The Bank of China (BOC; Chinese: 中国银行; pinyin: Zhōngguó Yínháng) is a Chinese majority state-owned commercial bank headquartered in Beijing and the fourth largest bank in the world. The Bank of China was founded in 1912 by the Republican government as China's central bank, replacing the Qing Dynasty's Ta-Ching Government Bank. It has been the second oldest bank in China still in existence after the Bank of Communications, founded in 1908. From its establishment until 1942, it issued banknotes on behalf of the Government along with the "Big Four" banks of the period: the Farmers Bank of China, Bank of Communications and Central Bank of the Republic of China. After the People's Republic was established in 1949, it has become a national commercial and foreign exchange professional bank. Its original central bank designation was carried on by the newly formed People's Bank of China. As of 31 December 2019, it was the second-largest lender in China overall and ninth-largest bank in the world by market capitalization value, and it is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board. As of the end of 2020, it was the fourth-largest bank in the world in terms of total assets, ranked after the other three Chinese banks. The Bank of China is legally separate from its subsidiary the Bank of China (Hong Kong), although they maintain close relations in management and administration and co-operate in several areas including reselling BOC's insurance and securities services.
Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate remarkable capabilities in scientific tasks such as literature analysis and experimental design. For instance, these models excel at accurately extracting key findings from papers or generating coherent experimental procedures. However, existing evaluation benchmarks primarily assess performance using rich contextual inputs. We introduce LiveIdeaBench, a comprehensive benchmark evaluating LLMs' scientific idea generation by assessing divergent thinking capabilities using single-keyword prompts. Drawing from Guilford's creativity theory, our benchmark employs a dynamic panel of state-of-the-art LLMs to assess generated ideas across five dimensions: originality, feasibility, fluency, flexibility, and clarity. Through experimentation with over 40 leading models across 1180 keywords spanning 22 scientific domains, we reveal that the scientific idea generation capabilities measured by our benchmark are poorly predicted by standard metrics of general intelligence scores. Our results demonstrate that models like QwQ-32B-preview achieve creative performance comparable to models such as claude-3.7-sonnet: thinking, despite significant gaps in their general intelligence scores. These findings highlight the need for specialized evaluation benchmarks for scientific idea generation and suggest that enhancing these idea generation capabilities in LLMs may require different training strategies than those used for improving general problem-solving abilities. Such strategies could potentially enable a wider range of AI tools tailored for different stages of the scientific process.
The Cretaceous period in southern Iraq is characterized by remarkable facies variations driven by a combination of significant climate swings, eustatic sea-level fluctuations,and basin configuration. These factors influenced the deposition of major carbonate and clastic reservoir units,including the Formations A, B and C, which are key hydrocarbon-bearing intervals in the region (the formation names applied in this study are not the original stratigraphic names but are used exclusively for reference and discussion purposes). Facies architecture strongly governs initial reservoir quality, with high-energy shoals, channel sands, and rudist-rich carbonates forming the most prolific reservoir units. Fine-grained lagoonal and distal marine deposits contribute to reservoir heterogeneity and flow barriers. This study incorporates borehole imaging, core samples, stratigraphic correlations, and advanced petrophysical logs from eight wells, offering a comprehensive assessment of facies distribution,depositional cyclicity, and reservoir properties. The primary objectives are to characterize facies distribution, identify depositional environments and cyclic patterns, and assess reservoir heterogeneity and overall quality. By examining these factors, the study provides valuable insights into the key controls on hydrocarbon accumulation in the study area. Formation A represents a regressive carbonate ramp system with diverse lithofacies and variable reservoir quality. The lower units are dominated by mudstone and wackestone, while the upper intervals include more porous packstone and grainstone facies with moldic and vuggy porosity. Formation B was deposited in a mixed clastic-carbonate ramp setting with transgressive lower and highstand upper sections, recording a transition from proximal clastics to distal carbonates. A sand-rich interval (Unit-F) consists of two depositional packages with differing sand body orientations. Formation C was deposited during the Cenomanian-Turonian highstand on a shallow-water carbonate platform, with grainstone, packstone, and rudist buildups forming excellent reservoirs, with lagoonal mudstones acting as lower-quality facies. Its upper part records a regional unconformity marked by subaerial exposure and karstification, overlain by tight supratidal facies that act as a seal.
Prior research examining the impact of auditors' workload on audit quality largely overlooks the workload from private clients. Employing a proprietary dataset of public and private firms in China, we examine whether partners' workload from private clients impacts public firms' audit quality. The results show that partners' workload from private clients is associated with lower audit quality of listed firms. In additional analyses, we find that the negative association between partners' workload from private clients and audit quality is stronger when partners face heavier workloads from listed clients, when audit partners lack sufficient education or experience, and when audit firms invest less in training.
This study examines how digital literacy affects re-employment among middle-aged and older adults in China. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find that digital literacy significantly increases re-employment probability. This effect works primarily by enhancing individuals' ability to acquire information. The positive impact is significantly stronger for urban residents than for their rural counterparts, highlighting a digital divide in application efficacy. Further analysis suggests digital literacy mainly facilitates entry into flexible employment. Our findings underscore the importance of targeted digital skill training and creating supportive ecosystems to help older adults leverage digital tools for extended productive careers.
[Objective]Amid rapid global changes and fierce international competition in science and technology,the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China highlighted"strengthening the construction of national strategic scientific and technological forces and improving the national laboratory system."Serving as the foundation of China's new system for mobilizing resources nationwide and the driving force for national strategic science and technology,national laboratories bear the dual responsibilities of safeguarding national security and promoting high-quality development.They represent the highest level of strategic scientific and technological strength in the country and are crucial for achieving advanced scientific and technological self-reliance.This paper discusses the current challenges facing China's national laboratories,such as limited institutional support,imperfect coordination mechanisms,and constrained funding sources.It also explores strategies for system optimization,aiming to provide theoretical and practical insights for enhancing the national laboratory system.[Methods]The paper adopts a multi-method approach,including literature review,comparative analysis,and systems thinking,to comprehensively assess the development,roles,and challenges of China's national laboratories.Drawing on China's practical experience and the evolutionary logic of national laboratories,as well as the successful management practices from scientifically advanced countries,the study examines how to harmonize various relationships,innovate institutional frameworks,balance existing resources with incremental growth,and foster the synergy between independent research and collaborative efforts.[Results]There is a shared understanding of the core role of national laboratories as the backbone of strategic scientific and technological forces reflecting national will,focusing on basic research and breakthroughs in key technologies,and serving as"general platforms"and"general chain leaders"in resource coordination.The study defines the multidimensional positioning of laboratories within China's sci-tech innovation system and affirms that balancing six key relationships is fundamental to system improvement.Additionally,integrating innovation,industry,capital,and talent chains is identified as a vital pathway to cultivate new-quality productive forces through sci-tech innovation.[Conclusions]Improving China's national laboratory system is a complex,long-term,and systematic undertaking.It requires adherence to high-level design and market-oriented operation,clearly defining autonomy boundaries while strengthening supervision,establishing a stable and diversified funding mechanism,and developing a scientific assessment system that emphasizes long-term goals and national missions.This process is dynamic and demands ongoing adjustments in response to evolving national strategies and global competition.Through institutional and mechanism innovation,national laboratories can fulfill their leadership role in original innovation and key technology breakthroughs,supporting the development of new-quality productive forces.In doing so,they can underpin China's ambition to become a global leader in science and technology and safeguard its strategic interests.
