Business Risks: When IS Fails to Detect Circumvention Activities

A business must recognize and address various risk factors when establishing and maintaining its information system. The overall risk to management is that the control environment does not protect proprietary business data and the financial reporting system that produces financial statements and other information used by investors, creditors and regulatory agencies. These risks require that management implement efforts to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of control procedures over business activities while being aware of additional system issues such as failing to adequately consider other risks which are more business-oriented including the risk of failing to prevent or detect fraudulent or illegal activities. Worldwide in 2008 the value of economic data stolen was estimated to be a trillion dollars. After the public outcry from the business failures such as Enron there were efforts by the U.S. government, business community and the accounting profession to strengthen business control environments to better address such risk factors and thereby improving the quality of financial data. One result of these efforts has been that businesses are guided by the features of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) and efforts by COSO (2007) which indirectly allude to but do not specifically address these risk factors in a technology-based business environment. Currently almost all records maintained by a business organization are now in an electronic format with over two-thirds never converted to hard copy. The integral nature of a networked system necessitates having adequate control aspects that ensure the confidentiality of business proprietary data and to ensure this data is not stolen or misused. One aspect of this issue is that of insider hacking to transfer or misuse proprietary business data. This issue and recommendations for management and their auditors are reported in this research

Clinical and functional impairment after nonoperative treatment of distal biceps ruptures

© 2018 Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Board of Trustees Background: Clinical and functional impairment after nonoperative treatment of distal biceps ruptures is not well understood. The goal of this study was to measure patients’ perceived disability, kinematic adjustment, and forearm supination power after nonoperative treatment of distal biceps ruptures. Methods: Fourteen individuals after nonoperative treatment of distal biceps ruptures were matched to a control group of 18 uninjured volunteers. Both groups prospectively completed the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH), Single Assessment Numerical Evaluation (SANE), and Biceps Disability Questionnaire. Both performed a new timed isotonic supination test that was designed to simulate activities of daily life. The isotonic torque dynamometer measures the supination arc, center of supination arc, torque, angular velocity, and power. Motion analysis quantifies forearm and shoulder contributions to the arc of supination. Results: The nonoperative treated group\u27s DASH (23.2 ± 10.3) and SANE (59.6 ± 16.2) scores demonstrated a clinical meaningful impairment. The control group showed no significant differences in kinematic values between dominant and nondominant arms (P =.854). The nonoperative biceps ruptured arms, compared with their uninjured arms, changed supination motion by decreasing the supination arc (P ≤.036), shifting the center of supination arc to a more pronated position (P ≤.030), and increasing the shoulder contribution to rotation (P ≤.001); despite this adaptation, their average corrected power of supination decreased by 47% (P =.001). Conclusion: Patients should understand that nonoperative treatment for distal biceps ruptures will result in varying degrees of functional loss as measured by the DASH, SANE, and Biceps Disability Questionnaire, change their supination kinematics during repetitive tasks, and that they will lose 47% of their supination power

LAMOST Experiment for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (LEGUE) The survey science plan

We describe the current plans for a spectroscopic survey of millions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy using the Guo Shou Jing Telescope (GSJT, formerly the Large Area Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope - LAMOST). The survey will obtain spectra for 2.5 million stars brighter than $r<19$ during dark/grey time, and 5 million stars brighter than $r<17$ or $J<16$ on nights that are moonlit or have low transparency. The survey will begin in fall of 2012, and will run for at least four years. The telescope design constrains the optimal declination range for observations to $10^\circ<\delta<50^\circ$, and site conditions lead to an emphasis on stars in the direction of the Galactic anticenter. The survey is divided into three parts with different target selection strategies: disk, anticenter, and spheroid. The resulting dataset will be used to study the merger history of the Milky Way, the substructure and evolution of the disks, the nature of the first generation of stars through identification of the lowest metallicity stars, and star formation through study of open clusters and the OB associations. Detailed design of the LEGUE survey will be completed after a review of the results of the pilot survey in summer 2012.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in RA

Redefining \u27Useful Life\u27--An Energy Consumption Method Emerges from the CC/DS Environment

A redefining of the underlying concept of useful life in the depreciation and costing is a result of the changes driven by advancements in the application of technology emerging from the Cloud Computing and data storage environment. Cloud Computing has found success in being an integral structural improvement used in business to improve efficiency and effectiveness as well as to manage costs. Data Storage has proven an equally successful tool in managing the expanding data captured and used in data analytics by companies. Beyond these influences a new approach to existing accounting methods can become a fundamental change which will lead to improved actions in decision making and external reporting for financial and taxation purposes

Redefining ‘Useful Life’ – An Energy Consumption Method Emerges from the CC/DS Environment

A redefining of the underlying concept of “useful life” in the depreciation and costing is a result of the changes driven by advancements in the application of technology emerging from the Cloud Computing and data storage environment. Cloud Computing has found success in being an integral structural improvement used in business to improve efficiency and effectiveness as well as to manage costs. Data Storage has proven an equally successful tool in managing the expanding data captured and used in data analytics by companies. Beyond these influences a new approach to existing accounting methods can become a fundamental change which will lead to improved actions in decision making and external reporting for financial and taxation purposes

RETRACTED: Clinical and functional impairment after nonoperative treatment of distal biceps ruptures (Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery (2019) 28(4) (757–764), (S1058274618307079), (10.1016/j.jse.2018.09.017))

© 2019 Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Board of Trustees This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal). This article has been retracted at the request of the corresponding author and the Human Research Protection Office of the University of Pittsburgh, in conjunction with the policies of their Institutional Review Board (IRB), because IRB Number PR 013110590 had not been granted at the University of Pittsburgh

Baltic Fisheries Assesment Working Group

The main ToR of WGBFAS is to assess the status and produce a draft advice on fishing opportu-nities for 2024 for the following stocks: • Sole in Division 3.a, SDs 20–24 (Skagerrak and Kattegat, western Baltic Sea; catch advice) • Cod in Kattegat SD 21 (catch advice) • Cod in SDs 22–24 (western Baltic; catch advice) • Cod in SDs 24–32 (eastern Baltic; catch advice) • Herring in SDs 25–27, 28.2, 29 and 32 (central Baltic Sea; catch advice) • Herring in SD 28.1 (Gulf of Riga; catch advice) • Herring in SDs 30-31 (Gulf of Bothnia; catch advice) • Sprat in SDs 22–32 (Baltic Sea; catch advice) • Plaice in SDs 21–23 (Kattegat, Belt Seas, and the Sound; catch advice) • Plaice in SDs 24–32 (Baltic Sea, excluding the Sound and Belt Seas; catch advice) • Brill in SDs 22-32 (Baltic Sea; stock status advice for years 2024, 2025 and 2026) • Dab in SDs 22-32(Baltic Sea; stock status advice for years 2024, 2025 and 2026) The working group fulfilled the ToRs in assessing the stock status and produced draft advice, including, where relevant, forecasts for fishing opportunities for all stocks with one exception. The assessment for cod in SDs22-24 (western Baltic) was downgraded from category 1 to cate-gory 3 due to unreliable F estimates. However, trends in SSB are still considered reliable and are used as basis for the advice. The WG was not requested to produce advice for four flounder stocks in the Baltic Sea (flounder in SD22-23, flounder in SDs 24-25, flounder in SDs 26+28, and flounder in SDs 27, 29-32) and turbot in SDs 22-32). For these stocks, however, data were com-piled and updated, and update assessments were conducted. In the introductory chapter of this report the WG, in agreement with the other ToRs, considers and comments on the ecosystem and fisheries overviews, reviews the progress on benchmark processes, identifies the data needed for next year’s data call with some suggestions for improvements in the data call, and summarizes general and stock-specific research needs. The introduction further summarizes the work of other WGs relevant to WGBFAS, and the assessment methods used. Finally, the introduction presents a brief overview of each stock and reviews the recently published work on ecosystem effects on fish populations in the Baltic Sea. The analytical models used for the stock assessments were SAM, Stock Synthesis (SS) and SPiCT. For most flatfish (data limited stocks), CPUE trends from bottom-trawl surveys were used in the assessment