Audit Quality in Practice A Critical Analysis of the Financial Reporting Council （FRC） Discussion Paper

The efforts by the Financial Reporting Council （FRC） in the United Kingdom （UK） to stimulate audit firms to improve audit quality manifest in its Discussion Paper： Promoting Audit Quality warrant further analysis. The discussion paper identified factors such as audit firm culture, the quality of people, the effectiveness of audit process, and outside factors such as management and audit committee （AC） which can affect level of audit quality in practice. Reporting upon the analysis of responses to the discussion paper, the objective of this study is to analyze views from the respondents about various issues related to audit quality. This study composes of how subject of audit quality is seen in practice, which contributes to our understanding of conditions, events, or processes that can affect audit quality in practice.

The uniform enterprise income tax reform in China

In China, the income tax of enterprise is very different between foreign funded enterprises and other domestic enterprises. It is believed that this discrimination is harmful to the entire economy. So there is a reform in the tax system to build a uniform enterprise income tax. This is a significant reform in China＇s tax system, so every decision about this have to count the cost and the benefit carefully. The author has introduced the Computable General Equilibrium （CGE） to simulate this new tax system and value its benefit and cost. There are two different models in the paper; they are of different assumptions and for different purposes. Model I is a static CGE model and model II is a Ramsey Dynamic model. The static model is mainly used for comparative static approach to examine how the tax reform will change the endogenous variables. According to the results of the model, more goods will be produced by both of the DFEs and FIEs after the tax reform in the medium and low tax effective tax rate situations. If the nominal tax rates decrease 24.24% （from 33% to 25%）, the enterprise income tax will only reduce 19.36% and the total tax revenue will only reduce 1.911%. The dynamic model will concentrate on the costs and benefits during the transition. From the results of the model, a lower tax rate will increase the level of investment, capital stock, capital prices, wage rate and also the growth rates through transition. If the capital tax rates are changed gradually, the fluctuating of transition will be smoothed a little.

《史记》等文献中“所谓”“之谓”“可谓”功能差异考

以《史记》等汉代文献为主要考察范围,“所谓”“之谓”“可谓”三类结构存在某些分布和语用、功能上的差别。主要为两点:其一,在语境的适用性上,“之谓”“可谓”呈现出较明显的正向、积极类的倾向性,而“所谓”更侧重于负面、消极类的语境。其二,从评论方式、词汇分布等方面考察,“可谓”所表现出的主观性程度最深,“之谓”次之,“所谓”的则为最浅。

Yogic Prescription for Corporate Wellness and Excellence

Yoga has been practiced as a complete way of life management and ecological harmony for time immemorial. Successful companies across the globe like Microsoft, IBM, and PepsiCo etc., have incorporated yoga or spirituality at their workplaces for employees＇ wellness and organizational excellence. In contemporary scenario, scientific researches on yoga that substantiate its positive impacts at bodily, psychic, societal, spiritual and organizational level have been made abundantly. However, there is a lack of an innovative yogic model that is holistic and supportive to boost corporate wellness （CW） and excellence （CE）. So the basic aim of this paper is to propose a yogic prescription CYP） for the corporate wellness and excellence that needs to be tested in future researches.

Iconography of National Mourning in Polish Press

By the law, the highest-ranking state officials announce national mouming in response to death of prominent persons. The concept of mourning should be understood both as way of showing grief in public spaces and a period of time. In turn, the concept of iconography means a collection of illustrations, paintings, prints, drawings relating to a person, place or topic. President of Poland, his wife and other 94 people died in the Smolensk plane crash on April 10, 2010, thus the images of plane crash and its outcome published in different segments of Polish press are the subject of the article. Research based on methods such as interpretation of composition and semiotics. I started my analysis with a few hypotheses： （1） The cultural background, especially religious, determines the mourning visual representation; （2） The result of certain style of visualization can be constructing of a political myth; （3） Different means can be used by mass media in adapting culture patterns process; （4） Different photographic genres can be used to illustrate the mourning; and （5） Press segments differ in way/style of mourning visualization.

Financial Statement Comparability： Empirical Evidence From Brazil

The convergence of accounting standards started in the 1970s, with international norms issued by the International Accounting Standards Board （IASB） and with the efforts of various countries to adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS）, already mandatory in Brazil since 2010. Thus, comparable accounting information is clearly important, and this study plans to confirm the level of comparability of net income and equity of companies in the financial sector （in Brazil, ＂Finance and Others＂）, listed in the stock exchange, futures, and commodities （BM＆F Bovespal）, issued according to Brazilian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles （BR GAAP） and the IFRS. This study is descriptive, using a quantitative approach. Data were collected from secondary sources, more specifically, from the explanatory notes in the financial statements of the companies listed in the financial sector of the BM＆F Bovespa in the fiscal year of 2010. The results showed a reasonable level of comparability, with 68% of the companies presenting materially comparable information for net income and 72% of them for equity. However, decisions made based on data issued following the two different standards may have suffered the influence of asymmetric information; in other words, the comparability of information did not seem to satisfy those companies during the studied period of time. The main limitations of this study were data collection and selection for the development of the research because of： （1） inconsistence in net income and equity reconciliation criteria in the companies investigated; and （2） lack of uniformity in designating the adjustments that affect net income and equity in the conversion of the BR GAAP standard into the IFRS.

Soil Contamination due to E-Waste Disposal and Recycling Activities: A Review with Special Focus on China

Considering that even contaminated soils are a potential resource for agricultural production, it is essential to develop a set of cropping systems to allow a safe and sustainable agriculture on contaminated lands while avoiding any transfer of toxic trace elements to the food chain. In this review, three main strategies, i.e., phytoexclusion, phytostabilization, and phytoextraction, are proposed to establish cropping systems for production of edible and non-edible plants, and for extraction of elements for industrial use. For safe production of food crops, the selection of low-accumulating plants/cultivars and the application of soil amendments are of vital importance. Phytostabilization using non-food energy and fiber plants can provide additional renewable energy sources and economic benefit with minimum cost of agricultural measures. Phytoextracting trace elements （e.g., As, Cd, Ni, and Zn） using hyperaccumulator species is more suitable for slightly and moderately polluted sites, and phytomining of Ni from serpentine soils has shown a great potential to extract Ni-containing bio-ores of economic interests. We conclude that appropriate combinations of soil types, plant species/cultivars, and agronomic practices can restrict trace metal transfer to the food chain and/or extract energy and metals of industrial use and allow safe agricultural activities.

Watermarking Data Cubes

We propose a robust watermarking scheme and several extensions for digital right management of data cubes.The ownership information is hidden into a data cube by modifying a set of selected cell values.Its owner can use his private key to control all the watermarking parameters freely.Neither original data cube nor the watermark is required in watermark detection.Detailed analysis and extensive experiments are conducted for the proposed schemes in terms of watermark detectability,robustness and efficiency.Our results show that the scheme performs well in actual applications.

A QUANTITATIVE MODEL FOR INTRADAY STOCK PRICE CHANGES BASED ON ORDER FLOWS

This paper proposes a double Markov model of the double continuous auction for describing intra-day price changes. The model splits intra-day price changes as the repetition of one tick price moves and assumes order arrivals are independent Poisson random processes. The dynamic process of price formation is described by a birth-death process of the double M/M/1 server queue corresponding to the best bid/ask. The initial depths of the best bid and ask are defined as different constants depending on the last price change. Thus, the price changes in the model follow a first-order Markov process. As the initial depth of the best bid/ask is originally larger than that of the opposite side when the last price is down/up, the model may explain the negative autocorrelations of the price of the best bid/ask. The estimated parameters are based on the real tick-by-tick data of the Nikkei 225 futures listed in Osaka Stock Exchanges. The authors find the model accurately predicts the returns of Osaka Stock Exchange average.