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The purpose of this paper is to describe certain choices in assessments, in the digital pivot in response to COVID-19.

This paper is a discursive reflection about one’s personal experience and response to COVID-19.

Communicating suggestions of the changes in advance for feedback, consistency in maintaining the same assessment formats and styles, and being available in real-time during key assessment tasks are important in providing assurance and certainty to students in a time of great uncertainty and stress. Anticipating resource constraints will help to avoid potential system fails. Developing assessments that are authentic in using real-world company filings, the answers to which cannot be readily searched on the internet can significantly reduce the risk of cheating, especially where examination supervision resources are unavailable.

Course assessment choices may be specific to a particular course and may not be applicable to all courses.

Course assessment choices and the rationales for them, may be of applicability to other educators.

This note describes the authors’ personal experiences in adapting to the learning and teaching in the COVID environment.

Auditing is seasonal, with the majority of U.S. public companies having a December fiscal year-end. This results in an audit “busy season” and “off-season” with a non-trivial seasonal impact on the pricing of audit services. We apply an economic framework that explains how audit seasonality affects both the magnitude and the price elasticity of audit demand and audit supply. We find that the audit busy season is associated with an audit fee premium of approximately 10% based on a meta-analysis of 97 analyses from 18 audit fee studies of U.S public companies. A meta-regression of the contextual differences in research design between studies reveals that examining only Big N attenuates the busy season effect size but does not eliminate it, and that the busy season effect size may be larger post-SOX.

We argue that managers’ choice to manage earnings depends on the trade-off in the present value of expected future net benefits associated with that choice. Specifically, we examine if discount rates are associated with the likelihood that managers engage in earnings management to meet or beat various earnings targets. We find that discount rates are positively associated with income-increasing earnings management. This means that managers increase both accrual-based and real earnings management when discount rates are higher. However, the economic magnitude of this association is relatively moderate.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately controlled firms in China, and whether related party transactions (RPTs) add to or subtract from their relative performance, measured by return on assets (ROA).

Univariate and multivariate analyses of a sample of 90 firms that were listed in China between 2007 and 2009 (comprising 45 SOEs and 45 privately controlled firms matched on industry and size).

The authors find that SOEs engage in more tunneling, but find no evidence that privately controlled firms engage to a greater degree in either tunneling or propping. During this period, SOEs outperformed privately controlled firms by almost 4.5 per cent in terms of ROA (unadjusted for RPTs), but their performance advantage was completely offset by tunneling by about 6 per cent of ROA such that they underperformed privately controlled firms by a net 1.5 per cent of ROA.

The research is limited by a relatively small sample size, and in measuring the value of RPTs as the total value of the transactions (which is observable) instead of the difference between the transaction prices and arms-length prices (which would be preferable but is not observable).

The economics of investing in Chinese firms with different controlling interests and RPTs may be of interest not only to investors and other stakeholders in Chinese firms listed domestically, but also to international investors in overseas and cross-listed Chinese firms.

This paper synthesizes research from ownership on performance and RPTs on performance, to disentangling the relative effects of ownership control and RPTs on the performance of Chinese publicly listed firms.

Multiple attribute decision making (MADM) is a conceptual agenda used for evaluation and selection of optimal nanofluid to assure best performance of heat exchanger. Most of the studies focus on nanofluids focus on individual ability at one time. Relatively, not even a single study is available for selection of nanofluid for heat exchanger using concurrent design and MADM approach. The purpose of this paper is to propose a concurrent design methodology using MADM approach to assist improved design of heat exchanger concurrently for all the x-abilities in an integrated manner.

A combined methodology of applying MADM approach using concurrent design for x-abilities is called CE-MADM approach. Implementation of nanofluid to improve thermal performance of heat exchanger entails thorough evaluation of nanofluids in various x-abilities (performance, maintenance, thermophysical properties and modelisation) to make exhaustive management decision. Sensitivity analysis is also proposed to study the behaviour of height of variation of density, heat capacity, thermal expansion and thermal conductivity with varying particle volume fraction and variation of relative closeness of available alternates from ideally best possible solution.

MADM approach considering various x-abilities concurrently provide an approach for relative ranking of available nanofluids for optimum performance. Fishbone diagrams of all x-abilities are constructed to identify all the attributes and converge large number of attributes into single numerical index that are concurrently responsible for the cause thus saving time for easy evaluation, comparison and ranking by decision makers. Sensitivity analysis to demonstration height of variation of pertinent attributes with varying particle volume fraction. A MATLAB programming is established to execute calculations involved in the procedure.

This paper comprises a predictable and effective mathematical approach to improve design of heat exchanger with nanofluid bearing in mind all the required x-abilities concurrently. This combined approach of CE-MADM is never applied before in the field of nanofluid to predict best possible results in feasible conditions considering all the x-abilities. Sensitivity analysis is also presented from the assumed mathematical equations of thermophysical properties.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the literature that is currently available and take a glance at minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) with nanofluids (NFs) as viable candidates to improve the efficiency of various milling operations on challenging materials.

The extensive literature review is carried through the existing literature, which shows the effect of various process parameters in the milling operation of challenging materials under NF-MQL conditions. The manuscript also deals with identifying the inferences and research gaps from the literature review. The role and potential of NF-MQL in milling challenging materials are identified in this work.

The conclusion has also derived some recommendations for future study from the prior research, which will be helpful for any further research in this area.

This research work is limited to milling operations in challenging materials.

NF-MQL applications in milling operations are comparatively underexplored and merit considerable research. The amount of effort industry practitioners put into sustainable manufacturing will surely be greatly reduced by thorough research on the milling of challenging materials under NF-MQL settings.

MQL system has a great potential to perform well in the experimental endeavor. Despite that fact, majority of the small and medium scale manufacturing industries are still using the conventional flood system for the machining of the workpieces because of the unaffordable initial cost and requirement of expertise involved as compared to the flooded lubrication. This issue might be solved when more works will be accomplished in industries for small as well as medium scale production.

These are novel study approaches because there are so many variables that affect cutting efficiency; therefore, more research is required to assess and provide direction for the advancement of hard milling technology.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-01-2023-0010/

Steady-state free convection heat transfer and fluid flow of Cu-water nanofluid is investigated within a porous tilted right-angle triangular enclosure. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The flush mounted heater with finite size is placed on one right-angle wall. The temperature of the inclined wall is lower than the heater, and the rest of walls are adiabatic. The governing equations are obtained based on the Darcy's law, and the nanofluid model adopted is that by Tiwari and Das. The transformed dimensionless governing equations were solved numerically by finite difference method, and the solution for algebraic equations was obtained through successive under relaxation method.

Investigations were made as the tilted angle of the cavity varies within under different values of Rayleigh number for a porous medium with and solid volume fraction parameter of Cu-water nanofluid with. It is found that the maximum value of the average Nusselt number is achieved with the highest Rayleigh number when the tilted angle of the cavity is 150°, while the minimum value of the average Nusselt number is obtained with the lowest Rayleigh number when the tilted angle of the cavity locates at 240°. As soon as the flow convection in the cavity is not significant, increasing can improve the value of, but opposite effects appear when flow convection becomes stronger.

The present results are new and original for the heat transfer and fluid flow in a porous tilted triangle enclosure filled by Cu-water nanofluid. The results would benefit scientists and engineers to become familiar with the flow behaviour of such nanofluids, and the way to predict the properties of this flow for possibility of using nanofluids in advanced nuclear systems, in industrial sectors including transportation, power generation, chemical sectors, ventilation, air-conditioning, etc.

The current investigation is communicated to analyze the characteristics of squeezed second grade nanofluid flow enclosed by infinite channel in the existence of both heat generation and variable viscosity. The leading non-linear energy and momentum PDEs are converted into non-linear ODEs by using suitable analogous approach.

Then the acquired non-linear problem is numerically calculated by using Bvp4c (built in) technique in MATLAB.

The influence of certain appropriate physical parameters, namely, squeezed number, fluid parameter, Brownian motion, heat generation, thermophoresis parameter, Prandtl number, Schmidt number and variable viscosity parameter on temperature, velocity and concentration distributions are studied and deliberated in detail. Numerical calculations of Sherwood number, Nusselt number and skin friction for distinct estimations of appearing parameters are analyzed through graphs and tables. It is examined that for large values of squeezing parameter, the velocity profile increases, whereas opposite behavior is noticed for large values of variable viscosity and fluid parameter. Moreover, temperature profile increases for large values of Brownian motion, thermophoresis parameter and squeezed parameter and decreases by increases Prandtl number and heat generation. Moreover, concentration profile increases for large values of Brownian motion parameter and decreases by increases thermophoresis parameter, squeezed parameter and Schmidt number.

No one has ever taken infinite squeezed channel having second grade fluid model with variable viscosity and heat generation.

The main purpose of this numerical study is to provide a solution for natural convection in a partially heated, wavy cavity filled with a nanofluid using Buongiorno’s nanofluid model.

The domain of interest is a two-dimensional cavity bounded by an isothermal left wavy wall, adiabatic horizontal flat walls and right flat wall with a partial isothermal zone. To study the behaviour of the nanofluid, a two-phase Buongiorno mathematical model with the effects of the Brownian motion and thermophoresis is used. The governing dimensionless partial differential equations with corresponding boundary conditions were numerically solved by the finite difference method of the second-order accuracy using the algebraic transformation of the physical wavy cavity in a computational rectangular domain. The study has been conducted using the following values of the governing parameters: Ra = 10⁴-10⁶, Le = 10, Pr = 6.26, Nr = 0.1, Nb = 0.1, Nt = 0.1, A = 1, κ = 1-3, b = 0.2, h_hs/L = 0.25, h₁/L = 0.0-0.75 and τ = 0-0.25.

It is found that an increase in the undulation number leads to a weak intensification of convective flow and a reduction of Nū because of more essential cooling of the wavy troughs where the temperature gradient decreases. Variations of the heater location show a modification of the fluid flow and heat transfer. The upper position of the heater reflects the minimum heat transfer rate, while the position between the bottom part and the middle section (h₁/L = 0.25) characterizes an enhancement of heat transfer.

The originality of this work is to analyse the natural convection in a partially heated wavy cavity filled by a nanofluid using Buongiorno’s nanofluid model. The results will benefit scientists and engineers to become familiar with the flow behaviour of such nanofluids, and the way to predict the properties of this flow for possibility of using nanofluids in advanced nuclear systems, in industrial sectors including transportation, power generation, chemical sectors, ventilation, air-conditioning, etc.