Developing Team Skills in Accounting Students: A Complete Curriculum

Employers continue to demand increased levels of team and interpersonal skills in graduating accountants. Scholarly and professional works continue to reinforce this demand. Despite this, there remains a dearth of resources available to universities to integrate team skills education into accounting curriculum. This paper directly addresses this issue by providing a specific teamwork curriculum for implementation in accounting programs. In this paper, we detail the team skills required of accounting graduates, provide implementation recommendations, supply a complete set of curriculum resources, and provide assessment templates. This paper reduces the barrier for universities to implement team-skills content within their accounting programs

The Host Galaxy of GRB 060505: Host ISM Properties

We investigate the ISM environment of GRB 060505. Using optical emission-line diagnostic ratios, we compare the ISM properties of the GRB 060505 host region with the hosts of unambiguous long- and short-duration GRBs. We show that the metallicity, ionization state, and star formation rate of the GRB 060505 environment are more consistent with short-duration GRBs than with long-duration GRBs. We compare the metallicity and star formation rates of the GRB 060505 region with four other star-forming regions within the GRB 060505 host galaxy. We find no significant change in metallicity or star formation rate between the GRB 060505 region and the other four host regions. Our results are consistent with a compact-object-merger progenitor for GRB 060505.Comment: 7 pages, two figures; accepted for publication in ApJ

A Spectacle and Nothing Strange

Working through methods of abstraction and comedic mimicry I choreograph awkwardly balanced sculpture with objects of adornment as a means to defuse personal sensitivities surrounding my experiences of gender, desire, and home. The research that follows is concerned with the adjacent, the in between, above and underneath, because I feel that this kind of looking means that you are, to some degree, aware of what lies at the edges. Maybe this is what Gertrude Stein means to act as though there is no use in a center—because this concerns a way of relating, though there are many things in the room. ‘A spectacle and nothing strange’ is an arrangement of gestures, of made difference, of kinships, of orientations and possible futures, sustained tension, coded adornment, big dyke energy, shifts in hardness, leaning softness, much more than flowers, ...and in any case there is sweetness and some of that

Evaluating single-sided natural ventilation models against full-scale idealised measurements: impact of wind direction and turbulence

Commonly single-sided natural ventilation is used in temperate climates to provide comfortable and healthy indoor environments. However, within built-up areas it is difficult to predict natural ventilation rates for buildings as they depend on many flow factors and opening type. Here, existing models are evaluated using the nine-month Refresh Cube Campaign (RCC). Pressure-based ventilation rates were determined for a small opening (1% porosity) in a cubical test building (side=6 m). The building was isolated and then sheltered in a limited staggered building array to simulate turbulent flows in dense urban areas. Internal and external flow, temperature and pressure measurements captured a wide range of scales of variability. Although the Warren and Parkins (1985, WP85) model performed best for 30-minute mean ventilation rates, all four models tested underestimated ventilation rates by a factor of 10. As wind dominated the stack effect, new coefficients were derived for the WP85 wind-driven model as a function of wind angle. Predictions were mostly improved, except for directions with complex flow patterns during the sheltered case. For the first time, the relation between ventilation rate and turbulence intensity (TI) around a full-scale building was tested. Results indicate that the wind-driven model for single-sided ventilation in highly turbulent flows (0.5<TI<4) can be improved by including TI as a multiplicative factor. Although small window openings with highly turbulent flows are common for sheltered buildings in urban areas, future model development should include a variety of configurations to assess the generality of these results

Cumulative Neurological Factors Associated with Long-term Outcomes in Adult Survivors of Childhood Brain Tumors

Prior research has demonstrated the reliability and validity of the Neurological Predictor Scale (NPS) in relation to childhood brain tumor survivor outcomes; however, its use has not been examined in adult long-term survivors. The current study examines the concurrent validity of the NPS with long-term intellectual and adaptive outcomes in adult survivors of childhood brain tumors relative to individual variables alone. A total of 68 adult survivors of childhood brain tumors (M = 24 years old, SD = 4) almost 16 years post diagnosis (SD = 6) completed intellectual evaluations using the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI). Survivors\u27 adaptive functioning skills were assessed via informant structured clinical interviews (SIB-R). NPS scores were computed from data acquired from medical records. The NPS was significantly associated with intellectual (R2 = 0.208, p \u3c .05) and adaptive outcomes (R2 = 0.30, p \u3c .05) over and above individual risk factors. Approximately 18% of long-term survivors were identified as impaired in intellectual outcomes, and 29% were identified as impaired in adaptive functioning in everyday life skills. The NPS quantifies the cumulative effects of treatment and neurological sequelae experienced by both short- and long-term survivors of childhood brain tumors. It is a useful and easy measure to employ in clinical research that focuses on quantifying the neurological risk factors associated with long-term intellectual and adaptive functioning outcomes in adult survivors of childhood brain tumors

Efficiency of the centrifugally induced curvature drift instability in AGN winds

For studying how the field lines are twisting nearby the light cylinder surface, which provides the free motion of AGN winds through the mentioned area, the investigation of the centrifugally driven curvature drift instability is presented. Studying the dynamics of the relativistic MHD flow close to the light cylinder surface, by applying a single particle approach based on the centrifugal acceleration, the dispersion relation of the instability is derived and analytically solved. Considering the typical values of AGN winds, it is shown that the time scale of the curvature drift instability is much less than the accretion process time scale, indicating that the present instability is very efficient and might strongly influence processes in AGN plasmas.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

The Retail FX Trader: Random Trading and the Negative Sum Game

With the internet boom of early 2000 making access to trading the Foreign Exchange (FX) market far simpler for members of the general public, the growth of 'retail' FX trading continues, with daily transaction volumes as high as $200 billion. Potential new entrants to the retail FX trading world may come from the recent UK pension deregulations, further increasing the volumes. The attraction of FX trading is that it offers high returns and whilst it has been understood that it is high-risk in nature, the rewards are seen as being commensurately high for the 'skilled and knowledgeable' trader who has an edge over other market participants. This paper analyses a number of independent sources of data and previous research, to examine the profitability of the Retail FX trader and compares the results with that of a simulated random trading models. This paper finds evidence to suggest that whilst approximately 20% of traders can expect to end up with a profitable account, around 40% might expect their account to be subject to a margin call. This paper finds a strong correlation between the overall profitability of traders and impact of the cost of the bid-ask spread, whilst finding little if any evidence that retail FX traders, when viewed as a group, are achieving results better than that from random trading

Redesigning the 'choice architecture' of hospital prescription charts: a mixed methods study incorporating in situ simulation testing.

Objectives: To incorporate behavioural insights into the user-centred design of an inpatient prescription chart (Imperial Drug Chart Evaluation and Adoption Study, IDEAS chart) and to determine whether changes in the content and design of prescription charts could influence prescribing behaviour and reduce prescribing errors. Design: A mixed-methods approach was taken in the development phase of the project; in situ simulation was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the newly developed IDEAS prescription chart. Setting: A London teaching hospital. Interventions/methods: A multimodal approach comprising (1) an exploratory phase consisting of chart reviews, focus groups and user insight gathering (2) the iterative design of the IDEAS prescription chart and finally (3) testing of final chart with prescribers using in situ simulation. Results: Substantial variation was seen between existing inpatient prescription charts used across 15 different UK hospitals. Review of 40 completed prescription charts from one hospital demonstrated a number of frequent prescribing errors including illegibility, and difficulty in identifying prescribers. Insights from focus groups and direct observations were translated into the design of IDEAS chart. In situ simulation testing revealed significant improvements in prescribing on the IDEAS chart compared with the prescription chart currently in use in the study hospital. Medication orders on the IDEAS chart were significantly more likely to include correct dose entries (164/164 vs 166/174; p=0.0046) as well as prescriber's printed name (163/164 vs 0/174; p<0.0001) and contact number (137/164 vs 55/174; p<0.0001). Antiinfective indication (28/28 vs 17/29; p<0.0001) and duration (26/28 vs 15/29; p<0.0001) were more likely to be completed using the IDEAS chart. Conclusions: In a simulated context, the IDEAS prescription chart significantly reduced a number of common prescribing errors including dosing errors and illegibility. Positive behavioural change was seen without prior education or support, suggesting that some common prescription writing errors are potentially rectifiable simply through changes in the content and design of prescription charts

Disruption of White Matter Integrity in Adult Survivors of Childhood Brain Tumors: Correlates with Long-Term Intellectual Outcomes

Background Although chemotherapy and radiation treatment have contributed to increased survivorship, treatment-induced brain injury has been a concern when examining long-term intellectual outcomes of survivors. Specifically, disruption of brain white matter integrity and its relationship to intellectual outcomes in adult survivors of childhood brain tumors needs to be better understood. Methods Fifty-four participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging in addition to structural MRI and an intelligence test (IQ). Voxel-wise group comparisons of fractional anisotropy calculated from DTI data were performed using Tract Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) on 27 survivors (14 treated with radiation with and without chemotherapy and 13 treated without radiation treatment on average over 13 years since diagnosis) and 27 healthy comparison participants. Whole brain white matter fractional anisotropy (FA) differences were explored between each group. The relationships between IQ and FA in the regions where statistically lower FA values were found in survivors were examined, as well as the role of cumulative neurological factors. Results The group of survivors treated with radiation with and without chemotherapy had lower IQ relative to the group of survivors without radiation treatment and the healthy comparison group. TBSS identified white matter regions with significantly different mean fractional anisotropy between the three different groups. A lower level of white matter integrity was found in the radiation with or without chemotherapy treated group compared to the group without radiation treatment and also the healthy control group. The group without radiation treatment had a lower mean FA relative to healthy controls. The white matter disruption of the radiation with or without chemotherapy treated survivors was positively correlated with IQ and cumulative neurological factors. Conclusions Lower long-term intellectual outcomes of childhood brain tumor survivors are associated with lower white matter integrity. Radiation and adjunct chemotherapy treatment may play a role in greater white matter disruption. The relationships between white matter integrity and IQ, as well as cumulative neurological risk factors exist in young adult survivors of childhood brain tumors