In March 2010, China launched a pilot programme of deceased donor organ donation in 10 provinces and cities. However, the deceased donor donation rate in China remains significantly lower than in Spain and other Western countries. In order to provide incentive for deceased donor organ donation, five pilot provinces and cities have subsequently launched a financial compensation policy. Financial compensation can be considered to include two main forms, the ‘thank you’ form and the ‘help’ form. The ‘thank you’ form is (...) an expression of gratitude on behalf of the Red Cross Society of China for consenting to donation. The ‘help’ form is social welfare support for needy families. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether and how the disclosure tone of earnings conference calls predicts future stock price crash risk. Using US public firms’ conference call transcripts from 2010 to 2015, we find that firms with less optimistic tone of year-end conference calls experience higher stock price crash risk in the following year. Additional analyses reveal that the predictive power of tone is more pronounced among firms with better information environment and lower managerial equity incentives, suggesting that extrinsic motivations for truthful (...) disclosure partially explain the predictive power of conference call tone. Our results shed light on the long-term information role of conference call tone by exploring the setting of extreme future downside risk, when managers have conflicting incentives either to unethically manipulate disclosure tone to hide bad news or to engage in ethical and truthful communication. (shrink)

Sill emplacement mechanisms are very complex, diverse, and regional, and insights from sill reflections are helpful for understanding the emplacement process of magma in the Tarim Basin. This study takes advantage of high-quality 2D seismic data, which are rarely used to study sills in the Tarim Basin, to analyze the sills’ geometric characteristics, plan-view distributions, emplacement timing, and emplacement mechanisms with unconformity surfaces. In the seismic-reflection profiles of the middle-upper Ordovician in the North depression and the southern part of the (...) Tabei uplift in the Tarim Basin, sills with strong positive polarity reflections appear, and they are closely distributed near the Tg52 unconformity surface, which represents the interface between Middle Ordovician limestone and Upper Ordovician mudstone. According to the vertical position of the sills relative to the unconformity, we can divide the sills into saucer-shaped or quasi-saucer-shaped sills above the unconformity surface, sill complexes and saucer-shaped sills on the unconformity surface, and saucer-shaped sills below the unconformity surface. Potential hydrothermal vents and peripheral faults associated with sill intrusion terminate upward in the Middle Permian strata, suggesting that these sills formed in the Middle Permian. Sills with inner flat sheets on the Tg52 unconformity surface formed when the magma ascended and encountered an abrupt change in the fracture toughness and tensile strength between the two adjacent host rock layers. The sills above and on the Tg52 unconformity surface overlap or are vertically linked; therefore, the sills above the Tg52 unconformity surface are the result of the continuous upward expansion of the sills on the unconformity surface, forming sill complexes. Our findings further confirm that unconformities are important interfaces that affect the emplacement of sills. (shrink)

This paper studies the dependence structure and information spillover effect between the RMB exchange rate and the Chinese stock market based on the R-vine copula model and spillover index model. The results show that due to the occurrence of the trade war, the correlation between the three RMB exchange rate indicators and the two stock market indicators increases in varying degrees. In the intensity of spillover, the information spillover of the stock market to the RMB exchange rate is significantly enhanced, (...) and the information spillover intensity of the RMB Index to the stock market increases, but the information spillover of the US dollar and Hong Kong dollar exchange rates to the stock market is significantly weakened. In the direction of spillover, the spillover of the RMB Index and stock market shows the characteristics of alternating transformation, while the exchange rate of a single currency and the stock market shows a one-way transmission from the stock market to the exchange rate. Additionally, the information spillover between the RMB exchange rate and the stock market is closely related to the degree of market openness. The RMB Index contains more information than the exchange rate of a single currency. (shrink)

Voluminous diapiric intrusions are present in 3D seismic data from the Liwan gas field area in the Baiyun sag of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, South China Sea. These diapirs are subdivided into magmatic diapirs and mud diapirs according to their seismic signatures and formation mechanisms. Saucer- and mound-shaped reflectors with anomalously high amplitudes distributed throughout the Early Miocene strata are interpreted as sills and laccoliths and are typified as magmatic diapirs. Mud diapirs in the study area can be divided (...) into two types: wavy reflectors occurring at the basement of the sag caused by the gravitational instability of plastically deformed mudstones and columnar upheaval anomalies rooted in Paleogene rift sequences. Gas chimneys are characterized by vertical weak/blank zones accompanied by pull-down effects. Vertical gas chimneys and mud diapirs pierce the Middle Miocene strata. The vast majority of them are triggered by normal faulting; however, no deep-seated faults can be detected around the peripheries of igneous intrusions. Migration forces and pathways are represented by vertical mud diapirs and gas chimneys and thus control the distribution of shallow gases with negative-amplitude anomalies as well as gas hydrates. (shrink)

The study of sand bodies and coalbeds that formed during strong events is conducive to understand the relationship between source rocks and reservoirs. Two sets of Late Paleozoic coal-bearing sequences including the Late Carboniferous Taiyuan Formation and Early Permian Shanxi Formation, with an accumulated thickness of more than a half wavelength, were deposited in the Hangjinqi region on the northern margin of the Ordos Basin. These strata appear as two peaks and two troughs, three peaks and three troughs in the (...) 3D seismic data. We analyzed this coal-bearing seismic response through a combination of well-data statistical analysis, the establishment of forward modeling, and the creation of crossplots. The coal-seam thicknesses of the Taiyuan and Shanxi Formations and the spacing between the two sets of coal indicate the major roles in the merging and bifurcation of events. The formation of three peaks and three troughs requires that the thicknesses of the two sets of coal are greater than 2 m. The spacing between the two sets of coal must also exceed 10 m with a detectable lateral extension, which would otherwise generate two peaks and two troughs. The two peaks and two troughs indicate a combined relationship between the thin sandstones at the bottom of the Shanxi Formation and the thick coalbeds in the Taiyuan and Shanxi Formations. The three peaks and three troughs suggest a combined relationship between the thick sandstones at the bottom of the Shanxi Formation and the thin coalbeds in the Taiyuan and Shanxi Formations. The drilling results clarified that the well situated at the two peaks and two troughs regions is accompanied by higher gas productivity, revealing that the coal-seam thickness has a significant influence on gas accumulation. The presence of two peaks and two troughs indicates favorability for natural gas exploration. (shrink)

The study of sand bodies and coalbeds that formed during strong events is conducive to understand the relationship between source rocks and reservoirs. Two sets of Late Paleozoic coal-bearing sequences including the Late Carboniferous Taiyuan Formation and Early Permian Shanxi Formation, with an accumulated thickness of more than a half wavelength, were deposited in the Hangjinqi region on the northern margin of the Ordos Basin. These strata appear as two peaks and two troughs, three peaks and three troughs in the (...) 3D seismic data. We analyzed this coal-bearing seismic response through a combination of well-data statistical analysis, the establishment of forward modeling, and the creation of crossplots. The coal-seam thicknesses of the Taiyuan and Shanxi Formations and the spacing between the two sets of coal indicate the major roles in the merging and bifurcation of events. The formation of three peaks and three troughs requires that the thicknesses of the two sets of coal are greater than 2 m. The spacing between the two sets of coal must also exceed 10 m with a detectable lateral extension, which would otherwise generate two peaks and two troughs. The two peaks and two troughs indicate a combined relationship between the thin sandstones at the bottom of the Shanxi Formation and the thick coalbeds in the Taiyuan and Shanxi Formations. The three peaks and three troughs suggest a combined relationship between the thick sandstones at the bottom of the Shanxi Formation and the thin coalbeds in the Taiyuan and Shanxi Formations. The drilling results clarified that the well situated at the two peaks and two troughs regions is accompanied by higher gas productivity, revealing that the coal-seam thickness has a significant influence on gas accumulation. The presence of two peaks and two troughs indicates favorability for natural gas exploration. (shrink)

This paper features a critical review of the book Politeness and Audience Response in Chinese-English Subtitling. A brief introduction of the book’s content is given first, followed by a critical appraisal on merits and loopholes in the book. Furthermore, some interdisciplinary amendments — based on House’s comprehensive politeness theory and Lakoff’s embodiment concept — are put forward to remedy the loopholes in question. It is argued that covert translation works better in subtitling for it is compatible with different social norms (...) at the micro level and universally explanative politeness maxims at the macro level. Another issue discussed in this paper is the pretextual influence on audience interpretation. Pretextual influence — or embodiment system which we render more pertinent in cognitive interpretation practice — can barely be mitigated in the audience’s interpretation. Given the audience’s potential misunderstanding derived from access to various pretextual experiences, the translator may as well transfer the right implications underneath paralinguistic behaviors to the subtitling in domesticalized terms. (shrink)

Shale often has strong intrinsic anisotropy, which can be described by transverse isotropy with a vertical axis of symmetry. When vertical fractures are present, shale is likely to exhibit orthorhombic symmetry. We used anisotropic rock-physics models to describe the orthorhombic properties of fractured shale, and we determined that composition and fracture properties had an impact on the azimuthal amplitude variations. Interpretation of azimuthal reflectivity variations was often performed under simplified assumptions. Although the Rüger equation was derived for weak anisotropy and (...) for transverse isotropy with a horizontal axis of symmetry, our results indicated that the orthorhombic response can be well described by the Rüger equation. However, ambiguities could be introduced into the interpretation of parameters. We suggested that careful rock-physics modeling was important for interpreting the anisotropic seismic response of fractured shale. (shrink)