The Impact of Legislation on the Organization: Evaluating the Impact of Corporate Governance Regulation on the Internal Audit Function

The intent of this research is to inform companies that the internal audit function has greater utility than just corporate governance. The internal audit function represents a resource to the business that can be used in a number of ways to help it survive, compete and establish new growth opportunities in the marketplace for the firm. The proposed project will demonstrate through an interpretive process study using case study research how the internal audit function can be a strategic business partner by highlighting its contribution ability in a dynamic, ever-changing, regulatory laden environment. This paper uses Punctuated Equilibrium Theory to explain the organizational transformation of the internal audit function from a professional bureaucracy to an adhocracy as an unintended consequence of corporate governance legislation over time. The study contributes to the literature by explaining the evolutionary change in the internal audit function from scorekeeper-and-watchdog to business-partner-and-change agent. This study analyzes how senior management benefits from utilizing the internal auditors’ experience as an organizational tool to address threats and opportunities

Accounting Ethics: A Reluctant Progression Forward

Ethics is a discipline that encompasses the moral duties and obligations of individuals as they deal with what is good and bad, and as such, it is the backbone of a civilized society. This paper takes an in-depth look at the philosophical foundations of ethics, especially accounting ethics, and offers proposals to improve ethical oversight and behavior

Cyber-SHIP: Developing Next Generation Maritime Cyber Research Capabilities

As a growing global threat, cyber-attacks can cost millions of dollars or endanger national stability and human lives. While relatively well understood in most sectors, it is becoming clear that, although the maritime sector is becoming more digitally advanced (e.g., autonomy), it is not well protected against cyber or cyber-physical attacks and accidents. To help improve sector-wide safety and resiliency, the University of Plymouth (UoP) is creating a specialised maritime-cyber lab, which combines maritime technology and traditional cyber-security labs. This is in response to the lack of research and mitigation capabilities and will create a new resource capability for academia, government, and industry research into maritime cybersecurity risks and threats. These lab capabilities will also enhance existing maritime-cyber capabilities across the world, including risk assessment frameworks, cybersecurity ranges/labs, ship simulators, mariner training programmes, autonomous ships, etc. The goal of this paper is to explain the need for next generation maritime-cyber research capabilities, and demonstrate how something like the proposed Cyber-SHIP Lab (Hardware, Software, Information and Protections) will help industry, government, and academia understand and mitigate cyber threats in the maritime sector. The authors believe a next generation cyber-secure lab should host a range of real, non-simulated, maritime systems. With multiple configurations to mirror existing bridge system set-ups, the technology can be studied for individual system weakness as well as the system-of-systems vulnerabilities. Such as lab would support a range of research that cannot be achieved with simulators alone and help support the next generation of cyber-secure marine systems. </jats:p

Prevalence of sustainability reporting practices of a sample of listed companies on established and emerging stock exchanges

The business sector has a substantial role in addressing current environmental issues and concerns. Consequently, there is a growing adoption of corporate sustainability principles and practices across all market sectors. This study examined four developed and four emerging stock markets and the sustainability reporting practices of the top 20 and bottom 20 companies in each. The results illustrate that the developed market sector was more advanced in its corporate sustainability reporting, both in the proportion of companies issuing a sustainability report (approximately 60 per cent) and the proportion of company webpages dedicated to sustainability reporting. This difference was largely due to the effect of the top 20 companies. There was little difference between developed and developing markets when only the bottom 20 companies were considered, of which less than one-third provided sustainability reports. These results show that sustainability reporting is prevalent in both developed and developing markets, especially among market leading companies, but that overall, most developing markets have some catching up to do

Sodium Bose-Einstein Condensates in an Optical Lattice

The phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator has been observed in a $^{23}$Na Bose-Einstein condensate. A dye laser detuned $\approx 5$nm red of the Na $3^2$S$\to 3^2$P$_{1/2}$ transition was used to form the three dimensional optical lattice. The heating effects of the small detuning as well as the three-body decay processes constrained the timescale of the experiment. Certain lattice detunings were found to induce a large loss of atoms. These loss features were shown to be due to photoassociation of atoms to vibrational levels in the Na$_2$ $(1) ^3\Sigma_g^+$ state.Comment: Figures somewhat compromised due to size reductio

Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency

Solar geoengineering refers to a range of proposed methods for counteracting global warming by artificially reducing sunlight at Earth’s surface. The most widely known SG proposal is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) which has impacts analogous to those from volcanic eruptions. Observations following major volcanic eruptions indicate that aerosol enhancements confined to a single hemisphere effectively modulate North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) activity in the following years. Here we investigate the effects of both single-hemisphere and global SAI scenarios on North Atlantic TC activity using the HadGEM2-ES general circulation model and various TC identification methods. We show that a robust result from all of the methods is that SAI applied to the southern hemisphere would enhance TC frequency relative to a global SAI application, and vice versa for SAI in the northern hemisphere. Our results reemphasize the perils of regional geoengineering and should motivate policymakers to regulate large-scale unilateral geoengineering deployments

Projective Ribbon Permutation Statistics: a Remnant of non-Abelian Braiding in Higher Dimensions

In a recent paper, Teo and Kane proposed a 3D model in which the defects support Majorana fermion zero modes. They argued that exchanging and twisting these defects would implement a set R of unitary transformations on the zero mode Hilbert space which is a 'ghostly' recollection of the action of the braid group on Ising anyons in 2D. In this paper, we find the group T_{2n} which governs the statistics of these defects by analyzing the topology of the space K_{2n} of configurations of 2n defects in a slowly spatially-varying gapped free fermion Hamiltonian: T_{2n}\equiv {\pi_1}(K_{2n})$. We find that the group T_{2n}= Z \times T^r_{2n}, where the 'ribbon permutation group' T^r_{2n} is a mild enhancement of the permutation group S_{2n}: T^r_{2n} \equiv \Z_2 \times E((Z_2)^{2n}\rtimes S_{2n}). Here, E((Z_2)^{2n}\rtimes S_{2n}) is the 'even part' of (Z_2)^{2n} \rtimes S_{2n}, namely those elements for which the total parity of the element in (Z_2)^{2n} added to the parity of the permutation is even. Surprisingly, R is only a projective representation of T_{2n}, a possibility proposed by Wilczek. Thus, Teo and Kane's defects realize `Projective Ribbon Permutation Statistics', which we show to be consistent with locality. We extend this phenomenon to other dimensions, co-dimensions, and symmetry classes. Since it is an essential input for our calculation, we review the topological classification of gapped free fermion systems and its relation to Bott periodicity.Comment: Missing figures added. Fixed some typos. Added a paragraph to the conclusio

Por que teoria é importante: Uma investigação das reformas contemporâneas do tempo de aprendizagem

This article explores the contemporary policy reform push to extend and expand learning time in schools. In light of the potential and continued prominence of learning time reforms in today’s national educational landscape, this article makes visible the ways in which theory matters for the near- and long-term success of equity-focused educational reforms. Using the recent enactment of learning time reforms in Colorado as an illustration, and the zone of mediation framework as a conceptual lens, this article demonstrates how such reforms are likely to be weakened and undermined without strong theoretical grounding.Este artículo examina políticas contemporáneas que enfatizan un cambio para extender y/o dispersar el tiempo de aprendizaje en las escuelas. Dado el potencial y relevancia actual de las reformas hacia el tiempo de aprendizaje en el campo general de educación, el propósito de este articulo es brevemente enaltecer las maneras en las cuales la teoría educativa son de suma importancia, a largo y corto plazo, para asegurar el éxito de dichas reformas educativas orientadas hacia la equidad. Utilizando el ejemplo de la implementación de estas reformas en Colorado, y el instrumento teorético de la zona me mediación, este artículo demuestra como reformas similares pueden ser disminuidos por una falta de un base de teoría fuerte.Este artigo examina o promover da reforma contemporânea das regras para ampliar e expandir o tempo de aprendizagem nas escolas. Considerando o potencial e o contínuo destaque da reforma do tempo de aprendizagem no ambiente da educação nacional atualmente, este artigo ilustra as maneiras em que teoria é importante para o sucesso imediato e futuro das reformas educacionais que se focalizam em equidade. Usando a recente promulgação das reformas do tempo de aprendizagem em Colorado como ilustração, e o sistema de zona de mediação como uma lente conceitual, o artigo demonstra como tais reformas serão provavelmente enfraquecidas sem uma forte base teórica

Application of 3D printing to prototype and develop novel plant tissue culture systems

Additional file 6. STL (StereoLithography) file was designed for an accessory lid without fan slot using SketchUp or Fusion 360 (Autodesk) software and the STL file was processed using MatterControl 3D printing software and exported as gcode files

Investigating the physical properties of transiting hot Jupiters with the 1.5-m Kuiper Telescope

We present new photometric data of 11 hot Jupiter transiting exoplanets (CoRoT-12b, HAT-P-5b, HAT-P-12b, HAT-P-33b, HAT-P-37b, WASP-2b, WASP-24b, WASP-60b, WASP-80b, WASP-103b, XO-3b) in order to update their planetary parameters and to constrain information about their atmospheres. These observations of CoRoT-12b, HAT-P-37b and WASP-60b are the first follow-up data since their discovery. Additionally, the first near-UV transits of WASP-80b and WASP-103b are presented. We compare the results of our analysis with previous work to search for transit timing variations (TTVs) and a wavelength dependence in the transit depth. TTVs may be evidence of a third body in the system and variations in planetary radius with wavelength can help constrain the properties of the exoplanet's atmosphere. For WASP-103b and XO-3b, we find a possible variation in the transit depths that may be evidence of scattering in their atmospheres. The B-band transit depth of HAT-P-37b is found to be smaller than its near-IR transit depth and such a variation may indicate TiO/VO absorption. These variations are detected from 2-4.6$\sigma$, so follow-up observations are needed to confirm these results. Additionally, a flat spectrum across optical wavelengths is found for 5 of the planets (HAT-P-5b, HAT-P-12b, WASP-2b, WASP-24b, WASP-80b), suggestive that clouds may be present in their atmospheres. We calculate a refined orbital period and ephemeris for all the targets, which will help with future observations. No TTVs are seen in our analysis with the exception of WASP-80b and follow-up observations are needed to confirm this possible detection.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, 9 Tables. Light Curves available online. Accepted to MNRAS (2017 August 25