The Future of Corporate Reporting: Integrated Reporting

In the today’s business world, it is inevitable to be affected by the rapid changes in terms of companies. Without doubt that the current reporting practices have been impressed by changes as well. Though all stakeholders want to be informed more in a simplest way, many stand-alone and genuinely long reports have been still prepared by companies to demonstrate their financial and non-financial outcomes. However, it is inadequate to assess them separately to see entire story. Additionally, creating value side of current reports are still being debated. Therefore, corporate reporting must move a step forward to express more with less, which called as “Integrated Reporting” (IR) that combines the all pieces of puzzle. It isn’t only integrated both financial and non-financial knowledge into a single and brief report, but also integrated thinking of all aspects of businesses in terms of creating value over time. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to emphasize advancements in corporate reporting towards the IR. Also, it aims to explain its meaning, main aspects, and effect on the business environment. Today, companies should comply with IR, and this study is essential to contribute to the literature, subsequent studies, and companies and organization.   Keywords: Corporate Reporting, Integrated Reporting JEL Classification Codes: M40, M4

BioID: a Privacy-Friendly Identity Document

We design a suite of protocols so that a small tamper-resistant device can be used as a biometric identity document which can be scanned by authorized terminals. We target both strongly secure identification and strong privacy. Unlike biometric passports, our protocols leak no digital evidence and are essentially deniable. Besides, getting the identity information from the device requires going through access control. Access control can follow either a strong PKI-based path or a weak password-based path which offer different functionalities. We implemented our protocols on JavaCard using finger-vein recognition as a proof of concept

Evaluation of nutritional status in pediatric intensive care unit patients: the results of a multicenter, prospective study in Turkey

IntroductionMalnutrition is defined as a pathological condition arising from deficient or imbalanced intake of nutritional elements. Factors such as increasing metabolic demands during the disease course in the hospitalized patients and inadequate calorie intake increase the risk of malnutrition. The aim of the present study is to evaluate nutritional status of patients admitted to pediatric intensive care units (PICU) in Turkey, examine the effect of nutrition on the treatment process and draw attention to the need for regulating nutritional support of patients while continuing existing therapies.Material and MethodIn this prospective multicenter study, the data was collected over a period of one month from PICUs participating in the PICU Nutrition Study Group in Turkey. Anthropometric data of the patients, calorie intake, 90-day mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, length of hospital stay and length of stay in intensive care unit were recorded and the relationship between these parameters was examined.ResultsOf the 614 patients included in the study, malnutrition was detected in 45.4% of the patients. Enteral feeding was initiated in 40.6% (n = 249) of the patients at day one upon admission to the intensive care unit. In the first 48 h, 86.82% (n = 533) of the patients achieved the target calorie intake, and 81.65% (n = 307) of the 376 patients remaining in the intensive care unit achieved the target calorie intake at the end of one week. The risk of mortality decreased with increasing upper mid-arm circumference and triceps skin fold thickness Z-score (OR = 0.871/0.894; p = 0.027/0.024). The risk of mortality was 2.723 times higher in patients who did not achieve the target calorie intake at first 48 h (p = 0.006) and the risk was 3.829 times higher in patients who did not achieve the target calorie intake at the end of one week (p = 0.001). The risk of mortality decreased with increasing triceps skin fold thickness Z-score (OR = 0.894; p = 0.024).ConclusionTimely and appropriate nutritional support in critically ill patients favorably affects the clinical course. The results of the present study suggest that mortality rate is higher in patients who fail to achieve the target calorie intake at first 48 h and day seven of admission to the intensive care unit. The risk of mortality decreases with increasing triceps skin fold thickness Z-score

Determination of L X-ray fluorescence parameters for Ho, Lu, W, Hg and Bi

In this work, L X-ray fluorescence cross sections, L sub-shell fluorescence yields and level widths and radiative vacancy transfer probabilities of L sub-shells to Mi, Ni and Oi sub-shells were measured for the elements Ho, Lu, W, Hg and Bi. Energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) technique was used to measure L X-ray photons. To obtain related parameters, we used 59.54keV gamma photons of 241Am radioactive point source. Emitted L X-ray photons from targets were collected by means of a Si(Li) detector with resolution of 180eV at 5.9keV. The present results are generally in a good agreement with theoretical calculations and the other results obtained in the literature, within their range considering experimental uncertainty