Joint audit and accuracy of the auditor's report: An empirical study

This study examines the effects of a joint audit on auditor's report consensus and accuracy. We investigate whether a joint audit, particularly the report issued, improves an audit's quality. We measure the audit's quality using the degree of auditor consensus in the auditor's report. We also use an expected opinion, which we believe is appropriate in the defined circumstances, as a scale for the measurement of the report's accuracy. Participants in the study were statutory auditors from Austria and Germany. At present, manners of improving audit quality and auditing decisions are being intensively discussed in the European Union and everywhere in the world. The joint audit approach is a very current topic in this discussion. Regulators and standard setters are extensively examining the benefits of various audit approaches. Nevertheless, in most countries, the joint audit approach is still utilised on a voluntary basis and is not very common. Our study provides evidence that auditors who use a joint audit approach achieve higher consensus and greater accuracy. In light of current discussion on improving the quality of audits by implementing new methods and regulations, these results are significant for both auditing practice and audit research. Despite this importance, there are very few studies and little research on improving quality through the use of a joint audit approach. Our results demonstrate the need for further investigation of the determinants of audit performance when using a joint audit approach. Using a case study research design and an interview, we draw conclusions and discuss necessary future research

Enabling low-carbon development in poor countries

The challenges associated with achieving sustainable development goals and stabilizing the world’s climate cannot be solved without significant efforts by developing and newly-emerging countries. With respect to climate change mitigation, the main challenge for developing countries lies in avoiding future emissions and lock-ins into emission-intensive technologies, rather than reducing today’s emissions. While first best policy instruments like carbon prices could prevent increasing carbonization, those policies are often rejected by developing countries out of a concern for negative repercussions on development and long-term growth. In addition, policy environments in developing countries impose particular challenges for regulatory policy aiming to incentivize climate change mitigation and sustainable development. This chapter first discusses how climate policy could potentially interact with sustainable development and economic growth. It focuses, in particular, on the role of industrial sector development. The chapter then continues by discussing how effective policy could be designed, specifically taking developing country circumstances into account

Larger than Life: Humans' Nonverbal Status Cues Alter Perceived Size

Social dominance and physical size are closely linked. Nonverbal dominance displays in many non-human species are known to increase the displayer's apparent size. Humans also employ a variety of nonverbal cues that increase apparent status, but it is not yet known whether these cues function via a similar mechanism: by increasing the displayer's apparent size.We generated stimuli in which actors displayed high status, neutral, or low status cues that were drawn from the findings of a recent meta-analysis. We then conducted four studies that indicated that nonverbal cues that increase apparent status do so by increasing the perceived size of the displayer. Experiment 1 demonstrated that nonverbal status cues affect perceivers' judgments of physical size. The results of Experiment 2 showed that altering simple perceptual cues can affect judgments of both size and perceived status. Experiment 3 used objective measurements to demonstrate that status cues change targets' apparent size in the two-dimensional plane visible to a perceiver, and Experiment 4 showed that changes in perceived size mediate changes in perceived status, and that the cue most associated with this phenomenon is postural openness.We conclude that nonverbal cues associated with social dominance also affect the perceived size of the displayer. This suggests that certain nonverbal dominance cues in humans may function as they do in other species: by creating the appearance of changes in physical size

A Genome-Wide Association Study of Diabetic Kidney Disease in Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes

dentification of sequence variants robustly associated with predisposition to diabetic kidney disease (DKD) has the potential to provide insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms responsible. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of DKD in type 2 diabetes (T2D) using eight complementary dichotomous and quantitative DKD phenotypes: the principal dichotomous analysis involved 5,717 T2D subjects, 3,345 with DKD. Promising association signals were evaluated in up to 26,827 subjects with T2D (12,710 with DKD). A combined T1D+T2D GWAS was performed using complementary data available for subjects with T1D, which, with replication samples, involved up to 40,340 subjects with diabetes (18,582 with DKD). Analysis of specific DKD phenotypes identified a novel signal near GABRR1 (rs9942471, P = 4.5 x 10(-8)) associated with microalbuminuria in European T2D case subjects. However, no replication of this signal was observed in Asian subjects with T2D or in the equivalent T1D analysis. There was only limited support, in this substantially enlarged analysis, for association at previously reported DKD signals, except for those at UMOD and PRKAG2, both associated with estimated glomerular filtration rate. We conclude that, despite challenges in addressing phenotypic heterogeneity, access to increased sample sizes will continue to provide more robust inference regarding risk variant discovery for DKD.Peer reviewe

Self-harming behavior in adolescence as a social practice

Diese Bachelorarbeit befasst sich mit dem funktionellen Charakter von Selbstverletzendem Verhalten bei Jugendlichen. Es soll geklärt werden, welche Motive für das Ausüben von selbstschädigenden Verhaltensweisen wesentlich sind. Die in dieser Arbeit stattfindende Auseinandersetzung mit Selbstverletzendem Verhalten, geschieht primär ohne den Bezug zu Persönlichkeitsstörungen und anderen psychischen Erkrankungen. Weiterhin sollen verschiedene Modelle die Entstehung von Selbstverletzendem Verhalten erklärbar machen. Ebenfalls soll eine mögliche Methodik der Selbstverletzung, sowie der Zusammenhang von Suizidalität und Selbstverletzendem Verhalten aus einer funktionellen Sicht beleuchtet werden

Entwicklung einer Prüfmethode für die schnelle Bestimmung von VOC aus Holzprodukten zur frühzeitigen Ableitung des langfristigen Emissionsverhaltens und Qualitätskontrolle bei der Herstellung von Holzwerkstoffen

Das derzeit standardisierte Verfahren zur Bestimmung von VOC-Emissionen aus Bauprodukten ist in den Normen DIN EN 16516:2018 und DIN ISO 16000-6:2004 festgelegt. Dabei verbleibt das Bauprodukt unter definierten Bedingungen über 28 Tage in einer Prüfkammer. Zu bestimmten Tagen (mindestens an Tag 3 und 28) wird die flächenspezifische Emissionsrate ermittelt. Dieser sehr zeit- und kostenintensive Prüfzyklus ist aber für eine Produktionskontrolle und Produktentwicklung nachteilig. Ziel des Forschungsvorhabens ist daher die Entwicklung einer Schnelltestmethode, um das langfristige Emissionsverhalten von Holz und Holzwerkstoffen bereits nach wenigen Stunden ableiten zu können und so die derzeitig nötige Prüfdauer zu verkürzen. Im Rahmen dieses Projektes wurden zwei unterschiedliche Ansätze verfolgt: Zum einen wurde die Leistungsfähigkeit der Micro-Chamber (µ-CTE™, Markes International, Llantrisant, UK) in Verbindung mit der TD-GC-MS-Analyse und parallel dazu die der Gasanalyse (in Anlehnung an EN ISO 12460-3:2015) kombiniert mit der SPME-GC-FAIMS-Analyse untersucht. Als Referenzverfahren dienen die Kammerprüfverfahren für Bauprodukte gemäß DIN EN ISO 16000-9:2006 und DIN EN 16516:2018. Für die Entwicklung der Schnelltestmethoden wurden die Einflüsse von Prüfparametern wie Konditionierungsdauer, Temperatur und Luftfluss auf das Emissionsverhalten untersucht und geeignete Einstellungen festgelegt. Verschiedene OSB-Produkte und Kiefervollholz wurden parallel mittels den entwickelten Schnelltestmethoden und dem Referenzverfahren geprüft und die Korrelation der Ergebnisse ermittelt. Aufgrund der unterschiedlichen Emissionsverläufe müssen die Substanzgruppen getrennt voneinander bewertet werden. Primäre Emissionen zeigten stets eine Reduzierung der Emissionen während einer Prüfung bei Raumtemperatur; hierfür wurden gute Korrelationen der Ergebnisse aus Schnelltest- und Referenzmessung gefunden. Hingegen ergaben sich für sekundäre Emissionen (vornehmlich Aldehyde) nur gute Zusammenhänge zwischen den beiden Methoden, wenn zum Zeitpunkt der Messung in der Schnelltestmethode der Anstieg der Emissionsraten bereits durchlaufen war und diese ein Abklingen zeigten. Durch Verwendung einer erhöhten Prüftemperatur konnte die Aldehydbildung beschleunigt werden, sodass sich auch die sekundären Emissionen in einem Prüfzyklus von wenigen Tagen ableiten ließen. Die Prüfdauer der Schnelltestmethoden beträgt wenige Stunden bzw. Tage und vermindert so den zeitlichen Prüfaufwand gegenüber dem standardisierten Verfahren (28 Tage) erheblich.The standards DIN EN 16516:2018 and DIN ISO 16000-6:2004 define the currently standardised method for determination of VOC-emissions from construction products. According to these, the samples of construction products are tested for 28 days under defined conditions in a test chamber. At specific testing days (at least at day 3 and 28) the area specific emission rate is determined. However this costly and time consuming testing duration is disadvantageous for product controlling and developing. Therefore, the objective of this work is to develop of a rapid test method in order to derive the long term emission behaviour of VOC from wood and woodbased products within hours. This should lead in a significantly reduced testing period. Two different approaches were followed: On the one hand the efficiency of the Micro-Chamber (µ-CTE™, Markes International, Llantrisant, UK) combined with TD-GC-MS-analysis was analysed. In parallel the gas analysis system (according to EN ISO 12460-3:2015) combined with a SPME-GCFAIMS-analysis was investigated. The reference method was the emission test chamber method according to DIN EN ISO 16000-9:2006 and DIN EN 16516:2018. The influence of testing parameters, like sampling time, temperature, and air flow rate on the emission performance were investigated and defined. Several OSB and pine wood samples were tested utilising the developed rapid test methods and the reference test chamber method in parallel. Afterwards, coefficients of determinations were calculated from the results. Due to the different emission behaviour the substance groups must be considered and evaluated separately: Primary emissions decreased during testing at room temperature. Consequently, the results from the rapid test method and reference method showed a good correlating. However results of secondary emissions (mainly aldehydes) only correlated, if the time of sampling was defined after the for this substance group characteristically increasing of the emission rate. The formation of aldehydes could be accelerated by using a higher test temperature, so that a derivation of emission rates of secondary emissions was also possible within a few days. The testing time of the raid test methods was just a few hours or days. This is a major reduction of testing time compared to the standard or reference method (28 days)

Mono-ADP-ribosylation sites of human CD73 inhibit its adenosine-generating enzymatic activity

CD73-derived adenosine plays a major role in damage-induced tissue responses by inhibiting inflammation. Damage-associated stimuli, such as hypoxia and mechanical stress, induce the cellular release of ATP and NA

Genetic profiling and surface proteome analysis of human atrial stromal cells and rat ventricular epicardium-derived cells reveals novel insights into their cardiogenic potential

Epicardium-derived cells (EPDC) and atrial stromal cells (ASC) display cardio-regenerative potential, but the molecular details are still unexplored. Signals which induce activation, migration and differentiation of these cells are largely unknown. Here we have isolated rat ventricular EPDC and rat/human ASC and performed genetic and proteomic profiling. EPDC and ASC expressed epicardial/mesenchymal markers (WT-1, Tbx18, CD73,CD90, CD44, CD105), cardiac markers (Gata4, Tbx5, troponin T) and also contained phosphocreatine. We used cell surface biotinylation to isolate plasma membrane proteins of rEPDC and hASC, Nano-liquid chromatography with subsequent mass spectrometry and bioinformatics analysis identified 396 rat and 239 human plasma membrane proteins with 149 overlapping proteins. Functional GO-term analysis revealed several significantly enriched categories related to extracellular matrix (ECM), cell migration/differentiation, immunology or angiogenesis. We identified receptors for ephrin and growth factors (IGF, PDGF, EGF, anthrax toxin) known to be involved in cardiac repair and regeneration. Functional category enrichment identified clusters around integrins, PI3K/Akt-signaling and various cardiomyopathies. Our study indicates that EPDC and ASC have a similar molecular phenotype related to cardiac healing/regeneration. The cell surface proteome repository will help to further unravel the molecular details of their cardio-regenerative potential and their role in cardiac diseases

Genetic profiling and surface proteome analysis of human atrial stromal cells and rat ventricular epicardium-derived cells reveals novel insights into their cardiogenic potential

Epicardium-derived cells (EPDC) and atrial stromal cells (ASC) display cardio-regenerative potential, but the molecular details are still unexplored. Signals which induce activation, migration and differentiation of these cells are largely unknown. Here we have isolated rat ventricular EPDC and rat/human ASC and performed genetic and proteomic profiling. EPDC and ASC expressed epicardial/mesenchymal markers (WT-1, Tbx18, CD73, CD90, CD44, CD105), cardiac markers (Gata4, Tbx5, troponin T) and also contained phosphocreatine. We used cell surface biotinylation to isolate plasma membrane proteins of rEPDC and hASC, Nano-liquid chromatography with subsequent mass spectrometry and bioinformatics analysis identified 396 rat and 239 human plasma membrane proteins with 149 overlapping proteins. Functional GO-term analysis revealed several significantly enriched categories related to extracellular matrix (ECM), cell migration/differentiation, immunology or angiogenesis. We identified receptors for ephrin and growth factors (IGF, PDGF, EGF, anthrax toxin) known to be involved in cardiac repair and regeneration. Functional category enrichment identified clusters around integrins, PI3K/Akt-signaling and various cardiomyopathies. Our study indicates that EPDC and ASC have a similar molecular phenotype related to cardiac healing/regeneration. The cell surface proteome repository will help to further unravel the molecular details of their cardio-regenerative potential and their role in cardiac diseases