Affiliated block shareholders and analyst optimism

Abstract(#br)We investigate several previously under-documented conflicts of interest that may result in analyst optimism by utilizing two unique features of brokerage firms in China, namely, the dominant ownership of large shareholders within the brokerage firms and the mandatory disclosure of brokerage firms’ commission income derived from each mutual fund client. We show that controlling shareholders of an analyst’s brokerage-firm put pressure on the analyst to report more optimistically biased earnings forecasts and recommendations to the stocks they hold larger positions in. We also find that the magnitude of analyst optimism increases with the shareholdings of the mutual funds that contribute commission fees to the analyst’s brokerage firm. These findings remain robust after incorporating a regulation change that reduces conflicts of interest in the brokerage industry and higher dimensional fixed effects, and thus are unlikely to be driven by reverse causality or omitted variable bias

Variations of China's emission estimates:Response to uncertainties in energy statistics

The accuracy of China's energy statistics is of great concern because it contributes greatly to the uncertainties in estimates of global emissions. This study attempts to improve the understanding of uncertainties in China's energy statistics and evaluate their impacts on China's emissions during the period of 1990-2013. We employed the Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC) model to calculate China's emissions based on different official data sets of energy statistics using the same emission factors. We found that the apparent uncertainties (maximum discrepancy) in China's energy consumption increased from 2004 to 2012, reaching a maximum of 646Mtce (million tons of coal equivalent) in 2011 and that coal dominated these uncertainties. The discrepancies between the national and provincial energy statistics were reduced after the three economic censuses conducted during this period, and converging uncertainties were found in 2013. The emissions calculated from the provincial energy statistics are generally higher than those calculated from the national energy statistics, and the apparent uncertainty ratio (the ratio of the maximum discrepancy to the mean value) owing to energy uncertainties in 2012 took values of 30.0, 16.4, 7.7, 9.2 and 15.6%, for SO2, NOx, VOC, PM2.5 and CO2 emissions, respectively. SO2 emissions are most sensitive to energy uncertainties because of the high contributions from industrial coal combustion. The calculated emission trends are also greatly affected by energy uncertainties - from 1996 to 2012, CO2 and NOx emissions, respectively, increased by 191 and 197% according to the provincial energy statistics but by only 145 and 139% as determined from the original national energy statistics. The energy-induced emission uncertainties for some species such as SO2 and NOx are comparable to total uncertainties of emissions as estimated by previous studies, indicating variations in energy consumption could be an important source of China's emission uncertainties

ConTex-Human: Free-View Rendering of Human from a Single Image with Texture-Consistent Synthesis

In this work, we propose a method to address the challenge of rendering a 3D human from a single image in a free-view manner. Some existing approaches could achieve this by using generalizable pixel-aligned implicit fields to reconstruct a textured mesh of a human or by employing a 2D diffusion model as guidance with the Score Distillation Sampling (SDS) method, to lift the 2D image into 3D space. However, a generalizable implicit field often results in an over-smooth texture field, while the SDS method tends to lead to a texture-inconsistent novel view with the input image. In this paper, we introduce a texture-consistent back view synthesis module that could transfer the reference image content to the back view through depth and text-guided attention injection. Moreover, to alleviate the color distortion that occurs in the side region, we propose a visibility-aware patch consistency regularization for texture mapping and refinement combined with the synthesized back view texture. With the above techniques, we could achieve high-fidelity and texture-consistent human rendering from a single image. Experiments conducted on both real and synthetic data demonstrate the effectiveness of our method and show that our approach outperforms previous baseline methods.Comment: see project page: https://gaoxiangjun.github.io/contex_human

Reduced carbon emission estimates from fossil fuel combustion and cement production in China.

Nearly three-quarters of the growth in global carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement production between 2010 and 2012 occurred in China. Yet estimates of Chinese emissions remain subject to large uncertainty; inventories of China's total fossil fuel carbon emissions in 2008 differ by 0.3 gigatonnes of carbon, or 15 per cent. The primary sources of this uncertainty are conflicting estimates of energy consumption and emission factors, the latter being uncertain because of very few actual measurements representative of the mix of Chinese fuels. Here we re-evaluate China's carbon emissions using updated and harmonized energy consumption and clinker production data and two new and comprehensive sets of measured emission factors for Chinese coal. We find that total energy consumption in China was 10 per cent higher in 2000-2012 than the value reported by China's national statistics, that emission factors for Chinese coal are on average 40 per cent lower than the default values recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and that emissions from China's cement production are 45 per cent less than recent estimates. Altogether, our revised estimate of China's CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production is 2.49 gigatonnes of carbon (2 standard deviations = ±7.3 per cent) in 2013, which is 14 per cent lower than the emissions reported by other prominent inventories. Over the full period 2000 to 2013, our revised estimates are 2.9 gigatonnes of carbon less than previous estimates of China's cumulative carbon emissions. Our findings suggest that overestimation of China's emissions in 2000-2013 may be larger than China's estimated total forest sink in 1990-2007 (2.66 gigatonnes of carbon) or China's land carbon sink in 2000-2009 (2.6 gigatonnes of carbon).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from NPG via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature1467

Urban Land-Use Efficiency Analysis by Integrating LCRPGR and Additional Indicators

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 11.3 is to enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanisation and capacity for participatory, integrated, and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries by 2030. Within that goal, the indicator SDG 11.3.1 is defined as the ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate (LCRPGR). This ratio is primarily used to measure urban land-use efficiency and reveal the relationship between urban land consumption and population growth. The LCRPGR indicator is aimed at representing overall urban land-use efficiency. This study added compactness, urban expansion speed, and urban expansion intensity to better reflect the impact of built-up area changes on the overall urban land-use efficiency. In addition, this study combined LCRPGR and the land consumption per capita rate (LCPC) to comprehensively analyse the relationship between land consumption and population growth in existing built urban areas, expanded built urban areas, and total built areas. This study employed three years of urban built-up and population data for 2010, 2015, and 2020 for 338 cities along the Belt and Road region to analyse land-use efficiency. The results show that the average LCRPGR for the period 2010–2015 was 1.01, which is close to the recommended ideal LCRPGR value of 1.0 in the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. For 2015–2020, the LCRPGR was 0.71, indicating that the overall urban land consumption in the study area decreased. This is also supported by the fact that the urban expansion intensity in 2020 was weaker than that in 2015. In addition, according to research on the tendency of changes in the entire urban built-up area, the smaller the urban population, the slower the urban expansion speed, the smaller the compactness, and the increasingly complex the urban borders. In cities where the overall LCRPGR is far from the ideal value of 1, the entire built-up area is divided into existing and expanded urban regions. It was found that the average LCPC value in expanded built-up areas was higher than that of existing built-up areas, showing that as cities developed, the LCPC of the newly developed urban areas was greater than that of existing built-up areas. Meanwhile, the LCPC in the expanded built-up areas showed a decreasing trend over time from 2010 to 2015 to 2020, indicating that land use in the expanded built-up regions tended to be efficient. These findings provide helpful information in decision making for balancing urban land consumption with population growth

Resonance Suppression of a Controllable Mechanism Welding Robot End with Central Composite Design Methodology

Aiming to achieve resonance suppression of a controllable mechanism welding robot end using dynamic modeling and experimental verification, this paper applies a central composite design methodology to optimize suppression resonance using three variables: excitation source, rod stiffness and damping. Considering the coupling effects of the excitation source, member stiffness and damping, a combination optimization is carried out, and the optimal control result of the end is obtained, for which the optimized peak amplitudes are significantly reduced. The research provides an important technical basis for the dynamic design and resonance suppression control of controllable welding robot mechanisms

Resonance Suppression of a Controllable Mechanism Welding Robot End with Central Composite Design Methodology

Aiming to achieve resonance suppression of a controllable mechanism welding robot end using dynamic modeling and experimental verification, this paper applies a central composite design methodology to optimize suppression resonance using three variables: excitation source, rod stiffness and damping. Considering the coupling effects of the excitation source, member stiffness and damping, a combination optimization is carried out, and the optimal control result of the end is obtained, for which the optimized peak amplitudes are significantly reduced. The research provides an important technical basis for the dynamic design and resonance suppression control of controllable welding robot mechanisms

Research progress on the mechanisms of microglia in retinal angiogenesis

As resident immune cells of the retina, retinal microglia constantly monitor the changes of their surroundings and maintain homeostasis through signal transduction with other retinal cells. Retinal microglia play a crucial role not only in the development and physiological processes of the retinal vascular system, but also in pathological neovascularization. In certain retinopathies, activated microglia can stimulate abnormal angiogenesis through neurovascular coupling, leading to irreversible damage. However, the exact mechanisms underlying this process are still unclear. In this review, a brief overview of the relationship between microglia and retinal neovascularization was provided, and the involved cellular and molecular signaling mechanisms were reviewed, aiming to offer new and effective strategies for the prevention and treatment of retinal neovascularization diseases

Urban Land-Use Efficiency Analysis by Integrating LCRPGR and Additional Indicators

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 11.3 is to enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanisation and capacity for participatory, integrated, and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries by 2030. Within that goal, the indicator SDG 11.3.1 is defined as the ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate (LCRPGR). This ratio is primarily used to measure urban land-use efficiency and reveal the relationship between urban land consumption and population growth. The LCRPGR indicator is aimed at representing overall urban land-use efficiency. This study added compactness, urban expansion speed, and urban expansion intensity to better reflect the impact of built-up area changes on the overall urban land-use efficiency. In addition, this study combined LCRPGR and the land consumption per capita rate (LCPC) to comprehensively analyse the relationship between land consumption and population growth in existing built urban areas, expanded built urban areas, and total built areas. This study employed three years of urban built-up and population data for 2010, 2015, and 2020 for 338 cities along the Belt and Road region to analyse land-use efficiency. The results show that the average LCRPGR for the period 2010–2015 was 1.01, which is close to the recommended ideal LCRPGR value of 1.0 in the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. For 2015–2020, the LCRPGR was 0.71, indicating that the overall urban land consumption in the study area decreased. This is also supported by the fact that the urban expansion intensity in 2020 was weaker than that in 2015. In addition, according to research on the tendency of changes in the entire urban built-up area, the smaller the urban population, the slower the urban expansion speed, the smaller the compactness, and the increasingly complex the urban borders. In cities where the overall LCRPGR is far from the ideal value of 1, the entire built-up area is divided into existing and expanded urban regions. It was found that the average LCPC value in expanded built-up areas was higher than that of existing built-up areas, showing that as cities developed, the LCPC of the newly developed urban areas was greater than that of existing built-up areas. Meanwhile, the LCPC in the expanded built-up areas showed a decreasing trend over time from 2010 to 2015 to 2020, indicating that land use in the expanded built-up regions tended to be efficient. These findings provide helpful information in decision making for balancing urban land consumption with population growth