In 2013 the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) proposed the revision of the international auditing standard on the audit report (ISA 700) to meet the information needs of the users of audited financial statements. The purpose of this research was to investigate whether the International Standards Assurance and Accounting Board’s (IAASB) revised International Standard on Auditing (ISA 700) would reduce the expectation gap. It focused on the expectation gap investigation in three areas, namely: responsibilities of auditors, reliability of audited financial statements and decision-making usefulness of audited financial statements. A differential testing instrument was used in the study and completed by research subjects that comprised auditors, bankers and shareholders. Non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis H test and non-parametric Mann-Whitney test were used to analyse the data. The results of the study showed that despite the audit report modifications, expectation gap remained persistent with regard to auditors’ responsibilities. On the positive front, the study showed that the revised ISA 700 resulted in users finding audited financial statements reliable and useful for decision-making purposes.

The purpose of this study was to determine the status of composition as a teaching tool in the US and UK and to compare the findings of the two countries. In order to achieve this purpose, the following research questions were formulated: How common is the teaching of composition in US and UK schools? How does composition compare to other classroom activities in US and UK schools in terms of instructional time, variety, and emphasis? What kinds of compositional activities are used most frequently? What reasons do teachers cite for teaching or not teaching composition in their classrooms, and how do these reasons differ by country? How do teachers overcome challenges to composition and how do these practices differ by country? For each country, what combination of teacher characteristics best predict the use of composition as a classroom teaching technique? Data were collected using an online survey instrument developed by the researcher based on that used in a more localized study by Strand (2006). Findings were based on responses from three hundred and nine participants from the UK (n = 117) and the US (n = 192). Results indicate that composition teaching is far more prevalent in the UK, with a greater variety of activities, focus on experience and creativity, group work and integration with other curriculum areas. US composition teaching is characterized by notation-focused highly-prescriptive tasks, with the favored mode being individual composition. Needs identified include: a greater provision of technology in US music classrooms, more extensive training and support for UK general teachers who teach music and the further promotion of composition in the US, highlighting its integration with listening and performing in order to provide a more rounded curriculum.

In this thesis, I address the problem and promise of decentralization, in the context of standard-setting for physical systems. I explore how the process of the decentralization of power works in the context of physical information, in three subsets:the relationship between existing standards and the decentralized control of physical information; how hands-on experimentation helps to shed light on the decentralized control of physical information; and how existing Free/Libre Open Source Software culture addresses the decentralized control of physical information.

In this thesis, I address the problem and promise of decentralization, in the context of standard-setting for physical systems. I explore how the process of the decentralization of power works in the context of physical information, in three subsets:the relationship between existing standards and the decentralized control of physical information; how hands-on experimentation helps to shed light on the decentralized control of physical information; and how existing Free/Libre Open Source Software culture addresses the decentralized control of physical information.

New product introductions rely on technologies that are often subject to strongly contested standards wars. In an attempt to ensure that the technical formats that their products are built upon, are the ones that gain widespread market acceptance and thereby emerge as industry standards, firms often engage in alliances to develop and/or market these technical formats. This research examines the relationships between the characteristics of standard setting alliances, those of the alliance partners, the technical formats and the market acceptance of the formats. In doing so, I seek to complement prior research by developing and empirically testing a theoretical framework of these relationships. While a few studies (Axelrod et al. 1995; Chiao, Lerner and Tirole 2007) have examined how firms form and organize standard setting alliances, the relationship between the characteristics of such alliances and their success (i.e., the market’s acceptance of the technical format supported by the alliance) is an under-researched subject. A format that is widely accepted by the market (adopted in more products and adopted by more firms) is in turn more likely to emerge as a standard. Using a unique data set of formats and standard setting alliances in the consumer electronics industry, assembled from multiple sources, I examine this link between standard setting alliances and format characteristics, and the market’s acceptance of the format. Results indicate that the relationship between the size of a standard setting alliance (number of partners in alliance) and the market acceptance of a format is inverted U-shaped. This suggests that a larger membership in the development alliance does not always imply that the alliance activities will lead to market acceptance of the format. I find that alliances with a greater proportion of generalists are shown to be capable of developing formats that find greater acceptance in the market. Marketing intensity in the years prior to forming the alliance is found to be important. The results also suggest that the broader the applicability of a technical format across industries, the greater its market acceptance. Interestingly though, the hypothesis that formalized alliances lead to greater market acceptance of the format was not supported by the data. I conclude with a discussion of the potential contributions and implications of the findings for marketing practice and future research.

In the past years, due to the rapid growth of high-tech industries, the power supply requirements are becoming much stricter. Many of sensitive equipments are often affected by various power quality (PQ) problems to malfunction, as a result, the customer complaints. Before the mitigations of PQ are decided, the PQ monitoring system should be setup to find out the causes of PQ problems. The aim of this thesis is to establish a PQ monitoring system to investigate the quality of power in Kaohsiung Area for different types of customers. The recorded data not only are used to calculate different PQ of various parameters indices such as harmonics, voltage unbalance, voltage flicker, and voltage events, but also to confer the levels of typical devices affected by voltage sag events. The related measuring techniques include selection of monitoring sites, threshold settings of recorder, the ability to capture events, and the data collection and analysis are included in this thesis. Analysis results are compared to PQ standards to understand the actual quality of power delivery in the Kaohsiung Area.

Personally observed variability among construction education internship programs prompted this investigation. The schools of construction that form the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) encourage its members to provide curricula that produces qualified professionals for the construction industry. There is agreement within ASC that a practical component along with classroom curriculum is needed for construction students?? education (Senior, 1997). Although construction programs have different ways of accomplishing this experiential component, most do have some sort of internship or cooperative program (Chapin, et al., 2003). Construction internships vary greatly from one program to the next ?? in length, supervision, academic deliverables, and whether credit is earned. No common set of internship field experience standards or best-practices guidelines have been developed for construction education. This study was divided into three subproblems. Subproblem One describes the status of construction internship programs currently administered in selected American undergraduate universities. Subproblem Two identifies elements that students, companies and schools perceive to support valuable, satisfying internship experiences. And, Subproblem Three incorporates findings from Subproblems One and Two to identify common elements to provide a structure for construction internship programs, in order to develop a set of guidelines for construction education internship programs. Three constituencies were surveyed: 1) university undergraduate construction programs, 2) construction companies, and 3) students of the respective construction programs. The school survey utilized ASC membership rosters to survey 91 schools, with 56 participating (62%). The company survey randomly sampled 200 of the Top 400 U.S. Construction Companies listed in Engineering News Record??s ENR Sourcebook 2003, with 75 participating (37.5%). The student survey had 31 students from eleven schools in nine different states voluntarily participate. Univariate analyses on only one variable at a time served to describe the survey population, and by extension, the population from which the sample was selected. The data were analyzed utilizing frequency percentages and summary averages including mode and mean. Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that a set of ??best-practices?? guidelines were needed for construction education internship programs. A set of best practices guidelines for developing construction education internship programs are provided.

Thesis (M. Psych. Org.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität St. Gallen, 2003.

Although social scientists studying mate selection have generally assumed that people’s standards for a marriage partner shape their marital behavior, systematic investigations of the role of mate standards in partnering have been rare. Using survey data collected from 502 unmarried individuals and their peer informants, the present study used a novel, residual-based approach to quantify the attainability (rather than the absolute stringency) of people’s standards for a spouse. Regression analyses using this index of the attainability of people’s standards revealed that holding less realistic standards for a marriage partner was associated with greater difficulty establishing satisfying romantic relationships, lower expectations to marry one’s current partner, and lower levels of psychological and behavioral investment in finding a suitable partner and marrying. Curiously, the attainability of people’s spousal standards did not predict their general beliefs about whether they will eventually marry. Overall, these findings strongly support the idea that holding less realistic standards for a spouse shapes people’s partnering experiences in ways that may deter their future entry into marriage. / text