I dont have topic on mind you can choose an easy one Research Paper - 1

I dont have topic on mind you can choose an easy one - Research Paper Example In essence, this paper explores the two major challenges faced by students in their research projects i.e. finding and using of quality research sources. Those who have written research papers prior to this reading have probably found difficulties in the process of searching and citing of sources, with some viewing the process as totally mechanical (McClure 51). However, this process of searching and citing of sources usually ends with a writer producing rhetorical work. In order for a student to get their readers to accept their writing, believe in it and be interested in it, it is vital to locate the appropriate sources of information and make use of them effectively. Types of Research Sources. It has become well conversant with almost every individual in the contemporary world that we breathe in an information age where information is tangible and has numerous capabilities with it including influencing of government strategies and the public’s opinions, destroying and creating of wealth, as well as effecting social change within the community. Students usually have a wide range of information emanating from varied sources (McClure 56). For a student to have a significant influence on their audience, it is essential that they know all the available research sources, how and where to find them as well as how to put them into quality use. Primary and Secondary Sources. A primary source of research can be defined as that which presents the learner with first hand learning and or information about a given subject. They provide the researcher with first hand evidence regarding a topic under study while at the same time offering the researcher with direct access to the events and or phenomena under study. A suitable example is where one is studying the history of the First World War. If the researcher decides to study the maps used by soldiers on battle fields and the letters they sent to their relatives back at home, then these are primary sources. Other

World Com and Accounting Ethics Essay Example for Free

World Com and Accounting Ethics Essay Current business and regulatory environments are more conducive to ethical behavior due to many new laws that have been put into effect in recent years. For many companies, especially small ones, the checks and balances are not put into place as well as they should be. With new laws in effect and more and more accountants paying attention to their clients’ accounts, ethical behavior is on the rise although it will take a long time to recover from the scandals that rocked the world beginning with Waste Management in 1998 and following with Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, HealthSouth, Freddie Mac, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bernie Madoff and Saytam in 2009. For 10 years unethical behavior and choices almost brought our country to its knees and even now many people are losing their homes and their jobs because the economy has still not fully recovered. In 1983 in a small coffee shop in Hattiesburg, MS, the business concept that would become WorldCom was born. The company was to become one of the largest telecommunications companies that would one day rival ATT. WorldCom began as a small long distance telephone company and through an aggressive acquisition strategy, evolved in the second-largest long distance telephone company in the United States and one of the largest companies handling worldwide Internet data traffic. WorldCom achieved its position through a large number of acquisitions and between 1991 and 1997, WorldCom spent almost $60 billion in the acquisition of many of these companies and accumulated $41 billion in debt. With each acquisition, WorldCom’s stock continued to rise as the company became more noticeable, rising from pennies per share to over $60 per share in 1997. As the company grew people sat up and took notice and Wall Street investment banks as well as analysts and brokers began making buy recommendations to investors worldwide. All of this would have ended well if WorldCom had obviously played by the rules but alas, that was not the case. As with any acquisition, let alone 65 of them in six years, management at the top level requires considerable attention to make the merging of the two companies run smoothly. Secondly, the accounting of the financial aspects of each merging company must be accomplished through the application of generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP). WorldCom’s merger with MCI was the beginning of the end. Bernie Ebbers (CEO) paid little attention to the details of the operations and many things began deteriorating, mainly customer service. Customers were told they were not customers, computer systems conflicted with each other and billing systems were not coordinated – a recipe for disaster. Although WorldCom had an immense talent for buying competitors, it was not up to the task of merging them. WorldCom also used their own interpretation of accounting rules when preparing financial statements. â€Å"In an effort to make it appear that profits were increasing, WorldCom would write down in one quarter millions of dollars in assets it acquired while, at the same time, it â€Å"included in this charge against earnings the cost of company expenses expected in the future. The result was bigger losses in the current quarter but smaller ones in future quarters, so that its profit picture would seem to be improving.† (Moberg) WorldCom managers also made their own assumptions regarding accounts receivables which if the money customers owe the company. They chose to ignore the accounts receivables because this allowed for a lower assumption of non-collectable bills which in turn required a smaller reserve fund. The end result allows for higher earnings. All of these practices could continue as long as WorldCom continued to acquire additional companies, using those companies as their â€Å"merry-go-round† to utilize poor accounting practices. Not only poor practices but unethical. In 2000, the merry-go-round stopped when the government refused to allow WorldCom to merge with Sprint. Another accounting practice that that was uncovered was the allowance of the board of directors to authorize loans to senior executives. Mr. Ebbers received a $341 million loan authorized by the board of directors which is the largest amount any publicly traded company has lent to one of its officers in recent memory. This brings concerns about conflict of interest and breach of fiduciary duty but nevertheless WorldCom was not the only company allowing this practice. And on top of that the loan interest rate was as low as 2% which was not much of a return for the company that loaned him that large of an amount. WorldCom’s unethical accounting practices were found by Cynthia Cooper who worked as an internal auditor for WorldCom. Cynthia and her team became suspicious of a number of peculiar financial transactions and began their own private investigation. What they found were multiple entries that were misallocated and unauthorized to the tune of $4 billion dollars in capital expenditures. It appeared the company was trying to represent operating costs as capital expenditures in order to make the company look more profitable. By allowing these kinds of practices and attempting to have others following the same kind of unethical behavior, moral and trust were at an all time low within the company. Beginning in 2002 everything began to unravel. The SEC began an investigation on the company and WorldCom was trying to avoid filing for bankruptcy. Within months they laid off more than 17,000 employees, almost 20 percent of their workforce. By the time it was all said and done, 30,000 employees lost their jobs and investors lost over $180 billion dollars. WorldCom improperly booked $3.8 billion as capital expenditures which improved cash flow and profit over a 5 quarter period. This disguised the actual net loss for 2001 and the first quarter of 2002. It is possible that the accounting irregularities go back to 2000. In simple terms WorldCom did not account for expenses when it incurred them, but hid the expenses by pushing them into the future, giving the appearance of spending less and therefore making more money. This apparent profitability pleased investors who pushed the stock up to a high of $64.51 in June 1999. When WorldCom was stopped from acquiring Sprint they had to find a way to hide their large expenses so that the price of the stock would not go down. They did this by treating $7 billion of line costs as capital expenditures. These line costs were basically rental fees paid to other phone companies to use their phone lines. Up until 2001 these fees (expenses) had always been properly expensed in previous years but when WorldCom placed them in the capitalization category the expense was delayed to future periods which in turn boosted current-period profits. The accounting guideline that made this decision fraudulent was materiality. Materiality refers to the impact of an item’s size on a company’s financial operations. Materiality states that if an item would not make a difference in decision-making, the company does not have to follow GAAP in reporting the item. In this case, $7 billion dollars in expenses makes a huge difference so GAAP guideline should have been followed. Consequently profits for 2001 and 2002 were overstated greatly. This ethical breach could have been avoided long before it became a huge problem basically by maintaining the accounting system from the very beginning. Because WorldCom was more interested in acquiring companies than in merging them properly, accounting systems from various companies did not work together well. After a time and more and more acquisitions it became a huge mess and nobody really had any idea what was right and what was wrong. Senior management used that disorganization to conceal their fraudulent activities. This large of a fraud should have been easily detected by doing a routing comparison of the actual physical assets with a list of the physical assets shown in the accounting records. Following the scandal of WorldCom which closely followed the Waste Management Scandal in 1998 and the Enron scandal in 2001, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, introducing the most sweeping set of new business regulations since the 1930s.

Gel Electrophoresis and the Action of Alkaline Phosphatase

Gel Electrophoresis and the Action of Alkaline Phosphatase Introduction In this practical, two common techniques found in clinical laboratories are performed. The first technique is called gel electrophoresis and the second is an enzyme activity assay.      Ã‚   Electrophoresis is a method that uses an electrical field to separate proteins by molecular size. In this case, the protein extracted in practical 1 and an unknown protein are separated and analysed using a polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). Electrophoresis is a popular and widely used analytical technique in research, it can be used for a variety of applications but its most widespread use is the separation of proteins to then analyse and purify them. The technique has greatly evolved over the years since the instrumentation, buffer systems and visualization techniques have all been rapidly improving. This has helped to create different protein electrophoresis techniques such as isoelectric focusing (IEF) or electrophoretic transfer (commonly known as Blotting) which are great tools used in modern research methods (facebook page). The second experiment is an enzyme rate reaction experiment that uses alkaline phosphatase (ALP). Where the enzyme activity of a commercially available purified form of ALP is compared to the ALP activity of the cell lysate prepared in practical 1. A chemical reaction rate can be influenced by the presence of enzymes, these proteins can catalyse a chemical reaction by lowering the activation energy of the reaction. They can do this all while remaining unchanged, making them a perfect candidate for a marker to monitor a chemical reaction rate. These reactions are found in all living organisms and naturally occur in metabolic pathways for example. The activity of an enzyme can be altered by a change in the pH, the concentration of the enzyme or the substrate, the temperature and by the presence of inhibitors. By controlling these changes the activity of an enzyme can be reliably monitored. Enzymes are very specific to their corresponding substrate. When an enzyme is mixed with its specific substrate in vitro, under optimum conditions, the substrate will bind to the active site of the enzyme to form the enzyme-substrate complex at a steady rate. Thus, until the substrate is used up or the enzyme begins to denature or the complex f ormed changes the reaction conditions. By monitoring the products of a chemical reaction, we can analyse the rate of production of enzyme-substrate complexes. In this experiment, ALP is the enzyme that speeds up the hydrolysis reaction that occurs to p-nitrophenyl phosphate to form p-nitrophenol. ALP is mainly found in the liver, bone, kidney but it is also produced by the cells in the small intestine. The CACO-2 cells used in practical 1 have very similar traits to cells found in the small intestine, therefore, the ALP activity in the extract can be measured. By monitoring the course of the reaction during various time points, the activity of ALP can be determined. Electrophoresis Materials Pipettes and tips Deionized water Electrophoresis polyacrylamide gel Electrophoresis apparatus Cell lysate (practical 1) Protein X Colour prestained Protein standard Laemlii buffer: NuPAGE LDS sample buffer 4x lot#1658555 opened on the 27/07/2015 Coomassie blue Running buffer Methods Firstly, a loading sample containing the cell lysate prepared in practical 1 was made by adding 2 µl of cell lysate, 3 µl of water and 5 µl of laemlii buffer into an Eppendorf tube. A second loading sample containing protein x was prepared by adding 10 µl of protein x to 10 µl of laemlii buffer into an Eppendorf tube. The samples were then added to a heated bath for 2 minutes. During this time, the polyacrylamide gel was opened and the comb and tape were gently removed. The electrophoresis cell was then assembled before filling the inner and outer buffer chambers with provided running buffer. The inner chamber had more buffer than the outer chamber to totally incubate the gel in the buffer. 10 µl of the protein x sample, 3 µl of the ladder and 14 µl of our cell lysate sample were then loaded onto the gel in different wells by carefully inserting them using a pipette with slender tips. Once the apparatus was correctly assembled, the electrophoresis cell was connected to the power supply and the electrophoresis was performed at 150mv for 1 and a half hours. After completion of the migration of the bands, the power supply was turned off and the electrical leads were disconnected. The gel cassette was then removed and the gel was gently transferred by floating it off the plate. The gel was then stained using Coomassie blue for an hour before transferring it to water. A picture of the gel was then taken for further interpretation. Results By measuring the migration distance travelled by the bands of proteins of known molecular weight, we can plot a standard curve of the distance travelled versus the molecular weight: Table 1. Standard bands migration distance versus fragment size Standard distance travelled (cm) Ladder fragment size (kDa) 2 245 2.7 190 3.5 135 4.5 100 5.6 80 7.1 58 8.5 46 10.3 32 11.6 25 12.6 22 13.4 17 14.1 11 Figure 3. Standard curve of the migration distance versus ladder fragment size of the protein standard This produces an equation that can be used to measure the sizes of the bands produced by the protein x sample. Table 2. Relative size of protein x components. Band number Protein x Sample distance travelled (cm) Protein x relative size proteins (kDa) 1 1.4 232.34 2 2.3 189.75 3 3.4 148.15 4 6.7 70.5 Discussion The bands observed in figure 1 are composed of proteins of the same size. The proteins are loaded in the negative end of the gel since they are negatively charged, as the electrophoresis reaction is occurring, the negative current will push the samples towards the positive end. The smaller samples will travel faster and thus further through the gel whereas larger sized proteins will tend to migrate less. This difference in migration is due to the structure of the gel, it has fine filaments that can be represented as a mesh. The density of the gel is dependent on the concentration. The smaller proteins will find it easier to travel through the mesh whereas the larger molecules will move much more slowly (facebook page). Also, we can observe that some bands are darker than others, this is because the darker bands have a higher concentration of a particular protein of the same size. We can estimate the molecular weight of the proteins by comparing the migration distances of the bands against the standard seen in well 1 (see figure 1). We can also observe the number of different protein sizes that are present in our samples by counting the number of bands. For example, our sample of protein x contains 4 visible bands, meaning there are 4 protein groups in protein-x. The most significant band in the protein x separation is the last band containing the smaller fragments of protein. This band is estimated to have proteins of about 70.5 kDa. This band can also be seen in the electrophoresis separation of the cell lysate prepared in practical 1. The band is seen in both samples because it is the band containing albumin. Albumin is the most abundant protein in the blood. It has a molecular mass of between 65-75 kDa which encompasses the estimated 70.5kDa of the proteins found in the bands calculated earlier (all about albumin, theodore Peters). In this practical, the use of beta-mercaptoethanol (BME) is used in combination with the sample buffer prior gel electrophoresis. It is activated by heating the sample and permits the successful migration of the subunits of the proteins during electrophoresis. It works by independently separating them on the SDS-PAGE. It completely denatures the disulphide bonds within the subunits to let the peptides freely migrate according to their chain length. By overcoming forms of tertiary protein folding and lysing oligomeric subunits, the influence of secondary structures is minimized. Sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) is also used during the experiment, as discussed in practical 1, this substance is an anionic detergent and is used during electrophoresis to linearize and promote the negative charge of the proteins prior to gel electrophoresis. The result of this is the even distribution of charge throughout the protein to help separate the protein fragments according to their size (Detergent bi nding explains anomalous SDS page migration of membrane proteins). To stain the proteins in this practical, a Coomassie stain was used. This protein stain is the most common anionic protein dye. It is popular because it stains most proteins and has great advantages such as good quantitative linearity, good use in identification during mass spectrometry and short staining times, for example. Other dyes can be used in gel electrophoresis such as silver stains. These stains have very high sensitivity, but unlike Coomassie Blue, they offer a lower linear dynamic range and are usually complex, therefore the protocols are time-consuming. Also, they do not offer sufficient reproducibility for quantitative analysis. Other type of stains that are commonly used are fluorescent stains. These stains also offer high sensitivity but, unlike silver stains, have a wider linear dynamic range and are simple to use and robust. The disadvantage is that they are more expensive to use and require specific imaging equipment such as scanners to view the gel (facebook page) . The electrophoresis technique is now a routinely used method used in clinical laboratories to screen for protein abnormalities using samples of serum, urine or cerebral spinal fluid and can analyse specific proteins such as enzymes (ALP or LDH), lipoproteins or haemoglobin. These techniques are evaluated visually for the presence of abnormal protein bands and can also be quantitively measured to determine the concentration of the bands. In a normal serum protein electrophoresis, 5 distinct bands appear on the gel; the highest band contains albumin, followed by smaller bands containing alpha-1 globulins, alpha 2 globulins, beta globulins and finally gamma globulins. Analysing these bands can determine if abnormalities are present in the major proteins found in the body and can therefore be a valuable diagnostic tool. For example, changes in the zone containing the albumin band can help diagnose various abnormalities such as bisalbuminemia (2 bands instead of 1) and hyperalbuminemia. Significant changes in concentrations of other bands of the serum protein electrophoresis can easily help determine many different pathological disorders. The most common use of serum protein electrophoresis is for the diagnosis of multiple myeloma. An abnormal peak in a region of the gamma globulin area can indicate a monoclonal gammopathy. Monoclonal gammopathies have been shown to be associated with an anomalous clonal process that can lead to the development of cancerous tumours such as multiple myeloma (Patterns of serum protein electrophoresis, our experience at King Hussein Medical Center, Jordan). Another common use of electrophoresis in a clinical laboratory is lipoprotein electrophoresis. This method determines the concentrations of different lipoproteins such as LDL. High plasma levels of LDL have been associated with acute myocardial infarction and other heart related diseases. Conclusion Gel electrophoresis is used to separate proteins according to their sizes by migrating them through a gel using an electric gradient. The smaller proteins will migrate faster and further than larger sized proteins due to the structure of the gel. This technique can be used in various clinical settings, for example, to analyse lipoproteins or serum proteins to help diagnosis various conditions. Enzyme activity of Alkaline Phosphatase Materials Pipette and tips 96 well plate Commercial ALP Cell lysate from practical 1 Cell lysate provided Lysis buffer Para nitrophenol phosphate (PNP) 3M NaOH (stop solution) Plate reader Method The experiment was performed in different steps to minimize potential errors due to timing issues. The first was the monitoring of the commercial ALP enzyme reaction rate in combination with the blank test. This was done by adding 100 µl of the commercial ALP into 6 wells of the same line. The enzyme substrate Paranitrophenol phosphate was then added to all the wells as fast as possible to maintain a homogenous reaction in all the wells. Prior to the addition of the enzyme and the substrate, 50 µl of the stop solution (NaOH) was added to the first well to provide an initial reaction rate of 0s. 50  µl of stop solution was then added to the other wells at a 3-minute interval until the final 6th well (t=15min). The plate was then read at 410nm and the results were collected. During this time, a blank test was performed by using the same method. The only difference was that the wells only contained 200  µl of enzyme substrate and therefore no enzyme. After this was performed, an enzyme rate reaction for the provided cell lysate was done. Firstly, a stock solution of 700  µl was done by adding 350  µl cell lysate with 350  µl of buffer. 100  µl of the cell lysate stock solution was added to 6 wells. The first well also contained 50  µl of the stop solution as mentioned earlier. 100  µl of enzyme substrate was then added to all the wells as fast as possible. After 3 minutes, 50  µl of the stop solution was then added to the second well, followed by the third 3 minutes later, and so on until the last well. The plate was then read at 410 nm on the plate reader. The final enzyme reaction contained the cell lysate prepared in practical 1. Firstly, a 700  µl stock solution of cell lysate was done by adding 175  µl of the cell lysate created in practical 1 to 525  µl of lysis buffer. 100  µl of the cell lysate stock solution was added to 6 wells. The first contained 50  µl of stop solution as mentioned earlier. 100  µl of enzyme substrate was then added to all the wells as fast as possible. After 3 minutes, 50  µl of stop solution was added to the second well, followed by the third 3 minutes later, and so on until the last well. The plate was then read at 410nm on the plate reader. This experiment was done twice to provide duplicates. Table 3. 96 well plate distribution (time (t) in minutes) 1 (t=0) 2 (t=3) 3 (t=6) 4 (t=9) 5 (t=12) 6 (t=15) A BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK B C Commercial ALP Commercial ALP Commercial ALP Commercial ALP Commercial ALP Commercial ALP D E Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate F G Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate Practical 1 Cell lysate H Provided Cell lysate Provided Cell lysate Provided Cell lysate Provided Cell lysate Provided Cell lysate Provided Cell lysate Results Table 4. 96 well plate absorbance (410nm) results 1 (t=0) 2 (t=3) 3 (t=6) 4 (t=9) 5 (t=12) 6 (t=15) A 0.284 0.303 0.288 0.344 0.294 0.290 B C 0.277 0.355 0.433 0.504 0.582 0.674 D E 0.662 0.396 0.483 0.635 0.685 1.131 F G 0.330 0.544 0.487 0.563 0.614 0.708 H 0.329 0.545 0.740 0.814 0.915 0.967 By using these absorbance, we can plot a graph of the absorbance versus the time for the various tested samples to analyse and compare them. Note that the results from well E1 and G2 have been omitted due to the errors occurred during pipetting (E1 well is t=0 but absorbance is abnormally high and G2 absorbance is abnormally high). Fortunately, these wells were part of a duplicate so the other result from the sample was kept. Figure 4. Graph of the absorbance over time of the commercial ALP, the cell lysate from practical 1 and the provided cell lysate. The activity of an enzyme can be measured by determining the rate of the formation of the product or the rate at which the substrate is used up. The rate of the reaction decreases when the substrate is being used up, therefore, the rate must be measured during the period when the formation of the product or decrease in substrate is linear with time. The rate of a reaction at time 0 is called the initial linear reaction rate (V=0min). By using the polynomial equations for each curve, an initial rate can be determined where V0=A410min-1. In other words, the value (b) in front of x in the quadratic equation y=ax2+bx+c is the initial rate of the reaction ( youtube vid). Assuming that 0.1 mM of the solution of the reaction product produces an absorbance of 1, we can determine the enzyme rate as shown below. Table 5. Initial rates for each sample Sample Initial rate (Abs/min) Enzyme rate (mM/Min) Practical 1 lysate 0.1059 0.01059 Blank 0.0336 0.00336 Commercial ALP 0.0695 0.00695 Provided ALP 0.2745 0.02745 Discussion By using this technique, we can calculate how fast an enzyme can catalyse a reaction. In this case, we can compare the rate of reaction of the cell lysate, the provided ALP and the commercial ALP to the blank sample as shown below: Cell lysate: (0.0059/0.00336) = 1.756 It can be said that the ALP present in the cell lysate from practical 1 sped up the reaction 1.756 times faster compared to the reaction without it. Commercial ALP: (0.00695/0.00336) = 2.065 It can be said that the commercial ALP sped up the reaction 2.065 times faster than without the commercial ALP. Provided ALP: (0.02745/0.00336) = 8.17 It can be said that the provided ALP sped up the reaction 8.17 times faster than without the provided ALP. Conclusion ALP is a widely-used enzyme in our body, it removes phosphate groups by a process called dephosphorisation. Its activity can be measured in vitro by monitoring its activity during a chemical reaction in controlled conditions. The experiment used different samples containing ALP to catalyse the reaction of p-nitrophenyl phosphate to form p-nitrophenol. In conclusion, the results confirmed that ALP can speed up a reaction and this acceleration was measured by comparing the rate of reaction compared to a blank sample.

Woman Warrior :: essays research papers

In the book The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Kingston, a story of a girl trapped between the culture of her family’s past and the culture currently surrounding her is presented. The girl, Maxine, enters into conflict with her mother and what can be explained as an old and traditional China. Maxine’s own beliefs are found in the newer American way of life with her attempts to assimilate to the culture, making it difficult for her to feel any relation between the two very different environments. It is through these tribulations that Maxine is a â€Å"woman warrior† coming to age as a Chinese-American.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Maxine, being of the first generation of her family to be born in America, only knows about China from what she hears in her mother’s â€Å"talk-stories.† These stories are told to act as lessons on how the Chinese people were and should be, and are often vary critical. In â€Å"No Name Woman,† the tale of Maxine’s aunt who was shunned from her family for having an affair shows how careful young women must be when growing up in Chinese culture. â€Å"My aunt haunts me—her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devoted pages to her†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (17). Maxine feels remorse and can relate to her aunt because she too feels a sense of alienation from her traditional Chinese and seemingly narrow-minded heritage.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  With the start of â€Å"At the Western Palace,† an encounter between Brave Orchid, Maxine’s mother, and Moon Orchid, her other aunt, shows Maxine how far removed from Chinese culture she really is. The daily routines, clothing, foods, and the style of eating all seem normal to Maxine, but are a real culture shock for recently arrived Moon Orchid. The false assumptions about American life that her mother helped plague her mind with, begin to die. America represents the new life and change, which Maxine and eventually her family long to be a part of. â€Å"Oh, Sister, I am so happy here. No one ever leaves. We are all women here.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Though struggles about her mother’s talk-stories, and her experiences in America with her family, Maxine works toward knowing what it is to be a Chinese-American.

Restatement of Financials

Form 10-Q is lied quarterly by a company and Form 8-K contains current reports that disclose specific events. If a company is audited and weaknesses are found, restatements to these statements may be necessary. In the case of USA Mobility, auditors did identify some areas that warranted a restatement while conducting and audit in the first quarter of 2013 the company's financial statements for the 2012 reporting year.USA Mobility Audit Committee determined through the audit performed that a material weakness in internal control over financial reporting and disclosure was identified within Amoco Software Incorporated that is owned and operated by USA Mobility. Amoco Software was acquired by USA Mobility on March 2, 2011. The auditors revealed Mammon's procedures in place for revenue recognition were poorly designed and did not allow for proper internal controls to be utilized. Revenue was being recognized by the company during quarters when it should not have been recognized.Upon this finding, USA Mobility had to determine the correct timeshare to recognize revenue for its software segment. Prior to the audit, the revenue for software operations was being recognized by using the residual method and the company would recognize revenue for software licenses upon completion of services. The company deemed services complete when the product was available for use by the customer. In addition, the company offered services after installations were completed for up to 90 days. Since the company offers post-install services, revenue recognition should be delayed until after that period expires.This determination was made when reviewing audit findings to erect prior reported revenue. The reported periods affected by this finding were the first three quarters of 2011. USA Mobility issued a press release which contained notification of the restatements for the first three quarters of 2011 and the late filing of the 2011 annual report for the company. Specifically, the compa ny addressed the changes to the financial statements in a press release. The main changes made to the financial statements affected software revenue and total revenue for the company.In the first quarter of 011 , the software segment revenue was adjusted from $4,799,000. 00 down to $2,146,000. 00. That is a decrease of 55%. In the second quarter, the software segment revenue was adjusted from down to $9,435,000. 00. That is a decrease of 28%. In the third quarter, the software segment revenue was adjusted from down to $11,191 ,OHO. O. That a decrease of 13%. USA Mobility also reported adjustments caused by the restatement to its total revenue for 2011. The first quarter revenue of $57,335,000. 00 was decreased by five percent because of the restatement.The second quarter revenue of $65,171 ,OHO. O was decreased by six percent and the third quarter revenue of $61 was decreased by three percent. The collective revenue of $242,907,000. 00 for 2011 was decreased by four percent as a res ult of the company's restatement. USA Mobility balance sheet also had to be adjusted. Deferred revenue was affected during each quarter during 2011. Each quarter showed a higher deferred revenue amount as a result of the correct method the company was using to recognize revenue to remain in compliance.The overall effects of the restatement were limited to the software segment of the company. In turn, these changes also affected the overall revenue numbers and the way the company reports deferred revenue for future purposes. The reduction in revenue did not have a negative impact on stockholders' earnings. The price of stock per share has remained steady prior to and since the announcement. USA Mobility did publish a press release to inform all parties with an interest about measures the company has taken to rectify the situation and will continue to use to remain in compliance for future audits.

Gender Bashing essays

Gender Bashing essays The Mens Right Movement: Male is Not a Four-Letter Word Jack Kammers article seeks to point out that negative aspects have stemmed from the growing womens liberation movement. This article does a good job bringing to light the anti-male feelings that are sometimes associated with the word feminism. However, it does not really have a concrete basis that supports this authors opinions. Kammers article does share one concept common among some of the other critiques I have read on this man vs. women phenomenon. That is, without a factual base they tend to sound like simple complaints. I feel that articles such as these tend to take attention off of real problems that are embedded in our society. They also lead other reader to perceive the whole subject as a joke rather than a social science seeking solutions to real problems. Kammer does take the time to include some statistics on the many ways a mans life is worse than that of a women, but these can be quickly thrown out. For example, women have typically not been allowed to work in death professions. I am sure that as our society grows everyone will have an equal chance at these wonderful jobs. I found it appalling that he even objected to differential treatment of children in hostage situations. I have shared some of the same feelings that Kramer describes, but I tend to ignore those as just differences of opinion or an ignorant person speaking to quickly. His use of the media portraying men as secret admirer and blood brother to the gang rapist is useless. The media will do anything to sell their product. That is something we can all agree on. We as a society are the police force that must control the media. Refuse to buy their product and they will change. I agree with Krammer in that many feminists tend to focus on mens shortcomings as a way to further their cause. ...