Green tech manufacturing company: Fraud and the independent auditor

In this case, the student assumes the role of an auditor for an accounting firm on a privately-held client. A review of the income statement accounts leads to concerns about various expenses. Copies of cancelled checks provide more information and substantiate the concerns. Students apply the fraud triangle and consider the red flags of fraud in a realistic situation

Auditors\u27 responsibility for fraud detection: New wine in old bottles?

We observe a historical trend that standard setters often resort to issuing additional auditing standards as a response to restore public trust after widely publicized fraud. Despite the standard setters’ intention, auditors are generally poor at fraud detection. Auditors are not fraud examiners. We contend the failure of auditors to detect fraud is attributable to the differences in skill sets and task objectives between financial statement audits and fraud auditing. Our paper provides a brief overview of the changes in auditors’ responsibility for fraud detection over the years. We highlight the differences between auditors and forensic specialists based on prior literature and an expert panel. Without proper and adequate forensic training, expecting auditors to detect fraud is similar to pouring new wine into old bottles. We conclude by identifying changes in the current audit model and research opportunities that can be used to improve auditors’ fraud detection performances

Staff Auditors’ Observations of Questionable Peer Behavior: The View from the Other Side

This study classifies and reports public auditors’ observations of unethical behavior within their offices. Sixty-six of 238 survey respondents reported observing eighty instances of unethical behavior in their offices. The majority of behaviors are audit-related; although many are workplace related. Audit standards violations threaten audit quality, increasing litigation risk, while workplace behavior violations lead to demoralization and employee turnover, a significant threat given CPA firms’ focus on attracting and retaining qualified and talented professionals. Identification of these activities can help managers understand what types of activities that employees judge as unethical. With this knowledge, managers can begin to address employee concerns and work toward developing a positive organizational climate. Auditors, Ethics, Audit Quality, CPA Firm

A quasi-experimental assessment of interactive student response systems on student confidence, effort, and course performance

The interactive student response system (SRS), commonly referred to as ‘clickers,’ is an alternative learning method that has the potential to improve student course (i.e., quiz/examination) performance. Prior SRS studies both within accounting and other academic disciplines have found conflicting results as to its influence on student course performance. This quasi-experimental study re-examines the relationship between the use of an SRS and course performance. We also investigate how using SRS influences student confidence and time spent studying outside of class. Unlike prior SRS related studies, we tested both our SRS class and our control class (with no SRS) in the same academic semester with the same instructor to provide a higher degree of experimental control. Through doing so, we compared the benefit of immediate feedback achieved by SRS to the delayed feedback of traditional assessment formats. Higher in-class performance on multiple-choice quiz items was found for students using SRS versus those who did not use SRS; however, no significant differences in examination performance or overall course performance were noted between the two groups. Students using SRS reported being more confident in their abilities and spent less time preparing for the course outside of class, while maintaining similar overall course performance when compared to those who did not use the SRS. We conclude our study by providing areas of meaningful future research related to the use of SRS

An Experimental Examination of the Effects of Fraud Specialist and Audit Mindsets on Fraud Risk Assessments and on the Development of Fraud-Related Problem Representations

Fraud risk assessment is an important audit process that has a direct impact on the effectiveness of auditors' fraud detection in an audit. However, prior literature has shown that auditors are generally poor at assessing fraud risk. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) suggests that auditors may improve their fraud risk assessment performance by adopting a fraud specialist mindset. A fraud specialist mindset is a special way of thinking about accounting records. While auditors think about the company's recorded transactions in terms of the availability of supporting documentations and the authenticity of the audit trail, fraud specialists think instead of accounting records in terms of the authenticity of the events and activities that are behind the reported transactions. Currently there is no study that has examined the effects of the fraud specialist mindset on auditors' fraud risk assessment performance. In addition, although recent studies have found that fraud specialists are more sensitive than auditors in discerning fraud risk factors in situation where a high level of fraud risk is present, it remains unclear whether the same can be said for situation where the risk of fraud is low. Thus, the purpose of my dissertation is to examine the effects of fraud specialist and audit mindsets on fraud risk assessment performance. In addition, I examined such effects on fraud risk assessment performance in both high and low fraud risk conditions. The contributions of my dissertation include being the first to experimentally examine how different mindsets impact fraud-related judgment. The results of my study have the potential to help address the PCAOB's desire to improve auditors' fraud risk assessment performance though the adoption of the fraud specialist mindset. In addition, my study contributes to the literature by exploring fraud-related problem representation as a possible mediator of mindset on fraud risk assessment performance. I executed my dissertation by conducting an experiment in which mindset (fraud specialist or audit) was induced prior to the completion of an audit case (high or low in fraud risk). A total of 85 senior-level accounting students enrolled in two separate auditing classes participated in my study. The results from my experimental provide empirical support that it is possible to improve auditors' fraud risk assessment through adapting the fraud specialist mindset. My study also provides preliminary evidence that individuals with the fraud specialist mindset developed different problem representations than those with the audit mindset

How does an initial expectation bias influence auditors\u27 application and performance of analytical procedures?

Prior research demonstrates that knowledge of unaudited balances biases auditors\u27 expectations during analytical procedures. What is less understood is how these biases affect auditors\u27 subsequent investigations and their conclusions about the reasonableness of a particular balance. We employ the selective accessibility model to examine the differences in analytical procedure performance when auditor expectations are formed with versus without knowledge of the client\u27s unaudited financial statement balances. In an experimental setting, we found that auditors with knowledge of unaudited balances favored hypotheses and supporting information indicating that the client\u27s balance was reasonably stated. Auditors who formed expectations without current-year figures were more willing to evaluate competing alternatives, could better identify the most pertinent information, and were significantly more likely to identify a material misstatement using an analytical procedur

Assessing the sensitivity of multi-distance hsNIRS for measuring changes in oxCCO in the brain

A hybrid multi-distance hyperspectral near-infrared spectroscopy (hsNIRS) and diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) optical system was used to test transient changes in cytochrome c oxidase (oxCCO) in the brain during carotid compressions (CC) and hypercapnia

Genetic Evidence for Selective Transport of Opsin and Arrestin by Kinesin-II in Mammalian Photoreceptors

AbstractTo test whether kinesin-II is important for transport in the mammalian photoreceptor cilium, and to identify its potential cargoes, we used Cre-loxP mutagenesis to remove the kinesin-II subunit, KIF3A, specifically from photoreceptors. Complete loss of KIF3A caused large accumulations of opsin, arrestin, and membranes within the photoreceptor inner segment, while the localization of α-transducin was unaffected. Other membrane, organelle, and transport markers, as well as opsin processing appeared normal. Loss of KIF3A ultimately caused apoptotic photoreceptor cell death similar to a known opsin transport mutant. The data suggest that kinesin-II is required to transport opsin and arrestin from the inner to the outer segment and that blocks in this transport pathway lead to photoreceptor cell death as found in retinitis pigmentosa

A method for incorporating organ motion due to breathing into 3D dose calculations

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134856/1/mp8577.pd

Topological phase-fluctuations, amplitude fluctuations, and criticality in extreme type-II superconductors

We study the effect of critical fluctuations on the $(B,T)$ phase diagram in extreme type-II superconductors in zero and finite magnetic field using large-scale Monte Carlo simulations on the Ginzburg-Landau model in a frozen gauge approximation. We show that a vortex-loop unbinding gives a correct picture of the zero field superconducting-normal transition even in the presence of amplitude fluctuations, which are far from being critical at $T_c$. We extract critical exponents of the dual model by studying the topological excitations of the original model. From the vortex-loop distribution function we extract the anomalous dimension of the dual field $\eta \simeq -0.18$, and conclude that the charged Ginzburg-Landau model and the neutral 3DXY model belong to different universality classes. We find are two distinct scaling regimes for the vortex-line lattice melting line: a high-field scaling regime and a distinct low-field 3DXY critical scaling regime. We also find indications of an abrupt change in the connectivity of the vortex-tangle in the vortex liquid along a line $T_L \geq T_M$. This is the finite field counter-part of the zero-field vortex-loop blowout. Which at low enough fields appears to coincide with $T_M$. Here, a description of the vortex system only in terms of field induced vortex lines is inadequate at and above the VLL melting temperature.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figure