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China has launched a series of talent-recruitment policies in the last years, in order to attract back Chinese nationals who stayed abroad. Yet, little is known about the effect of such policies. This paper examines whether researchers recruited in one of the Chinese flagship talent-recruitment policies—the 'Young Thousand Talents' policy (Y1000T)—had, in the following years after recruitment, better research performance. We compare these recipients against other Chinese nationals who got PhDs in equally prestigious non-Chinese universities but continued to work abroad (mostly in the USA). Results of difference-in-differences regressions show that returning to China has an effect of positioning returnees both at the bottom and at the very summit of the distribution of quality of publications. Nevertheless, some Y1000T researchers seem to have prioritized the quantity of outputs, arguably to the detriment of quality. This is probably due to certain research evaluation criteria in place until recent times.

Abstract. Global warming has led to increased compound hazards, and an accurate risk assessment of such hazards is of great importance to urban emergency management. Due to the interrelations between multiple hazards, the risk assessment of a compound hazard faces several challenges: (1) the evaluation of hazard level needs to consider the correlations between compound hazard drivers, (2) usually only a small number of data samples are available for estimating the joint probability distribution of the compound hazard drivers and the loss caused by the hazards, and (3) the risk assessment process often ignores the temporal dynamics of compound hazard occurrences. This paper aims to address the mentioned challenges and develop an integrated risk assessment model VFS–IEM–IDM to quantify the dynamic risk of compound hazards based on variable fuzzy set theory (VFS), information entropy method (IEM), and information diffusion method (IDM). For the first challenge, VFS–IEM–IDM measures the effect of the compound hazard drivers via the use of relative membership degree and analyses the correlation between drivers with the entropy weight method, which is combined to evaluate compound hazard level. To address the second challenge, VFS–IEM–IDM applies the normal diffusion function to estimate the probability distribution of the compound hazard and the corresponding loss vulnerability curve. To deal with the third challenge, VFS–IEM–IDM assesses the risk of a compound hazard in different months based on the definition of probabilistic risk. In the end, this paper takes the typhoon–rainstorm disaster in Shenzhen, China, as an example to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed VFS–IEM–IDM model. The results show that VFS–IEM–IDM effectively estimates the typhoon–rainstorm compound hazard level and assesses the dynamic risk of the compound hazards.

BACKGROUND: Due to globalization, an increasing number of international visitors comes to China. The needs of their medical care are understudied, which can cause low patient satisfaction and lead to poor clinical outcomes for the clients. To meet those international clients' medical care needs, hospitals in China are seeking strategies to improve services. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to explore international clients' medical care experiences in China, and their perceptions of the quality of these international healthcare services. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In May 2020, focus group interviews with 24 clients and four healthcare professionals were conducted in the international clinic at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital (SRRSH). In the client group, 24 representatives of international clients from nine countries were invited and divided into three groups to discuss healthcare needs of international clients who seek healthcare in China. Four healthcare providers, including two nurses and two physicians who usually serve in the international clinic, were also interviewed. Data were analyzed using hybrid inductive/deductive thematic analysis. RESULTS: Six major healthcare needs of international clients were identified, namely: needs for privacy and confidentiality; effective communication; multicultural sensitive care; pleasant environments; qualified care and procedures; and respect. International healthcare is a complex process for both international clients and healthcare professionals. CONCLUSION: The government and institutional administrators around the world should construct the policies and protocols and integrate cultural competence, communication skills, and privacy and confidentiality protection into health professionals training program to ensure the quality services in the international clinics.

Yehua Wang,1,* Chuyao Deng,1,* Lili Yang2 1Department of International Healthcare Center, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China; 2Nursing Education Department, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Lili Yang, Nursing Education Department, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, No.3 East Qingchun Road, Hangzhou, 310016, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China, Tel +86-139-581-31637, Email 3200006@zju.edu.cnBackground: Due to globalization, an increasing number of international visitors comes to China. The needs of their medical care are understudied, which can cause low patient satisfaction and lead to poor clinical outcomes for the clients. To meet those international clients' medical care needs, hospitals in China are seeking strategies to improve services.Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore international clients' medical care experiences in China, and their perceptions of the quality of these international healthcare services.Patients and Methods: In May 2020, focus group interviews with 24 clients and four healthcare professionals were conducted in the international clinic at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital (SRRSH). In the client group, 24 representatives of international clients from nine countries were invited and divided into three groups to discuss healthcare needs of international clients who seek healthcare in China. Four healthcare providers, including two nurses and two physicians who usually serve in the international clinic, were also interviewed. Data were analyzed using hybrid inductive/deductive thematic analysis.Results: Six major healthcare needs of international clients were identified, namely: needs for privacy and confidentiality; effective communication; multicultural sensitive care; pleasant environments; qualified care and procedures; and respect. International healthcare is a complex process for both international clients and healthcare professionals.Conclusion: The government and institutional administrators around the world should construct the policies and protocols and integrate cultural competence, communication skills, and privacy and confidentiality protection into health professionals training program to ensure the quality services in the international clinics.Keywords: assessment of healthcare needs, international aspects, qualitative research, focus groups

Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 outbreak, an emergency policy initiative called "Suspending Classes Without Stopping Learning" was launched by the Chinese government to continue teaching activities as schools across the country were closed to contain the virus. However, there is ambiguity and disagreement about what to teach, how to teach, the workload of teachers and students, the teaching environment, and the implications for education equity. Possible difficulties that the policy faces include: the weakness of the online teaching infrastructure, the inexperience of teachers (including unequal learning outcomes caused by teachers' varied experience), the information gap, the complex environment at home, and so forth. To tackle the problems, we suggest that the government needs to further promote the construction of the educational information superhighway, consider equipping teachers and students with standardized home-based teaching/learning equipment, conduct online teacher training, include the development of massive online education in the national strategic plan, and support academic research into online education, especially education to help students with online learning difficulties.

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. It was presented at the 13th Computer Control for Water Industry Conference, (CCWI 201). ; © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Determining the behavior of domestic water consumers can facilitate a more proactive approach to water demand management, and serves as the foundation for the development of any intervention strategies that seek to bring about sustained and substantial reductions in domestic water consumption. As part of the European Union (EU) funded project Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management (ISS-EWATUS), a household water consumption survey was administered to address the question of how water was used within the home in the EU. The survey was distributed by the University of Thessaly in Greece, and the Institute for Ecology of Industrial Areas in Poland. This paper represents the research output of the survey, including the analysis of three major elements pertinent to the behavior of domestic water consumers: end use behaviors; socio-demographic and property characteristics; and psychosocial constructs such as attitudes and beliefs.