Accounting students' IT applicaton skills over a 10-year period

This paper reports on the changing nature of a range of information technology (IT) application skills that students declare on entering an accounting degree over the period from 1996 to 2006. Accounting educators need to be aware of the IT skills students bring with them to university because of the implications this has for learning and teaching within the discipline and the importance of both general and specific IT skills within the practice and craft of accounting. Additionally, IT skills constitute a significant element within the portfolio of employability skills that are increasingly demanded by employers and emphasized within the overall Higher Education (HE) agenda. The analysis of students' reported IT application skills on entry to university, across a range of the most relevant areas of IT use in accounting, suggest that their skills have continued to improve over time. However, there are significant differential patterns of change through the years and within cohorts. The paper addresses the generalizability of these findings and discusses the implications of these factors for accounting educators, including the importance of recognising the differences that are potentially masked by the general increase in skills; the need for further research into the changing nature, and implications, of the gender gap in entrants' IT application skills; and the low levels of entrants' spreadsheet and database skills that are a cause for concern

Protocol for the Foot in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis trial (FiJIA): a randomised controlled trial of an integrated foot care programme for foot problems in JIA

<b>Background</b>: Foot and ankle problems are a common but relatively neglected manifestation of juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Studies of medical and non-medical interventions have shown that clinical outcome measures can be improved. However existing data has been drawn from small non-randomised clinical studies of single interventions that appear to under-represent the adult population suffering from juvenile idiopathic arthritis. To date, no evidence of combined therapies or integrated care for juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients with foot and ankle problems exists. <b>Methods/design</b>: An exploratory phase II non-pharmacological randomised controlled trial where patients including young children, adolescents and adults with juvenile idiopathic arthritis and associated foot/ankle problems will be randomised to receive integrated podiatric care via a new foot care programme, or to receive standard podiatry care. Sixty patients (30 in each arm) including children, adolescents and adults diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis who satisfy the inclusion and exclusion criteria will be recruited from 2 outpatient centres of paediatric and adult rheumatology respectively. Participants will be randomised by process of minimisation using the Minim software package. The primary outcome measure is the foot related impairment measured by the Juvenile Arthritis Disability Index questionnaire's impairment domain at 6 and 12 months, with secondary outcomes including disease activity score, foot deformity score, active/limited foot joint counts, spatio-temporal and plantar-pressure gait parameters, health related quality of life and semi-quantitative ultrasonography score for inflammatory foot lesions. The new foot care programme will comprise rapid assessment and investigation, targeted treatment, with detailed outcome assessment and follow-up at minimum intervals of 3 months. Data will be collected at baseline, 6 months and 12 months from baseline. Intention to treat data analysis will be conducted. A full health economic evaluation will be conducted alongside the trial and will evaluate the cost effectiveness of the intervention. This will consider the cost per improvement in Juvenile Arthritis Disability Index, and cost per quality adjusted life year gained. In addition, a discrete choice experiment will elicit willingness to pay values and a cost benefit analysis will also be undertaken

Simulating the Success of Trail Closure Strategies on Reducing Human Disturbance to Nesting Golden Eagles

As nature-based recreation grows in popularity, there is concern for reduced fitness of animals exposed to chronic disturbance by these activities. Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) and other raptors are sensitive to human recreation near their nests, and managers of these species need strategies to mitigate negative effects. We used simulation models to separate the effects of trail density and configuration, land cover configuration, and volume of human recreation on the effectiveness of 2 trail closure strategies to manage disturbance. We simulated a breeding pair of Golden Eagles at 3 territories with varying degrees of trail density under current and increased levels of human activity. We simulated a baseline scenario, a scenario with a 600 m restrictive buffer around the nest, and a scenario where we closed all but the most popular trails to human recreation. We also conducted a trail-swapping simulation with trail configurations of each territory placed into the land cover of the other territories under current and increased levels of human recreation. This allowed us to isolate the effects of trail density and configuration from land cover configuration on flushing frequency of eagles. We found that for current levels of human recreation, the restrictive buffer was best at reducing flushing of incubating eagles, while closing all but the popular trails was best for foraging eagles. However, management did not mitigate disturbance for trail-swapping simulations, indicating that trail density was the main factor influencing eagle flushing frequency when human recreation was increased. Our results suggest that managers should consider both trail density and the level of human recreation before deciding on mitigation strategies, as approaches that work at lower human activity levels may be ineffective when activity levels increase

Managing Penn\u27s Woods for old-growth forest tourism and deer

Cook Forest State Park was established in 1927 to preserve part of Pennsylvania\u27s original forest. Using the concept of moral landscapes, this paper examines the park\u27s creation resulting from one of the earliest wilderness preservation campaigns. Cook Forest\u27s moral landscape has been shaped by differing values over production and consumption, deer hunting and non-consumptive tourism, and the role of humans in nature. This paper will examine the challenges of managing for rare eastern old-growth forests, which are the park\u27s primary draw, and for white-tailed deer, which are ubiquitous but key to Pennsylvania\u27s deer hunting tradition. This paper discusses how altering the moral landscapes is critical to reshaping attitudes of what ‘normal’ forests and deer populations are as the park expands hunting acreage, considers alternative silvicultural practices, and moves to emphasize secondary old-growth in addition to the much visited primary old-growth that will be dying out over the next 100 years