Auditor’s perceptions of CEOs overconfidence in Egypt : a quasi-experimental study

Purpose: This study aims to explore auditor’s perceptions of CEOs overconfidence in Egypt as one of the emerging countries. Design/methodology/approach: A quasi-experimental study is used on a sample comprises of 101 practicing auditors at public accounting firms in Egypt to assess (i) CEO overconfidence in a case scenario, (ii) the quality of earnings that would be provided by this overconfident CEO, and (iii) how overconfident CEO would be considered when they are assessing fraud risk, audit risk, audit effort and audit fees. Findings: The results suggest that not all the auditors in the sample were able to discover the same degree of overconfidence personal traits in a case scenario, and it was done by the sense, and they generally agree that overconfident CEO are more likely to provide lower earnings quality. Accordingly, they raise their assessment for audit fees as a result of an increase in fraud risk, audit risk, and audit effort. Practical implications: This study has significant implications for accounting and auditing professionals, market participants and regulators; where auditors should consider the overconfidence of the CEO during the audit process, market participants should consider managerial overconfidence when they are making investment decisions. Moreover, this study highlights the gap between auditing standards and the professional practice; which requires regulators to consider personal overconfidence traits as an indicator of financial reporting risk. Originality/value: This study helps in filling a gap in the literature; where auditor’s perceptions of CEOs overconfidence have not been fully investigated in emerging economies.peer-reviewe

A Weighted Grid for Measuring Program Robustness

Robustness is a key issue for all the programs, especially safety critical ones. In the literature, Program Robustness is defined as “the degree to which a system or component can function correctly in the presence of invalid input or stressful environment” (IEEE 1990). Robustness measurement is the value that reflects the Robustness Degree of the program. In this thesis, a new Robustness measurement technique; the Robustness Grid, is introduced. The Robustness Grid measures the Robustness Degree for programs, C programs in this instance, using a relative scale. It allows programmers to find the program’s vulnerable points, repair them, and avoid similar mistakes in the future. The Robustness Grid is a table that contains Language rules, which is classified into categories with respect to the program’s function names, and calculates the robustness degree. The Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (MISRA) C language rules with the Clause Program Slicing technique will be the basis for the robustness measurement mechanism. In the Robustness Grid, for every MISRA rule, a score will be given to a function every time it satisfies or violates a rule. Furthermore, Clause program slicing will be used to weight every MISRA rule to illustrate its importance in the program. The Robustness Grid shows how much each part of the program is robust and effective, and assists developers to measure and evaluate the robustness degree for each part of a program. Overall, the Robustness Grid is a new technique that measures the robustness of C programs using MISRA C rules and Clause program slicing. The Robustness Grid shows the program robustness degree and the importance of each part of the program. An evaluation of the Robustness Grid is performed to show that it offers new measurements that were not provided before

Compound Multiple Access Channel with Confidential Messages

In this paper, we study the problem of secret communication over a Compound Multiple Access Channel (MAC). In this channel, we assume that one of the transmitted messages is confidential that is only decoded by its corresponding receiver and kept secret from the other receiver. For this proposed setting (compound MAC with confidential messages), we derive general inner and outer bounds on the secrecy capacity region. Also, as examples, we investigate 'Less noisy' and 'Gaussian' versions of this channel, and extend the results of the discrete memoryless version to these cases. Moreover, providing numerical examples for the Gaussian case, we illustrate the comparison between achievable rate regions of compound MAC and compound MAC with confidential messages.Comment: Accepted at IEEE ICC 2014. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1402.479

Compensation for the Damage Resulting from Preventive Detention When there is evidence of the Suspect\u27s Innocence: A Comparative Study

This study sheds light on the idea of Compensation for the damage resulting from preventive detention of a suspect against whom a decision has been issued to bring a criminal lawsuit or issue acquittal. The researcher has examined and reviewed the relevant legal texts of the French, Jordanian and Emirati legislations to clarify the concept of \u27preventive detention along with its legitimacy, and introduce the general rules of torts and the conditions of compensation. This study, also, examines the extent to which a suspect may claim compensation against preventive detention, along with the legal reasoning behind it. The research findings have shown the disparity among the legislations on the subject matter in terms of the compensation of the suspect against the damages of preventive detention after an acquittal has been issued, reflecting positively on the research’s results and recommendations. In conclusion, the French legislator has set specific rules for the compensation against the damages of preventive detention as explicitly stipulated in the Code of Criminal Procedures. Whereas the Jordanian and Emirati legislators stand in opposition to their French counterpart in that they do not explicitly mention the compensation, and their procedures are limited to re-trial and referral to the Cassation Court through written proceedings and a dispute claim against damage

The supracerebellar infratentorial approach in pineal region tumors: Technique and outcome in an underprivileged setting

Background: Pineal region tumors represent 1.5–8.5% of the pediatric brain tumors. Management includes endoscopic third ventriculostomy and biopsy in cases presenting with hydrocephalus. In addition, surgical resection provides survival advantage in selected cases. The supracerebellar infratentorial approach is a widely preferred approach for such region.Methods: After approval of the local ethics committee of Alexandria University and acquisition of the appropriate formal consents according to the committee’s standards, we have reviewed the records of fifteen cases presenting with pineal region tumors in Alexandria main university hospital from 2013 to 2016. The mean age at the diagnosis was 14 years (2–54 years). All cases had supracerebellar infratentorial approach for surgical resection. Follow up period was from 12 to 59 months.Results: All 15 cases presented with hydrocephalus and increased intracranial pressure manifestations. Out of the 15 cases, 3 cases were germ-cell tumors, 2 cases were pineoblastomas, one parenchymal tumor with intermediate differentiation (PPID), one pineocytoma, 2 cases were anaplastic ependymomas and 6 cases were astrocytomas. Gross total resection (GTR) was achieved in 4 cases, subtotal resection was achieved in 7 cases and partial resection in 4 cases. Major surgical complications included severe postoperative cerebellar edema in 2 cases that required further decompression and hemorrhage in one case that has been managed conservatively.Conclusion: In Alexandria university, the supracerebellar infratentorial approach is considered a safe approach with minimal morbidity and no surgery related mortality.Keywords: Pineal region tumors, Tectal tumors, Supracerebellar infratentorial approac

Phytoextraction of zinc from hydroponic solutions

Heavy metals can have adverse health effects on both humans and biota if they exist in high concentrations in the soil or in water bodies. Rhizofiltration is a specific type of Phytoremediation which involves plants to extract contaminants from large wetland areas that have a low level of contamination. The objective of this research is to elucidate the interaction of the plant species Solanum lycopersicum (tomato plant) with the surrounding zinc contaminated solution, after being subjected to environments of darkness, illumination, and alternate current gradient. To perform this objective, tomato plants were grown in the hydroponic solutions containing 0, 100, 200 and 500 mg/L of zinc under illuminated conditions. Subsequently, these plants were grown in solutions of 100mg/L and were subjected to varied environmental conditions stated earlier. At the end of each experiment, which lasted seven days, concentration of zinc in plant roots, shoots and fruits were analyzed separately. The effects of plants and alternate current on solution pH and electrical conductivity (EC) were also investigated concurrently. It was found that the accumulated amount of zinc in plant roots is proportional to its concentration in hydroponic solution. However, the augmentation of zinc concentration in plant roots attains a plateau with increasing concentration of zinc in the hydroponic solution. As in roots, accumulation of zinc in plant shoots generally reached a saturation level of zinc when zinc concentration increased. However, in the fruit, zinc concentration appears to be not dependent on solution concentration of zinc. It was found that plants subjected to a light environment accumulated more zinc in their roots and shoots than plants subjected to a dark environment. Further, it was also noted that for the specific environment which consisted of an applied alternate current gradient of 1Volt/em at 16HZ, plant capability to extract zinc in both shoot and root was observed to be reduced. A brief series of tests related to the effect of nutrients on the uptake of zinc indicated that they modify the plant uptake of zinc