Suchergebnisse

Youtiao, which is a deep-fried bread consisting of two twisted sticks, is commonly consumed as breakfast in China. The present work aimed to investigate the effect of the addition of KCl, CaCl2, and MgCl2 into flour on the acrylamide (AA) contents and youtiao quality. Results indicated that the AA contents in youtiao decreased by 10.0 ~ 71.0% depending on cation type and amount. The AA contents were negatively correlated with the amount of cations (r = -0.704, p = 0.0230). However, cation addition caused up to 36.8% of increase (maximum) in the content of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Cations had little effect on the moisture content, oil uptake, or texture properties of youtiao, but it rendered colour of youtiao less attractive (albeit still within the acceptable range). However, adding 20 mmol or more cations led to youtiao tasting bitter. Therefore, 20 mmol was suggested as the maximum addition amount for mitigating AA in youtiao.

Purpose: Using a nonrandomized control group pretest–posttest assessment, this study aimed to examine the outcomes of community-based youth empowerment initiatives that were informed by design thinking. Method: A total of 553 youth living in Hong Kong were recruited to participate in this study. Among them, 213 youth self-selected to join the experimental group, and 340 youth joined the two control groups. Multivariate analysis of covariance and post hoc group comparisons were used to examine the differences among the three groups at the posttest assessment. Results: The results indicate a positive improvement in creative self-efficacy among participants of the experimental group compared to the two control groups. Significant differences were also found between the experimental group and the second control group in terms of youth–adult partnerships and youth empowerment in the community. Conclusion: Youth empowerment programs informed by design thinking may reinforce self-efficacy beliefs by encouraging youth to bring about innovations in their community.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to untangle the impacts of a firm's corporate reputation and its alliance partners' social capital on its financial performance, drawing on the relational and the network points of view.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explored the moderating effect of corporate reputation on the relationship between partners' social capital (e.g. resource heterogeneity, structural relations and partners' social ties) and a focal firm's performance. An OLS three-step regression model (controls, main effects and interaction effects) was used to test the proposed hypotheses based on 265 US joint ventures.FindingsThe influence of partners' social capital on a focal firm's performance is negatively moderated by the focal firm's reputation at the firm and network levels; larger and more prestigious firms listed inFortunedatabase tend to choose partners with a higher level of resource heterogeneity, whereas smaller firms tend to choose partners in similar industries to increase economies of scale. The social capital factors of the partners will have different effects on the focal firm performance.Originality/valueThe value of this paper is in providing insight into the importance and nuances of corporate reputation in offsetting the advantages of inter-firm alliances and their impact on firm performance. In particular, the performance benefits of inter-firm alliance partners' social ties and heterogeneous resources are negatively affected by the corporate reputation of a firm.

Purpose– The purposes of this paper are: to examine the adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies related to environment protection by Chinese state oil companies; and to analyze the effects of global competitions and cooperation on the CSR adoption processes.Design/methodology/approach– Based on a content analysis of 58 corporate reports and three interviews with senior managers from Chinese-Western joint ventures, the authors analyzed the environmentally-related CSR adoption strategies and the effects of global competition and cooperation in Chinese state oil companies.Findings– The findings suggest that more cooperative CSR strategies related to environment protection have been adopted by Chinese state oil companies in the past decade. The main reasons are: the force of international and local environmental regulations; the pressures from partners of western oil companies and the desire to increase the global competitive advantage of the Chinese state oil companies.Research limitations/implications– Given that this study is based only on the analysis of corporate reports and three interviews, the authors' conclusions should be considered preliminary and inconclusive. Future studies should be done to collect more primary data by interviewing and surveying by questionnaire a significant number of managers from these companies to validate these conclusions.Originality/value– This paper highlights the adoption of CSR strategies by three Chinese state oil companies and the effects of global operations which have been little studied academically so far.

AbstractNested simulation is typically used to estimate the functional of a conditional expectation. Considerable research has been performed on point estimation for various functionals. However, the quantification of the statistical uncertainty in the point estimator, for instance, using confidence intervals (CIs), has not been extensively investigated. In this article, we establish central limit theorems with the asymptotically optimal convergence rate of for nested simulation with different forms of functionals, where denotes the total computational effort. Based on these theorems, we develop a unified CI framework that can ensure that both the mean squared error of the point estimator and CI width attain the optimal convergence rate. Numerical examples are presented, and the results are found to be consistent with the theoretical results. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms the existing methods for CI construction in terms of the CI widths and convergence rates.