Attitudes Of Chinese Listed Enterprises Toward Cash Flow Manipulation: A Resource Dependence Perspective

The prevalence of cash flow manipulation has drawn much scholarly attention in China and worldwide, especially since the exposure of the accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and Qwest. Cash flow status also provides a sound basis for corporate valuation. Using a sample of 12,251 firm-year observations from 1999 to 2009, this study thus investigates the attitudes and behavioral patterns of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-SOEs in China toward cash flow manipulation. From a point of departure of resource-dependence theory, we find that non-SOEs tend to manipulate cash flow upward, whereas SOEs are more prone to manipulate cash flow downward. We also demonstrate that non-SOEs are more inclined to manipulate their cash flow statements compared with SOEs. The reason behind this differing behavior could be that non-SOEs are reliant on cash and funds from entities, such as governments and banks, and thus, they falsely enhance cash flow and firm performance in order to signal their solvency and thereby reduce financing costs. By contrast, since SOEs always receive sufficient cash inflows from both government sources and state-owned banks, the managers of these firms are unconcerned about cash flow shortages, which lessens their motivation to manipulate the figures. Indeed, this study finds that these managers may even reduce reported cash flow intentionally in order to obtain government assistance. Therefore, investors and regulators should make their judgments on the cash flow of entities based on their status as SOEs or non-SOEs

Corporate Philanthropic Giving: Active Responsibility Or Passive Ingratiation? Evidence From Chinese Family-Controlled Listed Companies

This paper examines the impact of political connection on family-controlled listed firms’ philanthropic giving activities toward the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in China, and stock price reactions to such activities. Using the 542 Chinese listed companies controlled by private owners as the sample, it was found that firms with political connection are more likely to donate. Besides, focusing on the 244 donating firms, it was found that there is a positive impact of the donation amount on stock price response. What’s more, the positive stock price reactions toward the donation announcement made by firms with political connection are not as strong as that of firms without such connection.  Regression results indicate that although family-controlled firms with political connection are more likely to donate, their activities can not generate as much positive stock price effect as their no-political connection counterparts. These results reveal that both political interferences and market mechanisms have critical impact on corporate philanthropic behavior in China

2-(4-Iodo­phen­yl)-1,2,3,4-tetra­hydro­isoquinoline-1-carbonitrile

In the title compound, C16H13IN2, the benzene ring of the tetra­hydro­isoquinoline moiety makes a dihedral angle of 45.02 (9)° with the benzene ring of the 4-iodo­phenyl fragment. The N atom and the adjacent unsubstituted C atom of the tetra­hydro­isoquinoline unit are displaced by 0.294 (2) and 0.441 (3) Å, respectively, from the plane through the remaining eight C atoms. In the crystal, pairs of adjacent mol­ecules are linked into dimers by weak inter­molecular C—H⋯π inter­actions

Bis[2-(2-amino­ethyl)-1H-benzimidazole-κ2 N 2,N 3]zinc(II) bis­(perchlorate)

In the title compound, [Zn(C9H11N3)2](ClO4)2, the ZnII atom resides on a crystallographic twofold axis and is coordinated by two benzimidazole N [Zn⋯N = 1.993 (4) Å] and two amine N atoms [Zn⋯N = 2.036 (4) Å] in a distorted tetra­hedral geometry. The crystal packing is dominated by N—H⋯O inter­actions involving the perchlorate anions and π–π stacking inter­actions with an inter­planar separation of 3.42 Å. A weak C—H⋯O inter­action is also present

The observation of quantum fluctuations in a kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet

The search for the experimental evidence of quantum spin liquid (QSL) states is critical but extremely challenging, as the quenched interaction randomness introduced by structural imperfection is usually inevitable in real materials. YCu$_3$(OH)$_{6.5}$Br$_{2.5}$ (YCOB) is a spin-1/2 kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet (KHA) with strong coupling of $\langle J_1\rangle\sim$ 51 K but without conventional magnetic freezing down to 50 mK $\sim$ 0.001$\langle J_1\rangle$. Here, we report a Br nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study of the local spin susceptibility and dynamics on the single crystal of YCOB. The temperature dependence of NMR main-line shifts and broadening can be well understood within the frame of the KHA model with randomly distributed hexagons of alternate exchanges, compatible with the formation of a randomness-induced QSL state at low temperatures. The in-plane spin fluctuations as measured by the spin-lattice relaxation rates ($1/T_1$) exhibit a weak temperature dependence down to $T$ $\sim$ 0.03$\langle J_1\rangle$. Our results demonstrate that the majority of spins remain highly fluctuating at low temperatures despite the quenched disorder in YCOB.Comment: NMR work on YCu3(OH)6.5Br2.5, accepted in Communications Physic

Chilling Stress—The Key Predisposing Factor for Causing Alternaria alternata Infection and Leading to Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) Leaf Senescence

Leaf senescence plays a vital role in nutrient recycling and overall capacity to assimilate carbon dioxide. Cotton premature leaf senescence, often accompanied with unexpected short-term low temperature, has been occurring with an increasing frequency in many cotton-growing areas and causes serious reduction in yield and quality of cotton. The key factors for causing and promoting cotton premature leaf senescence are still unclear. In this case, the relationship between the pre-chilling stress and Alternaria alternata infection for causing cotton leaf senescence was investigated under precisely controlled laboratory conditions with four to five leaves stage cotton plants. The results showed short-term chilling stress could cause a certain degree of physiological impairment to cotton leaves, which could be recovered to normal levels in 2–4 days when the chilling stresses were removed. When these chilling stress injured leaves were further inoculated with A. alternata, the pronounced appearance and development of leaf spot disease, and eventually the pronounced symptoms of leaf senescence, occurred on these cotton leaves. The onset of cotton leaf senescence at this condition was also reflected in various physiological indexes such as irreversible increase in malondialdehyde (MDA) content and electrolyte leakage, irreversible decrease in soluble protein content and chlorophyll content, and irreversible damage in leaves' photosynthesis ability. The presented results demonstrated that chilling stress acted as the key predisposing factor for causing A. alternata infection and leading to cotton leaf senescence. It could be expected that the understanding of the key factors causing and promoting cotton leaf senescence would be helpful for taking appropriate management steps to prevent cotton premature leaf senescence

A Transmissive X-ray Polarimeter Design For Hard X-ray Focusing Telescopes

The X-ray Timing and Polarization (XTP) is a mission concept for a future space borne X-ray observatory and is currently selected for early phase study. We present a new design of X-ray polarimeter based on the time projection gas chamber. The polarimeter, placed above the focal plane, has an additional rear window that allows hard X-rays to penetrate (a transmission of nearly 80% at 6 keV) through it and reach the detector on the focal plane. Such a design is to compensate the low detection efficiency of gas detectors, at a low cost of sensitivity, and can maximize the science return of multilayer hard X-ray telescopes without the risk of moving focal plane instruments. The sensitivity in terms of minimum detectable polarization, based on current instrument configuration, is expected to be 3% for a 1mCrab source given an observing time of 10^5 s. We present preliminary test results, including photoelectron tracks and modulation curves, using a test chamber and polarized X-ray sources in the lab

Review of X-ray pulsar spacecraft autonomous navigation

This article provides a review on X-ray pulsar-based navigation (XNAV). The review starts with the basic concept of XNAV, and briefly introduces the past, present and future projects concerning XNAV. This paper focuses on the advances of the key techniques supporting XNAV, including the navigation pulsar database, the X-ray detection system, and the pulse time of arrival estimation. Moreover, the methods to improve the estimation performance of XNAV are reviewed. Finally, some remarks on the future development of XNAV are provided.Comment: has been accepted by Chinese Journal of Aeronautic

Enhanced Gaussian Bare-Bones Grasshopper Optimization: Mitigating the Performance Concerns for Feature Selection

As a recent meta-heuristic algorithm, the uniqueness of the grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA) is to imitate the biological features of grasshoppers for single-objective optimization cases. Despite its advanced optimization ability, the basic GOA has a set of shortcomings that pose challenges in numerous practical scenarios. The GOA core limit is its early convergence to the local optimum and suffering from slow convergence. To mitigate these concerns, this study adopts the elite opposition-based learning and bare-bones Gaussian strategy to extend GOA\u27s global and local search capabilities and effectively balance the exploration and exploitation inclinations. Specifically, elite opposition-based learning can help find better solutions at the early stage of exploration, while the bare-bones Gaussian strategy has an excellent ability to update the search agents. To evaluate the robustness of the proposed Enhanced GOA (EGOA) based on global constrained and unconstrained optimization problems, a straight comparison was made between the proposed EGOA and other meta-heuristics on 30 IEEE CEC2017 benchmark tasks. Moreover, we applied it experimentally to structural design problems and its binary version to the feature selection cases. Findings demonstrate the effectiveness of EGOA and its binary version as an acceptable tool for optimization and feature selection purposes