Teaching the Budgeting Process Using a Spreadsheet Template

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to use a template to teach the budgeting process and how to use the same template to do a sensitivity analysis once the budget process is completed. The template can be used as-is by non-accounting majors. They just have to fill in all of their assumptions by replacing the red numbers. The template can be locked so that students cannot modify the formulas by mistake. Simply protect the worksheet (Review tab \u3e Protect Sheet) and students will be able to only change the assumptions. Accounting majors are shown how to build their own template by using formulas. This requires a good understanding of Excel and of the budgeting process. Once the template is constructed, making modifications to the assumptions is very easy and students can see the results immediately

Rivera Custom Cabinetry: Financial Statement Analysis Using Excel

This case illustrates the impact of various business transactions on a firm’s financial statements. The case objective is to highlight how business transactions affect financial statements and to illustrate the links between financial statements and key ratios. The case was developed and piloted as a final project in an introductory accounting class and as an accounting review in a corporate finance course. In each part of the case, students are asked to show the impact of a business transaction on the firm’s balance sheet and income statement. The cash flow statement and financial ratios calculate automatically. Part 1 of the case focuses on the transactions involved in establishing the company. Part 2 illustrates basic operating transactions. Part 3 considers the impact of growth and leverage

Introducing a Writing Skills Intervention into an Undergraduate Financial Accounting Course

This paper describes how integrating a research project into an undergraduate business school core accounting course provides opportunities to develop critical writing skills while reinforcing ethics as part of the business school curriculum. The paper discusses an end-to-end process from the overall goals and details of the assignment to assess student skills. After researching an ethical topic in business, students are challenged to complete a research paper examining the issue and stating and supporting their opinion and views of the issue. While writing courses or assignments are not unusual in business program, the unique approach described in this paper includes an intervention early in the student’s academic career and a summary of the measurable learning outcomes and criteria for meeting performance expectations. The program addresses the both the instructional tools used for the assignment and assurance of learning for faculty interested in implementing a similar program

Restatement VS Revision: A Case Study

There had been many recent cases of restatements of financial statements by US Corporations. Recently an article in the Wall Street Journal mentioned restatements by Bank of America, Nike and Alphabet among the 663 companies that filed financial revisions or restatements last year. Interestingly the frequency of these errors has more than doubled since 2002, when the Sarbanes-Oxley corporategovernance law was enacted, partly to increase managerial accountability. We will also examine what are the differences between restatements and revisions. We will examine what are the most common mistakes. Over half of last year’s corrections involved debt and equity, cash flows or taxes. Many of these issues are also major differences between US GAAP and IFRS, making comparison with international firms even more difficult. We will try to explain why a frim chooses a restatement or revision to announce the correction of errors

Estimating the Cost of Equity in Emerging Markets: A Case Study

A firm\u27s weighted average cost of capital is an integral component in capital budgeting decisions and in assessment of the firm\u27s enterprise and equity value. Estimation of the cost of equity is a key component in determining the overall cost of capital. The calculation of the cost of equity for U.S. based corporations is relatively straightforward and is most often estimated as a function of the U.S. risk-free rate, the firm\u27s beta value, and an estimate of the average risk premium associated with equity investments compared to risk free assets. Since U.S. financial markets are fairly liquid and reasonably efficient, estimates of the required input variables are relatively reliable. In contrast, the estimation of equity capital costs for corporations based in emerging markets presents many challenges. Emerging markets are often characterized by additional risks including political risks and the risks associated with operating in markets that are less liquid and transparent than mature markets. This leads to issues in identifying appropriate and reliable measures of the risk free rate, beta and the equity risk premium. In this paper we describe five commonly used approaches to estimate the cost of equity for firms based in emerging markets and then apply these ..

Business Planning for New Ventures

Table of contents: Assessing Entrepreneurial Aptitude -- Identifying Sources of Capital -- Selecting a Legal Structure -- Preparing the Business Plan -- Presenting the Plan to Capital Providers -- Glossary

Restatement VS Revision: A Case Study

There had been many recent cases of restatements of financial statements by US Corporations. Recently an article in the Wall Street Journal mentioned restatements by Bank of America, Nike and Alphabet among the 663 companies that filed financial revisions or restatements last year. Interestingly the frequency of these errors has more than doubled since 2002, when the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance law was enacted, partly to increase managerial accountability. We will also examine what are the differences between restatements and revisions. We will examine what are the most common mistakes. Over half of last year\u27s corrections involved debt and equity, cash flows or taxes. Many of these issues are also major differences between US GAAP and IFRS, making comparison with international firms even more difficult. We will try to explain why a firm chooses a restatement or revision to announce the correction of errors

Chronic pneumonia with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and impaired alveolar fluid clearance

BACKGROUND: While the functional consequences of acute pulmonary infections are widely documented, few studies focused on chronic pneumonia. We evaluated the consequences of chronic Pseudomonas lung infection on alveolar function. METHODS: P. aeruginosa, included in agar beads, was instilled intratracheally in Sprague Dawley rats. Analysis was performed from day 2 to 21, a control group received only sterile agar beads. Alveolar-capillary barrier permeability, lung liquid clearance (LLC) and distal alveolar fluid clearance (DAFC) were measured using a vascular ((131)I-Albumin) and an alveolar tracer ((125)I-Albumin). RESULTS: The increase in permeability and LLC peaked on the second day, to return to baseline on the fifth. DAFC increased independently of TNF-α or endogenous catecholamine production. Despite the persistence of the pathogen within the alveoli, DAFC returned to baseline on the 5(th )day. Stimulation with terbutaline failed to increase DAFC. Eradication of the pathogen with ceftazidime did not restore DAFC response. CONCLUSIONS: From these results, we observe an adequate initial alveolar response to increased permeability with an increase of DAFC. However, DAFC increase does not persist after the 5(th )day and remains unresponsive to stimulation. This impairment of DAFC may partly explain the higher susceptibility of chronically infected patients to subsequent lung injury

An in vivo RNA interference screen identifies gene networks controlling Drosophila melanogaster blood cell homeostasis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In metazoans, the hematopoietic system plays a key role both in normal development and in defense of the organism. In Drosophila, the cellular immune response involves three types of blood cells: plasmatocytes, crystal cells and lamellocytes. This last cell type is barely present in healthy larvae, but its production is strongly induced upon wasp parasitization or in mutant contexts affecting larval blood cell homeostasis. Notably, several zygotic mutations leading to melanotic mass (or "tumor") formation in larvae have been associated to the deregulated differentiation of lamellocytes. To gain further insights into the gene regulatory network and the mechanisms controlling larval blood cell homeostasis, we conducted a tissue-specific loss of function screen using hemocyte-specific Gal4 drivers and <it>UAS-dsRNA </it>transgenic lines.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>By targeting around 10% of the Drosophila genes, this <it>in vivo </it>RNA interference screen allowed us to recover 59 melanotic tumor suppressor genes. In line with previous studies, we show that melanotic tumor formation is associated with the precocious differentiation of stem-cell like blood progenitors in the larval hematopoietic organ (the lymph gland) and the spurious differentiation of lamellocytes. We also find that melanotic tumor formation can be elicited by defects either in the fat body, the embryo-derived hemocytes or the lymph gland. In addition, we provide a definitive confirmation that lymph gland is not the only source of lamellocytes as embryo-derived plasmatocytes can differentiate into lamellocytes either upon wasp infection or upon loss of function of the Friend of GATA cofactor U-shaped.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this study, we identify 55 genes whose function had not been linked to blood cell development or function before in Drosophila. Moreover our analyses reveal an unanticipated plasticity of embryo-derived plasmatocytes, thereby shedding new light on blood cell lineage relationship, and pinpoint the Friend of GATA transcription cofactor U-shaped as a key regulator of the plasmatocyte to lamellocyte transformation.</p

Impact of respiratory viruses in intensive care unit patient with community-acquired pneumonia : a one-year retrospective single-centre study.

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