Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn a dynamic financial ecosystem, digitalisation is supporting banks in revamping their business processes to be more efficient, reducing costs, coping with customers' evolving demands, and keeping them abreast of market competition. This two-stage research aims to investigate three issues in Pakistan's banking industry from 2006 to 2020: (i) banking efficiency; (ii) the impact of digitalisation on banking efficiency; and (iii) banking efficiency's absolute and conditional convergence. In our first-stage analysis, bootstrap data envelopment analysis has been applied, which exhibits bias-corrected overall, pure, and scale efficiencies of 74, 77, and 96%, respectively. In the second-stage analysis, we executed Tobit and two-step dynamic panel data system generalised method of moments (DPDSYS-GMM) models, and the results uncover that digitalisation has a positive influence on banking efficiency. Findings confirm that return on assets, bank size, interest rate, and gross domestic product growth rate have a positive association with banking efficiency. Our research reveals that state-controlled banks outperform their private sector and special-purpose counterparts. Our DPDSYS-GMM findings validate β and σ-convergence, implying that initially, low-efficient banks caught up (converged) to the more efficient opponents, reducing cross-sectional efficiency dispersion and attaining common equilibrium. The findings of banking efficiency conditional β-convergence assert that the adoption of digital technology has played a critical role in the convergence process and that digitalisation has acted as a catalyst for less efficient banks to catch up significantly faster to their more efficient rivals. This study displays digitalisation's disruptive influence on the overall transformation of Pakistan's banking system in the modern era, resulting in significant efficiency gains.

Soy sauce contains a variety of volatiles that are highly valuable to its quality with regard to sensory characteristics. This paper describes the analysis of volatile compounds influencing the flavor quality of Chinese-type soy sauces. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) combined with headspace-solid phase microextraction and electronic nose (E-nose) were applied for identifying the volatile flavor compounds as well as determining their volatile profiles of 12 soy sauces manufactured by different fermentation process. Forty one key volatile components of these 12 soy sauce products, a pure soy sauce and an acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein sample, were compared in semi-quantitative form, and their volatile flavor profiles were analyzed by E-nose. The substantially similar results between hierarchical cluster analysis based on GC–MS data and E-nose analysis suggested that both techniques may be useful in evaluating the flavor quality of soy sauces and differentiating soy sauce products. The study also showed that there were less volatile flavor compounds in soy sauces produced through low-salt solid-state fermentation process, a traditional manufacturing technology and a widely adopted technology in Chinese soy sauce industries. In addition, the investigation suggested that the flavor quality of soy sauce varied widely in Chinese domestic market, and that the present Chinese national standards of soy sauce should be further perfected by the addition of flavor grades of soy sauce in the physical and chemical index. Meanwhile, this research provided valuable information to manufacturers and government regulators, which have practical significance to improve quality of soy sauces.

Abstract
Powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR) is gradually being widely used in many working environments. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) were used to protect against bioaerosol transmission. However, according to the fit-testing requirements of the US 29 CFR, It only applies to tight-fitting PAPRs, but not applies to loose-fitting hooded PAPRs.
The study was to test commercially available loose-fitting hooded PAPRs by using quantitative testing method. In the experimental chamber (2.0*2.0*2.1 m3), a 3M Air-Mate PAPR with S-757 high-end lined hood (Versaflo) was used to perform the fit-testing. A TSI Portacount was used to test the real-time fit factor (FF) of the volunteer male and female subjects. Positive pressure air supply was maintained in the hood, 10 steps of ISO-16900 standard exercises were performed for 20 minutes.
The results showed that when male subjects were standing still and not talking (the 10th exercise), the test achieved the highest FF value as averaged 54849; and when doing the 8th exercise (walk, speaking), the averaged FF was the lowest one, which was averaged 621. The highest FF of female subjects was averaged 776 when doing the 5th exercise (hands and knees, head rotation), and the lowest FF was averaged 184 when doing the 10th exercise (standing still). Most of the FF values of male subjects were higher than that of female subjects (up to averaged 297 times), which might be because of the head shape, hairstyle, or wearing glasses of the subjects.