Regulation of auditor change in Australia : audit pricing, reporting lag and equity valuation implications

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Business.This thesis provides evidence on the impact on two aspects of auditor change for Australian listed companies. Firstly, changes in audit partners are mandated, requiring partners rotate off engagements after a fixed tenure. Recently, practitioner based concerns about the costs of rotation for both auditors and clients have precipitated amendments to the rule in Australia, Canada and the UK. Evidence in this thesis shows a cost to clients and auditors in the form of increased in audit fees and audit reporting lag in the rotation year that corroborates anecdotal practitioner evidence. Secondly, the process of voluntarily changing audit firms (auditor switching) is regulated under a consent-based framework mitigating information flow to the market. In 2013, the Australian corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), sought stakeholder input on the information provided to the market under the consent framework to inform policy deliberations. This can be viewed as couching the possibility of a move towards adoption of a disclosure-based approach similar to the approach in the US and UK. Accordingly, this thesis investigates market reactions to auditor switch announcements. Results show no market reactions, consistent with the market not considering such disclosures to be informative. The overall findings presented in this thesis lend support to the adoption of amendments that allow for flexibility

Differences in Sexual Behavior & Contraceptive Use in Religious and Non-Religious Universities: A Comparison Using the National College Health Assessment

The primary purpose of this current study was (a) to determine if significant differences existed in sexual and contraceptive behaviors of the Christian university sampled and the secular collegiate institutions in the reference group, and (b) to understand if differences existed within the Christian sample, using data from the spring 2006 American College Health Association-National College Assessment (ACHANCHA, n = 94,806). Participants in the Christian sample were pulled from the reference group sample and broken down into Environmental Group (EG, n = 46) participants (those not endorsing a relationship with Jesus Christ as important), and the Religious Group1 (RG1 , n = 858) participants (those endorsing a relationship with Jesus Christ as important). These participants were compared to stratified, random-matched samples, for age and sex, to the Reference Groupa,b (RFa, n = 858; RFb, n = 46). Next, EG was compared to the stratified, random-matched sample Religious Group2 (RG2 , n =46) to determine differences in sexual behavior within the Christian university. Results showed significant differences in reported number of sexual partners and number of sexual activities between the Christian university and reference group, with fewer partners and activities for the Christian university. Contraceptive use differed little between the two populations, while a comparison of the Christian university (EG v. RG2 ) showed no difference in the reported number of sexual partners or oral sex activities, but a significant difference in reported vaginal and anal sexual activities, with fewer reported sexual activities for RG2 . These findings suggest significant differences did occur within the Christian university and between the reference group; and provide relevant information for choosing a university and depicts the impact of religiosity on the reduction of sexual activities

Endogenous human cytomegalovirus gB is efficiently presented by MHC class II molecules to CD4+ CTL

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infects endothelial, epithelial, and glial cells in vivo. These cells can express MHC class II proteins, but are unlikely to play important roles in priming host immunity. Instead, it seems that class II presentation of endogenous HCMV antigens in these cells allows recognition of virus infection. We characterized class II presentation of HCMV glycoprotein B (gB), a membrane protein that accumulates extensively in endosomes during virus assembly. Human CD4+ T cells specific for gB were both highly abundant in blood and cytolytic in vivo. gB-specific CD4+ T cell clones recognized gB that was expressed in glial, endothelial, and epithelial cells, but not exogenous gB that was fed to these cells. Glial cells efficiently presented extremely low levels of endogenous gB--expressed by adenovirus vectors or after HCMV infection--and stimulated CD4+ T cells better than DCs that were incubated with exogenous gB. Presentation of endogenous gB required sorting of gB to endosomal compartments and processing by acidic proteases. Although presentation of cellular proteins that traffic into endosomes is well known, our observations demonstrate for the first time that a viral protein sorted to endosomes is presented exceptionally well, and can promote CD4+ T cell recognition and killing of biologically important host cells

Boundary conditions of the RGE flow in the noncommutative geometry approach to particle physics and cosmology

We investigate the effect of varying boundary conditions on the renormalization group flow in a recently developed noncommutative geometry model of particle physics and cosmology. We first show that there is a sensitive dependence on the initial conditions at unification, so that, varying a parameter even slightly can be shown to have drastic effects on the running of the model parameters. We compare the running in the case of the default and the maximal mixing conditions at unification. We then exhibit explicitly a particular choice of initial conditions at the unification scale, in the form of modified maximal mixing conditions, which have the property that they satisfy all the geometric constraints imposed by the noncommutative geometry of the model at unification, and at the same time, after running them down to lower energies with the renormalization group flow, they still agree in order of magnitude with the predictions at the electroweak scale.Comment: 18 pages LaTeX, 13 png figure

Superfluid Bosons and Flux Liquids: Disorder, Thermal Fluctuations, and Finite-Size Effects

The influence of different types of disorder (both uncorrelated and correlated) on the superfluid properties of a weakly interacting or dilute Bose gas, as well as on the corresponding quantities for flux line liquids in high-temperature superconductors at low magnetic fields are reviewed, investigated and compared. We exploit the formal analogy between superfluid bosons and the statistical mechanics of directed lines, and explore the influence of the different "imaginary time" boundary conditions appropriate for a flux line liquid. For superfluids, we discuss the density and momentum correlations, the condensate fraction, and the normal-fluid density as function of temperature for two- and three-dimensional systems subject to a space- and time-dependent random potential as well as conventional point-, line-, and plane-like defects. In the case of vortex liquids subject to point disorder, twin boundaries, screw dislocations, and various configurations of columnar damage tracks, we calculate the corresponding quantities, namely density and tilt correlations, the ``boson'' order parameter, and the tilt modulus. The finite-size corrections due to periodic vs. open "imaginary time" boundary conditions differ in interesting and important ways. Experimental implications for vortex lines are described briefly.Comment: 78 pages, RevTex, 4 figures included (sorry, there are no ps-files for the remaining 2 figures; if needed, please send mail to [email protected]); brief erratum appended (2 pages

Simulated Quantum Computation of Global Minima

Finding the optimal solution to a complex optimization problem is of great importance in practically all fields of science, technology, technical design and econometrics. We demonstrate that a modified Grover's quantum algorithm can be applied to real problems of finding a global minimum using modest numbers of quantum bits. Calculations of the global minimum of simple test functions and Lennard-Jones clusters have been carried out on a quantum computer simulator using a modified Grover's algorithm. The number of function evaluations $N$ reduced from O(N) in classical simulation to $O(\sqrt{N})$ in quantum simulation. We also show how the Grover's quantum algorithm can be combined with the classical Pivot method for global optimization to treat larger systems.Comment: 6 figures. Molecular Physics, in pres

The diverse evolutionary paths of simulated high-z massive, compact galaxies to z=0

Massive quiescent galaxies have much smaller physical sizes at high redshift than today. The strong evolution of galaxy size may be caused by progenitor bias, major and minor mergers, adiabatic expansion, and/or renewed star formation, but it is difficult to test these theories observationally. Herein, we select a sample of 35 massive, compact galaxies ($M_* = 1-3 \times 10^{11}$ M$_\odot$, $M_*/R^{1.5} > 10^{10.5}$ M$_\odot$/kpc$^{1.5}$) at $z=2$ in the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation Illustris and trace them forward to $z=0$ to uncover their evolution and identify their descendants. By $z=0$, the original factor of 3 difference in stellar mass spreads to a factor of 20. The dark matter halo masses similarly spread from a factor of 5 to 40. The galaxies' evolutionary paths are diverse: about half acquire an ex-situ envelope and are the core of a more massive descendant, a third survive undisturbed and gain very little mass, 15% are consumed in a merger with a more massive galaxy, and a small remainder are thoroughly mixed by major mergers. The galaxies grow in size as well as mass, and only $\sim$10% remain compact by $z=0$. The majority of the size growth is driven by the acquisition of ex-situ mass. The most massive galaxies at $z=0$ are the most likely to have compact progenitors, but this trend possesses significant dispersion which precludes a direct linkage to compact galaxies at $z=2$. The compact galaxies' merger rates are influenced by their $z=2$ environments, so that isolated or satellite compact galaxies (which are protected from mergers) are the most likely to survive to the present day.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, MNRAS accepted version including 2 new figure

Measuring the impacts of Bus Rapid Transit on residential property values : The Beijing case

The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41201102).Peer reviewedPostprin

Rabies Surveillance Identifies Potential Risk Corridors and Enables Management Evaluation

Intensive efforts are being made to eliminate the raccoon variant of rabies virus (RABV) from the eastern United States and Canada. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Services National Rabies Management Program has implemented enhanced rabies surveillance (ERS) to improve case detection across the extent of the raccoon oral rabies vaccination (ORV) management area. We evaluated ERS and public health surveillance data from 2006 to 2017 in three northeastern USA states using a dynamic occupancy modeling approach. Our objectives were to examine potential risk corridors for RABV incursion from the U.S. into Canada, evaluate the effectiveness of ORV management strategies, and identify surveillance gaps. ORV management has resulted in a decrease in RABV cases over time within vaccination zones (from occupancy (ψ) of 0.60 standard error (SE) = 0.03 in the spring of 2006 to ψ of 0.33 SE = 0.10 in the spring 2017). RABV cases also reduced in the enzootic area (from ψ of 0.60 SE = 0.03 in the spring of 2006 to ψ of 0.45 SE = 0.05 in the spring 2017). Although RABV occurrence was related to habitat type, greater impacts were associated with ORV and trap–vaccinate–release (TVR) campaigns, in addition to seasonal and yearly trends. Reductions in RABV occupancy were more pronounced in areas treated with Ontario Rabies Vaccine Bait (ONRAB) compared to RABORAL V-RG®. Our approach tracked changes in RABV occurrence across space and time, identified risk corridors for potential incursions into Canada, and highlighted surveillance gaps, while evaluating the impacts of management actions. Using this approach, we are able to provide guidance for future RABV management