The Quality Difference of Tobacco Leaves Between Different Flue-curing Processes in Honghe Tobacco-growing Area

[Objectives] This study was conducted to compare the effects of different curing processes,in order to optimize the local supporting intensive fluecuring process.[Methods] A comparative experiment was carried out in Mile,Luxi and Jianshui on the four-layer tobacco-packed intensive curing process(K1)and the eight-point precise and intensive curing process(K2).[Results]The results showed that according to the appearance evaluation of the tobacco leaves,K1 was higher than K2 in respective scores of color,maturity,leaf structure and defects and the total score,while K1 equaled K2 in the scores of identity,oil content,chroma and length.The differences in respective scores of the two processes were not significant.According to the results of sensory evaluation,the two tobacco enterprises got different evaluation results of unblended cigarettes made of the middle leaves due to different raw material requirements of the enterprises by different processes.K1 was higher than K2 in the sensory evaluation of China Tobacco Yunnan Industrial Co.,Ltd.,while it was lower than K2 in that of China Tobacco Zhejiang Industrial Co.,Ltd.,and the difference in the total score between the two processes was significant.From the content of chemical components,in the conventional chemical component contents including total sugar,reducing sugar,chlorine and starch,K1 was higher than K2,while in the contents of potassium,total phytonine,total nitrogen and petroleum ether extract,K1 was lower than K2,but the differences were not significant.K1 was lower than K2 in the contents of neutral aroma components including ketones,alcohols,aldehydes,heterocyclics,neophytadiene and total content,while K1 was higher than K2 in the contents of esters,phenols,but the respective differences were not significant.Except the significant difference in the total score in the sensory evaluation of China Tobacco Zhejiang Industrial Co.,Ltd.,there were no significant differences in other items in the appearance evaluation,sensory evaluation and chemical composition of tobacco leaves between K1 and K2.[Conclusions] The supporting intensive curing process can be further optimized on the basis of this study.

Enforcement actions and their effectiveness in securities regulation:Empirical evidence from management earnings forecasts

Due to resource constraints,securities regulators cannot find or punish all firms that have conducted irregular or even illegal activities(hereafter referred to as fraud).Those who study securities regulations can only find the instances of fraud that have been punished,not those that have not been punished,and it is these unknown cases that would make the best control sample for studies of enforcement action criteria.China's mandatory management earnings forecasts solve this sampling problem.In the A-share market,firms that have not forecasted as mandated are likely in a position to be punished by securities regulators or are attempting to escape punishment,and their identification allows researchers to build suitable study and control samples when examining securities regulations.Our results indicate that enforcement actions taken by securities regulators are selective.The probability that a firm will be punished for irregular management forecasting is significantly related to proxies for survival rates.Specifically,fraudulent firms with lower return on assets(ROAs) or higher cash flow risk are more likely to be punished.Further analysis shows that selective enforcement of regulations has had little positive effect on the quality of listed firms' management forecasts.

Ownership balance, supervisory efficiency of independent directors and the quality of management earnings forecasts

In the Chinese securities market, with its characteristics of influence through personal relationships(Guanxi) and underdeveloped standards of law and enforcement, can independent directors play the supervisory role expected by securities regulators? In this study we use the degree of precision and accuracy in corporate earnings forecasts as proxies for the quality of information disclosure by listed companies and examine the supervisory efficiency of independent directors with respect to information disclosure. Using data from 2007to 2009, we find that in the absence of ownership balance, independent directors have a significant positive effect on the accuracy of management forecasts.In addition, the personal backgrounds of independent directors have specific effects on management earnings forecasts. Directors with certified public accountant(CPA) expertise significantly improve the precision of management forecasts. However, directors with industrial expertise significantly reduce the precision of management forecasts. In other words, having directors with CPA expertise improves the independence of boards, but having independent directors with industrial expertise has the opposite effect.