Study on the Vibration and Sound Radiation Performance of Micro-Perforated Laminated Cylindrical Shells

In response to the problem of vibration and noise reduction in equipment with cylindrical shell structures, this paper focuses on the micro-perforated laminated cylindrical shell structure and establishes its finite element model. Through comparative analysis with experimental results, the reliability of the finite element modeling method is verified. Based on this, the paper places particular emphasis on the vibration and acoustic radiation performance of the structure in the 1–1000 Hz frequency range under free conditions to understand the impact of different laminated shell structures, micro-perforation parameters (porosity, aperture), sound-absorbing foam materials, and placement methods. The results indicate that micro-perforated structures can efficiently reduce the structural radiated sound power level at specific frequencies, but the overall reduction in radiated sound power level is not significant. Various types of foam are effective in reducing the structural radiation acoustic power level, with polyurethane performing best among them. Changing the location of foam placement has a relatively insignificant impact on the structural radiation acoustic power level.© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

SOAPsplice: Genome-Wide ab initio Detection of Splice Junctions from RNA-Seq Data

RNA-Seq, a method using next generation sequencing technologies to sequence the transcriptome, facilitates genome-wide analysis of splice junction sites. In this paper, we introduce SOAPsplice, a robust tool to detect splice junctions using RNA-Seq data without using any information of known splice junctions. SOAPsplice uses a novel two-step approach consisting of first identifying as many reasonable splice junction candidates as possible, and then, filtering the false positives with two effective filtering strategies. In both simulated and real datasets, SOAPsplice is able to detect many reliable splice junctions with low false positive rate. The improvement gained by SOAPsplice, when compared to other existing tools, becomes more obvious when the depth of sequencing is low. SOAPsplice is freely available at http://soap.genomics.org.cn/soapsplice.html

Structural Modulation of Gut Microbiota during Alleviation of Suckling Piglets Diarrhoea with Herbal Formula

To determine whether the traditional Chinese herbal formula of Shen Ling Baizhu (SLB) could modulate the composition of the gut microbiota and alleviate diarrhoea in suckling piglets, twenty-four newly born piglets (Large White × Landrace × Duroc) were selected and allocated to 4 groups (control group and experimental groups I, II, and III) randomly. Faecal microbiome composition was assessed by 16S rRNA gene 454-pyrosequencing. The result indicated that experimental groups I and II exhibited significantly different gut microbiota from the control group. Most notably, the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were significantly elevated in experimental group II compared with the control group (P<0.05). Collinsella and Faecalibacterium were also enhanced in experimental group II compared with the control group (P<0.05). The results showed that SLB treatment could modulate the gut microbiota composition of suckling piglets, enriching the amount of beneficial bacteria in particular. The observed changes in the gut microbiota could provide the basis for further research on the pharmacological mechanism of the tested Chinese herbal formula

Do independent directors play a political role? Evidence from independent directors’ death events

We propose that independent directors are likely to play a political role in an institutional setting featuring weak investor protection and strong government intervention. Using Chinese data for 2001–2014, we investigate whether the stock price reaction to an independent director’s death is related to his or her political connection. We find a stronger negative reaction to the death announcements of politically connected than politically unconnected independent directors. The magnitude of the reaction is positively related to directors’ political rank, and cannot be offset by their firms’ political capital. However, we document no evidence of politically connected independent directors exhibiting superior monitoring or consulting performance. Additional analyses show that firms are more inclined to appoint a politically connected independent director as a successor if his or her predecessor also had political connections. Our study broadens scholarly understanding of independent directors’ role in a non-Anglo-American setting

Photochemical alteration of biogenic particles in wastewater effluents

Biogenic particles discharged by wastewater treatment plants play important roles in receiving water because of the large specific surface area and good mobility of the particles. In this study, the changes induced in biogenic particles by natural sunlight were investigated to understand the phototransformation of the particles in the receiving waters. The results showed that photoexposure resulted in significant decreases in the sizes of the biogenic particles but that photoexposure did not impact the zeta potentials. In addition, the photodissolution of biogenic particulate organic matter (POM) led to the generation of biogenic dissolved organic matter (DOM). Characterization using excitation-emission matrix (EEM) spectroscopy showed that photoexposure changed both the shapes and the intensities of the EEM spectra of the biogenic POM; the regions of the T1 and T2 peaks were susceptible to photoexposure. Modeling by parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) decomposed the EEMs of the biogenic POM into four valid components, i.e., terrestrial or microbial humic-like substances, tryptophan-like proteins, tyrosine-like proteins and hydrophobic proteins. The humic-like substances in the biogenic POM from the effluents were subject to lower decreases (17.0 % and 11.6 %). Throughout the entire incubation time, the PARAFAC components in the biogenic DOM were dominated by elimination mechanisms rather than by production through photodissolution of the biogenic POM

Rent-Seeking Incentives, Corporate Political Connections, and the Control Structure of Private Firms: Chinese Evidence

We examine how the rent-seeking incentives of local government motivate private firms1 listed in China to establish political connections, and whether such connections lead to more concentrated corporate control structures. Our results show that such firms are more likely to establish political connections in regions in which the local economy is less market-oriented or in which the government has more discretion in allocating economic resources. This is consistent with the notion that the presence of incentives for government officials to engage in rent seeking motivates private firms to look for alternative safeguards through political connections. We also find that the controlling owners of politically connected firms tend to concentrate their shareholdings and dominate the board of directors by occupying the position of either chairman or CEO, which supports the conjecture that a concentrated control structure facilitates rent seeking through political connections and allows the controlling owner to retain all of the benefits arising from connections with politicians

Relationship-specificity and accounting conservatism: the effect of customer and supplier 1

Previous literature provides evidence that conservatism could be driven by debt/compensation contract, litigation, regulation, and taxation reasons. This paper extends the above boundary by including customers and suppliers to explain the role of conservatism. Specifically, we test whether higher customer/supplier specificity is associated with firm's more accounting conservatism. Since customer/supplier specificity can create ex-post opportunistic incentive to the firm we expect conservatism can service a commitment role to induce the customer/supplier to undertake assets specific investment under this situation. Using asymmetric timeliness and customer/supplier R&D intensity as our major proxy for conservatism and specificity, we find, on both industry and firm level, firm's accounting conservatism is positively associated with customers/suppliers specificity. And this relation is weaker when an alternative mechanism, vertical integration, exists between the contracting parties or customer/supplier market concentration is low

Do Differential Dividend Tax Rates Increase Listed Companies’Dividend Payout? Empirical Evidence from the Chinese Capital Market

张美霞(上海外国语大学国际金融贸易学院)；李增泉(上海财经大学会计与财务研究院) 。【中文摘要】政府常常利用税收手段影响上市公司的股利支付。本文以我国2010--2013 年沪深A股上市公司为样本，研究我国财政部、国家税务总局和中国证券监督管理委员会在 2012 年联合发布的红利差别化征税政策（财税85号文）对上市公司股利支付和投资者构成所产生的影响。研究发现：红利差别化征税政策实施后，采用现金形式支付股利的公司的数量和比例均增加了。同时，机构持股越多，每股股利越高；而那些每股支付较高的公司，也吸引了更多的机构投资者。但本文未能发现第一大股东和管理层借此增持股份或上市公司增加现金股利支付的证据。本文的研究结论表明，红利差别化征税政策具有积极效果；支持机构投资者的追随者效应，没有证实大股东的利益侵占假说。同时发现，长期持续分红的公司更倾向于稳定的每股支付政策；在公司存在再融资需求时，第一大股东和管理层持股比例越高，越可能限制股利的支付。 【Abstract】 Tax policies in China may be instituted to encourage listed firms to pay more cash to their stockholders. The Ministry of Finance enacted differential dividend tax rates on individual investors in 2012 (Rules No.85}. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies during 2010-2013 ，we study the effects of the new tax policy on the dividend payout of listed companies and the resulting dividend clienteles.The results show that after the introduction of Rules No.85 ，both the number and proportion of companies that pay cash dividends as well as the total payout ratio have greatly increased. We also find that companies with higher institutional holdings before the new tax policy increase their payouts and that companies with larger cash dividend distributions after the new tax policy attract more institutional investors.Nevertheless ，we neither found evidence that the largest shareholder and management increase their shares ，and nor evidence they promote their firm's payout in response to the new tax policy. The results lend support to the clientele effect hypothesis for institutional investors but not to the major stockholder expropriation hypothesis. Our results also show that companies with a long-term cash-paying history prefer to smooth payouts and that when companies need external financing, shares held the largest shareholder and management are negatively related to dividend payouts when companies need external financing