An Investigation Of The Effect Of Methods Of Recording Accounting Principle Changes On The Decisions Of Users In The United States, Germany, And Austria

Formerly in the United States, most accounting principle changes were traditionally recorded using the cumulative effect method, wherein the net effect of the principle change flows through the income statement as a special item.  International accounting standards, in comparison, have recorded accounting principle changes retrospectively by adjusting beginning stockholders’ equity in the year of the change.  In 2002, the FASB began a convergence project with the IASB, in which they have and are attempting to agree on standard accounting treatments in areas in which the U.S. standards and IAS differ.  The project initially looked at seventeen areas of difference in which it was believed that convergence could be reached.  One of those areas was in accounting for principle changes.  Resulting from the convergence project, the FASB issued SFAS No. 154 in 2005, which changes U.S. GAAP to require that accounting principle changes be recorded retrospectively, as is required by international standards.  This study examines the decisions of statement users in the U.S., Germany, and Austria to determine if the method of accounting used for principle changes affects their decisions.  The findings reveal that the method used in interaction with the home country of the user has a significant effect on the decisions of statement users

Extended first-principles thermochemistry for the oxidation of titanium tetrachloride

A detailed first-principles investigation of the gas-phase precursor chemistry of titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) in an O2 environment is used to identify the thermodynamically most stable oxidation products. Candidate species are systematically proposed based on twelve manually defined base moieties in combination with possible functional groups attached to each moiety. The ground state geometry and vibrational frequencies for each candidate species are calculated using density functional theory at the B97-1/6-311+G(d,p) level of theory. A set of 2; 328 unique candidate species are found to be physically reasonable. Their thermochemical data are calculated by applying statistical thermodynamics. Standard enthalpies of formation are estimated, if unknown, by using a set of error-cancelling balanced reactions. An equilibrium composition analysis of a mixture of TiCl4/O2 (50 mol%) at 3 bar is performed to identify the thermodynamically stable products. At low temperatures, below approximately 700 K, trimer species are dominant. This is followed by a mid-temperature range of 700 to 1975 K where Ti2OCl6 is the most abundant species, before its thermodynamic stability decreases. Between 1200 and 1825 K TiCl4 is the most stable monomer. At temperatures above 1975 K TiOCl2 becomes the dominant species. This species has been measured experimentally. A structural analysis is used to suggest further potentially stable higher polymers and defines a starting point to investigate the mechanisms leading to the formation of titanium dioxide (TiO2) particles

An Investigation Of The Effect Of Reporting Alternatives For Fixed Assets On Financial Statement Users In The United States And The European Union

The European Union’s decision to require consolidated statements in accordance with IASB standards will serve to greatly enhance the acceptance of IASB standards on a worldwide basis.  For international standards to be accepted worldwide, they need to reflect the best reporting methods.  One area in which diverse treatment is found is in the valuation of fixed assets.  This study examines the effect of differing methods of fixed asset valuation on lending decisions made by bankers in the U.S. and the European Union represented by the countries of Germany and Austria.  Bankers from these countries were asked to make a lending decision for a hypothetical company, which used either historical cost or fair value in reporting fixed assets.  The results reveal a significant interaction effect between the home country of the respondent and the valuation method used.  Specifically, the European bankers granted larger loans to companies reporting fixed assets at fair value, while U.S. bankers granted larger loans to companies reporting fixed assets at historical cost

Estimating Peak Demand for Beach Parking Spaces

The United States Army Corps of Engineers planning guidance stipulates that in order for local beach communities to qualify for Federal cost share funds for Hurricane and Storm Damage Reduction beach renourishment projects, the community must provide public beach access and parking to satisfy peak demand. This study presents a method for estimating peak demand for beach parking spaces in the presence of parking constraints. A Tobit regression model is developed to estimate the number of parking spaces that would be necessary to meet unconstrained demand on a given percentage of peak demand days. For example, the model can be used to estimate the number of parking spaces that would be adequate to meet peak demand on 90% of peak parking days. The Tobit model provides a promising framework for estimating peak parking demand under constrained parking conditions, a situation that characterizes most beach communities.

Magnetic Mn5Ge3 nanocrystals embedded in crystalline Ge: a magnet/semiconductor hybrid synthesized by ion implantation

The integration of ferromagnetic Mn5Ge3 with the Ge matrix is promising for spin injection in a silicon-compatible geometry. In this paper, we report the preparation of magnetic Mn5Ge3 nanocrystals embedded inside the Ge matrix by Mn ions implantation at elevated temperature. By X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy, we observe crystalline Mn5Ge3 with variable size depending on the Mn ion fluence. The electronic structure of Mn in Mn5Ge3 nanocrystals is 3d6 configuration, the same as in bulk Mn5Ge3. A large positive magnetoresistance has been observed at low temperatures. It can be explained by the conductivity inhomogeneity in the magnetic/semiconductor hybrid system.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Method of extending hyperfine coherence times in Pr^3+:Y_2SiO_5

In this letter we present a method for increasing the coherence time of praseodymium hyperfine ground state transitions in Pr^3+:Y_2SiO_5 by the application of a specific external magnetic field. The magnitude and angle of the external field is applied such that the Zeeman splitting of a hyperfine transition is at a critical point in three dimensions, making the first order Zeeman shift vanishingly small for the transition. This reduces the influence of the magnetic interactions between the praseodymium ions and the spins in the host lattice on the transition frequency. Using this method a phase memory time of 82ms was observed, a value two orders of magnitude greater than previously reported. It is shown that the residual dephasing is amenable quantum error correction

To Protect and Collect: A Nationwide Study of Profit-motivated Police Crime

This study is part of a larger research project on police crime in the United States. Police crimes are those criminal offenses committed by sworn law enforcement officers who have the general powers of arrest. Profit-motivated police crime involves officers who use their authority of position to engage in crime for personal gain. This study reports the findings on 1,591 cases where a law enforcement officer was arrested for one or more profit-motivated crimes during the seven-year period 2005-2011. The profit-motivated arrest cases involved 1,396 individual officers employed by 782 state, local, special, constable, and tribal law enforcement agencies located in 531 counties and independent cities in 47 states and the District of Columbia. Our data is the first systematic study of profit-motivated police crime. The study describes the nature of this form of police misconduct in terms of several dimensions, including the characteristics of police who perpetrate these crimes, where it occurs, the specific criminal charges, and the contexts within which profit-motivated police crime is punished through police agencies and the criminal courts