Compact stars within an asy-soft quark-meson-coupling model

We investigate compact star properties within the quark meson coupling model (QMC) with a soft symmetry energy density dependence at large densities. In particular, the hyperon content and the mass/radius curves for the families of stars obtained within the model are discussed. The hyperon-meson couplings are chosen according to experimental values of the hyperon nuclear matter potentials, and possible uncertainties are considered. It is shown that a softer symmetry energy gives rise to stars with less hyperons, smaller radii and larger masses. Hyperon-meson couplings may also have a strong effect on the mass of the star.Comment: 7 pages, revtex, accepted in Phys. Rev.

International Accounting Standards Board: An examination of the main financial and accounting topics addressed in the literature related to the COVID-19 pandemic

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) conducts very demanding and complex work to setting accounting standards. The outputs produced by this board and their acts have been scrutinized over the years, by practitioners and academics. This study aims to contribute to the knowledge on the role of IASB by unveiling the research trends address­ing this group of accounting experts and its publications. Through the anal­ysis of the bibliometric data related to COVID-19 issues, this study identifies the main topics addressed in the literature during this pandemic. The results contribute to assessing the research conducted in this field and for creating the future research agenda on addressing the role and impact of the IASB during health, social and economic crises.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

COVID-19 research streams emerging in International Financial Reporting Standards related studies

Interpretation for the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) became to be challenging for organizations. Over time, these standards are changed to accommodate the improvements identified in accounting rules. COVID-19 pandemic impacted accounting reporting considering that contingencies and risks arising from this health crisis should be reported to stakeholders. In order to provide empirical evidence of the most important COVID-19 related practical and academic issues and challenges addressed by academics when reporting under IFRS, this study applies an automated computer-aided analysis for clustering the bibliometric data published concerning IFRS and COVID-19. The results support academic studies and practitioners by identifying the COVID-19 research streams that received the most attention in 2020. This study also suggests guidelines for future research that derive from past academic contributions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Trends in the management accounting research: A review of the literature published during the COVID-19 pandemic

Management accounting theory aims to contribute to managers using accounting reports for supporting their management decisions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, such insights would be essential for supporting decisions during lockdowns and other policy makers’ rules imposed by this health crisis. To unveil how academic literature addresses management accounting challenges arising from the COVID-19 specific context, this study conducts an automated computer analysis of the bibliometric data addressing financial issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The 2020 oil price war has increased integration between G7 stock markets and crude oil WTI

This paper aims to examine whether the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia has increased integration between the Crude Oil WTI Spot oil index and the G7 stock markets, namely France (CAC 40), Germany (DAX 30), USA (DOW JONES), UK (FTSE 100), Italy (FTSE MID), Japan (Nikkei 225), Canada (S&P TSX), from January 2018 to January 2021. The results show that in the period before the oil price war, the G7 stock markets and the WTI index had 29 integrations (out of 56 possible). The WTI index is integrated with the UK stock markets (FTSE 100), and Japan (NIKKEI 225), and is integrated into the Japanese market. In the period of the oil price war, the G7’s stock markets and the Crude Oil WTI Spot index had 43 integrations (out of 56 possible), namely the WTI, Dow Jones, and Nikkei 225 indexes, with all their peers (7 out of 7 possible). When comparing the period before and during the 2020 oil crash, we found that integrations increased significantly from 29 to 43 (out of 56 possible); we also found that the Crude Oil WTI Spot index is no longer a safe haven for portfolio diversification in G7 stock markets. These findings validate our research issue, i.e., the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia had increased integrations, and this evidence could question portfolio diversification.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Study on thermosonication and ultraviolet radiation processes as an alternative to blanching for some fruits and vegetables

The impacts of ultraviolet-C radiation, blanching by heat, and combination of heat/ultrasounds (thermosonication) were studied for Listeria innocua (inoculated) in red bell peppers, total mesophiles in strawberries and total coliforms in watercress, in the temperature range 50–65 °C. Quality attributes such as colour and firmness were studied for all products, and total anthocyanins content was additionally determined for strawberries. Results showed that ultraviolet- C radiation was the least effective treatment in terms of microbial load reduction and was equivalent to a simple water washing. Log reductions were 1.05±0.52 for L. innocua, 0.53±0.25 for total coliforms and 0.26±0.18 for total mesophiles. This treatment had the lowest impact on the quality parameters analysed. Thermosonication treatment was similar to heat blanching for all microorganism/product tested, excepted for total coliforms in watercress at 65 °C, in which thermosonication had a higher effect (p<0.05). Heat blanching at 65 °C allowed 7.43±0.12 log-cycles reduction, while loads were diminished by 8.24±0.13 log-cycles if thermosonication at the same temperature was applied. Thermosonication also allowed better quality retention, when compared to heat blanching at the same temperatures. The impact of thermosonication on microbial load reductions was statistically significant and thermosonicated samples retained quality attributes better than heat blanched ones at the same temperatures (p<0.05). Hence, it can be concluded that thermosonication is a promising process and may be a favourable alternative to the conventional thermal treatments

DMC-GRASP: A continuous GRASP hybridized with data mining

The hybridization of metaheuristics with data mining techniques has been successfully applied to combinatorial optimization problems. Examples of this type of strategy are DM-GRASP and MDM-GRASP, hybrid versions of the Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) metaheuristic, which incorporate data mining techniques. This type of hybrid method is called Data-Driven Metaheuristics and aims at extracting useful knowledge from the data generated by metaheuristics in their search process. Despite success in combinatorial problems like the set packing problem and maximum diversity problem, proposals of this type to solve continuous optimization problems are still scarce in the literature. This work presents a data mining hybrid version of C-GRASP, an adaptation of GRASP for problems with continuous variables. We call this new version DMC-GRASP, which identifies patterns in high-quality solutions and generates new solutions guided by these patterns. We performed computational experiments with DMC-GRASP on a set of well-known mathematical benchmark functions, and the results showed that metaheuristics for continuous optimization could also benefit from using patterns to guide the search for better solutions