The impact of China’s national system of innovation on bottom-up learning for innovation in firms: case studies of China’s automobile and railway equipment sectors

Existing National System of Innovation (NSI) literature mainly focuses on the impact of NSI on national-level or sectoral-level innovations. Whether and how NSI impacts firm-level innovation still lacks comprehensive theoretical exploration. This study aims to address the knowledge gap by developing a theoretical framework to analyse and evaluate how two aspects of institutions in China’s NSI might contribute to the development of a firm’s innovation through bottom-up learning (BUL). The two aspects of institutions in focus are corporate governance and the firm’s access to capital. This research adopts a multiple case study method. 37 in-depth interviews in seven leading firms in China’s automobile and railway equipment sectors were carried out. The case samples included central State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), local SOEs and private firms. The author performed multiple case analyses to identify and examine the impact of corporate governance along with the firm’s access to capital, and how these factors influence the likelihood of the firm’s adoption of BUL practices. This study fills the research gap in three ways. First, by expanding the Corporate Governance and Financial (CG&F) framework by Tylecote and colleagues (Tylecote and Conesa, 1999) this study establishes how NSI shapes a firm’s BUL choices for innovation depending on four institutional factors: (1) whether the top manager of a firm is an insider or outsider, (2) the length of employment of the top manager, (3) the firm’s access to capital, and (4) the level of competition faced by the firm. Second, based on the analysis of the above four factors, a new finding is that central and local SOEs should be separately considered because the institutional conditions they face for BUL for innovation are different. Third, to support the analysis between NSI and BUL, the study operationalises the concept of BUL by systematically introducing five underlying practices

Emergency logistics for wildfire suppression based on forecasted disaster evolution

This paper aims to develop a two-layer emergency logistics system with a single depot and multiple demand sites for wildfire suppression and disaster relief. For the first layer, a fire propagation model is first built using both the flame-igniting attributes of wildfires and the factors affecting wildfire propagation and patterns. Second, based on the forecasted propagation behavior, the emergency levels of fire sites in terms of demand on suppression resources are evaluated and prioritized. For the second layer, considering the prioritized fire sites, the corresponding resource allocation problem and vehicle routing problem (VRP) are investigated and addressed. The former is approached using a model that can minimize the total forest loss (from multiple sites) and suppression costs incurred accordingly. This model is constructed and solved using principles of calculus. To address the latter, a multi-objective VRP model is developed to minimize both the travel time and cost of the resource delivery vehicles. A heuristic algorithm is designed to provide the associated solutions of the VRP model. As a result, this paper provides useful insights into effective wildfire suppression by rationalizing resources regarding different fire propagation rates. The supporting models can also be generalized and tailored to tackle logistics resource optimization issues in dynamic operational environments, particularly those sharing the same feature of single supply and multiple demands in logistics planning and operations (e.g., allocation of ambulances and police forces). © 2017 The Author(s

Strategic Analysis of Dual-Channel Green Supply Chain with an Unreliable and Competitive Supplier

With the increasing public awareness of environmental issues, green production has become an important issue for supply chain management. This study proposes an analytical model to investigate the dual-channel green supply chain decisions of a retailer and a competitive supplier; the latter suffers from unreliable production yield. The retailer’s environmental responsibility is considered as a two-echelon supply chain in which the retailer promotes the green product in their marketplace through green marketing. This problem is analyzed and modeled under three available channel strategies, considered in the order in which channel selections are made: a single online channel strategy, a single retail channel strategy, and a dual-channel strategy. The results show that the wholesale price of the manufacturer and the green-marketing effect of the retailer increase with the improvement in the level of the green production technology. Interestingly, the result reveals that a retailer’s expected profit is unimodal in the production technology level under the dual-channel strategy, which suggests that the retailer may not be incentivized to encourage the manufacturer to improve its production technology once a threshold has been reached. Further, we develop the channel selection: the retailer is strictly better off in the single retail channel scenario than that in the dual-channel scenario; however, while the unreliable supplier is better off in the single online channel scenario than that in the single retail channel scenario, its best option is still the dual-channel strategy. Additionally, numerical results illustrate that the expected profits of supply chain parties decrease with the improvement in customer acceptance of the online channel

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Firms’ Innovation in China: The Role of Institutional Support

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature in developed countries indicates that there are two types of CSR (i.e., proactive CSR and reactive CSR), and only the proactive one can boost innovation. However, recent studies from emerging economies such as China show that both types of CSR can enhance innovation. Such inconsistent results may be created by, on the one hand, the heterogeneity of innovation types, and on the other hand, the heterogeneity of mechanisms though which CSR impacts innovation in different countries. Accordingly, this paper theoretically explores the impacts of two types of CSR (i.e., proactive CSR and reactive CSR) on two of innovation types (exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation). This paper further reveals the mechanisms through which CSR impacts innovation in China by investigating the moderating role of institutional support (i.e., government support and social support) on the relationship between CSR and innovation. Using a panel dataset (2008–2016) of 286 Chinese public listed firms from research and development (R&D)-intensive industries (e.g., information technology, pharmaceutical and biological products; and chemicals, etc.), our findings show that: (1) proactive CSR promotes exploratory innovation; (2) reactive CSR promotes exploitative innovation; (3) government support strengthen the relationship between proactive CSR and exploratory innovation as well as the relationship between reactive CSR and exploitative innovation; (4) social support weaken the relationship between proactive CSR and exploratory innovation. This paper enriches our understanding on the relationship between CSR and innovation, and provides implications for practitioners and policymakers

Analysis of Spatial–Temporal Characteristics of Industrial Land Supply Scale in Relation to Industrial Structure in China

Taking China’s industrial land transfer data as the data source, this study quantitatively analyzes the transfer structure and spatial distribution of China’s industrial land from 2010 to 2019. By constructing the information entropy and the equilibrium degree model of industrial land-use structure, this study evaluates the transfer characteristics of industrial land of different functional types in various provinces of China, analyzes the scale advantages of various types of transferred industrial land by using the land transfer scale advantage index, and summarizes the spatial distribution characteristics of different types of industrial land transfer in China through the spatial center of gravity analysis and cold/hot spot regional distribution mapping. The following results were obtained. (1) There are significant differences in the transfer scale of industrial land among provinces in China. The transfer scale of Eastern and Central China is large, whereas that of Western China is small. (2) From the perspective of land-use structure, the transfer scale of industrial land in the central and western regions is more balanced than that in the east. (3) From the gravity center distribution of the standard deviation ellipse, the land transfer direction of the energy industry, and the mining industry, and other types of industries is more significant than that of the culture and sports hygiene industries, modern manufacturing industry, and high-tech industry. (4) From the analysis of cold and hot spots, the mining industry, the energy industry, and other types of industries in the western region with rich mineral resources are the hot spots of industrial land transfer, and the southeast coast is the cold spot; the eastern coastal area is a hot area for land transfer of modern manufacturing, the high-tech industry, and the culture and sports hygiene industries. The results reveal the regional differences and spatial distribution characteristics of industrial transfer in China and provide a reference for authorities to formulate industrial planning and industrial land collection, storage, and transfer plans

A 3D chemically modified graphene hydrogel for fast, highly sensitive, and selective gas sensor

Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) has proved to be a promising candidate in high‐performance gas sensing in ambient conditions. However, trace detection of different kinds of gases with simultaneously high sensitivity and selectivity is challenging. Here, a chemiresistor‐type sensor based on 3D sulfonated RGO hydrogel (S‐RGOH) is reported, which can detect a variety of important gases with high sensitivity, boosted selectivity, fast response, and good reversibility. The NaHSO3 functionalized RGOH displays remarkable 118.6 and 58.9 times higher responses to NO2 and NH3, respectively, compared with its unmodified RGOH counterpart. In addition, the S‐RGOH sensor is highly responsive to volatile organic compounds. More importantly, the characteristic patterns on the linearly fitted response–temperature curves are employed to distinguish various gases for the first time. The temperature of the sensor is elevated rapidly by an imbedded microheater with little power consumption. The 3D S‐RGOH is characterized and the sensing mechanisms are proposed. This work gains new insights into boosting the sensitivity of detecting various gases by combining chemical modification and 3D structural engineering of RGO, and improving the selectivity of gas sensing by employing temperature dependent response characteristics of RGO for different gases.NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore)Published versio

A 3D Chemically Modified Graphene Hydrogel for Fast, Highly Sensitive, and Selective Gas Sensor

Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) has proved to be a promising candidate in high-performance gas sensing in ambient conditions. However, trace detection of different kinds of gases with simultaneously high sensitivity and selectivity is challenging. Here, a chemiresistor-type sensor based on 3D sulfonated RGO hydrogel (S-RGOH) is reported, which can detect a variety of important gases with high sensitivity, boosted selectivity, fast response, and good reversibility. The NaHSO3 functionalized RGOH displays remarkable 118.6 and 58.9 times higher responses to NO2 and NH3, respectively, compared with its unmodified RGOH counterpart. In addition, the S-RGOH sensor is highly responsive to volatile organic compounds. More importantly, the characteristic patterns on the linearly fitted response-temperature curves are employed to distinguish various gases for the first time. The temperature of the sensor is elevated rapidly by an imbedded microheater with little power consumption. The 3D S-RGOH is characterized and the sensing mechanisms are proposed. This work gains new insights into boosting the sensitivity of detecting various gases by combining chemical modification and 3D structural engineering of RGO, and improving the selectivity of gas sensing by employing temperature dependent response characteristics of RGO for different gases. Keywords: 3D reduced graphene oxide hydrogel; chemical modification; gas sensor; microheater; sulfonate

Prevalence and Related Factors of Insomnia Among Chinese Medical Staff in the Middle and Late Stage of COVID-19

Background: The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has brought serious psychological pressure to people, especially medical health staff. At present, there are few studies on insomnia and related factors of medical health staff in the middle and late stage of the epidemic of COVID-19. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of insomnia and its related risk factors among medical workers in China in the middle and later stage of COVID-19 epidemic, as well as the relationship between insomnia and psychological resilience. Methods: From February 14 to March 29, 2020, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 606 medical staff in China through Ranxing Technology&#39;s &quot;SurveyStar&quot; network platform. All subjects were assessed with the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) and simplified Chinese version of Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC-10). Results: In the middle and later stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, the incidence of insomnia among medical staff was 32.0%. Compared with non-insomnia group, the insomnia group had younger age, lower education level, longer daily working hours and less psychological resilience. In addition, the prevalence of insomnia was higher in medical staff with a history of somatic diseases. The severity of insomnia of Chinese medical staff was associated with age, education level, daily working hours, psychological resilience and somatic diseases. Conclusions: Our study shows that nearly 1/3 of Chinese medical workers suffer from insomnia nearly a month after the COVID-19 outbreak. Compared with the general population, medical staff who are working with COVID are more prone to insomnia. Risk factors for insomnia include younger age, lower education level, longer working hours per day, and physical illness. The tenacious dimension of psychological resilience is a protective factor for insomnia.</p

Sexual Dysfunction in Chronically Medicated Male Inpatients With Schizophrenia: Prevalence, Risk Factors, Clinical Manifestations, and Response to Sexual Arousal

BackgroundSexual dysfunction is a common symptom in patients with schizophrenia, especially in chronically medicated patients. However, the relationship between sexual dysfunction and emotional response to sexual arousal in male patients with schizophrenia remains unclear. This study aimed to assess the incidence, risk factors of sexual dysfunction in males, and their clinical correlations to sexual arousal in male patients with schizophrenia in China. MethodsA total of 162 male patients, aged 18-50 years, with schizophrenia were recruited from a psychiatric hospital in Ganzhou. The clinical symptoms were assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). The Arizona Sexual Experience Scale was utilized to evaluate sexual dysfunction. Erotic images were selected from International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Sixty-eight out of the 162 subjects completed the erotic pictures reactivity task. ResultsOverall, 48 (29.6%) patients were measured as having global sexual dysfunction, 72 (44.4%) patients as having strength of sex drive dysfunction, 51 (31.5%) patients as having sexual arousal dysfunction, 55 (34.0%) patients as having penile erection dysfunction, 60 (37.0%) patients as having reached orgasm dysfunction, and 60 (37.0%) patients as having satisfaction with orgasm dysfunction. The sexual dysfunction patients had significantly higher scores on the negative symptoms of the PANSS. The only important predictor of sexual dysfunction was the severity of PANSS negative factor. The sense of pleasure and arousal post viewing erotic images in the sexual dysfunction group were lower compared to the non-sexual dysfunction group. The sense of pleasure and approach motivation were significantly negatively correlated with the severity of sexual dysfunction. ConclusionsThis study shows that nearly one-third of young and middle-aged chronically medicated male inpatients with schizophrenia suffer from sexual dysfunction. The negative factor of the PANSS can be regarded as the risk factor of sexual dysfunction. Schizophrenia patients with sexual dysfunction experienced lower pleasure and higher avoidance motivation than non-sexual dysfunction patients when exposed to erotic stimuli.</p