Auditor Tenure & the Ability to Meet or Beat Earnings Forecasts

We examine the relation between auditor tenure and a firm\u27s ability to use discretionary accruals to meet or beat analysts\u27 earnings forecasts. We find evidence over the period 1988-2006 that firms with both short and long tenure are more likely to report levels of discretionary accruals that allow them to meet or beat earnings forecasts. These results suggest that while regulatory mandates for periodic auditor turnover have negative effects, sustained long-term auditor-client relationships may also be detrimental to audit quality. Further, although we observe a positive relation between tenure and the use of discretionary accruals to meet or beat earnings in the pre-Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) period, we do not observe such a relation in the post-SOX period. This latter finding is consistent with regulatory reforms and heightened scrutiny of financial reporting in the post-SOX period resulting in less aggressive efforts at managing earnings by client firms and/or increased diligence on the part of auditors. These findings may not generalize to firms that are not covered by analysts, because these firms do not face the same public pressure to manage earnings in order to meet or beat expectations. © CAAA

The Potential of Drone Technology in Pandemics

Publisher PD

Diagnosing health in composite battery electrodes with explainable deep learning and partial charging data

Lithium-ion batteries with composite anodes of graphite and silicon are increasingly being used. However, their degradation pathways are complicated due to the blended nature of the electrodes, with graphite and silicon degrading at different rates. Here, we develop a deep learning health diagnostic framework to rapidly quantify and separate the different degradation rates of graphite and silicon in composite anodes using partial charging data. The convolutional neural network (CNN), trained with synthetic data, uses experimental partial charging data to diagnose electrode-level health of tested batteries, with errors of less than 3.1% (corresponding to the loss of active material reaching ∼75%). Sensitivity analysis of the capacity-voltage curve under different degradation modes is performed to provide a physically informed voltage window for diagnostics with partial charging data. By using the gradient-weighted class activation mapping approach, we provide explainable insights into how these CNNs work; highlighting regions of the voltage-curve to which they are most sensitive. Robustness is validated by introducing noise to the data, with no significant negative impact on the diagnostic accuracy for noise levels below 10 mV, thus highlighting the potential for deep learning approaches in the diagnostics of lithium-ion battery performance under real-world conditions. The framework presented here can be generalised to other cell formats and chemistries, providing robust and explainable battery diagnostics for both conventional single material electrodes, but also the more challenging composite electrodes.</p

Fundamental of Entrepreneurship ENT300 : HotSandwichPort Cafe/ Mohd Fitri Abdul Taib... [et al.]

The business plan is based on partnership where it is consists of four members, Mr. Mohd Fitri Bin Abdul Taib as General Manager and Administration Manager, Mr. Gregory Ghause Ak Valentine as Marketing Manager, Mr. Johanes Paul Ak Ganya as Operational Manager and Mr. Billy Agglan Robert Galang as Financial Manager. We have decide that to establish our company which is HotSandwichPort Cafe at 1st floor, Jalan Wawasan, Bandar Baru Mukah, 96400, Mukah, Sarawak. We choose this location because it is easy and accessible for customer to come to our cafe and decrease the number of competition among others cafe. By choosing the strategic location, it will lead to the increasing sales and profits of the business. For choosing this location it might be easy for us to reach our target market in order to achieve the objective. HotSandwichPort Cafe will be commences on the st 1 January 2019. In our "HotSandwichPort Cafe", we providing a product, type of fast food product which is sandwich. Apart from that, our company have offer service by providing a comfortable environment, good customer service and fast delivery to customer's order. We choose this business because it have a chance and potential to success in future and gain more profit. Lastly, our vision is to be the best among the best cafe and to be well known among people and achieve worldwide market. By that it is important for the operation of the business to operate effectively and efficiently to satisfied customer needs and want. Every managers holds their own roles to make sure HotSandwichPort Cafe are able to operate well and gain trust and positive feedback from customers

Module design and fault diagnosis in electric vehicle batteries

Systems integration issues, such as electrical and thermal design and management of full battery packs - often containing hundreds of cells - have been rarely explored in the academic literature. In this paper we discuss the design and construction of a 9 kWh battery pack for a motorsports application. The pack contained 504 lithium cells arranged into 2 sidepods, each containing 3 modules, with each module in a 12P7S configuration. This paper focuses particularly on testing the full battery pack and diagnosing subsequent problems related to cells being connected in parallel. We demonstrate how a full vehicle test can be used to identify malfunctioning strings of cells for further investigation. After individual cell testing it was concluded that a single high inter-cell contact resistance was causing currents to flow unevenly within the pack, leading to cells being unequally worked. This is supported by a Matlab/Simulink model of one battery module, including contact resistances. Over time the unequal current flowing through cells can lead to significant differences in cells' state of charge and open circuit voltages, large currents flowing between cells even when the load is disconnected, cells discharging and aging more quickly than others, and jeopardise capacity and lifetime of the pack

Reduced cognitive deficits after FLASH irradiation of whole mouse brain are associated with less hippocampal dendritic spine loss and neuroinflammation

Aim To evaluate the impact of ultra-rapid FLASH mouse whole brain irradiation on hippocampal dendritic spines and neuroinflammation, factors associated with cognitive impairment after brain irradiation. Methods We administered 30 Gy whole brain irradiation to C57BL6/J mice in sub-second (FLASH) vs. 240 s conventional delivery time keeping all other parameters constant, using a custom configured clinical linac. Ten weeks post-irradiation, we evaluated spatial and non-spatial object recognition using novel object location and object recognition testing. We measured dendritic spine density by tracing Golgi-stained hippocampal neurons and evaluated neuroinflammation by CD68 immunostaining, a marker of activated microglia, and expression of 10 pro-inflammatory cytokines using a multiplex immunoassay. Results At ten weeks post-irradiation, compared to unirradiated controls, conventional delivery time irradiation significantly impaired novel object location and recognition tasks whereas the same dose given in FLASH delivery did not. Conventional delivery time, but not FLASH, was associated with significant loss of dendritic spine density in hippocampal apical dendrites, with a similar non-significant trend in basal dendrites. Conventional delivery time was associated with significantly increased CD68-positive microglia compared to controls whereas FLASH was not. Conventional delivery time was associated with significant increases in 5 of 10 pro-inflammatory cytokines in the hippocampus (and non-significant increases in another 3), whereas FLASH was associated with smaller increases in only 3. Conclusion Reduced cognitive impairment and associated neurodegeneration were observed with FLASH compared to conventional delivery time irradiation, potentially through decreased induction of neuroinflammation, suggesting a promising approach to increasing therapeutic index in radiation therapy of brain tumors