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The purpose of this paper is to extend and improve prior readability and obfuscation research by investigating the effect of connotation on readability and obfuscation. Furthermore, the paper aims to develop and apply a novel connotation‐based obfuscation assessment approach.

In total, 87 chairman reports of firms included in the Standard & Poor's ASX200 index were analyzed. The readability of sections and connotation‐based groups of sentences within these narratives were assessed using the Flesch readability formula. The presence or absence of obfuscation within the analyzed chairman addresses was determined using a novel connotation‐based obfuscation assessment approach.

The study demonstrates that the mid section within the analyzed chairman addresses was significantly more difficult to read than the first and last sections. However, the notion that these reading difficulty differences were due to the prevalence of positive and negative news within these sections could not be supported. A subsequent analysis of the reading difficulty differences between connotation‐based groups of sentences identified the largely positive group of sentences as an important source of reading difficulty. Finally, the advantages resulting from an application of the connotation‐based obfuscation assessment developed in this paper over the traditional obfuscation assessment techniques used in prior literature are demonstrated.

This paper provides a substantial contribution to the literature by establishing a direct link between the connotation of information provided in financial reporting narratives and the readability and obfuscation exhibited by these narratives. The novel assessment approach developed in this paper can be used to benefit preparers and users of financial reporting information by identifying types of sentences whose preparation and/or analysis should be approached cautiously.

The paper provides a theory base for deriving connotative descriptors for photographs from existing denotative descriptors, and then demonstrates a model for enhancing browsing within image collections by providing a tool for carving up the searching space.

The paper conceptually explores the nature of iconic messages contained in an image by adopting semiotics as a theoretical tool. A problem of image retrieval is identified as loss of connotative messages during the image representation process. The paper proposes an image‐retrieval model utilizing an association thesaurus that facilitates the assignment of connotative index terms by making use of denotative index terms of an image. A series of experiments are performed for evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed model.

Experimental results demonstrate that the association thesaurus improves image‐retrieval effectiveness by increasing the recall of connotatively related image documents as well as the recall of browsing sets.

Applying connotative index terms to an image would be time consuming. Deriving connotative terms from denotative terms and then using them to enrich the browsing environment suggest a method of increasing retrieval effectiveness while reducing the resources required for representation.

Since images are often used to illustrate concepts that are not immediately evident from just the objects in front of the lens, connotative descriptions are particularly valuable. Since human perception of images is, in a sense, hard wired into our brains, browsing is a frequent and reasonable search method in image collections. Using connotative descriptors to point the way to clusters of images with a higher probability of relevance changes the locus of control over representation establishes an environment for dynamic representation, and gives credibility to browsing as a significant search method.

With the development of social productive forces and the advancement of agricultural practices since the founding of New China, the connotation of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics has undergone a process from formation to continuous expansion and deepening.

Its evolution can be roughly divided into four stages: the exploration stage, the formation stage, the establishment stage and the deepening stage. The historical evolution of the connotation of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics demonstrates four typical characteristics, namely increasingly scientific logical premise, continuously diversified orientations, increasingly improved core contents and progressively maturing strategies of development.

The achievements of agricultural modernization have laid a solid foundation for China's industrial modernization and the rapid development of the national economy. Meanwhile, the authors have identified through practical exploration a path of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics. In recent years, academic research on the connotation of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics has gradually heated up, and relevant achievements have emerged constantly.

The Communist Party of China (hereinafter “CPC”) has placed considerable emphasis on agricultural issues and has been committed to promoting agricultural modernization since the founding of New China. Through long-term persistence and unremitting efforts, China has made remarkable achievements in agricultural development: significantly improved agricultural production conditions and agricultural output capacity, constantly optimized agricultural structure and steadily increased the income of farmers.

This experimental study investigates the connotative (measured) meaning of the concept “auditor independence” within three audit engagement case contexts, including two acknowledged in the literature to represent significant potential threats to independence. The study’s research design utilises the measurement of meaning (semantic differential) framework originally proposed by Osgood et al. (1957). Findings indicate that research participants considered the concept of independence within a two factor cognitive structure comprising “emphasis” and “variability” dimensions. Participants’ connotations of independence varied along both these dimensions in response to the alternative experimental case scenarios. In addition, participants’ perceptions of the auditor’s independence in the three cases were systematically associated with the identified connotative meaning dimensions.

This study aims to explore the psychological effects of lockdown during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic on people living in an Italian prison. The suspension of family visits and most activities, along with the difficulties in applying social distancing to this vulnerable population was associated with increased psychological distress. Riots broke out over two days in more than 22 prisons across Italy at the beginning of March 2020, highlighting the negative psychological impact of the pandemic and the country’s emergency policies.

The research involves 17 men (Italians and foreigners) detained in a Lombardy prison from 1 March to 4 May 2020, corresponding to the lockdown phase in Italy. The qualitative content analysis (CA) of 27 posts, written by participants during that period and published on the blog “L’Oblò”, were analysed. The analysis allowed the identification of topics and subtopics that are related to two major categories of content: cognitions and emotional connotations about the COVID-19 lockdown in prison.

Analysis showed that blog post content was predominately negative in terms of emotional connotations. The most frequent coded negative emotional connotations were: missing, worry, psychological pain and fear, whilst the most frequent coded positive emotional connotations were: hope and gratitude for the support they received from prison workers. The rest of the blog content was coded as “cognitions”. Cognitions were coded as descriptions of lockdown effect on detention; prison during the COVID-19 emergency; the pandemic situation in general; and comparison between inside and outside prison.

The current study is original as it describes through blog CA the psychological condition of prisoners during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the most affected region in Italy.

This work aims to examine the communication on Twitter of the most responsible companies in Spain to identify the topics covered on corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of happiness and social marketing. In addition, the profiles of the messages that show an association with the impact of the messages have been identified.

An empirical analysis of the Twitter posts of Spain's ten most responsible companies has been carried out. The methodology of this work combines data mining techniques, sentiment analysis and content analysis, both from a quantitative and qualitative approach.

The results show that most brand tweets do not deal with CSR-related topics. The topics they address the most are those related to sports and the weather. From the perspective of social marketing, conversational-type tweets are the most published and have achieved the most significant reaction from the public. In addition, four messages' profiles have been identified based on the company and the emotional connotation associated with the impact, giving rise to more outstanding promotion of social causes.

Our main contribution to this work has been to value positive communication and social marketing to promote better CSR on Twitter. In this sense, it has been verified that there is a relationship between the public's reaction, the affective connotation and the company that issues the messages.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Barthes' influence on, and potential for, accounting communication research; and to apply Barthes' principles to visual images of professional accountancy.

The study seeks to provide: a synthesis of prior accounting research that has drawn on Barthes' work, followed by an overview of Barthes' work in both its rational, structuralist, phase, and its more sentimental, post‐structuralist, phase, that identifies strands of interest to accounting communication; and Barthesian semiotic interpretations of visual images of accountancy portrayed in the annual report front covers of a major UK accounting firm through their linguistics (anchorage and relay), denotation and connotation.

Barthes' work has been surprisingly little used in accounting; a number of aspects of Barthes's work could be more fruitfully exploited, especially those from his later post‐structuralist phase; a Barthesian approach assists in reading the dual portrayal of accountancy as both an art and a science, and as business‐aware as well as traditionally professional.

The theoretical section is limited to a broad overview of Barthes' very extensive work; the empirical section provides a detailed analysis of one organization. It would be useful to extend the research to more extended analyses based on Barthes' prolific work, and to many aspects of accounting communication.

The analysis may be of interest to all accounting researchers, practitioners, trainees and auditors, since communication is central to accounting.

The paper adds to theoretical work in accounting communication, to the empirical literature on the interpretation of verbal and visual signs in accounting and accountability statements, and to understanding of the external images of professional accountancy.

High reliability and high power-to-weight ratio are the technical difficulties in the development of aviation piston heavy fuel engines. This paper aims to provide a design evaluation method of the aero piston engine block, which can help R&D personnel quickly evaluate the performance of engine block, including effective bearing capacity and fatigue deformation, save a lot of experimental time and shorten the R&D cycle.

In this paper, structural efficiency is used to evaluate the reliability and durability of the engine block. Structural efficiency is a new evaluation method that lists its corresponding connotation according to different objects. In this paper, the function of the engine block in the engine is explained in detail, and three quantifiable connotations of the structural efficiency of the engine block are put forward. In the subsequent calculation, the calculation is carried out according to the three indexes, and the calculation results are used as the indexes to evaluate the performance of the engine block.

The structural efficiency evaluation method proposed in this paper can quickly and effectively evaluate the performance of the block from many aspects. Under the same boundary conditions, the two design schemes are simulated and analyzed, and the durability test is carried out. The analysis and experimental results show that Scheme 2 has good performance, which verifies the feasibility of the evaluation method.

This paper provides a method for rapid evaluation of engine block performance.

This paper aims to investigate how young adult women smokers, a group the tobacco industry has specifically targeted, interpreted dissuasive sticks. Australia’s decision to introduce plain packaging has aroused international attention and stimulated interest in complementary initiatives. To date, research attention has focused on external packaging and few studies have examined the physical objects of consumption – cigarette sticks.

We conducted two focus groups and 13 in-depth interviews using purposive recruitment. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

We identified three overarching themes: smoking as an act of overt and conspicuous consumption; cigarette sticks as accoutrements of social acceptability and dissuasive colours as deconstructors of the social façade smokers construct. Dissuasive sticks challenged connotations of cleanliness participants sought, exposed smoking as “dirty” and connoted stereotypes participants wanted to avoid.

Although small-scale qualitative studies provide rich insights into participant’s responses, experimental work is required to estimate how a wider population comprising more varied smoker sub-groups responds to dissuasive sticks.

As policymakers internationally consider introducing plain packaging, they should examine whether dissuasive sticks could enhance measures regulating the external appearance of tobacco packages.

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disability. Plain packaging and dissuasive sticks show considerable potential to reduce smoking prevalence and the burden of ill-health that results.

This is the first study to explore how dissuasive sticks would distance smoking from the social identity smokers seek. The findings provide a platform for experimental work that estimates the potential behavioural outcomes dissuasive sticks could stimulate.

Compared with its status in Islamic history, the mosque today has become a distinctive phenomenon, perceived as an identity vessel of contemporary Islamic architecture that conveys sacred metaphysical meanings. Since the advent of modernity Muslim societies has become increasingly secularized; the relationships of the sacred–secular and the divine-based demythologized knowledge have been deformed. The mosque was glossed over as the sole contemporary sacred edifice that bears metaphysical/Islamic connotations with cultural continuity. Its architecture, meanings and function have gone through a process of metamorphosis, particularly the state mosques. The contemporary mosque as such is facing a “semiological deterioration.” State mosques today are symbolic statements and communicative messages of their rulers’ power and national sovereignty, with a subsidiary role for worship, i.e., the sacred has turned into a secular power metaphor. This led to a state semantic confusion accompanied by a loss in the deeply rooted collective cultural codes of the sacred. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the metamorphosis of the semiological connotation of the contemporary mosque, with a special focus on grand state mosques, and its effects on the architecture of the contemporary mosque.

This paper is theoretical research (no case studies included).

The metamorphosis that the contemporary mosque is experiencing today as a religious edifice with symbolic connotations and architectural iconism is but an effect of the changes that occurred in the concept of the scared and its relationship to the secular in contemporary Muslim communities, as a result of modernity. Such conceptual changes led to altering the deeply rooted cultural codes to be replaced by new intentional codes, used today as vehicles of communication in mosque architecture, especially in grand state mosques. Contemporary state mosques with its new symbolism and semantic meanings have contributed to redefining the concept of the contemporary mosque in general.

Mosque architecture today receives a significant importance. Many conferences and awards are dedicated to celebrating this phenomenon. Attempts to define the criteria and style of the contemporary mosque architecture are mounting. However, rarely there are studies that defy such attempts in a critical manner. This research seeks to criticize such approaches by highlighting the essence of the transformation in mosque architecture and its relationship to the concepts of the sacred and the secular, from a semiological perspective.