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The Tibetan Plateau works as an important environmental and ecological barrier for the Asian continent. The researches on Tibetan environment and ecology are becoming extensive, but there is no systematic summary of research hotspots and trends in this field. Here, we analyzed 9180 publications retrieved from the WOS and CNKI during 2000 ~ 2020. The characteristics of publication, keywords with a 5-year interval and co-occurrence analysis were carried out so as to reveal the evolution and development trends of topics. The results show that articles increase dramatically since 2012. Except for common concerns like evolution, climate change, and precipitation, diversity was been studied more by Chinese scholars, while the USA, Germany, UK, and Australia researchers focused more on adaptability, basin western Tibet, lake, barley, and ore-related themes, respectively. Besides, China closely collaborated with the USA, Australia, and Germany in topics of evolution, climate change and degradation, precipitation, and diversity. The institutions located in Chinese different economic regions focused on different research keywords, such as vegetation, growth, trace elements, and geochemistry. The CAS contributed the most articles with 4254, showed advantages both in quantity and quality. Few articles were published by researchers affiliated to Free University of Berlin but with higher citations. It is the only one institute outside of China in the top 20. Main research hotspots include climate change, geology, and diversity. In future researches, ecological management and rehabilitation of mining area and tailings ponds, waste disposal, and changes of soil and water quality are worthy of attention and funding., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the geographic distribution and number of papers published in international and Science Citation Index (SCI)-indexed cytology journals based on their country of origin., Materials and Methods: A country-based geographic analysis of studies published over a 5.5-year period from January 2016 to June 2021 in 5 cytopathology journals indexed as SCI and SCI-E with an impact factor higher than 1 (Cancer Cytopathology, Cytopathology, Diagnostic Cytopathology, Acta Cytologica, and CytoJournal) and papers categorized as "original" and "other" was performed., Results: A total of 3,063 papers were found, with 1,466 (47.8%) categorized as "original" papers and 1,597 (52.1%) designated as "other" papers. These papers were submitted from 62 different countries. The five countries with the greatest number of papers were the USA (38.4%), India (16.8%), Japan (7.4%), Italy (5.5%), and Brazil (3.1%). A general subgroup analysis was also performed on the original studies without a country breakdown. Cytomorphological, cytomorphological-immunohistochemical, and molecular assessments compose 38.5%, 45.7%, and 15% of the subgroups, respectively., Conclusion: The number of academic papers originating from developing countries in the field of cytopathology has increased in recent years. Although most scientific papers are produced in developed countries, the rate in these countries is much lower than that in some developing countries as the rate of academic growth in developed countries has stabilized. Despite the widespread and sophisticated implementation of cytology in daily practice in Western European countries outside the UK, such as Germany and the Netherlands, and in Scandinavian countries and other developed countries, such as Australia and Canada, these countries rank in the middle to lower end of countries producing cytology papers. Meanwhile, there has been an increase in the number of cytology papers published by authors from Southern European countries, such as Italy (ranked 4th) and Spain (ranked 6th), and Turkey (ranked 8th). There is a remarkable increase in cytology papers originating from Asia, particularly India, Japan, and China., Summary: We aimed to present a basic survey of the geographic distribution of manuscript submissions to high-impact cytopathology journals and to point out emerging trends in cytology utilization and basic research. However, our results show that the landscape of cytology is changing and suggest geographic regions that are ripe for the production of novel "points of view" and new research findings., (© 2022 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is commonly defined as a transitional subclinical state between normal aging and dementia. A growing body of research indicates that health behaviors may play a protective role against cognitive decline and could potentially slow down the progression from MCI to dementia. The aim of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of literature focusing on health behaviors and MCI to summarize the factors and evidence regarding the influence of health behaviors on MCI. Methods: The study performed a bibliometric analysis by retrieving publications from the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index subdatabases within the Web of Science Core Collection. Utilizing VOSviewer and CiteSpace software, a total of 2,843 eligible articles underwent co-citation, cokeywords, and clustering analyses. This methodology aimed to investigate the current status, trends, major research questions, and potential future directions within the research domain. Results: The bibliometric analysis indicates that research on healthy behaviors in individuals with MCI originated in 2002 and experienced rapid growth in 2014, reflecting the increasing global interest in this area. The United States emerged as the primary contributor, accounting for more than one-third of the total scientific output with 982 articles. Journals that published the most articles on MCI-related health behaviors included "Journal of Alzheimer's Disease," "Neurobiology of Aging," "Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience," and other geriatricsrelated journals. High-impact papers identified by VOSviewer predominantly cover concepts related to MCI, such as diagnostic criteria, assessment, and multifactorial interventions. Co-occurrence keyword analysis highlights five research hotspots in health behavior associated with MCI: exercise, diet, risk factors and preventive measures for dementia, cognitive decline-related biomarkers, and clinical trials. Conclusion: This study provides a comprehensive review of literature on health behavior in individuals with MCI, emphasizing influential documents and journals. It outlines research trends and key focal points, offering valuable insights for researchers to comprehend significant contributions and steer future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Interleukin17 (IL17) is an important cytokine in host defense at mucosal surfaces and also mediates many autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In recent years, many types of research relevant to the structure and function of IL17 have been identified. However, there is no bibliometric analysis in this research field. This study aims to explore the history, research hotspots, and emerging trends of IL17 from the perspective of the structure and function dynamics. Methods: Articles relevant to IL17 in the last two decades were retrieved through the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database. The bibliometric analysis was performed by VOSview. Results: A total of 882 papers in this research were analyzed from 65 countries, and the rate of published articles has increased from 2008 annually, with the USA, China, and Germany leading the research effort. Frontiers in Immunology has significantly impacted research in this field and the University of Pittsburgh was the leading institution. Gaffen, Sarah L. from the University of Pittsburgh was the most productive researcher in this field and Papp Ka from the Probity Medical Research Incorporate of Canada is the most co-cited author. The analysis of keywords showed that inflammation, expression, Th17 cells, and cytokines were the main hotspots and frontier directions of IL17. The trend of clinical application in the future is the development of new therapy drugs based on the structure of IL17 or IL17 signaling pathway molecular. Conclusions: Our research summarized the developments and research trends of IL17 and would help researchers understand the research status of IL17 and provide a reference for future researchers as soon as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at providing empirical content for the theoretical concept of the ‘acceptability of operations’ as an indicator of corporate social performance (CSP) through a qualitative field study. The data were gathered at four mills belonging to a Scandinavian-based pulp and paper company located in four countries, China, Finland, Germany and Portugal. An experimental acceptability model was formulated on the basis of summaries for the individual countries. Issues such as importance of the mill for the local economy and environmental impacts were the most important elements of the acceptability concept at the local level, while the reputation of the entire sector was one of the major factors influencing the concept at the national and global levels. In addition, the level of social participation and discussion in society served well to indicate the extent and depth of the acceptability concept in the societies studied. The results suggest that the acceptability of operations is a good indicator of corporate social performance. However, it is recommendable to study further the applicability of the stakeholder approach in this kind of context. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first detailed description of an epicutaneous test in a case of allergy was probably in 1847 by Städeler, a chemist at the University of Göttingen. A review of the history of the tests is given; touch and other investigations such as Städeler's blotting paper strip, Jadassohn's application method (1895) and Fabre's blotting-paper square (1897).

As humanity reaches the 5.0 industrial revolution, education plays a critical role in boosting the quality of human resources. This paper reports bibliometric research on emerging TiP during 1993-2022 in the educational field to analyse its development on any level of education during the last three decades. This study employed a Scopus database. The findings are that the trend of TiP publication in educational fields has tended to increase every year during the past three decades and conference paper became the most published document type, the USA is the country which produces the most publications; "Students" being the most occurrences keyword and total link strength. The publication of the TiP is ranked to the Quartile 1, which implies that a publication with the cited performance is a publication with credibility because the publisher has a good reputation. Researchers can find the topics most relevant to other metadata sources such as Web of Science, Publish, and Perish.

Both in Germany and in China, there is strong expertise regarding the different aspects of forest management, as well as forest products management. Nevertheless, forestry in both countries is facing challenges, some of which are regional, but many of which are shared. Therefore, experts from both countries (Technical University of Munich Germany; Northwest A&F University Yangling, China; Forestry Academy of Shaanxi, China; Thünen Institut, Germany; FEDRC GIZ Forest Policy Facility (Forestry Economics Development and Research Center of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH), Germany; and Center for Natural Forest Protection in Shaanxi, China) met to share their knowledge and deduce recommendations for future multifunctional forest management for the temperate zone. The workshop, held at the Northwest A&F University in September 2018, included presentations and intensive discussions, as well as a field tour. The results of the workshop that are summarized in this white paper are meant to provide an overview of the multi-faceted nature of the topic for interested scientists and forest practitioners, describe tools that can be used to analyze various aspects of multifunctionality and, in an exemplary fashion, highlight gathered experience from long- and short-term experiments. Included are social demands, economic goals, and scientific baselines. The topics reach from economic evaluations of forest ecosystem services over forest management practices, including afforestation, restoration, and preparations to face climate change, to wood/forest products utilization and participation of local people for poverty reduction. Overall, an optimistic picture emerges, showing that by using adapted forest management practices, which try to embrace the concept of multifunctionality, various use schemes and demands can be integrated at single sites, allowing us to achieve both environmental protection and productive forests, including societal demands, as well as aspects of tradition and national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the German post‐reunification context dominated by economic uncertainty and structural change, this paper studies the effects of import shocks from China on the fertility decisions of individuals working in the German manufacturing sector between 1995 and 2016. While focusing on trade shocks related to Chinese imported goods, the paper explores individual fertility via the labor market outcomes of manufacturing workers, roughly a fifth of German employment. I investigate the gender‐specific effects of Chinese import competition on individual fertility and explain the channels mediating each of them. I find that globalization affects overall fertility negatively, but the effect is positive for women and negative for men. Results indicate a reduction in the employment opportunity of individuals, an increase in marginal employment and higher economic insecurity. There is a substitution effect in the labor supply of women, here prevalently concentrated in low‐technology sectors: as female earnings fall and their opportunity cost of work is lower, the prospect of having children possibly becomes a more rewarding alternative. Given concerns over low fertility in Germany, findings are particularly important for understanding the German social and economic structure that enabled the country's post‐reunification transformation but also allowed heavy labor market segmentation and atypical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GaoFen-7 (GF-7) satellite mission is further expanding the very high resolution 3D mapping application. Carrying the first civilian Chinese sub-meter resolution stereo satellite sensors, GF-7 satellite was launched on November 7, 2019. With 0.65 meter resolution on backward view and 0.8 meter resolution forward view, GF-7 has been designed to meet the demand of natural resource monitoring, land surveying, and other mapping applications in China. The use of GF-7 for 3D city reconstruction is unfortunately restricted by the fixed large stereo view angle of forward and backward cameras with +26 and −5 degrees respectively which is not optimal for dense stereo matching in urban regions. In this paper we intensively evaluate the quality of the GF-7 datasets by performing a series of urban monitoring applications, including road detection, building extraction and 3D reconstruction. In addition, we propose a 3D reconstruction workflow which uses the land cover classification result to refine the stereo matching result. Six sub-urban regions are selected from the available datasets in the middle of Germany. The results show that basic elements in urban scenes like buildings and roads could be detected from GF-7 datasets with high accuracy. With the proposed workflow, a 3D city model with a visually observed good quality can be delivered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social network theories are used extensively to analyze the international migration of Chinese to overseas regions in the era of Market Economy Reform since 1978. Attention is paid especially on the role of social networks among overseas Chinese on disaster relief in China. Focusing on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this paper investigates how social networks work as a crucial mechanism through which Chinese immigrants in Germany initiated and delivered monetary and material donations to China in early 2020 and then organized self-help in their everyday lives in Germany in late 2020. Different from previous studies, this paper scrutinizes social networks for disaster relief on the macro, meso, and micro levels. Multi-site ethnographic fieldwork in China and Germany combined with online and offline data collected from focus group sessions, interviews with individuals, participant observations, surveys, analysis of news reports on the pandemic, and analysis on relevant policies are utilized comprehensively to collect data on the three levels. This research discovers that internet tools – represented by WeChat – have integrated tightly into the traditional social networks of Chinese immigrants and consolidated the cultural cohesion from overseas Chinese to their connections in China. This paper aims at contributing to present studies on Chinese new immigrants, social network, and disaster management theories with an updated ethnographic case on the COVID-19 pandemic from Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides empirical evidence on how intergovernmental revenue relations would affect governments' incentives on tax enforcement in a developing country. By taking advantage of the exogenous shock induced by China's corporate tax income revenue sharing reform in 2002, I find that the local governments would increase tax enforcement on local business tax and surcharges (BTS) to offset the adverse fiscal shock. In addition, such tougher tax enforcement was heterogeneous across firms. The increased effective BTS was mostly driven by non-state-owned enterprises and domestic firms. This paper further shows that the incidence of corporate tax could be passed onto workers through lower wages and benefits. On average, the share of corporate tax burden borne by workers in China is approximately 62%, which is higher than the estimate in Germany (Fuest et al. in Am Econ Rev 108(2):393–418, 2018). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of China Tourism Research is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The worldwide transformation of electricity production goes hand in hand with increasing use of wind energy. The German 'Energiewende' project is no exception and relies heavily on the construction and use of an ever-increasing number of wind turbines. While the operation of wind turbines does not lead to the emission of pollutants (in contrast to, e.g. coal, oil or gas), the production processes of the construction materials do. Since the raw materials' production primarily takes place outside Germany, radioactivity and doses related to these processes occur at remote places in the world. This effect might be called an 'export of doses'. In the present paper, we perform a life cycle analysis of wind turbines, investigating the mining and production of the construction materials. We focus on rare-earth elements needed for the generator magnets and assess the associated releases of radioactive materials during mining and processing, primarily in China. Estimates of dose to the public in selected Chinese cities are calculated. Different electricity generation techniques are compared by the use of the quantity (collective) dose per GW per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Yangtze Normal University is the property of Journal of Yangtze Normal University Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

According to statistics, the incidence of traffic accidents in China is far greater than that of developed countries such as the USA and Germany. Nearly 100,000 people die in traffic accidents every year in China. The use of the assisted driving system effectively reduces the incidence of traffic accidents, while road surface object recognition is the key research object in the assisted driving system. At present, in the research on the recognition of pavement objects, there are problems such as low recognition rate and long recognition time, which cannot play the role of assisting driving. In response to these problems, this paper proposes a research on pavement object recognition based on machine learning, including analysis of key technologies of machine learning and optimization of related algorithms. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed method in the assisted driving system, the research results are applied to the road surface object recognition device and the experiment is carried out under the actual traffic environment. The results show that in the selected experimental scenes, the recognition accuracy of the road surface object recognition device applying the research results of this paper is 100%, and the recognition time is far lower than the traditional road object recognition method. The results show that the proposed method can quickly and effectively identify the pavement object, and then assist the driver to control the vehicle, which has good applicability in the assisted driving system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the InCites tool of Thomson Reuters, this study compares normalized citation impact values calculated for China, Japan, France, Germany, United States, and the UK throughout the time period from 1981 to 2010. InCites offers a unique opportunity to study the normalized citation impacts of countries using (i) a long publication window (1981 to 2010), (ii) a differentiation in (broad or more narrow) subject areas, and (iii) allowing for the use of statistical procedures in order to obtain an insightful investigation of national citation trends across the years. Using four broad categories, our results show significantly increasing trends in citation impact values for France, the UK, and especially Germany across the last thirty years in all areas. The citation impact of papers from China is still at a relatively low level (mostly below the world average), but the country follows an increasing trend line. The USA exhibits a stable pattern of high citation impact values across the years. With small impact differences between the publication years, the US trend is increasing in engineering and technology but decreasing in medical and health sciences as well as in agricultural sciences. Similar to the USA, Japan follows increasing as well as decreasing trends in different subject areas, but the variability across the years is small. In most of the years, papers from Japan perform below or approximately at the world average in each subject area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest products trade has a critical role to play in both global economic development and environmental protection. Based on the trade data of global forest products, raw forest products, and processed forest products from 2000 to 2020, this paper constructed a trade network and analyzed its pattern by using indicators such as density, average distance, out-strength, and in-strength. The results show that from 2000 to 2020, the global trade network of forest products has been increasingly connected. Compared with the trade of raw material forest products, the trade network of processed forest products is more closely connected and its transport efficiency is higher. Countries with high GDP such as USA, China, and Germany are leading trading countries in forest products. Countries with abundant forest resources are the major exporters of raw forest products, while labor- and capital-abundant countries are major exporters of processed forest products. Countries with abundant labor and capital and high GDP are the main importers of raw forest products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education informatization (HEI) is an interdisciplinary field that examines the use and integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in higher education. This paper provides a bibliometric and visual analysis of the research trends, patterns, and topics in this field. Using the Web of Science database, the authors selected and analyzed 199 SCI and SSCI papers on HEI published from 2000 to 2023 by VOSviewer and CiteSpace software. The results indicate that the publication volume of HEI research has grown significantly in recent years. The author network shows the collaboration and contribution of different researchers and institutions, while the journal network reveals the multidisciplinary nature and scope of the field. The keyword network and the burst keyword analysis identify the main research themes and the emerging hot topics in HEI. The co-citation network of sources illustrates the theoretical and methodological foundations and influences of the field. The paper concludes with some implications and suggestions for future HEI research.

Most current scientific policies incorporate debates on cities and the geographic organisation of scientific activity. Research on ‘world cities’ develops the idea that interconnected agglomerations can better take advantage of international competition. Thus, the increasing concentration of activities in these cities at the expense of others could be observed by certain scholars using measures based on scientific publications. Others, however, show that an opposite trend is emerging: the largest cities are undergoing a relative decline in a country’s scientific activities. To go beyond this seeming contradiction, this paper provides a global analysis of all countries with papers in the Web of Science over the period 1987–2007. The author’s addresses were geocoded and grouped into agglomerations. Registering of papers was based on the fractional counting of multi-authored publications, and the results are unambiguous: deconcentration is the dominant trend both globally and within countries, with some exceptions for which explanations are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper deals with the application of stochastic optimization principles for investment decision making. The authors present the investment management system based on an adequate portfolio model. For optimal portfolio construction and stock selection, the method of stochastically informative expertise and ranging is used. Investment portfolios in equity and currency markets are formed considering investor risk tolerance and risk preference level, as well as an individual utility function. Investment portfolios are constructed according to three criteria: return, risk, and reliability. The markets of Germany, the USA, and China, as well as foreign exchange markets, are analysed. The results reveal the efficient investment possibilities in the mentioned markets, allowing to reach investment return substantially exceeding market index return. Along with that, an innovative stochastic clustering methodology for investment assets is proposed. The obtained results are of great value for individual as well as institutional investors and are a suitable means to form efficient investment strategies in financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We performed a scientometric analysis of Chaos papers from 1991 to 2019, applying a careful disambiguation process for identifying the authors correctly. First, we used standard scientometric tools based on descriptive statistics. This analysis enabled us to compute productivity and the degree of collaboration. The evolution in the number of authors, countries, and topics per article has an increasing trend. An analysis of the citations considering their temporal mean number exhibits a growing tendency in time. Second, we dealt with Lotka–Zipf's law considering the rank distributions of 15 datasets. We found that the sum of Crossref citations by country was the only dataset for which the power-law was the only plausible distribution. Next, we examined the networks of authors, countries, and topics, going from the simplest case of undirected and unweighted networks to the general case of weighted and directed networks and assigning a weight to the individual nodes. Based on the networks' topology and features, we introduced diversity, collaboration, influence, and productivity measures and found a significant increase in the diversity of all the considered networks (authors, countries, and topics) but manifesting a very different network structure. The computation of typical network quantities combined with the communities' identification reveals the presence of several hubs and the existence of various communities that encompass nodes of all the continents in the case of countries. Finally, using the most general networks, it was possible to compute influence and productivity indexes to find the USA, China, and Germany's leadership inside the network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of novel energy vehicles, power generation, photovoltaics, and other industries, power electronic devices have gained considerable attention. Insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) have been widely used in those fields. With the emergence of intelligent manufacturing concepts such as Germany's "Industry 4.0" and China's "Made in China 2025", conventional manufacturing which needs to be upgraded with higher efficiency and yield is rapidly pivoting toward digitalization and intelligence. The digital twin methodology has been extensively used in various industries for constructing virtual models of physical entities, facilitating real-time data interconnection to reduce costs and improve efficiency. This study proposes a modular intelligent IGBT production line based on the digital twin. Real-time data are transmitted from a physical line to a digital line for storage and analysis. The digital line is visualized, and an intelligent management platform containing multiple functions is developed. Additionally, a process simulation database is established to obtain the optimal process parameters. Numerous quality issues that can arise during each process of IGBT packaging are addressed using a problem-solving approach based on the digital twin methodology. Consequently, this digital-twin-based IGBT intelligent production line effectively enhances yield rates and efficiency. IGBT modules with various packaging forms such as ACF, ACE, and ACD are manufactured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the recent discussion concerning the interactions between China and Germany in the context of Industry 4.0, highlighting the most relevant innovation and trade trends and the policy implications of this collaboration. The qualitative analysis examines the features of the innovation systems in Germany and China and the strategies implemented to boost the innovation process. The quantitative analysis exploits trade, patent and publications data to identify trends related to China-Germany cooperation. The paper provides insights into the policy implications for both countries of Sino-German cooperation in relation to Industry 4.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract available [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While promoting the economic growth, energy has also brought pollution problems to the world environment, which has gradually become a bottleneck impeding sustainable economic development. In view of the rapid evolution of urbanization and industrialization, economic growth is increasingly dependent on the energy consumption, the development of the two is difficult to coordinate, and the internal contradictions are becoming increasingly serious, which hinders the sustainable development of economic growth. This study establishes the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth according to the energy Kuznets curve and studies the future trend of China's sustainable development through the comparative analysis of the energy Kuznets curve of the United States and Germany. The results show that, at the turning point of energy consumption, China's energy economic rate is higher than that of Germany and the United States. In addition, in terms of urbanization rate and industrial structure, although China's tertiary industry has made a breakthrough, it is still lower than that of the United States and Germany, but the level of urbanization rate has made significant progress. In short, China has obvious advantages in future economic development and has a late developing advantage compared with the United States and Germany. This paper makes an empirical analysis of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in OECD countries and finds out the turning point of energy consumption, so as to provide a theoretical basis for coordinating China's energy consumption and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies have elevated the capabilities and possibilities of improvement and efficiency in the energy sector. This paper interrogates how energy companies in South Africa, Germany and China apply 4IR technologies. A total of 26 energy companies in those countries were surveyed. An analysis was carried out using the Cronbach Alpha, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. Survey results indicate that 85% of companies acknowledge good levels of participation in the 4IR, and were clear about which 4IR technologies are important, although few companies develop these themselves. Technologies enabling access to big, real-time data (BRTD) and BRTD analysis software, are valued the most in measured importance, efficiency, reliability and ability to be integrated across the energy system. The transfer of data using the Internet of things ranked highly as a 4IR technology, whereas artificial intelligence, robotics and machine-human integration (also referred to as machine-human interaction) are considered less important, efficient, and reliable. China rates 4IR technologies as more important than South Africa and Germany do. For South Africa to be competitive in the global energy sector it needs to engage with and embrace 4IR technologies to a greater extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to identify the most prolific countries in the field of special education and to discuss the widespread impact of their papers by taking into account the country's h-index. Through a bibliometric analysis, the data were collected in the Web of Science Core Collection category "Education, Special" in the Social Science Citation Index during 2011-2020. The 25 most prolific countries in the field of special education were determined in terms of paper productivity, and it was seen that the leading country was undisputedly the USA (54.42%). Meanwhile, a strong positive correlation was found between the h-index and the number of papers published by the countries (r=0.864). On the other hand, when the ranking in terms of the number of papers was reconfigured by the h-index, it was relatively changed. The possible reasons for this change for the countries with the most changing rankings were discussed by considering some definitive criteria such as the journal quartiles, the percentage of international and domestic, and the percentage of open access papers. This study reports a positive correlation between the quality and quantity in the field of special education for the publications of countries. It has been shown that where the positive correlation deviates, then especially, the journal quartiles, the percentage of international collaboration and the percentage of open access papers have a significant effect. The bibliometric findings may be useful to enrich the discussion about the widespread impact of papers and debate whether the use of h-index is acceptable for cross-national comparisons.

Recently, Chinese firms have become more active in attempting to go public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FWB). This paper uses multivariate probit analysis to test the motivations of Chinese firms to list on the FWB. In general, Chinese firms are driven by the following motivations. Firstly, they pursue relatively more stringent listing standards and closer monitoring than the Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) and the London Alternative Investment Market (AIM). Secondly, they are motivated by emerging needs for external financing. Moreover, this paper also examines the post-issue performance of Chinese listings on the FWB. It turns out that Chinese firms listed on the FWB not only show bad operating performance but also bad stock performance. However, they are no exceptions since many Chinese firms listed on other foreign stock exchanges also under-perform the market average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the high unemployment rates of university graduates, Asian governments are encouraging their universities to develop a more practice-oriented curriculum. The aim is to provide better-qualified graduates, who will meet the needs of industry. The Duale Hochschule Baden-Wuerttemberg (DHBW) supports this development, through internationalizing cooperative education programs at Asian universities, based on its successful study model. This paper focuses on comparing the DHBW with two Asian universities: Walailak University in Thailand and Southeast University in China. Descriptive case studies for the two universities, using a multiple case design, were mapped to the key success factors of the DHBW, in particular achieving practical experience and the role of industry. The data for the case studies originated from semi-structured interviews in a focus group setting with 36 academics, government officials, cooperative education bodies and industry representatives. The aim was to assess the opportunities and limitations for implementing the DHBW model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to systematically unpack whether and how WeChat network size is correlated with perceived social capital and life satisfaction among Chinese overseas students in Germany. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a web-based survey data collected from 218 sojourners, zero-order correlation analyses and structural equation modeling were separately implemented to tackle the complicated research questions. Findings: Findings demonstrate that an individual's WeChat network size significantly and directly influences bridging, bonding and maintained social capital. Importantly, a path model demonstrates that these distinct dimensions of social capital are all significant predictors of life satisfaction. Furthermore, the empirical evidence reveals that bridging, bonding and maintained social capital can mediate the association between network size and well-being outcome. Research limitations/implications: Theoretically, the paper is an initial attempt contributing to the previous studies on estimating the influence of WeChat friendships on social capital and life satisfaction. Practically, these findings will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of effect of personal network characteristics derived from the dominant media interaction on social connectedness and life quality. Originality/value: Despite WeChat is immensely prevalent in Mainland China, only few studies have concentrated on the role of WeChat network size in fostering individuals' social and psychological development. The work provides unique evidence that number of friends on the emerging technology could indirectly benefit sojourners' satisfaction with life through processes involving diverse categories of social capital in a trans-cultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the rising geoeconomic competition between the USA and China, no suggestions are offered in the contemporary literature as to what geoeconomic strategy middle powers can use towards the great powers in the face of the currently emerging bipolar world structure. In this paper, three ideal-typical models of geoeconomic strategies for middle powers are developed with the help of terminology borrowed from strategic studies: the concepts of balancing, bandwagoning and hedging lead to the concepts of geoeconomic balancing, geoeconomic bandwagoning and geoeconomic hedging. Further, the behaviour of Germany towards China is tested, and it is argued that Germany has chosen geoeconomic hedging as its strategy towards China. By simultaneously promoting and restricting economic relations with China, Germany seeks to protect its commercial interests in China and at the same time strengthen its partnership with the USA and EU members to avoid falling into the Chinese sphere of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The higher education efficiency evaluation model using the data envelopment analysis method has interested many researchers. This paper uses bibliometric analysis on publications extracted from the Scopus database to provide a comprehensive overview of research publications on the measurement of higher education efficiency based on data envelopment analysis: its growth rate, major collaboration networks, the most important and popular research topic. A total of 169 related publications were collected and analyzed from 1988 to 2021. The analysis results show that: Publications published every year have increased sharply in the last six years; The quality of publications is relatively high as publications tend to be published in journals with high-ranking indexes; Countries with the most influence in studies on this topic are: Italy, China, Spain, the USA, and the United Kingdom; Authors with the most influence in this research direction are Agasisti T., Abbott M., Doucouliagos C., Avkiran N.K., and Johnes J.; The research cooperation among countries and among affiliations is not strong. Finally, the paper has provided recommendations for future studies based on the findings.