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To verify if female directors on the bank’s board play a role in managing bank stability, this paper applies a multi-threshold model to quarterly data from 26 Taiwanese commercial banks over the 2002–2018 period to find the factors that influence bank financial stability and to examine how female board directorship affects it. The empirical results suggest that women on the board do play a guarding role in a bank’s financial soundness when banks reach a high debt ratio regime. The influence of female directors on the capital adequacy ratio is positive for banks with a debt ratio higher than 92.69%, and for non-performing loans it is positive within the regime of the debt ratio 90.71% ≤ τ < 95.39%.In particular, it has been found that the value of total assets is a factor that positively affects a bank’s financial soundness, which supports the “too big to fail” theory for banks with high total assets and debt ratios. Revenue has the opposite effect on financial soundness when it negatively affects the capital adequacy ratio and positively affects non-performing loans. A larger board size reduces banks’ financial soundness, which is contrary to the higher proportion of women on the board of directors, which generally contributes to the financial stability of the bank.

Black pepper oils have been investigated frequently in the recent years. However, there is a significant variation in physicochemical properties and bioactivity of oils depended on extraction techniques. In this study, the systemic investigation of four various extraction methods was performed to evaluate the physicochemical characterizations, antioxidant and antibacterial activity. The investigation of 1H NMR, FTIR and UV–Vis spectra confirmed presence of non-volatile components in oils extracted through supercritical CO2 and hexane-soaking extractions which induced their typical thermal properties. The isothermal behaviour of extracted oils related to evaporation was within range of 3.2–7.3% (w/w) at 27 °C. The SEM images of the black pepper confirmed different operation manners of mechanism between extractions using the solvents and heating process. The lowest MIC for both essential oils from conventional hidrodistillation and microwave-assisted hidrodistillation against two bacteria including E. coli and B. subtilis were found to be 137 µg mL−1. The non-isothermal decomposition kinetics were investigated on the essential oil of microwave-assisted hydrodistillation extraction. The activation energies and pre-exponent factors of non-isothermal decomposition were found to be in range of 36.5–73.7 KJ mol−1 and 4.98 × 103–1.97 × 108 s−1, respectively, dependent on conversional fractions of the oil. The results revealed that chemical components, physicochemical properties and bioactivity of black pepper essential oils depended on the extraction techniques.

This paper empirically studies the impact of female proportion and the background of the board on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of Taiwanese listed firms. The different groups of board size are detected by the structural break test, which is used as the threshold for dividing subsamples. The results show that the higher proportion of women and accounting background of board of directors, the more CSR disclosure for firms with more than 11 directors in the board, implying that women and accounting background directors can only promote their compassionate and reciprocal in CSR decision-making in large board firms. Overall, the empirical results poorly support the efficiency hypothesis suggesting that the board of directors is more powerful when it has high gender diversity. This study also confirms that the linear regression method may not be able to fully present the various possible relationships between the variables.

Food waste (FW) is more harmful than previously imagined. A large amount of Vietnam’s FW ends up in landfills, only 20 % of which are sanitary. This causes significant environmental problems such as greenhouse gas emissions, high carbon footprint, leachate, and landfill-related conflicts. The FW from Vietnam’s urban areas is 0.29 kg⸳p−1⸳d−1, accounting for 31.7 % of total waste. 38.81 % of families discharge FW which, along with municipal waste, corresponds to 4,429.21 ton⸳d−1 for the entire country. For FW collection, under transportation and treatment heads, 80,416.95 $⸳d−1 and 74,605.57 $⸳d−1 were spent, respectively. An analysis of Vietnam’s national strategy for the integrated management of solid waste indicates that the amount of attention and concern currently given to FW issues is not adequate to address them. To resolve FW issues, Vietnam needs to be more proactive regarding solutions and efforts, in addition to implementing strict regulations. These include the setting of national goals under the priority of national strategy, strict regulations, stakeholder engagement, FW recycling to animal feed, biorefinery, and awareness-raising campaigns.

The title compound, C30H29NO4, is a tetracyclic system containing a 4-arylpyridine fragment, two benzene rings and an aza-17-crown-5 ether moiety, in a bowl-like arrangement. The pyridine ring is inclined to the 4-methylphenyl ring by 26.64 (6)°, and by 57.43 (6) and 56.81 (6)° to the benzene rings. The benzene rings are inclined to one another by 88.32 (6)°. In the crystal, molecules are linked by pairs of C—H...N hydrogen bonds, forming inversion dimers with an R22(14) ring motif. The dimers are linked via a number of C—H...π interactions, forming a three-dimensional architecture.

It is essential that communities at risk from TB are involved in TB research. Community advisory groups (CAGs) are one mechanism for involving communities in research and creating platforms for discussions between researchers and community members. We organised a CAG meeting with community members and people with lived experience in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to explore the community’s knowledge about TB and their perspectives on different diagnostic tests in Vietnam, a low-middle-income country with a high TB burden. Researchers shared basic information and addressed questions about TB. CAG members commented on preference of TB screening tests, and suggested that chest X-rays and blood tests were more acceptable than sputum tests because of the difficulty in sputum expectoration. In addition, clinical studies that required fewer visits to the hospitals would be preferred, even if this meant a greater reliance on blood sampling.

This article presents a simple approach for designing a linear adaptive controller, employing the model reference systems concept, to enable the tracking of uncertain robotic manipulators under the influence of input disturbances. The combined impact of model uncertainties and matched disturbances on the robot's behavior is considered as a total matched disturbance, attributed to a double integral system. Subsequently, a novel linear disturbance estimator, augmented by a feed‐forward correction term, is employed to estimate this lumped disturbance within the double integrator system. As a result of this procedure, the requisite adaptive law, based on the model reference system, is formulated for the nominal control parameter instead of arbitrary free‐parameter selections. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is theoretically justified and further supported by its application in the analysis of an active magnetic bearing system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to its extraordinary electrochemical properties, the CIS@UiO-66 nanocomposite has proved to be one of the most potential materials for modifying electrode surfaces toward 4-NP detection. Herein, CIS nanomaterials are effectively combined onto UiO-66 material, aiming to achieve a unique heterostructure. In this configuration, CIS plays a role as an active material, while UiO-66 acts as an efficient framework with high specific surface area and pore volume, good chemical stability, and large electrical conductivity to uniformly decorate CIS. As expected, with such synergism of CIS and UiO-66, the electrochemical characteristics and detection performance of 4-NP are enhanced remarkably. Namely, electrochemical measurements exhibit kinetic parameters involving oxidation-reduction reactions of both the standard probe and targeted molecules (4-NP). The sensitivity, linear concentration range, LOD value, and selectivity toward the detection of the 4-NP at CIS@UiO-66/SPE are the highest compared to CIS/SPE and UiO-66/SPE, demonstrating the high applicability potential of this proposed electrode in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]