Data Quality, Power, And Politics: Analysis Of Strategic Decision Making

Most decision makers have biases that are inherent the way they seek information, estimate the outcomes, and attach values to outcomes that produce rational behavior.  Many aspects of decision-making may not be accurate because of information processing limitations, power and politics.  This paper presents a set of ideas, models, and limitations caused by biases of a decision maker when sorting information

Teaching Accounting Online: Dealing With Challenging Situations

This paper chronicles the issues and concerns of teaching an online accounting course.  The issues discussed in this paper constitute the barest minimum that online instructors should address as they contemplate offering an online accounting course.  Analysis of the following crucial factors that impact online teaching such as, knowledge of the online process; technical skills of online teaching; online communication and moderation skills; confidence and motivation are presented.  This paper will present an analysis of teaching and learning issues, which may provide the basis of guidelines for best practice.  It is further noted in this paper that effective institutional support is equally instrumental in successful implementation of online teaching

Strategies For Gaining Competitive Advantage In A Dynamic Environment Thru Data Quality

Raw data should be treated as materials for manufacturing products so that organizations can identify errors which otherwise could not be detected. Information system can be studied from the same perspective of product manufacturing

International Financial Accounting Standards And The Continent Of Africa

In response to the increased globalization of both commercial and financial markets and increased frequency of corporate scandals, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has spearheaded an international initiative to standardize corporate financial reporting. This effort involves setting the standards, creating a process of adopting the standards that is tailored to the needs of each nation, overcoming the challenges of implementation that many countries face and ensuring continued observance of the standards once they are adopted. This paper focuses on the implementation of IFAC standards in the African Continent. An examination of IFAC’s mission, its membership requirements and ongoing compliance program, and its assistance to developing nations will illustrate the current status of African nations in the standardization process. The countries representing the African continent possess many promising opportunities for growth and prosperity in the global economy and also present many distinct obstacles in their effort to embrace and implement the IFAC initiative. The approach used in this paper is to examine broadly the challenges faced by the different regions within Africa. This approach takes into account political, economic, cultural and religious differences found in distinct regions within the continent

E-Commerce And Small Business Enterprise Some Evidence From Northern New Jersey

The purpose of this research was to investigate the extent to which small businesses in Northern New Jersey are prepared for e-commerce. The Internet has changed the market place and the face of business more dramatically than any other technological innovation since the Industrial Revolution. In the last ten years, the Internet has changed and fundamentally restructured business to business, business to consumer and consumer to consumer relationships. Internet based commerce is estimated to be growing at the rate of 200% per annum and the volume of Internet commerce is estimated to exceed $2 trillion by 2003

Securing Africa’s health sovereignty : why investing in science and innovation matters

This paper aims at provoking broad-based dialogues and debates on ways and means of securing Africa’s health sovereignty. It argues that health sovereignty is about the realization of specific national constitutional and policy objectives on citizens’ access to and enjoyment of good health, resilient to COVID-19 and related disease pandemics. The paper also emphasizes the urgency of African countries fulfilling their commitments under global and regional declarations on health research. Investing in research, knowledge and innovation is critical to fight and win the war against COVID-19 and other diseases that undermine economic productivity and competitiveness of African countries. There is also a need for venture capitalists to demonstrate bankable ideas emanating from the science academies and funded by National Science Foundations. The base teachings at school level need to significantly invest in the “African philosophy” to create a shift in mind-set from the “grab and own without use mentality that is currently predominant on the continent. The paper recommends that executive, political and science leadership are needed to strengthen national health research and innovation systems through improved evidence-based policy implementation. With these thrusts working effectively together, rather than in silos, will afford the African continent to emerge victoriously in the combat against COVID-19 and other disease burdens

Longitudinal analysis reveals that delayed bystander CD8+ T cell activation and early immune pathology distinguish severe COVID-19 from mild disease

The kinetics of the immune changes in COVID-19 across severity groups have not been rigorously assessed. Using immunophenotyping, RNA sequencing, and serum cytokine analysis, we analyzed serial samples from 207 SARS-CoV2-infected individuals with a range of disease severities over 12 weeks from symptom onset. An early robust bystander CD8+ T cell immune response, without systemic inflammation, characterized asymptomatic or mild disease. Hospitalized individuals had delayed bystander responses and systemic inflammation that was already evident near symptom onset, indicating that immunopathology may be inevitable in some individuals. Viral load did not correlate with this early pathological response but did correlate with subsequent disease severity. Immune recovery is complex, with profound persistent cellular abnormalities in severe disease correlating with altered inflammatory responses, with signatures associated with increased oxidative phosphorylation replacing those driven by cytokines tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interleukin (IL)-6. These late immunometabolic and immune defects may have clinical implications

Age-related immune response heterogeneity to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine BNT162b2

Although two-dose mRNA vaccination provides excellent protection against SARS-CoV-2, there is little information about vaccine efficacy against variants of concern (VOC) in individuals above eighty years of age1. Here we analysed immune responses following vaccination with the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine2 in elderly participants and younger healthcare workers. Serum neutralization and levels of binding IgG or IgA after the first vaccine dose were lower in older individuals, with a marked drop in participants over eighty years old. Sera from participants above eighty showed lower neutralization potency against the B.1.1.7 (Alpha), B.1.351 (Beta) and P.1. (Gamma) VOC than against the wild-type virus and were more likely to lack any neutralization against VOC following the first dose. However, following the second dose, neutralization against VOC was detectable regardless of age. The frequency of SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific memory B cells was higher in elderly responders (whose serum showed neutralization activity) than in non-responders after the first dose. Elderly participants showed a clear reduction in somatic hypermutation of class-switched cells. The production of interferon-γ and interleukin-2 by SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific T cells was lower in older participants, and both cytokines were secreted primarily by CD4 T cells. We conclude that the elderly are a high-risk population and that specific measures to boost vaccine responses in this population are warranted, particularly where variants of concern are circulating

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2–4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

Cyanobacterial lipopolysaccharides and human health – a review

Cyanobacterial lipopolysaccharide/s (LPS) are frequently cited in the cyanobacteria literature as toxins responsible for a variety of heath effects in humans, from skin rashes to gastrointestinal, respiratory and allergic reactions. The attribution of toxic properties to cyanobacterial LPS dates from the 1970s, when it was thought that lipid A, the toxic moiety of LPS, was structurally and functionally conserved across all Gram-negative bacteria. However, more recent research has shown that this is not the case, and lipid A structures are now known to be very different, expressing properties ranging from LPS agonists, through weak endotoxicity to LPS antagonists. Although cyanobacterial LPS is widely cited as a putative toxin, most of the small number of formal research reports describe cyanobacterial LPS as weakly toxic compared to LPS from the Enterobacteriaceae. We systematically reviewed the literature on cyanobacterial LPS, and also examined the much lager body of literature relating to heterotrophic bacterial LPS and the atypical lipid A structures of some photosynthetic bacteria. While the literature on the biological activity of heterotrophic bacterial LPS is overwhelmingly large and therefore difficult to review for the purposes of exclusion, we were unable to find a convincing body of evidence to suggest that heterotrophic bacterial LPS, in the absence of other virulence factors, is responsible for acute gastrointestinal, dermatological or allergic reactions via natural exposure routes in humans. There is a danger that initial speculation about cyanobacterial LPS may evolve into orthodoxy without basis in research findings. No cyanobacterial lipid A structures have been described and published to date, so a recommendation is made that cyanobacteriologists should not continue to attribute such a diverse range of clinical symptoms to cyanobacterial LPS without research confirmation