Questions
The Sarbanes-oxley Act of 2002 requires which of the following for publicly traded companies: a) management...

The Sarbanes-oxley Act of 2002 requires which of the following for publicly traded companies:

a) management assessment of the effectiveness of the disclosure control structure used to determine financial results
b) audit committee approval of all services provided by a company's independent auditors.
c) reporting by the independent auditors on the reliability of management's assessment of internal controls.
d) all of the above are required by the Act

What is the correct answer ?

In: Accounting

In 2002, Trask et al. published a study showing that a high frequency of HIV transmissions...

In 2002, Trask et al. published a study showing that a high frequency of HIV transmissions in Lusaka, Zambia occurred between marriage partners. Specifically, they studied a cohort of married couples where, at the beginning of the study, one partner was infected and the other was not. Later, the uninfected partner became infected. If you were doing this study, how could you use phylogenetic methods to determine whether the newly infected individual was likely infected by his/her partner? Briefly describe your study design and results that would support and results that would refute (you can use drawings if you wish) the partner-partner transmission scenario.

In: Biology

In the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, a scandal rocked the Figure Skating community. A tight competition...

In the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, a scandal rocked the Figure Skating community. A tight competition between Russian pair skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze and Canada’s Jamie Salé and David Pelletier ended in a major judging controversy that resulted in the Russian skaters being awarded the Gold medal and Canadian skaters the Silver medal. It was later determined that the French judge had been pressured to vote for the Russian pair as part of a deal to obtain votes for the French ice dance couple in a later event. Responding to media and public pressure, Salé and Pelletier’s medal was upgraded to a Gold medal, which they shared with the Russian pair skaters. The data describes judges’ scores for the leading pair skaters who competed in the Figure Skating event, for both the short- and long-programs (there were nine judges). Using these data for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. A complete answer includes setting the null and alternative hypotheses, conducting the test in Excel, drawing conclusion with regard to each hypotheses, and interpreting each result. Use 5% LoS

J1 J2 J3 J4 J5 J6 J7 J8 J9
Short 7.25 8.5 8.75 8.25 8 7.75 8.25 8.25 8.5
Short 6.75 8.5 8.75 8 8.25 7 8 8 8.25
Short 7 8.75 8.75 8.75 8.5 8.25 8.25 8.25 8.5
Short 7.25 8.5 9 8.25 8.25 8 8.5 8 8.75
Short 6.75 8.5 9 8.5 8.75 8.25 8.5 8.25 8.5
Long 9 9.5 9 8.75 8.25 9 9 8.75 8.75
Long 9.25 9.5 9.25 8.5 8.5 9 9.25 8.75 9
Long 9 9.75 9 8.5 8.5 9 9.25 8.75 9
Long 8.5 9 8.75 9 8.25 9 9 9 8.5
Long 8 9.25 8.75 8.5 8 9 9 8.5 8.5

In: Statistics and Probability

Dataset ex0315 is available here. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted in 2002...

Dataset ex0315 is available here.
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted in 2002 and 2003 by the Office of Applied Studies, led to the following state estimates of the total number of people (ages 12 and older) who had smoked within the last month). Fill in the following stem-and-leaf table using hundreds (of thousands) as the stems and truncating the leaves to the tens (of thousands) digit. (Enter solutions from smallest to largest. Separate the numbers with spaces.)

State Number of People (in thousands) State Number of People (in thousands)
Alabama 976 Alaska 129
Arizona 1215 Arkansas 730
California 5508 Colorado 985
Connecticut 678 Delaware 174
District of Columbia 125 Florida 3355
Georgia 1779 Hawaii 217
Idaho 260 Illinois 2754
Indiana 1427 Iowa 647
Kansas 573 Kentucky 1178
Louisiana 1021 Maine 297
Maryland 1039 Massachusetts 1207
Michigan 2336 Minnesota 1122
Mississippi 680 Missouri 1472
Montana 212 Nebraska 367
Nevada 543 New Hampshire 281
New Jersey 1662 New Mexico 363
New York 4052 North Carolina 2010
North Dakota 145 Ohio 2865
Oklahoma 858 Oregon 735
Pennsylvania 2858 Rhode Island 246
South Carolina 907 South Dakota 188
Tennessee 1343 Texas 4428
Utah 304 Vermont 134
Virginia 1487 Washington 1172
West Virginia 452 Wisconsin 1167
Wyoming 111
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In: Statistics and Probability

In September 2002, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) of the United States published a discussion...

In September 2002, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) of the United States published a discussion paper seeking views on whether U.S. standard setting should move from a principle based approach toward a principle based approach as sometimes associated with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). That paper was partly in response to the SarbanesOxley Act, which was itself a response to such accounting scandals as Enron and WorldCom. Schipper (2003) points out that the U.S. rules are often based on principles. That is, the standard setters use principles in order to produce the rules for the preparers of financial statements. Nelson (2003, 91) agrees, and suggests that a particular standard should rather be seen as more or less rules-based. He suggests that rules can increase the accuracy with which standard setters communicate their requirements and can reduce the sort of imprecision that leads to aggressive reporting choices by management. However, he notes that rules can also lead to excessive complexity and to the structuring of transactions. One of the reasons why standards on several topics need to contain rules is that the standards are inconsistent with the conceptual frameworks of the standard setters. For several topics, the use of the appropriate principle could lead to clearer communication and to more precision without the need for the current rules. That is, before asking how rules-based a particular standard should be, we should ask whether the standard is based on the most appropriate principle. I identify six topics on which the accounting standards have detailed technical rules. In each case, I suggest that part of the need for rules is caused by a lack of principle or by the use of an inappropriate principle (i.e., one that does not fit with higher-level principles). The lack of clear and appropriate principles can also lead to optional accounting methods in standards because no one policy is obviously the correct one; this leads to lack of comparability. I do not suggest that the use of appropriate principles would lead inexorably to standards with no optional methods but that, on some topics, optional methods could be eliminated. The six topics are examined one by one. In each case, I attempt to locate the principles being used, to assess the appropriateness of the principles, and then to identify any arbitrary rules or optional methods that result from the absence of appropriate principles. I start with the IASB’s standards (hereafter, IFRSs), with frequent comparison with U.S. GAAP. One reason for examining

IFRSs in particular is that they are required for the financial reporting of listed companies throughout much of the world in 2005 onward,1 and the FASB has announced plans for convergence of its standards with IFRSs.2 The final section of the paper draws conclusions about how accounting might be improved by substituting principles (or better principles) for the existing requirements. PRIOR LITERATURE AND PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER Alexander (1999) investigates the nature of principles and rules in an accounting context. Below, I use the word ìprinciplesî to include Alexanderís type A overall criteria (e.g., fair presentation, the definitions of elements of accounting and, in particular, the primacy of the asset and liability definitions) and his type B conventions (e.g., prudence). Such principles are contained in the standard settersí conceptual frameworks. I contrast this to ìrulesî which are Alexanderís type C rules (e.g., the requirement to measure inventories at the lower of cost and market). My definition of ìrulesî includes Nelsonís (2003, 91) ìspecific criteria, ëbright lineí thresholds, examples, scope restrictions, exceptions, subsequent precedents, implementation guidance, etc.î The use of the terms ìprinciplesî and ìrulesî seems broadly consistent among Alexander (1999), Nelson (2003), Schipper (2003), and me. My purpose is not to investigate why the U.S. system tends toward the writing of rules (whether based on principles or not). Identifying the roles played by the existence since the 1930s of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as an enforcement agency and the perceived need of auditors to protect themselves from litigation by encouraging the setting of clear and detailed rules is left to Benston (1976), Zeff (1995), and future research. As discussed below, the IASB also frequently writes rules. Thus, my purpose is to evaluate how the failure to use the appropriate principles can lead any standard setter to rely too much on rules. As noted earlier, the imposition of rules has some potential advantages. Those identified by Schipper (2003) and Nelson (2003) include: ï increased comparability; ï increased verifiability for auditors and regulators (and a related reduction in litigation); ï reduced opportunities for earnings management through judgments (but increased opportunities through transaction structuring); and ï improved communication of standard settersí intentions. Nelson (2003) and the American Accounting Associationís Financial Accounting Standards Committee (FASC) (2003) review the literature related to these issues. FASC concludes: Concepts-based standards, if applied properly, better support the FASBís stated mission of ìimproving the usefulness of financial reporting by focusing on the primary characteristics of relevance and reliability.î (AAA FASC 2003, 74) (emphasis added) In addition to balancing the advantages and disadvantages of more detailed rules, the standard setters sometimes face competing principles. An obvious example is the difficulty of trading off relevance and reliability: for instance, estimates of current values or future cash flows might be potentially relevant data, but some such estimates have low reliability. Departure from one principle might be justified by the need to follow another one. Standard setters are also subject to political pressure, especially from the management of large companies (e.g., Hope and Gray 1982; Solomons 1978; Watts and Zimmerman 1978; Nobes 1992; Zeff 1997). Giving way to political pressure might be an explanation for departing from principles. However, a bad standard cannot be re-classified as a good one because issuing it enabled the standard setter to survive.

As noted earlier, my purpose is to identify several accounting topics for which the accounting standard could be improved by being based more closely on a principle from the conceptual frameworks. In some cases, merely removing a rogue ìprincipleî that is not contained in the conceptual frameworks is sufficient. The improvements come in the form of increased clarity, decreased complexity, and decreased motivation for the structuring of transactions. That is, in some cases, increased clarity can be associated with a reduction in rules. This is not to say that principles-based standards are always clearer than rules-based standards. For example, development costs can represent an asset that meets reasonable recognition criteria; IAS No. 38 (para. 57) is based on this argument. In this context, the U.S. requirement (in SFAS No. 2) to expense development costs could be seen as an un-principled rule. However, in this case, the U.S. ìruleî leads to a clearer instruction and to several resulting advantages (see above), although not necessarily to a better balance sheet. Because some accounting topics are not susceptible to solution by use of appropriate principles without rules, standard setters are then forced to choose, for example, between an unclear principle and a clear rule. However, I and most other authors quoted above do not welcome rules for their own sake. They should be kept to the minimum necessary to achieve the various advantages claimed for them, such as clarity. This warrants an examination of each accounting topic to see if a more appropriate principle could achieve the advantages of rules and yet reduce the amount of rules at the same time. As mentioned earlier, the use of appropriate principles can reduce optional accounting treatments, with a consequent increase in comparability. I am not talking here of judgments by preparers, but of overt optional methods in accounting standards. Optional methods are not prevalent in U.S. accounting standards, although some exist.3 However, several options continue to exist in IFRS even after the removal of many in December 2003. The options were needed to achieve a three-quarters majority on the IASC Board, but arguing for the options was easier in the absence of clear principles. Using appropriate principles does not guarantee a reduction in options, but the discussion below finds several instances where a focus on principles can reduce options.

WHAT IS THE MAIN POINT OF THIS ARTICLE? HOW TO SUMMARY THIS?

In: Accounting

1. Affiliation was first described by David Coleman in 2002 as one of his six Leadership...

1. Affiliation was first described by David Coleman in 2002 as one of his six Leadership styles. You are a tutor to a class of 54 students of Leadership and Management and required to:

  1. Describe an Affiliative Leader
  2. Discuss any,

(i) three advantages  of Affiliation Leadership Style   

(ii) three disadvantages of Affiliation Leadership Style                 

NB: Instructions to the Assignment,

Elaborate your points clearly; all quoted facts must be referenced using APA style.

In: Operations Management

Research paper “Dynamic Risk Management” (JFE, Rampini, Sufi, Viswanathan) showed that those US airlines that experienced...

Research paper “Dynamic Risk Management” (JFE, Rampini, Sufi, Viswanathan) showed that those US airlines that experienced financial distress in 2004-2005 chose not to hedge their commodity price risk. As financial health of US airlines improved they became active hedgers. Please explain the paper’s findings from the point of view of the agency theory (conflict between shareholders and bondholders)

In: Finance

4. Even though Oracle has the second market share in the database industry (33.7%, behind IBM's...

4. Even though Oracle has the second market share in the database industry (33.7%, behind IBM's 34.1% in 2004), it has chosen to let IBM'DB2 customers use their future products (iFlex, Retek and Fusion). It may seem all the more strange to form this kind of "alliance" with the competitor just ahead of them. Analyze Oracle’s strategy using the theory of lock-in and Compatibility.

In: Economics

2. As of July 2004, American Institute for Foreign Study (AIFS) hedge all its costs. Make...

2. As of July 2004, American Institute for Foreign Study (AIFS) hedge all its costs. Make a case (without any calculations) to CFO, Becky Tabaczynski, that

a) hedging all its costs may not be an optimal strategy for the corporation.

b) an option hedge makes a better choice than forward contracts for hedging. Would Becky Tabaczynski agree with your thought process?

In: Finance

Ms. Florence Nightingale, African-American 80 year-old female who is alert and oriented x 4. She presents...

Ms. Florence Nightingale, African-American 80 year-old female who is alert and oriented x 4. She presents here to Utopia Hospital via AMR due to an un-witnessed fall at home. She currently lives alone fully independent with her 3 cats. She has two sons (both live out of state) and one daughter who lives two doors down from her mother’s home. She is an active woman who attends church every Sunday, watches her 3 grandchil

In: Nursing