Although the impact of proactive environmental strategies on corporate performance has been extensively discussed in academia, the path of the impact of proactive environmental strategies on environmental performance remains unclear. In this study, we introduce a strategy–structure–performance (SSP) framework to explore the mechanism through which proactive environmental strategies improve environmental performance by utilizing green supply chain integration. Based on the questionnaire survey data of 252 Chinese manufacturing firms, a structural equation model was established to verify our hypothesis. The results show that firms that implement a proactive environmental strategy tend to promote the green integration of suppliers through internal green integration and thus improve their environmental performance. By distinguishing two kinds of activities of green supplier integration (greening the supplier and environmental collaboration with the supplier), we found that environmental collaboration with the supplier can directly promote the environmental performance of manufacturing enterprises, but supplier greening indirectly enhances the environmental performance of enterprises through supplier environmental collaboration. The boundary conditions of the influence of internal green integration on green supplier integration are discussed, and we found that the relationship cability plays a moderating role in the influence of internal green integration on supplier green integration.

BackgroundGermline mutation in BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA) is genetic predisposition for breast and ovarian cancer. Identification of mutation carriers is a critical step to prevent and treat the cancer in the mutation carriers. Human BRCA variation has been well determined as ethnic-specific by studies in Ashkenazi Jewish, Polish and Icelandic populations in the 1990s. However, sufficient evidence is lacking to determine if ethnic-specific BRCA variation is also present in Asia population, which is the largest and the most diversified in modern humans. Our current study aims to investigate ethnic-specific BRCA variation in Asian population.MethodsWe performed a comprehensive data mining to collect BRCA variation data in Indian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese populations derived from over 78 000 cancer and 40 000 non-cancer cases. We standardised all BRCA variation data following the international standard. We made a systematic comparison between the datasets including variant composition, variation spectrum, variant type, clinical class, founder mutation and high-frequent variants.ResultsOur analysis showed that over half of the Asian BRCA variants were Asian-specific, and significant differences were present between the four Asia populations in each category analysed.ConclusionData from our study reveal that ethnic-specific BRCA variation is commonly present in Asia population as existing in non-Asian populations. Our study indicates that ethnicity should be an important factor to consider in prevention and treatment of BRCA mutation-related cancer in the Asia population. We recommend that the current BRCA variation databases should include ethnic variation information in order to function as true global BRCA references.

Despite the recent increased attention afforded malware by the popular press, there appears to be a dearth in user awareness and understanding of certain aspects of the security paradigm. This article presents a comparison of user awareness levels of rootkits, spyware, and viruses between U.S. and Chinese users. The results of a survey of 210 U.S. respondents and 278 Chinese respondents indicate that respondents' awareness and knowledge of rootkits is well below that of spyware and viruses. Data analysis further reveals that there are significant differences in Chinese and U.S. user perceptions with regard to spyware and computer viruses. However, there is no difference in cross-cultural awareness with regard to rootkits. Due to the ubiquitous nature of the Internet, rootkits and other malware do not yield at transnational borders. An important step to mitigate the threats posed by malware, such as rootkits, is to raise awareness levels of users worldwide.

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This research identifies six driving factors and twelve enabling factors for supplier involvement in new product development (SINPD) in China via a meta-analysis of the extant literature and a survey of over 100 Chinese manufacturing enterprises. Results show that most suppliers of Chinese manufacturing enterprises engage in new product development at middle or later phase, and the degree of involvement is usually high. Moreover, there are differences in the implementation of SINPD in enterprises of different sizes, types, and industries. The impact of different driving factors and enabling factors on SINPD implementation also varies with enterprise types.