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Teaching venues are playing an important role in the filed of open and distance education (ODL). In China's ODL system over 70% enrolled students are from Radio and TV Universities (RTVUs). Many off-campus teaching venues of e-colleges in 67 conventional universities have been established in RTVUs at prefecture and city level. In this article, the authors have done a direct survey on the data of distance education cost over the past consecutive 4 years in 21 RTVUs at prefecture and city level from 3 provinces (Xinjiang, Hunan and Fujian) in China's western, central and eastern areas, and empirically studied the scale effect in teaching venues at prefecture and city level under the hypothesis condition-teaching effect of ODL and conventional education is the same. The study result illustrates that the average student cost of RTVUs at prefecture and city level demonstrates a scale economy feature, that is, with the expansion of enrolled students scale, there is a fall in the average student cost. The study indicates large differences between average student variable cost and average student cost, which shows a possible average cost reduction in RTVUs at prefecture and city level. In terms of geographical and economic differences, some imbalances of development have been found among RTVUs at prefecture and city level. A quadratic form regression model has been established for doing this research in the perspective of education economics. The results of the regression show that the optimal enrolled student number of RTVUs nationwide at prefecture and city level is around 7,800. For provinces, the most optimal enrolled student numbers are as follows: 9,100 for Fujian, 3,800 for Hunan, and 2,200for Xianjiang, which can serve as the reference for expanding scale economy in ODL. The research finding also indicate the changes in student average cost resulting from the changes in scale, the problem of determining investment direction. It is suggested that more input which benefit the quality improvement of distance education should be made.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between different types of team goal orientations (team learning orientation, team prove orientation and team avoid orientation) and team performance in new product development (NPD) and how these relationships are mediated by team absorptive capacity.

Data were collected through two surveys from 71 NPD teams and analyzed by the confirmatory factor analysis, correlation and hierarchical regression analysis methods.

The authors find that both teams’ learning and prove orientations are positively related to their absorptive capacity, which leads to increasing team performance in NPD. Further, the authors find support for the mediating role of team absorptive capacity in connecting team learning orientation and team prove orientation with team performance in NPD.

For practitioners, this paper suggests that to benefit from their NPD team efforts, firms with innovative aspirations should consider their existing and desired access to external knowledge sources and particularly the extent to which they can successfully integrate external knowledge with their internal knowledge structure.

The explication of team absorptive capacity is as a key mechanism through which different goal orientations of NPD teams inform the ability to successfully develop new products. By integrating the concepts of team goal orientations, team absorptive capacity and team performance in NPD, the authors seek to gain a better understanding of why some firms are more likely to do better than others in NPD. Findings of this paper extend concept of the nomological network on how absorptive capacity may serve as a direct outcome of different goal orientations. This paper responds to how Chinese firms can increase their innovative performance by infusing their current knowledge bases with external knowledge and extends the literature on knowledge management and managerial ties on innovation.

This paper aims to present a kinematics analysis method and statics based control of the continuum robot with mortise and tenon joints to achieve better control performance of the robot.

The kinematics model is derived by the geometric analysis method under the piecewise constant curvature assumption, and the workspace and dexterity of the proposed robot are analyzed to optimize its structure parameters. Moreover, the statics model is established by the principle of virtual work, which is used to analyze the mapping relationship between the bending deformation and the applied forces/torques. To improve the control accuracy of the robot, a model-based controller is put forward.

Results of the experiments verify the feasibility of the proposed continuum structure and the correctness of the established model and the control method. The force deviation between the theoretical value and the actual value is relatively small, and the mean value of the deviation between the driving forces is only 0.46 N, which verify the established statics model and the controller.

The proposed model and motion controller can realize its accurate bending control with a few deviations, which can be used as the reference for the motion planning and dynamic model of the continuum robot.

We investigate the convergence of Chinese real GDP per capita at regional and provincial levels, looking separately at the sub‐periods before and after major economic reforms and paying attention to the possibility of structural breaks induced by the ‘Great Leap Forward’. At the regional level we reject convergence pre‐ and post‐reform. At the provincial level we find evidence of a common regional trend for the Eastern region and again for the Central region, but not for the Western region. We conclude that, contrary to the policy objectives of the Chinese government, the regions of China have not shared a common development path.

This paper aims to solve the disadvantages of content-based domain ontology (CBDO) and metadata-based domain ontology (MDO) and improve organization and discovery efficiency of library resources by resource ontology (RO).

The paper constructed an RO model. Methods of informetrics are utilized to reveal semantic relationships among library resources. Methods of ontology, ontology-relational database mapping (O-R mapping) and relational database modelling are utilized to construct RO. Take author co-occurrence for example, the paper demonstrated the capability of RO model.

RO not only revealed the deep-level semantic relationships of metadata of library resources but also realized totally computer-automated processing. RO improved the efficiency of knowledge organization and discovery.

Semantic relationships revealed by RO are limited to simple metadata, which makes it difficult to reveal fine-grained semantic relationships. Ongoing research focuses on the revelation of semantic relationships based on the title and abstract.

The paper includes implications for utilizing methods of Informetrics to construct ontology.

This paper proposed a standardized process of ontology construction in library resources. It may be of potential interest for anyone who needs to effectively organize library resources.