An appreciative inquiry into the current and future roles of the professional accountant in the SME sector

Abstract: It is widely accepted that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a key role in any developing economy. However, this sector is struggling in the South African (SA) landscape. Given the important role the SME sector plays and will need to play in the South African economy, it is of critical importance to identify ways in which this sector could be supported, and specifically to understand the current and future role of the accountancy profession in supporting SMEs. Relatively little attention has been given to the role of the accountant in the SME environment. Professional accountants are active in the SME environment, but little is known about the role they currently play, and there is very little existing research on the future role they could play in the SME environment. Based on this, two research questions were formulated with regard to SMEs and the accountancy profession: How do professional accountants and SME owners in South Africa experience the current role of the professional accountant in SMEs? What are their expectations of the future role of professional accountants in providing support to SMEs?Ph.D. (Accounting

Density Diagnostics and Inhomogeneous Non-Isothermal Plasmas

Many astrophysical plasmas, such as are found in the sun, nebulae and, supernova remnants etc are often analysed spectroscopically assuming in a first approximation that they are homogeneous in nature. However, when several different diagnostics are applied, different plasma parameters, e. g. electron density and temperature, are usually inferred from each diagnostic. This is consistent with imaged observations of the solar atmosphere, for instance, which show that it is, in fact, highly inhomogeneous, and of non-isothermal structure, so that a range of temperatures and densities contribute to the line intensities used in the spectroscopy. Such inhomogeneity can severely affect accurate determination of plasma parameters, such as electron densities. In this thesis, Chapters 1 and 2 are designed to introduce and review the relevant topics considered in the later Chapters. Chapter 1 considers the use of solar plasma spectroscopy for the determination of the electron temperature and density in the solar atmosphere, discussing the different techniques developed for this purpose. Our discussion is restricted to plasma diagnostics inferred from the high temperature solar spectrum, which produces lines mainly in the UV, EUV, and X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The necessary atomic physics involved, which is closely related to solar physics diagnostics, is also discussed in detail. In Chapter 2 we review the present status of observational knowledge of the solar atmosphere at UV, EUV and X-ray wavelengths, paying special attention to plasma electron density inhomogeneities. The main body of this thesis is contained in Chapters 3-6. In Chapter 3, we present a simple, but accurate, analytical, representation which describes line ratios as a function of electron density. This representation is found to lead to an extremely good representation of actual line ratio curves, obtained by numerical methods that require much theoretical effort and very accurate atomic data. This representation is shown to be an excellent method for electron density determination in solar plasmas, and to provide a more flexible treatment of the effect of plasma inhomogeneities on density sensitive line ratios. Chapter 4 discusses the problem of interpreting density sensitive line strengths from an isothermal plasma of inhomogeneous density. We show that the problem can be expressed in terms of deriving an emission measure function zeta(ne) per unit density from a set of line strengths and that any particular line ratio yields a spectroscopic 'mean density' (ne). The value of (ne) will differ for different line pairs, and differ from both the volumetric mean n and emissivity mean n unless the plasma is homogeneous. For a single line ratio and total emission measure, the homogeneous solution ne(r)=(ne) yields the minimum possible plasma volume which is found to fall below the true plasma volume to an extent which increases with the inhomogeneity of the real plasma. This result, explains, in terms of plasma inhomogeneity, the small filling factors commonly found when emitting volumes, inferred using (ne) together with the total emission measure, are compared with spatially resolved total volumes. In Chapter 5 the problem of interpreting densities in inhomogeneous non-isothermal plasmas from density sensitive line ratios is discussed. It is shown how the concepts of emission measure differential in density zeta(ne) and emission measure differential in temperature xi(T) can be generalised to analyse arbitrary plasmas. In Chapter 6 we discuss another reason for deducing incorrect electron densities in the solar atmosphere, namely the noise in the observed line intensities and in the atomic data. The resultant bias in the estimated densities, as well as the confidence interval, is determined for some examples. A fairly brief discussion is given of how the noise on line ratios can affect the estimated densities and, therefore, the required accuracy for obtaining reasonable values of ne. Finally, Chapter 7 discusses possible future work inspired by, or related to, the considerations of this thesis. In particular, the investigation of the effect of the plasma inhomogeneity on different models of the solar atmosphere as well as on different solar phenomena is considered. In addition, the effect of noise on the different atomic parameters present in our representation (Chapter 3), and a comparison with that of the line ratio's are shown to be important

Biodiversity of mycotoxigenic aspergillus species in Egyptian peanuts and strategies for minimizing aflatoxin contamination

Peanuts are an important crop grown in Egypt for either local consumption or export to European markets. The present study examined the importance of mycotoxigenic Aspergilli in Egyptian peanuts from five different regions (Alexandria, El-Beheira, El- Daqahliya, El-Sharqiya, Asyut) in two seasons (2007, 2008). This led to consideration of different potential strategies to control aflatoxigenic A. flavus strains and associated aflatoxin contamination of peanuts. The most common species in peanuts were from Aspergillus section Flavi, Aspergillus section Nigri and Aspergillus section Circumdati. Both qualitative (coconut cream agar) and quantitative analyses (HPLC) were used to analyse the potential mycotoxin production by strains isolated from peanuts. Of a total of 88 Aspergillus section Flavi strains examined, 90% were aflatoxigenic. Cont/d

Biodiesel production using a SrO-ZnO/Al₂O₃ bifunctional heterogeneous catalyst

Ali Al-Saadi developed a new type of catalysts called bifunctional catalysts. Biodiesel can be produced from any type of oil through a chemical reaction with the presence of these types of catalysts. He found that the bifunctional catalysts are efficient with acidic oils, vegetable oils, and also with waste cooking oils

A comparison of non-fi nancial strategy disclosure in the annual reports of South African and Indian listed companies

This study focuses on non-fi nancial strategy disclosure in the annual reports of listed companies in South Africa and India. South Africa and India are both developing nations that face similar socioeconomic conditions, including the threats presented by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and affi rmative action policies and regulations. The fact that integrated reporting is fast becoming a necessity for emerging markets to gain entrance to developed economies validates the contribution of this research. This study, which replicated the studies of Santema and Van de Rijt (2001) and Padia and Yasseen (2011), compared the top 40 listed companies in South Africa with the top 40 listed companies in India based on market capitalisation for the year 2012. The results were statistically analysed using principal component analysis and Hotelling’s t-square tests. The fi ndings concluded that South African companies divulge more information in terms of their non-financial strategy disclosure than their Indian counterparts. In addition, the Hotelling’s t-square test found that there were no signifi cant differences in terms of four of the variables when comparing South African companies with Indian companies. Overall, however, there are vast differences in the levels of non-fi nancial strategy disclosure in both countries, which is attributed to stock exchange regulation in the respective countries.Key words: affirmative action, annual reports, HIV/AIDS, India, integrated reporting, nonfinancial disclosure, South Africa, strateg

A Comparison Study of the Interaction of Progesterone and Testosterone Drugs with Human Serum Albumin: A Fluorescence Quenching Study

The interaction of steroid hormones (testosterone and progesterone) with human serum albumin in phosphate buffer at pH 7.5 and at 25 C have been studied using a fluorescence spectrophotometer. The results showed that fluorescence emission spectra were quenched with the increase of steroid molar ratios in fixed amount of HSA. The result indicated that progesterone and testosterone hormones have an ability to quench the intrinsic fluorescence of HSA through a static quenching procedure. Two mathematical models Stern–Volmer and Scatchard for analysis of fluorescence spectra were used. Progesterone binding to HSA was increased by a factor of 2.6 greater than that detected for the interaction of testosterone with HSA. The values of Stern-Volmer constants were determined to be (2.0× 104 L mol-1) for progesterone–HSA complex and (7.7× 103 L mol-1) for testosterone–HSA complex, Respectively. Whereas, the Scatchard constants were (2.1× 104 L mol-1) and (7.9× 103 L mol-1) for progesterone–HSA and testosterone–HSA complexes, respectively

RECENT IMPROVEMENTS OF THE OPTICAL AND THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF THE PARABOLIC TROUGH SOLAR COLLECTOR SYSTEMS

Parabolic trough solar collectors (PTSCs) are commonly used for applications that reach a temperature of up to 500 °C.  Recently, improving the efficiency of PTSCs has been the focus of research because PTSCs have advantages, such as cost and size reduction and improved optical and thermal performance.  This study summarizes relevant published research on the preparation, properties and experimental behavior of the optical and thermal properties of PTSCs. Analyzing of the thermal modeling method presents a steady and transient heat transfer analysis.  Optical efficiency depends on material properties, such as mirror reflectance, glass cover transmittance, receiver absorption–emission, intercept factor, geometry factor and incidence angle. Also analyzed and discussed are the models used in computational fluid dynamics to study the physical properties of PTSCs. Lastly, studies on PTSC performance and enhancement, including novel designs, enhancement of passive heat transfer and laden flows of nanoparticles inside the absorber tube, are presented and examined separately. Nanofluids have illustrated their advantages and ability to increase heat transfer rates. Moreover, other works that aimed to enhance the optical and thermal efficiency of PTSCs are evaluated