PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT AND CREATIVE ACCOUNTING UNDER IFRS IN EX-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES: CASE OF ROMANIA

The accounting rules from each country evolve in time in order to respond the social, cultural and economical environment needs. After some communist countries (as Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, s.o.) joined the European Union an important number of local companies became to apply accounting regulation according with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the possible risks for companies' management from ex-communist counties by applying (mandatory or voluntary) International Financial Reporting Standards reporting regulation and professional judgment. Under the pressure of economic globalization all the ex-communist countries ware obliged to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards in the field of accounting. The main objective of this paper is to find out from the experience of different companies who already adopted IFRS which are the risks related to professional judgment application under IFRS on the financial statement users. As research methodology we integrated theoretical and empirical studies from accounting and law (especially from Romanian experience) in order to contribute to the cross-fertilization of our field of interest. As final results of our paper we find that the biggest risk of applying professional judgment prescribed by IFRS in ex-communist countries is to appear different creative accounting techniques which influence in a negative way the decision-making process for the financial statements users. During worldwide financial crisis the majority of Romanian companies tried to use in the most appropriate way the professional judgment in order to arrange their financial reports and to save company's money (in relation with local government) or to show higher performance (in relation with financial institutions) for the fund-raising process We identified several motivations including the existence of tax levies based on income, confidence by shareholders and workers in management that is able to report stable earnings and psychological expectations relating to increases or decreases in anticipated income.professional judgment, IFRS, globalization, creative accounting, risk

INFORMASIA CONTABILA – INSTRUMENT DE PUTERE ÎN EPOCA GLOBALIZARII

Les transactions effectuées dans le marché globale de capital (qui a le principal component le marché boursier) et les investissements étrangers directs nécessitent une information préalable pour les investiteurs qui ont des fonds pour être placés. Dans ces conditions les informations comptables deviennent un instrument important pour décider d’investir ou de désinvestir au niveau international. C’est pourquoi je considère que la comptabilité est un instrument de force dans l’époque de la globalisation. Il y a des situations où les entreprises peuvent dénaturer l’information comptable et la solution pour éviter cet inconvénient est l’audit des situations financiaires. Cependant, il y a des exceptions où l’audit ne peut pas empêcher la désinformation et cela a causé la chute de quelques grandes compagnies mondiales: Enron , Wordcom, Vivendi Universal.globalization, accounting information, decision, audit

PROCEDURES AND MECHANISMS FOR PREVENTION OF THE RISK OF FINANCIAL INSOLVENCY IN THE BANKING SYSTEM THROUGH THE USE OF RISK PROVISIONS

The paper addresses how the central bank put in place procedures and mechanisms for mandatory treatment of the risks the banking activity but also of the classification of loans and investments, the establishment, regulation and use of specific provisionsloans and investments, provisions for credit risk, insolvency

Enterprise risk management and disclosure

Our paper deals with aspects regarding risk and uncertainty. Many risk management methods are today implemented in organizations. This perspective reveals that managers are linked in different forms to the activities they are managing, depending on the conditions and levels of uncertainty they are in. Actually, these multiple levels of uncertainty lead to the conclusion that any situation in an organizational system can be classified in two different models of organizational phenomena: the organizational phenomena that are putting managers and stakeholders in conditions of risk and the organizational phenomena that are putting them in condition of uncertainty. Using content analyze in this paper we survey the disclosure level of risk management information in the annual report of top Romanian listed companies

PROCEDURES AND MECHANISMS FOR PREVENTION OF THE RISK OF FINANCIAL INSOLVENCY IN THE BANKING SYSTEM THROUGH THE USE OF RISK PROVISIONS

The paper addresses how the central bank put in place procedures and mechanisms for mandatory treatment of the risks the banking activity but also of the classification of loans and investments, the establishment, regulation and use of specific provision

Preclinical Testing of Living Tissue-Engineered Heart Valves for Pediatric Patients, Challenges and Opportunities

Introduction: Pediatric patients with cardiac congenital diseases require heart valve implants that can grow with their natural somatic increase in size. Current artificial valves perform poorly in children and cannot grow; thus, living-tissue-engineered valves capable of sustaining matrix homeostasis could overcome the current drawbacks of artificial prostheses and minimize the need for repeat surgeries. Materials and Methods: To prepare living-tissue-engineered valves, we produced completely acellular ovine pulmonary valves by perfusion. We then collected autologous adipose tissue, isolated stem cells, and differentiated them into fibroblasts and separately into endothelial cells. We seeded the fibroblasts in the cusp interstitium and onto the root adventitia and the endothelial cells inside the lumen, conditioned the living valves in dedicated pulmonary heart valve bioreactors, and pursued orthotopic implantation of autologous cell-seeded valves with 6 months follow-up. Unseeded valves served as controls. Results: Perfusion decellularization yielded acellular pulmonary valves that were stable, no degradable in vivo, cell friendly and biocompatible, had excellent hemodynamics, were not immunogenic or inflammatory, non thrombogenic, did not calcify in juvenile sheep, and served as substrates for cell repopulation. Autologous adipose-derived stem cells were easy to isolate and differentiate into fibroblasts and endothelial-like cells. Cell-seeded valves exhibited preserved viability after progressive bioreactor conditioning and functioned well in vivo for 6 months. At explantation, the implants and anastomoses were intact, and the valve root was well integrated into host tissues; valve leaflets were unchanged in size, non fibrotic, supple, and functional. Numerous cells positive for a-smooth muscle cell actin were found mostly in the sinus, base, and the fibrosa of the leaflets, and most surfaces were covered by endothelial cells, indicating a strong potential for repopulation of the scaffold. Conclusions: Tissue-engineered living valves can be generated in vitro using the approach described here. The technology is not trivial and can provide numerous challenges and opportunities, which are discussed in detail in this paper. Overall, we concluded that cell seeding did not negatively affect tissue-engineered heart valve (TEHV) performance as they exhibited as good hemodynamic performance as acellular valves in this model. Further understanding of cell fate after implantation and the timeline of repopulation of acellular scaffolds will help us evaluate the translational potential of this technology

Stakeholders' perspectives on the operationalisation of the ecosystem service concept : Results from 27 case studies

The ecosystem service (ES) concept is becoming mainstream in policy and planning, but operational influence on practice is seldom reported. Here, we report the practitioners' perspectives on the practical implementation of the ES concept in 27 case studies. A standardised anonymous survey (n = 246), was used, focusing on the science-practice interaction process, perceived impact and expected use of the case study assessments. Operationalisation of the concept was shown to achieve a gradual change in practices: 13% of the case studies reported a change in action (e.g. management or policy change), and a further 40% anticipated that a change would result from the work. To a large extent the impact was attributed to a well conducted science-practice interaction process (>70%). The main reported advantages of the concept included: increased concept awareness and communication; enhanced participation and collaboration; production of comprehensive science-based knowledge; and production of spatially referenced knowledge for input to planning (91% indicated they had acquired new knowledge). The limitations were mostly case-specific and centred on methodology, data, and challenges with result implementation. The survey highlighted the crucial role of communication, participation and collaboration across different stakeholders, to implement the ES concept and enhance the democratisation of nature and landscape planning. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

THE BEHAVIOUR OF ROMANIAN ACCOUNTANTS FROM TIMIS COUNTY: CREATIVE OR NON-CREATIVE

Creativity and innovation are two very trendy concepts for the current period which is characterized by a very difficult economic context. The creativity and the innovation usually stimulate the competitiveness of economic organizations. But what about creativity in the field of accounting? Are the accountants creative? Is creativity benefit for the quality of accounting information? The aim of our study is to review study the accounting literature and practical experience of Timis county organizations in order to create a picture of Timis county accountants’ behaviour. For the achievement of the proposed objectives the authors based their opinion on a research study by questionnaire realized at Timis county level

THE ROLE OF EUROPEAN FUNDS FOR RESEARCH AS ENGINE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

ABSTRACT: The economic theory has long since recognized the importance of innovation as one of the engines of economic growth and development. On the other hand, at the microeconomic level, research, development and innovation are some of the key factors for the organization’s growth. Traditionally, the process of research and development is financed either by the state or by the large corporations, while the small and medium-sized enterprises have limited access to such activities. The entities from the EU member states and the EU member candidates have now a wide choice of EU programs for financing their research and development activities. In this paper we provide an analysis of the possibilities of financing these activities using EU funds, and we compare the effectiveness of the EU member states in accessing these funds