PCAOB Inspections and Market Repercussions; Is There A Relationship?

This study tests whether the PCAOB achieves its goals of issuing inspection reports that provide meaningful and value-adding information for external investment decisions, as measured by investor reaction. The study measures informative value by examining cumulative abnormal stock returns of all companies that had an auditor inspected in 2012. Also tested was \u27Big Four\u27 versus other annually inspected firms, as well as 12 significant industries. This study provides statistical evidence that investors respond to PCAOB inspection reports, the responses of which are typically positive. These results demonstrate that investors recognize inspection reports as value-relevant, and consquently use them to make informed investment decisions

The Relevance of Relevance: Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and the NSA Metadata Collection Program

In June 2013, a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, Edward Snowden, leaked classified documents exposing a number of secret government programs. Among these programs was the “telephony metadata” collection program under which the government collects records from phone companies containing call record data for nearly every American. News of this program created considerable controversy and led to a wave of litigation contesting the validity of the program. The legality of the metadata collection program has been challenged on both constitutional and statutory grounds. The program derives its authority from Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, codified as 50 U.S.C. § 1861. The statute requires that there be reasonable grounds to believe the data collected is “relevant to an authorized investigation.” The government deems all these records “relevant” based on the fact that they are used to find patterns and connections in preventing terrorist activity. Critics of the program, however, assert that billions of records cannot possibly be relevant when a negligible portion of those records are actually linked to terrorist activity. This Note examines the conflicting interpretations of “relevant,” and concludes that while the current state of the law permits bulk data collection, the power of the NSA to collect records on such a large scale must be reined in

School Choice in the District of Columbia: Saving Taxpayers Money, Increasing Opportunities for Children

Members of Congress and President Bush have put forth proposals that would establish school voucher programs in the District of Columbia. Those programs would allow pupils to use vouchers to attend the parochial or private school of their parents' choice. Could private schools increase the range of academic options in the nation's capital by educating students currently attending District of Columbia public schools? An analysis of the private and parochial schools in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area reveals the following: Private schools in Washington and sur-rounding areas charge less on average than the D.C. public school system spends per pupil.The D.C. public school system, which has suffered from overspending and budget deficits in the last few years, could find its enrollment reduced by almost 10 percent as a result of a voucher program.Private schools in Washington could immediately accommodate about 2,925 students now attending public or charter schools. Allowing all independent and parochial schools in the Washington metro area to participate in a school choice program could add almost 3,500 more spaces, since there are more than 6,000 seats available in local, nonpublic schools

"Improving Irish Bus Markets: But not by Competition Alone"

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Spectral Characteristic Evolution: A New Algorithm for Gravitational Wave Propagation

We present a spectral algorithm for solving the full nonlinear vacuum Einstein field equations in the Bondi framework. Developed within the Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC), we demonstrate spectral characteristic evolution as a technical precursor to Cauchy Characteristic Extraction (CCE), a rigorous method for obtaining gauge-invariant gravitational waveforms from existing and future astrophysical simulations. We demonstrate the new algorithm's stability, convergence, and agreement with existing evolution methods. We explain how an innovative spectral approach enables a two orders of magnitude improvement in computational efficiency.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure

Use of Portable Piloting Units by Maritime Pilots

The use of electronic navigation equipment onboard maritime vessels continues to increase, worldwide. The results of a recent Canadian study provide clear evidence that maritime pilots know what types of equipment to use -- and how to use them

Harmonic sets and the harmonic prime number theorem

We restrict primes and prime powers to sets H(x)= U∞n=1 (x/2n, x/(2n-1)). Let θH(x)= ∑ pεH(x)log p. Then the error in θH(x) has, unconditionally, the expected order of magnitude θH (x)= xlog2 + O(√x). However, if ψH(x)= ∑pmε H(x) log p then ψH(x)= xlog2+ O(log x). Some reasons for and consequences of these sharp results are explored. A proof is given of the “harmonic prime number theorem” π H(x)/ π(x) → log2

Optically-controlled platforms for transfection and single- and sub-cellular surgery

Improving the resolution of biological research to the single- or sub-cellular level is of critical importance in a wide variety of processes and disease conditions. Most obvious are those linked to aging and cancer, many of which are dependent upon stochastic processes where individual, unpredictable failures or mutations in individual cells can lead to serious downstream conditions across the whole organism. The traditional tools of biochemistry struggle to observe such processes: the vast majority are based upon ensemble approaches analysing the properties of bulk populations, which means that the detail about individual constituents is lost. What are required, then, are tools with the precision and resolution to probe and dissect cells at the single-micron scale: the scale of the individual organelles and structures that control their function. In this review, we highlight the use of highly-focused laser beams to create systems providing precise control and specificity at the single cell or even single micron level. The intense focal points generated can directly interact with cells and cell membranes, which in conjunction with related modalities such as optical trapping provide a broad platform for the development of single and sub-cellular surgery approaches. These highly tuneable tools have demonstrated delivery or removal of material from cells of interest, but can simultaneously excite fluorescent probes for imaging purposes or plasmonic structures for very local heating. We discuss both the history and recent applications of the field, highlighting the key findings and developments over the last 40 years of biophotonics researc