In the stomach, a layer of gastric mucus protects the epithelial cells of the stomach wall against damage by the acidic digestive juices in the gastric lumen. Despite considerable research, the biophysical mechanisms for this acid barrier are not understood. We present an in vitro microfluidic tool to characterize the stomach acid barrier, in which purified mucin polymers are "secreted" against an acidic zone on chip, mimicking the in vivo secretion of gastric mucus into an acidic stomach lumen. This device reconstitutes both the H(+) concentration gradient and outward flow environment of the mucus layer in vivo. Our experiments demonstrate that a continuously secreted mucin layer hinders acid diffusion, suggesting novel insights into the barrier role of mucins. More broadly, our system may serve as a platform tool for studying the barrier functions provided by mucus layers in the body and for studying mucus drug interactions.

Awe is an emotional response to stimuli that are perceived to be vast (e.g., tall trees, sunsets) and that defy accommodation by existing mental structures. Curiously, awe has prosocial effects despite often being elicited by nonsocial stimuli. The prevailing explanation for why awe has prosocial effects is that awe reduces attention to self-oriented concerns (i.e., awe makes the self small), thereby making more attention available for other-oriented concerns. However, several questions remain unaddressed by the current formulation of this small-self hypothesis. How are awe researchers defining the self, and what implications might their theory of selfhood have for understanding the “smallness” of the self? Building on theories regarding psychological selfhood, we propose that awe may interact with the self not just in terms of attentional focus but rather at multiple layers of selfhood. We further reinterpret the small self using the notion of the quiet ego from personality psychology. Linking awe to an enriched model of the self provided by personality psychology may be fruitful for explaining a range of phenomena and motivating future research.

Recent studies indicate a trade-off relation between accrual-based and real earnings management strategies. This paper studies the relation by examining the impact of the equity compensation of chief executive officers (CEOs) on earnings management and the market pricing of the two types of earnings management. Moreover, this study proposes a "withingroup difference" approach for both the explained and explanatory variables to mitigate the over-parameter problem in the conventional fixed effects regression model for panel data.Our empirical results show that CEO equity compensation is positively associated with both accrual-based and real earnings management. Moreover, the reward of the joint effect of accrual-based and real earnings management is positive in terms of stock returns and stronger than a stand-alone strategy. Overall, our results indicate that the relation between accrualbased and real earnings management for firms is complementary rather than a trade-off.

Every word signifies multiple senses. Many studies using comprehension-based measures suggest that polysemes' senses (e.g., paper as in printer paper or term paper) share lexical representations, whereas homophones' meanings (e.g., pen as in ballpoint pen or pig pen) correspond to distinct lexical representations. Less is known about the lexical representations of polysemes compared to homophones in language production. In this study, speakers named pictures after reading sentence fragments that primed polysemes and homophones either as direct competitors to pictures (i.e., semantic-competitors), or as indirect-competitors to pictures (e.g., polysemous senses of semantic competitors, or homophonous meanings of semantic competitors). Polysemes (e.g., paper) elicited equal numbers of intrusions to picture names (e.g., cardboard) compared to in control conditions whether primed as direct competitors (printer paper) or as indirect-competitors (term paper). This contrasted with the finding that homophones (e.g., pen) elicited more intrusions to picture names (e.g., crayon) compared to in control conditions when primed as direct competitors (ballpoint pen) than when primed as indirect-competitors (pig pen). These results suggest that polysemes, unlike homophones, are stored and retrieved as unified lexical representations.

Ownership structure plays a vital role in stock market liquidity. We analyze the impact of ownership concentration, institutional ownership and earnings management on stock market liquidity. We select 114 firms from manufacturing sector of Pakistan, India, Australia and Singapore. We extract data from DataStream from 2010 to 2018 of selected countries. We apply Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to analyze the data. We find that ownership concentration, institutional ownership and earnings management significantly affect the stock market liquidity.