Accounting

Information Quality (IQ) Management plays a vital role in the process of Accounting Information Systems (AIS) adoption. IQ is emerging as a well-known business problem in modern organisations. Specifically, the level of information quality is critical for all accounting processes, and has a significant impact on business decision-making. It must be noted that modern organisations rely heavily on the use of accounting information systems for their accounting processes. There is a growing need for research to provide insights into issues and solutions related to IQ in AIS adoption. This research aims to explore ways of managing information quality and AIS adoption to investigate the relationship between the IQ issues and AIS adoption process. This study has led to the development of a framework to guide the organisations on implementing an adequate IQ management approach during the system adoption process. This research was done on 44 respondents at ten organisations within manufacturing firms in Thailand. The findings of the research's empirical evidence suggest that IQ dimensions in AIS adoption provide assistance in all processes of decision making. This research provides empirical evidence that information quality of AIS adoption affect decision making and suggests that these variables should be considered in adopting AIS in order to improve the effectiveness of AIS.

This paper aims to understand the challenges of performance measurement implementation in higher education sector in Sudan. A qualitative case study approach is used in this study in which 23 semi-structured interviews with both internal and external administrators and directors were conducted. Documentary materials and observations are also employed to support the data generated from the interviews. The case findings reveal that several performance measurement practices in the University are adopted in a ceremonial way, which are driven by external pressure. An absence of clear strategies and plans to translate its mission and vision into workable programmes, the resistance to changes in an already established system of administration, insufficient governmental funding, and the lack of competent personnel in the field of quality and self-evaluation are the major challenges of performance measurement in the case University. Hence, the management of the University should work more closely with the concerned governmental authorities to control and overcome these challenges for successful implementation of performance measurement systems.

Achieving economic efficiency is a necessary, but not a singular, requirement of business sustainability. Stakeholders demand business organisations are socially and environmentally responsible, and balancing financial performance and corporate sustainability are considered a major challenge in today’s economic environment. These challenges have triggered a growing interest in social and environmental research among academicians, governmental and professional bodies, and environmentalists. Numerous studies in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have focused on the issues of corporate social reporting, but limited attention has been given to investigate the question of how social and environmental issues are managed internally. Moreover, most of the previous studies in this area are characterized as normative and descriptive, using quantitative research methods. This paper accentuates the importance of more engagement with practice in social and environmental accountin...

The purpose of this study is to identify and understand the barriers to the balanced scorecard (BSC) implementation in the Sudanese banking sector. To achieve the research objective a qualitative approach is used. The research data were gathered by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with the managers and senior staff of 10 banks working in Sudan. The findings of this research demonstrated that the major barriers of the BSC implementation in the Sudanese banking sector are as follows: absence of top management motivation and commitment, lack of awareness, lack of training, the high cost of the BSC implementation, the claim of current system sufficiency, difficulties in measuring BSC perspectives, and insufficient IT support. The findings suggest that the top management of the banking sector should be encouraged by the Central Bank of Sudan to consider using the BSC as a priority and include it within their strategic plans, initiate budgets and other resources for better BSC imp...

Web-based courses are promising in that they are effective and have the possibility of their instructional design being improved over time. However, the assessments of said courses are criticized in terms of their validity. This paper is an exploratory case study regarding the validity of the assessment system used in a semi presential web-based course. The course uses an authentic assessment system that includes online forums, online tests, self-evaluations, and the assessment of e-learner processes and products by a tutor, peers, and an expert. The validity of the system was checked using internal and external criteria. The results show that the authentic assessment system addresses technical problems, especially regarding reliability of instruments. Some suggestions are proposed to strengthen authentic assessment in web-based courses and to test it.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide an overall insight into the factors which undermine safe internet access for students. Safer internet access for students is an issue raised during recent years as the web becomes increasingly more accessible to children. However, recent research studies and initiatives demonstrated a number of potential online risks for students. To be able to protect children from potentially hazardous content it is first necessary to have a good understanding of the existing online threats. Design/methodology/approach -Initially, prior works on online safety problems for children are reviewed and a list of online risks is assembled based on the previous studies and on information gathered from web sites dedicated to safer internet access. Then, based on this listing, an access log of unsupervised internet access of high school students is analyzed to understand which of these risks can be identified. Findings -The review of previous works on the topic of safer internet access produces a list of diverse problems for unsupervised internet access for children. The results of the log files evaluation show that several of the identified online risks existed in the students' visited sites and that the students are able to bypass the applied restrictions to visit their preferred sites. Originality/value -The list of online risks can be used by researchers, teachers, parents, educational technologists, web designers, school administrators and libraries to obtain a clearer view of the internet safety issues. Further, this list could be used for directing future research projects on the social consequences of internet usage for children.

The aim of this study is to investigate the main causes of stress for employees working in different industries in Sukkur and their vicinity. Stress is taken as dependent variable whereas independent variables are categorized into extra-organizational and intra-organizational stressors. Data were collected from different sectors such service, manufacturing and distribution including banks, insurance companies, manufacturing (LU Continental Biscuit Factory Sukkur and Engro Foods) and distribution (Medicine distribution firms). Data were collected through self-administrative questionnaire consisting of 20 questions. Respondents were only the employees working at operational level. From the results it was quite clear that employees working in different areas feel great stress, there were different causes due to which employee experience stress. Findings have been classified into extra-organizational and intra-organizational stressors. Extra-organizational stressors include variables such as climate, economic conditions and employee family, whereas intra-organizational stressors include variables such as company policies, working conditions, and leadership, workload and office timings. According to results 33% of overall stress is caused by factors outside organization whereas 67% stress is due to internal factors. It was also found that major cause of stress is workload (25%) because employees are been utilized more than their capabilities, second major cause for stress is timings (16%) as employees work for long hours, next cause for stress is climate (11%) as employees especially from distribution side have to go outside offices to meet their clients and customers so hot weather, traveling distances and transportation system really give them tough time which result in stress. Next stressor is leadership as leader-employee relationship is needed to be very good but according to some employees their bosses do not behave well due to which they feel stressed. Other causes include economic, family, company policies and working conditions with percentage of 11%, 8%, 7% and 7% respectively.

Abstrak : Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi gejala ponteng di kalangan pelajar sekolah menengah di Johor Bahru. Antara faktor ponteng yang dikaji ialah faktor sikap pelajar, suasana sekolah, faktor guru, faktor rakan sebaya, faktor keluarga dan faktor pengaruh media elektronik. Sampel kajian terdiri dari 202 orang pelajar dari tingkatan dua dan empat. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan faktor guru merupakan faktor paling dominan yang mendorong pelajar melakukan ponteng sekolah. Kajian ini juga mendapati bahawa tidak terdapat hubungan yang signifikan antara faktor ponteng seperti faktor sikap pelajar, suasana sekolah, guru, rakan sebaya, keluarga dan media elektronik dengan pendapatan keluarga. Wujud juga hubungan yang sinifikan antara gejala ponteng dengan pencapaian akademik. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan tidak terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan antara ponteng hati, ponteng kerana bangun lewat dan ponteng kelas dengan jantina. Namun, wujud perbezaan yang signifikan antara ponteng sekolah dengan jantina di kalangan pelajar.

West Nile virus (WNV) causes severe neurological disease in less than 1% of infections. However, meningoencephalitis may be more common in immunosuppressed transplant patients. In 2002, a WNV outbreak occurred in our region. To determine the spectrum of disease of community acquired WNV infection and assess public health behavior patterns in transplant recipients, we carried out a seroprevalence study. Patients were enrolled from outpatient transplant clinics in October 2002 and sera were screened for WNV. Questionnaires about WNV were provided to patients. Eight hundred sixteen organ transplant patients were enrolled. The seroprevalence of WNV IgM was 2/816 (0.25%; 95% CI 0.03-0.88%). By extrapolation to our entire transplant population of 2360 patients, and using data from hospital-based surveillance, the risk of meningoencephalitis in a transplant patient infected with WNV is estimated to be 40% (95% CI 16-80%). With regards to knowledge and behavior, 56% patients knew of and 47% used at least one protective measure against WNV. Only 33% used insect repellent. The risk of meningoencephalitis in transplant recipients is much higher than in the general population. There is incomplete knowledge and poor rates of compliance amongst patients with regards to WNV prevention.

is an emerging flavivirus that has caused frequent epidemics since 1996. Besides natural transmission by mosquitoes, WNV can also be transmitted through blood transfusion and organ transplantation, thus heightening the urgency of development of a specific and rapid serologic assay of WNV infection. The current immunoassays lack specificity because they are based on detection of antibodies against WNV structural proteins and immune responses to structural proteins among flaviviruses cross-react to each other. Here, we describe microsphere immunoassays that detect antibodies to nonstructural proteins 3 and 5 (NS3 and NS5). In contrast to immunoassays based on viral envelope and NS3 proteins, the NS5-based assay (

Wilson et al., J. Virol. 72:3082-3087, 1998). We now extend that analysis to show that additional passage of isolated virus, named here PERV-NIH, through a human cell line yielded a viral population with a higher titer of infectious virus on human cells than the initial isolate. We show that in a single additional passage on a human cell line, the increase in infectivity for human cells is accounted for by selection against variants carrying pig-tropic envelope sequences (PERV-C) as well as by enrichment for replication-competent genomes.

As part of the evaluation of porcine cells, tissues, and organs intended for transplantation into humans, we investigated the conditions required to induce expression and release of porcine endogenous retrovirus (PoEV) from primary cells. Pigs contain endogenous retroviral sequences encoding infectious retrovirus, yet little is known about the conditions required to activate the expression and release of PoEV from primary cells. We show here that mitogenic activation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) isolated from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) miniature pig and the Yucatan pig resulted in the activation and release of an infectious type C retrovirus. Coculture of activated porcine PBMC with pig or human cell lines resulted in the transfer and expression of PoEV-specific sequences and the establishment of a productive infection. Sequence comparison of portions of the PoEV pol gene expressed in pig cell lines productively infected with virus derived from NIH miniature pig and Yucatan pig PBMC revealed marked similarity, suggesting that one or a few loci may be capable of being activated to yield an infectious virus. These findings demonstrate that the presence of endogenous viruses in source animals needs to be carefully considered when the infectious disease potential of xenotransplantation is being assessed.