This thesis examines the extent to which benchmark beating by Australian firms around the earnings level and earnings changes thresholds can be reliably interpreted as evidence of earnings management. A number of recent academic papers challenge the earnings management explanation for the observed kinks in the distribution of net Income. In response to this criticisms, this thesis is motivated to conduct tests of earnings management with a refined methodology of selecting a subset of firms immediately above the threshold that have a priori incentives to achieve the benchmark. This approach allows for investigations to focus on benchmark beating observations where earnings manipulations would be more prevalent and thereby provide a powerful test for the existence of opportunistic reporting. The paper uses a number of unexpected accruals measures including the Kothari et al. (2005) performance matched models. In testing the hypotheses, this thesis utilises two approaches which were; the regression approach and the test of difference of means approach. Based on a broad sample drawn from all listed Australian firms for the years 1995-2007, small profit firms and small increase firms with high price-to-sales ratio were found to have evidence consistent with opportunistic benchmark beating behaviour. Similar results are also documented for benchmark beating firms with low book-to-market (high market-to-book) ratio. This thesis also finds that firms with equity offering incentives who reported improvement in earnings display unexpected accruals consistent with earnings management. In addition, the accounting behaviour of firms which previously incurred a loss is consistent with earnings management explanation. Firms with long strings of earnings increases also appear to use accounting discretion in order to avoid earnings deterioration. Similarly, evidence of earnings management are also displayed by small profit firms which have consistently reported negative earnings. Finally, this thesis provides evidence that resolves the apparent paradox that benchmark beating is evidence of earnings management which is devoid of the statistical artefact argument posited by Durtschi and Easton (2005) and Durtschi and Easton (2008).

Objectives: This Study wanted to analysis the characteristics of the elder adult who had hospitalized with pneumonia. We also evaluated the factors that will affect the unexpected readmission in elderly pneumonia patients. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study design. The study data was collected 341 pneumonia patients who have hospitalized in a general teaching hospital in Kaohsiung city from year 2009 to 2010. The study population was divided into two groups, the sample size of the old group (age >= 65yrs), and the young group (age < 65yrs) was 173 and 168, respectively. The methods of stepwise multiple logistic regressions were needed to evaluate the association between aging and different days of unplanned readmission in adult pneumonia patients. Results: All the 341 adult pneumonia patients, we found 613 male and 926 female. The demography characteristic of the study subjects, the means of age was 61.9yrs (s.d. = 19.3yrs), and BMI was 23.4 kg/m2 (s.d. = 4.5 kg/m2). The percentage of ICD-9-CM that code 486 was 95.6%. Most patients were community-acquired pneumonia (98.8%), hospitalized from emergency room (85.3%), and admission in general wards (92.7%). The unplanned readmission within 14/30 days, 60 days, and 90days were 9.1%, 11.7%, and 15.0%, respectively. The significant factors that were associated with readmission within 14 days include age, Hb, hospitalized days, hypertension, and other disease. When we used the multiple logistic regression analysis to adjust the other variables, only age still significant with readmission within 14 days (the crude OR of the old group was 4.561, adjusted OR was 2.714, 95% CI of OR from 1.002 to 7.353). In the stepwise multiple logistic regression models, the variable that was associated with readmission with 14 or 30 days were age (>= 65yrs, OR = 3.025), WBC (>=10750 mm3, OR=2.917), and Hb (>=12.4 g/dL, OR=0.390). We remain the elderly subjects to evaluate the factor that will influence readmission states. In all the stepwise logistic regression models, we found the experience with used endotracheal tube in the hospitalized period were the significant increases the readmission rate within 14 or 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. Conclusion: In our study shows that the situations of unexpected readmission in pneumonia patients were strong association with aging. We suggest that the indicator of medical quality should be adjusted before we comparison the readmission rate in the different institute. The major factors that will be associated to affect the readmission states were endotracheal tube used (significant with 14 or 30 days readmission rate), CRP level (significant with 60 days and 90 days readmission rate), and Hb level (significant with 60 days and 90 days readmission rate).

A defining feature of humanitarian crises is their unpredictable nature, making them interesting sites to analyse how accounting systems can facilitate engagement with the unexpected. This thesis explores the question of how evaluation systems can be designed and practiced to engage with the complexities of humanitarian crisis settings, in which the potential for disastrous errors is overwhelming. Informed by empirical research on the management practices in a large-scale refugee camp, the study investigates principles and tactics that allow humanitarian evaluation systems to make a resource of the inevitable ambiguity and incompleteness that define their contexts. In doing so, the thesis draws from and further develops the concept of heterarchy, defined as ‘governance through difference’, and shows how it provides promising insights for accounting research. To explain how evaluation systems can become performable in the dynamic humanitarian environments, the study theorizes four interlinked principles that emerge from the empirical findings. These principles are: (1) in-built tensions between evaluation dimensions; (2) open and participatory design; (3) relational value and incompleteness; and (4) enacting minimalist control through a community of practitioners. In doing so, the study makes three contributions. Firstly, the study contributes to the accounting literature on the enabling role of ambiguity by theorizing how evaluation systems can foster approaches and techniques that embrace ambiguity as a resource to engage with complex settings. Secondly, it further develops the notion of heterarchy by explicating how heterarchical tensions can become productive without leading to chaos and by theorizing additional principles that are necessary to sustain heterarchies in an organized fashion. Thirdly, departing from the emerging literature on humanitarian crises that primarily focuses on how accounting systems can be used to normalize and control disaster settings, the thesis advances understanding of how accounting technologies can serve as anomalizing devices for the adaptive management of crises.

In the area of process safety, many efforts have focused on studying methods to prevent the transition of the state of the system from a normal state to an upset and/or catastrophic state, but many unexpected changes are unavoidable, and even under good risk management incidents still occur. The aim of this work is to propose the principles and factors that contribute to the resilience of the chemical process, and to develop a systematic approach to evaluate the resilience of chemical processes in design aspects. Based on the analysis of transition of the system states, the top-level factors that contribute to Resilience were developed, including Design, Detection Potential, Emergency Response Planning, Human, and Safety Management. The evaluation framework to identify the Resilience Design Index is developed by means of the multifactor model approach. The research was then focused on developing complete subfactors of the top-level Design factor. The sub-factors include Inherent Safety, Flexibility, and Controllability. The proposed framework to calculate the Inherent Safety index takes into account all the aspects of process safety design via many sub-indices. Indices of Flexibility and Controllability sub-factors were developed from implementations of well-known methodologies in process design and process control, respectively. Then, the top-level Design index was evaluated by combining the indices of the sub-factors with weight factors, which were derived from Analytical Hierarchical Process approach. A case study to compare the resilience levels of two ethylene production designs demonstrated the proposed approaches and gave insights on process resilience of the designs.

Tidigare forskning visar på att analytiker i många fall begår fel vid framtagandet av estimat, samtidigt som deras estimat anses vara en proxy för vad marknaden förväntar sig. Denna studie avser att undersöka om analytiker är den främsta representanten för marknaden eller om Crowdsourcing, som en tillämpning av Wisdom of Crowds, kan representera marknaden bättre. Jämförelsen görs genom en multipel regression där 117 observationer används för att undersöka om konsensusestimat från crowdsourcing-tjänsten Pinpoint Estimates åstadkommer en större kursreaktion än analytikers konsensusestimat, givet ett visst oväntat resultat. Jämförelser görs även för träffsäkerhet där vi genom 123 observationer undersöker vilken grupps konsensusestimat som är mer träffsäker kontra utfallen. Studien finner indikationer på att Pinpointestimat representerar marknaden bättre samt att Pinpoint generellt är mer träffsäkra än analytiker.

Unexpected events, particularly those creating surprise, interrupt ongoing mental and behavioral processes, creating an increased potential for unwanted outcomes to the situation. Human reactions to unexpected events vary. One can hypothesize a number of reasons for this variation, including level of domain expertise, previous experience with similar events, emotional connotation, and the contextual surround of the event. Whereas interrupting ongoing activities and focusing attention temporarily on a surprising event may be a useful evolutionary response to a threatening situation, the same process may be maladaptive in today's highly dynamic world. The purpose of this study was to investigate how different aspects of expertise affected one's ability to detect and react to an unexpected event. It was hypothesized that there were two general types of expertise, domain expertise and judgment (Hammond, 2000), which influenced one's performance on dealing with an unexpected event. The goal of the research was to parse out the relative contribution of domain expertise, so the role of judgment could be revealed. The research questions for this study were: (a) Can we identify specific knowledges and skills which enhance one's ability to deal with unexpected events? (b) Are these skills "automatically" included in domain expertise? (c) How does domain expertise improve or deter one's reaction and response to unexpected events? (d) What role does judgment play in responding to surprise? The general hypothesis was that good judgment would influence the process of surprise at different stages and in different ways than would domain expertise. The conclusions from this research indicated that good judgment had a significant positive effect in helping pilots deal with unexpected events. This was most pronounced when domain expertise was low.

INTRODUCTION: In the years that followed the 1994 Back to Sleep Campaign (BSC), a public health initiative designed to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the prevalence of SIDS decreased by nearly 50%. However, recent research questions the decline in SIDS with an appreciation of contemporaneous factors which may have contributed to it. There is a growing recognition that other, often indiscernible causes of Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths (SUID) have increased prevalence rates. Several researchers have addressed the possibility of the effects of a diagnostic drift. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of certain contemporaneous factors on the decline in the prevalence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. METHODS: We examined a historically significant time period surrounding the implementation of the BSC, 1984-2009. It is a time-period that incorporates mortality statistics prior to the BSC, as well as immediately following. We utilized 1984-2009 mortality data obtained from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and evaluated the following prevalence rates: SIDS, unknown and unspecified causes, Accidental Strangulation and Suffocation in Bed (ASSB), and Neglect. We then amalgamated unknown and unspecified causes, ASSB and Neglect into a single representation of non-SIDS SUID. We then proceeded to perform an analysis on these prevalence rates to determine linear trends. RESULTS: All-cause mortality rate decreased linearly by about .929 per 100,000 per year (p<.0001, β=-.929). SIDS mortality rates also experienced a significant decline of about .951 per 100,000 deaths per year (p<.0001, β=-.951). In contrast, the SUID cohort prevalence increased significantly with a rate of .930 per 100,000 per year (p<.0001, β=.930). DISCUSSION: Over our study period, SIDS declined significantly, but by 2001 it experienced a stagnant decline that was different than that from 1984-2000. From 2001 to 2009, our SUID cohort increased dramatically. It is our conclusion that the potential exists for a possible diagnostic drift from SIDS to these other SUID.

No description available.

Breed has a concept and a main goal, to be unpredictable and visually impressive. The idea that it was built on was to try to create a collection with the method of breeding and the rules of genetics. At first, twelve individuals were created. They were all given characteristics – “genes”, handed out in a random way, decided by the toss of a dice. The individuals bred and were blended into a second generation, who thereafter procreated into a third. This third generation of eight characters, four females and four males, carry genes and features from their ancestors. They have been twisted, mutated and mixed, just like in nature. It is voluminous line-up with clashes between references, colours and styles. The challenge has been to let chance take decisions and to do something that was unexpected and was going to give an unpredictable result. Breed has not been done for a commercial destination but would be suitable for styling artists, editorials for fashion magazines, costumes in music videos or artistic films. The method is supposed to make people interested, the result is supposed to give the onlooker a smaller chock, a tingling sensation and the impression of a new subculture, a modern day tribe or a new breed. Or simply “What crazy person made this?”

Plötslig och oväntad död är något sjuksköterskan kan komma att uppleva i sitt yrkesverksamma liv. Plötslig och oväntad död innebär att en person avlider oväntat och att döden inträffar upp till 24 timmar efter symtomdebut, oberoende på om tidigare symtom på bakomliggande sjukdom är känd. Syftet med studien var att belysa sjuksköterskans upplevelser av patienters plötsliga och oväntade död. Det gjordes genom en litteraturstudie som innebär att på ett systematisk sätt identifiera och undersöka vetenskapliga artiklar. Många sjuksköterskor upplever känslor såsom sorg, skuld och otillräcklighet vid patienters plötsliga och oväntade död. Det är först när rätt tid och plats ges som sjuksköterskan får lov att ge utlopp för sina känslor. Dessutom har anhörigas reaktioner en stark inverkan på sjuksköterskans upplevelse av den egna kapaciteten. Copingstrategier är av vikt, både för att kunna möta anhöriga men även för att kunna hantera de egna känslorna. Mer forskning bör genomföras eftersom att plötslig och oväntad död är en händelse som upplevs vara svårhanterlig för sjuksköterskan. Också utbildning i hanteringen av plötsliga och oväntade dödsfall är av betydelse då det är något som sjuksköterskan kan komma att ställas inför och på grund av att kunskapen inom ämnet är bristfällig. / Sudden and unexpected death is something that the nurse may experience in his or her professional life. Sudden and unexpected death means that a person dies unexpectedly and that the death occurs within 24 hours after the first symptoms, regardless whether an underlying disease is known. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the nurses’ experience of patients sudden and unexpected death. This was done by a literature research which means that in a systematic way identify and examine scientific articles. Many nurses are experiencing feelings such as grief, guilt and inadequacy when a patient sudden and unexpected dies. It is only when the right time and place is given that the nurse is allowed to vent his or her own feelings. In addition, the reactions from relatives have a strong impact on the nurse’s experience of his or her own capacity. Coping strategies are of importance, both in beeing able to meet relatives but also to be able to manage his or her own emotions. More research should be conducted since sudden and unexpected death is an event that is perceived as difficult to handle for the nurse. Education in handling sudden and unexpected deaths is of importance since it is something that the nurse probably will encounter and because the knowledge within the subject is inadequate.