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Green innovation is a key driver of sustainable competitive advantage and environmental protection, but requires significant long-term investment. Prior findings suggest that firms are passively pressured to invest in green innovation by their institutional environment. In this study, we combine green innovation with legitimacy theory to examine how environmental legitimacy affects firms' green innovation. Using a dataset of Chinese publicly-listed firms from 2003 to 2015, we find that firms actively invest in green innovation to acquire both individual legitimacy from citizens and collective legitimacy from the government. We also find that the positive effects on green innovation are heightened when the firm is state owned and weakened when the firm is involved in a pollution-intensive industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal institutions are found to shape the behaviors of economic organizations within the business world by creating localized social norms and moral commitments. However, the existing literature pays greater attention to the financial consequences of such institutions, and little is known about their environmental impacts, especially in the context of transition economies. By linking institutional theory with environmental strategy literature, in this study, we develop a theoretical framework and empirically test how social trust, one of the dimensions of informal institutions, influences corporate environmental responsibility. Using a longitudinal data set of Chinese listed firms from 2006 to 2015, we find support that firms located in regions with a higher level of social trust engage in more environmental responsibility activities. We also show that this effect is more pronounced when local environmental protests are fewer and information transparency is worse. Our findings highlight the importance of social trust in environmental governance and provide evidence of how it serves as a substitute for formal environmental institutions in transition economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do improvements in transport infrastructure shape industrial competitiveness? Previous studies have emphasized the role played by agglomeration economies, with the contribution of industry dynamics largely being overlooked. In order to fill this gap, in this article we have researched the impact of improved transport infrastructure on industrial competitiveness, and we have put forward a new mechanism considering industry dynamics. Based on a sample of Chinese manufacturing firms over the period of 1998–2007, we have examined the impact of improvements to transport infrastructure on the exit and entry of firms from the market. The empirical findings confirm that improved transport infrastructure leads to the exit of less productive incumbents and increases the average productivity of new entrants in the market, and show that this effect is more significant for nonrelationship industries. This demonstrates that transport infrastructure promotes industrial competitiveness by reshaping the evolution of industry dynamics. This article contributes to academic literature on infrastructure management, exploring a new mechanism for explaining the impact of improved transport infrastructure on industrial competitiveness. It also provides some guidance to, and entails certain practical implications for, the development of emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the effects of megaproject social responsibility (MSR) on participating organizations’ performance. Using a survey of the participating organizations in Chinese megaprojects, this study reveals that the impact of MSR on a participant’s performance goes beyond the scope of the current megaproject. The empirical results indicate that MSR positively affects both financial and social performance of the participating organizations. The interactions of primary stakeholders weaken the positive effects of MSR on both financial and social performance, whereas the interactions of secondary stakeholders strengthen the positive effects of MSR on social performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression and clinical significance of N6-methyladenosine demethylase FTO in thyroid cancer. Bioinformatic analysis showed that FTO expression was downregulated in thyroid cancer tissues and correlated with lymph node metastasis in thyroid cancer patients. We conducted experimental verification by collecting Asian samples. The results of quantitative reverse transcription-PCR showed that the mRNA expression of FTO in the blood of 30 thyroid cancer patients was lower than that of the control population. At the same time, we found that FTO expression was negative in tissues of 16/56 (28.57%) thyroid cancer cases and 4/40 (10.00%) nontumor thyroid cases through the immunohistochemical method, indicating a lower FTO expression in thyroid cancer tissues than nontumor thyroid tissues (p < 0.05). In addition, the protein expression of FTO was significantly related to the tumor grade and lymph node metastasis in thyroid cancer patients (p < 0.05), but not to other clinicopathological features. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that FTO expression was an independent risk factor for tumor grade. Survival analysis showed no significant difference in the disease-free survival time of thyroid cancer patients between high expression and low expression groups of FTO. Furthermore, bioinformatic analysis found that promoter DNA methylation and copy number variation might cause downregulated FTO and then affect TP53 pathways in thyroid cancer. We found that FTO expression was downregulated in thyroid cancer tissues and related to the progression of thyroid cancer, suggesting a tumor suppressor role of FTO in thyroid cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between governors' partisanship and the corporate environmental performance of firms in South Korea. According to political ideology perspective, governors' partisanship closely influences the policy directions and preferences of the provincial administration. Conservative (red) governors tend to induce and encourage competition among firms by deregulating and offering policy benefits to businesses at the provincial level. In response to increased competition in provinces governed by red governors, firms commit to aggressive environmental initiatives as a strategic differentiation tool, in contrast to their behavior in provinces controlled by liberal (blue) governors. Moreover, we examine a contingent role of the provincial Congress. According to the principle of checks and balances, the positive impact of red governors on a firm's environmental performance is stronger when the provincial Congress is controlled by the liberal (blue) party, with its checks and balances on the red governors. This study extends an institutional theory by exploring institutional setting mechanisms at the provincial level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental information transparency is a key policy instrument in environmental governance, which has been emphasized in most of the literature. Although a large body of research has focused on its role at the national or industrial level in the developed countries, few studies have extended it to emerging economies and tested its role in the subnational context. In this paper, we have empirically examined how government environmental disclosure shapes corporate environmentalism in the context of China. It is argued that the information transparency of government environmental disclosure can promote corporate environmentalism by providing supports for governments' decision‐making of environmental governance, the activeness of environmental nongovernment organizations, and the participation of general public in environmental issues. Especially, we have highlighted two kinds of influences on focal relationship: booster role of bureaucratic capability in the diffusion of environmental institutional pressure and receiver role of organization slack and industrial competition in the perception of environmental institutional pressure. Using a panel dataset of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2008 to 2015, a positive relationship between government's environmental information transparency and corporate environmentalism is found. In addition, our result has shown that this relationship will be stronger for regions where government bureaucracy capabilities are stronger. This study contributes to understanding of the process of firms' strategic choice facing environmental and institutional changes in emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to improve health service delivery and achieve better health outcomes, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for improved efficiency of health care systems to better use the available funding. This study aims to examine the efficiency of national health systems using longitudinal country-level data. Data on health spending per capita, infant mortality rate (IMR), under 5 mortality rate (U5MR), and life expectancy (LE) were collected from or imputed for 173 countries from 2004 through 2011. Data envelopment analyses were used to evaluate the efficiency and regression models were constructed to examine the determinants of efficiency. The average efficiency of the national health system, when examined yearly, was 78.9%, indicating a potential saving of 21.1% of health spending per capita to achieve the same level of health status for children and the entire population, if all countries performed as well as their peers. Additionally, the efficiency of the national health system varied widely among countries. On average, Africa had the lowest efficiency of 67%, while West Pacific countries had the highest efficiency of 86%. National economic status, HIV/AIDS prevalence, health financing mechanisms and governance were found to be statistically associated with the efficiency of national health systems. Taking health financing as an example, a 1% point increase of social security expenses as a percentage of total health expenditure correlated to a 1.9% increase in national health system efficiency. The study underscores the need to enhance efficiency of national health systems to meet population health needs, and highlights the importance of health financing and governance in improving the efficiency of health systems, to ultimately improve health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principle, system and software design of burglar alarm for Motorcycle are introduced. The alarm is designed using MCU as control core, detected by vibration and displacement sensors, based on communication in SCI between mobile telephone and MCU, and the transmission format of short messages of cell phone. The result of experiment shows that the alarm can report to the police in real-time, and verify the identity of the owner of the motorcycle, and realize the remote control, and avoid to the Motorcycle being stolen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is to examine the cost-effectiveness of deployment strategies of oral cholera vaccines (OCVs) in controlling cholera in Bangladesh. We developed a dynamic compartment model to simulate costs and health outcomes for 12 years for four OCVs deployment scenarios: (1) vaccination of children aged one and above with two doses of OCVs, (2) vaccination of population aged 5 and above with a single dose of OCVs, (3) vaccination of children aged 1–4 with two doses of OCVs; and (4) combined strategy of (2) and (3). We obtained all parameters from the literature and performed a cost-effectiveness analysis from both health systems and societal perspectives, in comparison with the base scenario of no vaccination. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) for the four strategies from the societal perspective were $2,236, $2,250, $1,109, and $2,112 per DALY averted, respectively, with herd immunity being considered. Without herd immunity, the ICERs increased substantially for all four scenarios except for the scenario that vaccinates children aged 1–4 only. The major determinants of ICERs were the case fatality rate and the incidence of cholera, as well as the efficacy of OCVs. The projection period and frequency of administering OCVs would also affect the cost-effectiveness of OCVs. With the cut-off of 1.5 times gross domestic product per capita, the four OCVs deployment strategies are cost-effective. The combined strategy is more efficient than the strategy of vaccinating the population aged one and above with two doses of OCVs and could be considered in the resource-limited settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]