Do Relationship-Based Transactions Matter for Corporate Tax Avoidance? Evidence from China

The existing literatures showing that relationship-based transactions would affect company tax avoidance, but with few empirical evidences. This paper makes an empirical study on the topic of relationship-based transations and corporate tax avoidence, by using the data of manufacturing companies from 2008 to 2016, in Chinese A-share listed market, the empirical study shows that the more relationship-based transactions with suppliers (clients), the more aggressive company tax avoidance, which indicates that the bahavior of company tax avoidance is influenced by business strategies. The study also shows that company’s financial decisions may contain selfish motives of powerful executives. Further, the study indicates that relationship-based transactions can boost company’s propensity for aggressive tax avoidance during fierce market competition. Yet, there are varying degrees of diversification in the moderating effects and weakening control rights by senior managers

Linear transformation models for censored data under truncation

In many observational cohort studies, a pair of correlated event times are usually observed for each individual. This paper develops a new approach for the semiparametric linear transformation model to handle the bivariate survival data under both truncation and censoring. By incorporating truncation, the potential referral bias in practice is taken into account. A class of generalised estimating equations are proposed to obtain unbiased estimates of the regression parameters. Large sample properties of the proposed estimator are provided. Simulation studies under different scenarios and analyses of real-world datasets are conducted to assess the performance of the proposed estimator

The use of clamping grips and friction pads by tree frogs for climbing curved surfaces

Most studies on the adhesive mechanisms of climbing animals have addressed attachment against flat surfaces, yet many animals can climb highly curved surfaces, like twigs and small branches. Here we investigated whether tree frogs use a clamping grip by recording the ground reaction forces on a cylindrical object with either a smooth or anti-adhesive, rough surface. Furthermore, we measured the contact area of fore and hindlimbs against differently sized transparent cylinders and the forces of individual pads and subarticular tubercles in restrained animals. Our study revealed that frogs use friction and normal forces of roughly a similar magnitude for holding on to cylindrical objects. When challenged with climbing a non-adhesive surface, the compressive forces between opposite legs nearly doubled, indicating a stronger clamping grip. In contrast to climbing flat surfaces, frogs increased the contact area on all limbs by engaging not just adhesive pads but also subarticular tubercles on curved surfaces. Our force measurements showed that tubercles can withstand larger shear stresses than pads. SEM images of tubercles revealed a similar structure to that of toe pads including the presence of nanopillars, though channels surrounding epithelial cells were less pronounced. The tubercles' smaller size, proximal location on the toes and shallow cells make them probably less prone to buckling and thus ideal for gripping curved surfaces

Silicon photonic MEMS switches based on split waveguide crossings

The continuous push for high-performance photonic switches is one of the most crucial premises for the sustainable scaling of programmable and reconfigurable photonic circuits for a wide spectrum of applications. Large-scale photonic switches constructed with a large number of 2$\times$2 elementary switches impose stringent requirements on the elementary switches. In contrast to conventional elementary switches based on mode interference or mode coupling, here we propose and realize a brand-new silicon MEMS 2$\times$2 elementary switch based on a split waveguide crossing (SWX) consisting of two halves. With this structure, the propagation direction of the incident light can be manipulated to implement the OFF and ON states by splitting or combining the two halves of the SWX, respectively. More specifically, we introduce refractive-index engineering by incorporating subwavelength-tooth (SWT) structures on both reflecting facets to further reduce the excess loss in the ON state. Such a unique switching mechanism features a compact footprint on a standard SOI wafer and enables excellent photonic performance with low excess loss of 0.1-0.52/0.1-0.47dB and low crosstalk of $\lt$-37/-22.5dB over an ultrawide bandwidth of 1400-1700nm for the OFF/ON states in simulation, while in experiment, excess loss of 0.15-0.52/0.42-0.66dB and crosstalk of $\lt$-45.5/-25dB over the bandwidth of 1525-1605 nm for the OFF/ON states have been measured.Furthermore, excellent MEMS characteristics such as near-zero steady-state power consumption, low switching energy of sub-pJ, switching speed of {\mu}s-scale, durability beyond 10^9 switching cycles, and overall device robustness have been achieved. Finally, a 16$\times$16 switch using Benes topology has also been fabricated and characterized as a proof of concept, further validating the suitability of the SWX switches for large-scale integration