The Role of Individual Variables, Organizational Variables and Moral Intensity Dimensions in Libyan Management Accountants’ Ethical Decision Making

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and (in Libya) Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world

Localized orbital amyloidosis involving the lacrimal sac and nasolacrimal duct

Purpose: To report the case of a 70-year-old man who presented with tearing in his left eye and a firm palpable lump in the area overlying his left lacrimal sac. Design: Retrospective interventional case report. Methods: Noninvasive diagnostic evaluation followed by external dacryocystorhinostomy, histopathologic studies, and systemic evaluation. Results: The patient was found to have idiopathic localized amyloidosis limited to the lacrimal sac and nasolacrimal duct. Conclusion: The localized form of amyloidosis is rare, typically involves the head and neck without systemic manifestations, and carries an excellent prognosis. Previous reports of orbital amyloidosis have described involvement of the lacrimal gland, extraocular muscles, and the cranial nerves. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a patient with nasolacrimal duct obstruction secondary to amyloid deposition in the lacrimal sac and fossa. © 2006 by the American Academy of Ophthalmology.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Microstructure Aspects of the Deformation Mechanisms in Metastable Austenitic Steels

This chapter presents microstructure features, which are responsible for transformation-induced and twinning-induced plasticity in austenitic steels, gives an overview of relevant microstructure defects and shows how the microstructure defects and their interactions affect the deformation behaviour of these steels. Numerous examples illustrate the capability of scanning and transmission electron microscopy and X-ray and electron diffraction to detect, to identify and to quantify dislocations, stacking faults, twins and their clusters. In this context, the benefits of the in situ techniques of microstructure analysis are emphasized. As the presence and arrangement of stacking faults in austenite play a central role in the plasticity of the austenitic steels, a large part of this chapter is devoted to the characterization and description of their formation, widening and ordering. A novel method for determination of the stacking fault energy is presented that utilizes in situ X-ray or synchrotron diffraction under deformation. Finally, the dependence of the stacking fault energy on the chemical composition of the steel and on the deformation temperature is addressed, and considered as an effective tool for design of steels with desirable mechanical properties

Host-microbe interactions have shaped the genetic architecture of inflammatory bowel disease

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the two common forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), affect over 2.5 million people of European ancestry, with rising prevalence in other populations. Genome-wide association studies and subsequent meta-analyses of these two diseases as separate phenotypes have implicated previously unsuspected mechanisms, such as autophagy, in their pathogenesis and showed that some IBD loci are shared with other inflammatory diseases. Here we expand on the knowledge of relevant pathways by undertaking a meta-analysis of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis genome-wide association scans, followed by extensive validation of significant findings, with a combined total of more than 75,000 cases and controls. We identify 71 new associations, for a total of 163 IBD loci, that meet genome-wide significance thresholds. Most loci contribute to both phenotypes, and both directional (consistently favouring one allele over the course of human history) and balancing (favouring the retention of both alleles within populations) selection effects are evident. Many IBD loci are also implicated in other immune-mediated disorders, most notably with ankylosing spondylitis and psoriasis. We also observe considerable overlap between susceptibility loci for IBD and mycobacterial infection. Gene co-expression network analysis emphasizes this relationship, with pathways shared between host responses to mycobacteria and those predisposing to IBD