Wenxiang Sheng’s research while affiliated with Hefei University of Technology and other places

China’s industrial sector generally relies on electricity as its main source of energy, and industrial production can be affected if there are problems with the electricity supply. In order to deal with the uncertain electricity supply and achieve the “dual carbon” target, the industrial sector needs to take effective measures to enhance carbon total factor productivity (CTFP). We use the biennial Luenberger productivity index (BLPI) to try to provide strategies for low-carbon industrial development in China. The results indicate that the overall CTFP of China’s industrial sector showed an increasing trend from 2006 to 2019. Technology change was the main contributor to the change in CTFP, but fluctuations in efficiency change remained a challenge. Differences were observed between the light industry sector (LIS) and the heavy industry sector (HIS) in terms of changes in CTFP, with LIS showing more stable changes and HIS experiencing larger fluctuations. Most sub-sectors showed increased CTFP during the sample period. R&D investment and R&D personnel have a positive impact on CTFP, while energy structure is found to hinder CTFP. According to the research results of this study, we offer the corresponding policy implications. This study is the first to explore the balance between low-carbon goals and industrial production from the perspective of improving CTFP, providing a new viewpoint on the contributions of technological innovation to solving socio-economic issues.

Binary metal sulfides have been widely studied as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to their abundant charge-storage oxidation reduction states. However, their poor electrochemical stability due to their volume expansion and poor electrical conductivity has hindered their commercial application. Here, we report a MOFs (Metal–organic frameworks)-derived strategy for the synthesis of stable hybrid structures with NiCo2S4 nanocrystals in nitrogen-doped carbon nanorods (represented as NiCo2S4@N–C). NiCo2S4@N–C with many interconnecting voids to reduce volume expansion and increase the contact area between the material and the electrolyte. In addition, the doping of nitrogen atoms in the carbon matrix can improve the conductivity of the electrode material and increase the active site, thus changing the electrochemical performance of the electrode material. As expected, NiCo2S4@N–C still has a large reversible capacity of 1543 mAh g⁻¹ after 100 cycles compared to CoS2@N–C and NiS@N–C at 100 mA g⁻¹ current densities, and even at a large current density of 1 A g⁻¹, the capacity still retains 893 mAh g⁻¹ after 1000 cycles, showing enhanced lithium storage performance, indicating its potential as anode material for lithium ion batteries.

Outpatient physicians’ diagnostic scan decision-making is not only related to the quality of medical diagnosis but also connected with the operations efficiency of the hospital. Identifying and understanding how outpatient physicians react to their peers in diagnostic scan decisions is an important economics issue that can help hospitals improve their operations effectiveness. Based on the data collected from a Chinese 3A Grade hospital, we reveal that peers have negative influences on outpatient physicians in deciding the number of scan orders during a shift. Relative to male physicians, female physicians are more likely to be influenced by their peers. Moreover, physicians in the surgical medicine departments are more sensitive to peers regarding decisions on scan orders, relative to those in the internal medicine departments. We further find that several conventional social interaction factors, including learning, status, and homophily, do not act on peer influence. While resource spillover caused by shared scan resource constraints, patient-volume and physician-volume can enlarge the negative peer influence, suggesting that resource spillover should be a significant driving force of the peer influence in deciding the number of scan orders. Finally, theoretical and management implications are discussed.

The Chinese government has not only been increasing investments in environmental protection, improving the quality of the ecological environment, but has also been focusing on curbing the excessive growth of medical and healthcare expenses so as to ease the economic burden of China’s residents. Both aspects are significant concerns worldwide and have received much research attention individually, but the relationship between government environmental protection expenditure and residents’ medical and healthcare expenditure remains unclear. Based on panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2007 to 2019, this paper empirically reveals that fiscal environmental protection expenditure is significantly negatively correlated with per capita medical and healthcare expenditure of residents (including outpatient expenditure and inpatient expenditure). This study shows that increasing the fiscal environmental protection expenditure can help curb the rising level of residents’ medical and healthcare expenditure. In addition, the results of heterogeneity analysis indicate that the above relationship is stronger in provinces with a relatively low level of economic development or low proportion of the population over 65 years old. Management implications are discussed.