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Economic growth of China in the past decades has caused rapid increase in energy consumption and environmental deterioration. Therefore, it is critical to make an environmental evaluation and to help decision makers to know each province’s distance to the optimal target and improve environmental performance.

In such background, the authors use a within-group common benchmarking model with data envelopment analysis for China’s environmental evaluation and target setting in this paper. This model considers a common treatment of decision-making units within groups but allows for the different circumstances across groups and gives a common reference set for benchmarking.

The results show that there are regional difference in economic development and environmental protection. The coastal area has the best average environmental efficiency, then followed by inland area and the lowest level is the western area. The target results show that in four inputs, namely, population, capital, energy consumption and water consumption, the water consumption is the significant variable which should be decreased largely. All provinces have room to improve their economic level under the condition of a better environment.

In this research, the authors consider the similarity in geography and economy for Chinese provinces and divide 30 provinces into eight economic zones; thus, provinces in the same zone are evaluated with the same weight. Environmental performance and efficiency for each province can be obtained. Efficient targets for those inefficient provinces are provided as a possible improvement direction as well.

The aim of this article is to develop a cost index to serve as a price indicator for the Egyptian construction industry.

The model (Egypt 1 indices) developed for building the indices in this paper has been derived based on the “Engineering News Record” (ENR) indices model with modifications to better suit the Egyptian market. Egypt 1 indices are comprised of three indices, which serve as a general construction price indicator for the construction industry price movement in Egypt. The period analyzed in this research is 11 years (1988 through 1998).

Validation of Egypt 1 indices numbers produced in this paper showed that each index does indeed represent the respective type of building for which it was computed. Further, the analysis of Egypt 1 indices compared to the ENR indices revealed that both indices exhibited trends that are generally similar from the year 1992 up to 1998 (the last year included in this study).

This research has the potential to introduce the use of construction cost indices and to put these into practice. This should help aid contractors and other construction parties operating in Egypt with an adequate tool for pricing and estimation of projects.

In order to improve the comprehensive evaluation level of shield tunnel structure health, taking a subway tunnel section as an example, and combined with the onsite measured data, such as regular inspection, health monitoring and disease remediation, this paper introduces the variable weight theory to improve the traditional fixed-weight evaluation method from structural deformation, current durability and disease status.

Considering the influence of the fluctuation of each index value on the index weight, a comprehensive structural health evaluation model of shield tunnel based on an improved variable weight matter-element extension model is proposed.

Compared with the traditional fixed-weight evaluation method, this model can correct the evaluation distortion caused by the fluctuation of index value and has optimal effect.

The sensitive analysis shows that several key indicators of the main threats to tunnel structure are obtained to improve the efficiency of operation, maintenance and management of shield tunnel structure.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological framework that combines several data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to deal with the problem of evaluating and ranking advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) without introducing any subjectivity in the analysis.

The methodology follows a two-phase procedure. First, the relative efficiency of every technology is calculated by implementing different DEA cross-efficiency models generating the same number of high-order indicators as efficiency vectors. Second, high-order indicators are used as outputs in a SBM-DEA super-efficiency model to obtain a comprehensive DEA-like composite indicator.

The framework is implemented to evaluate a sample of flexible manufacturing systems. Comparing it to other methods, results show that the methodology provides reliable information for AMTs selection and effective support to management decision-making.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge about the utilization of DEA to select AMTs. The framework has several advantages: a discriminating power higher than the basic DEA models; no subjective judgment relative to weights necessary to aggregate single indicators and choice of aggregation function; no need to perform any transformation normalizing original data; independence from the unit of measurement of the DEA-like composite indicator; and great flexibility and adaptability allowing the introduction of further variables in the analysis.

The main purpose is to explore the impact of major stock markets on China's market where major markets are represented by former G8 nations (current G7 and Russia).

The article makes use of: stationarity tests (ADF and PP unit root); long-run correlation tests (Johansen integration involving trace and maximum eigenvalue); impact of G8 markets on China (VECM test); influence of G8 markets on volatility in China's market (variance decomposition analysis) and, effect from shocks in G8 markets on China (impulse response function).

Using a period of 2009–2019 that avoids detecting linkages caused by interdependencies created by two major international crises, the article offers four major findings. First, except for Germany and Russia, G8 markets have a significant causal influence on China with UK having the greatest. Second, G8 markets are not the major source of short-run fluctuation in China's market but over time exercise a noteworthy collective impact with UK having the greatest impact. Third, there are occasions for international portfolio diversification with China's market providing greater diversification than G8 nations. Fourth, all markets provide a short-run window of abnormal profit.

The indexes used to represent national markets are assumed to be adequate representations.

Short-term abnormal profits exist. Investing in China, compared to G8 countries, offers greater portfolio diversification possibilities.

Removal of trade and investment barriers cause greater market integration.

By using recent data, this study reveals that G8 stock markets influence China's market.

The generally accepted method of presentation with respect to going-concern reporting in a global context is to modify the auditor’s report with an explanatory paragraph in addition to having a separate note to the financial statements. In Canada, however, the auditor’s report is clean, and the going concern uncertainty is restricted to the endnotes. This research, using Canadian students as subjects and conducted as a between-subjects experiment, examines unsophisticated investor’s behavior to the signal conveyed by different reporting formats by auditors (U.S. versus Canadian). The results indicate that the form of the auditor’s report does significantly influence subjects’ decisions to invest and their perception of risk.

The processing and storage capacity of microcomputers can now support sophisticated and powerful information retrieval systems, previously available only on larger mainframes. The characteristics of information retrieval software are discussed as are the performance capabilities of two software programs, SIRE and ZyINDEX.

Prior literature provides clear evidence that the judgments of experts differ from those of non‐experts. For example, Smith and Kida concluded that the extent of common biases that they investigated often are reduced when experts perform job related tasks as compared to students. The aim in this theoretical study is to examine whether “heuristic biases significantly moderate the understanding of experts versus novices in the going concern judgment?”

The authors address the posited question by marshalling extant literature on expert and novice judgments and link these to concepts drawn from the cognitive sciences through the Brunswick Lens Model.

The authors identify a number of heuristics that may bias the going concern decision, based on the work of Kahneman and Tversky among others. They conclude that experience mitigates the unintentional consequences played by heuristic biases.

The conclusions have implications for the education and training of auditors, and for the expectation gap. They suggest that both awareness of factors that affect understanding of auditing reports and greater attention to training are important in reducing the expectation gap.

This paper develops additional theoretical understanding of factors that may impact the expectation gap. While there has been limited prior discussion of the impact of cognitive factors on differences between experts and novices, the paper significantly expands the range of factors discussed. As such, it should provide a stimulus to new research in this important area.

This article aims to examine how the interactions and perceptions of users from a defined domain, i.e. science education, vary across different groups of teachers while retrieving video. Given the prevalence of digital resources in use in education today, it is critical to assess users’ perspectives and experiences for retrieving information across different contexts and individual user groups.

Interactive search experiments with 28 users were performed. A pre-experiment questionnaire collected the demographic information used to form groups for comparison in the present study. Users attempted six experimenter-developed topics using a prototype video retrieval system; experimental measures were recorded, including all actions, completion rates, errors and durations. Users rated their experiences and levels of satisfaction with different aspect of the system after each search topic. Data analyses included mean comparisons across the different groups.

A variety of influences emerged from the results, including significant variations among teachers’ interactions, levels of satisfaction and expectations across different groups of users.

Understanding the interactions and perceptions when retrieving digital video provides insights for information professionals on how to better support the needs of different users. If systems are not taking into account users and context, there can be a mismatch between the needs of users and interactive systems, which can lead to low perceptions and further underuse of digital resources.

Although similar influences on digital libraries have been analysed in other contexts, they have not been directly assessed, as they specifically pertain to experiences with and perceptions of video.

This study aims to examine the effect of financial innovation, financial ratios, cost efficiency and good corporate governance on the financial performance of banks in Indonesia.

The data in this study are in the form of annual financial statements of conventional banks in Indonesia. The effect of cost efficiency, innovation and financial performance of banks in Indonesia is expected to be evident in 2009–2018. The research method used is the panel regression method.

The results show that financial innovation affects the financial performance of banks. Cost efficiency has a negative effect on the financial performance of banks. Financial ratio, which is proxied by the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) and loan to deposit ratio, has a positive effect on return on asset and net interest margin. Financial ratio, which is proxied by nonperforming loan and equity to total assets, has a negative effect on return on asset and return on equity. Good corporate governance (GCG), which is proxied by the proportion of managerial ownership (PMO), does not affect the financial performance of banks, whereas GCG, which is proxied by the proportion of independent board of directors, has a negative and significant effect on the financial performance of banks in Indonesia.

These results are a warning to bankers and the government to be cautious when formulating a strategy for the financial performance of banking.

Cost efficiency and financial innovation are important for the financial performance of banking. However, the possible impact of cost efficiency and financial innovation in Indonesia does not have a significant impact. The study uses static panel estimation techniques to analyze the data.