Women on Boards of Directors

This research aims to measure the current gender representation in membership of boards of directors,and to study the factors affecting the presence of women on boards.The results of the study will support the decision makers and policy makers at all levels by providing knowledge that contributes to bridging the current gap in participation of women boards.The methodology used in this research is the descriptive analytical approach,which relies on quantitative methods in the process of collecting and analyzing data.This study represents the boards of directors in the three sectors(public,private,and non-profit)in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,The study sample contained 350 targets,where a random sample of 150 people in the public sector,100 people in the private sector,and 100 people in the non-profit sector were selected.The research result found that the majority of the responses believe that the lack of experience and training,and social factors,are the most impact areas of explaining the reasons for the existence of a gap in women’s membership in boards of directors in the three sectors.And the most important reasons for the existence of a gender gap in board membership are:there is no statutory minimum percentage for women’s representation on boards of directors,and scarcity of female competencies in general,and the lack of women occupying leadership positions.

Female directors in the boardroom and intellectual capital performance:Does the“critical mass”matter?

This research aims to investigate the influence of female directors on Intellectual Capital Performance(ICP)using a sample of manufacturing-listed companies in China.Our study investigates the link between having two or more female directors and the Modified Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient(MVAIC)methodology,employing the critical mass theory from 2004–2017.We find that having a critical mass of female directors(three or more)shows a significant positive impact on MVAIC and its components,including human capital efficiency,structural capital efficiency,relational capital efficiency,and physical capital efficiency,with physical capital being the critical driver.Our study reveals that the critical mass participation of female directors substantially influences the IC efficiency of privately owned companies compared to state-owned companies.Moreover,the number of female directors also affects the IC performance of manufacturing companies in multiple regions.Our findings support the validity of group classification identified by Kanter and Critical Mass Theory.To the best of our knowledge,this is one of the few pieces of research that studies the role of female board directors in IC performance and Chinese manufacturing firms using MVAIC as an IC measure.

The "Garden of Emeralds" Exhibition:Interview with Dr. EloÏse Gaillou,Director and Curator of the Mineralogy Museum of l'école des Mines de Paris(Mines Paris-PSL)

From May 25 to October 7,2024,L’éCOLE China,School of Jewelry Arts(supported by Van Cleef & Arpels) presents the "Garden of Emeralds" exhibition in its Shanghai campus.As part of the "Discover the Gemstones" series,the exhibition gives pride to this green precious mineral and explores its history in many regions of the world,from Asia to Europe including the Middle East.Gathering both raw stones and pieces of jewelry from museum collections and private lenders,it addresses the topic through the three main pillars of L’éCOLE:gemmology,savoir-faire and the history of jewelry.

Spring Festival Celebrations Fire Maltese Fascination with Chinese Culture--An Exclusive Interview with Director of the China Cultural Center in Malta Yuan Yuan

THRONGS of shoppers,in a department store adorned with colorful Spring Festival posters,vying to try their hand either at Chinese calligraphy or traditional Chinese lantern-making,might seem incongruous in a European setting.The background to this vibrant scenario was The Point,Malta’s largest shopping mall,as part of the island country’s 2023 Chinese New Year celebrations,courtesy of the China Cultural Center in Malta.

HIM in Director’s Lens: Today and Future——An Interview with CAS Member TAN Weihong, the founding director of the Hangzhou Institute of Medicine, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Turning five years old,the Hangzhou Institute of Medicine(HIM),Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS)strives to play a pivotal role in boosting interdisciplinary research on the interface between innovation and medical science.As we peel back the layers of this cutting-edge institution,who better to guide us than its visionary director,Prof.TAN Weihong?In this exclusive interview with HIM Director Prof.TAN Weihong,who is also a CAS Member,we can grasp an idea of its unique position in China’s scientific landscape,its major achievements,and its ambitious roadmap to excellence.

Human Cyber Physical Systems(HCPSs)in the Context of New-Generation Intelligent Manufacturing

An intelligent manufacturing system is a composite intelligent system comprising humans,cyber systems,and physical systems with the aim of achieving specific manufacturing goals at an optimized level.This kind of intelligent system is called a human-cyber-physical system(HCPS).In terms of technology,HCPSs can both reveal technological principles and form the technological architecture for intelligent manufacturing.It can be concluded that the essence of intelligent manufacturing is to design,construct,and apply HCPSs in various cases and at different levels.With advances in information technology,intelligent manufacturing has passed through the stages of digital manufacturing and digital-networked manufacturing,and is evolving toward new-generation intelligent manufacturing(NGIM).NGIM is characterized by the in-depth integration of new-generation artificial intelligence(AI)technology(i.e.,enabling technology)with advanced manufacturing technology(i.e.,root technology);it is the core driving force of the new industrial revolution.In this study,the evolutionary footprint of intelligent manufacturing is reviewed from the perspective of HCPSs,and the implications,characteristics,technical frame,and key technologies of HCPSs for NGIM are then discussed in depth.Finally,an outlook of the major challenges of HCPSs for NGIM is proposed.

The Role of Library and Information Science Education in the Development of Community Health Information Services for People Living with HIV/AIDS: Perspectives of Directors and Managers of Public Libraries

This article identifies the role of library and information science (LIS) education in the development of community health information services for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Preliminary findings are presented from semi- structured qualitative interviews that were conducted with eleven directors and managers of local branches in the Knox County Public Library (KCPL) System that is located in the East Tennessee region in the United States. Select feedback reported by research participants is summarized in the article about strategies in LIS education that can help local public librarians and others in their efforts to become more responsive information providers to PLWHA. Research findings help better understand the issues and concerns regarding the development of digital and non-digital health information services for PLWHA in local public library institutions.

Toward New-Generation Intelligent Manufacturing

Intelligent manufacturing is a general concept that is under continuous development. It can be categorized into three basic paradigms： digital manufacturing, digital-networked manufacturing, and newgeneration intelligent manufacturing. New-generation intelligent manufacturing represents an indepth integration of new-generation artificial intelligence （AI） technology and advanced manufacturing technology. It runs through every link in the full life-cycle of design, production, product, and service. The concept also relates to the optimization and integration of corresponding systems; the continuous improvement of enterprises＇ product quality, performance, and service levels; and reduction in resources consumption. New-generation intelligent manufacturing acts as the core driving force of the new indus- trial revolution and will continue to he the main pathway for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry in the decades to come. Human-cyher-physical systems （HCPSs） reveal the tech- nological mechanisms of new-generation intelligent manufacturing and can effectively guide related the- oretical research and engineering practice. Given the sequential development, cross interaction, and iterative upgrading characteristics of the three basic paradigms of intelligent manufacturing, a technol- ogy roadmap for ＂parallel promotion and integrated development＂ should he developed in order to drive forward the intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry in China.

Connotation and Characteristics of Employment Ability of New-generation Migrant Workers in China

Based on China's special conditions and characteristics of specific group of new-generation migrant workers,this article researches connotation of employment ability of new-generation migrant workers in China,that is,the connotation of employment ability of new-generation migrant workers in China should include four aspects:professional knowledge and skills,learning capacity,adaptability and environmental force.On this basis,through the analysis of indicators concerning connotation of employment ability,we get the overall characteristics of employment ability of new-generation migrant workers in China and reason responsible for its serious weakness.Finally we put forward corresponding countermeasures as follows:impart professional knowledge and skills;promote learning capacity;foster adaptive capacity;improve employment environment.

The Criterion of weighting the independence of non-executive directors

Non-executive directors are now very well established in Chinese business. The uniform and final criterion of weighting the independence of non-executive directors is not available. It will be valuable to draw an analogy with the criterion of weighting the independence of non-executive directors in the UK, where over a dozen different criterions are applied.

Effects of Pilot Programs for China's Central SOE Board of Directors

Since June 2004, the State-Owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission(SASAC) has launched pilot programs for a board of directors(BoD) for central SOEs to establish and improve their governance structure and standardize their exercise of shareholder rights over state-owned listed companies. Based on this quasinatural experiment, this paper examines the BoD's effects on the agency cost of state-owned listed companies and their economic consequences. Using data of central SOE-controlled companies listed at Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges during 2002-2015, this paper finds that the pilot programs significantly reduced the two types of agency costs for the companies, and such effects primarily existed for listed companies with smaller central SOE shareholding ratios. Further test uncovers that, compared with central SOEs that did not carry out the pilot programs, those that did reported higher economic value-added and stock returns. Our conclusions offer a new interpretation of the BoD's governance effects from a controlling shareholder's perspective, and provide empirical evidence for the positive effects of the pilot programs for central SOE boards of directors. These findings have important policy implications for deepening SOE governance reforms.

New-generation Migrant Workers' Urban Adaptation: A Case Study of Jianggan District in Hangzhou City

New-generation migrant workers are the " elite" among migrant workers,and whether they can really adapt to the city is one of the real problems to be urgently solved during China's new urbanization,related to the success of new urbanization construction. From the perspective of livelihood capital,this paper uses the measuring indicators in line with the new-generation migrant workers' livelihood characteristics,to analyze the typical characteristics and causes of new-generation migrant workers' urban adaptation in Jianggan District of Hangzhou City based on field survey data. In the study,it is found that the new-generation migrant workers' urban adaptation characteristics are focused on life adaptation,work adaptation and cultural adaptation,but the adaptation in the three areas is not good and there is a big room for improvement.

Concerns Affecting Behaviors of Independent Directors

This paper tries to find out whether some individual concerns will affect the behaviors of independent directors, specifically voting against proposals during the board meeting.We analyze career concern,compensation concern,reputation concern and term concern.The results show that individual director with longer career horizon,who is better compensated,with less board seats in other firms,and whose term is earlier than that of the board chairman is more likely to dissent.

Lab Director and Division Directors,Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy

Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy （DNL）, based mainly in Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics （DICP）, Chinese Academy of Sciences （CAS）, is looking for outstanding candidates for DNL director and directors for its nine research divisions： optimized utilization of fossil energy, low carbon catalysis and engineering, energy saving ＆ energy environment, fuel cell ＆ energy storage, hydrogen energy, biomass energy, solar energy, maritime renewable energy, basic ＆ strategic studies on energy, and service center for energy researches. More details about DICP can be found at http：//www.dicp.ac.cn/.

Pervasive Services in New-generation Internet:Mechanisms and Key Technologies

The original infrastructure of the Internet can no longer meet personalized and diversified demands of current increasing network subscribers. It has exposed many defects and shortcomings. For examples, the mechanism of using ports to distinguish services is inflexible and dangerous with the emergence of various services; the current Internet architecture does not make use of the close relationship between network resources and services, but simultaneously maintains two processing systems for the resources and services respectively, wasting both subscribers’ time and network resources; the Internet class of services granularity is not fine enough, failing to meet personalized and diversified user demands. In order to solve these problems, this paper discusses the mechanisms and key technologies for pervasive services in the new-generation Internet. The paper focuses on the definition, classification and identifier design of personalized and diversified user services. The service identifier design fulfills the unified identifier and processing of various network services, discovers the close relationship between services and resources, and can offer personalized and diversified services according to users’ demands.

A study on directors＇ remuneration and board committee in Malaysia

Researches on company directors＇ remuneration and its links with firms＇ performance and corporate governance have drawn wide attention as stakeholders are interested to find out whether directors received the right package of remuneration and whether it is always in line with the firm＇s performance and corporate governance policy. However, there is a lack of study examining the impact of specific board committee on directors＇ remuneration, particularly in emerging capital and financial market. This study, involving 120 Malaysian public listed companies, aims to examine this association. The study employs descriptive analysis, Pearson＇s correlation test and multivariate stepwise statistical technique. The result of the study indicates that there is a positive relationship between directors＇ remuneration with board executive committee, remuneration committee, nomination committee and corporate governance committee. The result also indicates negative relationship between directors＇ remuneration with employees share option scheme committee. However, all these associations are not significant, except ownership structure that is used as a control variable. This result prompts a need to reexamine the effectiveness of corporate governance practice through establishment of board committee in determining directors＇ remuneration.

Theories and Key Technologies for New-generation Internet System

There exist serious problems in the trustworthiness (security, reliability, controllability and manageability) of the Internet. In order to solve these problems, a new-generation network architecture model, based on the research of the basic theories of new-generation Internet system, is proposed. The solution creates a switching routing model and theory for the new-generation Internet system, and defines the access identifier, generalized switching routing identifier and their mapping principles. It also establishes a pervasive service system architecture and theory, defines the service identifier, connection identifier and their mapping principles. This paper discusses key technologies for the new-generation Internet system, such as access control and management, trusted routing and Quality of Service (QoS), multi-streaming, and network monitoring and management.

Does the system of independent directors help improve the quality of accounting information： From the perspective of earnings conservatism

Based on the sample data of the listed firms on the A stock market, we analyze how the system of independent directors influence the earning conservatism from 4 dimensions designed to measure the monitoring power of these independent directors： Percentage within BDs, professional capacities, stimulation and work conditions. From the empirical results, we conclude that the more powerful of the independent directors, the better the accounting conservatism, and that their positive impact increases along with the improvement on corporate governance, meanwhile the work conditions plays the most important role, and then are the percentage within BDs and their professional capacities, the stimulation and personal reputation appear the least importance.

Board of Directors, Independent Directors and Audit Fees： Based on the Empirical Data of the GEM of China

As one of the alternative variables of audit quality, audit fees have been researched widely in the Mainboard of China stock market, but empirical research based on the GEM （Growth Enterprise Market） of China is very few. From the perspective of GEM of China, this article observes and studies the impact of corporate governance structure represented by board of directors and independent directors on audit fees. This article selects the data of 348 listed companies in the GEM of China in 2012, proves that there is a positive correlation between the number of meetings, independent directors＇ salaries and audit fees through the use of multiple linear regression model, and accordingly proposed suggestions that improve the corporate governance structure of the GEM of China.

Directors＇ Board Characteristics and Audit Quality： Evidence From Belgium

This study investigates the relationship between board characteristics and external audit quality on a sample of 97 Belgian listed companies during the period 2003-2007. Board characteristics proxies are the composition of the board, its independence, its structure in terms of duality or independence and its diligence. Our results are consistent with board independence and size being complements with external audit, rather than substitutes