DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR ACCOUNTING OF THE FUTURE

Disruptive technologies in accounting represent a new evolutionary phase of accounting impacted by emerging technologies that are part of industrial revolution 4.0. The relevance of emerging technologies, their potential and the opportunities they offer for the accounting profession attract both academia and professionals with accelerated research efforts. Academia and scientific researchers must research and provide an appropriate theoretical basis to help practitioners better adapt and increase their awareness and trust in technology. This paper provides early quantitative research data on publication trends related to most disruptive technologies in accounting such as big data, data analytics, cloud, artificial intelligence and blockchain. We identified these five emerging technologies through literature review and elaborated in detail how they can change and advance the accounting profession. The research was conducted using bibliometric analysis to examine the level of coverage of each of the technologies in the period from 2016 to 2020 by analyzing the published articles by the Big Four accounting firms, professional accounting associations and institutions and high-ranking academic journals. The purpose of the research was to identify a potential gap in research preferences related to selected technologies between academia and development professionals and experts in the field. The findings highlight that there are no significant discrepancies or different views of academia and practitioners. It is a positive result indicating that academia and scientific researchers exploit in the same direction as practitioners, thus providing support for adaptation and alignment to technology trends.

The Origin of Intergalactic Light in Compact Groups of Galaxies

We investigate the origin of intergalactic light (IGL) in close groups of galaxies. IGL is hypothesized to be the byproduct of interaction and merger within compact groups. Comparing the X-ray point source population in our sample of compact groups that have intergalactic light with compact groups without IGL, we find marginal evidence for a small increase in ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs). There is also a significant bias towards lower luminosity high mass X-ray binaries (HMXRBs). We interpret this as an indication that groups with visible IGL represent a later evolutionary phase than other compact groups. They have galaxies characterized by quenching of star formation (lower star formation rate (SFR) inferred from lower HMXRB luminosity) after stellar material has been removed from the galaxies into the intergalactic medium, which is the source of the IGL. We conclude that the presence of an increased fraction of ULXs is due to past interaction and mergers within groups that have IGL.

Heuristic rank selection with progressively searching tensor ring network

Recently, tensor ring networks (TRNs) have been applied in deep networks, achieving remarkable successes in compression ratio and accuracy. Although highly related to the performance of TRNs, rank selection is seldom studied in previous works and usually set to equal in experiments. Meanwhile, there is not any heuristic method to choose the rank, and an enumerating way to find appropriate rank is extremely time-consuming. Interestingly, we discover that part of the rank elements is sensitive and usually aggregate in a narrow region, namely an interest region. Therefore, based on the above phenomenon, we propose a novel progressive genetic algorithm named progressively searching tensor ring network search (PSTRN), which has the ability to find optimal rank precisely and efficiently. Through the evolutionary phase and progressive phase, PSTRN can converge to the interest region quickly and harvest good performance. Experimental results show that PSTRN can significantly reduce the complexity of seeking rank, compared with the enumerating method. Furthermore, our method is validated on public benchmarks like MNIST, CIFAR10/100, UCF11 and HMDB51, achieving the state-of-the-art performance.

Hot and counter-rotating star-forming disc galaxies in IllustrisTNG and their real-world counterparts

ABSTRACT A key feature of a large population of low-mass, late-type disc galaxies are star-forming discs with exponential light distributions. They are typically also associated with thin and flat morphologies, blue colours, and dynamically cold stars moving along circular orbits within co-planar thin gas discs. However, the latter features do not necessarily always imply the former, in fact, a variety of different kinematic configurations do exist. In this work, we use the cosmological hydrodynamical IllustrisTNG simulation to study the nature and origin of dynamically hot, sometimes even counter-rotating, star-forming disc galaxies in the lower stellar mass range (between $5\times 10^9\, \mathrm{M_{\odot }}$ and $2\times 10^{10}\, \mathrm{M_{\odot }}$). We find that being dynamically hot arises in most cases as an induced transient state, for example due to galaxy interactions and merger activities, rather than as an age-dependent evolutionary phase of star-forming disc galaxies. The dynamically hot but still actively star-forming discs show a common feature of hosting kinematically misaligned gas and stellar discs, and centrally concentrated on-going star formation. The former is often accompanied by disturbed gas morphologies, while the latter is reflected in low gas and stellar spins in comparison to their dynamically cold, normal disc counterparts. Interestingly, observed galaxies from MaNGA with kinematic misalignment between gas and stars show remarkably similar general properties as the IllustrisTNG galaxies, and therefore are plausible real-world counterparts. In turn, this allows us to make predictions for the stellar orbits and gas properties of these misaligned galaxies.

A rapidly evolving high-amplitude δ Scuti star crossing the Hertzsprung Gap

People cannot witness the stellar evolution process of a single star obviously in most cases because of its extremely secular time-scale, except for some special time nodes in it (such as the supernova explosion [1]). But in some specific evolutionary phases, we have the chances to witness such process gradually on human times-scales. When a star evolved leaving from the main sequence, the hydrogen nuclei fusion in its core is gradually transferring into the shell. In the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, its evolutionary phase falls into the Hertzsprung gap, which is one of the most rapidly evolving phases in the life of a star [2]. Here we report a discovery of a rapidly evolving high-amplitude δ Scuti star KIC6382916 (J19480292+4146558) which is crossing the Hertzsprung gap. According to the analysis of the archival data, we find three independent pulsation modes of it, whose amplitudes and frequencies are variating distinctly in 4 years. The period variation rates of the three pulsation modes are one or two orders larger than the best seismic model constructed by the standard evolution theory, which indicates the current theory cannot precisely describe the evolution process in this rapidly evolving phase and needs further upgrades. Moreover, the frequency and amplitude interactions between the three independent pulsation modes and their harmonics/combinations open a new window to the future asteroseismology.

A stripped-companion origin for Be stars: clues from the putative black holes HR 6819 and LB-1

ABSTRACT HR 6819 is a bright (V = 5.36), blue star recently proposed to be a triple containing a detached black hole (BH). We show that the system is a binary and does not contain a BH. Using spectral decomposition, we disentangle the observed composite spectra into two components: a rapidly rotating Be star and a slowly rotating B star with low surface gravity (log g ≈ 2.75). Both stars show periodic radial velocity (RV) variability, but the RV semi-amplitude of the B star’s orbit is $K_{\rm B}= (62.7 \pm 1)\, \rm km\, s^{-1}$, while that of the Be star is only $K_{\rm Be} = (4.5\pm 2)\, \rm km\, s^{-1}$. This implies that the B star is less massive by at least a factor of 10. The surface abundances of the B star bear imprints of CNO burning. We argue that the B star is a bloated, recently stripped helium star with mass ${\approx}0.5\, \mathrm{ M}_{\odot }$ that is currently contracting to become a hot subdwarf. The orbital motion of the Be star obviates the need for a BH to explain the B star’s motion. A stripped-star model reproduces the observed luminosity of the system, while a normal star with the B star’s temperature and gravity would be more than 10 times too luminous. HR 6819 and the binary LB-1 probably formed through similar channels. We use MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics) models to investigate their evolutionary history, finding that they likely formed from intermediate-mass ($3\!-\!7\, \mathrm{ M}_{\odot }$) primaries stripped by slightly lower-mass secondaries and are progenitors to Be + sdOB binaries such as ϕ Persei. The lifetime of their current evolutionary phase is on average 2 × 105 yr, of the order of half a per cent of the total lifetime of the Be phase. This implies that many Be stars have hot subdwarf and white dwarf companions, and that a substantial fraction ($20\!-\!100{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$) of field Be stars form through accretion of material from a binary companion.

Fate of stellar bars in minor merger of galaxies

ABSTRACT Minor merger of galaxies is common during the evolutionary phase of galaxies. Here, we investigate the dynamical impact of a minor merger (mass ratio 1:10) event on the final fate of a stellar bar in the merger remnant. To achieve that, we choose a set of minor merger models from the publicly available GalMer library of galaxy-merger simulations. The models differ in terms of their orbital energy, orientation of the orbital spin vector, and morphology of the satellite galaxy (discy/spheroidal). We demonstrate that the central stellar bar, initially present in the host galaxy, undergoes a transient bar amplification phase after each pericentre passage of the satellite; in concordance with past studies of bar excitation due to tidal encounter. However, once the merger happens, the central stellar bar weakens substantially in the post-merger remnants. The accumulation of satellite’s stars in the central region of merger remnant plays a key role in the bar-weakening process; causing a net increase in the central mass concentration as well as in the specific angular momentum content. We find that the efficiency of mass accumulation from the satellite in the central parts of merger remnants depends on the orbital parameters as well as on the satellite’s morphology. Consequently, different minor merger models display different degrees of bar-weakening event. This demonstrates that minor merger of galaxies is a plausible avenue for bar weakening in disc galaxies.

Dynamical evolution of multiple-population globular clusters

ABSTRACT We have carried out a set of Monte Carlo simulations to study a number of fundamental aspects of the dynamical evolution of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters with different initial masses, fractions of second generation (2G) stars, and structural properties. Our simulations explore and elucidate: (1) the role of early and long-term dynamical processes and stellar escape in the evolution of the fraction of 2G stars and the link between the evolution of the fraction of 2G stars and various dynamical parameters; (2) the link between the fraction of 2G stars inside the cluster and in the population of escaping stars during a cluster’s dynamical evolution; (3) the dynamics of the spatial mixing of the first-generation (1G) and 2G stars and the details of the structural properties of the two populations as they evolve toward mixing; (4) the implications of the initial differences between the spatial distribution of 1G and 2G stars for the evolution of the anisotropy in the velocity distribution and the expected radial profile of the 1G and 2G anisotropy for clusters at different stages of their dynamical history; and (5) the variation of the degree of energy equipartition of the 1G and the 2G populations as a function of the distance from the cluster’s centre and the cluster’s evolutionary phase.

Identification of new Classical Ae stars in the Galaxy using LAMOST DR5

We report the first systematic study to identify and characterize a sample of classical Ae stars in the Galaxy. The spectra of these stars were retrieved from the A-star catalog using the Large sky Area Multi-Object fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) survey. We identified the emission-line stars in this catalog from which 159 are confirmed as classical Ae stars. This increases the sample of known classical Ae stars by about nine times from the previously identified 21 stars. The evolutionary phase of classical Ae stars in this study is confirmed from the relatively small mid- and far-infrared excess and from their location in the optical color-magnitude diagram. We estimated the spectral type using MILES spectral templates and identified Classical Ae stars beyond A3, for the first time. The prominent emission lines in the spectra within the wavelength range 3700 – 9000 Å are identified and compared with the features present in classical Be stars. The Hα emission strength of the stars in our sample show a steady decrease from late-B type to Ae stars, suggesting that the disc size may be dependent on the spectral type. Interestingly, we noticed emission lines of Fe ii, O i and Paschen series in the spectrum of some classical Ae stars. These lines are supposed to fade out by late B-type and should not be present in Ae stars. Further studies, including spectra with better resolution, is needed to correlate these results with the rotation rates of classical Ae stars.

Convective H–He interactions in massive population III stellar evolution models

ABSTRACT In Pop III stellar models, convection-induced mixing between H- and He-rich burning layers can induce a burst of nuclear energy and thereby substantially alter the subsequent evolution and nucleosynthesis in the first massive stars. We investigate H–He shell and core interactions in 26 stellar evolution simulations with masses 15–140, M⊙, using five sets of mixing assumptions. In 22 cases H–He interactions induce local nuclear energy release in the range $\sim 10^{9}\!-\!10^{13.5}\, \mathrm{L}_{\odot }$. The luminosities on the upper end of this range amount to a substantial fraction of the layer’s internal energy over a convective advection time-scale, indicating a dynamic stellar response that would violate 1D stellar evolution modelling assumptions. We distinguish four types of H–He interactions depending on the evolutionary phase and convective stability of the He-rich material. H-burning conditions during H–He interactions give 12C/13C ratios between ≈ 1.5 to ∼1000 and [C/N] ratios from ≈ −2.3 to ≈ 3 with a correlation that agrees well with observations of CEMP (carbon-enhanced metal-poor) no stars. We also explore Ca production from hot CNO breakout and find the simulations presented here likely cannot explain the observed Ca abundance in the most Ca-poor CEMP-no star. We describe the evolution leading to H–He interactions, which occur during or shortly after core-contraction phases. Three simulations without an H–He interaction are computed to Fe-core infall and a $140\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ simulation becomes pair unstable. We also discuss present modelling limitations and the need for 3D hydrodynamic models to fully understand these stellar evolutionary phases.