How numeracy mediates cash flow format preferences: A worldwide study

688 students from 9 countries on 5 continents participated in this research. The objective was to ascertain what effects, if any, using the direct or indirect format for the operating activities section of the cash flow statement has, if any, on a loan decision and on the ratings of various attributes of the cash flow statement. Students were pretested on their accounting skills with a few simple calculations, then asked to make the loan decision and finally requested to give their opinion of the financial statements in general and of the statement of cash flows in particular. Format had only a minor effect on the loan decision itself but significantly more favorable comments on user friendliness were received on the direct format than on the indirect. Significant differences were found, however, as regards the loan decisions between the students who had correctly done the calculations and those who had not, to such a degree that the effects of innumeracy became the main contribution to knowledge of this research. We find that the ability to perform accurate calculations, a fundamental foundation of financial numeracy, has an effect on financial decision making that has been ignored in previous studies of financial statement users and uses. This has significant implications for accounting and investing practice, and opens up an important field of research in accounting which can learn from what has already been studied on the effects of innumeracy in the health management field

Microstructure and texture of electrodeposited nanocrystalline nickel in the as-deposited state and after in-situ and ex-situ annealing

The microstructure and texture characteristics of electrodeposited nanocrystalline nickel have been investigated in the present work. The material has been studied both in an as-received state and after in-situ and ex-situ annealing. The ASTAR automated crystal orientation mapping in a transmission electron microscope complemented by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) has been used in the investigation. The as-deposited material consisted of nanograins interspersed with coarser (sub)grain clusters, arranged in large mesoscale colonies and characterized by a dominant 〈001〉 fiber texture aligned with the deposition direction (DD). A large fraction of nanograin/cluster boundaries displayed a low-coincidence site lattice (low Σ) or twin character. The EBSD study confirmed the previously suggested presence of the “cobblestone”-type mesotexture, characterized by a local 〈001〉 fiber axis approximately perpendicular to the hemispherical growth surface of a mesoscale colony. The (sub)grain clusters contained low-angle boundaries and displayed large misorientation gradients; nevertheless, their orientations did not statistically differ from the surrounding nanograins. They did not serve as nuclei for the abnormal grain growth observed during annealing. The 〈001〉//DD to 〈111〉//DD fiber texture transition occurring during annealing did not result from the growth of pre-existing suitably oriented nuclei. Instead, copious twinning occurring along the migration front of the abnormally growing grains appeared to be primarily responsible for the above transition

Microstructures and Stabilization Mechanisms of Nanocrystalline Iron-Chromium Alloys with Hafnium Addition

The low thermal stability of nanocrystalline metals severely limits their applications at high temperatures. In this study, we investigate the nanocrystalline stabilization mechanisms for Fe-14Cr alloys with 1, 2, and 4 at. pct Hf addition at 1173 K (900 °C). Microstructural characterizations using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy reveal high density of HfO2 nanoparticles with sizes of ~4 nm dispersed throughout the ferritic matrix. This indicates that kinetic stabilization by HfO2 nanoparticle pinning is primarily responsible for the observed high thermal stability. In addition, some Hf and Cr segregation on grain boundaries is observed in the Fe-14Cr-4Hf, suggesting the existence of thermodynamic stabilization at high Hf content. Second-phase precipitations such as hafnium carbide, M23C6, and Fe-Cr-Hf intermetallic phase are also found in the Fe-14Cr-4Hf, but their large sizes and inter-spacing suggest that their contribution to stabilization is minimal