Grasslands are among the largest terrestrial ecosystems,offering critical ecological,economic,and cultural services worldwide(Bardgett et al.2021;Wang et al.2022).However,they face unprecedented challenges due to clim...Grasslands are among the largest terrestrial ecosystems,offering critical ecological,economic,and cultural services worldwide(Bardgett et al.2021;Wang et al.2022).However,they face unprecedented challenges due to climate change,overgrazing,and land-use change,which threaten their biodiversity,carbon sequestration potential,and the human livelihoods they support(Zhou et al.2023;Straffelini et al.2024).Despite the implementation of various management strategies,gaps remain in understanding the intricate dynamics of grassland ecosystems,their key drivers,and the most effective adaptive management practices(Li et al.2022).展开更多
Laser wakefield accelerators(LWFAs)offer acceleration gradients up to 1000 times higher than those of conventional radio-frequency accelerators,offering a pathway to significantly more compact and cost-effective accel...Laser wakefield accelerators(LWFAs)offer acceleration gradients up to 1000 times higher than those of conventional radio-frequency accelerators,offering a pathway to significantly more compact and cost-effective accelerator systems.This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for laboratory-scale light sources.All-optical inverse Compton scattering(AOCS)sources driven by LWFAs produce high-brightness,quasimonochromatic X rays with micrometer-scale source sizes,delivering the spatial coherence and resolution required for X-ray phase-contrast imaging(XPCI).These features position AOCS X-ray sources as promising tools for applications in biology,medicine,physics,and materials science.However,previous AOCS-based imaging studies have primarily focused on X-ray absorption imaging.In this work,we report successful experimental demonstrations of edge-enhanced in-line XPCI using energy-tunable,quasi-monochromatic AOCS X rays.With a spatial resolution of~20μm,our results clearly show the potential of high-resolution,AOCS-based XPCI applications.展开更多
Alzheimer’s disease(AD)and other tauopathies are characterized by the accumulation of misfolded tau protein,which forms toxic oligomers that contribute to synaptic dysfunction and neuronal loss.Here,we briefly discus...Alzheimer’s disease(AD)and other tauopathies are characterized by the accumulation of misfolded tau protein,which forms toxic oligomers that contribute to synaptic dysfunction and neuronal loss.Here,we briefly discuss recent findings indicating that the cellular prion protein(PrPC)plays a critical role in mediating the synaptotoxic effects of tau oligomers(TauOs),offering new insights into disease pathogenesis and potential therapeutic strategies.展开更多
四年前,我收到了剑桥大学教育系艺术、创造力与教育(Arts,Creativity and Education,简称ACE)硕士专业的offer(录取通知书)。那是我下定决心离开一段糟糕的婚姻关系、破釜沉舟三个月备战申请后发生的事。当时的我开心极了—有六年记者...四年前,我收到了剑桥大学教育系艺术、创造力与教育(Arts,Creativity and Education,简称ACE)硕士专业的offer(录取通知书)。那是我下定决心离开一段糟糕的婚姻关系、破釜沉舟三个月备战申请后发生的事。当时的我开心极了—有六年记者工作经验的我其实已经远离学术圈许久,而申请英国高校、重新回到象牙塔,着实花了我许多力气。拿到这个offer,对我来说的确是人生翻开新篇章,甚至颇有些大女主爽文的意味。但我没想到的是,在剑桥的学习与生活,会以摧枯拉朽般的方式彻底改变我一些固有的观念与人生。展开更多
Classifying job offers into occupational categories is a fundamental task in human resource information systems,as it improves and streamlines indexing,search,and matching between openings and job seekers.Comprehensiv...Classifying job offers into occupational categories is a fundamental task in human resource information systems,as it improves and streamlines indexing,search,and matching between openings and job seekers.Comprehensive occupational databases such as O∗NET or ESCO provide detailed taxonomies of interrelated positions that can be leveraged to align the textual content of postings with occupational categories,thereby facilitating standardization,cross-system interoperability,and access to metadata for each occupation(e.g.,tasks,knowledge,skills,and abilities).In this work,we explore the effectiveness of fine-tuning existing language models(LMs)to classify job offers with occupational descriptors from O∗NET.This enables a more precise assessment of candidate suitability by identifying the specific knowledge and skills required for each position,and helps automate recruitment processes by mitigating human bias and subjectivity in candidate selection.We evaluate three representative BERT-like models:BERT,RoBERTa,and DeBERTa.BERT serves as the baseline encoder-only architecture;RoBERTa incorporates advances in pretraining objectives and data scale;and DeBERTa introduces architectural improvements through disentangled attention mechanisms.The best performance was achieved with the DeBERTa model,although the other models also produced strong results,and no statistically significant differences were observed acrossmodels.We also find that these models typically reach optimal performance after only a few training epochs,and that training with smaller,balanced datasets is effective.Consequently,comparable results can be obtained with models that require fewer computational resources and less training time,facilitating deployment and practical use.展开更多
Human spinal cord organoids(hSCOs)offer a promising platform to study neurotrauma by addressing many limitations of traditional research models.These organoids provide access to human-specific physiological and geneti...Human spinal cord organoids(hSCOs)offer a promising platform to study neurotrauma by addressing many limitations of traditional research models.These organoids provide access to human-specific physiological and genetic mechanisms and can be derived from an individual's somatic cells(e.g.,blood or skin).This enables patient-specific paradigms for precision neurotrauma research,pa rticula rly relevant to the over 300,000 people in the United States living with chronic effects of spinal cord injury(SCI).展开更多
ACCA (The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), as one of the most famous professional organizations for accountants, has long placed great importance on the cultivation of international accountants with co...ACCA (The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), as one of the most famous professional organizations for accountants, has long placed great importance on the cultivation of international accountants with colleges. Up to the present, more than forty universities all over the country have ACCA-oriented course offering. This study aims at embedding ACCA course into the curriculum system of Business English Majors. The new course offering would apply a bilingual teaching approach. This study would be beneficial to the construction of our English department and pave a brand new way of breeding international accountants.展开更多
This study investigates the earnings performance of 418 initial public offerings (IPOs) listed on the stock exchange of Hong Kong. By analyzing several profitability measures of these 1PO companies from the third ye...This study investigates the earnings performance of 418 initial public offerings (IPOs) listed on the stock exchange of Hong Kong. By analyzing several profitability measures of these 1PO companies from the third year prior to listing up to the fifth year post-listing, it is found that IPO companies' operating performances as a whole peak in the year of listing or the year preceding the listing, but exhibit a fall in post-issue profitability with the decline being most pronounced in the first financial year following the year in which the listing take place. Over 30% of these IPOs suffer a loss three years after the offerings. Deterioration of post-issue performance is found to be more severe for smaller finns, highly-geared companies, fast-growing enterprises, companies with lower ownership retention by original shareholders, and companies which have managed earnings upwards at the time of listing. These observations are consistent with the higher agency costs when firms go public and that managers have timed the issue at the peak of the companies' long-run performance. Further investigation confirms that IPO companies in general make use of income-increasing accruals to manage their earnings upwards in the year when they go public. The reversal of the accruals in post-issue years further exaggerates the decline in their profitability.展开更多
Recent literature has addressed initial coin offering(ICO)projects,which are an innovative form of venture financing through cryptocurrencies using blockchain technology.Many features of ICOs remain unexplored,leaving...Recent literature has addressed initial coin offering(ICO)projects,which are an innovative form of venture financing through cryptocurrencies using blockchain technology.Many features of ICOs remain unexplored,leaving much room for additional research,including the success factors of ICO projects.We investigate the success of ICO projects,with our main purpose being to identify factors that influence a project’s outcome.Following a literature review,from which several potential variables were collected,we used a database comprising 428 ICO projects in the banking/financial sector to regress several econometric models.We confirmed the impacts of several variables and obtained particularly valuable results concerning project and campaign variables.We confirmed the importance of a well-structured and informative white-paper.The proximity to certain markets with high availability of financial and human capital is also an important determinant of the success of an ICO.We also confirm the strong dependency on cryptocurrency and the impact of cryptocurrency valuations on the success of a project.Furthermore,we confirm the importance of social media in ICO projects,as well as the importance of human capital characteristics.Our research contributes to the ICO literature by capturing most of the success factors previously identified and testing their impacts based on a large database.The current research contributes to the building of systems theory and signaling theory by adapting their frameworks to the ICO environment.Our results are also important for regulators,as ICOs are mainly unregulated and have vast future potential,and for investors,who can benefit from our analysis and use it in their due diligence.展开更多
Chalcopyrite,copper indium gallium selenide(Cu(In,Ga)Se_(2),CIGS),as semiconductor materials,have been widely used as absorbers in thin-film solar cells,offering high power conversion efficiency(PCE)and good thermal s...Chalcopyrite,copper indium gallium selenide(Cu(In,Ga)Se_(2),CIGS),as semiconductor materials,have been widely used as absorbers in thin-film solar cells,offering high power conversion efficiency(PCE)and good thermal stability[1−3].Recently,the development of non-traditional photovoltaic(PV)devices such as semitransparent.展开更多
The incineration of sacrificial offerings is a significant widely practiced custom that is also a kind of neglected air pollution source in China.Our results showed that the emission factors of particulate matter,SO_(...The incineration of sacrificial offerings is a significant widely practiced custom that is also a kind of neglected air pollution source in China.Our results showed that the emission factors of particulate matter,SO_(2),CO,NO_(x),and VOCs emitted from the incineration of sacrificial offerings with purification systems were reduced by 95%,19%,9%,82%,and 42%,respectively,compared with those without a purification system,revealing a significant effect of the flue gas purification system on reducing particulate matter and gaseous pollutants.The emission level of air pollutants from the incineration of sacrificial offerings remained stable before 2013 and then showed a remarkable decrease after the implementation of China′s Air Pollution Prevention Action Plan in 2013.The emissions of TSP(total suspended particulate),PM_(10),PM_(2.5),and NO_(x)in 2009 were 8222,6106,5656 and 15,878 ton,respectively,obviously higher than 3434,2551,2305 and 8579 ton in 2019.Such trend was affected by both the quantity of incineration and the installation rate of purification systems after the Emission Standard of Air Pollutants for Crematory(GB 13801-2015)issued in China.Distinct spatial distribution of atmospheric pollutants from incineration of sacrificial offerings was found with higher in the east and south of China than the west and north of China,which is proportional to the regional economy and population.The maximum ground-level concentration typically occurred at 0.12-0.2 km from the pollution source,posing potential health risks to people entering and exiting funeral and burial sites and nearby residents.展开更多
Our research on private placement of equity on China capital market reveals that firms prefer to equity financing when their stock price is overvalued and investor sentiment is high,following the market timing hypothe...Our research on private placement of equity on China capital market reveals that firms prefer to equity financing when their stock price is overvalued and investor sentiment is high,following the market timing hypothesis.However,after private issuance,we document a significant positive abnormal return within three years.We believe firms choose to polish their financial statement before the exit of institutional investors and controlling shareholders.Through manipulation of discretional accruals,firms improve the profitability and market valuation,and help institutional investors and controlling shareholders obtain the abnormal return after private placement of equity.Nevertheless,such manipulation cannot be sustained and will do harm to other investors in the long-term.展开更多
Computational Intelligent(CI)systems represent a pivotal intersection of cutting-edge technologies and complex engineering challenges aimed at solving real-world problems.This comprehensive body of work delves into th...Computational Intelligent(CI)systems represent a pivotal intersection of cutting-edge technologies and complex engineering challenges aimed at solving real-world problems.This comprehensive body of work delves into the realm of CI,which is designed to tackle intricate and multifaceted engineering problems through advanced computational techniques.The history of CI systems is a fascinating journey that spans several decades and has its roots in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.Through a wide array of practical examples and case studies,this special issue bridges the gap between theoretical concepts and practical implementation,shedding light on how CI systems can optimize processes,design solutions,and inform decisions in complex engineering landscapes.This compilation stands as an essential resource for both novice learners and seasoned practitioners,offering a holistic perspective on the potential of CI in reshaping the future of engineering problem-solving.展开更多
Previous empirical evidence on the liquidity effect to the lockup expiration is mixed. A sample from Chinese listed firms is adopted and contributes to better understand this effect in emerging markets. The spread and...Previous empirical evidence on the liquidity effect to the lockup expiration is mixed. A sample from Chinese listed firms is adopted and contributes to better understand this effect in emerging markets. The spread and illiquidity significantly increases around lockup expiration in China. Furthermore, the liquidity reaction to firms' disclosure quality is explicitly related. The results confirm that higher disclosure quality is significantly associated with lower abnormal spread and illiquidity impact. The effect of lockup expiration shares on liquidity proxies differs in firm disclosure quality. Identifying the factors affecting liquidity around such events may help regulators develop policies to provide investors with greater confidence in their investments.展开更多
As prior researchers have suggested,a firm’s success in an international market depends on how well its strategy fits the nonmarket environment,such as formal institutions.This paper examines the determinants of form...As prior researchers have suggested,a firm’s success in an international market depends on how well its strategy fits the nonmarket environment,such as formal institutions.This paper examines the determinants of formal institutions around new areas of economic activities.Specifically,we propose a framework for understanding how the quality of formal institutions in promoting entrepreneurship drives the focus of such institutions concerning initial coin offering(ICO),which is emerging as a popular fundraising method.The paper uses inductive analysis to examine how nonmarket factors—such as a jurisdiction’s tax haven nature,regulators’perceptions of ICOs as threats to national or political interests,and trade and industry associations—might moderate the relationship between the quality of institutions and the focus of such institutions regarding ICOs.One of this study’s key findings is that an economy’s quality of entrepreneurship-related institutions,perceived threats to national/political interests,and tax haven nature lead to different policy orientations.Consequently,regulators assign different importance when promoting crypto-entrepreneurship and dealing with associated risks.Regulators focusing mainly on promoting crypto-ventures have taken measures to enrich the blockchain ecosystem and provided tax and non-tax incentives to attract such ventures.Regulators focusing mainly on dealing with crypto-venture risks rely on a regulatory sandbox and close regulatory monitoring of such ventures.展开更多
A model to explain the dynamic characters of earnings management was developed based on the interactionamong several firms’ disclosure policies. Under the condition of incomplete information, each firm’s earnings ma...A model to explain the dynamic characters of earnings management was developed based on the interactionamong several firms’ disclosure policies. Under the condition of incomplete information, each firm’s earnings man-agement will be influenced by the earnings disclosure policies of other firms. It can lead to "herd behavior" of earningsmanagement. This paper studies the relationship between earnings manipulation and rights issue policy based on thedistribution of earnings after management. The results indicate that Chinese listed companies trend towards controllingROE in the narrow ranges just above 6% and 10% .Therefore, "herd behavior" exists in the earnings management.展开更多
Traditional Chinese medicines(TCMs),usually comprising hundreds of different compounds with distinctive physiochemical properties,have been practiced for thousands of years worldwide for the treatment of various human...Traditional Chinese medicines(TCMs),usually comprising hundreds of different compounds with distinctive physiochemical properties,have been practiced for thousands of years worldwide for the treatment of various human diseases.Significant pharmacological properties have been clarified for many TCM in recent decades,while great efforts are needed to identify the active biomedical materials from TCM due to challenges such as technical barriers to screening,isolation,characterization,and optimization[1].Recent improvements in analytical tools,genome mining,and bioengineering technologies such as CRISPR-Cas systems are overcoming such challenges and offering new opportunities,promoting the integrative studies of TCM to systematically dig out the potential pharmaceutical compounds of TCMs[2-4].展开更多
WECHAT, the most popular messaging and social media platform in China, has been brimming with various touching pictures and videos since late January:a young boy giving a parcel of masks to a policeman on duty;farmers...WECHAT, the most popular messaging and social media platform in China, has been brimming with various touching pictures and videos since late January:a young boy giving a parcel of masks to a policeman on duty;farmers hundreds of miles away voluntarily sending vegetables to the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak;hotels in Wuhan offering free accommodation to medical workers, to mention a few here.展开更多
文摘Grasslands are among the largest terrestrial ecosystems,offering critical ecological,economic,and cultural services worldwide(Bardgett et al.2021;Wang et al.2022).However,they face unprecedented challenges due to climate change,overgrazing,and land-use change,which threaten their biodiversity,carbon sequestration potential,and the human livelihoods they support(Zhou et al.2023;Straffelini et al.2024).Despite the implementation of various management strategies,gaps remain in understanding the intricate dynamics of grassland ecosystems,their key drivers,and the most effective adaptive management practices(Li et al.2022).
基金supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No.XDB0530000)the Discipline Construction Foundation of“Double World-class Project”.
文摘Laser wakefield accelerators(LWFAs)offer acceleration gradients up to 1000 times higher than those of conventional radio-frequency accelerators,offering a pathway to significantly more compact and cost-effective accelerator systems.This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for laboratory-scale light sources.All-optical inverse Compton scattering(AOCS)sources driven by LWFAs produce high-brightness,quasimonochromatic X rays with micrometer-scale source sizes,delivering the spatial coherence and resolution required for X-ray phase-contrast imaging(XPCI).These features position AOCS X-ray sources as promising tools for applications in biology,medicine,physics,and materials science.However,previous AOCS-based imaging studies have primarily focused on X-ray absorption imaging.In this work,we report successful experimental demonstrations of edge-enhanced in-line XPCI using energy-tunable,quasi-monochromatic AOCS X rays.With a spatial resolution of~20μm,our results clearly show the potential of high-resolution,AOCS-based XPCI applications.
基金supported by the Italian Ministry of Health grant RF-2021-12372337(to GF and CB).
文摘Alzheimer’s disease(AD)and other tauopathies are characterized by the accumulation of misfolded tau protein,which forms toxic oligomers that contribute to synaptic dysfunction and neuronal loss.Here,we briefly discuss recent findings indicating that the cellular prion protein(PrPC)plays a critical role in mediating the synaptotoxic effects of tau oligomers(TauOs),offering new insights into disease pathogenesis and potential therapeutic strategies.
文摘四年前,我收到了剑桥大学教育系艺术、创造力与教育(Arts,Creativity and Education,简称ACE)硕士专业的offer(录取通知书)。那是我下定决心离开一段糟糕的婚姻关系、破釜沉舟三个月备战申请后发生的事。当时的我开心极了—有六年记者工作经验的我其实已经远离学术圈许久,而申请英国高校、重新回到象牙塔,着实花了我许多力气。拿到这个offer,对我来说的确是人生翻开新篇章,甚至颇有些大女主爽文的意味。但我没想到的是,在剑桥的学习与生活,会以摧枯拉朽般的方式彻底改变我一些固有的观念与人生。
文摘Classifying job offers into occupational categories is a fundamental task in human resource information systems,as it improves and streamlines indexing,search,and matching between openings and job seekers.Comprehensive occupational databases such as O∗NET or ESCO provide detailed taxonomies of interrelated positions that can be leveraged to align the textual content of postings with occupational categories,thereby facilitating standardization,cross-system interoperability,and access to metadata for each occupation(e.g.,tasks,knowledge,skills,and abilities).In this work,we explore the effectiveness of fine-tuning existing language models(LMs)to classify job offers with occupational descriptors from O∗NET.This enables a more precise assessment of candidate suitability by identifying the specific knowledge and skills required for each position,and helps automate recruitment processes by mitigating human bias and subjectivity in candidate selection.We evaluate three representative BERT-like models:BERT,RoBERTa,and DeBERTa.BERT serves as the baseline encoder-only architecture;RoBERTa incorporates advances in pretraining objectives and data scale;and DeBERTa introduces architectural improvements through disentangled attention mechanisms.The best performance was achieved with the DeBERTa model,although the other models also produced strong results,and no statistically significant differences were observed acrossmodels.We also find that these models typically reach optimal performance after only a few training epochs,and that training with smaller,balanced datasets is effective.Consequently,comparable results can be obtained with models that require fewer computational resources and less training time,facilitating deployment and practical use.
基金supported by the Belle Carnell Regenerative Neurorehabilitation Fundthe National Institutes of Health(R01NS113935 to CKF)。
文摘Human spinal cord organoids(hSCOs)offer a promising platform to study neurotrauma by addressing many limitations of traditional research models.These organoids provide access to human-specific physiological and genetic mechanisms and can be derived from an individual's somatic cells(e.g.,blood or skin).This enables patient-specific paradigms for precision neurotrauma research,pa rticula rly relevant to the over 300,000 people in the United States living with chronic effects of spinal cord injury(SCI).
文摘ACCA (The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), as one of the most famous professional organizations for accountants, has long placed great importance on the cultivation of international accountants with colleges. Up to the present, more than forty universities all over the country have ACCA-oriented course offering. This study aims at embedding ACCA course into the curriculum system of Business English Majors. The new course offering would apply a bilingual teaching approach. This study would be beneficial to the construction of our English department and pave a brand new way of breeding international accountants.
文摘This study investigates the earnings performance of 418 initial public offerings (IPOs) listed on the stock exchange of Hong Kong. By analyzing several profitability measures of these 1PO companies from the third year prior to listing up to the fifth year post-listing, it is found that IPO companies' operating performances as a whole peak in the year of listing or the year preceding the listing, but exhibit a fall in post-issue profitability with the decline being most pronounced in the first financial year following the year in which the listing take place. Over 30% of these IPOs suffer a loss three years after the offerings. Deterioration of post-issue performance is found to be more severe for smaller finns, highly-geared companies, fast-growing enterprises, companies with lower ownership retention by original shareholders, and companies which have managed earnings upwards at the time of listing. These observations are consistent with the higher agency costs when firms go public and that managers have timed the issue at the peak of the companies' long-run performance. Further investigation confirms that IPO companies in general make use of income-increasing accruals to manage their earnings upwards in the year when they go public. The reversal of the accruals in post-issue years further exaggerates the decline in their profitability.
基金supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia,grant UIDB/00315/2020.
文摘Recent literature has addressed initial coin offering(ICO)projects,which are an innovative form of venture financing through cryptocurrencies using blockchain technology.Many features of ICOs remain unexplored,leaving much room for additional research,including the success factors of ICO projects.We investigate the success of ICO projects,with our main purpose being to identify factors that influence a project’s outcome.Following a literature review,from which several potential variables were collected,we used a database comprising 428 ICO projects in the banking/financial sector to regress several econometric models.We confirmed the impacts of several variables and obtained particularly valuable results concerning project and campaign variables.We confirmed the importance of a well-structured and informative white-paper.The proximity to certain markets with high availability of financial and human capital is also an important determinant of the success of an ICO.We also confirm the strong dependency on cryptocurrency and the impact of cryptocurrency valuations on the success of a project.Furthermore,we confirm the importance of social media in ICO projects,as well as the importance of human capital characteristics.Our research contributes to the ICO literature by capturing most of the success factors previously identified and testing their impacts based on a large database.The current research contributes to the building of systems theory and signaling theory by adapting their frameworks to the ICO environment.Our results are also important for regulators,as ICOs are mainly unregulated and have vast future potential,and for investors,who can benefit from our analysis and use it in their due diligence.
基金This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(22075150)the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2019YFE0118100)+2 种基金L.Ding thanks the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2022YFB3803300)the open research fund of Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory(2021SLABFK02)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(21961160720).
文摘Chalcopyrite,copper indium gallium selenide(Cu(In,Ga)Se_(2),CIGS),as semiconductor materials,have been widely used as absorbers in thin-film solar cells,offering high power conversion efficiency(PCE)and good thermal stability[1−3].Recently,the development of non-traditional photovoltaic(PV)devices such as semitransparent.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.21806012,41775127,and 42075112)the Basic Research Fund of CAMS(No.2020Z002)
文摘The incineration of sacrificial offerings is a significant widely practiced custom that is also a kind of neglected air pollution source in China.Our results showed that the emission factors of particulate matter,SO_(2),CO,NO_(x),and VOCs emitted from the incineration of sacrificial offerings with purification systems were reduced by 95%,19%,9%,82%,and 42%,respectively,compared with those without a purification system,revealing a significant effect of the flue gas purification system on reducing particulate matter and gaseous pollutants.The emission level of air pollutants from the incineration of sacrificial offerings remained stable before 2013 and then showed a remarkable decrease after the implementation of China′s Air Pollution Prevention Action Plan in 2013.The emissions of TSP(total suspended particulate),PM_(10),PM_(2.5),and NO_(x)in 2009 were 8222,6106,5656 and 15,878 ton,respectively,obviously higher than 3434,2551,2305 and 8579 ton in 2019.Such trend was affected by both the quantity of incineration and the installation rate of purification systems after the Emission Standard of Air Pollutants for Crematory(GB 13801-2015)issued in China.Distinct spatial distribution of atmospheric pollutants from incineration of sacrificial offerings was found with higher in the east and south of China than the west and north of China,which is proportional to the regional economy and population.The maximum ground-level concentration typically occurred at 0.12-0.2 km from the pollution source,posing potential health risks to people entering and exiting funeral and burial sites and nearby residents.
文摘Our research on private placement of equity on China capital market reveals that firms prefer to equity financing when their stock price is overvalued and investor sentiment is high,following the market timing hypothesis.However,after private issuance,we document a significant positive abnormal return within three years.We believe firms choose to polish their financial statement before the exit of institutional investors and controlling shareholders.Through manipulation of discretional accruals,firms improve the profitability and market valuation,and help institutional investors and controlling shareholders obtain the abnormal return after private placement of equity.Nevertheless,such manipulation cannot be sustained and will do harm to other investors in the long-term.
文摘Computational Intelligent(CI)systems represent a pivotal intersection of cutting-edge technologies and complex engineering challenges aimed at solving real-world problems.This comprehensive body of work delves into the realm of CI,which is designed to tackle intricate and multifaceted engineering problems through advanced computational techniques.The history of CI systems is a fascinating journey that spans several decades and has its roots in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.Through a wide array of practical examples and case studies,this special issue bridges the gap between theoretical concepts and practical implementation,shedding light on how CI systems can optimize processes,design solutions,and inform decisions in complex engineering landscapes.This compilation stands as an essential resource for both novice learners and seasoned practitioners,offering a holistic perspective on the potential of CI in reshaping the future of engineering problem-solving.
基金the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(No.2015M571546)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.73120107002)
文摘Previous empirical evidence on the liquidity effect to the lockup expiration is mixed. A sample from Chinese listed firms is adopted and contributes to better understand this effect in emerging markets. The spread and illiquidity significantly increases around lockup expiration in China. Furthermore, the liquidity reaction to firms' disclosure quality is explicitly related. The results confirm that higher disclosure quality is significantly associated with lower abnormal spread and illiquidity impact. The effect of lockup expiration shares on liquidity proxies differs in firm disclosure quality. Identifying the factors affecting liquidity around such events may help regulators develop policies to provide investors with greater confidence in their investments.
文摘As prior researchers have suggested,a firm’s success in an international market depends on how well its strategy fits the nonmarket environment,such as formal institutions.This paper examines the determinants of formal institutions around new areas of economic activities.Specifically,we propose a framework for understanding how the quality of formal institutions in promoting entrepreneurship drives the focus of such institutions concerning initial coin offering(ICO),which is emerging as a popular fundraising method.The paper uses inductive analysis to examine how nonmarket factors—such as a jurisdiction’s tax haven nature,regulators’perceptions of ICOs as threats to national or political interests,and trade and industry associations—might moderate the relationship between the quality of institutions and the focus of such institutions regarding ICOs.One of this study’s key findings is that an economy’s quality of entrepreneurship-related institutions,perceived threats to national/political interests,and tax haven nature lead to different policy orientations.Consequently,regulators assign different importance when promoting crypto-entrepreneurship and dealing with associated risks.Regulators focusing mainly on promoting crypto-ventures have taken measures to enrich the blockchain ecosystem and provided tax and non-tax incentives to attract such ventures.Regulators focusing mainly on dealing with crypto-venture risks rely on a regulatory sandbox and close regulatory monitoring of such ventures.
文摘A model to explain the dynamic characters of earnings management was developed based on the interactionamong several firms’ disclosure policies. Under the condition of incomplete information, each firm’s earnings man-agement will be influenced by the earnings disclosure policies of other firms. It can lead to "herd behavior" of earningsmanagement. This paper studies the relationship between earnings manipulation and rights issue policy based on thedistribution of earnings after management. The results indicate that Chinese listed companies trend towards controllingROE in the narrow ranges just above 6% and 10% .Therefore, "herd behavior" exists in the earnings management.
基金sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.82202922)the Topnotch Personnel from Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
文摘Traditional Chinese medicines(TCMs),usually comprising hundreds of different compounds with distinctive physiochemical properties,have been practiced for thousands of years worldwide for the treatment of various human diseases.Significant pharmacological properties have been clarified for many TCM in recent decades,while great efforts are needed to identify the active biomedical materials from TCM due to challenges such as technical barriers to screening,isolation,characterization,and optimization[1].Recent improvements in analytical tools,genome mining,and bioengineering technologies such as CRISPR-Cas systems are overcoming such challenges and offering new opportunities,promoting the integrative studies of TCM to systematically dig out the potential pharmaceutical compounds of TCMs[2-4].
文摘WECHAT, the most popular messaging and social media platform in China, has been brimming with various touching pictures and videos since late January:a young boy giving a parcel of masks to a policeman on duty;farmers hundreds of miles away voluntarily sending vegetables to the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak;hotels in Wuhan offering free accommodation to medical workers, to mention a few here.