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Whether and when differentiation strategies affect firms' environmental, social and governance (ESG) involvement remains unclear. Based on resource‐based view and behavioral theory of the firm, we propose that as the degree of differentiation strategies increases, firms' motivation to engage in ESG increases. Additionally, we propose that performance shortfalls moderate the relationship between differentiation strategies and a firm's ESG involvement. Specifically, we argue that historical performance shortfalls enhance this relationship, whereas social performance shortfalls weaken it. Using a large longitudinal dataset constructed from empirical data on Chinese listed companies from 2011 to 2020, we find strong support for these theoretical arguments. This study extends the differentiation strategies, and ESG literature by providing the first large sample of evidence that differentiation strategy is a key factor in facilitating firms' ESG involvement. The findings of this study also help firms to enhance their ESG practices by revisiting their existing strategies and relative performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating the behavioral theory of the firm and agency theory, this study is the first to examine the antecedents of firms' choice to disclose low‐quality accounting information from the perspective of performance persistence below aspirations. Based on empirical data of 31,326 firm‐annual observations involving 3584 listed companies for the 2007–2021 period, we find that firms actively reduce accounting information reliability and comparability in the presence of performance persistence below aspirations. Furthermore, we find that CEO‐CFO surname ties enhance the negative effect of performance persistence below aspirations on accounting information comparability. Finally, we find that agency costs play a mediating role in the relationship that performance persistence below aspirations has with accounting information reliability and comparability. This study is the first to examine performance persistence below aspirations and accounting information reliability and comparability. Meanwhile, this study provides important insights for policymakers to improve the quality of capital market information and for shareholders to improve the quality of corporate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of returnee executives on top management teams' (TMTs') unethical management behavior (e.g., excess perquisite consumption). Synthesizing insights from upper echelons theory and the psychological entitlement literature, this study proposes that returnee executives cause TMTs to generate a high degree of psychological entitlement, which subsequently leads to a high degree of excess perquisite consumption in their firms. In addition, this study proposes that returnee chief executive officers, product diversification, and regional institutional development moderate the aforementioned relationships by influencing managerial discretion. This study provides empirical evidence for the above view using a dataset that was constructed based on 1960 listed Chinese manufacturing companies from 2010 to 2019. From a psychological entitlement perspective, this study confirms, for the first time, that the introduction of returnee executives may have unintended negative consequences, for example, in promoting the excess perquisite consumption activities of TMTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Current computed tomography (CT)‐based lung ventilation imaging (CTVI) techniques derive a static ventilation image without temporal information. This research aims to develop a four‐dimensional CT (4DCT)‐based multiphase dynamic ventilation imaging framework capable of recovering the entire ventilation process throughout the breathing cycle for functional lung avoidance radiotherapy (FLART). Methods: A total of 15 free‐breathing thoracic 4DCT scans of lung or esophageal cancer patients were collected from the public datasets. The lung region of each phase image was first delineated, and then the mask‐free isotropic total variation image registration algorithm was used to derive the deformation vector fields between the end‐expiration (EE) phase and other phases. As a surrogate of ventilation, the voxel‐wise local expansion ratio of each phase relative to the EE phase was estimated using the parameterized Integrated Jacobian Formulation method in the EE phase coordinate. Lastly, the dynamic ventilation images were generated by warping these phase‐specific local expansion distributions with a same geometry into their respective breathing phases. Quantitative analysis, including interphase Spearman correlation coefficients, voxel‐wise, and regional‐wise expansion/contraction tracking, were performed to indirectly validate the proposed method. Results: The proposed method maintains the physiological meaning of ventilation on each phase and enables to recover the dynamic lung ventilation process. The mean interphase Spearman correlations ranged between 0.23 ± 0.20 and 0.93 ± 0.04 and decreased near the EE phase. Only 26.2% (2.59E + 6 out of 9.89E + 6) of lung voxels exhibited the same expansion/contraction pattern as the global lung. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the interphase ventilation distribution difference show that ventilation spatiotemporal heterogeneities generally exist during respiration. Conclusions: In contrast to conventional CTVI metrics, our method enables to extract additional phase‐resolved respiration‐correlated information and reflects the generally existed ventilation spatiotemporal heterogeneities. Subsequent studies with quantitative phase‐by‐phase cross‐modality evaluations will further explore its potential to deepen our understanding of lung function and respiration mechanics and also to facilitate more accurate implementation of FLART. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moving contact components are common in mechanical systems, and they exhibit a large rigid motion with linear‐elastic deflection under contact boundary conditions. The finite element method can capture local deformation and high gradient stresses, but finely meshed contact interfaces lead to numerous degrees of freedom. Model order reduction techniques for multibodies are effective, but moving contact interfaces also introduce multiple interface degrees of freedom. In the present method, the interface degrees of freedom are retained to ensure the accuracy of the local response induced by contacts, but the computational scale is not further enlarged. The motion of moving contact components is described by the floating frame of reference formulation. A free‐interface component mode synthesis method is proposed for model order reduction. Kept free‐interface normal modes represent global flexibility and residual modes accurately compensate for the local quasi‐static responses of omitted modes induced by contacts. The contribution of residual modes is represented by interface load coordinates, which can be directly evaluated by contact forces. The contacts are calculated with the present contact algorithm. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are fully demonstrated through correlation with the finite element method in gear meshing simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on signaling theory, we explore the impact of corporate fraud on firms' innovation performance. First, we propose that corporate fraud harms firms' innovation performance. This is because, as a negative signal, fraud makes it difficult for firms to obtain the policy, funding, and human resources needed for outstanding innovation performance. We further argue that the institutional aspects of the signaling environment (e.g., industrial competition, regional institutional development, and social trust) will influence core stakeholders' reception and interpretation of fraud signals. These factors, in turn, moderate the signaling effect of corporate fraud on firms' innovation performance. Our views are supported by empirical and robustness tests using Chinese A‐share listed firms from 2010 to 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Most available four‐dimensional (4D)‐magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques are limited by insufficient image quality and long acquisition times or require specially designed sequences or hardware that are not available in the clinic. These limitations have greatly hindered the clinical implementation of 4D‐MRI. Purpose: This study aims to develop a fast ultra‐quality (UQ) 4D‐MRI reconstruction method using a commercially available 4D‐MRI sequence and dual‐supervised deformation estimation model (DDEM). Methods: Thirty‐nine patients receiving radiotherapy for liver tumors were included. Each patient was scanned using a time‐resolved imaging with interleaved stochastic trajectories (TWIST)–lumetric interpolated breath‐hold examination (VIBE) MRI sequence to acquire 4D‐magnetic resonance (MR) images. They also received 3D T1‐/T2‐weighted MRI scans as prior images, and UQ 4D‐MRI at any instant was considered a deformation of them. A DDEM was developed to obtain a 4D deformable vector field (DVF) from 4D‐MRI data, and the prior images were deformed using this 4D‐DVF to generate UQ 4D‐MR images. The registration accuracies of the DDEM, VoxelMorph (normalized cross‐correlation [NCC] supervised), VoxelMorph (end‐to‐end point error [EPE] supervised), and the parametric total variation (pTV) algorithm were compared. Tumor motion on UQ 4D‐MRI was evaluated quantitatively using region of interest (ROI) tracking errors, while image quality was evaluated using the contrast‐to‐noise ratio (CNR), lung–liver edge sharpness, and perceptual blur metric (PBM). Results: The registration accuracy of the DDEM was significantly better than those of VoxelMorph (NCC supervised), VoxelMorph (EPE supervised), and the pTV algorithm (all, p < 0.001), with an inference time of 69.3 ± 5.9 ms. UQ 4D‐MRI yielded ROI tracking errors of 0.79 ± 0.65, 0.50 ± 0.55, and 0.51 ± 0.58 mm in the superior–inferior, anterior–posterior, and mid–lateral directions, respectively. From the original 4D‐MRI to UQ 4D‐MRI, the CNR increased from 7.25 ± 4.89 to 18.86 ± 15.81; the lung–liver edge full‐width‐at‐half‐maximum decreased from 8.22 ± 3.17 to 3.65 ± 1.66 mm in the in‐plane direction and from 8.79 ± 2.78 to 5.04 ± 1.67 mm in the cross‐plane direction, and the PBM decreased from 0.68 ± 0.07 to 0.38 ± 0.01. Conclusion: This novel DDEM method successfully generated UQ 4D‐MR images based on a commercial 4D‐MRI sequence. It shows great promise for improving liver tumor motion management during radiation therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study integrates organizational identity (OI) theory and upper echelons theory to explore the impact of CEOs' founder status on corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We theorize that compared with other CEOs, a founder CEO is more likely to generate a high degree of OI with the firm, which will drive the founder CEO to actively avoid CSI that may damage the positive image and long‐term development of the firm. Furthermore, we argue that CEO duality and CEO ownership will strengthen the aforementioned relationship by increasing the possibility of founder CEOs generating a high degree of OI. Conversely, CEO underpayment will weaken the relationship between founder status and CSI by decreasing the possibility of founder CEOs generating a high degree of OI. We obtained empirical evidence in support of our arguments from a large Chinese private listed company dataset. Overall, this study's theory and evidence clearly show that founder status and personal incentives can jointly shape CEOs' CSI decisions, thereby providing useful insights for corporate shareholders and government agencies to better prevent and govern firms' CSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Mud volcanoes (MVs) emit globally significant quantities of methane into the atmosphere, however, methane cycling in such environments is not yet fully understood, as the roles of microbes and their associated biogeochemical processes have been largely overlooked. Here, we used data from high‐throughput sequencing of microbial 16S rRNA gene amplicons from six MVs in the Junggar Basin in northwest China to quantify patterns of diversity and characterize the community structure of archaea and bacteria. We found anaerobic methanotrophs and diverse sulfate‐ and iron‐reducing microbes in all of the samples, and the diversity of both archaeal and bacterial communities was strongly linked to the concentrations of sulfate, iron and nitrate, which could act as electron acceptors in anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). The impacts of sulfate/iron/nitrate on AOM in the MVs were verified by microcosm experiments. Further, two representative MVs were selected to explore the microbial interactions based on phylogenetic molecular ecological networks. The sites showed distinct network structures, key species and microbial interactions, with more complex and numerous linkages between methane‐cycling microbes and their partners being observed in the iron/sulfate‐rich MV. These findings suggest that electron acceptors are important factors driving the structure of microbial communities in these methane‐rich environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flagella assembly was investigated in the Escherichia coli W3110 wild-type strain and Δ waaF, Δ waaC, and Δ waaG mutant strains that only synthesize lipopolysaccharide with different lengths, using transmission electron microscopy and whole genome transcriptome profiling. Under the electron microscope, the flagella were observed on the cell surface of the W3110 strain but not the Δ waaC, Δ waaF, or Δ waaG strains. Transcriptional profiling showed that 1382 genes in Δ waaC, 526 genes in Δ waaF, and 965genes in Δ waaG were significantly regulated compared to the control W3110 strain. These genes were further analyzed by gene ontology and KEGG pathway. Although there were significant transcriptional differences among the Δ waaC, Δ waaF, and Δ waaG strains, genes related to flagella assembly and bacterial chemotaxis (the linkage between the flagella and the environment) were significantly down-regulated in all three strains. The data demonstrated that flagella assembly in E. coli depends on the length of lipopolysaccharide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]