A Comparison of Information Systems Coverage in the CPA, CIA and CMA Examinations for the Period 1987-1991

In recent years, three major accounting professional organizations, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and Internal Auditors Institute (IIA) have considered and issued statements on the body of knowledge deemed necessary for practice as a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Management Accountant and Certified Internal Auditor. In each instance, knowledge and skills in information systems technology were included. This is not surprising, in view of the fact that changes in technology have dramatically altered the way in which accounting data is gathered, processed, stored, accessed and reported. Each of these professional organizations also requires or recommends the passing of an organization-sponsored certification examination for entry into or recognition within the various practice areas. While the examinations are not the only means of assessing the knowledge and skills necessary for certification, they are an important tool in evaluating the extent of the qualifications presented by a candidate. In view of the above, one may postulate that the certification examination, in each instance, would include coverage of the areas of knowledge included in the prerequisite body of knowledge. In particular, since each of the professional groups cite information systems (IS) knowledge as an important knowledge component, one would expect to observe test items addressing current IS in each exam

Assessment of the Angolan (CHERRT) Mobile Laboratory Curriculum for Disaster and Pandemic Response

Introduction: As of April 5, 2020, the World Health Organization reported over one million confirmed cases and more than 62,000 confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths affecting 204 countries/ regions. The lack of COVID-19 testing capacity threatens the ability of both the United States (US) and low middle income countries (LMIC) to respond to this growing threat, The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness through participant self-assessment of a rapid response team (RRT) mobile laboratory curriculumMethods: We conducted a pre and post survey for the purpose of a process improvement assessment in Angola, involving 32 individuals. The survey was performed before and after a 14-day training workshop held in Luanda, Angola, in December 2019. A paired t-test was used to identify any significant change on six 7-point Likert scale questions with α< 0.05 (95% confidence interval).Results: All six of the questions –  1) “I feel confident managing a real laboratory sample test for Ebola or other highly contagious sample;” 2) “I feel safe working in the lab environment during a real scenario;” 3) “I feel as if I can appropriately manage a potentially highly contagious laboratory sample;” 4)“I feel that I can interpret a positive or negative sample during a suspected contagious outbreak;” 5) “I understand basic Biobubble/mobile laboratory concepts and procedures;” and 6) “I understand polymerase chain reaction (PCR) principles” – showed statistical significant change pre and post training. Additionally, the final two questions – “I can more effectively perform my role/position because of the training I received during this course;” and “This training was valuable”  – received high scores on the Likert scale.Conclusion: This Angolan RRT mobile laboratory training curriculum provides the nation of Angola with the confidence to rapidly respond and test at the national level a highly infectious contagion in the region and perform on-scene diagnostics. This mobile RRT laboratory provides a mobile and rapid diagnostic resource when epidemic/pandemic resource allocation may need to be prioritized based on confirmed disease prevalence

Nostalgia, xenophobia, anti-neoliberalism: the roots of Leave’s nationalism

Nationalism is a key element of the Leave campaigns, says Michael Lloyd. But it takes very different forms on the right and left – and indeed in England and Scotland. On the right, nationalism draws on a nostalgic view of the Commonwealth. On the left, it subscribes to an English exceptionalism that believes a federal Europe is incompatible with the struggle against neoliberalism and capitalism

The left must stop indulging anti-EU sentiment and get behind Remain

Those on the British left who believe the EU is their enemy are giving sustenance to the nationalist right, argues Michael Lloyd. They misrepresent the workings of the European Union and have created a myth that it was EU institutions that foisted austerity on Greece. In fact, the EU is not a barrier to democratic socialism but simply another political arena in which the battle against neoliberalism can be fought

Efficient Bayesian Nonparametric Modelling of Structured Point Processes

This paper presents a Bayesian generative model for dependent Cox point processes, alongside an efficient inference scheme which scales as if the point processes were modelled independently. We can handle missing data naturally, infer latent structure, and cope with large numbers of observed processes. A further novel contribution enables the model to work effectively in higher dimensional spaces. Using this method, we achieve vastly improved predictive performance on both 2D and 1D real data, validating our structured approach.Comment: Presented at UAI 2014. Bibtex: @inproceedings{structcoxpp14_UAI, Author = {Tom Gunter and Chris Lloyd and Michael A. Osborne and Stephen J. Roberts}, Title = {Efficient Bayesian Nonparametric Modelling of Structured Point Processes}, Booktitle = {Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI)}, Year = {2014}