Health Literacy Level of Chinese Residents Improved to 9.48%

The 2013 Monitoring Report of Health Literacy Level of Chinese Residents announced by National Health and Family Planning Commission（NHFPC）on February 17,2015 shows that health literacy level of Chinese residents had increased to 9.48%,a rise of 0.68percentage point over 8.80% in 2012 and an increase of 3 percentage points over 6.48% in 2008.

International Accounting Standards Board （IASB） and Financial Accounting Standards Board （FASB） Convergence Project： Where Are They Now？

The convergence project between the International Accounting Standards Board （IASB） and the Financial Accounting Standards Board （FASB） in the United States （US） was signed on September 18, 2002 in Norwalk, Connecticut in the US. The first is responsible for issuing International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS） nowadays, which were created 40 years ago. More than one century ago, local regulations are used in the US. The boards differ in years of experience. With the signing of the agreement, both institutions are working to reduce the divergence of accounting. Although they have made a significant progress, it is appropriate to examine whether the difference in approaches to accounting will affect the achieved agreements. It is relevant to investigate whether the years leading the standards adopted in different countries will impact the final result. The date of completion of the project has been postponed and still has not indicated the date of termination. This research is an analysis of the importance of the convergence of accounting standards at a global level. The study presents statistics on the status of the adoption of international standards by country. The study shows a summary of the expressions made by the directors of both boards about the future of the project.

The Effects of Audit Committee Attributes on Fraudulent Financial Reporting

This study aims to examine the relationship between audit committee attributes （audit committee independence, financial expertise, meeting frequency, gender diversity, and ethnic composition） and the propensity for fraudulent financial reporting. The sample includes 116 fraudulent and non-frandulent firms listed on Bursa Malaysia from 2005 to 2010. The finding of this study indicates that audit committee independence is positively associated with fraudulent financial reporting. The higher the proportion of independent or outside directors on the committee, the higher the possibility of financial fraud, and vice versa. The results also show that the expertise of members of the audit committee is negatively associated with corporate fraud. This suggests that when audit committee members are financially literate, they are more competent to curb fraudulent financial reporting. However, the findings for frequency of audit committee meetings, gender, and ethnicity show that there is no relationship between these variables and corporate fraud. The result of this study is robust after controlling for other firm-specific effects.

Newspaper Visibility of Members of Parliament in Kenya

This research investigates variables that predicted news coverage of 212 members of parliament （MPs） in Kenya by four national newspapers in 2009. The 10 variables examined are： ordinary MP, cabinet minister, powerful ministry, parliamentary committee chairmanship, seniority, big tribe identity, major party affiliation, presidential ambition, commenting on contentious issues, and criticizing government. Findings indicate that commenting on contentious issues, criticizing government, cabinet minister, ordinary MP, powerful ministry, and seniority significantly predicted visibility of the parliamentarians in newspaper news. However, a multiple regression analysis shows that the strongest predictors are commenting on contentious issues, cabinet minister, criticizing government, and big tribe identity. While commenting on controversial issues was the strongest predictor, major party identification and committee leadership were found not to predict MPs＇ visibility.

Audit Committees： How They Affect Financial Reporting in Nigerian Companies

This study examines whether audit committees are associated with improved financial reporting quality for a sample of Nigerian listed companies prior to and after a corporate governance code mandated new regulations for audit committees in 2003. Using a sample of 70 companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, this study uses archival data in the form of companies＇ annual reports to measure the association between audit committees and improved financial reporting quality. Dechew and Dichev （2002）＇s model was used to measure earnings as a proxy for financial reporting quality. The results indicate that formation of audit committees was positively associated with improved financial reporting quality. It was also found that audit committees having an independent chair and audit committee expertise were positively associated with financial reporting quality. Other audit committee characteristics examined were found to be insignificantly related to financial reporting quality.

Valuation Standards Under the Implementation Process of IFRS

In this paper, the authors focus on valuation standards as a result of the mandatory effect of the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS）, and more precisely on the context of fair value. The paper assesses the impact concentrate on the IFRS adopter countries and at the same time on the Business Valuation Standards （BVS）, because they provide consistence and comparability, in time and in space, to the valuation even different implementation levels of the accounting information system （AIS）. The results corroborate that rules and practices are not sufficient conditions to create a widespread accounting language, and international institutional standards play an essential role in framing financial reporting characteristics, in order to assist financial analysts and accountants to implement the accounting system and strategies, as well as, on firms to adopt the best valuation practices on their disclosures. Also, the authors recommend that the International Accounting Standards Board [IASB], the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC], the European Commission [EC] and valuation agencies should now devote their efforts to harmonizing valuation standards rather than harmonizing accounting standards.

Waste heat recovery from heavy-duty diesel engine exhaust gases by medium temperature ORC system

A medium-temperature waste-heat recovery system based on the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is designed to recover the exhaust energy from a heavy-duty diesel engine. Analysis of the 1st law of thermodynamics for an ORC system is performed. This analysis contains two parts. The first part is an analysis with undefined heat exchangers to gain an understanding of the ORC and find out suitable organic fluid parameters for a better ORC efficiency. The second part of the analysis uses combined engine test results and two designs of heat exchangers. By comparing the two designs, an improved system of heat exchangers is described. This analysis also quantifies the effect of engine parameters on ORC system. The study concludes that the supercritical Rankine cycle is a better approach towards waste heat recovery. The ORC system is found to perform better under part-load conditions if the medium-high power condition rather than rated working point of the engine is used as the design parameter. The ORC system achieves the highest waste-heat recovery efficiency of up to 10-15% for the optimised heat ex-changer design.