St. Louis Exposition of 1904 and the Accountants\u27 Congress, Sept 26-28: their history revised for 2004

This two-day congress of accountants was held in September, 1904 during the St. Louis International Exposition. The importance of the congress for the federation of certified accountants across the United States is here confirmed. But the opportunities and intellectual challenges exposed at St. Louis, as at earlier European expositions, featured little for these pragmatic practitioners. More seriously for those claiming that an international accounting congress series began at St. Louis, an examination of its planning, agenda and participation reveals an Anglo-Saxon bias which was natural for that time. This bias was countered only by one Dutch accountant who arrived late - but who promoted the next international accounting congress twenty-four years later in Amsterdam. Thus evidence is here offered which contests claims that are still widely made, that international accounting was importantly initiated at St. Louis . Rather St. Louis was a specially American event to be understood in relation and contrast to European accountancy, expositions, competitions and congresses

Whether Molcolm\u27s is best or old charge and discharge

In 1775 A.D. the recommendation was made that the accounts of Glasgow College be changed from the traditional charge and discharge type of records to a double entry bookkeeping system. This touched off an academic controversy that lasted for many years and generated much bitterness among the Faculty of the College

Note of sadness

Obituaries for William Paton, Michael J. Mepham, and Orace Johnson

Letter to the editor: Collaboration with French historians; Collaboration with French historians

May I use your hospitable columns to try to amend an injustice, and to encourage your readers to look wide for precedent in their researches? The problem arose through the editing of my Academy Working Paper No. 64. The replacement of the entire Preface by an Abstract had consequences which may be judged as readers of the Working Paper were given no clues as to the scholarly and collaborative French tradition which I tried to translate for them rather than to report new research by myself

Treadmill exercise activates subcortical neural networks and improves walking after a stroke

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Stroke often impairs gait thereby reducing mobility and fitness and promoting chronic disability. Gait is a complex sensorimotor function controlled by integrated cortical, subcortical, and spinal networks. The mechanisms of gait recovery after stroke are not well understood. This study examines the hypothesis that progressive task-repetitive treadmill exercise (T-EX) improves fitness and gait function in subjects with chronic hemiparetic stroke by inducing adaptations in the brain (plasticity).METHODS: A randomized controlled trial determined the effects of 6-month T-EX (n=37) versus comparable duration stretching (CON, n=34) on walking, aerobic fitness and in a subset (n=15/17) on brain activation measured by functional MRI.RESULTS: T-EX significantly improved treadmill-walking velocity by 51% and cardiovascular fitness by 18% (11% and -3% for CON, respectively; P<0.05). T-EX but not CON affected brain activation during paretic, but not during nonparetic limb movement, showing 72% increased activation in posterior cerebellar lobe and 18% in midbrain (P<0.005). Exercise-mediated improvements in walking velocity correlated with increased activation in cerebellum and midbrain.CONCLUSIONS: T-EX improves walking, fitness and recruits cerebellum-midbrain circuits, likely reflecting neural network plasticity. This neural recruitment is associated with better walking. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of T-EX rehabilitation in promoting gait recovery of stroke survivors with long-term mobility impairment and provide evidence of neuroplastic mechanisms that could lead to further refinements in these paradigms to improve functional outcomes

Fredholm Determinants, Differential Equations and Matrix Models

Orthogonal polynomial random matrix models of NxN hermitian matrices lead to Fredholm determinants of integral operators with kernel of the form (phi(x) psi(y) - psi(x) phi(y))/x-y. This paper is concerned with the Fredholm determinants of integral operators having kernel of this form and where the underlying set is a union of open intervals. The emphasis is on the determinants thought of as functions of the end-points of these intervals. We show that these Fredholm determinants with kernels of the general form described above are expressible in terms of solutions of systems of PDE's as long as phi and psi satisfy a certain type of differentiation formula. There is also an exponential variant of this analysis which includes the circular ensembles of NxN unitary matrices.Comment: 34 pages, LaTeX using RevTeX 3.0 macros; last version changes only the abstract and decreases length of typeset versio

Diagnostic and prognostic significance of systemic alkyl quinolones for P. aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis: a longitudinal study

Background Pulmonary P. aeruginosa infection is associated with poor outcomes in cystic fibrosis (CF) and early diagnosis is challenging, particularly in those who are unable to expectorate sputum. Specific P. aeruginosa 2-alkyl-4-quinolones are detectable in the sputum, plasma and urine of adults with CF, suggesting that they have potential as biomarkers for P. aeruginosa infection. Aim To investigate systemic 2-alkyl-4-quinolones as potential biomarkers for pulmonary P. aeruginosa infection. Methods A multicentre observational study of 176 adults and 68 children with CF. Cross-sectionally, comparisons were made between current P. aeruginosa infection using six 2-alkyl-4-quinolones detected in sputum, plasma and urine against hospital microbiological culture results. All participants without P. aeruginosa infection at baseline were followed up for one year to determine if 2-alkyl-4-quinolones were early biomarkers of pulmonary P. aeruginosa infection. Results Cross-sectional analysis: the most promising biomarker with the greatest diagnostic accuracy was 2-heptyl-4-hydroxyquinoline (HHQ). In adults, areas under the ROC curves (95% confidence intervals) for HHQ analyses were 0.82 (0.75–0.89) in sputum, 0.76 (0.69–0.82) in plasma and 0.82 (0.77–0.88) in urine. In children, the corresponding values for HHQ analyses were 0.88 (0.77–0.99) in plasma and 0.83 (0.68–0.97) in urine. Longitudinal analysis: Ten adults and six children had a new positive respiratory culture for P. aeruginosa in follow-up. A positive plasma HHQ test at baseline was significantly associated with a new positive culture for P. aeruginosa in both adults and children in follow-up (odds ratio (OR) = 6.67;-95% CI:-1.48–30.1;-p = 0.01 and OR = 70; 95% CI: 5–956;-p < 0.001 respectively). Conclusions AQs measured in sputum, plasma and urine may be used to diagnose current infection with P. aeruginosa in adults and children with CF. These preliminary data show that plasma HHQ may have potential as an early biomarker of pulmonary P. aeruginosa. Further studies are necessary to evaluate if HHQ could be used in clinical practice to aid early diagnosis of P. aeruginosa infection in the future

The Intentional Use of Service Recovery Strategies to Influence Consumer Emotion, Cognition and Behaviour

Service recovery strategies have been identified as a critical factor in the success of. service organizations. This study develops a conceptual frame work to investigate how specific service recovery strategies influence the emotional, cognitive and negative behavioural responses of . consumers., as well as how emotion and cognition influence negative behavior. Understanding the impact of specific service recovery strategies will allow service providers' to more deliberately and intentionally engage in strategies that result in positive organizational outcomes. This study was conducted using a 2 x 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design. The results suggest that service recovery has a significant impact on emotion, cognition and negative behavior. Similarly, satisfaction, negative emotion and positive emotion all influence negative behavior but distributive justice has no effect

Validation of RoboGuide to Support the Emulation of Sporting Movements using an Industrial Robot

AbstractMechanical testing plays an important role in the development of athletic footwear. Typically, these tests do not accurately represent the forces and motions the footwear experiences during human use and there is substantial scope to improve this situation. The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which RoboGuide software can be used as a virtual environment to support the emulation of the ground contact phase of human locomotion on a FANUCTM six degrees of freedom industrial robot. A series of simple (linear and corner) and complex (sagittal plan heelstrike running) movements were completed on both the robot and RoboGuide using the same input kinematics. The effect of movement velocity, level of robotic smoothing and number of co-ordinate points defining the trajectory were also investigated. The resulting movement and timings on the robot and Roboguide were compared to the input kinematics as well as to each other. The results indicated small differences in the robot and RoboGuide trajectories for simple linear motions (< 30mm), that became much greater for the complex footstrike motion (∼ 100mm). These differences were affected by levels of smoothing and movement velocity and, notably, only with no smoothing did the robot and Roboguide approach the input trajectory. To conclude, RoboGuide does not accurately represent the motion of the FANUCTM robot and therefore only has limited use in supporting the physical emulation of complex sporting movements