Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Texas, May, 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 29, 2009). Advisor: Max Grubb. Keywords: African news; news flow; framing; journalism; mass communication; agenda setting; gatekeeping. Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-104).

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 25, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Kevin Wise. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Accounting guidance often contains examples which provide practitioners with a description of a hypothetical transaction and its appropriate accounting treatment. Despite this potential to influence accounting judgments, our understanding of how practitioners use such examples when making these judgments is limited. Relying on psychology theory, I propose that practitioners must first assess the level of similarity between the transaction and the example. I predict that when doing this, practitioners unknowingly use a biased cognitive process where they overweight shared aspects between the transactions. Using an experiment, I confirm this prediction and show that this bias causes practitioners to systematically assess similarity between a transaction and example as too high. Results also show that this causes practitioners to consistently overestimate the likelihood that their transaction also qualifies for the same treatment as any example they are given. My study provides insights on how and why examples can systematically affect accounting judgments and has implications for both standard setters and practitioners. / text

published_or_final_version / History / Master / Master of Philosophy

Background: HIV was added to the British Columbia list of reportable diseases on 1 May 2003 which included enhanced contact tracing by public health. A sensitive/less-sensitive (S/LS) algorithm using a modified EIA anti-HIV assay was employed to evaluate enhanced partner notification by comparing the proportion of newly diagnosed cases of HIV presenting within 6 months of becoming infected before and after HIV Reporting. Methods: Banked HIV positive samples, collected between 1 Jan 2000– 30 Apr 2003 (pre-reporting group) and 1 May 2003 – 23 Aug 2006 (post-reporting group) were re-tested using the bioMérieux Vironostika HIV-1-S/LS tests. Samples were classified by the S/LS EIA (detuned test) as a recent seroconversion (RSC) (infected for <170 days) or established infection (>170 days). Data was linked to the BC HIV Surveillance and AIDS databases. The proportion of RSC in the pre-reporting group was compared to the proportion of RSC in the post-reporting group using a 2-sided z-test of independent proportions. Similarly, the proportion of new cases of HIV presenting with AIDS was compared between groups. A Kappa statistic was calculated to determine the level of agreement between clinical assessment of HIV staging was compared and the detuned test results. Finally, characteristics of RSC were examined. Results: Serum was available for 1111 newly positive HIV cases in the pre-reporting group and 470 in the post-reporting group. RSC in the pre and post reporting group were 311 (28%; CI: 25.36%, 30.73%) and 136 (29%; CI: 24.87%, 33.27%) respectively (p= 0.70). There was no significant difference in the proportion of cases presenting with AIDS between groups (pre-reporting: 6.7% [CI: 5.4%, 8.1%]; post-reporting: 7.6% [CI: 6.3%, 9.1%]) (p=0.31). Sex work is independently associated with being RSC (AOR 1.78 [CI:1.09, 2.91]). There is an inverse association between being 41-60 yrs old, Asian and/or mixed ethnicity and RSC. Conclusions: The bioMérieux Vironostika HIV-1-S/LS test is an effective tool to objectively evaluate public health interventions and in identifying sub-populations likely to be RSC. This underpowered study demonstrated a slight increase in RSC post reporting which was not statistically significant. Similarly there was no difference in the proportion of cases presenting with AIDS.

Title : The deadliest war in the world – An assessment of the war reporting from the democratic Republic of Congo Author: Melinda Sutus University and course: Örebro University, Media- and communication C (international) Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand if cultural and geographical proximity affects the way of reporting news and why the war in the Democratic republic of Congo gets so little attention compared to other wars and catastrophes. This will be made by studying the reporting about the war in two newspapers different from one another, one geographically and culturally closed to the war struck area, and one far away. Previous research: The research used in this study focuses on the third world, foreign coverage and globalisation. Studies made by Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Rouge, and Stig-Arne Nohrstedt are used to understand the reporting about Africa. Further follow Edward S Herman´s and Noam Chomsky´s views about the different types of victims and Jean-Claude Willame´s research about violence in Africa. Lastly a number of interpretations about globalization are being accounted for. Theories: Post colonialism, reporting war, the CNN-effect and 24h news and critical discourse analysis. Methods: Quantitative analysis and critical discourse analysis. Main results: The New York Times focused their reporting on war facts, in Cape Times the focus is distributed somewhat equally between all the topics. The New York Times portrays the conflict as cold-blooded and barbaric while Cape times emphasis the civilian and humanitarian aspects. Cape Times is closer to the area in question and the humanitarian aspects are easily understood, furthermore Africa does not see itself as a war-struck continent and victims the same way as the west sees the continent, which explains the absence of war facts in Cape Times. The main result is that geographically and cultural proximity does have a certain effect on how news is being portrayed. Key words: Africa, war, globalization, news reporting.

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