On the design of an XML-schema based application for business reporting : an XBRL schema perspective

A markup language for business reporting must satisfy many demanding criteria: readable by novices, extendable by users, minimum payload overheads, and a uniform graph structure to enable validation of document instance with minimal programming effort. To be elegant and robust it must be based on a model that reflects the intricacies of business reporting, and to be efficient in terms of maintenance it must be modular in structure. We suggest the skeleton of a derivative of the XBRL that exhibits most of the criteria stated above which uses the basic semantic structure provided in its specification and the associated C&I taxonomy. Our proposal provides domain-specific tags so that even the source documents are very readable. We provide a proof-of-concept schema for the Balance Sheet (using the XBRL C&I taxonomy) as an instance of a canonical generic labeled graph model for any financial statement. We also provide an algorithm for the validation of such labeled directed graph representation of a financial statement and its implementation in the programming language Java.Un idioma de referencia para el registro de asuntos de negocios debe cumplir con ciertos criterios: que sea entendible por los novatos, extensible entre los usuarios, con un coste mínimo, y una estructura uniforme para permitir la validación de documentos con un coste de programación mínimo. Para que sea elegante y robusto debe estar basado en un modelo que refleje las necesidades del informe de negocios, y para ser eficientes en términos de mantenimiento debe tener una estructura modular. Proponemos el esqueleto de un derivado del XBRL que cumple con la mayor parte de los requerimientos mostrados arriba, y que usa una semántica básica proveniente de la taxonomía C&I. Nuestra propuesta proporciona etiquetas de dominio específico de forma que hasta los documentos que se usen como fuente sean fáciles de leer. Proporcionamos un esquema del concepto de prueba para la Hoja de Balanzas (usando la taxonomía XBRL C&I) como instancia de modelo genérico etiquetado como modelo gráfico para cualquier conclusión financiera. También proporcionamos un algoritmo de validación que sirve a la representación gráfica directa y su implementación al lenguaje Java de programación

Comments on "Towards an Understanding of the Philosophical Foundations for Ethical Development of Audit Expert Systems"

Introduction In his 1749 essay on the question Has the Progress of the Sciences and the Arts Contributed to Corrupt, or to Purify, Morals?, the French philosopher Rousseau 1 observed that it was a saying among philosophers that since learned men had appeared, honest men were nowhere to be found. He was obviously rebelling against the Age of Reason in which Berkeley had destroyed matter, Hume had destroyed mind, and both science and religion were about to fall victim to scepticism. Now that learned auditors-on-a-disk have surfaced, will the skills of `honestto -goodness' auditors diminish or become extinct? This is the spectre, raised by Mitroff & Mason (1989), of which the authors seem willing observers. We can draw an analogy to Rousseau in characterizing 1 Cited in Durant (1961) it as a backlash to the hoopla surrounding grossly exaggerated lucrative commercia

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles: Perspectives From Philosophy of Law.

This paper examines the nature of generally accepted accounting principles from the viewpoint of the philosophy of law (or jurisprudence). It shows that the dominance of a form of utilitarian legal positivism in accounting thought, at least in the United States, has inhibited the development of accounting principles which promote fair financial reporting. Key words: accounting principles, fairness, jurisprudence, philosophy of law, positivism in accounting. Running Title: GAAP: Perspectives from Philosophy of Law. 1 Introduction The generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or their constituent parts have been subjected in the accounting literature to intensive analysis inspired by theories in economics, history, psychology and sociology. Debates that subject them to analysis from the perspectives of philosophy of law (or jurisprudence) are, however, conspicuously absent 1 . This void in the literature is to be lamented because of the close but rather incongenial historica..

On the Modeling of Accounting Information Systems and Auditing

The design of accounting systems and the design of auditing procedures and programs have generally been looked at as independent challenges. Accounting systems deal with recording of transactions while auditing focuses on test compliance. Consequently, the design of accounting systems and the design of auditing programs have been considered almost orthogonal processes. The development of databases and data processing systems have made this view of the world untenable because commonsense controls that make manual accounting systems amenable to efficient audits are not available in accounting systems. It is imperative that one unified model form the basis for the design of accounting systems and auditing programs. We present the criteria for such a model with illustration of Petrinet. The model is informed by developments in databases, workflow modeling in Information Engineering, Role Based Access Control modeling in computer systems, and the principles of mandatory and discretionary controls in security systems

Structure-Based Resilience Metrics for Service-Oriented Networks

Many governmental agencies and businesses organizations use networked systems to provide a number of services. Such a service-oriented network can be implemented as an overlay on top of the physical network. It is well recognized that the performance of many of the networked computer systems is severely degraded under node and edge failures. The focus of our work is on the resilience of service-oriented networks. We develop a graph theoretic model for service-oriented networks. Using this model, we propose metrics that quantify the resilience of such networks under node and edge failures. These metrics are based on the topological structure of the network and the manner in which services are distributed over the network. Based on this framework, we address two types of problems. The first type involves the analysis of a given network to determine its resilience parameters. The second type involves the design of networks with a given degree of resilience. We present efficient algorithms for both types of problems. Our approach for solving analysis problems relies on known algorithms for computing minimum cuts in graphs. Our algorithms for the design problem are based on a careful analysis of the decomposition of the given graph into appropriate types of connected components. Keywords: Service-oriented network, resilience, node and edge failure, analysis and design problems, polynomial time algorithms