International Accounting Standards, Budgeting and Controlling in Private and Public Sector

The purpose of this article is to present the ability of convergence in budgeting and control mechanisms between Private and Public Sectors, based on the standardization of financial events in accordance with International Accounting Standards (IAS). The necessity arises from the trend –expressed as New Public Management (NPM) theory – of adopting in Public Sector entities, management procedures that are followed in the Private Sector. The research concludes that the common structure of financial statements under IAS/IFRS and IPSAS allows the convergence of budgeting and control mechanisms between Public and Private Sectors. In the herein presented article, the budgeting and controlling models applied in the Private Sector entities have been applied in the Public Sector organizations considering the different directions of the mechanisms that generate these models. The research enhances the accountability and decision-making in the Public Sector, while contributing to further discussions about the effectiveness of the application of Private-sector techniques in Public entities.     Keywords: Audit; Accounting, IAS/IFRS/IPSAS, Financial Contro

Synthesis of accelerograms compatible with the Chinese GB 50011-2001 design spectrum via harmonic wavelets: artificial and historic records

A versatile approach is employed to generate artificial accelerograms which satisfy the compatibility criteria prescribed by the Chinese aseismic code provisions GB 50011-2001. In particular, a frequency dependent peak factor derived by means of appropriate Monte Carlo analyses is introduced to relate the GB 50011-2001 design spectrum to a parametrically defined evolutionary power spectrum (EPS). Special attention is given to the definition of the frequency content of the EPS in order to accommodate the mathematical form of the aforementioned design spectrum. Further, a one-to-one relationship is established between the parameter controlling the time-varying intensity of the EPS and the effective strong ground motion duration. Subsequently, an efficient auto-regressive moving-average (ARMA) filtering technique is utilized to generate ensembles of non-stationary artificial accelerograms whose average response spectrum is in a close agreement with the considered design spectrum. Furthermore, a harmonic wavelet based iterative scheme is adopted to modify these artificial signals so that a close matching of the signals’ response spectra with the GB 50011-2001 design spectrum is achieved on an individual basis. This is also done for field recorded accelerograms pertaining to the May, 2008 Wenchuan seismic event. In the process, zero-phase high-pass filtering is performed to accomplish proper baseline correction of the acquired spectrum compatible artificial and field accelerograms. Numerical results are given in a tabulated format to expedite their use in practice

Electrochemical evaluation of the de-/re-activation of oxygen evolving Ir oxide

Understanding the influence of dynamic and stationary polarization on the deactivation of state-of-the-art IrOx catalysts is imperative for the design and operation of robust and efficient proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers. In this work, the deactivation and activity regeneration of a commercial IrOx catalyst investigated under potentiodynamic and potentiostatic conditions in acidic media by means of rotating disk electrode and electrogravimetry. Systematic electrochemical protocols were designed to decouple reversible from irreversible activity losses. Cyclic voltammetry provided a metric of the active surface area and traced the charge growth under different oxygen evolution reaction conditions. A direct logt dependent charge growth is observed, accompanied by the same fractional kinetic activity decay under potentiodynamic conditions. The loss is essentially recoverable after electrochemical reductive treatment, however at the expense of mild material dissolution. In contrast, extended potentiostatic operation induced irreversible intrinsic degradation after a critical time (0.5-1 h), accompanied by stability enhancement. This irreversible deactivation attributed to a gradual transformation of the hydrated IrOx to a dehydrated condensed oxide. Our results suggest that Ir dissolution during the regenerative treatment is not prohibitive, as long as the low potential modulations are not frequent

Modelling non-wood forest products in Europe: a review.

Non-wood forest products (NWFP) like cork, edible mushrooms, pine nuts, acorns, resins, medicinal plants, and floral greens, among others, provide important recreational and commercial activities in the rural forested areas of the world, being in certain regions more profitable than traditional timber harvesting. Despite the importance of non-wood forest products and services, forest management and planning methods and models in Europe have been traditionally wood oriented, leading to a lack for tools helping forest management based on optimizing these products. In the present work we’ll show and discuss the main factors and challenges limiting the development of classical empirical models for NWFP, and we will review the existing models for the main NWFP in Europe: cork, pine nuts, berries, mushrooms and resins.Los productos forestales no maderables (PFNM), como el corcho, los hongos coemstibles, piñones, bellotas, resinas y plantas medicinales u ornamentales, entre otros, son fuente tanto de servicios recreativos como de actividad económica en una parte importante de los bosques del mundo. En muchas de estas zonas, el aprovechamiento de estos productos supone un ingreso superior al obtenido en el aprovechamiento maderable tradicional. Sin embargo, y pese a la importancia de estos productos y servicios no maderables, la gestión forestal, las herramientas de apoyo y los modelos forestales existentes en Europa han sido normalmente desarrollados desde una perspectiva centrada en la producción de madera. Esto se ha traducido en la escasez de herramientas de apoyo a la decisión de la gestión basadas en la optimización de la producción no maderable. En el presente trabajo se exponen y discuten los principales factores que limitan el desarrollo de los modelos para productos no maderables, y se revisan los modelos existentes para los principales productos no maderables en Europa: corcho, piñones, frutos del bosque, hongos y resina

Modelización de productos forestales no maderables en Europa: revisión

Non-wood forest products (NWFP) like cork, edible mushrooms, pine nuts, acorns, resins, medicinal plants, and floral greens, among others, provide important recreational and commercial activities in the rural forested areas of the world, being in certain regions more profitable than traditional timber harvesting. Despite the importance of non-wood forest products and services, forest management and planning methods and models in Europe have been traditionally wood oriented, leading to a lack for tools helping forest management based on optimizing these products. In the present work we’ll show and discuss the main factors and challenges limiting the development of classical empirical models for NWFP, and we will review the existing models for the main NWFP in Europe: cork, pine nuts, berries, mushrooms and resins.Los productos forestales no maderables (PFNM), como el corcho, los hongos coemstibles, piñones, bellotas, resinas y plantas medicinales u ornamentales, entre otros, son fuente tanto de servicios recreativos como de actividad económica en una parte importante de los bosques del mundo. En muchas de estas zonas, el aprovechamiento de estos productos supone un ingreso superior al obtenido en el aprovechamiento maderable tradicional. Sin embargo, y pese a la importancia de estos productos y servicios no maderables, la gestión forestal, las herramientas de apoyo y los modelos forestales existentes en Europa han sido normalmente desarrollados desde una perspectiva centrada en la producción de madera. Esto se ha traducido en la escasez de herramientas de apoyo a la decisión de la gestión basadas en la optimización de la producción no maderable. En el presente trabajo se exponen y discuten los principales factores que limitan el desarrollo de los modelos para productos no maderables, y se revisan los modelos existentes para los principales productos no maderables en Europa: corcho, piñones, frutos del bosque, hongos y resina

Acute myocardial infarction presumambly embolic, in a patient with a mechanical aortic valve: a rare cause of non atherosclerotic coronary arterial occlusion

AbstractWe present a case of an acute myocardial infarction with ST segment elevation in a patient with a mechanical aortic valve prosthesis who had discontinued anticoagulant therapy. We performed a primary coronary intervention procedure, including thrombus aspiration as well as plain balloon angioplasty (low atmospheres), in order to restore coronary flow in left anterior descending artery as soon as possible. Review of the literature suggests that in such cases the diagnosis of the embolic origin of the acute coronary syndrome is assumed and can never been proved definitely. Thrombus aspiration must be included in the therapeutic strategy of these patients.                      &nbsp

Tuning of Reciprocal Carbon-Electrode Properties for an Optimized Hydrogen Evolution.

Closing the material cycle for harmful and rare resources is a key criterion for sustainable and green energy systems. The concept of using scalable biomass-derived carbon electrodes to produce hydrogen from water was proposed here, satisfying the need for sustainability in the field of chemical energy conversion. The carbon electrodes exhibited not only water oxidation activity but also a strong self-oxidation when being used as anode for water splitting. The carbon oxidation, which is more energy-favorable, was intentionally allowed to occur for an improvement of the total current, thus enhancing the hydrogen production on the cathode side. By introducing different earth-abundant metals, the electrode could be well adjusted to achieve an optimized water/carbon oxidation ratio and an appreciable reactivity for practical applications. This promising methodology may become a very large driver for carbon chemistry when waste organic materials or biomass can be converted using its intrinsic energy content of carbon. Such a process could open a safe path for sub-zero CO2 emission control. The concept of how and which parameter of a carbon-based electrode can be optimized was presented and discussed in this paper

Reconstruction of Hydraulic Data by Machine Learning

Numerical simulation models associated with hydraulic engineering take a wide array of data into account to produce predictions: rainfall contribution to the drainage basin (characterized by soil nature, infiltration capacity and moisture), current water height in the river, topography, nature and geometry of the river bed, etc. This data is tainted with uncertainties related to an imperfect knowledge of the field, measurement errors on the physical parameters calibrating the equations of physics, an approximation of the latter, etc. These uncertainties can lead the model to overestimate or underestimate the flow and height of the river. Moreover, complex assimilation models often require numerous evaluations of physical solvers to evaluate these uncertainties, limiting their use for some real-time operational applications. In this study, we explore the possibility of building a predictor for river height at an observation point based on drainage basin time series data. An array of data-driven techniques is assessed for this task, including statistical models, machine learning techniques and deep neural network approaches. These are assessed on several metrics, offering an overview of the possibilities related to hydraulic time-series. An important finding is that for the same hydraulic quantity, the best predictors vary depending on whether the data is produced using a physical model or real observations.Comment: Submitted to SimHydro 201

Accelerator Testing of the General Antiparticle Spectrometer, a Novel Approach to Indirect Dark Matter Detection

We report on recent accelerator testing of a prototype general antiparticle spectrometer (GAPS). GAPS is a novel approach for indirect dark matter searches that exploits the antideuterons produced in neutralino-neutralino annihilations. GAPS captures these antideuterons into a target with the subsequent formation of exotic atoms. These exotic atoms decay with the emission of X-rays of precisely defined energy and a correlated pion signature from nuclear annihilation. This signature uniquely characterizes the antideuterons. Preliminary analysis of data from a prototype GAPS in an antiproton beam at the KEK accelerator in Japan has confirmed the multi-X-ray/pion star topology and indicated X-ray yields consistent with prior expectations. Moreover our success in utilizing solid rather than gas targets represents a significant simplification over our original approach and offers potential gains in sensitivity through reduced dead mass in the target area.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, submitted to JCA