Accounting historians engaging with scholars inside and outside accounting: issues, opportunities and obstacles

Originating in a panel presentation at the eighth Accounting History International Conference, this study offers a reflection on the issues, opportunities and obstacles which may arise when accounting historians engage with other accounting scholars and scholars outside of accounting. Supporting the view that accounting scholars need and should make an effort to engage with other scholars inside and outside accounting, various aspects are considered as enhancing the interdisciplinarity of accounting history research. Then, issues such as researchers and the community, research problems, theories, methods and data are addressed. The opportunities arising from interdisciplinary interactions with a wide range of scholars are then developed. Finally, the potential obstacles are addressed. These obstacles can be overcome by the development of robust communication and the invention of a new genre of discourse and research focus and by working with those outside our discipline and embracing the challenge of the new and the different

Corporate governance

This chapter considers corporate governance and control at the board level, a perspective little addressed in the critical theory informed accounting research literature and in the accounting research literature generally. With some exceptions, financial accounting, management accounting, auditing and social-environmental accounting literatures have largely focussed on other aspects of corporate governance and the critical accounting community has remained largely silent on board importance and involvement in corporate governance. This chapter critiques the currently extant dominant research approaches, advocating an engaged insider research strategy that examines and critiques governance processes within and surrounding the boardroom that relate to strategy, control and accountability. A theoretical and field based ongoing research agenda is consequently proposed

Surface acoustic wave stabilized oscillators

Four areas of surface acoustic wave (SAW) controlled oscillators were investigated and a number of 401.2 MHz oscillators were constructed that showed improved performance. Aging studies on SAW devices packaged in HC36/U cold weld enclosures produced frequency drifts as low as 0.4 ppm in 35 weeks and drift rates well under 0.5 ppm/year. Temperature compensation circuits have substantially improved oscillator temperature stability, with a deviation of + or - 4 ppm observed over the range -45 C to + 40 C. High efficiency amplifiers were constructed for SAW oscillators and a dc to RF efficiency of 44 percent was obtained for an RF output of 25 mW. Shock and vibration tests were made on four oscillators and all survived 500 G shock pulses unchanged. Only when white noise vibration (20 Hz to 2000 Hz) levels of 20 G's rms were applied did some of the devices fail

An Investigation of Changes in Contributions of State Lotteries to Education Over Time

Arkansas is one of many states in this country that is experiencing an education funding crisis. Despite the fact that states have started taking more responsibility for the funding of their public schools since the mid-1950s, litigation over education funding has occurred in almost every state in the United States. Litigation in Arkansas began in the 1980s and continues today with the Lake View case. Several alternatives have been proposed to reform the state\u27s education system and its methods of funding, including school consolidation, raising taxes, and adopting an education-supporting lottery. Lotteries have become very popular revenue raising mechanisms in the United States since the 1960s. Supporters of lottery adoption claim that lotteries are significant revenue raisers for new and existing programs and that they are better than increasing taxes. Opponents of lottery adoption contend that lotteries are regressive, implicit taxes and that the revenues from lotteries are fungible and do not increase education funding. Data will be analyzed to determine whether lottery prize payout ratios have increased significantly over time, and whether changes in lottery prize payout ratios have had an impact on the money expended on public education. Based on this information and previous research, a recommendation will be made as to whether adopting an education-supporting lottery would be an effective and adequate way to help fund public education in the state of Arkansas

Henri Fayol, accounting and control: An environmental reflection

Henry Fayol (1841-1925) was a leading administrator in the French mining and metallurgy industry. After studying at the Lycee at Lyons and the Ecole Nationale Des Mines de Saint Etienne, he was appointed engineer of the Commentry pits of the S.A. Commentry-Fourchambault combine in 1860. By 1888 he had risen to the managing directorship of that company, retiring as chief executive in 1918 but remaining as a director. During his lifetime he was awarded a number of prizes and honors.1 In 1916 he published his now famous Administration Industrielle et Generale-Prevoyance, Organisation, Commandement, Coordination, Controle, in the Bulletin de la Societe de l\u27Industrie Minerale.2 Fayol attempted to develop a teachable theory of general management via a comprehensive set of principles. This theory was intended to demonstrate the benefits of adopting a scientific approach to the management of large organizations and represented the first attempt to outline a general theory of administration

What makes a cherry red?: an investigation into flavonoid pathway regulation in sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) fruit.

Colour is an important fruit quality indicator because many consumers make their selections based primarily on this trait. Inheritance of colour has been studied within sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) populations and as a result fruit colour is thought to be determined by three genetic factors. A flesh colour factor (F) and the major skin colour factor (A) are the main determinants of fruit colour, where red pigmentation is incompletely dominant over yellow. A third factor, the minor skin colour factor (B), can produce blush skin but is epistatically masked by a dominant A allele. The pigments that colour fruit are known as anthocyanins, synthesised via the transcriptionally regulated flavonoid pathway, which also synthesizes the related secondary metabolites, condensed tannins and flavonols. In other fruit and flower species, mutations in flavonoid pathway or regulatory genes can lead to non-functional alleles that explain the inheritance of colour. However the genes encoding the genetic colour factors are not known in sweet cherry. Therefore, this research has endeavoured to study the cherry flavonoid pathway and its transcriptional regulation, with a view to determining the genetic differences responsible for yellow, blush, red and black cultivars. To achieve this aim, genes encoding flavonoid pathway enzymes and putative regulators of flavonoid synthesis were isolated from the red sweet cherry cultivar ‘Lapins’. PaMYBA1, an R2R3-MYB factor, possessing a high degree of sequence similarity with characterised anthocyanin regulators and conserved C-terminal motifs common within this type of protein, was identified. Functional characterisation of PaMYBA1 demonstrated its ability to activate transcription from the promoters of chalcone synthase (MdCHS), which encodes an enzyme that performs the first committed step in the synthesis of flavonoids, and the anthocyanin biosynthetic gene UDP-glycosyl:flavonoid-3-O-glycosyltransferase (MdUFGT). Furthermore, correlation between anthocyanin accumulation and the expression profile of PaMYBA1 in developing ‘Lapins’ fruit and light-treated blush-skinned ‘Ranier’ fruit suggest that PaMYBA1 might be an important colour factor. Transcript analysis revealed that PaMYBA1 is necessary for the production of colour in cherries; PaMYBA1 is not expressed in the solid yellow fruit of ‘Yellow Glass’ that lacks anthocyanins. However, similar levels of expression of PaMYBA1 in blush, red and black sweet cherry fruit indicate that there are additional factors that contribute to differences in colour intensity. The intense colour and increased flavonoid levels of the black sweet cherry ‘Sam’, compared with the blush and red fruits tested, correlated with a large increase in the expression of the putative tannin regulator PaMYBPA1 in this cultivar. In a functional assay, PaMYBPA1 could trans-activate not only the promoters of the tannin genes anthocyanidin reductase (VvANR) and leucaonthocyanidin reductase (VvLAR), but also of MdCHS and MdUFGT. Therefore, it is possible that PaMYBPA1 could regulate both tannin and anthocyanin synthesis, particularly when expressed at high levels. Taking into consideration the expression of flavonoid pathway genes in different sweet cherry cultivars and tissues, and under different environmental conditions, together with published scientific observations of the genetic factors contributing to fruit colour, we have developed a working model for flavonoid pathway regulation in sweet cherry fruit. Aspects of the model remain to be determined, such as the involvement of two additional anthocyanin-type MYB factors PaMYBA2 and PaMYBA3 in fruit pigmentation. However, it provides a general understanding of differences in the activity of the flavonoid pathway between sweet cherry cultivars, and moves us closer to knowing the identity of the inherited factors that determine skin and flesh colour in sweet cherry fruit.Thesis (Ph.D) -- University of Adelaide, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, 201