Das Grünbuch der Europäischen Kommission zur Abschlussprüfung

Aufgrund der Finanzkrise im Jahr der 2008 ist das Vertrauen der Marktteilnehmer in die Leistungen der Unternehmen, insbesondere in die Prüfungsgesellschaften, erheblich gesunken. Der Grund hierfür liegt hauptsächlich darin, dass einige Unternehmen selbst kurz vor deren Insolvenz noch unbeschränkte Bestätigungsvermerke von Abschlussprüfern erhalten haben. Durch diese Entwicklungen scheint eine Änderung der Richtlinien für Abschlussprüfer unausweichlich, um deren Überwachungsfunktion zu stärken und das Vertrauen der Marktteilnehmer zu stärken. Aus diesem Grund hat die EU-Kommission im Jahr 2010 das Grünbuch zur Abschlussprüfung mit dem Titel „Weiteres Vorgehen im Bereich der Abschlussprüfung: Lehren aus der Krise" erstellt, in welchem Vorschläge zur Verbesserung der Prüfungsqualität genannt werden. Sämtliche Interessengruppen sind sodann zur Stellungnahme hinsichtlich dieser Konzepte aufgefordert worden, wobei laut EU-Kommission eine Anzahl von 688 Beiträgen aus einigen Ländern eingereicht worden ist. Die Auswertung sämtlicher Rückmeldungen dient im Wesentlichen dem Ziel, neue und vor allem verbesserte Richtlinien zur Abschlussprüfung zu entwickeln. Die Unabhängigkeit der Abschlussprüfer wie auch die Governance-Regelungen von Unternehmen stellen derzeit ein viel diskutiertes Themengebiet dar, weshalb diese Magisterarbeit auf eben diese Bereiche fokussiert. Dementsprechend werden vor allem Änderungsvorschläge der EU-Kommission in Bezug auf die Regelungen für Abschlussprüfer näher behandelt. Im Wesentlichen beschäftigt sich diese Arbeit daher mit Diskussionen hinsichtlich möglicher Maßnahmen zur Verbesserung der Governance in Unternehmen und zur Erhöhung der Unabhängigkeit von Abschlussprüfern. Die Analyse der eingelangten Stellungnahmen hat gezeigt, dass einige Vorschläge der EU-Kommission, wie jener der obligatorisch durchzuführenden Rotation oder die Einbeziehung Dritter in den Bestellungsprozess der Abschlussprüfer, tendenziell von der Mehrheit der Verfassergruppen abgelehnt wird, während andere Vorschläge, wie z.B. die Ausweitung der Vorschriften hinsichtlich der Transparenz von Abschlüssen der Prüfungsgesellschaften oder die Erweiterung von Gruppenprüfungen, von den meisten Gruppen durchwegs befürwortet werden. Generell werden jedoch viele der bereits bestehenden Regelungen als ausreichend betrachtet.Due to the financial crisis in 2008 the confidence of market participants in the performance of enterprises, especially in the audit firms, has fallen considerably. The reason of this loss in confidence mainly lies in the fact that some companies received unrestricted auditor´s reports even shortly before their bankruptcy. Because of these developments a change in guidelines for auditors seemed unavoidable in order to strengthen its supervision function and to strengthen the confidence of market participants. For this reason, the EU Commission issued the Green Paper on audit in 2010, entitled "Next steps in the audit: lessons from the crisis". This paper mainly included suggestions to improve audit quality. Then all stakeholders were asked to comment on those concepts. In total the EU Commission received a number of 688 contributions from several countries. The evaluation of all responses is necessary to reach develop new and improved guidelines for the particular audit. The independence of auditors as well as the governance arrangements of companies currently represent a much-discussed topic. This fact is the reason why this thesis focuses just on these subjects. Accordingly, in particular changes proposed by the EU Commission regarding the arrangements for auditors will be discussed in more detail. In essence, this work therefore deals with discussions on possible measures to improve governance in companies and to increase the independence of auditors. The analysis of the comments received has shown that some proposals of the EU Commission were rejected by the majority of the groups, e.g. the obligatory firm rotation or the involvement of third parties in the process of appointment of the auditors. On the other hand there are also proposals which were supported by the commenters, such as the extension of the rules on the transparency of financial statements by audit firms or the expansion of group audits. In general, however, many of the existing regulations are considered sufficient by the majority

Vergleich von Sympathieurteilen anhand unterschiedlicher Methoden

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Fragestellung, inwieweit menschliche Sympathiebewertungen vorgegeben und messbar sind. Da jeder Mensch ständig beim Antreffen von anderen Personen sofort bewusste und unbewusste Sympathiebeurteilungen abgibt, erscheint es interessant, verschiedene Erklärungshypothesen zu betrachten. Diese Methoden wurden an Probanden in Gruppentests abgeklärt und ausgewertet. Dabei kamen erstaunliche Ergebnisse zum Vorschein.This study concerns itself with the question to what degree personal empathetic assessments are inherent and measurable. Because on meeting another person, each individual constantly makes instant conscious and unconscious sympathetic assessments, it appears interesting to look at various explanatory hypotheses. These methods were examined on persons in test groups and evaluated. Out of this, unusual results have been observed

Adapting IT Governance Frameworks using Domain Specific Requirements Methods: Examples from Small & Medium Enterprises and Emergency Management

IT Governance methods and frameworks have been applied in most large for-profit organizations since these enterprisesrealize the benefits of IT Governance for their business. However, former research and our own surveys show thatframeworks such as ITIL and COBIT are not very well established in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) as well as inEmergency Management (EM) organizations. Thus, we investigated what kind of barriers can be the cause for the lowadoption rate. These results built the basis for our Domain Specific Engineering (DSE) approach. The research is based onthe data of two research projects. The first project investigated the utilization of ITSM methods in European SMEs, and thesecond has researched different emergency management organizations. This paper defines similarities and differences of thetwo domain specific solutions, describes the engineering approach, and gives guidelines for further research in otherdomains

Imunização : um passo importante para a prevenção de doenças na infância

Orientadora : Profª Dra. Letícia PontesMonografia (especialização) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências da Saúde, Curso de Especialização em Saúde para Professores do Ensino Fundamental e Médio, Núcleo de Educação a Distância.Inclui referênciasResumo : A vacina foi criada por Edward Jenner em 1796 e, desde então, a importância da imunização vem sendo discutida. No Brasil, o ano de 1904 foi marcado pela Revolta da Vacina, onde o médico sanitarista Oswaldo Cruz lutava pela vacinação geral da população contra varíola, doença que só foi erradicada no ano de 1971. Em 1973 foi criado o Plano Nacional de Imunização, com o objetivo de erradicar doenças infectocontagiosas e imunopreviníveis. Os benefícios da imunização, no século XXI, são inegáveis, além da erradicação de várias doenças como a poliomielite e varíola e, a prevenção de outras doenças como tétano e febre amarela, por exemplo. A vacinação esta disponível no Brasil gratuitamente nas unidades de saúde básica, porém por falta de conhecimento ou esquecimento, as famílias acabam deixando de levar as crianças para receber as vacinas, sem considerar que a falta de vacinação pode causar prejuízos à saúde das crianças que estão expostas, tanto em casa quanto na escola a varias doenças contagiosas, partindo dessa justificativa esse trabalho aplicado na turma de 5ª Série dos anos iniciais da Instituição Casa do Menor Irmãos Cavanis, teve como objetivo geral conduzir crianças e pais a compreender a importância da imunização para a prevenção da saúde, para tal utilizamos o método de desenvolvido por Thiollent (2002) citado por Vieira (2012, p. 45), a pesquisa-ação, afim de compreende e experimentar os problemas do objeto de estudo, onde a vivencia dos problemas do objeto de estudo pode ajudar o pesquisador a entender como esses atores-objetos encontram soluções para seus problemas. Os resultados obtidos diante do Projeto de Intervenção nos mostram que os alunos interagiram muito bem com a proposta do projeto de intervenção e que os pais se responsabilizaram em manter a caderneta de vacinação em dia dos filhos

The Influence of Color on Impulsivity and Arousal: Part 2 – Chroma

In the previous paper (Part 1), the effect of hue on impulsivity and arousal were studied. From those results, yellow, red and orange were selected for further investigation since participants’ performance was consistent with a low arousal state (high error rate and long response time) on the yellow background and high arousal state (low error rate and short response time) on the red background whereas orange was the color that tended to result in high impulsivity. This paper will mainly investigate the fundamental theory of how chroma influences people’s impulsivity and arousal states. The same as in the previous paper, the two main factors used to measure impulsivity and arousal in this paper are also response time and error rate for each colored background. In the psychophysical experiment, participants were looking at backgrounds in three hues (red, yellow and orange) with different chroma levels on screen to complete a range of psychometric tests. During the experiment, participants gave their response to the psychometric test as quickly and accurately as possible. From the results it can be seen that chroma has a significant influence on participants’ response time and error rate, and influences impulsivity and arousal. Gender difference will also been discussed in this paper

New potential for portable spatial audio with MEMS based speakers

There is a high demand for portable audio on the market. Hence, manufactures of headphones and hearing aids have to deal with miniaturization of electroacoustic transducers (micro speakers) but maintain sound quality and energy efficiency (battery life time) at the same time. Different techniques are known for downsizing transducers. A very successful method is provided by the semiconductor industry. The use of the so-called MEMS technology (Micro- Electro-Mechanical-System) has already led to great success in microelectronics and MEMS applications such as microphones and accelerometers. This success has triggered a high interest in implementing MEMS technology also for speaker manufacturing. Based on patents, the initial approaches of MEMS loudspeakers will be presented. An outlook of the arising new potentials for portable spatial audio with MEMS based speakers will be given

Mechanically stacked 1 nm thick carbon nanosheets: Ultrathin layered materials with tunable optical, chemical and electrical properties

Carbon nanosheets are mechanically stable free-standing two-dimensional materials with a thickness of ~1 nm and well defined physical and chemical properties. They are made by radiation induced cross-linking of aromatic self-assembled monolayers. Here we present a route to the scalable fabrication of multilayer nanosheets with tunable electrical, optical and chemical properties on insulating substrates. Stacks up to five nanosheets with sizes of ~1 cm^2 on oxidized silicon were studied. Their optical characteristics were investigated by visual inspection, optical microscopy, UV/Vis reflection spectroscopy and model calculations. Their chemical composition was studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The multilayer samples were then annealed in ultra high vacuum at various temperatures up to 1100 K. A subsequent investigation by Raman, X-ray photoelectron and UV/Vis reflection spectroscopy as well as by electrical four-point probe measurements demonstrates that the layered nanosheets transform into nanocrystalline graphene. This structural and chemical transformation is accompanied by changes in the optical properties and electrical conductivity and opens up a new path for the fabrication of ultrathin functional conductive coatings.Comment: 36 pages, 7 Figure

Users’ experiences of lighting controls: a case-study

The aim of this paper is to elucidate how occupants perceive their lit environments in a university setting and how they interact with lighting controls using qualitative methods. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with academic teaching and research staff. Thematic analysis identified four main themes: control and choice, connection with the outdoors, concentration, and comfort. Participants were largely able to control and adapt their lighting using small power lighting in office spaces and they perceived this as beneficial to comfort and concentration. Participants expressed frustration with the light switches in classrooms, a lack of consistency in lighting controls across the university buildings was particularly notable. Installers should consider how piecemeal upgrades on large estates affect the perception of buildings where occupiers face multiple control systems. The management of the lighting in classroom spaces including the type and location of blinds, lack of regular window cleaning in some buildings and difficulty in minimising light on projection screens in upgraded classrooms were cited as areas for improvement. Wider implications for lighting control and management highlighted by this study include most notably that a lack of end users consultation has serious consequences on their perception of lighting upgrades and their willingness to employ “workarounds”