Revenue Recognition: Current Practice, Historical Abuses and a Possible Solution

Users of financial statements consider revenue to be a key indicator of financial performance. Thus, proper revenue recognition is important. This paper provides a discussion of revenue recognition principles and practices. A discussion is provided of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) conceptual framework as it applies to revenue recognition. In addition, a discussion is provided on SEC guidance and specific applications of revenue recognition. According to the FASB, there are over 200 pieces of “ad hoc” guidance for revenue recognition. Because of inconsistencies in this guidance, the FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have engaged in a project to create a single revenue-recognition standard. The current status of this project, which began in 2002, is analyzed in the final section of this paper

A Proposed Legal Framework for a Comprehensive Free Trade and Investment Agreement Between Canada and the United States

This Article examines some of the more recent problems involving Canadian-Unites States trade, and proposes a legal framework within which to formulate a comprehensive trade and investment agreement

Dynamic holographic storage in lithium niobate

A program was undertaken to improve the optical recording properties of LiNbO3 for holographic optical memory application. Iron, copper, and manganese doping were all found to increase the optical sensitivity of LiNbO3. Over two orders of magnitude improvement was obtained, resulting in an exposure of 366 wirojoule/sq mm to obtain 1% efficiency in LiNbO3:Fe. High :Fe. High quality pictorial information was stored in 1mm diameter holograms

A new optical recording medium

Method has been developed for doping lithium niobiate crystals with transition metal to increase rate at which crystal can record optical data. Discovery may facilitate development of system for analog storage of TV frames, printed pages, photographs, and other visual information

Renormalization study of two-dimensional convergent solutions of the porous medium equation

In the focusing problem we study a solution of the porous medium equation $u_t=\Delta (u^m)$ whose initial distribution is positive in the exterior of a closed non-circular two dimensional region, and zero inside. We implement a numerical scheme that renormalizes the solution each time that the average size of the empty region reduces by a half. The initial condition is a function with circular level sets distorted with a small sinusoidal perturbation of wave number $k\geq 3$. We find that for nonlinearity exponents m smaller than a critical value which depends on k, the solution tends to a self-similar regime, characterized by rounded polygonal interfaces and similarity exponents that depend on m and on the discrete rotational symmetry number k. For m greater than the critical value, the final form of the interface is circular.Comment: 26 pages, Latex, 13 ps figure

Floristic response to urbanization: Filtering of the bioregional flora in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Globally, urban plant populations are becoming increasingly important, as these plants play a vital role in ameliorating effects of ecosystem disturbance and climate change. Urban environments act as filters to bioregional flora, presenting survival challenges to spontaneous plants. Yet, because of the paucity of inventory data on plants in landscapes both before and after urbanization, few studies have directly investigated this effect of urbanization. METHODS: We used historical, contemporary, and regional plant species inventories for Indianapolis, Indiana USA to evaluate how urbanization filters the bioregional flora based on species diversity, functional traits, and phylogenetic community structure. KEY RESULTS: Approximately 60% of the current regional flora was represented in the Indianapolis flora, both historically and presently. Native species that survived over time were significantly different in growth form, life form, and dispersal and pollination modes than those that were extirpated. Phylogenetically, the historical flora represented a random sample of the regional flora, while the current urban flora represented a nonrandom sample. Both graminoid habit and abiotic pollination are significantly more phylogenetically conserved than expected. CONCLUSIONS: Our results likely reflect the shift from agricultural cover to built environment, coupled with the influence of human preference, in shaping the current urban flora of Indianapolis. Based on our analyses, the urban environment of Indianapolis does filter the bioregional species pool. To the extent that these filters are shared by other cities and operate similarly, we may see increasingly homogenized urban floras across regions, with concurrent loss of evolutionary information