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Lithium is an indispensable resource for the next generation of clean technology. Promoting the development of lithium industry has become a global consensus, with China being no exception. The development process involves not only the growth and degeneration of lithium products but also the path-dependency issues arising from resources and technology. This study, based on the perspective of product space structure, constructs China's lithium product network to study its pattern evolution and predict the development direction. Then, according to the current situation and pattern evolution trends, potential advantageous lithium products and advantage-degraded lithium products are identified, and tactics for expanding chains and breaking chains are formulated for them, presenting strategies for the integrated and fragmentated development of China's lithium products. This aims to steer China's lithium products towards a more orderly and closely interconnected direction, representing the arrow of development for China's lithium products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effects of government innovation subsidies under different combinations of market power (i.e., the relationship between enterprises, upstream suppliers, and downstream customers) and different types of ownership from the perspective of the contemporary marketing microenvironment. Based on the panel data of listed Chinese manufacturing companies from 2009 to 2018, the empirical results show that, in the case of higher buyer power, government subsidies will significantly promote the R&D investment of enterprises and the positive effect is not affected by nature of the enterprise's ownership. In the case of lower buyer power and seller power, government subsidies significantly promote the R&D investment of nonstate-owned enterprises, but have no effect on state-owned enterprises. The conclusions of the study further verify that, under different combinations of market power, there are significant differences in the effects of innovation subsidies for enterprises with different forms of ownership, and these provide a theoretical point of reference for the government to implement innovation subsidies. This study not only fills the theoretical black box of the relationship between government subsidies and enterprise innovation but also provides relatively new empirical evidence for the related research on innovation subsidies in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To analyze the compositions of upper urinary tract stones and investigate their distributions in different gender and age groups., Materials and Methods: Patients diagnosed with upper urinary tract stone disease between December 2014 and March 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Patient's age, gender, BMI, comorbidities, stone event characteristics, and compositions were collected, and proportions of stone components in different gender and age groups were analyzed., Results: A total of 1532 stone analyses were performed (992 from males and 540 from females). The mean age was younger in males (p<0.001). Males included more cases with larger BMI, hyperuricemia, and obesity, while females had more urinary tract infections. Multiple components were present in 61.8% of stones. Calcium oxalate (CaOx) (67.0%) was the most common component, followed by uric acid (UA) (11.8%), infection stone (11.4%), calcium phosphate (CaP) (8.0%), cystine (1.1%), brushite (0.4%), and 2,8-dihydroxyadenine (0.2%). Men contributed with more CaOx stones than women at age 30-49 years (all p<0.01) and more UA stones at 30-59 years (all p<0.05). Women contributed with more infection stones than men in age groups 30-49 and 60-69 years (all p<0.05), and more CaP stones at 30-49 years. The prevalence peak was 50-59 years in men and 60-69 years in women. Both genders had the lowest prevalence in adolescence. Prevalence of UA stones increased while that of infection stones decreased with aging in both genders., Conclusions: Age and sex had a strong association with distribution of stone compositions in this Chinese cohort., Competing Interests: None declared., (Copyright® by the International Brazilian Journal of Urology.)