Accounting change: Explaining the outcomes, interpreting the process

Purpose: The issue of accounting change, why and how accounting evolves through time and within specific organisational settings, has been addressed by an important body of literature. This paper aims to explain why, in processes of accounting change, organisations confronting similar environmental pressures show different outcomes of change.

Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on archetype theory, the paper analyses the case of two Italian local governments. Comparative case studies were carried out, reconstructing a period of 15 years.

Findings: Although confronted with similar environmental pressures, the two cases show two different patterns of accounting change, where only one case is able to finally reach radical change. Accounting change can be prompted by external stimuli, but, once the change is prompted, the outcomes of the change are explained by the dynamics of intra-organisational conditions.

Originality/value: The study contributes to accounting change literature by adopting an approach (i.e. archetype theory) that overcomes some of the limitations of previous studies in explaining variations in organisational change. Through this, the authors are able to explain different outcomes and paces of accounting change and point out the intra-organisational factors also affecting them in the presence of similar environmental pressures. A specification of the theoretical framework in a particular setting is also provided.

Determining the parametric effectiveness of a CAD model

The motivation for this paper is to present an approach for rating the quality of the parameters in a computer-aided design model for use as optimization variables. Parametric Effectiveness is computed as the ratio of change in performance achieved by perturbing the parameters in the optimum way, to the change in performance that would be achieved by allowing the boundary of the model to move without the constraint on shape change enforced by the CAD parameterization. The approach is applied in this paper to optimization based on adjoint shape sensitivity analyses. The derivation of parametric effectiveness is presented for optimization both with and without the constraint of constant volume. In both cases, the movement of the boundary is normalized with respect to a small root mean squared movement of the boundary. The approach can be used to select an initial search direction in parameter space, or to select sets of model parameters which have the greatest ability to improve model performance. The approach is applied to a number of example 2D and 3D FEA and CFD problems.

The alteration of the structural properties and photocatalytic activity of TiO2 following exposure to non-linear irradiation sources

When TiO2 powder was irradiated with a laser light (>0.8 MW peak pulse power (PPP) at 355 nm) a visible change in its colour from white to dark blue was observed. The initial rate of change of the total colour difference was related to the laser light intensity and the longer the irradiation time the more substantial the colour change. The result of X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies showed that the crystal structure of the TiO2 developed a more rutile form after laser exposure. ESR studies indicated that the colour change was associated with the generation of Ti(III) species in the photocatalyst. Electron microscopic studies showed that more spherical shaped particles of TiO2 were observed after laser treatment although the average particle size remained largely unchanged. No significant changes in the band gap or the surface area of the laser modified TiO2 were observed. The laser modified photocatalyst showed no enhancement in activity for the destruction of methylene blue, rhodamine B and stearic acids, indicating that the rutile/anatase ratio is unimportant in the destruction of the test pollutants used in this work, via TiO2 photocatalysis

Modification and enhanced photocatalytic activity of TiO2 following exposure to non-linear irradiation sources

The effects of high power pulsed laser light on a TiO2 photocatalyst (powder and 0.1% (w/v) aqueous suspension) are reported. When this material was irradiated with a laser of power over 0.8 MW peak pulse power at 355 nm wavelength a visible change in colour from white to dark blue was observed. The initial rate of change of the total colour difference is related to the laser power; the stronger the laser power the darker the colour change. The result of X-ray diffraction studies indicates that the crystal structure of the TiO2 developed a more rutile form after laser exposure. Electron microscopic studies showed that spherical shaped particles of TiO2 were observed after laser treatment. Preliminary results show enhanced photocatalytic activity for the destruction of methylene blue. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

Instituting order: the limitations of Nasser’s post-colonial planning visions for Cairo in the case of the indigenous quarter of Bulaq (1952–1970)

This paper investigates the limitations of postcolonial planning practices that aimed to modernise Cairo’s urban spaces during Gamal Abdel Nasser rule (1952–70). Following the Free Officers revolution of 1952, ambition to display urban order through forceful change in the city’s built environment was in action. Nasser’s visions of modernity were explicit in a series of attempts to reshape several prime locations in central Cairo, which included the old traditional waterfront quarter, in Bulaq Abul Ela. An analysis of the Bulaq planning scheme drafted in 1966 reveals insights into how notions of order were spatialised to integrate with Cairo’s complex urban fabric. The official plans to regularise Bulaq also strongly demonstrates how this was a top-down, centralised process in terms of governance, with full utilisation of state resources, namely the military and the media. From a wider perspective, planning practices under Nasser demonstrated an evident break with the past to eliminate memories of colonisation and disorder. Drawing on original resources, archival material, meeting minutes and maps of this historical but dilapidated quarter of Cairo, this paper gives an insight into how Nasser’s government attempted to convey a sense of order in a revolutionary country without, however, having an understanding of order as a coherent, multilayered and sequential process of change.

The contribution of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to understanding and promoting the interests of young people making the transition from care to adulthood

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) acknowledges that young people without parental care are entitled to special support and assistance from the State. In detailing their expectations, the UN Committee have issued Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children which recognise that State parties have a number of responsibilities towards care leavers. The paper explores how the UNCRC reporting process, and guidelines from the Committee outlining how States should promote the rights of young people making the transition from care to adulthood, can be used as an instrument to track global patterns of change in policy and practice. Content analysis of State Party Reports and Concluding Observations from 15 countries reveals that to date there has been limited engagement with understanding and promoting the needs of this group in the reporting process; although where a government is committed to developing legislation and practice then this does find its way into their national reports. Data supplied by affiliates of the International Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood from Care (INTRAC) reveals that national concerns, political ideology, public awareness, attitudes and knowledge of the vulnerability of care leavers influence service responses to protect and promote the rights of this group and the attention afforded to such issues in reports to the Committee. Findings also suggest that global governance is not simply a matter of top down influence. Future work on both promoting and monitoring of the impact of the UNCRC needs to recognise that what is in play is the management of a complex global/national dynamic with all its uneven development, levels of influence and with a range of institutional actors involved.

Constructing a global understanding of the social ecology of leaving out of home care

Engagement with globalisation is growing in the field of youth transitions from out of home care. This includes cross national exchange of research, policy and practise, regional advocacy networking and global policy development. Furthering this emerging international child welfare perspective requires extending it to countries in the developing world and building conceptual frameworks which encompass a social ecology of care leaving, including its global dimension, the latter needs to address not only the needs, expectations and rights of care leavers but also the theories of change underpinning service design and delivery. Such a model is presented combining resilience and social capital as personal assets situated within a social ecology of support. To illustrate how this provides a means to help engage with the experience of countries where there appears to be very little information available on care leaving, a small scale South African initiative is considered. SA-YES is a youth mentoring project for young people leaving a variety of out of home placements. Planned as a three-year pilot, initial results are encouraging but require more rigorous evaluation focusing on program process and outcomes, quality of interpersonal relationships and synchronisation with cultural expectations and policy environment.

Conflict, transition and education for ‘political generosity’: learning from the experience of ex-combatants in Northern Ireland

This article suggests that opportunities exist to harness the potential of history and citizenship education with the processes of transition in developing programmes which support young people in exploring conflict and the challenges associated with attending to its legacy. Drawing on the experience of Northern Ireland, it is suggested that the narratives of those who have been involved directly as both combatants in conflict and latterly as agents of change in their communities provide unique opportunities for young people to reflect on these issues. By way of illustration, an account of one such initiative is presented: ‘From Prison to Peace: learning from the experience of political ex-prisoners’; a structured programme which invites young people to engage directly with loyalist and republican ex-combatants in the Northern Ireland conflict. The article suggests that such programmes have the potential to assist young people in exploring the complexity of conflict and the intricacies of transition. Furthermore it is suggested that the relationships which exist between these ex-combatants arguably can challenge sectarian perspectives and foster capacity for ‘political generosity’ towards those with opposing political aspirations.

Dynamical role of system-environment correlations in non-Markovian dynamics

We analyze the role played by system-environment correlations in the emergence of non-Markovian dynamics. By working within the framework developed in Breuer et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 210401 (2009)], we unveil a fundamental connection between non-Markovian behavior and dynamics of system-environment correlations. We derive an upper bound to the rate of change of the distinguishability between different states of the system that explicitly depends on the establishment of correlations between system and environment. We illustrate our results using a fully solvable spin-chain model, which allows us to gain insight into the mechanisms triggering non-Markovian evolution. © 2012 American Physical Society.

Fortification with low amounts of folic acid makes a significant difference in folate status in young women: implications for the prevention of neural tube defects

Background: Mandatory fortification of grain products with folic acid was introduced recently in the United States, a policy expected to result in a mean additional intake of 100 mu g/d. One way of predicting the effectiveness of this measure is to determine the effect of removing a similar amount of folic acid as fortified food from the diets of young women who had been electively exposed to chronic fortification.

Objective: The objective was to examine the effect on folate status of foods fortified with low amounts of folic acid.

Design: We investigated the changes in dietary intakes and in red blood cell and serum concentrations of folate in response to removing folic acid-fortified foods for 12 wk from the diets of women who reportedly consumed such foods at least once weekly (consumers).

Results: Consumers (n = 21) had higher total folate intakes (P = 0.002) and red blood cell folate concentrations (P = 0.023) than nonconsumers (women who consumed folic acid-fortified foods less than once weekly; n = 30). Of greater interest, a 12-wk intervention involving the exclusion of these foods resulted in a decrease in folate intake of 78 +/- 56 mu g/d (P < 0.001), which was reflected in a significant reduction in red blood cell folate concentrations (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: Cessation of eating folic acid-fortified foods resulted in removing 78 mu g folic acid/d from the diet. Over 12 wk this resulted in a lowering of red blood cell folate concentrations by 111 nmol/L (49 mu g/L). This magnitude of change in folate status in women can be anticipated as a result of the new US fortification legislation and is predicted to have a significant, although not optimal, effect in preventing neural tube defects.

Trends in childhood type 1 diabetes incidence in Europe during 1989-2008: evidence of non-uniformity over time in rates of increase

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS:

The aim of the study was to describe 20-year incidence trends for childhood type 1 diabetes in 23 EURODIAB centres and compare rates of increase in the first (1989-1998) and second (1999-2008) halves of the period.

METHODS:

All registers operate in geographically defined regions and are based on a clinical diagnosis. Completeness of registration is assessed by capture-recapture methodology. Twenty-three centres in 19 countries registered 49,969 new cases of type 1 diabetes in individuals diagnosed before their 15th birthday during the period studied.

RESULTS:

Ascertainment exceeded 90% in most registers. During the 20-year period, all but one register showed statistically significant changes in incidence, with rates universally increasing. When estimated separately for the first and second halves of the period, the median rates of increase were similar: 3.4% per annum and 3.3% per annum, respectively. However, rates of increase differed significantly between the first half and the second half for nine of the 21 registers with adequate coverage of both periods; five registers showed significantly higher rates of increase in the first half, and four significantly higher rates in the second half.

CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION:

The incidence rate of childhood type 1 diabetes continues to rise across Europe by an average of approximately 3-4% per annum, but the increase is not necessarily uniform, showing periods of less rapid and more rapid increase in incidence in some registers. This pattern of change suggests that important risk exposures differ over time in different European countries. Further time trend analysis and comparison of the patterns in defined regions is warranted.

Resistance or Resilience? Tracking the Pathway of Recent Arrivals to a ‘New’ Rural Destination

Recent patterns of migration indicate that international migrants are not confined to urban gateways. Instead many migrants have settled in new destination areas located in rural and small town areas. While this might appear to be a positive phenomenon for rural areas struggling with decline and stagnation, the reality is that many of these areas are ill-equipped to manage the rate and pace of change that has been witnessed in recent years. Migration to established, typically urban areas has been the subject of extensive research. However, little is known about the way in which migrants navigate their way through social structures as they settle into destinations with little experience of immigration. Using empirical research, this article considers the way in which migrants navigate their way through social structures to establish life in a so-called ‘new’ migration destination. It analyses the way in which government and civil society respond to their needs of recent arrivals, showing how both NGO’s and the statutory sector play an important role in this process. It considers the ramifications for these different sectors and the implications for so-called ‘new’ destinations as they become more established or ‘mature’ areas of immigration.

Low temperature conditions in building sandstone: the role of extreme events in temperate environments

Data on rock temperatures has previously been collected to characterise typical diurnal regimes, and more recently to describe short-term variability in extreme locations. However, there is also the case that little is understood concerning the impact of extreme events in otherwise temperate environments. Internal stone temperatures (5?cm) collected during the atypical cold extreme experienced, throughout the UK, in December 2010 show a difference between ambient air temperatures and aspect-related thermal differences, particularly concerning temperature lows and the influence of radiative heating. In this case, debris release was not visible; however, laboratory simulations have shown that under such conditions, surface loss does not necessarily negate the occurrence of internal stone modifications. This preparatory sequence of change demonstrates that surface loss is not the result of one process, but rather many operating over time to sufficiently decrease stone strength to facilitate obvious damage.

The End of the Urban-Rural Divide?

The urban-rural divide in China was an entrenched feature of Chinese society in the Maoist era. This divide generated and continues to generate inequality as between the rural population and the urban population. In post-Deng China, legal and administrative distinctions between urban and rural have become blurred, especially with the development of rural-urban migration. Nevertheless, the urban-rural divide still exists, and the income of farmers is below that of urban residents. In this paper, it is argued that the emergence of the phenomenon of “quasi-commons” in rural China, crossing the “borders” of the urbanrural divide, may increase farmers’ income in the future and bridge this divide. The paper focuses on different forms of “quasi-commons” (the sharing and use of communal land) emerging in rural areas, including the farmland shareholding cooperatives and transforming rural land management rights into shares in joint ventures. There are divergent views held by Chinese academics and policy makers about “quasi-commons” in rural China, as well as the direction of change in the rural land system. However, most of the proposals for reform have been polarized between nationalization and privatization of rural land. Looking beyond this “boundary thinking” and drawing on the discourses of “the commons” (for example, the writings of Hardin, Heller and Ostrom), this paper analyses the theoretical models of both the nationalization and privatization schemes and their shortcomings. The present essay also analyses the prospect for, and the barriers to the emerging commons in rural China.

FROM ASCRIPTION TO ACHIEVEMENT - ORIGINS, EDUCATION AND ENTRY TO THE LABOR-FORCE IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND DURING THE 20TH-CENTURY

This paper examines the relationship between class of origin, educational attainment, and class of entry to the labour force, in three cohorts of men in the Republic of Ireland using data collected in 1987. The three cohorts comprise men born (i) before 1937; (ii) between 1937 and 1949; and (iii) between 1950 and 1962. The paper assesses the degree of change over the three cohorts in respect of (a) the gross relationship between origins and entry class; (b) the partial effect (controlling for education) of origin class on entry class; (c) the partial effect of education (controlling for origins) on class of entry. In broad terms the liberal theory of industrialism would imply a movement, over the three cohorts, towards (a) increasing social fluidity; (b) a weakening of the partial effect of origin class; (c) a strengthening of the partial effect of education. These latter two trends should be particularly noticeable in the youngest cohort, which would, to some degree, have benefited from the introduction of free post-primary education in Ireland in 1967.

Our results provide almost no support for these hypotheses. We find that patterns of social fluidity in the origin/entry relationship remain unchanged over the cohorts. The partial effect of class remains relatively constant; and, while the partial effect of education on entry class changes over the cohorts, the most striking result in this area is the declining returns to higher levels of education. While the average level of educational attainment increased over the three cohorts, the advantages accruing to the possession of higher levels of education simultaneously diminished. Taken together our results suggest that, in Ireland, those classes that have historically enjoyed advantages in access to more desirable entry positions in the labour market have been remarkably adept at retaining their advantages during the course of industrialization and through the various educational and other labour market changes that have accompanied this process.