance breeding and fruit quality improvement.