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Purpose – This paper aims to explore the research and development (R&D) structure and the effect which R&D may have on economic growth in Hebei Province, PRC. Through the comparison of R&D efficiency in Hebei and that of seven other regions (with top economic performance in China), it tries to find out the right ways of improving R&D performance, in order to increase its contribution to economic growth. It concludes with practical suggestions for future R&D management in Hebei, and it also offers a useful evaluation framework for other regions. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the analysis of R&D census in 2000 in China and an investigation of 532 large and medium enterprises in Hebei Province, this paper presents a data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework to measure the effects of R&D on economic growth in China. Regional comparisons of R&D efficiencies are also carried out. Findings – Applying the DEA model, this paper finds out the shortcomings of R&D structure in Hebei Province as well as problems in R&D efficiency compared to some other regions. The R&D scale of Hebei is still at the stage of increasing returns to scale, and its ratio of basic research: applied research: development should be adjusted to 2.9:10.4:86.7 instead of 5.7:2.6:67.6. Through the investigation of 532 large and medium enterprises between 1998 and 2000 in Hebei, it was also found that the indigenous innovation is currently the main pattern of Hebei's enterprises. Originality/value – With the DEA model, this paper presents a useful evaluation model on R&D structure and contribution to economic growth in Hebei Province, PRC. A comparison of regional R&D efficiencies provides an important guideline for local governments with respect to future policy making. The framework used in Hebei Province in this paper offers a good reference for some other regions as well.

Local Chinese governments have been experimenting with a form of top-down "co-production" under different names and for various purposes. This paper examines practices in four Chinese cities to understand the process by which this co-production is introduced, its implementation and its outcomes. We found that in these cities, co-production is imposed on urban communities by the higher authorities, with the state playing very active roles in initiating, financing and facilitating the process. Despite the much-improved community environment, communities are not participating to the extent that the state would like. Nonetheless, we argue that this top-down approach has its merits. It may be an efficient way to ignite the co-production process and to some extent sustain it. When these practices are embedded in an authoritarian hierarchy, however, local officials involved are unavoidably evaluated by two separate performance assessment systems, the hierarchical and the horizontal, which so far have not been compatible.

There is great inequality of educational resources between different provinces in China due to unbalanced economic development. Despite continued redistribution of financial resources by the central government in favor of poorer provinces, educational inequality remains. In this paper, we argue that focusing on educational resources is far from sufficient. Poorer provinces do not only suffer from a lower level of educational resources, but they also have more children to educate, i.e. a greater need for education. Combining and analyzing the data in the Sixth National Population Census of China and the official statistics on education spending and resources, we found that provincial-level variations in the child population and the child dependency ratio have made access to educational resources even more unequal given the unequal financial capacity at the provincial level. Poorer provinces face a higher child dependency ratio and have lower economic development, and these two factors jointly lead to limited educational resources. Apart from a much higher level of redistribution in favor of less developed provinces, encouraging more balanced distribution of teachers and more broadly promoting economic equality are essential to reduce inequality in educational resources in China.

Identification of individuals is ubiquitous with increasing reliance by financial and governmental organizations on reliable and robust personal recognition systems to determine and confirm the identity and policy constraints for specific individuals in 'real-time' when reacting to service requests. The traditional identification approaches to user validation are not robust and deficiencies in such approaches are becoming increasingly apparent in the current information-oriented society. With developments in research into the human brain, biometric methods based on brain wave signals have received increased attention as an effective approach to user validation as an individuals' brain wave signals cannot be duplicated, discarded or stolen. Targeted at pervasive systems and the identified deficiencies in traditional approaches to user identification and validation, an electroencephalogram (EEG)-based biometric system for use in pervasive environments is proposed in this paper. A significant problem of EEG-based biometrics in pervasive environment is the requirement of real-time and convenience. In our study, only one active electrode with a portable EEG collection device was used and no other instructions to users for convenience; in addition, the signal analysis methods we used were efficient to achieve less time consumption. In our prototype system, 11 subjects were identified with recognition accuracy in the range 66.02% to 100%; the recognition accuracy increased with increases in the EEG sample time; and the computational time of signal analysis was about 0.5s. The low computational time of EEG data analysis validates this model when implemented in pervasive environments. For differing applications we can define a suitable balance point to optimize the conflicting demands of data collection time length and recognition accuracy. © 2011 ACM.

The green supply chain realizes the unification of economic and environmental benefits through green manufacturing, green circulation and reverse logistics, and represents an important way to reduce emissions. The characteristics of the green supply chain network, however, can encourage some companies to exhibit "free- riding" behavior, participating without being willing to reduce emissions directly themselves. This paper applies an evolutionary game model to a two-level green supply chain composed of green suppliers and green manufacturers in order to analyze a variety of internal and external factors that affect the behavior of both parties in the game, and thence numerically simulate the evolution and stability trend of coordinated reductions in emissions. The results identify many cases of system evolution but the only stable evolution strategy is when both (1) the sum of collaborative emission reduction benefits and government subsidies is greater than the sum of collaborative emission reduction input costs and "free rider" benefits, and (2) the increased rate of unilateral emission reduction benefits is greater than the ratio of costs to original benefits. Income arising from collaborative reductions in emissions, enterprise original income, income from unilateral reductions in emissions in- crease ratio, government subsidy coefficient and achievement reward base can directly affect the system evolution path. The larger these value, the greater the probability of green suppliers and green manufacturers choosing collaborative reductions in emissions, and the faster the system convergence speed. Only the imposition of regulatory punishments above the threshold will affect the "free riding" behavior of enterprises and drive the upstream and downstream enterprises of the green supply chain to reduce emissions faster.

Objectives This study measures the average per person and annual total costs of dementia in England in 2015. Methods/Design Up‐to‐date data for England were drawn from multiple sources to identify prevalence of dementia by severity, patterns of health and social care service utilisation and their unit costs, levels of unpaid care and its economic impacts, and other costs of dementia. These data were used in a refined macrosimulation model to estimate annual per‐person and aggregate costs of dementia. Results There are around 690 000 people with dementia in England, of whom 565 000 receive unpaid care or community care or live in a care home. Total annual cost of dementia in England is estimated to be £24.2 billion in 2015, of which 42% (£10.1 billion) is attributable to unpaid care. Social care costs (£10.2 billion) are three times larger than health care costs (£3.8 billion). £6.2 billion of the total social care costs are met by users themselves and their families, with £4.0 billion (39.4%) funded by government. Total annual costs of mild, moderate, and severe dementia are £3.2 billion, £6.9 billion, and £14.1 billion, respectively. Average costs of mild, moderate, and severe dementia are £24 400, £27 450, and £46 050, respectively, per person per year. Conclusions Dementia has huge economic impacts on people living with the illness, their carers, and society as a whole. Better support for people with dementia and their carers, as well as fair and efficient financing of social care services, are essential to address the current and future challenges of dementia.

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record ; Indirect absorption extended below the direct transition edge and increase in carrier lifetime derived from Rashba spin-orbit coupling may advance the optoelectronic applications of metal halide perovskites. Spin-orbit coupling in halide perovskites is due to the presence of heavy elements in their structure. However, when these materials lack an inversion symmetry, for example by the application of strain, spin-orbit coupling becomes odd in the electron's momentum giving rise to a splitting in the electronic energy bands. Here we report on the observation of a large Rashba splitting of 117 meV at room temperature through a facile compositional engineering approach in halide perovskite single crystals, as predicted by relativistic first-principles calculations. Partial substitution of organic cations by rubidium ions in single crystals induces significant indirect absorption and dual emission as a result of a large Rashba splitting. We measured significant magneto-photocurrent, magneto-electroluminescence and magneto-photoluminescence responses in perovskite single crystal devices and thin films. They originate from the significant spin-momentum locking that leads to different precession frequencies of their respective spins about the applied magnetic field. A hybrid perovskite single crystal photodetector achieved record figures of merit, including detectivity of more than 1.3×1018 Jones which represents a three orders of magnitude improvement compared to the to date record. These findings show that facile compositional engineering of perovskite single crystals holds great promise for further advancing the optoelectronic properties of existing materials. ; European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) ; European Union Horizon 2020 ; Ministero dell'Istruzione dell'Universitàe della Ricerca (MIUR) ; Università degli Studi di Perugia ; CNPq, Brazil