First, you will choose a person, social movement, event, idea, technology, or art form from the 20th century that significantly impacted the culture of China.
Can a standard indifference curve have a left-hand tail as depicted by curve I in the figure below? Why? Can a standard indifference curve have a right-hand tail as depicted by curve I in the figure below? Why? What is the relationship between points A and B on indifference curve II as depicted below? Why?
GE: How Much Are Auditors Paid?
The financial report accompanying this letter is historic in that it is our first one covered by Section 404 of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). . . . But what does it mean to you? Is it a “check-thebox” bureaucracy based on an overreaction to the market scandals of yesterday? None of us likes more regulation, but I actually think SOX 404 is helpful. It takes the process control discipline we use in our factories and applies it to our financial statements. Implementing SOX 404 cost GE $33 million in 2004. But we think it is a good investment.
Jeffrey R. Immelt, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, General Electric, in his Letter to Shareholders from the 2004 annual report
BACKGROUND
Since its required implementation in 2004, section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley has generated a great deal of controversy. Its requirement that auditors assess the operating effectiveness of their clients’ internal controls over financial reporting and express opinions on the effectiveness of their clients’ internal controls over financial reporting and on management’s assessment of its internal control over financial reporting (this latter responsibility has since been rescinded) has imposed significant costs on accelerated filers. The costs of Sarbanes-Oxley have been cited as having significant impact on the U.S. capital markets. For example, a higher dollar amount of initial public offerings (IPOs) has been made on overseas exchanges since the implementation of section 404. Many companies cite the high costs of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance as a factor in their choice of stock market listing; in 2002 (prior to Sarbanes-Oxley), 9 of the top 20 IPOs were on U.S. stock exchanges compared with only 3 of the top 20 IPOs in 2006. In addition, during 2006, total IPO values on both the London/AIM and Hong Kong stock exchanges exceeded values on the New York Stock Exchange. 2
Among other reasons, the high costs of compliance with section 404 resulted in the issuance of Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS 5), which superseded Auditing Standard No. 2. Major changes under AS 5 include (1) eliminating the requirement for auditors to evaluate and opine on management’s assessment of internal control over financial reporting, (2) encouraging auditors to adopt a “topdown, risk-based” approach, resulting in more efficient audits, and (3) expanding the potential use of others’ work in the assessment of internal control over financial reporting. Then-SEC Chairman Christopher Cox noted that, as a result of the passage of AS 5, “the unduly high costs of implementing section 404 of the [Sarbanes-Oxley] act will come down” because companies “will be able to focus on the greatest risk of material misstatements in the financials.” 3 Some estimate that this reduction could be as much as 10 percent. 4
In addition to the provisions of section 404 related to internal control over financial reporting, Sarbanes-Oxley reduced auditors’ ability to provide nonaudit services to their clients. Section 201 prohibits two major types of services that had become significant revenue sources for accounting firms: (1) financial information systems design and implementation and (2) internal audit outsourcing. Not coincidentally, these were two areas in which Arthur Andersen provided extensive services to Enron prior to its failure. Furthermore, section 202 requires that the entity’s audit committee approve all nonaudit services (with the exception of those less than 5 percent of the total revenues paid to the accounting firm).
HOW DID SARBANES-OXLEY AFFECT ACCOUNTING FIRM REVENUES?
The preceding suggests that Sarbanes-Oxley could have a significant (yet indeterminable) effect on accounting firm revenues. On one hand, the internal control requirements of section 404 would presumably increase total revenues; however, the prohibition against providing financial information systems design and implementation and internal audit outsourcing services would likely reduce revenues. In addition, the requirement that the entity’s audit committee approve all nonaudit services would presumably heighten these individuals’ awareness of potential conflicts related to these services and reduce the likelihood that such services will be approved (or reduce the dollar level at which they are approved).
GE Exhibit 1 summarizes fees paid by General Electric to its auditors (KPMG, LLP) for various years both preceding and following the issuance of Sarbanes-Oxley; GE Exhibit 2 provides similar information for the average of Fortune 100 companies during these same years. 5 “Audit fees” are identified based on SEC rules and include fees paid for the (1) audit of the annual financial statements, (2) review of quarterly financial statements, (3) audit of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, (4) attestation of management’s report on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, and (5) other services provided in connection with statutory and regulatory filings and engagements. “Audit-related” fees include other fees that can be reasonably related to the preceding services as well as fees paid for due diligence and audit services on mergers and acquisitions and fees paid for audit services on employee benefit plans.
SEC-REQUIRED FEE DISCLOSURES
One additional phenomenon that may influence the fees reported by GE and the Fortune 100 companies in Exhibits GE 1 and 2 is the disclosure requirements implemented by the SEC. In November 2000, the SEC adopted requirements that registrants disclose the various types of fees paid to its financial statement auditors; under this initial guidance, audit fees included fees paid for the annual financial statement audit and those paid for the reviews of quarterly financial statements. Beginning in 2003, the SEC expanded the definition of audit fees to include services that “generally only the independent accountant can reasonably provide, such as comfort letters, statutory audits, attest services, consents and assistance with and review of documents filed with the [SEC].” 6 Some argued
that broadening the definition of audit fees would be misleading in terms of user perceptions of auditors’ independence. Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, noted that “it’s absolutely industry’s water that’s being carried here. It makes it look like their audit fees are bigger, their nonaudit fees are smaller, and it masks the conflict of interest.” 7 Clearly, any comparison of fee breakdowns prior to and following Sarbanes-Oxley must consider the SEC’s revised definition of audit fees.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. From a conceptual standpoint, how do the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley related to nonaudit services affect perceptions of the auditors’ independence?
2. Assume that your firm was auditing General Electric in 2000 and was recommending an adjustment to its financial statements that reduced net income. Based on the fees paid to your firm in 2000, what incentive(s) might your firm consider in insisting upon this adjustment? How would your firm’s incentive(s) differ after 2004?
3. Compare General Electric’s fees prior to (2000) and following (2004, 2008, and 2012) the implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley. Based on the trends in these fees and various components of these fees, comment on the effect of Sarbanes-Oxley on General Electric’s fees.
4. Repeat question 3 for the Fortune 100 companies. Are the trends for these companies similar to those for General Electric?
5. For General Electric and the Fortune 100 companies, can you identify the increased costs of section 404 compliance cited in the press?
6. Comparing the fees in 2004 versus those in 2008 and 2012 for General Electric and Fortune 100 companies, does it appear that AS 5 has reduced costs of section 404 compliance?
1. Your strategy produces 100,000 forecasts over time. You would like to derive the CPCV distribution of Sharpe ratios by generating 1,000 paths. What are the possible combinations of parameters (N, k) that will allow you to achieve that?
2. You discover a strategy that achieves a Sharpe ratio of 1.5 in a WF backtest. You write a paper explaining the theory that would justify such result, and submit it to an academic journal. The editor replies that one referee has requested you repeat your backtest using a CPCV method with N = 100 and k = 2, including your code and full datasets. You follow these instructions, and the mean Sharpe ratio is –1 with a standard deviation of 0.5. Furious, you do not reply, but instead withdraw your submission, and resubmit in a different journal of higher impact factor. After 6 months, your paper is accepted. You appease your conscience thinking that, if the discovery is false, it is the journal’s fault for not having requested a CPCV test. You think, “It cannot be unethical, since it is permitted, and everybody does it.” What are the arguments, scientific or ethical, to justify your actions?
A material planner has calculated an EOQ of 887 for a raw material. The material can only be ordered in case quantities of 200 units each. How many cases should the material planner order each time, and how much more expensive (expressed as a percentage increase) will this be than if it were possible to order the EOQ quantity?
Question 6 options:
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4 cases 0.533% increase in costs |
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4 cases 0.434% increase in costs |
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5 cases 0.720% increase in costs |
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2 cases 90.192% increase in costs |
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5 cases 0.915% increase in costs |
This assignment is to simulate the disk I/O handling in system programming by a linked list. A particular Unix kernel operation handles disk I/O by allowing independent user processes to place I/O request blocks (IORB) in a linked list. The order in which these requests are serviced depends on their scheduling priority. The scheduling strategy is adaptive, which simply means that the kernel may carry out different computations at different times in order to calculate the priority value for each element of the list. You are required to write a C program on Linux which designs, implements and tests a sorting function: sortList().
The first argument of the function is a pointer to the head of the list. The second argument is a priority computing function which computes and returns the scheduling priority. The sorting function will sort such a list according to the scheduling priority of each element. Since the OS will have other structures with pointers to IORB blocks, the list must be sorted in place.
Requirement:
1. IORB structure: Its data type is defined as: typedef struct iorb { int base_pri; struct iorb *link; char filler[100]; } IORB; where base pri is an integer representing the block’s base priority; link is a pointer to next block; f iller is a description about the block which is opaque to the sorting routine.
2. Separate source file for the priority computing function: void sortList(IORB * head, int(*prio)(int)); where head is a pointer to the linked list, and prio is a priority computing function. The sortList() implementation is to be in a separate source file from any driver code. You may however include other functions you’ll need for testing, such as those to build and display the list, in the same source file of the driver code.
3. Priority computing function: For this assignment, to keep things simple, scheduling priorities will be computed from a single integer field (named base pri) in each IORB. You may design any computing method. The function is to return an integer representing the scheduling priority.
4. Sorting algorithm: You are required to use the Selection Sort algorithm to sort the list in an ascending order. This algorithm finds the minimum value, swaps it with the value in the first position, and repeats these steps for the remainder of the list. In practice a more complex linking structure, permitting more efficient sorting, would be used, but this is beyond the scope of this assignment.
5. Sorting in place: The list must be sorted in place. This means that ONLY the links within the list may be altered, no IORB block may be copied to somewhere else in memory. 6. Building and display the list: The list is initially built by a function buildList(). For each IORB in the list, its base scheduling priority base pri is calculated by a random number generator. You may assign any string to f iller. The list is displayed by a function displayList(), which shows the description, the base priority and priority of each element.
A simple description of your solution logic or pseudo code
Sample output
Please enter your choice: 0) Exit 1) Build List 2) Sort List (ascending) 3) Display List Your choice: 1
Please enter your choice: 0) Exit 1) Build List 2) Sort List (ascending) 3) Display List Your choice: 3 Description: this is i/o request 0, Base Priority: 11 Priority: 89 Description: this is i/o request 1, Base Priority: 49 Priority: 51 Description: this is i/o request 2, Base Priority: 27 Priority: 73 Description: this is i/o request 3, Base Priority: 48 Priority: 52 Description: this is i/o request 4, Base Priority: 19 Priority: 81 Description: this is i/o request 5, Base Priority: 16 Priority: 84 Description: this is i/o request 6, Base Priority: 97 Priority: 3 Description: this is i/o request 7, Base Priority: 70 Priority: 30 Description: this is i/o request 8, Base Priority: 83 Priority: 17 Description: this is i/o request 9, Base Priority: 22 Priority: 78 Please enter your choice: 0) Exit 1) Build List 2) Sort List (ascending) 3) Display List Your choice: 2 Please enter your choice: 0) Exit 1) Build List 2) Sort List (ascending) 3) Display List Your choice: 3 Description: this is i/o request 6, Base Priority: 97 Priority: 3 Description: this is i/o request 8, Base Priority: 83 Priority: 17 Description: this is i/o request 7, Base Priority: 70 Priority: 30 Description: this is i/o request 1, Base Priority: 49 Priority: 51 Description: this is i/o request 3, Base Priority: 48 Priority: 52 Description: this is i/o request 2, Base Priority: 27 Priority: 73 Description: this is i/o request 9, Base Priority: 22 Priority: 78 Description: this is i/o request 4, Base Priority: 19 Priority: 81 Description: this is i/o request 5, Base Priority: 16 Priority: 84 Description: this is i/o request 0, Base Priority: 11 Priority: 89 Please enter your choice: 0) Exit 1) Build List 2) Sort List (ascending) 3) Display List Your choice: 0 Terminating… c language
All of the following are generally considered taxable interest income and reported as such on Schedule B, interest and ordinary dividends ExceptA Dividend distribution from a share account with a credit unionB Dividend distribution paid on shares of an exchange traded fundC interest received on a loan made to another taxpayerD. Dividend distribution from money market mutual fund
1. Please complete the missing interfaces and blocks in the following graph of high-level network architecture of LTE (10 points): 2. The internal architecture of the user equipment for LTE is identical to the one used by UMTS and GSM which is actually a Mobile Equipment (ME). Please can you connect the following components of the ME to the correct description? (10 points):
Attachments:
I am attempting to use JSON and AJAX to make a dynamic web pagewhich loads data from a php script which should be edited as littleas possible However when attempting to load the information, the scriptprints: Fatal error: Call to undefined methodmysqli_result::fetchObject() in/home/unn_w16011531/public_html/getOffers.php online 30 Script file: var htmlOfferDiv = document.getElementById(“offers”);var btn = document.getElementById(“getHTMLOffers”);btn.addEventListener(“click”, function() { var htmlOffer = new XMLHttpRequest(); htmlOffer.open(‘GET’, ‘getOffers.php’); htmlOffer.onload = function () { var offerData = htmlOffer.responseText; renderHTML(offerData); }; htmlOffer.send();}); function renderHTML(data){ var htmlOffers = “”; for(i = 0; i
nCategory: ‘,catDesc,’
nPrice: ‘,recordPrice,’ ‘) as offer from nmc_special_offers inner join nmc_category onnmc_special_offers.catID = nmc_category.catID order by rand() limit1″; // execute the query $rsOffer = $dbConn->query($sql); // getthe one offer returned $offer = $rsOffer->fetchObject(); //Thisis line 30 // return the offer return $offer->offer; } catch(Exception $e) { return “Problem: ” . $e->getMessage(); } } How can i fix the issue of the undefined call so that the pagewill be able to use the file? If any more information is needed, I will update thequestion. Thanks in advance Here is the database connection file.
connect_error) { echo “
Connection Failed: ” . $dbConn->connect_error . “
n”; exit;}?> . . .
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