Regulatory Changes in Accounting for Goodwill and Intangible Assets: A Study of Their First Impact on European Companies Listed on US Markets

In July 2001 the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued the Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (SFAS) no. 141 on Business Combinations and the Statement no. 142 on Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets. Prior to the issuance of SFAS 141, business combinations were to be accounted for using one of the two methods prescribed by the APB Opinion no. 16, that allowed the use of either the pooling-of-interests method or the purchase method. Following the new US rules, business combinations are now to be accounted for using only the latter method. Further, a detailed breakdown of goodwill into its component intangibles is now required. SFAS 142 has been issued to supersede APB Opinion no. 17 on Intangibles. It requires goodwill to be no longer amortised but subject to an annual two-step impairment test. Accordingly, intangibles with finite useful lives will still be capitalised and amortised over their economic useful life, while intangible assets with indefinite lives will be tested annually for impairment. The standard also requires an increased disclosure on goodwill and intangible assets that was not previously required. The aim of the study is to analyse the impact these regulatory changes are producing on net income and shareholders’ equity of European companies listed on US financial markets that for the first time in 2002 had to prepare their consolidated accounts according to these two new standards, due to the requirement imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on foreign registrants to reconcile their annual accounts with US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The relevance of this topic is linked to the prospective adoption by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) of an approach to accounting for goodwill which should be similar to the new US rules. As a consequence of the 2002 EU regulation requiring the use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by the listed European companies for their consolidated accounts from 2005, the above US rules will then de facto become extended also to the EU context. The empirical analysis considers all the 292 European companies listed on Nyse and Nasdaq preparing a reconciliation - included in the so called Form 20-F - between their domestic and the US-based financial results. The methodology followed uses the comparability index (Gray, 1980; Weetman and Gray, 1990, 1991) both in its global and partial version. In addition to the measurement of the quantitative impact of the new US standards on European companies’ financial results, an examination of the statistical distance on this subject matter between US GAAP and IFRS will also be offered. The expectation of an alignment between US GAAP and other national accounting principles taken into consideration is partially confirmed, particularly between US and UK GAAP. A further contribution of the paper is the analysis of the amount of disclosure released by European companies in US markets with reference to the new treatment of goodwill and its component parts

Driving questions and flowcharts

Although interest in pancreatic pathology is very high in the radiological and gastroenterological communities, it is still the case that less is known about pathology of the pancreas than about liver pathology, for example. Diagnosis depends on the structure of the pancreatic lesion, which can be directly visualized on US, CT or MR images. This atlas, which encompasses both the imaging and the pathology of pancreatic neoplasms, will therefore be invaluable in enabling radiologists and sonographers to understand the underlying pathology and in allowing pancreatic pathologists to understand the imaging translation. The emphasis in the atlas is very much on the pathological and imaging appearances, with most of the text concentrated at the beginning of the chapters. A comprehensive overview is provided of typical and atypical presentations and diverse aspects of common and uncommon pancreatic neoplasms, including ductal adenocarcinoma, neuroendocrine neoplasms, intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms, cystic neoplasms, metastases and lymphoma

Authenticated Timing Protocol Based on Galileo ACAS

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) provide accurate positioning and timing services in a large gamut of sectors, including financial institutions, Industry 4.0, and Internet of things (IoT). Any industrial system involving multiple devices interacting and/or coordinating their functionalities needs accurate, dependable, and trustworthy time synchronization, which can be obtained by using authenticated GNSS signals. However, GNSS vulnerabilities to time-spoofing attacks may cause security issues for their applications. Galileo is currently developing new services aimed at providing increased security and robustness against attacks, such as the open service navigation message authentication (OS-NMA) and commercial authentication service (CAS). In this paper, we propose a robust and secure timing protocol that is independent of external time sources, and solely relies on assisted commercial authentication service (ACAS) and OS-NMA features. We analyze the performance of the proposed timing protocol and discuss its security level in relation to malicious attacks. Lastly, experimental tests were conducted to validate the proposed protocol

Acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging in the pre-operative liver function evaluation in patients candidate to liver resection

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A rare case of incidental pancreatic arteriovenous malformation correctly diagnosed with MDCT

Pancreatic arteriovenous malformations are a rare entity that can be incidentally discovered during MDCT examinations

Autoimmune pancreatitis: Multimodality non-invasive imaging diagnosis

Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is characterized by obstructive jaundice, a dramatic clinical response to steroids and pathologically by a lymphoplasmacytic infiltrate, with or without a pancreatic mass. Type 1 AIP is the pancreatic manifestation of an IgG4-related systemic disease and is characterized by elevated IgG4 serum levels, infiltration of IgG4-positive plasma cells and extrapancreatic lesions. Type 2 AIP usually has none or very few IgG4-positive plasma cells, no serum IgG4 elevation and appears to be a pancreas-specific disorder without extrapancreatic involvement. AIP is diagnosed in approximately 2%-6% of patients that undergo pancreatic resection for suspected pancreatic cancer. There are three patterns of autoimmune pancreatitis: diffuse disease is the most common type, with a diffuse, "sausage-like" pancreatic enlargement with sharp margins and loss of the lobular contours; focal disease is less common and manifests as a focal mass, often within the pancreatic head, mimicking a pancreatic malignancy. Multifocal involvement can also occur. In this paper we describe the features of AIP at ultrasonography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography/computed tomography imaging, focusing on diagnosis and differential diagnosis with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. It is of utmost importance to make an early correct differential diagnosis between these two diseases in order to identify the optimal therapeutic strategy and to avoid unnecessary laparotomy or pancreatic resection in AIP patients. Non-invasive imaging plays also an important role in therapy monitoring, in follow-up and in early identification of disease recurrence

Acoustic radiation force impulse with shear wave speed quantification of pancreatic masses: A prospective study

Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) is a new ultrasound technique that evaluates mechanical properties of tissues. To evaluate the use of ARFI with shear waves speed quantification for pancreatic masses characterization during the ultrasound examination

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound of pancreatic tumours

Indication/purpose: To review contrast-enhanced ultrasound features of the most common pancreatic tumours. Methods: Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) can provide distinctive features of pancreatic tumours that are reported in the present paper, providing radiologic-pathological correlations and clarifying the main differential diagnosis. Conclusion: Contrast-enhanced ultrasound plays a well-established role in the evaluation of pancreatic tumours. When possible, CEUS should be always performed after the initial US diagnosis, in order to improve the accuracy of the first line examination

Malignant focal liver lesions at contrast-enhanced ultrasonography and magnetic resonance with hepatospecific contrast agent

The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of the late phase of CEUS and the hepatobiliary phase of CE-MR with Gd-BOPTA in the characterization of focal liver lesions in terms of benignity and malignancy. A total of 147 solid focal liver lesions (38 focal nodular hyperplasias, 1 area of focal steatosis, 3 regenerative nodules, 8 adenomas, 11 cholangiocarcinomas, 36 hepatocellular carcinomas and 49 metastases) were retrospectively evaluated in a multicentre study, both with CEUS, using sulphur hexafluoride microbubbles (SonoVue, Bracco, Milan, Italy) and CE-MR, performed with Gd-BOPTA (Multihance, Bracco, Milan, Italy). All lesions thought to be malignant were cytohistologically proven, while all lesions thought to be benign were followed up. Sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values and accuracy were calculated for the late phase of CEUS and the hepatobiliary phase of CE-MRI, respectively, and in combination. Analysis of data revealed 42 benign and 105 malignant focal liver lesions. We postulated that all hypoechoic/hypointense lesions on the two phases were malignant. The diagnostic errors were 13/147 (8.8%) by CEUS and 12/147 (8.2%) by CE-MR. Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy of the late phase of CEUS were 90%, 93%, 97%, 80% and 91%, 93%, 97%, 81% and 92% for the hepatobiliary phase of CE-MRI, respectively. If we considered both techniques, the misdiagnosis diminished to 3/147 (2%) and sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy were 98%, 98%, 99%, 95% and 98%. The combination of the late phase of CEUS and the hepatobiliary phase of CE-MR in the characterization of solid focal liver lesions in terms of benignity and malignancy is more accurate than the two techniques used separately