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We examine whether and how CEO foreign experience affects firm’s green innovation. Using a sample of Chinese public companies and hand-collected CEO foreign experience data, we document a positive association between CEO foreign experience and corporate green innovation. Furthermore, consistent with the view that CEOs with foreign experience would play a more significant role when provided with more resources, we find that the positive relationship is more pronounced in less financially constrained firms, in state-owned enterprises, and in less competitive industries. Additional analyses indicate that enhanced environmental ethics and general competency are two potential mechanisms through which CEO foreign experience affects corporate green innovation. Finally, we find that CEO foreign experience is positively related to green innovation quality and internationalization. Collectively, these findings suggest that CEO foreign experience is a significant factor for corporate green innovation in emerging markets.

To enhance the precision of rolling bearing fault diagnosis, a new rolling bearing fault diagnosis method based on improved local mean decomposition (LMD), compound multi-scale weighted permutation entropy (CMWPE), and support vector machine (SVM) is proposed. Firstly, the improved LMD algorithm is adopted to accomplish the adaptive decomposition of rolling bearing vibration signals. By computing the Pearson correlation coefficients between each component and the initial signal, the components with higher correlation are selected for signal reconstruction to accomplish the mission of noise reduction. Then, a feature extraction approach based on CMWPE is employed to extract corresponding feature parameters from the de-noised signals and construct a multi-scale nonlinear fault feature set with good stability and high recognition. Finally, the high-dimensional fault feature set is input into the SVM to achieve rolling bearing fault diagnosis. The experimental results reveal that the proposed approach can precisely distinguish various fault types of rolling bearings under the same fault degrees. For inner ring failures of different fault degrees, this method also has good identification correctness. Compared with several typical fault diagnosis approaches, the proposed method has a more trustworthy diagnosis result.

In the process of K-TIG deep penetration welding, the workpiece does not need to be bevelled; therefore, the welding method is butt welding, and the gap to be welded is very narrow (0.2~1 mm). Because of the large welding current, the welding arc light intensity is very strong. These factors cause difficulties in the K-TIG weld seam tracking process. To realize weld seam tracking in the K-TIG welding process, it is necessary to extract the keyhole entrance centre and weld centreline accurately. To reduce the interference of strong arc light in the process of K-TIG welding, the information of keyhole entrance and weld seam in the process of K-TIG welding is obtained by using a high-dynamic-range camera. An image processing algorithm based on Mask-RCNN is proposed to extract the centre of the keyhole entrance accurately. An image processing algorithm based on Hough line fitting is used to accurately identify the weld centreline in the welding image and extract the welding deviation. In welding experiments, it is verified that the welding deviation extracted by the method proposed in this paper fluctuates within ± 0.133 mm, which meets the requirements of actual K-TIG welding seam tracking.

To obtain a deep insight into keyhole tungsten inert gas welding, it is necessary to observe the dynamic behavior of the weld pool and keyhole. In this study, based on the steel/glass sandwich and high dynamic range camera, a vision system is developed and the keyhole-weld pool profiles are captured during the real-time welding process. Then, to analyze the dynamic behavior of the weld pool and keyhole, an image processing algorithm is proposed to extract the compression depth of the weld pool and the geometric parameters of the keyhole from the captured images. After considering the variations of these parameters over time, it was found that the front and rear lengths of the keyhole were dynamically adjusted internally and had opposite trends according to the real-time welding status while the length of the keyhole was in a quasi-steady state. The proposed vision-based observation method lays a solid foundation for studying the weld forming process and improving keyhole tungsten inert gas welding.

Although Taiwanese citizens benefit from affordable health care, residents in remote areas extensively rely on unsafe self-care practices because of a lack of easy access to medical services. To improve self-care safety, ten easy-access self-care medical spots (ESCMSs) managed by trained residents were established in two remote villages. This study aimed to assess the impact of ESCMSs on self-care and access to medical services. For a total of six commonly experienced minor illnesses, the average number of illnesses for which residents were confident to perform self-care increased from 2.78 in the pretest to 3.58 in the post-test. ESCMSs were also the first choice when experiencing minor illnesses for 31.25% residents who did not visit a doctor. Residents' personal experience with ESCMSs correlated with their perception of ESCMSs' function. Compared with residents who had no personal experience of using ESCMSs, those who used the ESCMS service were less likely to store medications for minor illnesses at home (51.02% vs. 76.67%). Furthermore, those who attribute the reduced needs for professional help to ESCMSs had used medications for minor illnesses at ESCMSs. These results suggest that establishing ESCMSs is a viable alternative to increase the self-care capacity of residents in remote areas and increase the access to medical resources. Moreover, because residents are less likely to store medication and travel for professional help, ESCMSs could indirectly reduce the risks of self-medication and traffic accidents, respectively. However, caution should be exercised when generalizing these results to more populated areas that also lack medical resources.

We study whether greater social trust is associated with a lower incidence of corporate misconduct. Both social norm and network theory suggest that social trust can affect managerial behavior and reduce the likelihood of misconduct behavior. Consistent with this prediction, we find that social trust is negatively associated with corporate misconduct behavior. Moreover, we show that, when media coverage is higher, the negative relation between social trust and corporate misconduct behavior is more pronounced. Further analyses suggest that social trust can help mitigate both disclosure-related and nondisclosure-related misconduct.

Background Prucalopride, a selective, high-affinity 5-hydroxytryptamine 4 receptor agonist, stimulates gastrointestinal and colonic motility and alleviates common symptoms of chronic constipation (CC) in adults. The relative efficacy by gender has not been evaluated. Aim To evaluate the global efficacy and safety of prucalopride 2 mg daily in men and women with CC using data from six large, randomized, controlled clinical trials. Methods Data were combined from six phase 3 and 4, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel-group trials. The primary efficacy endpoint was the percentage of patients with a mean of ≥3 spontaneous complete bowel movements (SCBMs) per week over 12 weeks of treatment. Safety was assessed throughout all the trials. Results Overall, 2484 patients (597 men; 1887 women; prucalopride, 1237; placebo, 1247) were included in the integrated efficacy analysis and 2552 patients were included in the integrated safety analysis. Significantly more patients achieved a mean of ≥3 SCBMs/week over the 12 weeks of treatment in the prucalopride group (27.8 %) than in the placebo group [13.2 %, OR 2.68 (95 % CI 2.16, 3.33), p

Objective To observe the clinical efficacy and safety of Tiaozhi Yanggan Decoction (调脂养肝汤, TZYGD) in treating non-alcoholic fatty liver.

The aim of this study was to record gastric myoelectric activity using multichannel electrogastrography (EGG) and to determine if there are differences due to age, gender, body mass, and study location. In 61 normal subjects from four centers, fasting multichannel EGG was recorded for 1 h, followed by two 1-h postprandial recordings after a test meal. Variables assessed included dominant frequency (DF) and its power, percentage time in 2- to 4-cpm frequency, and percentage slow-wave coupling (%SWC). There were no significant differences in EGG parameters with respect to gender or age. Subjects with a BMI >25 had a decrease in the absolute DF power but a similar increase in the postprandial DF power. Subjects with a BMI >25 had a postprandial decrease in the %SWC compared to those with a BMI

A method is presented to quantitate four β2-agonists (orciprenaline, clenbuterol, salbutamol and ractopamine) in meat, liver and kidney, by GC–MS, using dual internal standards, fenoterol and metoprolol. The procedure involves liquid–liquid extraction, followed by a solid phase clean-up step and derivatization. Mass spectral acquisition was done in selected ion monitoring mode to provide a high degree of sensitivity, achieving a limit of detection of 0.04–0.09 μg kg−1 and quantitation of 0.20–0.30 μg kg−1. The typical recoveries of analytes spiked at 10, 1 and 0.1 μg kg−1 were at 80.0–102.0, 77.6–90.7 and 52.0–87.4%, respectively.