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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to find the key influence factors of executive compensation within China ports and listed shipping companies and provide some reasonable suggestions. Eventually, help to perfect the executive compensation evaluation mechanism against the background of new area. Design/methodology/approach – Grey correlation analysis is an important part of grey system theory. Professor Liu Sifeng further studies the relationship between two sequences absolute increment on the basis of Deng’s degree and put forward the “Grey absolute correlation degree,” which is widely used in practice. In the study, on the basis of the area of the line between sequences size, it measures the correlation degrees of firm performance, executive stock holding, continuous growth capacity and other relevant factors of executive payment in China ports and listed shipping companies. Findings – The paper concludes that the main factors influence CEO salary in China ports and listed shipping companies are return on equity and growth rate of fixed assets. However, the authors consider the frequent occurrence of executives’ corruption in China listed state-owned enterprise under the environment of financial and economic crisis, the authors argue that the significant influence of net assets attributed to shareholders cannot be ignored. In addition, cash flow in operating activities and executive stock holding both have relatively important effect on executive compensation. Research limitations/implications – This paper still has some limitations. First, it merely takes into account the financial indicators and ignores the influence of non-financial indicators to the performance evaluation of listed companies, such as: innovation ability, human capital and goodwill. Second, it has not considered the power consumption and other types of “invisible income” in the executive compensation structure, neither the influence of investing and financing activities on corporate performance. Consequently, these are likely to cause a certain deviation to the results of the study. Practical implications – The outcome obtained in this paper can be provided for China ports and listed shipping companies to establish a reasonable executive compensation evaluation and incentive mechanism under the background of depressed shipping market. Social implications – This paper intends to use correlation analysis between firm performance, executive stock holding, sustainability and executive compensation in the new area of time, tries to make a greater contribution to the major component of salary policy and then make some suggestions on incentive supervising and restraining mechanisms for the ports and listed shipping firms in China. Originality/value – Although scholars have done many studies about the association analysis of executive compensation and firm performance, they neglect the economic environment of industry. Meanwhile, considering the non-financial indicators and incomplete information, this paper studies the grey correlation analysis of executive compensation and influence factors in China ports and listed shipping firms under the background of the Chinese flagging shipping industry.

A new poroid wood- rotting fungus, Sidera vesiculosa, is described from Singapore based on morphological characters and phylogenetic analysis. The species is characterized by annual, resupinate and waxy fresh basidiocarps, small pores measuring 7–9 per mm, a monomitic hyphal system with vesicular cells, the presence of rosette-like crystals, allantoid to lunate basidiospores measuring 2.9–3.7 × 0.6–1.0 μm, and causing a white rot. Phylogenetic analysis inferred from ITS and nLSU sequences indicates that the new species forms a distinct lineage with strong support and is closely related to Sidera lowei.

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HfO2-ZrO2 superlattice (SL) ferroelectric (FE) ultrathin films exhibit significant improvement in endurance performance compared with solid-solution HfxZr1−xO2 (HZO). Despite the experimental evidence, the underlying microscopic mechanisms of the enhanced reliability of SL remain elusive. This Letter explores the mechanism by performing first-principle calculations on SL and HZO systems. The enhanced endurance in the SL can be well explained by higher oxygen vacancy (Vo) migration energy barriers along the FE polarization direction, which slow down the increase in Vo. The suppression of Vo increase will potentially help maintain the stability of the FE phase and alleviate the fatigue. Based on this mechanism, we suggest that doping materials with higher Vo migration barriers can further improve the endurance of HfO2-based FE devices. This work facilitates the future development of HfO2-based FE devices with enhanced endurance and reliability.