The impact of the auditee’s industry on type II audit misclassifications

Abstract. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the literature concerning Going Concern opinions and their relative misclassifications. Firms prepare their financial statements under the Going Concern assumption, under which the firm is expected to continue operating during the normal course of business without facing bankruptcy risks. Auditors are required to deliver an opinion concerning the appropriateness of the Going Concern assumption. Past literature refers to Type II audit misclassifications when discussing those misclassifications occurring when auditors fail to modify an audit report for Going Concern, and the client subsequently files for bankruptcy within one year from the issuance of the report. Type II audit misclassifications are often seen as “audit failures” by regulators and investors, as auditors failed to warn about the Going Concern issues of their clients, and the same also have consequences for auditors, who face potential litigation fees and reputation loss in case they do not render a GCO to a firm that subsequently fails. The focus of this thesis is for this reason on Type II audit misclassifications. Past research has broadly studied factors influencing GCO issuances and their relative misclassifications (e.g., client size, audit tenure, auditor dependency). This study explores whether the industry the auditee belongs to can be a potential determinant of increased likelihood of Type II misclassifications. A distinction between complex industries (e.g., Construction, Financial services, IT services) and non-complex industries is made following a previous line of research and binary logistic regression models are used to analyze the association between the industries and the likelihood of Type II audit misclassifications. The hypotheses are that an increased likelihood of Type II audit misclassifications might be observed in complex industries and, specifically, in the IT services industry, as these industries are more unpredictable due to revenue-recognition and measurement processes that are heavily influenced by accruals and longer-than-average operating cycles. The results show that the likelihood of auditors failing to issue a GCO when needed is higher when the client belongs to a complex industry and if it belongs to the IT services industry alone. These findings might be helpful for the decision-making process of those investors who positively weigh a clean audit report of a firm for their investment decisions. Further, this increased likelihood of Type II audit misclassifications in the aforementioned industries might serve as groundwork for future research and for practitioners, as additional audit procedures and audit requirements might be needed when clients belong to complex industries

Impact of Internet gambling on problem gambling among adolescents in Italy: Findings from a large-scale nationally representative survey

Aims: The primary aim of the present study was to understand the impact of online gambling on gambling problems in a large-scale nationally representative sample of Italian youth, and to identify and then further examine a subgroup of online gamblers who reported higher rates of gambling problems. Design: Data from the ESPAD®Italia2013 (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs) Study were used for analyses of adolescent Internet gambling. Setting: Self-administered questionnaires were completed by a representative sample of high school students, aged 15–19 years. Participants: A total of 14,778 adolescent students. Measurements: Respondents’ problem gambling severity; gambling behavior (participation in eight different gambling activities, the number of gambling occasions and the number of online gambling occasions, monthly gambling expenditure); Socio-demographics (e.g., family structure and financial status); and control variables were measured individually (i.e., use of the Internet for leisure activities and playing video games). Findings: Rates of problem gambling were five times higher among online gamblers than non-online gamblers. In addition, factors that increased the risk of becoming a problem online gambler included living with non-birth parents, having a higher perception of financial family status, being more involved with gambling, and the medium preferences of remote gamblers (e.g., Internet cafes, digital television, and video game console). Conclusions: The online gambling environment may pose significantly greater risk to vulnerable players. Family characteristics and contextual elements concerning youth Internet gambling (e.g., remote mediums) may play a key role in explaining problem online gambling among adolescents

Autonomous Driving in Highway Scenarios through Artificial Potential Fields and Model Predictive Control

An approach for automated driving in highway scenarios in the context of a two levels hierarchical architecture is proposed. In particular, we define suitable artificial potential functions (APF) combinations that can effectively handle the most relevant maneuvers of highway driving, such as speed and distance tracking, lane keeping, overtaking and returning. Parameters of the APF functions are dynamically tuned according to the acquired scenario. The defined APF are included in the cost function of a Model Predictive Control (MPC) control problem to generate the path trajectory. A behavioral logic described by a finite state machine (FSM), based on sensor acquired data and suitable dynamic conditions is defined to select the most appropriate maneuver to realize. Extensive simulation tests are introduced to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Approaches for Future Internet architecture design and Quality of Experience (QoE) Control

Researching a Future Internet capable of overcoming the current Internet limitations is a strategic investment. In this respect, this paper presents some concepts that can contribute to provide some guidelines to overcome the above-mentioned limitations. In the authors' vision, a key Future Internet target is to allow applications to transparently, efficiently and flexibly exploit the available network resources with the aim to match the users' expectations. Such expectations could be expressed in terms of a properly defined Quality of Experience (QoE). In this respect, this paper provides some approaches for coping with the QoE provision problem

Simple Synthesis of Fe3O4@-Activated Carbon from Wastepaper for Dispersive Magnetic Solid-Phase Extraction of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs and Their UHPLC–PDA Determination in Human Plasma

In the present society, the recycling and reuse of valuable substances are of utmost im- portance for economic and environmental purposes. At the same time, there is a pressing need to develop new methods to protect the ecosystem from many human activities, including those that have contributed to an ever-increasing presence of pharmaceutical pollutants. In this study, a straightforward approach that applies a magnetic carbon composite for the effective removal of NSAIDs from biological fluids is reported. The composite was produced by recycling wasted hand- kerchiefs, to provide cellulose to the reactive system and then transformed into carbon via calcination at high temperature. The morphological and structural features of the prepared “Fe3O4@-activated carbon” samples were investigated via thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Magnetic solid-state extraction was carried out to reveal the adsorption capabilities of the magnetic carbon composite and then combined with UHPLC–PDA for the determination and quantification of five NSAIDs (furprofen, indoprofen, ketoprofen, flurbiprofen, and indomethacin). The method developed herein proved to be fast and accurate. The adsorbent could be reused for up to 10 cycles, without any decrease in performance; thus, it contributes to an intelligent and sustainable economic strategy projected toward minimal waste generation

Insights on Funeral Practices and Insects Associated with the Tombs of King Ferrante II d'Aragona and Other Renaissance Nobles

The impressive Sacristy of the Basilica of San Domenico Maggiore contains 38 wooden sarcophagi with the bodies of 10 Aragonese princes and other Neapolitan nobles, who died in the 15th and 16th centuries. To improve the knowledge about the entomofauna associated with bodies in archaeological contexts, herein we provide insights on the funerary practices and the insect community associated to Ferrante II King of Naples and other Italian Renaissance mummies of the Aragonese dynasty buried in the Basilica of St. Domenico Maggiore. We identified 842 insect specimens: 88% were Diptera (Muscidae, Fanniidae, and Phoridae), followed by 9% Lepidoptera (Tineidae) and 3% Coleoptera (Dermestidae and Ptinidae). Ninety-seven percent of the specimens were collected from the coffin of Francesco Ferdinando d'Avalos, which was the best preserved. A lack of fly species characterizing the first colonization waves of exposed bodies was noted. The most common fly was the later colonizing muscid Hydrotaea capensis (Wiedemann); only a few Fanniidae (Fannia spp.) were retrieved. The lack of blowflies, coupled with recording H. capensis as the dominant fly, supports our hypothesis that corpses have been kept indoors for a long time under confined environmental conditions. Other explanations include odorous oils/balms having been used in the embalming process, causing the delay or stopping the arrival of first colonizer flies. Hermetically sealing of the coffin with bitumen may also have played a role in preventing access to the corpses. This scenario describes a historical context characterized by a well-advanced knowledge of body preparation, with specific burial techniques adopted for nobles

Thalassemic cardiomyopathy: Echocardiography difference between major and intermediate thalassemia at rest and during isometric effort: Yearly follow-up

Left ventricular (LV) performance was studied in young patients with severe chronic anemia due to beta-thalassemia major, intermedia, and in healthy control subjects. M-mode echocardiograms were recorded in each patient and semiautomatic computerized analysis of the tracings provided data relating to LV performance. Then a statistical analysis of the difference between each specific thalassemic group and the normal subjects was made using Student's t-test for unpaired data. The study showed that cardiac dysfunction is more serious in major than in intermediate beta thalassemia. A follow-up one year later showed a progressive deterioration of the cardiac indices, in spite of treatment with desferrioxamine. A handgrip test was performed in the follow-up study, which permitted us to distinguish different groups relative to the changes in LV performance indices. Our findings indicate that echocardiography provides a simple noninvasive means for assessing changes in the cardiac structure and function, which should also prove useful in the serial evaluation of patients at risk of developing myocardial iron deposition

Precision agriculture to improve the monitoring and management of tomato insect pests

Human-based monitoring of arthropod pests of agricultural importance is usually a time-consuming and costly activity. The advent of technologies such as automatic traps opens new opportunities for remote monitoring. In this article, we present a novel Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based approach aimed to developing a smart trap for monitoring two major pests of greenhouse tomatoes, namely whiteflies, i.e., Bemisia tabaci and Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), and leaf miner flies, Liriomyza spp. (Diptera: Agromyzidae)

A deep learning-based pipeline for whitefly pest abundance estimation on chromotropic sticky traps

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an essential approach used in smart agriculture to manage pest populations and sustainably optimize crop production. One of the cornerstones underlying IPM solutions is pest monitoring, a practice often performed by farm owners by using chromotropic sticky traps placed on insect hot spots to gauge pest population densities. In this paper, we propose a modular model-agnostic deep learning-based counting pipeline for estimating the number of insects present in pictures of chromotropic sticky traps, thus reducing the need for manual trap inspections and minimizing human effort. Additionally, our solution generates a set of raw positions of the counted insects and confidence scores expressing their reliability, allowing practitioners to filter out unreliable predictions. We train and assess our technique by exploiting PST - Pest Sticky Traps, a new collection of dot-annotated images we created on purpose and we publicly release, suitable for counting whiteflies. Experimental evaluation shows that our proposed counting strategy can be a valuable Artificial Intelligence-based tool to help farm owners to control pest outbreaks and prevent crop damages effectively. Specifically, our solution achieves an average counting error of approximately compared to human capabilities requiring a matter of seconds, a large improvement respecting the time-intensive process of manual human inspections, which often take hours or even days

Tailoring the chemical structure of cellulose nanocrystals by amine functionalization

The surface functionalization of cellulose nanocrystals is presently considered a useful and straightforward tool for accessing very reliable biocompatible and biodegradable nanostructures with tailored physical and chemical properties. However, to date the fine characterization of the chemical appendages introduced onto cellulose nanocrystals remains a challenge, due to the low sensitivity displayed by the most common techniques towards surface functionalization. In this paper, we demonstrate the easy functionalization of cellulose nanocrystals with aliphatic and aromatic amines, demonstrating the tunability of their properties in dependence on the selected functionality. Then, we apply to colloidal suspensions of modified nanocrystals 1H NMR analysis to elucidate their surface structure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report where such investigation was performed on cellulose nanocrystals presenting both surface and reducing end modification. These results involve interesting implications for the fields of cultural heritage and of materials chemistry