Statement Of Standards Research Articles

Strategic Alliances In Public Accounting Firms

<p class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;" lang="EN">The decade of the 1990s saw the emergence of the concept of the strategic alliance and its significant growth in both numbers and diversity of alliance areas as well as its impact on business performance in terms of new service or product introductions and/or increases in revenue, profit, volume or market share.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Public accounting (CPA) firms have participated in such alliances especially during times of staffing shortages and seasonal peak periods, but their participation has not been well reported in the literature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This study examines the state of strategic alliances in public accounting firms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The topic is particularly relevant now in light of the greater responsibilities placed on management since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the issuance recently of two Statements of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS No. 157 in 2006 and SFAS No. 159 in 2007) which give companies the option to report certain financial assets and liabilities at fair value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>These additional responsibilities may include the restructuring and restatement of financial reports to more accurately reflect the financial position and results of operations of a business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This has resulted in a greater demand for accounting services which some CPA firms were not able to provide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The findings reveal that participation in</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> strategic alliances enables accounting firms to pool their resources, increase revenues, build a larger knowledge support system to serve a wider clientele, and compete with larger firms both nationally and on a global basis.</span></span></p>

A library for the modern law school: a statement of standards for university law library provision in the UK – 2009 revision prepared by the Libraries Sub-Committee of the Society of Legal Scholars

The Statement of Standards for University Law Library Provision is a comprehensive and flexible set of standards providing authoritative guidance for law schools and law librarians. It represents a broad and authoritative consensus of views. The Standards were originally drawn up by a consultative group established by the Libraries Sub-Committee of the Society of Legal Scholars in 1995 and approved by the Society after consultation with academic, professional and governmental bodies. They have now been comprehensively revised by a working party of the Libraries Sub-Committee, after extensive consultation, and this revision was adopted by the Council of the Society on 9 September 2009. The Standards themselves are expressed briefly and are designed to be of general application to libraries serving an increasingly diverse range of law schools and law school activities. They are applicable to the academic stage of legal education only (undergraduate and postgraduate), delivered through all modes of study, and are supported by a more detailed commentary.

A Library for the Modern Law School – 2009 Revision

AbstractThis article by Dr Peter Clinch, Senior Subject Librarian for Law, Cardiff University, provides a brief background to, and reprints a part of, the latest revision of the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) document: A Library for the Modern Law School: the Statement of Standards for University Law Library Provision in the United Kingdom. Dr Clinch was a member of the Working Party responsible for revising the standards and he adds comments describing current practices relating to the standards.

IVSA Code of Research Ethics and Guidelines

The International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) Code of Research Ethics and Guidelines introduces the principles and ethical standards that underlie professional responsibilities involved in doing visual research. It consists of an introduction, a preamble and a statement of general principles, followed by ten statements of ethical standards. The Code is prefaced by an introduction by Diana Papademas, who led the development and wrote the Code on behalf of the IVSA.

A practical protocol to address barriers and slow acceptance for use of continuous ischemia monitoring in US hospitals

Background: In 2004, a Scientific Statement of practice standards for inhospital cardiac monitoring was published by the American Heart Association and endorsed by the International Society of Computerized Electrocardiology (ISCE), including recommendations for continuous ischemia (cST-seg) monitoring. In 2007, the author sent an electronic survey nationally to a random sample of 915 cardiologists from a pool of 4985 certified cardiologists registered with the electronic vendor, Epocrates. Of hospitals where respondents admitted patients, 49% had a standard of practice for using cSTseg monitoring for cardiac patients. Most responding cardiologists selected early identification of potential ischemia (83.5%) and early identification of reocclusion after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) (74%) as benefits of cST-segmonitoring. Regarding barriers, false-positive alarms for ischemia had the highest level of agreement as a barrier to cST-seg monitoring (61.5%), followed by lack of understanding for use of this technology by nursing staff (56.5%), extra telephone calls to you or your partners that you felt were based on inaccurate monitoring (48%), lack of understanding of this technology by other physicians (47%), and extra cost or treatment due to false-positive alarms (43%). More positive perceptions of benefit and clinical usefulness of cST-seg monitoring were reported by cardiologists who practice in hospitals that were implementing cST-seg monitoring guidelines. Conclusion: For practice standards to be incorporated into routine practice nationally, successful interdisciplinary protocols need to be shared. Thus, we are sharing our 572-bed hospital's protocol for cST-seg monitoring in effort to address specific barriers. An interdisciplinary team created the cST monitoring protocol, which stipulates that the ST alarm default is in the “on” setting for all patients. Thus, nursesmust manually turn ST alarms to “off” for patients who meet exclusion criteria (intraventricular conduction defect, paced rhythm, known pericarditis or myocardial contusion, ST-segment “sagging” due to digoxin). Before notifying the physician about an ST alarm, the nurse first verifies that the patient's patches are correctly placed and that the alarms are not due to artifact, particularly from patient movement. Next, for any 2-mm ST change sustained for 15 minutes (with or without symptoms), the nurse obtains a prn 12-lead ECG to confirm ST changes are present. The resident is paged to confirm suspected ischemia on the 12-lead before the attending physician is called. By following this protocol, we are able to reduce unnecessary telephone calls for false alarms and have interdisciplinary, hospital-wide cooperation for cST-seg monitoring.

Restructuring Charges, Regulatory Changes and the Accruals Anomaly

In this study, we examine the role of restructuring charges in the existence and subsequent weakening of the widely documented accrual anomaly. We find that prior to 2003 the significant positive abnormal hedge returns experienced by accrual based strategies were influenced by a subset of firms with high restructuring charges. After 2003, with the introduction of the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 146 changing the accounting for restructuring charges, restructuring firms no longer experience significant abnormal returns thereby weakening the accrual anomaly. Our results suggest that the regulatory changes have had an effect on impairing the role of restructuring charges in the accrual anomaly by improving the market's ability to correctly assess the valuation implications of restructuring charges in the low accruals portfolios.

Data Modeling & the Infrastructural Nature of Conceptual Tools

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the infrastructural nature of many modern conceptual technologies. The focus of this paper is on conceptual tools associated with elementary types of data modeling. We intend to show a variety of ways in which these conceptual tools not only express thinking, but also mold and shape thinking. And those ways of thinking are often out of sync with the situations that we need to understand and explain. We have chosen to discuss data modeling because in mathematics education, future-oriented statements of curriculum standards generally identify data modeling as a topic that should receive priority attention. Several example activities based on the models and modeling perspectives (MMP) are used to support the claims that: (a) statistical techniques are based on models, (b) alternative models often make significantly different assumptions about how to measure even elementary things such as distances and spread. Also, new technologies for computation, conceptualization, and communication are making significant changes in which statistical techniques are easily executed. Moreover, these newly available techniques are often based on assumptions that are more realistic given the relevant quantities and relationships.

Conflicts of interest in biomedical research—the FASEB guidelines

The rise in academia-industry relationships has been accompanied by increasing concerns about financial conflicts of interest. To date, policy recommendations addressing financial conflicts of interest have focused on the role of academic institutions in reviewing and overseeing investigator relationships with industry. However, investigators as a group determine the effectiveness of policies and practices. Therefore, there is a clear need for a consensus statement of standards for academia-industry interactions from the scientists' perspective. To meet that need, we propose conflict of interest guidelines for individual biomedical investigators to address the critical challenges faced when financial relationships with industry exist.

International pharmacy group meets in Brazil

More than 2100 people from 89 countries gathered August 25–31 in the Brazilian port city of Salvador for the first-ever FIP World Congress in a Latin American country. The FIP Council, consisting of the elected “Bureau” and the representatives of national associations of pharmacists or pharmaceutical scientists, unanimously approved three statements of policy and professional standards: ASHP Executive Vice President Henri R. Manasse Jr., who attended the World Congress as the 2005–09 FIP professional secretary, described the three statements as issues that have already been extensively discussed by U.S. health-system pharmacists. “ASHP has policies in all these areas,” he said in an interview after the event. “So, for us, I think those statements maybe confirm or validate some of the issues we’ve been working on. “They also, I think, bring us together with the global community on some degree of both collaboration and consistency in seeing these things the same way.”

Variability in the organisation and management of hospital care for COPD exacerbations in the UK

Previous smaller UK audits have demonstrated wide variation in organisation, resources, and process of care for acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) admissions. Smallest units appeared to do less well. UK acute hospitals supplied information on (1) resources and organisation of care, (2) clinical data on process of care and outcomes for up to 40 consecutive COPD admissions. Comparisons were made against national recommendations. Eight thousand and thirteen admissions involved 7529 patients from 233 units (93% of UK acute Trusts). Twenty-six percent of units had at most one whole-time equivalent respiratory consultant while 12% had at least four. Thirty percent patients were admitted under a respiratory specialist and 48% discharged under their care whilst 28% had no specialist input at all. Variation in care provision was wide across all hospitals but patients in smaller hospitals had less access to specialist respiratory or admission wards, pulmonary rehabilitation programs, specialty triage or an early discharge scheme. Six percent of units did not have access to NIV and 18% to invasive ventilatory support. There remains wide variation in all aspects of acute hospital COPD care in the UK, with smaller hospitals offering fewest services. Those receiving specialist input are more likely to be offered interventions of proven effect. Management guidelines alone are insufficient to address inequalities of care and a clear statement of minimum national standards for resource provision and organisation of COPD care are required. This study provides a unique insight into the current state of care for patients admitted with COPD exacerbations in the UK.

Ethically Speaking: Teachers and the Politics of Eduational Reform

The Ontario College of Teachers is in the process of revising its statement of Ethical Standards. The proposed guidelines ("Revised Ethical Standard s") reflect a new way at looking at the role and responsibilities of teachers in Ontario. Rather than focusing on behaviors or rules to be followed in particular sets of circumstances, the proposed revisions focus on four key values or virtues that can guide ethical judgment and decision making in the day to day practice of teaching. This shift emphasizes the importance of informed professional judgment and views the teacher as a responsible moral agent. With autonomy comes accountability and as a member of a professional college, teachers exercise their autonomy in communication with their colleagues .

A short history of the General Medical Council

The General Medical Council (GMC) regulates British doctors through the Medical Act. The Council comprises doctors (who predominate) and laypeople. It registers doctors for UK practice, sets professional standards, regulates basic medical education, and manages doctors' fitness to practise. The GMC sits uneasily at the interface between the medical profession, the public, Parliament and the National Health Service. Herein lie the seeds of inertia and conflict. The early GMC mainly managed serious complaints against doctors. Reactive, passive and distant from doctors, it was reconstituted in 1979 after it lost their confidence. At this point the public became increasingly impatient with the GMC because it appeared to be too protective of doctors and unwilling to tackle poor practice. When it did respond, its actions were perceived as too little, too late. Public pressure accelerated radical change following the 1990s crisis in paediatric cardiac surgery at Bristol Royal Infirmary. In the 1990s, the GMC itself set a new direction. There was more public involvement. A statement of professional standards -Good Medical Practice- was agreed between profession and public. The standards are tied to licensure, medical education and workplace clinical governance, and are to be observed by all doctors. The biggest change is the plan to evaluate doctors' practice regularly through revalidation in the form of relicensure. All patients are entitled to a good doctor. The challenge to the profession and the GMC is to ensure they fulfil this entitlement by implementing professional regulation effectively.

Case detection of α1-antitrypsin deficiency: does it help the patient or the doctor?

Alpha1-antitrypsin (α1-AT) deficiency is a common genetic disorder, with homozygous genotype Z as the most relevant deficient type for clinicians. In some parts of Europe, this phenotype is as prevalent as cystic fibrosis and for both disorders there is presently no cure for the disease, which has implications for genetic testing in many countries. In 2003, the European Respiratory Society and American Thoracic Society published a joint statement of standards for diagnosis and management of individuals with α1-AT deficiency 1. Recently, a full chapter on genetic testing addressed the pros and cons of this issue. In pulmonary practice, diagnostic testing of a single case with onset of symptoms related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at early age is most frequently performed. Predispositional detection of the related family of the newly detected case is already more questionable and relates to the care that doctors can provide to cases detected by family screening. Case detection is somewhat different from screening, as screening activity is usually employed for subjects with no symptoms of disease. Public health authorities often only allow for (neonatal) screening if it …

Kathleen Mears Memorial Lecture: ASET and OSET, Patterns and Parallels

ABSTRACT.OSET is the international Organisation of Societies for Electrophysiological Technology, a federation of professional societies from around the world. Just as ASET grew out of the national physicians' society, OSET grew out of an international physicians' consortium. Both ASET and OSET are independent groups that address the many issues specific to technologists, from entry-level education to standards of practice and legal conditions of practice. The present “members” of OSET are the technologist societies of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US; the individual members of those societies are members of OSET by extension. OSET holds a week-long Congress every four years, hosted by one of the member societies. Technologists from all over the world gather to share information via platform papers and posters. Just as ASET meetings provide an opportunity for technologists to learn from each other, formally and informally, so the OSET Congresses extend that sharing beyond national borders. Between Congresses, OSET work is done by committees. Some of the published results of this committee work are statements of minimal and optimal standards of training in EEG and evoked potentials, guidelines for digital EEG, guidelines for infection control, and guidelines for intraoperative monitoring. The last two Congresses have had sessions on education in the OSET countries; present committee work is continuing to study this issue to develop a truly international statement of competencies, i.e., what technologists must be able to do to perform electrophysiologic studies anywhere in the world.

FIP Statement of Professional Standards

FIP Statement of Professional Standards

FIP Statement of Professional Standards

The International Pharmaceutical Federation (Federation Internationale Pharmaceutique, FIP) has published a statement on medications affecting driving. This statement discusses labeling, professionals' obligations in educating patients and the roles that professional organizations can take to assure that appropriate patients' counseling and education is provided.

A library for the modern law school: a statement of standards for university law library provision in the United Kingdom - 2003 revision

The Statement of Standards for University Law Library Provision is a comprehensive and flexible set of Standards providing authoritative guidance, representing a broad consensus of views, for Law Schools and law librarians. The Standards were drawn up by a consultative group established by the Libraries Committee of the Society, and approved by the Society after extensive consultation with academic, professional and governmental bodies. The Standards cover the whole range of issues relating to the operation of a Law Library including its relationship with the Law School, its management, collections, space, and equipment. It is supported by an annual survey of university Law Library provision conducted in collaboration with the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians. The accumulated research data from these surveys provides the basis not only for realistic benchmarks and targets in the Statement but also for a series of analytical research reports which monitor trends in university Law Library provision. (The published Statements and research reports are listed below.)

Heavy lies the editor's fingers on the keyboard

No aspect of being an editor is perhaps more daunting then sorting through contradictory reviews given about a manuscript that is outside your area of methodological or theoretical expertise. To put together three volumes of this journal have been required to make decisions about manuscripts involving rhetorical theory and methods. Unfortunately, lack experience and expertise in this area. That is why journal editors have reviewers, persons whose opinions can request and then use in making my evaluations. Reviewers provide advice to editor, ultimately; editor is and must be responsible for content (the acceptance and rejection) of manuscripts. The following questions have invaded my conscious thoughts during this time: (1) Is rhetorical reviewing different from scientific reviewing? And (2) Where does one go to learn about requirements for rhetorical scholarship? Admittedly, those questions are focused on my shortcomings. If question involved issues about scientific research, my experience (some would call that arrogance) gives me ability to feel as though can and should make a decision. But, when you are outside of your domain, reliance and trust that you place in others is greater and higher level of uncertainty about whether your evaluations are reasonable or not. The classic scenario for me involves receipt of three reviews. The reviewers all agree that manuscript represents a competent piece of rhetorical scholarship and is well written. All three reviewers recommend rejection. would look at this and shudder, does one reject well written and competent scholarship? can tell you that for most scientific writing if piece is well written and design competent, chances at publication are very high. This puzzled me and made writing rejection letters rather difficult, why would one reject well written, competent scholarship? asked at least 15 different older and experienced rhetorical scholars some questions about standards for publishable rhetorical scholarship. My question was what constituted sufficient material in a manuscript for publication, was competence enough? Suppose a manuscript came in that did a very good job of using a neoAristotelian analytic perspective to analyze Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. What a good analysis justify publication? Everyone answered no, that competence was not enough to warrant publication. did then ask what more would be required for publication and everyone said some version of the analysis would have to offer something new. Now, for me, that is not unimportant, but it is a buzz word, because what is new? Brummett's essay in this section does a good job of dissecting that issue and kind of double bind (although it would probably be called a dialectic tension of some sort, current term for a reinvention of conceptual wheel currently popular). While word provides a goal, unpacking of what that word entails and one meets that standards to me were a bit fuzzy. asked for elaboration, whether new meant that phenonmenon had to be one unstudied and if unstudied was that new, if theoretical perspective had to be new (I did ask if a neoAristotelian piece could ever be published and received mixed answers ranging from no, possibly, to yes, if....). Most persons said that scholarship had to contain an argument that related to theory and extended our understanding of theory. did ask, how do you know it does that? Getting beyond statement of standards or requirements to nitty gritty of what has to be present in a text for it to be considered was difficult to assess. Many times heard essentially some version of definition of pornography, one could not define it, but you knew it when you saw it. My essay does not challenge that assertion, my goal is explication of what such a view entails and implications of embracing such a view. …

Grading programming assignments using rubrics

Rubrics are a relatively well understood assessment instrument, although it doesn't appear to be heavily used in CSE. Learning increases, even in its serendipitous aspects, when learners have a sense of what they are setting out to learn, a statement of explicit standards they must meet, and a way of seeing what they have learned. [Loac86] Assessment requires [faculty] to articulate... explicit and public statements of criteria of performance. By doing so, faculty refine their own understanding of expected abilities, clarify for their colleagues the basis of their judgment, and enable students to understand what performance is required. [Loac86]

Reading the Texts of Assessment Task Sheets in Two Year 8 English Classrooms

Task sheets are written texts generated specifically for assessment purposes in high schools in Queensland, Australia. They attempt to make assessment transparent by explaining the criteria used to assess performance. The criteria and statements of standards describe how a grade is awarded and provide evidence of teacher accountability for assessment. In this paper, task sheets from two Year 8 English classes in two such schools are described and analysed to investigate three questions: (1) What do task sheets reveal about practices and relationships operating in classroom-based literacy assessment? (2) How do task sheets document what counts as literacy and performance in literacy at this level of schooling? (3) Can any task sheet be 'transparent' and how much interpretation is required to make sense of it? The analysis was guided by a framework of methods drawn from Fairclough (1992), Gee (1990), and critical linguistic approaches. It found that task sheets are complex texts which communicate dimensions of assessment relating to teachers' and students' roles, the purposes of assessment, and criteria for what counts as performance. It is argued that assessment task sheets are themselves documents of the assessment culture, part of the socialisation of students into assessment practices in the classroom.