Disclosing Conflict of Interest - Does Experience and Reputation Matter?

Disclosure of conflict of interest is currently seen as an effective tool for reducing threats to auditor independence. Cain, Loewenstein, and Moore (2005) provide evidence for perverse effects of disclosing conflict of interest. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we replicate their finding that such a disclosure can cause an impairment of auditor independence. However, as subjects gain experience we find that these results revert and auditors give less biased advice. Our results imply that the perverse effects noted in the literature might be an artifact of an environment with inexperienced subjects and of less relevance for the audit environment where main actors are experienced. To the contrary, disclosure of conflict of interest can even improve auditor independence by fostering fairness. Furthermore, we find that disclosure of conflict of interests disturbs reputation building.

Dispersive regime of the Jaynes-Cummings and Rabi lattice

Photon-based strongly-correlated lattice models like the Jaynes-Cummings and Rabi lattices differ from their more conventional relatives like the Bose-Hubbard model by the presence of an additional tunable parameter: the frequency detuning between the pseudo-spin degree of freedom and the harmonic mode frequency on each site. Whenever this detuning is large compared to relevant coupling strengths, the system is said to be in the dispersive regime. The physics of this regime is well-understood at the level of a single Jaynes-Cummings or Rabi site. Here, we extend the theoretical description of the dispersive regime to lattices with many sites, for both strong and ultra-strong coupling. We discuss the nature and spatial range of the resulting qubit-qubit and photon-photon coupling, demonstrate the emergence of photon- pairing and squeezing, and illustrate our results by exact diagonalization of the Rabi dimer.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, Published by NJP, Focus Issues "Focus on Quantum Microwave Field Effects in Superconducting Circuits

Net-baryon number fluctuations in (2+1)-flavor QCD

We present a lattice study of net-baryon number fluctuations in (2+1)-flavor QCD. The results are based on a Taylor expansion of the pressure with respect to the baryon chemical potential. We calculate higher moments of the net-baryon number fluctuations and compare with the corresponding resonance gas results. We find that for temperature below 0.9T_c the fluctuations seem to agree with the hadron resonance gas predictions. Close to T_c, higher moments are increasingly more sensitive to the critical behavior of the QCD phase transition. Furthermore, we estimate the radius of convergence of the Taylor series as well as the curvature of the transition line in the temperature chemical potential plane.Comment: 4 pages; invited talk presented at 'New Frontiers in QCD 2010' at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto, Japan, March 1-1

Disclosing conflict of interest : does experience and reputation matter?

Disclosure of conflict of interest is currently seen as an effective tool for reducing threats to auditor independence. Cain, Loewenstein, and Moore (2005) provide evidence for perverse effects of disclosing conflict of interest. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we replicate their finding that such a disclosure can cause an impairment of auditor independence. However, as subjects gain experience we find that these results revert and auditors give less biased advice. Our results imply that the perverse effects noted in the literature might be an artifact of an environment with inexperienced subjects and of less relevance for the audit environment where main actors are experienced. To the contrary, disclosure of conflict of interest can even improve auditor independence by fostering fairness. Furthermore, we find that disclosure of conflict of interests disturbs reputation building

Mild pro-2-groups and 2-extensions of Q with restricted ramification

Using the mixed Lie algebras of Lazard, we extend the results of the first author on mild groups to the case p=2. In particular, we show that for any finite set S_0 of odd rational primes we can find a finite set S of odd rational primes containing S_0 such that the Galois group of the maximal 2-extension of Q unramified outside S is mild. We thus produce a projective system of such Galois groups which converge to the maximal pro-2-quotient of the absolute Galois group of \Q unramified at 2 and $\infty$. Our results also allow results of Alexander Schmidt on pro-p-fundamental groups of marked arithmetic curves to be extended to the case p=2 over a global field which is either a function field of odd characteristic or a totally imaginary number field

Heat strengthening of lead-tin bronze alloyed with nickel

Investigate the process of thermal hardening of bronze without heat treatment. Determined phase, which is the cause for age-hardening of the nickel bronze alloy by heat strengthening