Audit exemption and the demand for voluntary audit: A comparative study of the UK and Denmark

This is the accepted version of the following article: Collis, J. (2010), Audit Exemption and the Demand for Voluntary Audit: A Comparative Study of the UK and Denmark. International Journal of Auditing, 14: 211–231, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1099-1123.2010.00415.x/abstract.This study investigates the sufficiency of turnover as a surrogate for demand for voluntary audit and compares the determinants in the UK and Denmark. Empirical data for the study were drawn from government surveys of the directors of small private companies in both countries, which were based on the same research instrument, Bivariate tests support the hypothesised effects of turnover and a range of firm-specific factors suggested by economic rationality and agency theory. The main contribution of the study is the finding that turnover alone is not a sufficient surrogate for the costs and benefits of audit. The main predictors are turnover and a slightly different combination of management and agency factors in each country. The study provides a model that can be tested in other jurisdictions and its findings should be of interest to the accountancy profession and national regulators planning to introduce or revise audit exemption for small companies

Metabolic characteristics and genomic epidemiology of Escherichia coli serogroup O145 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Microbiology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are a global public health concern, and can cause severe human disease. Ruminants are asymptomatic reservoirs of STEC, shedding this pathogen via their faeces. There is ‘zero tolerance’ for the Top 7 STEC serogroups (O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145 and O157) in ground beef products exported to the USA. STEC may contaminate carcasses during processing and therefore are a major regulatory concern for New Zealand’s meat industry. A previous study investigating the prevalence of STEC in young calves (n=1508) throughout New Zealand identified STEC O145 as the most prevalent serogroup (43%) at the dairy farm level compared to the other Top 7 serogroups. This high prevalence underlines STEC O145 as a public health concern and an issue for the meat industry. Current culture-based methods for STEC detection are not fully discriminatory due to the lack of consistent differential characteristics between STEC and non-pathogenic E. coli. This study aims to (i) investigate metabolic characteristics of E. coli O145 to facilitate the differential culture of this serogroup and (ii) understand the genomic epidemiology of E. coli O145 using whole genome sequencing (WGS). E. coli O145 strains examined in this study were genetically and metabolically diverse, according to carbon utilisation. The metabolic and genomic analyses were unable to differentiate between stx-positive and stx-negative O145 strains and there was no association with isolation source. However, clustering of O145 strains was observed according to multi-locus sequence type and at the level of eae subtype, a gene encoding the protein intimin which is involved in bacterial attachment to intestinal epithelial cells. Carbon substrates such as D-serine and D-malic acid were identified as candidate metabolites to differentiate defined O145 sequence types and may assist with identification in conjunction with currently available molecular methods. This research has demonstrated the genetic heterogeneity of serogroup O145 and has made significant progress in the identification of metabolites that may prove beneficial in the development of a differential media for certain subsets of serogroup O145. Such a medium would prove a valuable tool for maintaining and monitoring public health and providing food quality and safety assurances that New Zealand meat for export is free of this pathogen

Allocation of Manpower

In this study, the heat recovery from exhaust gas at the ACE Power Embilipitiya (Pvt) Ltd (APE) in Sri Lanka was conceptually proposed and evaluated. APE has an installed capacity of 100 MW comprising 14 units of 7.5MW medium speed diesel engines fired with heavy fuel oil. There is only a minimum recovery of waste heat in the plant at the moment, only for fuel preheating, whereas waste heat recovery (WHR) boilers of 750kWth are equipped on eight engines. The larger portion of the waste heat is dumped into the environment without being used in any reasonable way. The objective of this work was to design a HRSG system for the remaining six engines to recover maximum possible heat from the exhaust gas and select a suitable steam turbine according to the heat demand capacity of the proposed HRSG, for generating additional power and thus converting the APE plant into a sort of a combined cycle. At the initial stage of the investigation, the amount of recoverable waste heat was estimated by evaluating the known parameters of the engines at fully loaded condition. The maximum theoretical waste heat recovery potential from the exhaust gas stream of one engine was calculated as 9807.87 MJ/h, equivalent to a heat rate of 2724.4 kW. The modelling and optimization of the proposed HRSG was done using the Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software, considering technical and practical limitations such as pinch point temperature difference, approach point temperature difference, terminal temperature difference and sulphur dew point in the stack. A commercially available steam turbine with a power output of 3.579 MW was selected as the optimum steam turbine for the desired conditions, utilising 12884.4 MJ/h of recovered waste energy amounting to 21.89% of the total available energy in the flue gas

Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands

A report, in the form of a long poem, on the author\u27s participation in the 5th annual Tar Sands Healing Walk, organized by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, in Fort McMurray Alberta

Educational software reflecting two philosophical approaches to ethics education

Ethics education can vary considerably in its instructional strategies based on differences in the theoretical positions underlying the approach to moral development being stressed. Two such approaches are the 'justice' approach as exemplified by Kohlberg's six stages of moral development, and the 'care ethic' approach as exemplified by Gilligan's work on empathy as a base for moral decision-making. Each of these approaches can be demonstrated through different instructional strategies in the ethics education course, but each strategy is often difficult to execute in practice, given time and resource constraints

Desktop multimedia environments to support collaborative distance learning

Desktop multimedia conferencing, when two or more persons can communicate among themselves via personal computers with the opportunity to see and hear one another as well as communicate via text messages while working with commonly available stored resources, appears to have important applications to the support of collaborative learning. In this paper we explore this potential in three ways: (a) through an analysis of particular learner needs when learning and working collaboratively with others outside of face-to-face situations; (b) through an analysis of different forms of conferencing environments, including desktop multimedia environments, relative to their effectiveness in terms of meeting learner needs for distributed collaboration; and (c) through reporting the results of a formative evaluation of a prototype desktop multimedia conferencing system developed especially for the support of collaborative learning. Via these analyses, suggestions are offered relating to the functionalities of desktop multimedia conferencing systems for the support of collaborative learning, reflecting new developments in both the technologies available for such systems and in our awareness of learner needs when working collaboratively with one other outside of face-to-face situations

Rapid prototyping as a faculty-wide activity: An innovative approach to the redesign of courses and instructional medthods at the University of Twente

At the Faculty of Educational Science and Technology (Toegepaste Onderwijskunde, T.O.) of the University of Twente a revolutionary process of institutional change is occurring. Under the banner of C@MPUS+, we have made a commitment to blend the best of our old values of good teaching and an attractive campus life with new didactics and advanced technologies so that we can extend our already unique curriculum and instructional practice over distance and time, as well as enrich it