Proposed Audit and Accounting Guide : Life and health insurance entities;Life and health insurance entities; Exposure draft (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants), 1998, Sept. 4

The proposed Guide discusses those aspects of accounting and auditing unique to life and health insurance entities and was developed to assist life and health insurance entities in preparing financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and to assist independent auditors in auditing and reporting on those financial statements. In addition, the proposed Guide contains significant discussions of statutory accounting practices (SAP) that includes laws, regulations, and administrative rulings adopted by the various states that govern the operations and reporting requirements of life insurance entities. Because this is a category B GAAP document as defined by SAS 69, The Meaning of Present Fairly in Conformity With Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in the Independent Auditor\u27s Report, the inclusion of descriptions of SAP does not elevate SAP into GAAP. This proposed Guide also incorporates accounting and financial reporting requirements issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the AICPA Accounting Standards Executive Committee (AcSEC) since the issuance of the AICPA Industry Audit Guide Audits of Stock Life Insurance Companies through April 1 5, 1 998. Also incorporated in this proposed Guide are new auditing standards issued through April 15, 1998, by the AICPA Auditing Standards Board since the issuance of the pronouncements that this Guide would supersede.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_sop/1638/thumbnail.jp

Requirements elicitation through viewpoint control in a natural language environment

While requirements engineering is about building a conceptual model of part of reality, requirements validation involves assessing the model for correctness, completeness, and consistency. Viewpoint resolution is the process of comparing different views of a given situation and reconciling different opinions. In his doctoral dissertation Leite [72] proposes viewpoint resolution as a means for early validation of requirements of large systems. Leite concentrates on the representation of two different views using a special language, and the identification of their syntactic differences. His method relies heavily on redundancy: two viewpoints (systems analysts) should consider the same topic, use the same vocabulary, and use the same rule-based language which constrains how the rules should be expressed. The quality of discrepancies that can be detected using his method depends on the quality of the viewpoints. The hypothesis of this thesis is that, independently of the quality of the viewpoints, the number of viewpoints, the language, and the domain, it is possible to detect better quality discrepancies and to point out problems earlier than Leite's method allows. In the first part of this study, viewpoint-oriented requirements engineering methods are classified into categories based on the kind of multiplicity the methods address: multiple human agents, multiple specification processes, or multiple representation schemes. The classification provides a framework for the comparison and the evaluation of viewpoint-based methods. The study then focuses on the critical evaluation of Leite's method both analytically and experimentally. Counter examples were designed to identify the situations the method cannot handle. The second part of the work concentrates on the development of a method for the very early validation of requirements that improves on Leite's method and pushes the boundaries of the validation process upstream towards fact-finding, and downstream towards conflicts resolution. The Viewpoint Control Method draws its principles from the fields of uncertainty management and natural language engineering. The basic principle of the method is that, in order to make sense of a domain one must learn about the information sources and create models of their behaviour. These models are used to assess pieces of information, in natural language, received from the sources and to resolve conflicts between them. The models are then reassessed in the light of feedback from the results of the process of information evaluation and conflict resolution. Among the implications of this approach is the very early detection of problems, and the treatment of conflict resolution as an explicit and an integral part of the requirements engineering process. The method is designed to operate within a large environment called LOLITA that supports relevant aspects of natural language engineering. In the third part of the study the Viewpoint Control Method is applied and experimentally evaluated, using examples and practical case studies. Comparing the proposed approach to Leite's shows that the Viewpoint Control Method is of wider scope, is able to detect problems earlier, and is able to point out better quality problems. The conclusions of the investigation support the view that underlines the naivety of assuming competence or objectivity of each source of information

Special Libraries, Winter 1994

Volume 85, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1994/1000/thumbnail.jp

Success and failure factors in ICT projects: a Dutch perspective.

This thesis examines the success and failure factors in ICT projects. The low success rate of software projects in terms of reliability, meeting due dates and working within assigned budgets is widely recognised and topical. International as well as Dutch publications and the procedures in Tarek Abdel-Hamid's work on Software Project Management/Dynamics are discussed. A SUFFI Chart (SUFFI = SUccess and Failure Factors in ICT projects) is developed. The management of a portfolio of projects is compared with the SUFFI Chart. A number of Dutch projects with which the author was directly involved are examnined to show how they compare with the factors identified from the literature. These do show considerable correlation between important SUFFI factors and project success. The portfolio consists of nine ICT projects and four ICT project audits. Projects such as SAP, RBAC, EAI, charging method, PABX, financial building adrnmistration, information retrieval, book reservations, traffic data collection, introduction of the Internet functionality and SOX, for different companies/organisations (Delft University of Technology, National Police Services Agency, KPN - Dutch Telecom Company, University of Amsterdam, government, banking). This work shows that for a successful project 4 of the 5 most important SUFFIs have to be absent

Tanzania Teachers' Union: pay, politics, and performance

This qualitative inquiry into the Tanzanian education system is based upon a thirteen-month period of ethnographic research in Dar es Salaam and Morogoro. It foregrounds the political and economic background to Tanzanian teachers' everyday lives. Through an in-depth study of the Tanzania Teachers Union and a case study of a single secondary school, the thesis explores the relationship between pay and performance. The study argues that in order to interpret this dynamic it is essential to have an understanding of the history of work in Tanzania, as there are long roots to some of the most germane features of their employment. Particular attention is given to "teacher politics" and the research chronicles the profession's efforts since the 1920s to find a platform for their voice through teachers' associations and unions. Pivotal to this discussion are the events surrounding the 1993/4 national teachers' strike and the establishment of the Tanzania Teachers Union. The Union's 2000 elections are also covered in some depth. The final chapter re-creates the life of the school, and illustrates how these economic and political factors impinge upon teachers' professional work and threaten the integrity and meaning of the school experience. The chapter foregrounds the school's cultural background, and discusses the specific social and economic function that the school fulfils in teachers' lives. Here the focus is upon the issues of teacher absenteeism, their involvement in additional money making enterprises and the controversial practice of extra tuition

Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the US Civil Space Program

A selection of key documents in the history of the U.S. civil space program is presented. This volume deals with organizational developments of the space program. More than 200 documents are printed. Each is introduced by a headnote providing context, bibliographical information, and background information necessary to understanding the document. These are organized into four major sections, each beginning with an introductory essay that keys the documents to major events in the history of the space program

Vietnam in transition : education, culture and ethics : a reader and curriculum

Preface by Christoph StückelbergerThis book reflects on the process of constructing a curriculum for Vietnam studies designed for educators and researchers in the field of social studies. Based on a selection of scholarly works, proceeds of seminars and conferences on education inside and outside Vietnam, the English edition proposes an analysis on factors that affect the learning environment of Vietnam as a young nation in the context of globalisation. The texts presented cover a large spectrum of subjects, starting with the changes in the educational and cultural background of Cochinchina under the French colonial period, visiting the role of higher education in an economy in transition, including the major literary trends in the pre-1975 Southern Vietnam modernisation process, among others. Transcripts of seminars and conferences reflect participants’ visions on the future of Vietnamese education, with the editor’s comments as takeaways at the end of each section