Northland Preparatory Academy: An Expansion Controversy

This paper deals with a real case in a real situation.  Northland Preparatory Academy (NPA) is a college-preparatory charter school located in Flagstaff, Arizona.  In 2004, the school board had to decide whether to expand.  Their expansion decision was driven by (1) a desire for additional programs in fine arts and music, (2) a desire for a gymnasium for extra curriculum activities, athletics, and related programs, and (3) a belief that the expansion would help with NPA’s retention problem at the high school level.   The school’s principal and several of the school board members were leaning toward constructing a new building.   However, there was a minority group on the school board which was adamantly opposed to any expansion and the taking on new debt.  Bill Johnson, the school’s principal, had been asked by the Chairman of the school board to develop three years’ worth of projected financial statements and forecasted cash flow statements assuming that expansion did take place.  In addition, Bill was challenged to present information as to whether a new bank loan or taking out a new bond would be best for the school

Business Process Modeling, Activity-Based Management, And Decision Support Systems: The Case Of B&B Plumbing

This case was designed to be used as a resource for professors who are interested in using decision support systems to teach activity-based management.  Specifically, we developed the case for use with Hyperion Software’s Activity-Based Management application, formerly called NetProphet II by Sapling Corp. Professors wishing to use this, or other activity-based management software, have trouble finding non-proprietary materials for use in teaching with the software. We developed this case to address this need. Although the case was designed for use with this decision-support application, its usefulness extends beyond that for two reasons.  First, the case involves developing a business process model, first from a workflow, or engineering perspective, then overlaying that model with financial information to create the full business process model. The process model is developed independently of the software used to implement and run the model. The modeling process is important in itself because it focuses student attention on the nature of the work involved and interaction between work flow, resources, constraints, and costing.  A natural result of developing a process model is a greater appreciation for the difficulties inherent in, and the complexity involved with, making sound managerial decisions. Second, the process model can be implemented independently of the software as well. With some effort, a spreadsheet can be used to develop the appropriate formulas, flows, factors, and units of measure based on the workflow, to carry costs down to the appropriate demands. The case involves a plumbing firm, B&B Plumbing that has four lines of business.  Based on the poor operating results of one line of business, management is considering eliminating that line, but they are not sure that the current financial results for each line are indicative of that line’s true performance. Students are to develop or use the business process model for the company to assist management in making the most profitable operating decisions.  They are then to evaluate the business in light of the model and its associated constraints to maximize profits

Qualities of professionalism sought by employers: Exploring, validating, and incentivizing them in business undergraduates: Working paper Series--12-08

What do employers of business-school graduates seek in job candidates? The basic technical knowledge that an accredited degree indicates, and some amount of appropriate work experience, are prerequisites for interviews. But job candidates are then distinguished by various "soft" qualities that can't easily be bulleted on resumes or readily validated by employers. This paper begins with an exploration of framework for these qualities, considered here aspects of professionalism, which is developed from a series of surveys to refine and categorize relevant descriptors. We report the confirmatory findings from a focus group of partners, HR managers, and recruiters from accounting firms - a field which is particularly sensitive to professionalism since new associates have extensive client contact. Then, one business school's novel approach for raising the level of professionalism in undergraduate business students is introduced. The paper includes discussion of the importance and limitations of this topic, and concludes with possible directions for further research

The state of Texas vs the Methodist hospital system: An accounting case study: Working paper series--99-02

Pressures to contain costs have given private hospitals the economic incentive to reduce provision of charity care services, shifting the burden onto government hospitals. Budget pressures on governmental units have produced resistance to any further shift in charity care burden. We observe in a lawsuit (State of Texas vs. Methodist Hospital System [MHS]) what appears to be a classic moral hazard situation. The government expects a certain (unspecified) level of charity care to be performed in exchange for tax exemptions; hospital management allegedly consumes perquisites and overstates reported charity care figures. Both sides use accounting numbers to defend their positions. The Case makes five contributions. First, it is relevant and flexible enough for use in several different accounting or business courses, including financial, audit, tax, not-for-profit, or ethics courses. Second, it provides students an introduction to not-for-profit accounting placed in an interesting and relevant context. Third, students must employ forensic skills, much as did the state attorney general. Fourth, the Case requires students to make several audit-related determinations, including knowledge of a client's business, fraud, and related-party transactions. Finally, as students progress through the case, they are required to consider several ethical issues

A Live-Attenuated Equine Influenza Vaccine Stimulates Innate Immunity in Equine Respiratory Epithelial Cell Cultures That Could Provide Protection From Equine Herpesvirus 1

Equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) ubiquitously infects horses worldwide and causes respiratory disease, abortion, and equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy. Protection against EHV-1 disease is elusive due to establishment of latency and immune-modulatory features of the virus. These include the modulation of interferons, cytokines, chemokines, antigen presentation, and cellular immunity. Because the modulation of immunity likely occurs at the site of first infection—the respiratory epithelium, we hypothesized that the mucosal influenza vaccine Flu Avert® I.N. (Flu Avert), which is known to stimulate strong antiviral responses, will enhance antiviral innate immunity, and that these responses would also provide protection from EHV-1 infection. To test our hypothesis, primary equine respiratory epithelial cells (ERECs) were treated with Flu Avert, and innate immunity was evaluated for 10 days following treatment. The timing of Flu Avert treatment was also evaluated for optimal effectiveness to reduce EHV-1 replication by modulating early immune responses to EHV-1. The induction of interferons, cytokine and chemokine mRNA expression, and protein secretion was evaluated by high-throughput qPCR and multiplex protein analysis. Intracellular and extracellular EHV-1 titers were determined by qPCR. Flu Avert treatment resulted in the modulation of IL-8, CCL2, and CXCL9 starting at days 5 and 6 post-treatment. Coinciding with the timing of optimal chemokine induction, our data also suggested the same timing for reduction of EHV-1 replication. In combination, our results suggest that Flu Avert may be effective at counteracting some of the immune-modulatory properties of EHV-1 at the airway epithelium and the peak for this response occurs 5–8 days post-Flu Avert treatment. Future in vivo studies are needed to investigate Flu Avert as a prophylactic in situations where EHV-1 exposure may occur

The paradox of odd-even price in fashion luxury sector : empirical evidence from an international direct observation of luxury stores

Price has always had a key role in the luxury fashion market, because high prices are linked to the uniqueness and the prestige of luxury products and brands. Because of this direct contribution of price to the luxury essence, scholars have partially neglected the possible existence of unintuitive and controversial pricing strategies followed by luxury firms. This article deals with this literature gap, particularly analyzing a specific pricing strategy that seems to be in contrast with the nature of luxury pricing: the odd-even price (OEP). With the direct observation of physical and digital store windows of 20 luxury brands, this research investigates the role of OEP in the fashion luxury sector. Particularly, this work examines the relationship between the OEP strategy and the luxury level of fashion brands considering both offline and online channels

Climate change, precipitation and impacts on an estuarine refuge from disease

© The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 6 (2011): e18849, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018849.Oysters play important roles in estuarine ecosystems but have suffered recently due to overfishing, pollution, and habitat loss. A tradeoff between growth rate and disease prevalence as a function of salinity makes the estuarine salinity transition of special concern for oyster survival and restoration. Estuarine salinity varies with discharge, so increases or decreases in precipitation with climate change may shift regions of low salinity and disease refuge away from optimal oyster bottom habitat, negatively impacting reproduction and survival. Temperature is an additional factor for oyster survival, and recent temperature increases have increased vulnerability to disease in higher salinity regions. We examined growth, reproduction, and survival of oysters in the New York Harbor-Hudson River region, focusing on a low-salinity refuge in the estuary. Observations were during two years when rainfall was above average and comparable to projected future increases in precipitation in the region and a past period of about 15 years with high precipitation. We found a clear tradeoff between oyster growth and vulnerability to disease. Oysters survived well when exposed to intermediate salinities during two summers (2008, 2010) with moderate discharge conditions. However, increased precipitation and discharge in 2009 reduced salinities in the region with suitable benthic habitat, greatly increasing oyster mortality. To evaluate the estuarine conditions over longer periods, we applied a numerical model of the Hudson to simulate salinities over the past century. Model results suggest that much of the region with suitable benthic habitat that historically had been a low salinity refuge region may be vulnerable to higher mortality under projected increases in precipitation and discharge. Predicted increases in precipitation in the northeastern United States due to climate change may lower salinities past important thresholds for oyster survival in estuarine regions with appropriate substrate, potentially disrupting metapopulation dynamics and impeding oyster restoration efforts, especially in the Hudson estuary where a large basin constitutes an excellent refuge from disease.Funding was provided by the Hudson River Foundation, grant number 00607A, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (MOU 2008)

A Multilaboratory Comparison of Calibration Accuracy and the Performance of External References in Analytical Ultracentrifugation

Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) is a first principles based method to determine absolute sedimentation coefficients and buoyant molar masses of macromolecules and their complexes, reporting on their size and shape in free solution. The purpose of this multi-laboratory study was to establish the precision and accuracy of basic data dimensions in AUC and validate previously proposed calibration techniques. Three kits of AUC cell assemblies containing radial and temperature calibration tools and a bovine serum albumin (BSA) reference sample were shared among 67 laboratories, generating 129 comprehensive data sets. These allowed for an assessment of many parameters of instrument performance, including accuracy of the reported scan time after the start of centrifugation, the accuracy of the temperature calibration, and the accuracy of the radial magnification. The range of sedimentation coefficients obtained for BSA monomer in different instruments and using different optical systems was from 3.655 S to 4.949 S, with a mean and standard deviation of (4.304 ± 0.188) S (4.4%). After the combined application of correction factors derived from the external calibration references for elapsed time, scan velocity, temperature, and radial magnification, the range of s-values was reduced 7-fold with a mean of 4.325 S and a 6-fold reduced standard deviation of ± 0.030 S (0.7%). In addition, the large data set provided an opportunity to determine the instrument-to-instrument variation of the absolute radial positions reported in the scan files, the precision of photometric or refractometric signal magnitudes, and the precision of the calculated apparent molar mass of BSA monomer and the fraction of BSA dimers. These results highlight the necessity and effectiveness of independent calibration of basic AUC data dimensions for reliable quantitative studies

A multilaboratory comparison of calibration accuracy and the performance of external references in analytical ultracentrifugation.

Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) is a first principles based method to determine absolute sedimentation coefficients and buoyant molar masses of macromolecules and their complexes, reporting on their size and shape in free solution. The purpose of this multi-laboratory study was to establish the precision and accuracy of basic data dimensions in AUC and validate previously proposed calibration techniques. Three kits of AUC cell assemblies containing radial and temperature calibration tools and a bovine serum albumin (BSA) reference sample were shared among 67 laboratories, generating 129 comprehensive data sets. These allowed for an assessment of many parameters of instrument performance, including accuracy of the reported scan time after the start of centrifugation, the accuracy of the temperature calibration, and the accuracy of the radial magnification. The range of sedimentation coefficients obtained for BSA monomer in different instruments and using different optical systems was from 3.655 S to 4.949 S, with a mean and standard deviation of (4.304 ± 0.188) S (4.4%). After the combined application of correction factors derived from the external calibration references for elapsed time, scan velocity, temperature, and radial magnification, the range of s-values was reduced 7-fold with a mean of 4.325 S and a 6-fold reduced standard deviation of ± 0.030 S (0.7%). In addition, the large data set provided an opportunity to determine the instrument-to-instrument variation of the absolute radial positions reported in the scan files, the precision of photometric or refractometric signal magnitudes, and the precision of the calculated apparent molar mass of BSA monomer and the fraction of BSA dimers. These results highlight the necessity and effectiveness of independent calibration of basic AUC data dimensions for reliable quantitative studies