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Zwitterionic dispersed chitin nanocrystals and TEMPO oxidized cellulose nanofibrils can be well mixed and self-assembled to be hydrogels/membranes. Active carboxyl groups ensure the well mixing of zwitterionic chitin nanocrystals and cellulose nanofibrils under neutral and alkaline condition. Electrostatic attraction between amino groups in chitin nanocrystals and carboxyl groups in chitin nanocrystals and cellulose nanofibrils further endows self-assemble property of composite suspensions. Simple standing for 12 h at room temperature is found enough for preparing self-assembled composite hydrogels. By 1-(3-dimethy-laminopropyl)-3-ethylcarbodiimide hydrochloride/N-hydroxy succinimide (EDC/NHS) mediated chemical crosslinking, the storage modulus of composite hydrogel can achieve almost 8 times higher than self-assembled hydrogel. Well dispersed composite suspensions also can be transformed to be membranes via filtration treatment. The strain increases almost 2.3 times higher with similar tensile strength for cellulose nanofibril rich samples, and chitin nanocrystals mainly contributes to the enhancement in strain of composite membranes.

In this work, genipin crosslinked chitin nanofibril hydrogels/cryogels were successfully prepared. Due to the acidic disperse nature of positively charged chitin fibrils, the pH nature for the chemical crosslinking between chitin nanofibrils and genipin was restricted under 5.0. The pH nature and crosslinking temperature were found greatly influence the efficient chemical crosslinking between chitin nanofibril and genipin. Further ice templated crosslinking was found effective enhancing the mechanical properties of resulting chitin nanofibril hydrogels/cryogels. The cryogel prepared by genipin-crosslinked DEChNs showed interconnected pores, presenting a state of stacking layers. In addition, the deposition of hydroxyapatite (HA) on the surface of chitin nanofibril scaffolds was found effective for improving chondrocyte attachments and growths. The cells viability indicated the good cell compatibility of the cryogel. All the results indicated that the cryogel prepared by genipin-crosslinked DEChNs showed a potential for tissue engineering applications.

In the financial services, under the tide of digital and traditional part of the small and medium-sized commercial Banks due to staff shortages, backward organization management system, such as weak information processing ability problem have to flinch, but transformation is the only way to the bank, so the small and medium-sized Banks is an urgent need to use the appropriate financial technology to complete the core business is the transformation of deposits, bank of distributed systems. The vigorous development of innovative technologies such as agency and service choreography can provide new solutions for traditional small and medium-sized banks.

This paper takes a-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2009 to 2019 as research samples, adopts text recognition method of big data to measure the degree of enterprise digital transformation, and studies its impact on the quality of enterprise internal control. The empirical results show that digital transformation significantly improves the quality of internal control, and this conclusion is still valid after the robust test. From the analysis of intermediary model, it can be seen that digital transformation can improve the quality of internal control by reducing agency cost. Based on heterogeneity analysis, this paper finds that digital transformation plays a more positive role in the improvement of internal quality control in non-state-owned enterprises, non-high-tech enterprises and enterprises in the decline period. The research conclusion of this paper is helpful to improve the understanding of enterprises' internal control quality research in digital transformation, and provide reference for the improvement of internal quality control of different enterprises.

Metagenomics is a tool of novel genomic methods to accurately study the composition of microbial communities in their ecological environment and is used in many fields, including mass transport systems. However, the pathogenic microbiomes found in these built environments have not been studied, although these areas represent a potentially important point of exposure. In this study, we used high-throughput sequencing to identify microbiota sampled from the Metropolitan Transport of Shanghai (MTS) in spring and summer. The metagenomic approach and analysis of influencing factors were used to capture a broad spectrum of microbiota, particularly pathogens, and models for mapping diversity and environmental factors. The results illustrate that among all 108 aerosol samples in spring and summer sequenced, bacteria accounted for 95.26% of the classified genes, while the remaining 4.73% were from eukaryotes, viruses, and archaea. We uncovered 86 pathogens matched with the List of Pathogenic Microorganisms of Human Transmission. Temperature, humidity, season and times of day do have significant effects on microbiota distribution and diversity. The results of this research provide a comprehensive and unbiased perspective on the characteristics of microbial communities and pathogens in urban metros, establishing a framework for exploring and assessing potential public health risks and providing early warning of biosecurity associated with these built environments. This study of pathogenic microbiomes in aerosol samples will be of interest to environmental and public health researchers.

Herein, nanocomposites films were prepared via the facile casting method by incorporating cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) with arabinogalactan (AG), galactomannan (GM) or konjac glucomannan (KGM) respectively. The introduced polysaccharides maintained the transparency of CNCs films and promoted the UV blocking properties. In addition, mechanical strength of the nanocomposite films was greatly improved after the combination of polysaccharides. The interactions of hydroxyl-abundant macromolecules, smoother and tighter morphological structures, as well as the disturbed crystal structure were proved to be responsible for the improved properties. Hydrophilic lattice planes of cellulose crystallites were determined to interact with polysaccharides resulting in lower crystallite sizes and crystallinity. The cell culture assay revealed that the films had no cytotoxicity and presented a satisfactory cytocompatibility, because of the polysaccharides from plant cell walls introduced into the films. Therefore, the biocompatible nanocomposites films can be tuned by the addition of polysaccharides, which show great potentials for materials modification in optical, packaging and biomedical fields.

Although cool brands are increasingly popular in the marketplace, there is scant research examining generational differences in consumers’ coolness perceptions. To address this gap, the present research investigates consumers’ perceived coolness of hotels and the consequent brand attitudes among four generations of consumers. Our findings suggest that perceived coolness of a hotel brand varies across generations. Baby Boomers’ perceptions of cool hotels are different from younger generations including Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X. However, all generations show positive attitudes toward hotel brands that they recognize as cool due to perceived autonomy. This research contributes to the hospitality literature on hotel branding. Managerial implications for hospitality marketers are discussed.

While the restaurant industry is seeing an unprecedented rise of ethnic restaurants, the existing hospitality literature provides little guidance on how to enhance perceived uniqueness of ethnic menu offerings through visual design. The present research offers an innovative marketing strategy (i.e., using real handwriting in menus) to boost consumer evaluations. From a consumer behavior perspective, we examine the impact of menu style (handwriting vs. print) and the moderating roles of restaurant busyness (busy vs. non-busy) and gender (female vs. male) on consumers’ menu processing. Findings of this research show that handwriting offers a competitive advantage when the restaurant is less busy and when the consumer is a male. Moreover, the moderated mediation results reveal that perceived uniqueness of ethnic menu offerings is the underlying mechanism explaining the impact of menu style, busyness, and gender on consumer attitudes toward the menu. Theoretical and managerial implications for hospitality managers are discussed.

Background: Human Anatomy always causes major hindrances to the learning of nursing students. We designed this study to observe the effectiveness of the "two-line and six-stage" (TLSS) teaching mode based on model making in teaching Human Anatomy in nursing.Methods: One class in the nursing major in Grade 20 was randomly selected as the control group, in which the traditional teaching mode was adopted; while, another class in the same major and grade was selected as the observation group, in which the TLSS teaching mode was adopted. After the course teaching was completed, these students in both groups were compared from the perspective of the final theoretical examination and physical specimen assessment. Besides, the evaluation of the teaching effectiveness of these students from both groups was also investigated. Results: The observation group outperformed the control group in both theoretical examination and physical specimen assessment, which was specifically manifested in six evaluation items, including the novelty of teaching methods, the elimination of the difficult points of the course, the mobilization of the learning enthusiasm, the interestingness of the course teaching, its effects on clinical thinking training, and the interpretation of the knowledge. Conclusion: The TLSS teaching mode based on model making can improve the effectiveness in teaching Human Anatomy.

Effects of liquid fuel composition variations on characteristics of self-excited thermo-acoustic instabilities in a lean premixed, pre-vaporized gas turbine model combustor were experimentally studied. Test fuels included practical RP-3 jet fuel and its blending with iso-octane and n-dodecane, which were branched and linear alkanes respectively. Under the test conditions, dynamic pressure measurements indicated that the dominant instability frequency was highest for RP-3 flame, while RP-3/n-dodecane flame exhibited the strongest instability strength. A further analysis showed that the instability frequency correlated well with the profiles of adiabatic flame temperature, and the strength of the instability highly depended on the ignition delay times of the fuels. Measurements of the flame structure and flow field with OH* chemiluminescence (CL) imaging and two-dimensional particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques indicated that changes in the fuel composition did not alter the unstable modes and general sequences of flame-flow structure oscillations. Further power spectra and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis suggested that axial oscillations along with precessing vortex core (PVC) induced helical motion predominated periodic flame structure and flow field oscillations.

The impact of fuel variations on thermoacoustic instability characteristics and flame/flow dynamics in a lean premixed prevaporized, multinozzle gas turbine model combustor was experimentally inves...

In order to improve the quality of railway passenger service, the quality of railway passenger service is investigated through field investigation and questionnaire survey, the evaluation index system of railway passenger service quality is established, and the Delphi method is used to screen important service quality evaluation indicators, The model of railway passenger service quality evaluation is established by Delphi method and analytic hierarchy process based on passenger perception, the top five indicators in the weight ranking in the station service quality evaluation index system can show the importance of the station environment in improving the quality of passenger service. On this basis, 1088 valid questionnaires on the addition of lifting stools in station waiting halls were analyzed. The results show that most passengers are concerned about the comfort of the renovated seats and the safety of luggage storage, and the innovative design of the lifting stool greatly improves the space utilization of the waiting hall when improving the railway passenger service.

Cycloalkanes with long alkylic side chains are important chemical components in diesel and jet fuels. Although with the increasing interest in their combustion chemistry, related studies are very limited. In the present study, ignition delay times were measured for n-butylcyclohexane by combining a heated rapid compression machine and a heated shock tube. The data was obtained for equivalence ratios of 0.5, 1 and 1.5, at pressures of 10, 15 and 20 bar and over the temperature range of 612–1374 K. It was found that n-butylcyclohexane displayed marked low temperature reactivity with a typical negative temperature coefficient behavior. A correlation was developed to reproduce the measured ignition delay times over the entire temperature ranges. The results showed that it can well estimate the ignition delay times in the testing conditions. The effects of operating parameters on ignition delay times, including temperature, pressure, equivalence ratio, oxygen concentration and dilution ratio, were systematically presented and discussed. In the present work, a published mechanism was tuned with some modifications and was used to simulate the autoignition of n-butylcyclohexane. This model accurately captured the effect of the operating parameters over a wide range of conditions, and the simulations were in satisfactory agreement with the experimental results. For a better understanding of the chemistry involved during the autoignition events, kinetic analyses were performed using the tuned mechanism to provide insight to the experimental results. Comparisons were also carried out with the datasets for other cycloalkanes over the same conditions to reveal the effect of the side chain, and the trends, i.e., the longer side chain contributes to the stronger low temperature reactivity, were highlighted and discussed.

The dynamics of competitive information diffusion over a connected social network is investigated in this paper. A modified SIR model for two competitive information is presented, where each individual may turn to either of the two information after interacting with a spreader, while the spreader associated with one information may change into the other information. The population is divided into three subgroups: innovators, ordinary and laggard subgroups, respectively. It is assumed that individuals in different subgroups have different spreading rates and switching rates, when they interact with others. The influence of innovators and network topology on the dynamics of the competitive information diffusion is analyzed through numerous numerical simulations. It is observed that innovators and larger network degree can help enlarge the coverage of the information among the population, but they cannot help one information to compete with the other one. Moreover, innovators cannot always accelerate the convergence speed, which depends more on the network topology.

Purpose Motorcycle tourism, as an emerging segment of travelers, has steadily increased in the USA and UK. While previous literature reveals that the attributes of both the journey and the destination are motivations for motorcycle tourists, the extent to which supply-side stakeholders are aware of those motivators is not clear. This study aims to explore the perceived value of motorcycle tourism between differing tourism suppliers in the US state of Pennsylvania and investigates whether they exhibit sufficient agreement to satisfy the cooperation and collaboration identified as necessary in stakeholder theory. Design/methodology/approach For this exploratory study, an electronic survey captured data from different tourism suppliers (N = 123) in the US state of Pennsylvania. A series of analysis of variance and equality of means tests assessed differences and agreements between types of suppliers perceptions of the value of motorcycle tourism and issues associated with successful development of the niche segment. Findings Results reveal alignment among tourism suppliers, as well as between identified motorcyclists’ motivations. While negative perceptions about riders within popular culture appear to continue among some tourism operators, the economic value of the segment is growing in its appeal among the respondents. Research limitations/implications The unique characteristics of Pennsylvania’s substantial rural areas and the sample being drawn from tourism organizations suggest generalizing the results with caution. Practical implications Practitioners can capture more of these tourists by highlighting amenities that attract motorcyclists, collaborating together on events and welcoming messages for motorcyclists, as well as educating their communities and policymakers about their interest in the segment’s economic value. Social implications Overall the study’s findings suggest that while a cultural stereotype of the “outlaw” motorcyclist remains, this negative image may be waning among tourism operators. Additionally, these results indicate a possible consistency among the state’s tourism supply-side stakeholders desire to host this segment because of potential positive benefits of these tourists. Originality/value There is scant academic research on this visible and growing tourism niche. There is none that these authors found that examined the tourism suppliers’ sentiments regarding the segment’s contribution to tourism, nor explored stakeholder theory relative to tourism suppliers and this niche segment.

C3-C5 alcohols have gradually drawn more attentions as gasoline alternative fuels. In this paper, an experimental study based on the toluene reference fuel (TRF) was conducted to investigate the combustion and emissions of C3-C5 alcohol/TRF blends in a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine. The research octane number (RON) of alcohol/TRF blends were kept at 95. Two sets of comparative experiments were performed at constant volume fraction of alcohols and oxygen contents of the mixtures, respectively. The results of ethanol/TRF and gasoline were served as a reference. It can be found that the maximum brake torque/knock-limited spark timing (MBT/KLST) of ethanol/TRF and n-propanol/TRF blends were advanced by 2∼3oCA at 6 bar and 6∼7oCA at 8 bar, comparing with those of n-butanol/TRF and n-pentanol/TRF mixtures. Under the same blending ratio, n-butanol/TRF exhibited the shortest flame development duration and rapid combustion duration along with highest indicated thermal efficiency. With the increase of carbon chain length, the emissions including CO, THC, alkanes, ethylene and propylene, acetylene and aromatics show a trend to drop first and then increase. N-butanol/TRF and n-pentanol/TRF featured lower aldehyde emissions but higher NOx emissions. For blends with the same oxygen content, n-propanol/TRF had the highest indicated thermal efficiency (ITE). Ethanol/TRF and n-propanol/TRF had lower CO emissions but higher NOx emissions. With the increase of alcohol carbon chain length, the alkene, acetaldehyde and acrolein emissions decreased firstly and then increased. Under present operation conditions, the addition of C3-C5 alcohols in gasoline reduced more PM emissions than ethanol did. From the standpoint of combustion and emissions in this gasoline direct injection engine, n-propanol and n-butanol were more suitable candidates as gasoline alternative fuels.

An experimental study was conducted based on the recently available computed tomography of chemiluminescence (CTC) technique with a swirl-stabilized gas turbine model combustor to obtain both time-resolved and three-dimensional (3D) dynamics of the turbulent flame in confined situation. The CTC system employed in the present study was designed in a cost-effective, but highly-efficient manner, which allows simultaneous recordings of six projections of the target flame with three cameras at a repetition rate of 1 kHz. Instantaneous flame topologies were successfully captured and highly-transient flame dynamics in the combustion chamber, such as local extinction and flame shape variations were also observed. A further analysis based on the instantaneous and phase-averaged 3D movements of the flame centroids suggested that the flame in the present combustor exhibited a helical but relatively stochastic propagation and a distinct azimuthal rotation around the combustor, which is in the direction of rotation imposed by the swirler to the flow. Results obtained in this work demonstrate the capability of the CTC technique to resolve the detailed spatiotemporal dynamics of turbulent flames in confined combustion systems, which is expected to be particularly helpful for the study of combustion instabilities, such as periodic combustion oscillations in fuel-lean gas turbine engines.

Combustion instabilities are often manifested in modern fuel-lean gas turbine combustors. Investigating the mechanisms and developing control strategies for combustion instabilities in such systems are of practical importance and give rise to interesting scientific issues as large-amplitude pressure and heat release perturbations can lead to catastrophic and irreversible consequences on costly gas turbine hardware. In recent years, tremendous efforts have been made to achieve a deeper understanding of the periodic combustion oscillations in gas turbine engines with both advanced numerical simulations and experimental diagnostics. In the latter case, state-of-the-art, non-intrusive diagnostic techniques have been well adopted to conduct fundamental studies on combustion instabilities in gas turbine model combustors. For example, simultaneous time-resolved measurements with planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) for characterizing flame structure and particle image velocimetry (PIV) for imaging flow field significantly contribute to the understanding of the role of flame–flow–acoustics coupling in the events of combustion instabilities, and to the development and validation of advanced numerical models. However, planar measurements can be restrictive when flames are not axisymmetric or exhibit complex large-scale three-dimensional (3D) dynamics, which are commonly encountered in practical combustion system when combustion instabilities occur. Therefore, more recently, new volumetric imaging techniques for combustion diagnostics have attracted considerable research efforts. This paper categorizes different advanced non-intrusive combustion diagnostic techniques, including their basic principles and especially applications for the study of combustion instability. Some of the recent progresses in the diagnostic techniques, such as computed tomography of chemiluminescence (CTC), volumetric laser induced fluorescence (VLIF), rainbow-PIV, etc., are also discussed. These volumetric combustion diagnostic techniques offer the advantage to measure both spatial and temporal characteristics of the flame/flow of interest, which will enable deeper insights into the nature of unsteady combustion in the future. This brief review is intended to be useful for both researchers and engineers to design and conduct further fundamental experiments on combustion instabilities in gas turbine engines.

Cultural tightness-looseness represents the degree to which a particular culture possesses strong behavioral norms, and the degree to which members of that culture are likely to sanction individuals who deviate from those norms. While tightness-looseness has been quantified for a large and growing number of countries around the world, there are many countries where a tightness-looseness score has yet to be determined, thus impeding the inclusion of those countries in cross-cultural research with a tightness-looseness focus. There is a dearth of research on cultural tightness-looseness in South America in particular. We report results from a national survey of 1,265 Ecuadorian residents which provided quantification of the relatively tight culture of Ecuador.

A facile formic acid (15 M) hydrolysis method was established to prepare chitin nanofibrils that exhibited much longer fibril size (538-1000 nm) and higher yield (87-95%) than traditional hydrochloric acid hydrolyzed ones. Interestingly, these chitin nanofibrils can well be dispersed in water/TBA or water/ethanol binary solvents, which can contribute to the functionality of chitin nanofibrils in different way. On one hand, chitin nanofibril aerogels with tunable inter-structure were prepared via direct freeze-drying of chitin nanofibril/water/TBA dispersion with specific surface area could be promoted 69%. Meantime, re-dispersibility was realized, and the higher concentration of TBA used, the better re-disperse performance. On the other hand, due to the well disperse nature of chitin nanofibrils in water/ethanol (ethanol can reach 90%), they can be well mixed with zein. Whereby, the hydrophobic chitin nanofibril/zein composite aerogels were prepared and showed great potential in absorbing oil or organic spillage off water.

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging techniques, such as computed tomography of chemiluminescence and volumetric laser-induced fluorescence, are advanced combustion diagnostic tools that can provide rich insights on the spatial distribution of combustion intermediates. Besides the flame structure that is directly reconstructed, some deep and underlying information such as the geometric features are quite useful for a complete understanding of combustion mechanisms and, therefore, is desired to be further explored. However, to the best of our knowledge, due to the concave and convex variations on flame surface and the mathematical challenges, almost no attempts have been made to experimentally calculate the 3D geometric features of a turbulent swirl flame. In this work, we propose a point-extracted method that can effectively extract a point cloud from the reconstructed turbulent swirl flame. In addition, the two principal curvatures, mean curvature and the Gaussian curvature were evaluated with the so-called triangle-mesh-based method (TMB). One main contribution of this work is to perform a comparison between TMB and direct numerical simulation for curvature evaluation. The quantities obtained by this method are expected to be valuable for the validation of combustion modeling and for the investigation of combustion mechanisms. The 3D curvatures including principle curvatures, mean curvature and Gaussian curvature were experimentally evaluated in a turbulent swirl flame for the first time. The Gaussian curvatures can be related to three typical kinds of curved surfaces, i.e. elliptical, cylindrical and saddle surfaces. For the swirl flame used in this work, the cylindrical surface is regarded as a “base flame surface”, based on which some humps called flame wrinkles would form at some positions. At the tip of each hump, the flame will present an elliptical cup-like surface, where the Gaussian curvatures are relatively large. The transition region from cylindrical surface to elliptical surface mostly manifests a saddle surface.

This paper investigates the responses of cohesive sediment to mechanical vibration by experimental observation, containing: (1) the dynamic soil pressure, dynamic pore water pressure and dynamic acceleration to the vibration source; (2) the soil pressure distribution in the near field centered in an artificial columnar vibration source. Under the mechanical vibration with a frequency of 200 Hz and an amplitude of 1.15 mm, the dynamic soil pressure, dynamic pore water pressure and dynamic acceleration of underwater viscous sediment were measured in the sediment of four different depositing conditions. Results of the dynamic soil pressure, dynamic pore water pressure and dynamic acceleration of underwater viscous sediment in the near field responding to artificial vibration source are exhibited and discussed. It is found that, excited by the sinusoidal vibrator, the soil pressure presents a response of statistical sinusoidal fluctuation with the same frequency to the vibration source. In the sediment of lower initial yield stresses, the soil pressure distribution distinctly tends to firstly increase and then decrease with distance. The amplitude of the soil pressure is attenuated exponentially with distance.

This paper is intended for exploring the multifractal features of tanker freight rate market volatility with the common external factor of crude oil price by both the multifractal cross-correlation analysis method (MF-CCA) and the multifractal detrended partial cross-correlation analysis method (MF-DPXA) with consideration of finite size effect. The multifractal spectrums of original, random and surrogate time series are employed to separate the three components of multifractality, and to uncover the influence of financial crisis and oil price on volatility and cross-correlated fluctuations of the tanker freight rates. After the financial crisis in terms of the generalized Hurst exponent, stronger non-linear characteristic and noticeable anti-persistent characteristic in cross correlations between freight rates are supported by the MF-DPXA analysis. Meanwhile, stronger multifractality is indicated by the MF-CCA analysis. These results deepen the understanding of multifractality in tanker freight rate market, and provide investors, shipping related operators or even market players with insight to adjust their marketing strategies.

The past decade has experienced the historical boom and recession in the dry bulk shipping market, which is extremely volatile and more complex than ever before. The asymmetric correlations analysis within the shipping market can provide an understanding of the asymmetric features of risk, which would be helpful for portfolio diversification and risk management. This paper investigates the asymmetric volatility characteristics in dry bulk freight market during the 2008 world financial crisis, which may impose significant impacts on the mechanism of market volatility. First, we apply multiple structural change model to detect the breaking points. Then an improved A-MF-DFA (Asymmetric Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis) model is applied to capture the asymmetric volatility of the dry bulk shipping market brought by the financial crisis. The empirical results suggest that the financial shocks on the market have a different magnitude of influence on volatility of different vessel types, and the breaking point positions also varies. The positions and scales of the switching points (SPs) of the fluctuation trend detected from A-MF-DFA method also suggest highly asymmetric characteristics in the indices. These findings supply new perspectives for investors in understanding the underlying market risks, crisis effects on bulk shipping market and detailed volatility characters for specific vessel types.

Sexual imprinting refers to the phenomena where an individual's mate selection behavior is influenced by the characteristics of their parents in the early stages of life. Previous studies revealed that heterosexual men and women prefer partners with personality traits similar to their opposite-sex parents, indicating the sexual imprinting effects in personality preferences. This study aims to examine whether there are sexual imprinting effects on partner preferences for personality traits in gay men. We tested whether parent-child relationship in childhood (before 12 years old) and/or adolescence (12–18 years old) moderated the sexual imprinting effects. Participants (N = 311) were asked to assess their parents' and ideal partner's Big Five personality traits and gender roles, respectively. The parent-child relationships in childhood and adolescence were also assessed. The results revealed that gay men's ideal partner's traits were similar to their fathers' traits for emotional stability, similar to their mothers' traits for agreeableness and openness, and similar to both their fathers' and mothers' traits for conscientiousness. The ideal partners' gender roles were similar to both mothers' and fathers' instrumentality and expressiveness. The relationship quality with the mother in childhood modulated the mating effects in conscientiousness and expressiveness. The relationship quality with the father in adolescence modulated the mating effects in masculine instrumentality. The findings indicated the sexual imprinting effects on partner preference for personality traits in gay men and both father's and mother's personality traits in shaping gay's partner preference.

Analysis of crude oil price and tanker freight rate volatility attract more attention as the mechanism is not only the basis of industrialization but also a vital role in economics, especially after the year 2008 when financial crisis notably blew the maritime transportation. In this paper, we studied the cross-correlations between the West Texas International crude oil (WTI) and Baltic Exchange Dirty Tanker Index (BDTI) employing the Multifractal Detrended Cross-Correlation Analysis (MF-DCCA). Empirical results show that the degree of short-term cross-correlation is higher than that in the long term and that the strength of multifractality after financial crisis is larger than that before. Moreover, the components of multifractal spectrum are quantified with the finite-size effect taken into consideration and an improved method in terms of constructing the surrogated time series provided. Numerical results show that the multifractality is generated mostly from the nonlinear and the fat-tailed probability distribution (PDF) part. Also, it is apparent that the PDF part changes a lot after the financial crisis. The research is contributory to risk management by providing various instructions for participants in shipping markets. Our main contribution is that we investigated both the multifractal features and the origin of multifractality and provided confirming evidence of multifractality through numerical results while applying quantitative analysis based on MF-DCCA; furthermore, the research is contributory to risk management since it provides instructions in both economic market and stock market simultaneously. However, constructing the surrogated series in order to obtain consistence seems less convincing which requires further discussion and attempts.

Due to the effect of credit crunch and slowdown in marine transportation, analysis of freight rate volatility characters under structural breaks is of great importance after year 2008. In this pape...