Effect of the fat composition of a single high-fat meal on inflammatory markers in healthy young women

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of a single high-fat meal with different fat quality on circulating inflammatory markers and gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) to elucidate the role of fat quality on postprandial inflammation. A postprandial study with fourteen healthy females consuming three test meals with different fat quality was performed. Test days were separated by 2 weeks. Fasting and postprandial blood samples at 3 and 6 h after intake were analysed. The test meal consisted of three cakes enriched with coconut fat (43 % energy as saturated fat and 1 % energy as a-linolenic acid (ALA)), linseed oil (14 % energy as ALA and 30 % energy as saturated fat) and cod liver oil (5 % energy as EPA and DHA and 5 % energy as ALA in addition to 31 % energy as saturated fat). In addition, ex vivo PBMC experiments were performed in eight healthy subjects investigating the effects of EPA and ALA on release and gene expression of inflammatory markers. The IL-8 mRNA level was significantly increased after intake of the cod liver oil cake at 6 h compared with fasting level, which was significantly different from the effect observed after the intake of linseed cake. In contrast, no effect was seen on circulating level of IL-8. In addition, ALA and EPA were shown to elicit different effects on the release and mRNA expression levels of inflammatory markers in PBMC cultured ex vivo, with EPA having the most prominent proinflammatory potentia

The future of interpretive accounting research:A Polyphonic Debate

In 1997-99 the three of us organised a series of European Commission funded conferences aimed at building a network of young researchers in the area of accounting. At the time “young” was defined by the Commission as researchers under 35 years of age (allowing for maternity leave or national service). Over the intervening years our network had grown and we wanted to try and take stock of the field in which we had now been working for a surprising number of years. To that Page 1 of 29 Accepted Manuscript 2 end we put together the above email and a broad invitation list of people who had been at those first meetings, and others of the same generation (or even younger) whom we had met since. About half of those originally contacted managed to make the meeting where we spent a stimulating couple of hours of debate on the topics raised below—so stimulating that we developed a collective desire to leave a trace of the discussion. Writing a traditional paper with so many, so widely dispersed authors was not going to work. Instead we came up with a different form of collective writing that mirrored the original debate, and that might contribute to ongoing debates in this journal concerning the nature and status of our research (e.g. Arrington, 2004; Inanga & Schneider, 2005; Macintosh, 2004). We agreed a process in which each of us in turn would have one week to add a target of 300 words to a rolling document, going through the contributors alphabetically. After two rounds we would see what we had got

On the interface between accounting and modern information technology

siirretty Doriast

On the interface between accounting and modern information technology

siirretty Doriast

Changing legitimate discourse: a case study

This study is concerned with the explanations that managers give to various company stakeholders, in the case of factory closures for example. More generally, the paper examines the way justifications of managerial action are produced and "consumed", and how the "legitimacy" on which they are based can change over time. With the help of a longitudinal case study the paper describes and seeks to explain the legitimisation processes involved in the major organisational transformations that the case firm has had to face due to radical market changes (joining EU) and organisational changes. It is argued that managers may become prisoners of their context. This may mean that even if they made "correct" decisions, they may still justify these actions "incorrectly" relative to the new cultural and market environment, and thus do not acquire legitimacy. In the reported case almost the whole executive board of the firm was fired--the first time such a thing had happened in the history of Finnish corporate life. It is also shown that the justification of managerial action may be deliberately manipulated in public discourse. One powerful legitimative device in such discourse is to invoke financial distress, or the idea of such distress, which may be needed for triggering genuine changes.Legitimation Accountability Managerial justifications Corporate crisis Corporate cultural change

Investigating highly established research paradigms: Reviving contextuality in contingency theory based management accounting research

This paper is a critical analysis of the potential implications of adopting a highly established research paradigm in management accounting research. The analysis employs the notion of uncertainty as it is presently used in established contingency-based management accounting (CBMA) research practice. We argue that particular established constructs and measurement instruments dominate the research practice of that field in a paradigmatic manner. Consequently, the constructs and measurement instruments of uncertainty tend to be continuously reproduced in a similar, taken-for-granted manner that does not question their validity. Furthermore, as some of the findings regarding uncertainty in existing CBMA research are mixed, we suggest an alternate path for conducting contingency-based research in management accounting and illustrate this with a field study from the drug development business. The analysis presents an emic inclusive alternative for conducting CBMA research that could complement the currently prevailing etic dominated research, thus significantly widening the current scope of such research. The suggested alternate path for CBMA research is faithful to the original ideas of the early contingency scholars and argues for the opening up of institutionalised research practices in this field of management accounting research. Currently, the situation in CBMA research exemplifies the problem of an institutionalised paradigm actually hindering fruitful development within the research field. Hence, the paper is essentially a critique of the overly mechanistic employment of established research practices, such as those evident in CBMA research.</p

The Routledge Companion to Accounting Information Systems

Decision making plays an important role in the daily life of managers at different organizational levels. In order to be able to make justified decisions, managers need contextually relevant information to build their decisions on. In this Chapter, we outline how modern accounting information systems (AIS) can support managerial decision making in contemporary organizations. We first describe how the decision making and data environments frame decision making situations. After that we apply the Burchell et al. (1980) framework to analyse in more detail how AIS can support managers in particular decision making situations.</p