In order to develop a better tool for the assessment of the management performance of research and development (R&D) activities in research‐oriented universities, a combination of analysis hierarchical process (AHP) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proposed for the assessment of the efficiency of R&D management activities in universities. The measure consists of the measurement of a university's previous and present R&D strength by AHP and the assessment of the relative efficiency of its growth in R&D strength against those of other universities by DEA, in which the management basis of the measured universities is taken into consideration. The application of the measure to assess the R&D management efficiency of 29 universities in China indicates the universities which have improved their management work achieved a high efficiency value regardless of whether their original R&D strengths were strong or weak. Such a measure is proved to be helpful for motivating the universities to keep on improving their R&D management.
In the face of severe water pollution, all provinces and cities in China have actively invested in water environment management funds driven by the goals of national energy conservation and emissions reduction. However, due to differences in natural environment, economic and technological levels, industrial structure, and other aspects in provinces and cities, their water environment management effects are also different across time and space. Under economic development and environmental regulation policies, it can be seen that the change in industrial GDP is not completely consistent with that of industrial wastewater discharge. How to improve desirable outputs and reduce undesirable outputs under the limited investment in water pollution control are key issues when investigating the efficiency of industrial water pollution control. This study uses the Dynamic SBM (Slacks-Based Measure) model to assess wastewater resources for research samples covering the 30 regions of China. There are two output variables, two input variables, and one carry-over variable. The output variables are industrial wastewater treatment and industrial output, the two input variables are industrial water consumption and facility operation cost, and the carry-over variable is industrial waste. This study concludes with implications for theory research, as these variables may lead to a better understanding and merging with the input variables, output variables, and carry-over variable of recent studies. The empirical results show that from the efficiency rank changes of the 30 regions for 2011–2015, regions with higher industrial output do not appear to have improved versus other regions, such as for Shandong, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Qinghai, and Zhejiang. The 30 regions’ efficiency scores show some volatility, with 13 regions’ efficiency score volatility clustering close to 0, like Beijing, Chongqing, Shandong, Guangdong, and Sichuan. In contrast, for Anhui, Inner Mongolia, Zhejiang, and Xinjiang, their efficiency scores fell more than other regions in this period and thus should adjust their input/output variables to increase their efficiency scores. This study further presents that many lower-/middle-/high-industrial output regions do not achieve a balance between industrial output and industrial wastewater treatment. How to find a balance between these two factors for any region is a vitally important issue for industrial wastewater treatment policy makers. Under such a circumstance, an industrial output region may not actually be highly efficient at doing this.
This paper draws on household survey data from countries of all income levels to measure how average unemployment rates vary with income per capita. We document that unemployment is increasing with GDP per capita. Furthermore, we show that this fact is accounted for almost entirely by low-educated workers, whose unemployment rates are strongly increasing in GDP per capita, rather than by high-educated workers, whose unemployment rates are not correlated with income. To interpret these facts, we build a model with workers of heterogeneous ability and two sectors: a traditional sector, in which self-employed workers produce output without reward for ability; and a modern sector, in which firms hire in frictional labor markets, and output increases with ability. Countries differ exogenously in the productivity level of the modern sector. The model predicts that as productivity rises, the traditional sector shrinks, as progressively less-able workers enter the modern sector, leading to a rise in overall unemployment and in the ratio of low-educated to high-educated unemployment rates. Quantitatively, the model accounts for around one third of the crosscountry patterns we document.
When a developing country is undergoing a rapid growth period, agricultural wastewater, domestic wastewater, industrial wastewater, and organic matter content in chemical oxygen demand (COD) usually increase in great amounts, causing environmental pollution. Thus, this paper proposes a summary of factors to assess the performance of wastewater discharge costs. Total fixed assets, population growth, and wastewater treatment expenses in various regions of China were used as input factors, while gross regional product, discharged wastewater, and discharged COD were used as output factors. We employed the directional distance function (DDF) method to compare 31 regions of China between 2011 and 2015. The results showed that areas with leading economic development and areas with a small population and vast natural land have good wastewater treatment efficiency. In the past five years, economic development and wastewater treatment expense efficiency in Chongqing have been improving, such that by the end of 2015, this region efficiency was approaching frontier efficiency. We also found that the efficiency of wastewater treatment expense in many areas often falls below 0.6, which is still very low. There is, thus, a large gap between the regions and the leading frontier regions, meaning that the efficiency of wastewater treatment expense needs to be improved.
This research adopts the meta Dynamic Directional Distance Functions (DDF) model in order to calculate the environmental efficiency and environmental governance efficiency of China’s industrial sector from 2010 to 2017 from the overall, sub-regional, and sub-provincial perspectives and discusses the technical gaps in regional environmental pollution control and the reasons for ineffective environmental governance. The research results show that the overall level of environmental governance efficiency in China’s industrial sector is relatively high over this time period, and the group frontier calculation results have improved compared to the meta frontier. The actual technical level of the high-income group is closest to the potential technical level, and the upper-middle income group is still far from the potential technical level. The main reason for the ineffective environmental governance of the provinces in the high-income group is ineffective management, while the main reason for ineffective environmental governance of the provinces in the upper-middle-income groups is technical inefficiency. Regardless of high-income groups or upper-middle-income groups, each province’s inefficiency of environmental governance is caused by inefficiency of the input factors.
In this study, the changes of a vacuum arc's appearance were observed and the volt-ampere characteristics of the vacuum arc at intermediate frequency were analyzed under a transverse magnetic field (TMF). The TMF and phase shift time were calculated by using the TMF contact model and the large phase shift of the magnetic field at a higher frequency was conductive to the dispersion process of residual plasma. The arc velocity was higher at 800 Hz than at 400 Hz. It can be inferred that TMF will encourage arc movement at 800 Hz. Moreover, the arc movement has an impact on the arc voltage. Because of the increasing length of the arc column with a high arc velocity, the elongated arc causes the arc voltage to increase. Specifically, the volt-ampere characteristics of the vacuum arc are divided into three stages in this paper. The higher the frequency, the greater the initial rate of rise in the arc voltage and the larger the area surrounded by arc volt-ampere characteristics. The correlations between the arc voltage and the amplitude and frequency of the current are also presented.
Geopolymer concrete (GPC) has drawn widespread attention as a universally accepted ideal green material to improve environmental conditions in recent years. The present study systematically quantifies and compares the environmental impact of fly ash GPC and ordinary Portland cement (OPC) concrete under different strength grades by conducting life cycle assessment (LCA). The alkali activator solution to fly ash ratio (S/F), sodium hydroxide concentration (CNaOH), and sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide ratio (SS/SH) were further used as three key parameters to consider their sensitivity to strength and CO2 emissions. The correlation and influence rules were analyzed by Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and Gray Relational Analysis (GRA). The results indicated that the CO2 emission of GPC can be reduced by 62.73%, and the correlation between CO2 emission and compressive strength is not significant for GPC. The degree of influence of the three factors on the compressive strength is CNaOH (66.5%) > SS/SH (20.7%) > S/F (9%) and on CO2 emissions is S/F (87.2%) > SS/SH (10.3%) > CNaOH (2.4%). Fly ash GPC effectively controls the environmental deterioration without compromising its compressive strength; in fact, it even in favor.
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