Ownership Reform, Foreign Competition, and Efficiency of Chinese Commercial Banks: A Non-Parametric Approach

Since China joined the WTO in 2001, the pressure for bank reforms has mounted as China ought to fully open up its financial market to foreign competition by 2006. Efficiency is key for domestic banks to survive in a liberalised environment, but it appears that the last hope for raising bank efficiency is through ownership reform. Whether ownership reform and foreign competition can solve China?s banking problem remains to be tested. This paper aims to answer this question through using a non-parametric approach to analyse the efficiency changes of 15 large commercial banks during 1998-2005. We find that ownership reform and foreign competition have forced the Chinese commercial banks to improve performance, as their total factor productivity rose by 5.6 per cent per annum. This coincides with the recent bullish Chinese stock markets led by three listed state-owned commercial banks. Despite such encouraging results, we remain cautious about the future of the Chinese banks, as the good results may have been artificially created with massive government support and the fundamentals of the banks may be still weak.data envelopment analysis (DEA), efficiency, banking, China

Impact resistance of Nomex honeycomb sandwich structures with thin fibre reinforced polymer facesheets

In order to investigate the impact resistance of the Nomex honeycomb sandwich structures skinned with thin fibre reinforced woven fabric composites, both drop-weight experimental work and meso-mechanical finite element modelling were conducted and the corresponding output was compared. Drop-weight impact tests with different impact parameters, including impact energy, impactor mass and facesheets, were carried out on Nomex honeycomb-cored sandwich structures. It was found that the impact resistance and the penetration depth of the Nomex honeycomb sandwich structures were significantly influenced by the impact energy. However, for impact energies that cause full perforation, the impact resistance is characterized with almost the same initial stiffness and peak force. The impactor mass has little influence on the impact response and the perforation force is primarily dependent on the thickness of the facesheet, which generally varies linearly with it. In the numerical simulation, a comprehensive finite element model was developed which considers all the constituent materials of the Nomex honeycomb, i.e. aramid paper, phenolic resin, and the micro-structure of the honeycomb wall. The model was validated against the corresponding experimental results and then further applied to study the effects of various impact angles on the response of the honeycomb. It was found that both the impact resistance and the perforation depth are significantly influenced by the impact angle. The former increases with the obliquity, while the latter decreases with it. The orientation of the Nomex core has little effect on the impact response, while the angle between the impact direction and the fibre direction of the facesheets has a great influence on the impact response. </jats:p

Velocity distribution characteristics and parametric sensitivity analysis of liquid nitrogen jet

Liquid nitrogen is expected to be used as a jet medium in petroleum engineering because of its cryogenic and non-polluting characteristics. To identify the velocity distribution characteristics of liquid nitrogen jet, a computational fluid dynamics model was built by coupling the equations for nitrogen properties. The velocity and pressure distributions of liquid nitrogen jet were analyzed by comparing them with water jet ones. Meanwhile, the influences of relevant parameters on the centerline velocity distributions of liquid nitrogen jet were researched as well. The simulation results showed that the liquid nitrogen jet not only displayed higher velocity but also presented fewer kinetic energy losses than the water jet during jetting process. The nozzle outlet velocity of liquid nitrogen jet was increased by increasing the nozzle pressure drop, and was slightly influenced by confining pressure and nozzle diameter. In the external space of the nozzle, the attenuation amplitude of centerline velocity was decreased with the growth of nozzle diameter, and was slightly influenced by nozzle pressure drop and confining pressure. This study is expected to provide a theoretical guide for parametric design of liquid nitrogen jet

Have human activities changed the frequencies of absolute extreme temperatures in eastern China?

Extreme temperatures affect populous regions, like eastern China, causing substantial socio-economic losses. It is beneficial to explore whether the frequencies of absolute or threshold-based extreme temperatures have been changed by human activities, such as anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). In this study, we compared observed and multi-model-simulated changes in the frequencies of summer days, tropical nights, icy days and frosty nights in eastern China for the years 1960–2012 by using an optimal fingerprinting method. The observed long-term trends in the regional mean frequencies of these four indices were +2.36, +1.62, −0.94, −3.02 days decade−1. The models performed better in simulating the observed frequency change in daytime extreme temperatures than nighttime ones. Anthropogenic influences are detectable in the observed frequency changes of these four temperature extreme indices. The influence of natural forcings could not be detected robustly in any indices. Further analysis found that the effects of GHGs changed the frequencies of summer days (tropical nights, icy days, frosty nights) by +3.48 ± 1.45 (+2.99 ± 1.35, −2.52 ± 1.28, −4.11 ± 1.48) days decade−1. Other anthropogenic forcing agents (dominated by anthropogenic aerosols) offset the GHG effect and changed the frequencies of these four indices by −1.53 ± 0.78, −1.49 ± 0.94, +1.84 ± 1.07, +1.45 ± 1.26 days decade−1, respectively. Little influence of natural forcings was found in the observed frequency changes of these four temperature extreme indices

Shear strength of cemented sand gravel and rock materials

Shear strength is currently a significant parameter in the design of cemented sand gravel and rock (CSGR) dams. Shear strength tests were carried out to compare material without layers noumenon and layer condition. The experimental results showed good linearity in the curves of shear strength and pure grinding tests with correlation coefficients of nearly 97%. The friction coefficient was similar to that of C10 roller-compacted concrete (RCC), but the cohesion value was weaker than that of RCC. The shear strength of the CSGR layers decreased by 40% when retarding mixtures were not added and the layer was paved immediately after 4 h of waiting interval

Velocity distribution characteristics and parametric sensitivity analysis of liquid nitrogen jet

Liquid nitrogen is expected to be used as a jet medium in petroleum engineering because of its cryogenic and non-polluting characteristics. To identify the velocity distribution characteristics of liquid nitrogen jet, a computational fluid dynamics model was built by coupling the equations for nitrogen properties. The velocity and pressure distributions of liquid nitrogen jet were analyzed by comparing them with water jet ones. Meanwhile, the influences of relevant parameters on the centerline velocity distributions of liquid nitrogen jet were researched as well. The simulation results showed that the liquid nitrogen jet not only displayed higher velocity but also presented fewer kinetic energy losses than the water jet during jetting process. The nozzle outlet velocity of liquid nitrogen jet was increased by increasing the nozzle pressure drop, and was slightly influenced by confining pressure and nozzle diameter. In the external space of the nozzle, the attenuation amplitude of centerline velocity was decreased with the growth of nozzle diameter, and was slightly influenced by nozzle pressure drop and confining pressure. This study is expected to provide a theoretical guide for parametric design of liquid nitrogen jet

Research on Water Absorption and Frost Resistance of Concrete Coated with Different Impregnating Agents for Ballastless Track Structure

In consideration of performance requirement of ballastless track concrete in cold regions of China, 3 types of commercially available impregnating agents were employed to research their effect on water absorption and frozen resistance of concrete, containing silanes, potassium silicate and osmotic curing agent. The results presented that coating silanes was the most effective on the reduction of water absorption among all employed impregnating agents, because of the most significant character change of concrete surface from hydrophilicity to hydrophobicity which could be proved by the contact angle test of concrete. The promotion on frozen resistance of concrete was not as significant as that for water absorption by coating 3 commercially available types of impregnant agents, because of the spalling damage on concrete surface during the freezing-thawing cycles

VPA mediates bidirectional regulation of cell cycle progression through the PPP2R2A-Chk1 signaling axis in response to HU

Cell cycle checkpoint kinases play a pivotal role in protecting against replicative stress. In this study, valproic acid (VPA), a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi), was found to promote breast cancer MCF-7 cells to traverse into G2/M phase for catastrophic injury by promoting PPP2R2A (the B-regulatory subunit of Phosphatase PP2A) to facilitate the dephosphorylation of Chk1 at Ser317 and Ser345. By contrast, VPA protected normal 16HBE cells from HU toxicity through decreasing PPP2R2A expression and increasing Chk1 phosphorylation. The effect of VPA on PPP2R2A was at the post-transcription level through HDAC1/2. The in vitro results were affirmed in vivo. Patients with lower PPP2R2A expression and higher pChk1 expression showed significantly worse survival. PPP2R2A D197 and N181 are essential for PPP2R2A-Chk1 signaling and VPA-mediated bidirectional effect on augmenting HU-induced tumor cell death and protecting normal cells

Pilot Investigation of Coal Chemical Wastewater Containing Phenol by Pervaporation Process

Coal chemical wastewater contains a large number of industrial raw materials, such as phenol, resulting in difficulty as target to be treated and the resource waste as industrial raw materials. A pilot pervaporation process is investigated to separate and recycle phenols from coal chemical wastewater to reduce the follow-up biochemical processing load. Operation parameters which affect removing and recovering efficiency are studied, such as temperature, flow rate and downstream pressure. Phenol removal efficiency could reach 50% under the conditions of 70o C, 210 L/h and 3000 Pa. The system could continuously run for 20 cycles. Furthermore, the pervaporation procedure could be enhanced when pumped with gas which made the removal efficiency up to 66%

Large Variation of Mercury Isotope Composition During a Single Precipitation Event at Lhasa City, Tibetan Plateau, China

AbstractThis study examined for the first time the Hg isotope composition in rain samples from a single precipitation event at Lhasa City (China) on the Tibetan Plateau, the “world's third pole”. Large variations of both mass-dependent fractionation (MDF, δ202Hg from -0.80‰ to -0.42‰) and mass-independent fractionation (MIF, Δ199Hg from 0.38‰ to 0.76‰) were observed, with the latter increasing with time. Our results demonstrated that the large variation of Hg isotope ratios likely resulted from mixing of locally emitted Hg and long-term transported Hg, which were characterized by different Hg isotope signatures and mainly leached by below-cloud scavenging and in-cloud scavenging processes, respectively. Our findings demonstrated that Hg isotopes are a powerful tool for investigating the dynamics of precipitation events and emphasized the importance of systematic monitoring studies of the chemical and isotope variability of Hg and other elements during rainfall events