ABC Diffusion in the Age of Digital Economy: the UK Experience

Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a call for further research to trace the effects of the speedy changes in business environment on management accounting practices. This study assesses the impact of different information technologies on ABC adoption and implementation. It uses a cross-sectional survey of financial directors and controllers in the UK firms. Postal and electronic questionnaires have been used in order to collect the empirical data. The findings revealed that the rate of ABC adoption has shown a number of changes between 1999 and 2005. The proportions of ABC users and those currently assessing it have dramatically fallen. The percentage of firms rejecting ABC has slightly fallen as well. However, there has been a considerable increase in the number of firms that abandoned ABC implementation and those firms that gave no consideration for its implementation. These results indicate a decrease in the popularity of ABC. ERP systems seem to have a slightly low significant impact on the initial decision of ABC adoption in those firms that do not have any consideration for ABC and firms that have an ERP system before ABC adoption. Furthermore, the results indicate that firms use different information technologies in the ABC assessment and implementation. For ABC assessment, general software applications are the most preferable software packages while a mix of different ABC software packages is the most popular in the case of ABC implementation. Finally, the findings of this study provide an indication on the nature of the possible effect of general IT-related problems on ABC implementation

Ballisticity of nanotube FETs: Role of phonon energy and gate bias

We investigate the role of electron-phonon scattering and gate bias in degrading the drive current of nanotube MOSFETs. Our central results are: (i) Optical phonon scattering significantly decreases the drive current only when gate voltage is higher than a well-defined threshold. It means that elastic scattering mechanisms are most detrimental to nanotube MOSFETs. (ii) For comparable mean free paths, a lower phonon energy leads to a larger degradation of drive current. Thus for semiconducting nanowire FETs, the drive current will be more sensitive than carbon nanotube FETs because of the smaller phonon energies in semiconductors. (iii) Radial breathing mode phonons cause an appreciable reduction in drive current.Comment: 16 pages, 1 table, 4 figure

Towards an effective fiscal stimulus : evidence from Botswana

Abstract: While there is a general agreement on the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus, there is no consensus on which stimulus is better. To address this concern, this paper uses a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model to propose a fiscal stimulus that Botswana can adopt given the slowing mining productivity. The results suggest that short-run macroeconomic stabilisation can be achieved through a cut in labour taxes. This fiscal stimulus generates larger growth multipliers and contributes relatively more employment compared to a cut in consumption tax and increases in government spending. The findings also revealed that a cut in labour taxes improves trade balance, resulting in a greater accumulation of international reserves and has no Dutch disease effects. These results suggest the need for a labour tax policy reform. These results also offer some policy options for other developing countries, which may face similar fiscal risks in future

Voltammetric determination of melatonin in tablet dosage forms and human serum

The electrochemical oxidation of melatonin is studied in Britton-Robinson buffer in the pH range 2.2-11.8 by cyclic voltammetry at glassy carbon electrode. Three irreversible, diffusion-controlled oxidation peaks were obtained. The utility of using differential pulse and square wave techniques for determination of melatonin was examined. Different parameters affecting the peak current were analylzed and at optimum conditions, linear calibration plots from 0.02-0.5 mM and 0.04 to 0.5 mM of melatonin were obtained applying the two techniques, respectively. The differential pulse mode was successfully applied to the determination of melatonin in commercial tablets containing about three-folds of vitamin B6 without previous separation. The same technique was also used for melatonin determination in human serum with acceptable accuracy.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Voltammetric determination of melatonin in tablet dosage forms and human serum

The electrochemical oxidation of melatonin is studied in Britton-Robinson buffer in the pH range 2.2-11.8 by cyclic voltammetry at glassy carbon electrode. Three irreversible, diffusion-controlled oxidation peaks were obtained. The utility of using differential pulse and square wave techniques for determination of melatonin was examined. Different parameters affecting the peak current were analylzed and at optimum conditions, linear calibration plots from 0.02-0.5 mM and 0.04 to 0.5 mM of melatonin were obtained applying the two techniques, respectively. The differential pulse mode was successfully applied to the determination of melatonin in commercial tablets containing about three-folds of vitamin B6 without previous separation. The same technique was also used for melatonin determination in human serum with acceptable accuracy.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

The Breathing Human Infrastructure: Integrating Air Quality, Traffic, And Social Media Indicators

Outdoor air pollution is a complex system that is responsible for the deaths of millions of people annually, yet the integration of interdisciplinary data necessary to assess air quality\u27s multiple metrics is still lacking. This case study integrates atmospheric indicators (concentrations of criteria pollutants including particulate matter and gaseous pollutants), traffic indicators (permanent traffic monitoring station data), and social indicators (community responses in Twitter archives) representing the interplay of the three critical pillars of the United Nations\u27 Triple Bottom Line: environment, economy, and society. During the watershed moment of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in Florida, urban centers demonstrated the gaps and opportunities for understanding the relationships, through correlations rather than causations, between urban air quality, traffic emissions, and public perceptions. The relationship between the perception and the traffic variables were strongly correlated, however no correlation was observed between the perception and actual air quality indicators, except for NO2. These observations might consequently infer that traffic serves as people\u27s proxy for air quality, regardless of actual air quality, suggesting that social media messaging around asthma may be a way to monitor traffic patterns in areas where no infrastructure currently exists or is prohibited to build. It also indicates that people are less likely to be reliable sensors to accurately measure air quality due to bias in their observations of traffic volume and/or confirmation biases in broader social discourse. Results presented herein are of significance in demonstrating the capacity for interdisciplinary studies to consider the predictive capacities of social media and air pollution, its use as both lever and indicator of public support for air quality legislation and clean-air transitions, and its ability to overcome limitations of surface monitoring stations

Ballisticity of nanotube field-effect transistors: Role of phonon energy and gate bias

We investigate the role of electron-phonon scattering and gate bias in degrading the drive current of nanotube field-effect transistors FETs. Optical phonon scattering significantly decreases the drive current only when gate voltage is higher than a well-defined threshold. For comparable electron-phonon coupling, a lower phonon energy leads to a larger degradation of drive current. Thus in semiconductor nanowire FETs, the drive current will be more sensitive than in carbon nanotube FETs because of the smaller phonon energies in semiconductors. Acoustic phonons and other elastic scattering mechanisms are most detrimental to nanotube FETs irrespective of biasing conditions

Multi-level Multi-objective Quadratic Fractional Programming Problem with Fuzzy Parameters: A FGP Approach

The motivation behind this paper is to present multi-level multi-objective quadratic fractional programming (ML-MOQFP) problem with fuzzy parameters in the constraints. ML-MOQFP problem is an important class of non-linear fractional programming problem. These type of problems arise in many fields such as production planning, financial and corporative planning, health care and hospital planning. Firstly, the concept of the -cut and fuzzy partial order relation are applied to transform the set of fuzzy constraints into a common crisp set. Then, the quadratic fractional objective functions in each level are transformed into non-linear objective functions based on a proposed transformation. Secondly, in the proposed model, separate non-linear membership functions for each objective function of the ML-MOQFP problem are defined. Then, the fuzzy goal programming (FGP) approach is utilized to obtain a compromise solution for the ML-MOQFP problem by minimizing the sum of the negative deviational variables. Finally, an illustrative numerical example is given to demonstrate the applicability and performance of the proposed approach