Enabling and Enhancing Science Exploration Across the Solar System: Aerocapture Technology for SmallSat to Flagship Missions

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Personality traits and mental disorders

Peer reviewe

Heuristics and cognitive biases as a reason of external audit failures

Niepowodzenia audytu towarzyszące skandalom finansowym z ostatnich lat (Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat i inne) przypisuje się najczęściej świadomemu działaniu audytorów. Analizując przyczyny tych spektakularnych porażek, zwraca się zwykle uwagę na kwestię braku niezależności audytorów, którzy, wbrew etyce zawodowej, formułują opinie zgodne z oczekiwaniami klienta. Badania psychologiczne sugerują jednak, że główną przyczyną porażek audytorów są nie tyle zaniechania czy świadoma korupcja, ile raczej błędy poznawcze. W artykule omówione zostały podstawowe ograniczenia poznawcze w procesach formułowania sądów i podejmowania decyzji przez audytorów: błędy wynikające ze stosowania heurystyk dostępności, reprezentatywności i zakotwiczenia, konsekwencje nadmiernej pewności siebie, zjawisko eskalacji zaangażowania oraz proces rozumowania zmotywowanego przez cel. Przedstawiono ponadto cechy strukturalne branży audytorskiej, sprzyjające występowaniu ograniczeń poznawczych. Omówiono wskazywane w literaturze propozycje zwiększania skuteczności audytu zewnętrznego.Spectacular financial reporting scandals of last years (cases of Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat and others) are usually attributed to conscious actions of auditors. When analyzing the reasons of audit failures scholars point at the lack of independence of auditors, who act against professional ethics and issue opinions which are in line with the expectations of the clients. Psychological studies suggest however, that the main reasons of audit failures are not negligence or conscious corruption, but cognitive biases. The article presents the main cognitive limitations which affect judgment and decision-making process of auditors: heuristics (availability, representativeness and anchoring), overconfidence, escalation of commitment and motivated reasoning. We present structural characteristics which make the auditing industry prone to cognitive biases. We also discuss possible measures aimed at reducing the number of audit failures

Ecosystem type drives tea litter decomposition and associated prokaryotic microbiome communities in freshwater and coastal wetlands at a continental scale

Wetland ecosystems are critical to the regulation of the global carbon cycle, and there is a high demand for data to improve carbon sequestration and emission models and predictions. Decomposition of plant litter is an important component of ecosystem carbon cycling, yet a lack of knowledge on decay rates in wetlands is an impediment to predicting carbon preservation. Here, we aim to fill this knowledge gap by quantifying the decomposition of standardised green and rooibos tea litter over one year within freshwater and coastal wetland soils across four climates in Australia. We also captured changes in the prokaryotic members of the tea-associated microbiome during this process. Ecosystem type drove differences in tea decay rates and prokaryotic microbiome community composition. Decomposition rates were up to 2-fold higher in mangrove and seagrass soils compared to freshwater wetlands and tidal marshes, in part due to greater leaching-related mass loss. For tidal marshes and freshwater wetlands, the warmer climates had 7–16% less mass remaining compared to temperate climates after a year of decomposition. The prokaryotic microbiome community composition was significantly different between substrate types and sampling times within and across ecosystem types. Microbial indicator analyses suggested putative metabolic pathways common across ecosystems were used to breakdown the tea litter, including increased presence of putative methylotrophs and sulphur oxidisers linked to the introduction of oxygen by root in-growth over the incubation period. Structural equation modelling analyses further highlighted the importance of incubation time on tea decomposition and prokaryotic microbiome community succession, particularly for rooibos tea that experienced a greater proportion of mass loss between three and twelve months compared to green tea. These results provide insights into ecosystem-level attributes that affect both the abiotic and biotic controls of belowground wetland carbon turnover at a continental scale, while also highlighting new decay dynamics for tea litter decomposing under longer incubations