The effect of auditors' communication of the professional practice department involvement on audit negotiations

Auditor-Client negotiation about difficult client accounting issues involves the auditor, the client, and various other parties on both the client and auditor side. On the auditor side, the Professional Practice Department has been reported to play a significant role in the financial reporting process, yet is rarely the focus of academic study. In this study, I investigate how communicating the involvement of the Professional Practice Department (PPD) to top management using different influence techniques impacts negotiated outcomes between audit partners and top management. I examine the impact of communicating the involvement of the PPD in the context of two other variables found in prior auditing literature to be important in the negotiation process, auditor type and CFO (Chief Financial Officer) preferred auditor-type. While auditors must attest that the financial statements are free from material misstatement, they also must ensure they foster a functional working relationship with the client. The auditor-client context is unique, and takes place within an on-going relationship where expectations and preferences have been established. Therefore, I examine these negotiation outcomes while incorporating a key contextual variable, auditor-type, in the negotiations. Both the CFO's preference for auditor-type, as well as actual auditor-type will be examined in addition to the specific influence tactic. I use a 3x2x2 fully factorial design to experimentally analyze the impact of two manipulated variable (influence tactic and auditor-type) and one measured variable (CFO preference for auditor-type) on two dependent variables. The two dependent variables are the CFO's willingness to post an adjustment to the financial statements and the CFO's satisfaction with the audit partner. I report the results of an audit negotiation experiment in which 154 highly experienced CFOs responded to a case scenario that incorporated or measured the three key variables (influence tactic communicating PPD involvement, auditor-type and CFO preference for auditor type). My results indicate that using the most aggressive influence tactic to communicate the Professional Practice Department's involvement had a mixed effect on the CFOs willingness to post adjustments to the financial statements. The CFOs in this influence condition that were paired with an accommodating auditor-type reported a higher willingness to adjust the financial statements while CFOs paired with a proactive and advising auditor-type reported a lower willingness to post adjustments. All CFOs reported less satisfaction with the audit partner when the most aggressive influence tactic was used to communicate the Professional Practice Department's inyolvement. Furthermore, the CFO's preference for an auditor-type significantly affects negotiation outcomes. CFOs that prefer more proactive and advising audit partners are more likely to post adjustments to the financial statements, regardless of whether or not. they are informed of the Professional Practice Department's involvement. These same CFOs report a high level of satisfaction with the audit partner and their satisfaction is not impacted by the type of audit partner they are paired with. CFOs that prefer more reactive and accommodating audit partners are less willing to adjust the financial statements and report less satisfaction (dissatisfaction), when paired with proactive and advising audit partners. These results highlight the importance of the existing relationship within the auditor-client dyads and help support findings from auditor-client negotiation research which show that prevailing expectations of the CFO are a contextually important feature of audit negotiation and should be incorporated into more research. I also show that aggressive tactics can help persuade some CFOs to adjust the financial statements; however, consistently pushing too aggressively results in reduced cooperation. Furthermore, there are large costs in terms of the CFO's satisfaction with the audit partner in using aggressive tactics, and therefore, practically speaking the tactic that could potentially be the most effective may result in a lost client

Pointing control for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope

We present the technology and control methods developed for the pointing system of the SPIDER experiment. SPIDER is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed to detect the imprint of primordial gravitational waves in the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. We describe the two main components of the telescope's azimuth drive: the reaction wheel and the motorized pivot. A 13 kHz PI control loop runs on a digital signal processor, with feedback from fibre optic rate gyroscopes. This system can control azimuthal speed with < 0.02 deg/s RMS error. To control elevation, SPIDER uses stepper-motor-driven linear actuators to rotate the cryostat, which houses the optical instruments, relative to the outer frame. With the velocity in each axis controlled in this way, higher-level control loops on the onboard flight computers can implement the pointing and scanning observation modes required for the experiment. We have accomplished the non-trivial task of scanning a 5000 lb payload sinusoidally in azimuth at a peak acceleration of 0.8 deg/s$^2$, and a peak speed of 6 deg/s. We can do so while reliably achieving sub-arcminute pointing control accuracy.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, Presented at SPIE Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V, June 23, 2014. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE Volume 914

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Australian consumer awareness of health benefits associated with vegetable consumption

Aim: The present study investigated the perceived health benefits of specific vegetable consumption to guide the use of nutrition and health claims on vegetable marketing collateral. Methods: Free elicitation and consumer ranking data were collected through an online survey of 1000 adults from across Australia and analysed for the perceived importance of vegetables in the daily diet, number of serves consumed per day, knowledge about health-related benefits of specific vegetables and perceived health benefits of vegetable consumption. Results: The importance of vegetables in the diet and daily vegetable consumption was higher in people from an English-speaking background, females, people aged 45years and over and people living in non-metropolitan areas. Digestion was selected as the major health benefit from consumption of specific vegetables. However, understanding of the health benefits of specific vegetable consumption was relatively low among consumers. Half of the respondents were not sure of the health benefits associated with specific vegetables, except for carrots and spinach. Some respondents volunteered nutrient content or other information. Conclusions: There was no clear indication that consumers understand the specific health benefits conferred by consumption of vegetables. Nutrient and health benefit labelling therefore has the capacity to enhance knowledge of vegetable consumers. It is recommended that health benefit labelling be tailored to promote greater consumption of vegetables in those demographic groups where vegetable consumption was lower. The present study assists the Australian vegetable industry in helping consumers make more informed consumption choices

Comparison of Sunyaev-Zel’dovich measurements from Planck and from the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager for 99 galaxy clusters

We present observations and analysis of a sample of 123 galaxy clusters from the 2013 Planck catalogue of Sunyaev-Zel’dovich sources with the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI), a ground-based radio interferometer. AMI provides an independent measurement with higher angular resolution, 3 arcmin compared to the Planck beams of 5–10 arcmin. The AMI observations thus provide validation of the cluster detections, improved positional estimates, and a consistency check on the fitted ‘size’ (θ_s) and ‘flux’ (Y_tot) parameters in the Generalised Navarro, Frenk and White (GNFW) model. We detect 99 of the clusters. We use the AMI positional estimates to check the positional estimates and error-bars produced by the Planck algorithms PowellSnakes and MMF3. We find that Y_tot values as measured by AMI are biased downwards with respect to the Planck constraints, especially for high Planck-SNR clusters. We perform simulations to show that this can be explained by deviation from the ‘universal’ pressure profile shape used to model the clusters. We show that AMI data can constrain the α and β parameters describing the shape of the profile in the GNFW model for individual clusters provided careful attention is paid to the degeneracies between parameters, but one requires information on a wider range of angular scales than are present in AMI data alone to correctly constrain all parameters simultaneously.The AMI telescope is supported by Cambridge University. YCP and CR acknowledge support from CCT/Cavendish Laboratory and STFC studentships, respectively. YCP and MO acknowledge support from Research Fellowships from Trinity College and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, respectively. This work was partially undertaken on the COSMOS Shared Memory system at DAMTP, University of Cambridge operated on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility. This equipment is funded by BIS National E-infrastructure capital grant ST/J005673/1 and STFC grants ST/H008586/1, ST/K00333X/1. CM acknowledges her KICC Fellowship grant funding for the procurement of the cluster used for computational work. In addition, we would like to thank the IOA computing support team for maintaining the cluster.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) via http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/20142418

Nutrient enrichment shifts mangrove height distribution: Implications for coastal woody encroachment

<div><p>Global changes, such as increased temperatures and elevated CO₂, are driving shifts in plant species distribution and dominance, like woody plant encroachment into grasslands. Local factors within these ecotones can influence the rate of regime shifts. Woody encroachment is occurring worldwide, though there has been limited research within coastal systems, where mangrove (woody shrub/tree) stands are expanding into salt marsh areas. Because coastal systems are exposed to various degrees of nutrient input, we investigated how nutrient enrichment may locally impact mangrove stand expansion and salt marsh displacement over time. We fertilized naturally co-occurring <i>Avicennia germinans</i> (black mangrove) and <i>Spartina alterniflora</i> (smooth cordgrass) stands in Port Aransas, TX, an area experiencing mangrove encroachment within the Northern Gulf of Mexico mangrove-marsh ecotone. After four growing seasons (2010–2013) of continuous fertilization, <i>Avicennia</i> was more positively influenced by nutrient enrichment than <i>Spartina</i>. Most notably, fertilized plots had a higher density of taller (> 0.5 m) mangroves and mangrove maximum height was 46% taller than in control plots. Fertilization may promote an increase in mangrove stand expansion within the mangrove-marsh ecotone by shifting <i>Avicennia</i> height distribution. <i>Avicennia</i> individuals, which reach certain species-specific height thresholds, have reduced negative neighbor effects and have higher resilience to freezing temperatures, which may increase mangrove competitive advantage over marsh grass. Therefore, we propose that nutrient enrichment, which augments mangrove height, could act locally as a positive feedback to mangrove encroachment, by reducing mangrove growth suppression factors, thereby accelerating the rates of increased mangrove coverage and subsequent marsh displacement. Areas within the mangrove-marsh ecotone with high anthropogenic nutrient input may be at increased risk of a regime shift from grass to woody dominated ecosystems.</p></div

The Origin of the Universe as Revealed Through the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background

Modern cosmology has sharpened questions posed for millennia about the origin of our cosmic habitat. The age-old questions have been transformed into two pressing issues primed for attack in the coming decade: How did the Universe begin? and What physical laws govern the Universe at the highest energies? The clearest window onto these questions is the pattern of polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which is uniquely sensitive to primordial gravity waves. A detection of the special pattern produced by gravity waves would be not only an unprecedented discovery, but also a direct probe of physics at the earliest observable instants of our Universe. Experiments which map CMB polarization over the coming decade will lead us on our first steps towards answering these age-old questions