Impact of Advances in IS on Audit Quality and Audit Technology

While quality has always been important for accountants in general, and the Big Six (Five) in particular, it is even more so now. With the acute changes that have taken, and are taking, place, audit quality should have become even more pivotal in the firms’ quest for “growth, glamour and profitability,” and not as tangential or even irrelevant as it has ostensibly become according to some critics of the profession, e.g., Stevens (1991). Perhaps, the profession, that historically epitomized quality in its “guardian of the public interest” role, has not really become as complacent about quality as it is being made out to be. It is impossible, we feel, for any technology that relies solely on inspecting a client\u27s books ex-post to be perfect and 100% reliable (in terms of being able to: discriminate perfectly between a Warren Buffett and a Barry Minkow-type1 fraudster; and detect each and every Minkow before it is too late) and yet affordable. As diligent and healthily skeptical as auditors are, they can at best deliver a high quality—but not perfect —service, just like the assurance provided by any test or system for screening library patrons, airline baggage, etc

Using Zinc Finger Proteins as a Diagnostic Tool for the Detection of a Cancer Biomarker

RASSF1A is a tumor suppressor gene which loses its function due to methylation of CpG islands on its promoter region. Detection of methylation leads to early diagnosis of cancer. Zinc finger proteins are capable of detecting a specific DNA sequence and Methyl binding domain can bind to the methyl group on the CpG, using this idea mCpG SEER- Lac system makes use of a split protein, β-lactamase. Lac A attached to the ZFP and Lac B attached to the MBD protein. On binding to the DNA, the Lac A and Lac B come in close proximity with each other causing a reassembly and activation of the enzyme. In the presence of a substrate, the activated β-lactamse enzyme hydrolyzes the β-lactam bond in the substrate and shows a color change from yellow to red in the presence of a methylated cognate DNA. The study suggests that a solution based assay was not as specific in differentiating signal intensities between methylated and non-methylated DNA. It was also not sensitive in measuring dose dependent signals. Zinc finger array could successfully show relatively low signals for non-methylated DNA. The findings of the study show that MBD2 shows higher preference for mCpG than MBD1 in the mCpG SEER-Lac system and oligonucleotides with a 2 bp spacing between methylation and ZF target site shows higher signals than the 3 bp spacing. Due to it’s specificity and sensitivity, it serves as a potential diagnostic tool to detect cancer

Inclusive business models:Empowering women in urban agriculture in Burkina Faso

Gender inequality worldwide results in women’s economic exclusion from formal economic value chains where they could get more income and decent jobs. A way to empower women may reside in building suitable business models which are gender-aware and inclusive of vulnerable people. This research used a systemic approach with a critical inter-subjectivity to investigate the mechanisms leading to women survival entrepreneurs-WSEs’ economic empowerment in Ouagadougou. It first assessed the literature and policy documents, and used three main methods for data collection: focus group discussions, a survey and life histories. Three methods were used to analyse the data: focus group content analysis, descriptive statistics and causality analysis. Causality analysis used among others quantile regression models to analyse women’s empowerment outcomes and particularly their profit making. The results show that gender-aware inclusive business models effectively contribute to WSEs’ economic empowerment by improving their material and financial and their non-material gains. This is feasible through the changes such businesses bring to their various resources or capabilities such as time, space, material, human capital, natural resources and social/professional relations. Human capital and time resources have proven to be the key channels through which this type of business can economically empower women. Also, gender-aware inclusive business models are socially beneficial as they contribute to increasing their agency and freedom both at the household and community levels. In conclusion, WSEs need to be supported in self-organization and enabling their transition to women food entrepreneurs with a growth-oriented objective within a competitive environment

On-Line Analytical Processing and the Time Dimension

Since managers see their firms as multidimensional entities (e.g., in terms of sales, expenses and profitability, by: product, region, channel, and time period, and on a budget vs. actual basis; see Figure 1 below), it is only logical that the OLAP or On- Line Analytical Processing software tools that are being increasingly deployed for organizing, analyzing, navigating through and visualizing the information needed by managers, should be seen as far more useful and meaningful than the conventionally used 2-D spreadsheets. Typically, OLAP tools allow users to interactively and more flexibly roll-up and drill-down (increase or decrease, respectively, the granularity or level of aggregation), slice-and-dice (select and project) and pivot or rotate (reorient a view of) multi-dimensional data. Additionally, customizable 2D- and 3D-graphics can be used to interactively improve the presentation of information, and accountants, for instance, can better monitor, control and correct account balances, etc., by multi-stage drill-down to the transaction level. Yet, if one goes beyond structural and procedural issues, and more deeply into how the real information needs of the manager or decision maker, could possibly be addressed with such tools, a number of questions still remain

A diagnostic multiplex PCR scheme for identification of plant-associated bacteria of the genus Pantoea.

Unrefereed reprintThe genus Pantoea forms a complex of more than 25 species, among which several cause diseases of several crop plants, including rice. Notably, strains of Pantoea ananatis and Pantoea stewartii have been found to cause bacterial leaf blight of rice in Togo and Benin, while other authors have observed that Pantoea agglomerans can also cause bacterial leaf blight of rice. The contribution of these and perhaps other species of Pantoea to plant diseases and yield losses of crop plants is currently not well documented, partly due to the lack of efficient diagnostic tools

Rising Scholar: A Cycle of Slavery: Migrant Labor and Human Rights Violations in the United Arab Emirates

This Rising Scholar article examines how, through a combination of insufficient laws and enforcement, the UAE government allows for the exploitation of migrant workers to prompt economic development and provide cheap labor for elite private citizens and major construction corporations, in effect creating a cycle of modern slavery. Immigrant workers are trapped in this cycle of slavery, indebted to different money lenders, and left vulnerable to exploitation due to the lack of legal protections