Special Background Research Articles

Tracing back to the source: Understanding the corporate governance of boards of directors in Chinese SOEs

Based on the relevant theories of corporate governance and the special institutional background of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), this paper systematically reviews the literature on the independence and governance effect of SOE boards. We find that the governance effect of SOE boards is driven by the dual characteristics of SOEs: state involvement in ownership and market incentives. With the state involved in ownership, SOEs adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which results in an enhanced governance effect. Under market incentives, SOEs tend to have an optimal board structure that helps mitigate both the shareholder–management agency problem (Type I agency problem) and the controlling shareholder–minority shareholder agency problem (Type II agency problem). In terms of the governance effect of boards, directors appointed by non-controlling shareholders are effective in alleviating Type I and Type II agency problems, and this highlights the importance of mixed-ownership reforms in SOEs. Independent directors, especially those with a professional background, also play a role in improving corporate governance. However, independent directors in SOEs have relatively weak incentives to monitor, which limits their governance effect. This paper shows positive implications for promoting mixed-ownership reforms and improving board governance in SOEs.

Research on Energy Optimal Control Strategy of DC PV-Energy Storage System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Directed at the special application background of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), this study designs and optimizes the UAV power supply system based on photovoltaic (PV)-energy storage system. A comprehensive energy optimal control strategy is proposed for the mission profiles of takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, and landing phases in UAV flight cruise, which can realize the uninterrupted and stable power supply in the multiflight phase, and during their switching process, balance real-time source-load energy and maximize the system energy with PV and energy storage units controlled reasonably in various working modes. Finally, an experimental platform is built, and the energy optimal control strategy of the dc PV-energy storage system for UAV mentioned in this article is verified by MATLAB/Simulink and experiment.

Selected Pharmaceuticals in Different Aquatic Compartments: Part I-Source, Fate and Occurrence.

Potential risks associated with releases of human pharmaceuticals into the environment have become an increasingly important issue in environmental health. This concern has been driven by the widespread detection of pharmaceuticals in all aquatic compartments. Therefore, 22 pharmaceuticals, 6 metabolites and transformation products, belonging to 7 therapeutic groups, were selected to perform a systematic review on their source, fate and occurrence in different aquatic compartments, important issues to tackle the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The results obtained evidence that concentrations of pharmaceuticals are present, in decreasing order, in wastewater influents (WWIs), wastewater effluents (WWEs) and surface waters, with values up to 14 mg L−1 for ibuprofen in WWIs. The therapeutic groups which presented higher detection frequencies and concentrations were anti-inflammatories, antiepileptics, antibiotics and lipid regulators. These results present a broad and specialized background, enabling a complete overview on the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic compartments.

Does a leopard change its spots? Auditors and lawyers as valuation experts for minority shareholders in the judicial appraisal of private firms

AbstractAgency theory suggests that minority shareholders in private firms are vulnerable to shareholder oppression, which necessitates shareholder protection. This paper investigates a form of shareholder protection, the special representative of minority shareholders, which is used in Finland and Sweden. The special representative is a valuation expert, typically an auditor or a lawyer, who assists minority shareholders in shareholder dissent cases which require judicial appraisal of the minority interest in a firm. The different codes of conduct associated with these professions may manifest themselves in their performance as valuation experts. We examine a comprehensive data set of judicial valuation cases of Finnish private firms, in which the judge learns the valuation estimates of the controlling shareholder, the minority shareholder and the special representative and then issues a verdict on the fair price of the firm's shares. Our findings indicate that the special representative benefits minority shareholders by reducing the gap between the minority shareholders’ and the judge's valuation estimates. Our results also suggest that the special representative's professional background may affect how he or she values the company. We find that special representatives who are auditors propose more conservative valuation estimates than lawyers do.

Economic Policy Uncertainty, Bank Risk-taking and Firm Investment

It is a consensus that economic policy uncertainty will inhibit economic development, but there is little discussion on how to mitigate this negative impact. Bank risk-taking can maintain the security of the financial system. Under the special institutional background, the risk-taking of China’s banks may be reflected not only on the business of the in-balance sheet by adjusting the willingness of taking risks and the scale of loan, but also on the business of the off-balance sheet by adjusting the scale of shadow banks. Based on this, employing the quarterly data of listed companies from 2012 to 2018, this paper investi- gates how economic policy uncertainty affects bank risk-taking, and how the effect transmits to firm investment. The empirical results indicate that, from the perspective of in-balance sheet business, economic policy uncertainty prompts banks to relax the approval standards of loan and increase the loan scale, thus encou- raging firms to expand investment. However, from the perspective of off-balance sheet business, economic policy uncertainty makes firms reduce investment by shrinking shadow banks’ scale. By redefining and calculating key variables, deleting macroeconomic variables and eliminating the influence of property right, the conclusions are still robust. Further research finds that, a series of shadow banking governance measures, adopted by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, are important reasons for banks to increase the scale of in-balance sheet business and reduce the scale of off-balance sheet business. The marginal contribution of this paper is as follows: Firstly, we put the loan approval conditions, bank loans and shadow banks into the analysis framework of bank risk-taking. Secondly, it not only analyzes how economic policy uncertainty affects bank risk-taking, but also examines the impact of the structural change of the in-balance sheet and off-balance sheet bank risk-taking on firm investment, which clearly shows the mecha- nism by which economic policy uncertainty affects firm investment through bank risk-taking. Thirdly, this paper discusses whether a series of shadow banking governance measures issued by the China Banking Regulatory Commission are the important reasons for banks to change their risk-taking through the adjustment of the in-balance sheet and off-balance sheet structure.

Process arrival pattern aware algorithms for acceleration of scatter and gather operations

Imbalanced process arrival patterns (PAPs) are ubiquitous in many parallel and distributed systems, especially in HPC ones. The collective operations, e.g. in MPI, are designed for equal process arrival times, and are not optimized for deviations in their appearance. We propose eight new PAP-aware algorithms for the scatter and gather operations. They are binomial or linear tree adaptations introducing additional process ordering and (in some cases) additional activities in a special background thread. The solution was implemented using one of the most popular open source MPI compliant library (OpenMPI), and evaluated in a typical HPC environment using a specially developed benchmark as well as a real application: FFT. The experimental results show a significant advantage of the proposed approach over the default OpenMPI implementation, showing good scalability and high performance with the FFT acceleration for the communication run time: 16.7% and for the total application execution time: 3.3%.

Exploration of Migrants’ Social Life: A Case Study on Bangladeshi Temporary Contract Worker’s in Malaysia

Migrant workers are a different community as they have leave their origin country and entered to a new nation where the social life they had to dealt with differently. Because social life is very important as an individual has hold an ideology, special socio-cultural background and religious affiliation. It is, thus, an important phenomena to assess the perception of migrants about social life, the nature of their involvement in the social setting, the meaning they attach to it and their priorities and preferences in interacting with others. The study is based on the face-to-face interview of 100 Bangladeshis migrant workers who were selected according to two stage sampling procedure. On one stage, an area where Bangladeshi workers reside was selected through random sampling procedure. On the second stage, 100 respondents were selected from the area according to purposive and snowball sampling procedures. The study suggested that adequate measures should be taken to provide pre-departure training on job and Host County’s culture to the expected migrant workers.

Review on Domestic Lin Shu’s Translation Studies in the First Decade of New Century

As one of the most representative translators on foreign literature in late Qing China, Lin Shu and his foreign novel translations have attracted much attention in the academic field even in nowadays. With the special social background in the late Qing, Lin Shu gradually shifted his focus from western political and historical works to novels in order to express his opinions better. In this study, it will be generalized the domestic research on Lin’s translation activity in the first decade of 21thcentury, which research can be divided into at least four categories, such as the study of Lin’s translation ontology problem, discussion of cultural factors of his translations, influential phenomenon of his novel translations and the comparative study on Lin’s foreign literature translations. Therefore, the typical case study which points out the various research paradigms as while as further possible avenues of researchon domestic Lin Shu’s translation studies in the future.

Teaching OOP: Challenges and Innovations

This summary delves into the multifaceted landscape of teaching Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), exploring the challenges encountered in instructional settings and the innovative approaches employed to decorate pedagogical consequences. The technique of educating OOP standards is inherently complicated, and this abstract investigates the diagnosed demanding situations whilst dropping mild at the transformative improvements that educators have embraced to triumph over these hurdles. One key undertaking lies in conveying summary OOP ideas to numerous learner profiles. The abstract delves into the difficulty of translating theoretical concepts, together with encapsulation and polymorphism, into tangible, understandable examples for college students with varying stages of prior programming information. It highlights the want for tailor-made academic methods that cater to special learning patterns and backgrounds. Another focal factor is the mission of ensuring hands-on engagement with OOP. The summary explores how students regularly conflict to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and sensible implementation. Overcoming this mission calls for modern pedagogical procedures that integrate coding exercises, real-global packages, and collaborative initiatives to reinforce theoretical concepts with sensible reports. The abstract also addresses the hurdle of staying abreast of evolving technology within the OOP paradigm. As OOP languages and frameworks go through continuous updates, educators face the assignment of adapting route content material to reflect those advancements. Innovations in teaching contain dynamic curriculum design, enterprise collaboration, and the combination of real-world case research to ensure relevance and forex in OOP education. Furthermore, the summary examines the assignment of fostering creativity and problem-solving talents in OOP learners. It explores how traditional teaching methods may additionally inadvertently stifle creativity, hindering college students from making use of OOP ideas in innovative ways. Innovations in teaching contain venture-based totally assessments, coding challenges, and collaborative structures that domesticate dynamic and innovative mastering surroundings. In conclusion, this summary affords insights into the challenges encountered in teaching OOP and the modern solutions that educators employ to beautify the instructional experience. As OOP remains a foundational factor in programming education, continuous exploration and implementation of resourceful coaching techniques are pivotal to nurturing a brand-new generation of proficient and creative programmers.

A New Concept of PWM Duty Cycle Computation Using the Barycentric Coordinates in a Three–Dimensional Voltage Vectors Arrangement

The paper presents a novel approach to the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) duty cycle computing for complex or irregular voltage vector arrangements in the two (2D) and three–dimensional (3D) Cartesian coordinate systems. The given vectors arrangement can be built using at least three vectors or collections with variable number of involved vectors (i.e. virtual vectors). Graphically, these vectors form a convex figure, in particular, a triangle or a tetrahedron. The reference voltage vector position inside that figure can be expressed by the barycentric coordinates , which are calculated using the second (2D case) or the third–degree determinant (3D case) – without trigonometry and angles. Thus, the speed of the PWM duty cycle computation rises significantly. The use of the triangle area or the tetrahedron volume, instead of the standard vector projection also permits for a well–defined and universal approach to identifying the reference vector position, especially for converters with complex and/or deformed space–vector diagrams (i.e. floating DC–link, multisource DC–link). The proposed computation scheme is based on simple instructions without trigonometry thereby, the DSP processor, or digital solution for field–programmable gate array, can fast–perform this operation using atomic operations. The aim of the presented considerations is not a novel PWM modulation, but a computable idea of a general calculation scheme for cases in which the distribution of vectors is non-trivial. A detailed algebraic and geometric analysis, as well as mathematical proofs on the total consistency of the results with the standard projection method, are also included. Subsequently, the Three–Dimensional Space Vector Modulation (3D–SVM), is considered as a special background to present a novel approach.

Gísli Súrsson as Egða andspillir. An Obscure Kenning and its Implications for Tribal Identities in Tenth-Century Iceland

Gísla saga súrssonar (thirteenth century) is famous for the tragic destiny of its main character, the Norwegian settler and outlaw Gísli Súrsson, a destiny that to some extent is predicted by the many dream stanzas Gísli utters in the saga. In one of these stanzas, Gísli refers to himself as Egða andspillir ‘confidant of the Egðir’, i.e. the people of the Norwegian region of Agder. This kenning has puzzled skaldic scholars and editors of Gísla saga, and no satisfactory explanation has so far been proposed. In the present article, this kenning is explained as a við(r)kenning, that is, a description in terms of a person’s attributes, which is based on factual knowledge about the person involved. I evaluate the stanza as authentic, and so implying that Gísli actually was the friend of people in Iceland in the tenth century who could be called Egðir. I show that these Egðir most likely were members of the family of Ingjaldr in Hergilsey, who according to the saga hid Gísli from his enemies for three years, and whom Gísli mentions in one of his other stanzas. Landnámabók tells us that Ingjaldr’s paternal grandfather came to Iceland from Agder together with the chieftain Geirmundr heljarskinn, and that Geirmundr and his men had to flee from Norway because of the new centralized rule of Haraldr hárfagri. The story about Haraldr’s ofríki (‘harsh rule’) is probably exaggerated in the Icelandic tradition, but there is support in the sources for the hypothesis that a retinue of men who lost against Haraldr in the battle of Hafrsfjord (ca. 900) left Agder for Iceland. The fact that Ingjaldr and his family could be considered Egðir two generations and more than sixty years after they had left Agder calls for an explanation. This article argues that the special background of these families in a lost kingdom of Agder may have contributed to strengthening their identity as a special group of people in the recently populated Iceland.

“The Restless History of an Unstable World”: the 100th Anniversary of the Versailles Peace Treaty

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Versailles system of international relations. The author emphasizes the fact that it was the product of the first total war in the history of mankind, and as such had a number of characteristics that strikingly distinguished it from the models that had existed in the past. The goal of its founders was to establish a lasting peace in a situation where the course and consequences of the world war preconditioned the use of particularly harsh sanctions against the vanquished party. In addition, the war linked the problems of the post­war settlement and the internal political agenda of the warring countries, marked by the “uprising of the masses”. All this created a special background for the work of the Paris Peace Conference. The leaders of France and Great Britain acted, in many respects, under the influence of these factors, which limited their field for maneuver. It turned out to be impossible to fully implement the project of a democratic world proposed by US President W. Wilson. These contradictions were most clearly manifested during the discussion on the Russian question. As a result, the emerging system of international relations was marked by a number of structural contradictions, which made its disintegration inevitable. According to the author, modern world politics is facing similar challenges.

The Promotion Background of Qi-qi Cotton Textile Machine

The Qi-qi cotton textile machine of 1977 is a handmade textile machine which was vigorously promoted by the government in the 1930s in China. Its name comes from the Chinese homonym of the July 7th Incident. This paper discusses the reasons and process of popularization of the Qi-qi cotton textile machine by the Agricultural Production Committee under the special background of the Anti-Japanese War. Through the deep analysis of historical data, this paper summarizes the Popularization Background and reasons of the machine. It is believed that the Qi-qi cotton textile machine increased the domestic cotton yarn output, largely met the cotton yarn demand in the southwest and northwest of China at that time, increased the income of the residents in the popularization area, and filled the cotton textile demand in the period of the Anti-Japanese.

Real-World Effectiveness and Safety of Nivolumab in Special Subgroups of NSCLC pts: A Multicenter-Retrospective Study

Abstract Background In December 2015, nivolumab was approved as treatment for previously treated NSCLC irrespective of PD-L1 expression or histology in Japan. There are few reports that include real-world data on large-scale cohorts of patients with special backgrounds from Japan. Method Data from patients who initiated nivolumab treatment from April 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016 were collected at 23 regional medical institutions across Japan. Here we report retrospective analysis of all 901 pts data and focus on effectiveness and safety in special subgroups of the Japanese NSCLC patients, from a multicenter, observational study; CA209-9CR (NCT03273790). Result Patients with EGFR mutations showed significantly shorter PFS as compared to EGFR wild-type patients. Among other special groups, 316 pts with high blood pressure, in which 272 pts was on antihypertensive, showed superior ORR as compared to 585 pts with normal pressure at baseline. Safety analysis showed higher pulmonary toxicity in patients with pulmonary infection at baseline and higher hepatotoxicity in a group of pts infected with hepatitis virus. In this presentation, further analysis on the other subgroups will be presented.

Bi-gravity with a single graviton

We analyze a bi-gravity model based on the first order formalism, having as fundamental variables two tetrads but only one Lorentz connection. We show that on a large class of backgrounds its linearization agrees with general relativity. At the non-linear level, additional degrees of freedom appear, and we reveal the mechanism hiding them around the special backgrounds. We further argue that they do not contain a massive graviton, nor the Boulware-Deser ghost. The model thus propagates only one graviton, whereas the nature of the additional degrees of freedom remains to be investigated. We also present a foliation-preserving deformation of the model, which keeps all symmetries except time diffeomorphisms and has three degrees of freedom.

Integrability and holographic aspects of six-dimensional mathcal{N}=left(1, 0right) superconformal field theories

In the framework of six-dimensional conformal field theories with mathcal{N}=left(1, 0right) supersymmetry we develop the map between the holographic description, the field theoretical description and the associated Hanany-Witten set-ups. General expressions that calculate various observables are presented. The study of string solitons singles out a special background of Massive IIA on which we show (by explicitly finding a Lax pair) that the Neveu-Schwarz part of the string sigma model is classically integrable. We study the particular dual conformal field theory and compute some of its observables.

Executive Payment, Political Connection and Earnings Management—An Empirical Research Based on the A-share Public Board Listed Companies in China

Under the special institutional background of China's capital market, political connection is an important form of interaction between government and enterprises. Based on the data of Shanghai-Shenzhen A-share stock markets from 2010 to 2016, this paper analyzes the influence of executive payment on earnings management, and analyzes the regulatory mechanism in which political connection plays a role. The study has found that executive payment is significantly and positively correlated with accrued earnings management; political connection negatively regulates the relationship between executive payment, accrued earnings and real earnings management.

Aggressive tax planning and stock price synchronicity: evidence from China

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between aggressive tax planning and stock price synchronicity.Design/methodology/approachEmploying the special institutional background of China, this study constructs tax aggressiveness and stock price synchronicity measures for a large sample of Chinese stocks spanning the period 2003–2015. The authors employ OLS regression as the baseline methodology, and a fixed effect model, the Fama–Macbeth method and GMM as sensitivity checks. Matched samples and difference-in-difference analyses are used to control for endogeneity.FindingsThe authors find a significant and positive association between aggressive tax planning and stock price synchronicity. Because material information about risky tax transactions tends to be hidden in various tax accruals accounts, aggressive tax strategies make financial statements less transparent, thereby, increasing information asymmetry and decreasing stock price informativeness. The authors also find that the firms engaging in aggressive tax planning exhibit relatively high corporate opacity. In addition, the authors find that improvements in the tax enforcement regime, ownership status and high-quality auditors all constrain the adverse effects of tax aggressiveness.Practical implicationsThis study has important practical implications for China’s regulators, who are striving to reduce the tax burden of enterprises. It also helps investors to consider investment decisions more appropriately from a taxation perspective.Originality/valueFirst, this paper contributes to the stock price efficiency literature by identifying the effect of a hitherto unexamined factor, namely, firm-level aggressive tax planning, on the efficiency of stock prices. Second, this study provides further empirical evidence to support the agency view of tax aggressiveness, and the informational interpretation of stock price synchronicity. Third, this study helps us better understand the effects of firm-level tax policy on firm-specific information capitalization in an environment where overall country-level investor protection is relatively weak.

The Analysis of Dyscalculia Students Learning Difficulty in Inclusive Education of Primary School Level in Tasikmalaya

Inclusive education is a government program that is realized through an inclusive school program to help students with disabilities so that their formal education can be well served. The implementation of inclusive education in Tasikmalaya City and District is less encouraging, various plans for implementing inclusive education need to be taken seriously. The purpose of this study: studying, analyzing, and describing the learning difficulties of dyscalculia students; discuss the challenges or learning process in inclusive schools for dyscalculia students. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative and think aloud was carried out at 4 inclusive schools in Tasikmalaya namely SDN Manggungjaya 1, SDN Sukasirna, SDN Cibungkul and SDN Tanjung 2. The subjects in this study were principals, class teachers in inclusive schools, and dyscalculia students in grades 4, 5 and 6 of each. The methods used in this study were descriptive qualitative and think aloud. The instruments used the researchers themselves and questionnaires. The data were collected using observation, exploration, and interviews, all data obtained analyzed then described narratively. Based on the results of data analysis concluded: dyscalculia students in grades 4, 5 and 6 still have difficulty in reading and counting operations in numbers up to 50, do not understand negative integers. Just learning to study is still very difficult to condition, teachers who often teach dyscalculia students with their own learning styles. Learning is still held by the class teacher when the teacher comes from the Special Needs School. Ideally, at least two students with disabilities, provided by teachers who have a special education background.

The Formation of Government-Oriented Creative Community and Its Driving Mechanisms: A Case Study of the 39° Space Art Creative Community in Foshan, China

With the arrival of the era of the creative economy, the “creative community”, a joint product of the regional/community revival movement and the localization of cultural and creative industries, has become a new goal of sustainable urban development. Creative communities can be government-oriented (top-down), or they can involve a sequence of autogenic developments (bottom-up) depending on the initial motivating force behind their formation. This paper provides a case study of the government-oriented Foshan 39° Space Art Creative Community (hereinafter, the 39° Community), though questionnaires, interviews, field observations, and other methods, to obtain a better understanding of how government-oriented creative communities formed. The paper discusses the mechanisms driving such communities in Chinese cities by constructing a driving mechanism model. The results show that policy decisions, under a special policy and industrial background jointly provided by the Foshan municipal government and the Nanhai District government together, is the initial impetus for the emergence of the 39° Community. The community has a concise and flexible organizational structure, creative community members, reasonable community function partitioning, a vibrant and innovative environment, and a variety of creative elements. Finally, the key to the sustainable development of the government-oriented creative community lies in the combined effect of endogenous and exogenous motivations that include a strong support from the local government, market demand, a favorable location, high-quality community services, and creative spirit. High-quality community service is a critical factor in the interaction between exogenous forces and endogenous factors because it can create bridges among governments, enterprises, employees, and the community.