A wire matrix has been developed for mounting LED dot matrix displays whereby insulated wires are ‘woven’ to produce a matrix that is fixed on an aluminium board with epoxy…
Abstract
A wire matrix has been developed for mounting LED dot matrix displays whereby insulated wires are ‘woven’ to produce a matrix that is fixed on an aluminium board with epoxy adhesive. This monolayer woven wire board simplifies the fabrication process of the display board while at the same time showing more than double the heat dissipation of conventional insulated aluminium printed circuit boards and five times that of conventional glass epoxy printed circuit boards when mounted with bare LED chips. In addition, it is suitable for high‐density and high‐brightness LED dot matrix displays.
A surface‐mount in‐line light emitting diode (LED) array was developed for mounting an LED dot matrix display on a single‐sided insulated metal substrate (IMS). This LED array has…
Abstract
A surface‐mount in‐line light emitting diode (LED) array was developed for mounting an LED dot matrix display on a single‐sided insulated metal substrate (IMS). This LED array has heat dissipating cathode leads and an anode lead that works as a jumper wire. Good heat dissipation of the LED array was obtained on an aluminium IMS.
This paper aims to examine the relationship between the readability of annual reports and corporate performance in Chinese listed firms.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between the readability of annual reports and corporate performance in Chinese listed firms.
Design/methodology/approach
This research examined the annual report readability factors of Chinese listed companies by using a textual analysis method using Python to extract the text from the annual reports, convert it into numerical form to facilitate statistical analysis and then merge the results with data from the Chinese stock market to explain the impact on corporate performance and predict future earnings in the Chinese financial markets from 2008 to 2021.
Findings
Study findings indicate that firms with better financial reporting readability are more profitable, incur lower agency costs and have low earnings in the Chinese stock markets when readability is low (i.e. more complexity and length of annual reports). It was also found that when a listed company has a good performance, it prefers to use a short space to explain its operating and financial status. More generally, the means of the report length are short, and accounting terms are used less frequently; in the case of a poor company, the annual report is particularly long and accounting terms are more frequently used. In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, this study served as a proxy measure of returns prior to the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, an instrumental variable approach is used, which helps results to remain robust and control for fixed effects and potential endogeneity problems.
Research limitations/implications
Although this study’s results cannot be generalised globally because of their limited scope, they can still be generalised across non-English speaking countries. Thus, future cross-country research is encouraged to examine the textual analysis of financial reports across those countries.
Practical implications
This study conveys two messages to investors and policymakers within the Chinese market. First, investors ought to pay greater attention to the nonfinancial information contained in annual reports to improve the accuracy of their predictions regarding future firm performance. Second, Chinese policymakers are encouraged to instate a policy for the use of plain English in annual reports to make them more readable by international investors.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the paucity of research that examines English-written annual reports in non-English speaking countries by examining the readability of annual reports in the Chinese market.
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Keywords
A numerical example is given of a semiconductor device model in one dimension, with constant carrier mobilities and dielectric constant, and no generation‐recombination term…
Abstract
A numerical example is given of a semiconductor device model in one dimension, with constant carrier mobilities and dielectric constant, and no generation‐recombination term, which nonetheless exhibits multiple stationary solutions. The device model considered has three p‐n junctions, and has (at least) three solutions, two stable, one unstable, for values of applied voltage above a rather moderate threshold value. In this model, bifurcation of solutions does not occur; the I—V plot for this model contains two distinct curves, at least for values of applied voltage below breakdown.
While the number of hybrid journals has increased with the conversion from subscription journals, article processing charges (APCs) have not been examined as frequently as gold…
Abstract
Purpose
While the number of hybrid journals has increased with the conversion from subscription journals, article processing charges (APCs) have not been examined as frequently as gold open access journals. This study compared the factors affecting APCs for hybrid and gold open access journals by formulating a charge equation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examined the APCs for 1,354 hybrid and gold open access journals in the Springer imprint. Using the ordinary least squares method, it investigated the determinants of charges, including the relationship between subscription prices and APCs for hybrid journals.
Findings
The results revealed that the charges set by hybrid journals were higher than those set by gold open access journals by US$1,620, after controlling for other variables. A reason could be the oligopolistic market structure of the leading publishers. Although the publisher imprint set the APCs based on the journal characteristics, the difference in the determinants of the charges between the two journal types may be due to the business models specific to the journal types.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggested that policymakers must consider the market power of leading publishers to establish a healthy scholarly communication market.
Originality/value
This study examined the relationship between subscription prices and charges for hybrid journals as well as the determinants of charges for both journal types, considering various characteristics of individual journals.
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Keywords
Atsuko Kawakami and Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld
Scholars have explained how people in Japan feel ashamed when elderly members of the family are cared for by formal services such as day care or government/commercial-based…
Abstract
Scholars have explained how people in Japan feel ashamed when elderly members of the family are cared for by formal services such as day care or government/commercial-based nursing homes due to the cultural norms of the consciousness of social appearance. However, this consciousness of social appearance plays a minimum role when it comes to elderly Japanese immigrant women's preference to utilize formal care services in the United States. They see receiving family based care as a burden on their middle-aged children (or grandchildren) and they prefer purchasing formal long-term care services when they can no longer feel confident about maintaining their independent lives. Elderly Japanese immigrant women hold rather positive views on formal care in the United States, including nursing homes. This chapter suggests that elderly Japanese immigrant women may not consider it shameful to utilize formal care as many previous scholars have suggested.
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HIDEO TANAKA, TETSUJI OKUDA and KIYOJI ASAI
Although the decision‐making problem at the lower level is generally well‐defined, the decision‐making problem at the higher level would not contain the detail. Much of…
Abstract
Although the decision‐making problem at the lower level is generally well‐defined, the decision‐making problem at the higher level would not contain the detail. Much of decision‐making at the higher level might take place in a fuzzy environment, so that it is only necessary to decide roughly what actions, what states and what parameters should be considered. This paper deals with the higher level problem in which we can regard the elements‐states of nature, feasible actions and available information‐as fuzzy objects. Since the uncertainty of meaning of objects is represented by the fuzzy sets and the uncertainty of occurrence of objects is defined by the probability, a specific formulation of the higher level decision problem can be defined by the probability of fuzzy events. From the same aspect, the definitions of worth, entropy and quantity concerning fuzzy information are given in this paper, and we have tried to extend some of the statistical decision theory to the fuzzy decision problem. To explain our formulation, an investment problem is presented as an example.
Taejun (David) Lee, Bruce A. Huhmann and TaiWoong Yun
Government policy mandates information disclosure in financial communications to protect consumer welfare. Unfortunately, low readability can hamper information disclosures’…
Abstract
Purpose
Government policy mandates information disclosure in financial communications to protect consumer welfare. Unfortunately, low readability can hamper information disclosures’ meaningful benefits to financial decision making. Thus, this experiment tests the product evaluation and decision satisfaction of Korean consumers with less or more subjective knowledge and with or without personal finance education.
Design/methodology/approach
A between-subjects experiment examined responses of a nationally representative sample of 400 Korean consumers toward a Korean-language credit card advertisement.
Findings
Financial knowledge improves financial product evaluation and decision satisfaction. More readable disclosures improved evaluation and satisfaction among less knowledgeable consumers. Less readable disclosures did not. Consumers without financial education exhibited lower evaluations and decision satisfaction regardless of readability. More knowledgeable consumers and those with financial education performed equally well regardless of disclosure readability.
Practical implications
Financial service providers seeking more accurate evaluations and better decision satisfaction among their customers should use easier-to-read disclosures when targeting consumers with less prior financial knowledge.
Social implications
One-size-fits-all financial communications are unlikely to achieve public policy or consumer well-being goals. Government-mandated information should be complemented by augmenting financial knowledge and providing personal finance training.
Originality/value
Although almost a quarter of the world’s population lives in East Asia, this is the first examination of readability in disclosures written in East Asian characters rather than a Western alphabet. Previous readability research on Asian-originating financial disclosures has been conducted on English-language texts. This study extends knowledge of readability effects to growing East Asian markets.
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Luca Ferri, Alessandra Allini, Marco Maffei and Rosanna Spanò
This study aims to investigate the readability of financial risk disclosure divulged by listed banks of the first five European countries according to gross domestic product.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the readability of financial risk disclosure divulged by listed banks of the first five European countries according to gross domestic product.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts the management obfuscation hypotheses and tests data gathered for a sample of 790 observations from listed banks in Europe covering the 2007–2018 period. This study uses a readability index (Gunning’s fog index) as the dependent variable for measuring the readability of banks’ mandatory financial risk disclosures. Moreover, it relies on a completeness index, discretionary accruals and several control variables for identifying the determinants of risk disclosure readability using ordinary least square regression for testing the hypotheses.
Findings
The findings show the existence of a positive relation\nship between readability and completeness of risk disclosure. In contrast, a negative relationship exists between readability and banks’ discretionary accruals.
Originality/value
This study expands the stream of accounting literature analyzing the lexical characteristics of narrative risk disclosure, and, by focusing on the financial risk disclosure of banks, it extends the readability-related debate, which has primarily concentrated on other types of disclosure to date. This study is relevant to regulators and policymakers for fostering reflections as actions for improving the financial risk disclosures readability. This study is also of potential interest for investors to better delve into the questions surrounding risk disclosure.