Internal control system in small businesses

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the financial part of the internal control system in an organisation. This research is conducted to examine the effectiveness of the financial system. This study adopted qualitative methods by using semi-structured interviews. The primary data collection was by face-to-face interviews. The number of participants was five people, including the manager, owner and two employees working in the organisation. Thematic analysis was used for the primary textual data. The main findings revealed that inventory is not classified according to its types, e.g. food and beverages. There is no separate account used for the financial transaction of food from beverages. The inventory is consumed randomly. In the restaurant no computer system is used, all the transactions are done manually. No allowances are made for urgent cases. There is an inability to detect fraud due to inaccurate manual recording. The organisation does not adopt any strategy of pricing, the process is made randomly. They do not have any future plans. They only have records that relate to sales, which are calculated at the end of each day. It is recommended that the inventory needs to be classified according to its types. The consumption of inventory should be made systematically. A computer system should be used to prevent errors and fraud. A skilled employee who can guide current employees regarding the operations of financial system in the organisation is needed

Succinate dehydrogenase (SDH)-deficient renal carcinoma:a morphologically distinct entity: a clinicopathologic series of 36 tumors from 27 patients

Succinate dehydrogenase (SDH)-deficient renal carcinoma has been accepted as a provisional entity in the 2013 International Society of Urological Pathology Vancouver Classification. To further define its morphologic and clinical features, we studied a multi-institutional cohort of 36 SDH-deficient renal carcinomas from 27 patients, including 21 previously unreported cases. We estimate that 0.05% to 0.2% of all renal carcinomas are SDH deficient. Mean patient age at presentation was 37 years (range, 14 to 76 y), with a slight male predominance (M:F=1.7:1). Bilateral tumors were observed in 26% of patients. Thirty-four (94%) tumors demonstrated the previously reported morphology at least focally, which included: solid or focally cystic growth, uniform cytology with eosinophilic flocculent cytoplasm, intracytoplasmic vacuolations and inclusions, and round to oval low-grade nuclei. All 17 patients who underwent genetic testing for mutation in the SDH subunits demonstrated germline mutations (16 in SDHB and 1 in SDHC). Nine of 27 (33%) patients developed metastatic disease, 2 of them after prolonged follow-up (5.5 and 30 y). Seven of 10 patients (70%) with high-grade nuclei metastasized as did all 4 patients with coagulative necrosis. Two of 17 (12%) patients with low-grade nuclei metastasized, and both had unbiopsied contralateral tumors, which may have been the origin of the metastatic disease. In conclusion, SDH-deficient renal carcinoma is a rare and unique type of renal carcinoma, exhibiting stereotypical morphologic features in the great majority of cases and showing a strong relationship with SDH germline mutation. Although this tumor may undergo dedifferentiation and metastasize, sometimes after a prolonged delay, metastatic disease is rare in the absence of high-grade nuclear atypia or coagulative necrosis

Multi-omic association study identifies DNA methylation-mediated genotype and smoking exposure effects on lung function in children living in urban settings

Impaired lung function in early life is associated with the subsequent development of chronic respiratory disease. Most genetic associations with lung function have been identified in adults of European descent and therefore may not represent those most relevant to pediatric populations and populations of different ancestries. In this study, we performed genome-wide association analyses of lung function in a multiethnic cohort of children (n = 1,035) living in low-income urban neighborhoods. We identified one novel locus at the TDRD9 gene in chromosome 14q32.33 associated with percent predicted forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) (p = 2.4x10-9; βz = -0.31, 95% CI = -0.41- -0.21). Mendelian randomization and mediation analyses revealed that this genetic effect on FEV1 was partially mediated by DNA methylation levels at this locus in airway epithelial cells, which were also associated with environmental tobacco smoke exposure (p = 0.015). Promoter-enhancer interactions in airway epithelial cells revealed chromatin interaction loops between FEV1-associated variants in TDRD9 and the promoter region of the PPP1R13B gene, a stimulator of p53-mediated apoptosis. Expression of PPP1R13B in airway epithelial cells was significantly associated the FEV1 risk alleles (p = 1.3x10-5; β = 0.12, 95% CI = 0.06-0.17). These combined results highlight a potential novel mechanism for reduced lung function in urban youth resulting from both genetics and smoking exposure

Effect of social media in improving knowledge among patients having fixed appliance orthodontic treatment: A single-center randomized controlled trial

Research has shown that orthodontic patients are more likely to retain information presented in an audiovisual format. However, there has been little research on the effectiveness of audiovisual information provided through different routes such as the Internet. This parallel-group randomized controlled trial assessed whether provision of audiovisual information on the YouTube (Google, San Bruno, Calif) Web site to orthodontic patients undergoing fixed appliance treatment results in improved patient knowledge when compared with conventional methods of information provision. The effects of sex and ethnicity were also investigated

Algorithm for cavo-tricuspid isthmus flutter on surface ECGs: the ACTIONS study.

OBJECTIVE: Cavo-tricuspid isthmus atrial flutter (CTI-AFL) is an important arrhythmia to recognise because there is a highly effective and relatively low-risk ablation strategy. However, clinical experience has demonstrated that providers often have difficulty distinguishing AFL from atrial fibrillation. METHODS: We developed a novel ECG-based three-step algorithm to identify CTI-AFL based on established CTI flutter characteristics and verified on consecutive ablation cases of typical flutter, atypical flutter and atrial fibrillation. The algorithm assesses V1/inferior lead F-wave concordance, consistency of P-wave morphology and the presence of isoelectric intervals in the inferior leads. In this observation study, the algorithm was validated on a cohort of 50 second-year medical students. Students were paired in a control and experimental group, and each pair received 10 randomly selected ECGs (from a pool of 50 intracardiac electrogram-proven CTI-AFL and 50 AF or atypical AFL cases). The experimental group received a cover sheet with the CTI algorithm, and the control group received no additional guidance. RESULTS: There was a statistically significant difference in the mean number of correctly identified ECGs among the students in the experimental and control groups (8.12 vs 5.68, p CONCLUSION: We developed a three-step ECG algorithm that provides a simple, sensitive, specific and accurate tool to identify CTI-AFL

Multicenter, prospective validation of a phenotypic algorithm to guide carbapenemase testing in carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa using the ERACE-PA global surveillance program

Background: Carbapenemase-producing, carbapenem-resistant Methods: CRPA isolates were collected during the Enhancing Rational Antimicrobials for Results: A total of 807 CRPA were assessed, and 464 isolates met the algorithm criteria described above. Overall, testing was reduced by 43% compared with testing all CRPA. Carbapenemase-positive isolates missed by the algorithm were largely driven by Guiana extended spectrum (GES). Addition of the criterion of imipenem- or meropenem-resistant plus ceftolozane/tazobactam-nonsusceptible decreased the number of CP-CRPA missed by the algorithm (21 vs 40 isolates, respectively), reducing number of isolates tested by 39%. Conclusions: Application of the initial algorithm (imipenem- or meropenem-resistant plus ceftazidime-nonsusceptible plus cefepime-nonsusceptible) performed well in a global cohort, with 33% phenotypically carbapenemase-positive isolates. The addition of imipenem- or meropenem-resistant plus ceftolozane/tazobactam-nonsusceptible reduced the number of phenotypically carbapenemase-positive isolates missed and may be useful in areas with a prominence of GES

CAFF CBMP Report No.12 - A Strategy for Developing Indices and Indicators to Track Status and Trends in Arctic Biodiversity

Arctic Council's CAFF Working Group Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program Report No.12 - A Strategy for Developing Indices and Indicators to Track Status and Trends in Arctic Biodiversit

Performance Evaluation Metrics for Cloud, Fog and Edge Computing: A Review, Taxonomy, Benchmarks and Standards for Future Research

Optimization is an inseparable part of Cloud computing, particularly with the emergence of Fog and Edge paradigms. Not only these emerging paradigms demand reevaluating cloud-native optimizations and exploring Fog and Edge-based solutions, but also the objectives require significant shift from considering only latency to energy, security, reliability and cost. Hence, it is apparent that optimization objectives have become diverse and lately Internet of Things (IoT)-specific born objectives must come into play. This is critical as incorrect selection of metrics can mislead the developer about the real performance. For instance, a latency-aware auto-scaler must be evaluated through latency-related metrics as response time or tail latency; otherwise the resource manager is not carefully evaluated even if it can reduce the cost. Given such challenges, researchers and developers are struggling to explore and utilize the right metrics to evaluate the performance of optimization techniques such as task scheduling, resource provisioning, resource allocation, resource scheduling and resource execution. This is challenging due to (1) novel and multi-layered computing paradigm, e.g., Cloud, Fog and Edge, (2) IoT applications with different requirements, e.g., latency or privacy, and (3) not having a benchmark and standard for the evaluation metrics. In this paper, by exploring the literature, (1) we present a taxonomy of the various real-world metrics to evaluate the performance of cloud, fog, and edge computing; (2) we survey the literature to recognize common metrics and their applications; and (3) outline open issues for future research. This comprehensive benchmark study can significantly assist developers and researchers to evaluate performance under realistic metrics and standards to ensure their objectives will be achieved in the production environments