THE IMPACT OF IFRS ON REPORTING FOR BUSINESS COMBINATIONS: AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS USING THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

The mandatory use of IFRS by all publicly listed companies in the European Union created challenges for accounting and reporting of business combinations, goodwill impairment and disclosures for these items. Major issues are allocation of amounts to goodwill and specific intangible assets arising from acquisition. This study presents an in-depth exploration of compliance with IFRS 3 and IAS 36 using content analysis methodology of annual reports of eight European telecommunications that were chose because the industry is well known for significant acquisitions involving intangibles. The results show only partial compliance with little change over the four year period since mandatory IFRS adoption. While results cannot be generalized outside this group, the in-depth analysis yielded important insights for continued research using broader research methods.IFRS, business combinations, goodwill, content analysis, annual reports, listed companies

A semantic web approach for built heritage representation

In a built heritage process, meant as a structured system of activities aimed at the investigation, preservation, and management of architectural heritage, any task accomplished by the several actors involved in it is deeply influenced by the way the knowledge is represented and shared. In the current heritage practice, knowledge representation and management have shown several limitations due to the difficulty of dealing with large amount of extremely heterogeneous data. On this basis, this research aims at extending semantic web approaches and technologies to architectural heritage knowledge management in order to provide an integrated and multidisciplinary representation of the artifact and of the knowledge necessary to support any decision or any intervention and management activity. To this purpose, an ontology-based system, representing the knowledge related to the artifact and its contexts, has been developed through the formalization of domain-specific entities and relationships between them

Practical implementation of robotic technologies for the inspection of ships

The ROBINS project aims at filling the technology and regulatory gaps that today still represent a barrier to the adoption of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) in activities related to inspection of ships, starting from understanding end user\u2019s actual needs and expectations and analyzing how existing or near-future technology can meet them. -Robotics technology: Improve the ability of RAS in sensing and probing; Improve capabilities in navigation and localization in confined spaces, access to and mobility within the environment; Improve safety and dependability of RAS in hazardous, harsh and dirty environments; Provide new tools for image and data processing (3D models, VR/AR environments); Provide the same level of information as obtained by direct human observation for the assessment of inspected structures. -Rules and Regulations: Provide a framework for the assessment of equivalence between the outcomes of RAS-assisted inspections and traditional inspection procedures; Define criteria, testing procedures and metrics for the evaluation of RAS performance; Design, implement and assess a testing environment where repeatable tests and measurements of RAS performance can be carried out; Improve confidence in technology capabilities by means of test campaigns to be performed both in the testing facilities and onboard. The expected impact can be summarized as follows: Wide scale adoption of RAS technology in marine industry Improved safety in ship surveys Economic advantages new supply chain and new potential markets particularly beneficial for SMEs; new services and products for data processing and knowledge management; reduction of costs related to inspection activities; improvement in the quality and variety of inspection services; new certification schemes for equipment, operators and procedures