Empedoclean Elegy: Love, Strife and the Four Elements in Ovid\u27s Amores, Ars Amatoria and Fasti

In this dissertation, I examine Ovid\u27s use in the Amores, Ars Amatoria and Fasti of the concepts of love, strife and the four elements, which were closely identified with the philosopher-poet Empedocles in antiquity. My dissertation has two parts: in the first I demonstrate that in the Amores and Ars Amatoria Ovid connects themes fundamental to his elegiac poetics, such as the interaction of love and war, to the Empedoclean principles of love and strife. This is a means for Ovid of relating his elegy to the epic tradition, in which Empedocles was an important figure. At the same time I argue that Ovid suggests that there are certain features of the form and content of elegy that render it uniquely Empedoclean, such as the cyclical alternation of the hexameter and pentameter verses of the elegiac couplet, which are identified with war and love respectively in Ovidian poetics. This conception of elegy\u27s form serves as the foundation of Ovid\u27s use of the interaction between elegy and epic, amor and arma as the building-blocks of much of his poetry. Ovid\u27s creative use of Empedoclean themes is most extensive in the Fasti, which is the elegiac poem of Ovid\u27s whose relation to epic is the most intense. In the programmatic Janus episode in book 1 of the Fasti Ovid has the god Janus describe an Empedoclean cosmogony that encourages us to interpret subsequent features of the poem against the background of an Empedoclean cosmos: in this light, the centrality in the poem of Mars and Venus (i.e. the months of March and April) and its interest in the concepts of concordia and discordia acquire a new significance. I demonstrate, furthermore, that Ovid\u27s use of Empedocles illuminates not only our understanding of the poetics of the Fasti, but also its politics. Ovid uses Empedoclean physics as part of his representation in the Fasti of cyclical or non-teleological time and the pattern of ceaseless change. These representations of time and history complicate the poem\u27s treatment of key Augustan tropes such as the pax Augusta, the Golden Age and the urbs aeterna

An Integrated Analysis of the Corporate General Counsel's Impact on Accounting Choices and Legal Risk

Companies are increasingly relying on highly paid corporate general counsels (GCs) to help manage the risks of costly regulatory sanctions and shareholder lawsuits associated with their firms' accounting and overall business practices. While recent research documents the role of the GC on specific decisions in isolation, whether and how GCs fulfill their intended role of managing their firms' expected legal costs remains an open question. I document several ways in which GCs affect the expected legal costs associated with their firms' accounting choices. The analysis is based on the insight that the expected legal costs associated with the firm's accounting choices depend on three factors: (1) the extent to which the firm undertakes legally risky accounting practices, (2) the likelihood that such practices are detected by outsiders, and (3) the severity of penalties outsiders impose on the firm upon detection. Managers can affect the first factor by taking the external legal environment as given and altering their internal decisions accordingly, whereas managers can affect the latter two factors by altering the firm's external legal environment through their influence on the intensity of outside monitoring and enforcement. I provide evidence that the GC decreases the firm's expected legal costs via all three factors. First, firms with an influential GC (GC firms) display a preference for real earnings management relative to accrual earnings management and GC firms accelerate the recognition of losses in earnings, both of which entail less legal risk. Second, firms that make aggressive accounting choices are less likely to be targeted by SEC enforcement actions in the presence of an influential GC. This finding indicates that GCs are able to advise their firms about how to use accounting discretion in a way that avoids unwanted regulatory scrutiny. Third, GC firms are less likely to be sued following a restatement announcement. When their firms are sued, the lawsuits are more likely to be dismissed and the settlement amounts are lower. These findings indicate that the GC's advocacy is associated with a reduction in the severity of penalties outsiders impose on the firm when improper accounting choices are discovered. The analyses culminate with an examination of the GC's effect on the firm's overall corporate risk and the market's assessment of the GC's contribution to the firm. I find that GC firms are associated with lower corporate risk as measured by the volatility of future stock returns and lower levels of future risky investments in the form of capital expenditures and research and development expenditures. Finally, the market responds favorably in years that firms appoint a GC to the top management team, consistent with the market perceiving the net impact of GCs' activities to be value enhancing

Skill Demands in the Audit Labor Market: Evidence from Job Postings

This study examines how the demand for auditor skill sets has changed over the past decade as well as how these changes relate to audit quality and audit fees. Using a novel dataset that contains the near-universe of online job postings by accounting firms from 2007 to 2017, we find that audit firms have decreased their demand for auditors and increased their demand for IT-related personnel. We also find that audit firms are increasingly demanding expanded skill sets from their auditors—the portion of cognitive, social, and IT-related skills has increased over our sample period whereas financial skills have remained relatively flat. Further, we find substantial variation in the demand for skills not only across audit firms, but also across offices within an audit firm. More importantly, these differences in skill requirements have a significant effect on audit quality—specifically, audit offices that demand more social and cognitive skills are less likely to have clients experience subsequent restatements. Taken together, our findings provide new insights on the changing dynamics of the auditor labor market and their relations to audit quality

Flight testing and frequency domain analysis for rotorcraft handling qualities characteristics

A demonstration of frequency domain flight testing techniques and analyses was performed on a U.S. Army OH-58D helicopter in support of the OH-58D Airworthiness and Flight Characteristics Evaluation and the Army's development and ongoing review of Aeronautical Design Standard 33C, Handling Qualities Requirements for Military Rotorcraft. Hover and forward flight (60 knots) tests were conducted in 1 flight hour by Army experimental test pilots. Further processing of the hover data generated a complete database of velocity, angular rate, and acceleration frequency responses to control inputs. A joint effort was then undertaken by the Airworthiness Qualification Test Directorate (AQTD) and the U.S. Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate (AFDD) to derive handling qualities information from the frequency response database. A significant amount of information could be extracted from the frequency domain database using a variety of approaches. This report documents numerous results that have been obtained from the simple frequency domain tests; in many areas, these results provide more insight into the aircraft dynamics that affect handling qualities than to traditional flight tests. The handling qualities results include ADS-33C bandwidth and phase delay calculations, vibration spectral determinations, transfer function models to examine single axis results, and a six degree of freedom fully coupled state space model. The ability of this model to accurately predict aircraft responses was verified using data from pulse inputs. This report also documents the frequency-sweep flight test technique and data analysis used to support the tests

Identification of a novel resistance (E40F) and compensatory (K43E) substitution in HIV-1 reverse transcriptase

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>HIV-1 nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) have been used in the clinic for over twenty years. Interestingly, the complete resistance pattern to this class has not been fully elucidated. Novel mutations in RT appearing during treatment failure are still being identified. To unravel the role of two of these newly identified changes, E40F and K43E, we investigated their effect on viral drug susceptibility and replicative capacity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A large database (Quest Diagnostics database) was analysed to determine the associations of the E40F and K43E changes with known resistance mutations. Both amino acid changes are strongly associated with the well known NRTI-resistance mutations M41L, L210W and T215Y. In addition, a strong positive association between these changes themselves was observed. A panel of recombinant viruses was generated by site-directed mutagenesis and phenotypically analysed. To determine the effect on replication capacity, competition and <it>in vitro </it>evolution experiments were performed. Introduction of E40F results in an increase in Zidovudine resistance ranging from nine to fourteen fold depending on the RT background and at the same time confers a decrease in viral replication capacity. The K43E change does not decrease the susceptibility to Zidovudine but increases viral replication capacity, when combined with E40F, demonstrating a compensatory role for this codon change.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In conclusion, we have identified a novel resistance (E40F) and compensatory (K43E) change in HIV-1 RT. Further research is indicated to analyse the clinical importance of these changes.</p

Public involvement in the priority setting activities of a wait time management initiative: a qualitative case study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>As no health system can afford to provide all possible services and treatments for the people it serves, each system must set priorities. Priority setting decision makers are increasingly involving the public in policy making. This study focuses on public engagement in a key priority setting context that plagues every health system around the world: wait list management. The purpose of this study is to describe and evaluate priority setting for the Ontario Wait Time Strategy, with special attention to public engagement.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study was conducted at the Ontario Wait Time Strategy in Ontario, Canada which is part of a Federal-Territorial-Provincial initiative to improve access and reduce wait times in five areas: cancer, cardiac, sight restoration, joint replacements, and diagnostic imaging. There were two sources of data: (1) over 25 documents (e.g. strategic planning reports, public updates), and (2) 28 one-on-one interviews with informants (e.g. OWTS participants, MOHLTC representatives, clinicians, patient advocates). Analysis used a modified thematic technique in three phases: open coding, axial coding, and evaluation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The Ontario Wait Time Strategy partially meets the four conditions of 'accountability for reasonableness'. The public was not directly involved in the priority setting activities of the Ontario Wait Time Strategy. Study participants identified both benefits (supporting the initiative, experts of the lived experience, a publicly funded system and sustainability of the healthcare system) and concerns (personal biases, lack of interest to be involved, time constraints, and level of technicality) for public involvement in the Ontario Wait Time Strategy. Additionally, the participants identified concern for the consequences (sustainability, cannibalism, and a class system) resulting from the Ontario Wait Times Strategy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We described and evaluated a wait time management initiative (the Ontario Wait Time Strategy) with special attention to public engagement, and provided a concrete plan to operationalize a strategy for improving public involvement in this, and other, wait time initiatives.</p