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The proposed DHHFLOWLAD is used to design a recommendation system, which aims to provide the most appropriate treatment to the patient under a double hierarchy hesitant fuzzy linguistic environment.

Based on the ordered weighted distance measure and logarithmic aggregation, we first propose a double hierarchy hesitant fuzzy linguistic ordered weighted logarithmic averaging distance (DHHFLOWLAD) measure in this paper.

A case study is presented to illustrate the practicability and efficiency of the proposed approach. The results show that the recommendation system can prioritize TCM treatment plans effectively. Moreover, it can cope with pattern recognition problems efficiently under uncertain information environments.

An expert system is proposed to combat COVID-19 that is an emerging infectious disease causing disruptions globally. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been proved to relieve symptoms, improve the cure rate, and reduce the death rate in clinical cases of COVID-19.

This study aims to understand the epistemic foundation of the classification applied in the first Chinese library catalogue, the Seven Epitomes (Qilue).

Originating from a theoretical stance that situates knowledge organization in its social context, the study applies a multifaceted framework pertaining to five categories of textual data: the Seven Epitomes; biographical information about the classificationist Liu Xin; and the relevant intellectual, political, and technological history.

The study discovers seven principles contributing to the epistemic foundation of the catalogue's classification: the Han imperial library collection imposed as the literary warrant; government functions considered for structuring texts; classicist morality determining the main classificatory structure; knowledge perceived and organized as a unity; objects, rather than subjects, of concern affecting categories at the main class level; correlative thinking connecting all text categories to a supreme knowledge embodied by the Six Classics; and classicist moral values resulting in both vertical and horizontal hierarchies among categories as well as texts.

A major limitation of the study is its focus on the main classes, with limited attention to subclasses. Future research can extend the analysis to examine subclasses of the same scheme. Findings from these studies may lead to a comparison between the epistemic approach in the target classification and the analytic one common in today's bibliographic classification.

The study is the first to examine in depth the epistemic foundation of traditional Chinese bibliographic classification, anchoring the classification in its appropriate social and historical context.

Since China's accession of the World Trade Organization (WTO), its construction industry has attained unprecedented growth. However, for the sources of this enormous growth, a controversy regarding the total factor productivity growth (TFPG) still remains in production practice and extant studies. In view of this, the purpose of this paper is to measure TFPG and to explore its sources in the industry post-WTO accession.

This study presents an innovative source analysis of TFPG. Stochastic frontier approach is adopted to measure TFPG and to explore its sources by decomposing TFPG into technical progress (TP), technical efficiency change (TEC), allocative efficiency change (AEC) and scale efficiency change (SEC). Although China joined WTO in 2001, to provide an effective baseline, the study period is from 2000 to 2017.

The empirical results reveal that TFPG presented an overall downward evolutionary trend, but it still maintained a high growth post-WTO accession. From the perspective of decomposition, TP was the main source of TFPG. Furthermore, as a neglected source, interaction effects among TP, TEC, AEC and SEC have been demonstrated to have a significant influence on the cumulative TFPG.

To make the results be reliable, the authors discuss the empirical findings mainly by revealing the reasons behind the evolutions of TFPG and its sources. Based on these revealed reasons, government and policy makers can further refine and summarize some more detailed and targeted policy implications to improve TFPG.

By providing many empirical evidences to solve the aforesaid TFPG controversy, this paper, therefore, enriches the body of knowledge on growth theories, especially at the level of industrial economics.

In response to the 2008 financial crisis, the performance of the Chinese construction industry seems to be more successful, especially in total factor productivity growth (TFPG) and its contribution (TFPGC). Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and reveal the potential successful lessons in this regard.

This study is conducted innovatively based on a special comparative analysis of TFPG and TFPGC between pre- and post-2008 financial crisis. Solow Residual Approach is used to measure TFPG and TFPGC for the period 2002–2016. Given that the crisis hit China at the end of 2008, the pre-2008 financial crisis period is from 2002 to 2008, and the post-2008 financial crisis period is limited to 2009–2016.

The results indicate that the industry indeed has better performance in promoting TFPG and TFPGC, TFP thus achieved significant accumulative growth before and after the crisis. However, from an evolutionary perspective, both TFPG and TFPGC presented an overall downward trend from before the crisis to after the crisis. Further, the game between the centrally planned economy and the market-oriented economy was identified and revealed as the essential reason behind the evolution of TFPG and TFPGC.

Some valuable lessons for policies and practices in promoting TFPG and TFPGC were summarized and learned from the Chinese experience, such as reducing administrative intervention and making the construction market play a decisive role.

This study provides some new empirical evidence to enrich the overall body of knowledge on growth theory, especially in promoting TFPG and TFPGC.

The purpose of this study is to restore the spatial distribution of overseas remittance businesses in Shantou during the 1940s. It explores various socioeconomic factors that influenced the concentration of local remittance business investment in real estate. By reconstructing the spatial distribution of remittance business activities in Shantou, this study hopes to lay a foundation for further analysis of the business strategies of Chaoshan merchants.

This research draws on information from the published Swatow Guide, archival sources and cadastral maps to identify the location of remittance enterprises and the native place and overseas networks of property owners.

This study reveals that the spatial distribution of the remittance enterprises was determined by the native place origins of local property owners, and that the inflow of overseas Chinese capital contributed to real estate development in Shantou.

Despite the limited access to Chinese official archives, this paper manages to identify several building blocks and neighbors in Shantou for spatial analysis.

This study is the first attempt to use the geographical information system (GIS) method in Chinese urban history research and hopes to establish a larger historical database of Shantou as a sample for comparison.

This investigation advances the spatial study of urban history and overseas Chinese remittances in the maritime society of South China.