PowerPoint and concept maps: a great double act

This article explores how concept maps can provide a useful addition to PowerPoint slides to convey interconnections of knowledge and help students see how knowledge is often non-linear. While most accounting educators are familiar with PowerPoint, they are likely to be less familiar with concept maps and this article shows how the tool can be used by students to construct their own concept maps and how educator-constructed concept maps can be used as quizzes to encourage more student participation in class

Quark Matter in QC(2)D

Results are presented from a numerical study of lattice QCD with gauge group SU(2) and two flavors of Wilson fermion at non-zero quark chemical potential mu >> T. Studies of the equation of state, the superfluid condensate, and the Polyakov line all suggest that in addition to the low density phase of Bose-condensed diquark baryons, there is a deconfined phase at higher quark density in which quarks form a degenerate system, whose Fermi surface is only mildly disrupted by Cooper pair condensation.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, contributed talk at "Quarks and Nuclear Physics", Madrid, 5th-10th June 200

Efficient contracting, earnings smoothing and managerial accounting discretion

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the contracting incentives (i.e. bonus plans, debt covenants, political costs hypotheses), and income smoothing can explain accounting choices in an emerging country, Egypt. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the ordinary least square regression model to examine the relationship between earnings management and reporting objectives. A sample of 438 non-financial firms listed on the Egyptian Exchange over the period 2005-2007 is used. Findings – The paper finds that the contracting objectives explain little of the variations in accounting choices (i.e. discretionary accruals) in the Egyptian context. However, the paper finds that mangers are likely to smooth the reported earnings by managing the accrual component in an attempt to reduce the fluctuation in reported earnings by increasing (decreasing) earnings when earnings are low (high) in attempt to reduce the variability of the reported earnings. Research limitations/implications – The empirical results rely on the ability of earnings management proxies to adequately capture earnings manipulation activities. Practical implications – The findings of the study should be of substantial interest to regulators and policy makers. The results implicitly contribute to the ongoing argument in relation to the optimal flexibility permitted by standard setting and the argument that tightening the accounting standards and mandating International Financial Reporting Standards are likely to improve reporting quality and reduce opportunistic earnings management. The results reveal that many of the weaknesses related to corporate reporting in emerging countries may result from the inadequate enforcement of the law and the weak legal protection of minority shareholders. The results also highlight the crucial role of understanding the reporting incentives, which is mainly shaped by institutional and market forces and the legal environment, in explaining accounting choices. Originality/value – Unlike previous studies that tested an individual objective, this study examines the trade-offs among various reporting objectives in an emerging economy

A Quarkyonic Phase in Dense Two Color Matter?

We present results from simulations of Two Color QCD with two Wilson quark flavors in the presence of a quark chemical potential mu at two different lattice spacings. The equation of state, conformal anomaly, superfluid order parameter and Polyakov line are all discussed. Our results suggest that the transition from hadronic to quark matter, and that from confined to deconfined matter occur at distinct values of mu, consistent with the existence of a quarkyonic phase in this model.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, references added and discussion of conformal anomaly extende

Two Color QCD beyond the BEC regime

We present results of simulations of Two Color QCD using two flavors of Wilson quark in the fundamental representation, at non-zero quark chemical potential mu, on an 8^3x16 lattice. Results for the quark number density, quark and gluon energy densities, and superfluid condensate are qualitatively distinct from the behaviour expected on the assumption that the dominant degrees of freedom are tightly bound scalar diquarks which Bose condense; rather the scaling with mu is more suggestive of a Fermi surface disrupted by a Cooper pair condensate. We also present evidence both for screening of the static potential, and color deconfinement, arising solely as a result of a non-zero quark density.Comment: 6 pages, contributed poster at Lattice 2005, Non-zero temperature and densit

Lattice simulations of 2-colour QCD with Wilson fermions

We report on the status of our simulations of two-colour QCD with two flavours of Wilson quarks, at nonzero chemical potential and diquark source. Preliminary results are presented for the static quark potential, gluon propagator, and meson and diquark spectrum.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, ptptex.cls. Talk by JIS at Finite Density QCD at Nara, 10-12 July 200

PRAXIS: a low background NIR spectrograph for fibre Bragg grating OH suppression

Fibre Bragg grating (FBG) OH suppression is capable of greatly reducing the bright sky background seen by near infrared spectrographs. By filtering out the airglow emission lines at high resolution before the light enters the spectrograph this technique prevents scattering from the emission lines into interline regions, thereby reducing the background at all wavelengths. In order to take full advantage of this sky background reduction the spectrograph must have very low instrumental backgrounds so that it remains sky noise limited. Both simulations and real world experience with the prototype GNOSIS system show that existing spectrographs, designed for higher sky background levels, will be unable to fully exploit the sky background reduction. We therefore propose PRAXIS, a spectrograph optimised specifically for this purpose. The PRAXIS concept is a fibre fed, fully cryogenic, fixed format spectrograph for the J and H-bands. Dark current will be minimised by using the best of the latest generation of NIR detectors while thermal backgrounds will be reduced by the use of a cryogenic fibre slit. Optimised spectral formats and the use of high throughput volume phase holographic gratings will further enhance sensitivity. Our proposal is for a modular system, incorporating exchangeable fore-optics units, integral field units and OH suppression units, to allow PRAXIS to operate as a visitor instrument on any large telescope and enable new developments in FBG OH suppression to be incorporated as they become available. As a high performance fibre fed spectrograph PRAXIS could also serve as a testbed for other astrophotonic technologies.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, published in Proc. SPIE 845