M.Comm. (International Accounting) / Globalisation is causing a convergence of economic, trading, political and social processes. As a result, geographical boundaries are becoming less significant in the world of business and accounting as most countries around the world have chosen to adopt a common language: International Financial Reporting Standards (hereafter IFRS). The problem is that most of the countries on the African continent have yet to become part of this global conversation as there are serious challenges hindering the adoption of IFRS. The primary objective of this study was to discuss the challenges that continue to hinder the effective adoption of IFRS in the majority of African countries. The objective of the study was explored through the review of: i) current international accounting structures and how Africa fits in; ii) the benefits of adopting IFRS; iii) the current status of IFRS in Africa; and iv) challenges faced by countries in Africa that have already adopted IFRS. An empirical study consisting of a questionnaire (distributed to 35 registered accounting bodies in Africa) and interviews with significant individuals in the international accounting profession were also utilised to meet the objective of the study and the results were analysed and discussed in detail. It was concluded that there are many challenges that continue to hinder the adoption of IFRS in the majority of countries on the African continent and structures are currently being put into place in order that these challenges may be addressed.

It is essential that neonatal practitioners are able to use their theoretical knowledge in clinical practice in an appropriate manner, in order to render competent quality care to the critically ill neonate. However, theory and practice integration is also very difficult to achieve. Managers of neonatal units and neonatal students had voiced concerns regarding the integration of theory and practice in the neonatal programme offered by an Institution of Higher Education (IHE). Therefore the purpose of this research was to develop standards and criteria to facilitate the integration of theory and practice in the IHE Neonatal Programme A combined qualitative/quantitative exploratory, descriptive, contextual approach was followed, based on Muller's Model for the Development of Nursing Standards (1990:49-55). The design consisted of a development phase and a quantification phase. Standard development began with conceptualisation, that is, the definition of the research concepts and the integration of the study into existing theoretical frameworks. The legislative frameworks used for the study were those of the South African Qualifications Authority and the South African Nursing Council, that govern nursing education and nursing practice. The theoretical frameworks promote theory/practice integration. Standards and criteria were developed from the legislative and theoretical frameworks in order to facilitate the theory/practice integration of the IHE neonatal programme. Ten experts who met specific criteria for inclusion in the study were then asked to validate the standards. The quantification phase consisted of the statistical determination of the content validity of the standards, using a questionnaire. The original ten experts together with another forty participants who complied with specific inclusion criteria, were asked to evaluate the standards, using a four-point rating scale. A standard or criterion with a content validity index of 3.5 to 4. 0 was accepted as valid. The results of the data analysis for the fifty participants showed that all criteria had a mean score of over 3. 5 and thus could be considered valid and useful as a guideline for neonatal programmes. However it was evident from standard deviation scores that the expert group showed greater consensus than the additional participants regarding the validity of the standards. Further research may therefore be required in order to confirm the validity of the standards and criteria.

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The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants recently made a decision to adopt accounting standards issued by the International Accounting Standards Committee rather than continuing to develop standards locally. Reasons used to justify this policy change include: the lack of resources to develop accounting standards from a zero base and, with what has been classified as the sub-standard financial reporting that occurs in South Africa. By adopting International Accounting Standards, amending the standard-setting process and providing legal backing for these standards, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants aims to improve the standard of financial reporting. It will be argued that this decision will effect the contribution preparers of financial statements make to the standard-setting process. Corporate management as preparers of financial information participate in this process by reacting to proposed statements of generally accepted accounting practice in a number of ways, including lobbying the standard-setting body. This thesis aims to establish the views of South African corporate managers to the proposed changes to the accounting standard-setting process which incorporates the adoption of international accounting standards. To achieve this objective, the responses of South African corporate managers to the first six exposure drafts issued by the Accounting Practices Committee based on International Accounting Standards are examined to supply evidence that is descriptive in nature and which provides additional support for the findings of the empirical study. Forty hypotheses were developed and tested in an attempt to establish the views of executives to various issues relating to the accounting standard-setting process, corporate managers as the producers of firm specific financial information, the regulation of accounting, management incentive schemes and the international harmonisation of accounting standards. The tests of the hypotheses together with the findings of the individual case studies, provide evidence to suggest that this new disposition effectively marginalises South African corporate managers from the accounting standard-setting process. Finally, it is concluded that the existence of a management compensation/incentive scheme, is unlikely to influence corporate management's reaction to a proposed accounting standard. / Auditing / D. Compt. (Applied Accountancy)

D.Cur. / Nursing is a clinical discipline, strongly anchored in clinical practice. In order to learn the art and science of Nursing, it should be kept in mind that nursing is a complex and intrinsic process that entails skills that are highly cognitive. Community Nursing is one of the clinical disciplines in which clinical guidance takes place. Guidance in Community Nursing takes place on district health level and is based on the primary health care approach. With clinical guidance from a community nurse in the community nursing practice, students are given the opportunity to apply in clinical practice what they have learned in theory. Students learn in the clinical practice by working alongside a competent, experienced and registered community nurse. They are guided to realise their full potential, to develop self-confidence in psychomotor skills, as well as the good values which are an inherent part of nursing. Due to the fact that the clinical learning environment is dynamic, it is necessary to ensure value-sensitive clinical guidance in the community nursing practice. This implies that the values of all role players involved in clinical guidance, namely the students and nurses (the patients during clinical guidance) should be handled with the necessary sensitivity. The goal of the study was to explore and describe to what extent value-sensitive clinical guidance in Community Nursing takes place. As a result of the findings a concept analysis of the categories identified was done and standards for value-sensitive clinical guidance in Community Nursing were developed and refined. For the purposes of this study an explorative, descriptive and contextual design was used. Interactions taking place between the nurses and students during clinical guidance were explored for value-`sensitivity by means of video-recordings, participative observation, diaries, focus-group and semi-structured interviews. The data collected were analysed and coded by the researcher and the external coder. As a result of the findings in this research a concept analysis was done of the different categories (identified in phase 1). The findings were compared with the literature in the concept analysis and similarities and differences were highlighted. As a result of the concept analysis standards for value sensitive clinical guidance in Community Nursing were developed, described and refined after it was presented to experts from academic training institutions and the community nursing practice. The four main categories identified were communication, attitudes, respect and clinical opportunities during clinical guidance. Due to the fact that professional socialisation mainly takes place in the clinical practice clinical guidance should be well-planned. Nurses acting as clinical guides should always keep in mind that they are acting as role models who are in possession of sufficient theoretical and clinical knowledge, and that they must maintain high nursing care standards. Nurses must approach the clinical guiding situation with an open and accommodating attitude. Students should be respected as human beings in order to establish open communication channels whereby clinical learning in students could be facilitated. Therefore a supportive, non-threatening clinical practice should be established, so that students will take the liberty to ask questions and will have the confidence to participate in clinical nursing actions under the direct supervision of nurses. The standards for value-sensitive clinical guidance in community nursing are aimed at all role players involved with clinical guidance. These role players include the service providers (the nurses, clinical co-coordinators and managers), as well as the academic training institutions (lecturers and students).

This study examines the incremental information of Canadian accounting principles when financial information according to US GAAP is known. The impact of SEC-required reconciliations of net income and voluntary disclosures of shareholders' equity reconciliations on share returns and prices are analysed. Based on such analysis, inferences are made about the incremental informativeness of Canadian GAAP. This study follows the concurrent study by Richardson et al. that examines the question of incremental informativeness of Canadian GAAP given the benchmark information provided by US GAAP. This study offers three contributions to this literature. First, it examines the components of reconciliation data and assesses their impact on share returns and prices. Second, it analyzes the effect of exchange rate flucuations on the relationship between reconciliation data and share returns. Third, it analyzes the impact of the dominant trading market on the relationship between reconciliation data and share returns. Unlike Richardson et al., the results of this study suggest that Canadian GAAP offers very limited incremental information when US GAAP financial information is known for Canadian firms that crosslist on the Toronto Stock Exchange and on a US exchange. Convergence of Canadian and US GAAP during the 1993-94 sample period used in this study may partially explain why its results are differenct from the 1983-93 sample period used by Richardson et al. Some components of the reconciliation data were statisticly significant in explaining crosslisted firms' returns (prices). However, exchange rate flucuations, location of dominant market and reporting currenies were not statistically significant in explaining crosslisted firms' returns (prices).

To develop reference standards for cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) from directly measured maximum oxygen consumption using the Ball State University Adult Physical Fitness Program (APFP) cohort. The APFP cohort is an open cohort of self-referred participants since 1971. From 3,212 individual participants, 2,642 male and 1,741 female (18-79 years) test files remained after exclusion criteria was met. Gender-specific age, physical activity (PA), body mass index (BMI), and smoking status CRF reference standards were developed. Men had greater mean CRF (35%) than women and consistently had greater mean CRF according to age, PA, BMI, and smoking status (p<.05). CRF was approximately 10% lower across each decade of age, and was greater with increasing PA compared to the sedentary group. Greater classes of BMI had lower CRF, and CRF was 5% greater in non-smokers compared to current smokers. A pooled CRF registry is recommended for a larger and more diverse cohort. / School of Physical Education, Sport, and Exercise Science

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants recently made a decision to adopt accounting standards issued by the International Accounting Standards Committee rather than continuing to develop standards locally. Reasons used to justify this policy change include: the lack of resources to develop accounting standards from a zero base and, with what has been classified as the sub-standard financial reporting that occurs in South Africa. By adopting International Accounting Standards, amending the standard-setting process and providing legal backing for these standards, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants aims to improve the standard of financial reporting. It will be argued that this decision will effect the contribution preparers of financial statements make to the standard-setting process. Corporate management as preparers of financial information participate in this process by reacting to proposed statements of generally accepted accounting practice in a number of ways, including lobbying the standard-setting body. This thesis aims to establish the views of South African corporate managers to the proposed changes to the accounting standard-setting process which incorporates the adoption of international accounting standards. To achieve this objective, the responses of South African corporate managers to the first six exposure drafts issued by the Accounting Practices Committee based on International Accounting Standards are examined to supply evidence that is descriptive in nature and which provides additional support for the findings of the empirical study. Forty hypotheses were developed and tested in an attempt to establish the views of executives to various issues relating to the accounting standard-setting process, corporate managers as the producers of firm specific financial information, the regulation of accounting, management incentive schemes and the international harmonisation of accounting standards. The tests of the hypotheses together with the findings of the individual case studies, provide evidence to suggest that this new disposition effectively marginalises South African corporate managers from the accounting standard-setting process. Finally, it is concluded that the existence of a management compensation/incentive scheme, is unlikely to influence corporate management's reaction to a proposed accounting standard. / Auditing / D. Compt. (Applied Accountancy)

This study examines the incremental information of Canadian accounting principles when financial information according to US GAAP is known. The impact of SEC-required reconciliations of net income and voluntary disclosures of shareholders' equity reconciliations on share returns and prices are analysed. Based on such analysis, inferences are made about the incremental informativeness of Canadian GAAP. This study follows the concurrent study by Richardson et al. that examines the question of incremental informativeness of Canadian GAAP given the benchmark information provided by US GAAP. This study offers three contributions to this literature. First, it examines the components of reconciliation data and assesses their impact on share returns and prices. Second, it analyzes the effect of exchange rate flucuations on the relationship between reconciliation data and share returns. Third, it analyzes the impact of the dominant trading market on the relationship between reconciliation data and share returns. Unlike Richardson et al., the results of this study suggest that Canadian GAAP offers very limited incremental information when US GAAP financial information is known for Canadian firms that crosslist on the Toronto Stock Exchange and on a US exchange. Convergence of Canadian and US GAAP during the 1993-94 sample period used in this study may partially explain why its results are differenct from the 1983-93 sample period used by Richardson et al. Some components of the reconciliation data were statisticly significant in explaining crosslisted firms' returns (prices). However, exchange rate flucuations, location of dominant market and reporting currenies were not statistically significant in explaining crosslisted firms' returns (prices). / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

ITC/USA 2009 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fifth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 26-29, 2009 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The integrated Network-Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) project working groups have developed standards for Telemetry Network Systems (TmNS). In order for the standards to mature, the functionality of the standards will be demonstrated. To achieve this, efforts have been undertaken to simulate (and at times emulate) the key interfaces and to assess performance. To facilitate this work, a common network test bed has been developed. This test bed allows for validation of the iNET standards' performance characteristics.