No / Lithuania restored her independence, after half a century of Soviet occupation, in the immediate aftermath of the failed Moscow coup in August 1991. As the multi-national Soviet state disintegrated Lithuania evolved, without war or violence, from a communist state and a command economy to a liberal democracy, a free market, and a society guaranteeing human and minority rights. Lithuania therefore offers a notable example of peaceful transition, all the more impressive in the light of the bloody conflict elsewhere in the former Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, where the aspirations to independence of the constituent republics were either violently resisted or dissolved into inter-ethnic violence. Equally remarkable has been Lithuania's evident determination to 'return to Europe' after half a century of separation, even at the price of submerging its recently restored sovereign rights in the supranational European Union. The cost of membership in western economic and security organization are judged to be.

Thesis (LL.M.). / Written for the Institute of Comparative Law. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/06/17). Includes bibliographical references.

In this thesis, we demonstrate how presheaves of labelled transition systems (LTS) acquire a very natural form of spatially induced independence on their actions when we allow a minimal amount of gluing on selected transitions within such systems. This gluing condition is characterized in the new model of LTS-adapted presheaf, and we also make use of the new model of asynchronous labelled transition system with equivalence (ALTSE) to characterize independence on actions. As such, our main result, the Theorem of Spatially Induced Independence, establishes functors from the categories of LTS-adapted presheaves to the categories of ALTSE-valued presheaves; it is a result that extends a proposition of Malcolm [SSTS] in the context of LTS-valued sheaves on complete Heyting algebras.

Let k be a positive integer and G = (V (G),E(G)) a graph. A subset S of V (G) is a k-independent set of G if the subgraph induced by the vertices of S has maximum degree at most k-1. The maximum cardinality of a k-independent set of G is the k-independence number βk(G). A graph G is called βk- -stable if βk(G - e) = βk(G) for every edge e of E(G). First we give a necessary and sufficient condition for βk--stable graphs. Then we establish four equivalent conditions for βk--stable trees.

It is important for an auditor to be independent both in mind and in appearance. The independence of the auditor is important for the trustworthiness of the auditor. Independence in appearance is the focus of this study and is how independent the auditor appears to be from the perspective of other stakeholders. This will be studied from the perspective of clients. The audit does not only have to be useful for the owners, but also for the client who pay for the audit. The aim of this study is to explain what factors that are affecting how clients perceive the auditor independence in Sweden. The study also wants to investigate if the client firm size affects the relationship between independence in appearance and factors affecting independence in appearance. To answer this, a questionnaire was sent via email to small and large limited companies in Sweden. This study found that audit tenure and auditor-client relationship partly have an influence on independence in appearance. How long the client has had the same audit firm is positively related to independence in appearance and how often the client has contact with the auditor is negatively related to independence in appearance. Client firm size couldn’t be used as a moderating variable since too few responses was received.

No description available.

Through the audit of annual reports, auditors contribute to the credibility of financial information. To ensure trustworthiness, the auditor has to be independent from the audited company. Auditors’ independence has been a very broadly discussed topic for many years. The most discussed threat to auditors’ independence is the provision of non-audit services by audit firms. But there are other threats to auditors’ independence besides the provision of non-audit services, which are not that frequently discussed so far. There is a tendency that companies hire employees of their current audit firm, which can imply a threat to auditors’ independence. This threat is addressed in the present research paper. The purpose of this paper is to examine if banks, as important capital providers, are aware of the threat to auditors’ independence through the client employment of previous auditors. This study uses qualitative data, collected by a web-based self-completion questionnaire with open questions. This questionnaire was sent out to corporate account officers in German banks via email. The analysis of these results shows that banks perceive the client employment of previous auditors as a threat to auditors’ independence. But even though banks perceive this as a threat, most of the respondents do not see any possibility to counteract the dangers posed by such a move. The main reason is the missing capability to gather knowledge about the employment behavior of a company. Hence, the client employment of previous auditors often stays undetected. Such a move may affect the mind-set of the bankers in a theoretical way, but has no influence regarding their daily business with the customer firms. Different measures exist to counteract the threat to auditors’ independence as well as the negative impacts caused by the client employment of previous auditors. These countermeasures refer to all three parties – (I) the company, (II) the audit service providers and (III) the bank. Especially regulation, both of the audit and the bank, but as well voluntary acting can be consulted. Further research needs to be done in order to proof the results of this study preferably in a quantitative way. An extension to how banks act instead on looking how they perceive the client employment would be interesting in order to draw more conclusions and develop further countermeasures.

I am analyzing Nietzsche's idea of independence found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and Genealogy of Morals. I am arguing that democracy can lead us to the ultimate form of independence, yet Nietzsche seems to disagree.

The purposes of this study were to examine the effects of six variables on auditor independence and the reliability of financial statements as perceived within the Irish commercial environment and to explore the reasons underlying these perceptions. The six variables comprised of audit firm size, audit market competition, audit committees, audit tenure, provision of nonaudit services (NAS) and client employment. From a combination of questionnaire and interview approaches, the study sought to obtain supportable and useful insight as to the perceptions held. The approach builds on and develops previous research conducted outside the Irish market. The results of the study showed that auditor independence and the reliability of financial statements were perceived to be significantly impaired when the audit was performed by a non-Big Six firm, the audit environment was highly competitive, no audit committee existed, audit tenure was long, NAS were provided by audit personnel to audit clients, and the auditor took up an employment position with a former audit client. Some of the reasons underlying these perceptions were as follows. The importance of reputation to, and. the international profile of, the Big Six firms allowed interviewees to have greater confidence in their independence. A highly competitive audit market was perceived to impair auditor independence by encouraging auditors to cut back on the amount of audit work performed in order to maintain audit fee income. Audit committees were perceived to enhance auditor independence by reducing the power that management could exert over the auditor. Long audit tenure was perceived to impair auditor independence by encouraging auditors to become cosy in their relationships with their clients. The lack of confidence as a result of NAS provision was associated with the audit firm's dependency on such services for fee income. Client employment was perceived to provide the ex-auditor with power to influence auditor-client relationships.

This paper compares and contrasts economic and psychological explanations for auditor bias and independence violations in accordance with the structure of the Auditing profession. The study illustrates that external auditor bias is more appropriately attributed to unintentional biases, such as the self-serving bias, rather than economic forces.