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Coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused upheaval in university teaching practices. This paper aims to document how the teaching team on a large third-year undergraduate financial accounting course in an Australian university coped with the impact of the virus. Changes in teaching practices when classes shifted from face-to-face to online instruction during the COVID-19 crisis are described and examined using the crisis management process framework of Pearson and Clair (1998). Teaching team members were asked to write brief reflections on their experiences teaching the course during the period from February to July 2020. These were then thematically analysed and included as outcomes within the Pearson and Clair (1998) framework.

Description of COVID-19 induced changes to teaching a large undergraduate financial accounting course at an Australian university.

Six outcomes emerged: learning new technology; collegiality; the course review; the online delivery experience; redesigning assessments and; time investment; conjectures are offered about the survival of some of the changes made during the year.

The research only covers one teaching team’s experience but that is the purpose of the special issue.

Lessons for the future are explored.

The implications of online teaching are explored.

The paper provides a historical record of how the teaching team on a large undergraduate financial accounting course coped with an unexpected, major event that necessitated rapid and radical changes to teaching methods.

On the basis of demand survey feedback from individuals with disabilities and caregivers, this study designed two sets of functional garments for long-term bedridden patients, with the primary objective of increasing convenience and reducing the physical workload of caregivers.

Wear trials were conducted by employing 24 subjects to perform 11 different tasks to compare the performance of the two newly developed garments with that of conventional hospital patient apparel. Task operation time, heart rate (HR), electromyography (EMG) signals, and subjective perceptions were evaluated.

The new functional garments reduced the time required to perform tasks by 29–79%, maintained the average HR of caregivers at approximately the resting threshold and resulted in a 37–74% reduction in the root mean square (RMS) of the EMG at the arm muscles in the private and thigh nursing tasks. All the subjective and objective evaluation results of the caregivers demonstrated varying degrees of correlation.

This study has practical implications for the design of functional clothing for long-term bedridden patients and provides guidance for evaluating the ergonomics of garments that can be utilized only with caregiver support.

In contrast to previous studies that focused primarily on individuals with disabilities while overlooking the indispensable role of caregivers in the nursing process, this study shifted its emphasis to long-term bedridden patients who relied exclusively on caregivers for daily activities. Additionally, this study attempted to analyze the correlations between the evaluation parameters to explore the relationships between the evaluation methods.

In this chapter, the author compares two representations of the child from two famous films by the Fifth Generation’s top director in China, Chen Kaige, Yellow Earth (1984) and Together (2002). The girl’s story in the former and the boy’s story in the latter show respectively the dissolution of the Party/state as an extended family home, and it being replaced by the atomized, fluid, and flexible family home in the new state-led neo-liberal order. Compared with the girl, the boy in the new century tries to convey an equally lyrical articulation of the family/home, but differently, with a strong sense of his subjectivity. Thus, the boy’s voice in Together, self-reflective, artistically innovative, and affective, becomes a voice of resistance against authoritarian neoliberalism in post-socialist China.

Merchant and Van der Stede (2006) produced a comprehensive analysis of 24 years (1981–2004) of field-based accounting research. This study aims to analyse how the publication of field research in accounting has changed since 2005. In addition, it aims to analyse contributions from specific individuals, institutions and countries, and whether the field studies have contributed to accounting research and textbooks.

The authors identified and classified 1,115 field-based accounting articles published in 14 accounting journals from 2005 to 2022 to uncover any changes. Thereafter, bibliometric analysis was conducted using data from SciVal.

The results show several significant changes. Firstly, the growth of field studies has more than trebled as nearly all journals published at least some field studies. Secondly, field research is no longer as confined to management accounting as before. It is gaining increasing traction in auditing, financial accounting and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Thirdly, while interview-based accounting research was clearly the most popular, the fastest growth was seen in mixed-methods non-management accounting research. While public sector management control case studies and content analysis of CSR were the most popular topics of interview-based studies, audits were the most popular topic in mixed-methods research. Authors based in large universities in large English-speaking countries have been most productive, followed by authors based in Europe and Asia. Based on citation analysis, the field studies have contributed to academic research substantially more than to textbooks.

An analysis of changes and trends improves the understanding of what has happened in accounting research and the development over time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine numerically the three natural convection of air induced by temperature difference between a cold outer cubic enclosure and a hot inner cylinder. Simulations have been carried out for Rayleigh numbers ranging from 103 to 107 and titled angle of the enclosure from 0° to 90°. The developed mathematical model is governed by the coupled equations of continuity, momentum and energy, and is solved by finite volume method. The effects of cylinder inclination and Rayleigh number on fluid flow and heat transfer are presented. The distribution of isocontours of temperature and isosurfaces of velocity eventually reaches a steady state in the range of Rayleigh numbers between 103 and 107 for titled inclination of 90°; however, for the remaining inclinations, Rayleigh number must be in the range 103-106 to avoid unsteady state, which is manifested by the division of the area containing the maximum local heat transfer rate into three parts for a Rayleigh number equal to 107 and an inclination of 90°. We mention that instability study is not included in the present paper, which is solely devoted to three-dimensional calculations. Results also indicate that optimal average heat transfer rate is obtained for both high Rayleigh number of 106 and high inclination of 90° for the two cases of the inner cylinder and cubical enclosure.

The manuscript deals with prediction of the three-dimensional natural convection phenomena in a cubical cavity induced by an isothermal cylinder at the center with different inclinations by simulating the flow using highly numerical methods such as finite volume method.

It is found that the local Nusselt number through active walls for titled inclination set at 90°, the symmetry of the flow is conserved and the area containing the maximum heat transfer is divided into three smaller areas situated near the upper portion of the wall, taking the maximum value. That may be due to the preparation of local occurrence of instabilities and bifurcation phenomena that appear for Ra > 107, which is not included in the present paper to save journal space. It was found also that an optimal heat transfer appears when the cylinder orientation becomes vertical (a = 90°). For this inclination, buoyancy forces act upward, corresponding to an aiding situation. In addition, heat transfer rate is increasing with Rayleigh numbers, so correlations of average Nusselt through the cubical cavity and the cylinder are established as function of two parameters (Ra, a). Comparisons of the numerical results with those obtained from all correlations show good agreements.

To the author’s knowledge, studies have thus far adressed three-dimensional cuboids enclosures induced by an inner shape which the location is changed. However, no study has examined three-dimensional natural convection between the inner isothermal cylinder and outer cooled cubical enclosure when the outer enclosure is tilted.

Drawing on institution embeddedness and the resource-based view, the authors develop a theoretical framework and empirically examine how intra-national innovation ecosystems and environmental institutions impact logistics service providers' (LSPs) technological innovation (TI) and green practices.

The authors test the theoretical framework based on survey data of 328 Chinese LSPs. Archival datasets complement the survey data.

The research reveals that intra-national institutional forces of formal and informal environment-related institutions can mitigate LSPs' reliance on their firm-specific advantages when engaging in TI and green practices. Results from a three-way interaction indicate that intra-national innovation ecosystems positively moderate the effects of environmental institutions.

The research has three critical implications. First, the study reveals the contingency role of intra-national environment-related institutions and innovation ecosystems in shaping green logistics. Second, the study finds new results about the roles of informal environmental institutions. Finally, intra-national innovation ecosystems can override environmental institutions in influencing the green practices of LSPs.

Taking a unique angle of institution embeddedness coupled with the resource-based view, the authors examined how intra-national ecosystems and environmental institutions impact LSPs' TI and green practices.

Although various stakeholder groups frequently advocate and call for greater heterogeneity among directors and managers, it remains unknown whether team heterogeneity can be beneficial for audit committee to exercise the auditor selection functions. This study aims to address this question.

Drawing on a sample of domestically listed nonfinancial A-share firms in China from 2008 to 2022, the authors empirically examine whether and how firm’s audit committee heterogeneity associates with the selection of auditors.

Firms with higher levels of audit committee heterogeneity are more likely to be associated with lower-quality auditors. Further examination reveals the mediating role of risk-taking: higher levels of heterogeneity are associated with higher levels of risk-taking, influencing firms to employ lower-quality auditors. Moreover, the authors document that increased audit committee heterogeneity is associated with more audit committee meetings and lower audit efficiency, and that hiring lower-quality auditors can influence the market value of firms with high audit committee heterogeneity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine whether and how audit committee erogeneity associates with the selection of auditors. Moreover, because China is a high-power distance, collectivism-oriented, more relations-based (i.e. guanxi-based) than rules-based society, it is critical to examine the influence of team heterogeneity based on the unique cultural context and transitional nature of China’s business environment.

In recent Chinese history, rural villages have suffered extensive depopulation due to the intensive urbanisation of the country. In the early 1990s, the rediscovery of villages for tourism purposes caused a change in approach to conservation policies and village management. Today, villages are subjected to climate change with mass tourism as a contributing factor. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether the village community is climate change aware and to identify best practises for it.

In this case study, the authors adopted a visual research technique called Photovoice. It is a research method which combines preliminary data collection and initial analysis processes. The main goals of adopting Photovoice are to enable community members to record and reflect their community’s strengths and concerns, to promote dialogue and knowledge exchange among community members regarding critical local social or environmental issues through small group discussion, and to report to policymakers.

This research demonstrated that both visitors and hosts shared common thoughts on tourism interests, impacts and current actions regarding climate change. Age, level of education or origin did not interfere and it shows a common awareness regarding the effects of climate change. It confirms the structural assumption that local and expertise knowledge are complementary.

At a time when awareness of climate change is affecting almost every debate concerning development strategies, future planning, governance and action implementations, very little has been written on the climate change impact on villages from a community perspective. Even less has been researched on what are called “urban rural villages”, that are villages located at the close periphery of a large urban agglomerations or cities in China.

Hazard assessment on drought disaster is of great significance for improving drought risk management. Due to the complexity and uncertainty of the drought disaster, the index values have some grey multi-source heterogeneous characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to construct a grey projection incidence model (GPIM) to evaluate the hazard of the drought disaster characterised by the grey heterogeneity information.

First, the index system of the drought hazard risk is established based on the formation mechanism of the drought disaster. Then, the GPIM for the heterogeneous panel data is constructed to assess drought hazard of five cities in Henan Province. Subsequently, based on the assessment results, the grey clustering model is employed for the regional division.

The findings demonstrate that five cities in central Henan Province are divided into three categories, which correspond to three different risk grades, respectively. With respect to different drought risk areas, corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are proposed.

This paper provides a practical and effective new method for the hazard assessment on drought disaster. Meanwhile, these countermeasures and suggestions can help policy makers to improve the efficiency of drought resistance work and reduce the losses caused by drought disasters in Henan Province.

This paper proposes a new GPIM which resolves the assessment problems of the uncertain systems with grey heterogeneous information, such as real numbers, interval grey numbers and three-parameter interval grey numbers. It not only expands the application scope of the grey incidence model, but also enriches the research of panel data.

The safety of high-speed rail operation environments is an important guarantee for the safe operation of high-speed rail. The operating environment of the high-speed rail is complex, and the main factors affecting the safety of high-speed rail operating environment include meteorological disasters, perimeter intrusion and external environmental hazards. The purpose of the paper is to elaborate on the current research status and team research progress on the perception of safety situation in high-speed rail operation environment and to propose directions for further research in the future.

In terms of the mechanism and spatio-temporal evolution law of the main influencing factors on the safety of high-speed rail operation environments, the research status is elaborated, and the latest research progress and achievements of the team are introduced. This paper elaborates on the research status and introduces the latest research progress and achievements of the team in terms of meteorological, perimeter and external environmental situation perception methods for high-speed rail operation.

Based on the technical route of “situational awareness evaluation warning active control,” a technical system for monitoring the safety of high-speed train operation environments has been formed. Relevant theoretical and technical research and application have been carried out around the impact of meteorological disasters, perimeter intrusion and the external environment on high-speed rail safety. These works strongly support the improvement of China’s railway environmental safety guarantee technology.

With the operation of CR450 high-speed trains with a speed of 400 km per hour and the application of high-speed train autonomous driving technology in the future, new and higher requirements have been put forward for the safety of high-speed rail operation environments. The following five aspects of work are urgently needed: (1) Research the single factor disaster mechanism of wind, rain, snow, lightning, etc. for high-speed railways with a speed of 400 kms per hour, and based on this, study the evolution characteristics of multiple safety factors and the correlation between the high-speed driving safety environment, revealing the coupling disaster mechanism of multiple influencing factors; (2) Research covers multi-source data fusion methods and associated features such as disaster monitoring data, meteorological information, route characteristics and terrain and landforms, studying the spatio-temporal evolution laws of meteorological disasters, perimeter intrusions and external environmental hazards; (3) In terms of meteorological disaster situation awareness, research high-precision prediction methods for meteorological information time series along high-speed rail lines and study the realization of small-scale real-time dynamic and accurate prediction of meteorological disasters along high-speed rail lines; (4) In terms of perimeter intrusion, research a multi-modal fusion perception method for typical scenarios of high-speed rail operation in all time, all weather and all coverage and combine artificial intelligence technology to achieve comprehensive and accurate perception of perimeter security risks along the high-speed rail line and (5) In terms of external environment, based on the existing general network framework for change detection, we will carry out research on change detection and algorithms in the surrounding environment of high-speed rail.