Spreadsheet Design: An Optimal Checklist For Accountants

Just as good grammar, punctuation, style, and content organization are important to well-written documents, basic fundamentals of spreadsheet design are essential to clear communication. In fact, the very principles of good writing should be integrated into spreadsheet workpaper design and organization. The unique contributions of this paper are an integration of a review of the literature on spreadsheet design, with the results of a convenience survey of CPAs, and a “Spreadsheet Design Checklist” for pedagogy. The checklist is intended as a reference for use until the student or professional becomes proficient in basic spreadsheet design and organization and the checklist becomes just as  “second nature” as creating well-written memoranda

Macroeconomic variables and the performance of the Indian Stock Market;

In this paper we analyze relationships among selected macroeconomic variables and the Indian stock market. By employing a vector error correction model, we find that three long-term equilibrium relationships exist among these variables. Our results suggest that domestic inflation is the most severe deterrent to Indian stock market performance, and domestic output growth is its predominant driving force. After accounting for macroeconomic factors, the Indian market still appears to be drawn downward by a residual negative trend. We attribute this to economic mismanagement, since the size of the downward pull mitigates after 1990, coinciding with the beginning of Indian economic reforms

Macroeconomic variables and the performance of the Indian Stock Market;

In this paper we analyze relationships among selected macroeconomic variables and the Indian stock market. By employing a vector error correction model, we find that three long-term equilibrium relationships exist among these variables. Our results suggest that domestic inflation is the most severe deterrent to Indian stock market performance, and domestic output growth is its predominant driving force. After accounting for macroeconomic factors, the Indian market still appears to be drawn downward by a residual negative trend. We attribute this to economic mismanagement, since the size of the downward pull mitigates after 1990, coinciding with the beginning of Indian economic reforms

S-Store: Streaming Meets Transaction Processing

Stream processing addresses the needs of real-time applications. Transaction processing addresses the coordination and safety of short atomic computations. Heretofore, these two modes of operation existed in separate, stove-piped systems. In this work, we attempt to fuse the two computational paradigms in a single system called S-Store. In this way, S-Store can simultaneously accommodate OLTP and streaming applications. We present a simple transaction model for streams that integrates seamlessly with a traditional OLTP system. We chose to build S-Store as an extension of H-Store, an open-source, in-memory, distributed OLTP database system. By implementing S-Store in this way, we can make use of the transaction processing facilities that H-Store already supports, and we can concentrate on the additional implementation features that are needed to support streaming. Similar implementations could be done using other main-memory OLTP platforms. We show that we can actually achieve higher throughput for streaming workloads in S-Store than an equivalent deployment in H-Store alone. We also show how this can be achieved within H-Store with the addition of a modest amount of new functionality. Furthermore, we compare S-Store to two state-of-the-art streaming systems, Spark Streaming and Storm, and show how S-Store matches and sometimes exceeds their performance while providing stronger transactional guarantees

Perspectives On The Sources And Eventual Outcome Of The 2008 Economic And Financial Crisis: A Panel Discussion

In October 2008 the Southern Utah University School of Business held a panel discussion on the current economic crisis. This discussion was part of the School’s Business Convocation series and was open to the public. The panel was designed with two components in mind. First, a pair of academics with expertise in financial institutions and business cycles offered historical and theoretical perspectives on the crisis. Second, a pair of professionals – a local banking official and a fund manager – offered perspectives on the current financial situation and practical experience based on the policy responses to past crises. As moderator, Joe Baker asked each panelist to make a short presentation on a question of general interest that was related to their area of expertise; this was followed by an open question and answer session. The participating panelists and opening questions follow. 1. Stephen Evans, Professor of Finance: Dr. Evans teaches courses on financial institutions and was asked to provide background of how the crisis occurred and what the proposed government bailout plan is expected to accomplish. 2. David Tufte, Associate Professor of Economics: Dr. Tufte is a macroeconomist and was asked to discuss the macroeconomic implications of the crisis in such areas as inflation, interest rates, economic growth and unemployment. 3. Mr. Robb Kerry, Chief Credit Officer of ADB Bank: Mr. Kerry has an extensive background in banking as a bank regulator and banker. Mr. Kerry was asked to discuss the implications of the crisis on banking credit and lending. Mr. Steve Harrop, Finance Professional in Residence: Mr. Harrop was a mutual fund manager for several decades before joining the School of Business faculty where he teaches investments and manages (pro bono) an investment fund. Mr. Harrop will discuss the implications of the crisis on the stock and bond markets

Incorporating interactive 3-dimensional graphics in astronomy research papers

Most research data collections created or used by astronomers are intrinsically multi-dimensional. In contrast, all visual representations of data presented within research papers are exclusively 2-dimensional. We present a resolution of this dichotomy that uses a novel technique for embedding 3-dimensional (3-d) visualisations of astronomy data sets in electronic-format research papers. Our technique uses the latest Adobe Portable Document Format extensions together with a new version of the S2PLOT programming library. The 3-d models can be easily rotated and explored by the reader and, in some cases, modified. We demonstrate example applications of this technique including: 3-d figures exhibiting subtle structure in redshift catalogues, colour-magnitude diagrams and halo merger trees; 3-d isosurface and volume renderings of cosmological simulations; and 3-d models of instructional diagrams and instrument designs.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, submitted to New Astronomy. For paper with 3-dimensional embedded figures, see http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/s2plot/3dpd

Public Preferences to Trade-off Gains in Total Health for Health Equality: Discrepancies Between an Abstract Scenario versus the Real-World Scenario Presented by COVID-19

Policymakers must ration healthcare. This necessity became salient during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some policymakers took that opportunity to reduce inequality of health outcomes at the expense of overall health gains. There is a literature that seeks to quantify the optimal trade-off between efficiency and equality in health outcomes: economists employ surveys to quantify the public’s preferred level of equity / efficiency trade-off. An odd result from these studies is that a non-trivial subsample of respondents choose to “level down” i.e. they choose as though an additional year of life delivers negative utility to society if it accrues to the most privileged. In an experiment of US and UK respondents (n = 495), we compare equity / efficiency trade-offs across an abstract scenario along the lines of that presented in previous surveys versus a COVID-19 scenario, where it is made explicit that healthcare rationing is a real and current necessity occasioned by the pandemic. We find that preference for “levelling down” is reduced in the COVID-19 scenario relative to the abstract scenario. This result implies that, at least in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, previous results have overestimated the public’s willingness to sacrifice overall gains in population health in order to reduce inequality of health outcomes

Perceived health inequalities: Are the UK and US public aware of occupation-related health inequality, and do they wish to see it reduced?

Background: One underexamined factor in the study of lay views of socioeconomic health inequalities is occupation-related health. Examining health by occupational social class has a long history in the UK but has been comparatively overlooked in US public health literatures, where the relationship between health and work has attended more to hazard exposure. Methods: Representative samples of the UK and US indicated the perceived and ideal lifespan of people working in “higher managerial/professional” and “routine” occupations. We examine perceptions of inequality and desires for equality across occupation groups as a function of country and key socio-demographic variables. Results: 67.8% of UK and 53.7% of US participants identified that professionals live longer than routine workers. Multivariate models indicated that US participants were markedly less likely to be aware of occupation-related inequalities after controlling for age, gender, and education. Awareness was negatively related to age (in the US) and recent voting behaviours (both samples). Desiring equal life expectancy was less likely in the US sample, and less likely across both samples among older participants and those with lower levels of education. Conclusion: Employing a novel approach to measuring perceived and ideal life expectancy inequality, this is the first study to examine perceptions of lifespan inequality by occupational groups. It reports widespread understanding of the occupation-related gradient in lifespan and a desire that these inequalities be eliminated in the UK, but considerably less awareness and desire for equality in the US. Greater tolerance for social status inequalities in the US than other similar countries appear to also extend to differences in life expectancy