scholarly journals Employee Benefit Plan Audits: The Current State and Future Direction

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. A1-A6
Author(s):  
Christine M. Porter

SUMMARY Employee benefit plans represent vital components of our economic system and are a critical employment and retirement consideration for many individuals and the organizations that employ them. Surprisingly, the extant academic research and official authoritative standards on audits of employee benefit plans are sparse. This paper describes the current state of employee benefit plan audit quality, focusing on a recent report from the Department of Labor. Next, a proposed statement on auditing standards specific to employee benefit plans is described and summarized. Concluding, I provide insights on potential future directions for this industry of audits.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S249-S250
Author(s):  
Mengzhao Yan

Abstract Home modification has been perceived as an effective method to make current dwelling units more age-friendly and improve the well-being of older adults. In China, a country with an increasing number of older adults, home modification research is still in its infancy. By typing “适老化改造” (home modification for older adults) as a keyword for the theme of articles in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), the most authoritative and comprehensive database for academic publication in China, only 158 related papers are found to be published until the end of 2017, among which the first was published in 2009. With an aim to determine the current state of home modification research in older adults and to determine what could be done to facilitate sufficient research on this topic, the present study conducted a systematical review of the 158 papers about home modification for older adults published in China between 2009 and 2017. Based on the systematical review, the present paper identifies four barriers to conducting this line of research and puts forward six practical suggestions for future research studies in this area so as to contribute to building age-friendly dwellings and promoting age-friendly China.


Author(s):  
Sabine Sonnentag ◽  
Ute Stephan ◽  
Johannes Wendsche ◽  
Jessica de Bloom ◽  
Christine Syrek ◽  
...  

While academic research on recovery was rather segregated between occupational health psychology and management research at the beginning of the 20s century and streams of research developed independently, recent developments hint at a closing divide and better integration of recovery research across disciplines. This for example becomes evident in publications of researchers across the traditional outlets within both fields, as well as increasing close collaborations of researchers firmly rooted in one of the fields. In preparation of this special issue, the editors were interested in whether this development represents a convergence or even a true merging of research in these different disciplines. We therefore interviewed Prof. Sabine Sonnentag as expert from occupational health psychology research and Prof. Ute Stephan with expertise in management research. Both are excellent and world-famous researchers in their disciplines. We discussed the current state, the advances during the last years, and the future directions of recovery research in their respective fields. We also talked about their perspectives on integrative topics and about specific issues in both domains that might stimulate a new recovery management research agenda.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 490-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Laws ◽  
Ali Shaaban ◽  
Khondaker Miraz Rahman

ABSTRACTInfections of antibiotic-resistant pathogens pose an ever-increasing threat to mankind. The investigation of novel approaches for tackling the antimicrobial resistance crisis must be part of any global response to this problem if an untimely reversion to the pre-penicillin era of medicine is to be avoided. One such promising avenue of research involves so-called antibiotic resistance breakers (ARBs), capable of re-sensitising resistant bacteria to antibiotics. Although some ARBs have previously been employed in the clinical setting, such as the β-lactam inhibitors, we posit that the broader field of ARB research can yet yield a greater diversity of more effective therapeutic agents than have been previously achieved. This review introduces the area of ARB research, summarises the current state of ARB development with emphasis on the various major classes of ARBs currently being investigated and their modes of action, and offers a perspective on the future direction of the field.


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. A17-A23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger D. Martin

SUMMARY Regulators, audit firms, and academic researchers are exploring issues related to Audit Quality Indicators (AQIs), including how to optimize their use and how to anticipate the consequences of measuring, reporting, and monitoring AQIs on a routine basis. This article describes the main topics addressed by a panel discussion and participant breakout group discussions at a 2012 symposium hosted by the Center for Audit Quality. Topics include how AQIs could be useful to audit stakeholders, what we know from practice about the current state of AQIs, and how academic research might inform the development and use of AQIs by stakeholders.


2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Bucsky

Abstract The freight transport sector is a low profit and high competition business and therefore has less ability to invest in research and development in the field of autonomous vehicles (AV) than the private car industry. There are already different levels of automation technologies in the transport industry, but most of these are serving niche demands and answers have yet to be found about whether it would be worthwhile to industrialise these technologies. New innovations from different fields are constantly changing the freight traffic industry but these are less disruptive than on other markets. The aim of this article is to show the current state of development of freight traffic with regards to AVs and analyse which future directions of development might be viable. The level of automation is very different in the case of different transport modes and most probably the technology will favour road transport over other, less environmentally harmful traffic modes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafał Rusiecki ◽  
Jakub Witkowski ◽  
Joanna Jaszczewska-Adamczak

Background: Mouse Double Minute 2 protein (MDM2) is a cellular regulator of p53 tumor suppressor (p53). Inhibition of the interaction between MDM2 and p53 proteins is a promising anticancer therapy. Objective: This updated patent review is an attempt to compile the research and achievements of the various researchers working on small molecule MDM2 inhibitors from 2010 to date. We provide an outlook into the future for therapy based on MDM2 inhibition by presenting an overview of the most relevant patents which have recently appeared in the literature. Methods: Literature and recent patents focusing on the anticancer potential of MDM2-p53 interaction inhibitors and its applications have been analyzed. We put the main emphasis on the most perspective compounds which are or were examined in clinical trials. Results: Literature data indicated that MDM2 inhibitors are therapeutically effective in specific types of cancer or non-cancer diseases. A great number of patents and research work around new MDM2- p53 interaction inhibitors, possible combinations, new indications, clinical regimens in previous years prove that this targeted therapy is in the scope of interest for many business and academic research groups. Conclusion: Novel MDM2 inhibitors thanks to higher potency and better ADME properties have shown effectiveness in preclinical and clinical development however the final improvement of therapeutic potential for MDM2 inhibitors might depend on the useful combination therapy and exploring new cancer and non-cancer indications.


Author(s):  
Mohd Dilshad Ansari ◽  
Ekbal Rashid ◽  
S Siva Skandha ◽  
Suneet Kumar Gupta

Background: image forensics deal with the problem of authentication of pictures or their origins. There are two types of forensics techniques namely active and passive. Passive forgery is also known as blind forensics technique. In passive forgery, copy-move (cloning) image forensics is most common forgery technique. In this approach, an object or region of a picture is copied and positioned somewhere else in the same image. Active method used watermarking to solve picture genuineness problem. It has limitations like human involvement or particularly equipped cameras. To overwhelm these limitations, numerous passive authentication approaches have been developed. Moreover, both approaches do not require any prior information about the picture. Objective: The prime objective of this survey is to provide an inclusive summary as well as recent advancement, challenges and future direction in image forensics. In Today’s digital era the digital pictures and videos are having great impact on our life as well as society, as they became the important source of information. Though earlier it was very difficult to doctor the picture, nowadays digital pictures can be doctored easily with the help of editing tools and internet. These practices make pictures as well as videos genuineness deceptive. Conclusion: This paper presents the current state-of- the-art of passive (cloning) image forensics techniques, challenges and future direction of this research domain. Further, the major open issues in developing a robust cloning image forensics detector with their performance are discussed. Lastly, the available benchmark datasets are also discussed


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1880533
Author(s):  
Tiliksew Addis ◽  
Abera Kachi ◽  
Jun Wang

i-Perception ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 204166952110203
Author(s):  
Jonas K. Olofsson ◽  
Ingrid Ekström ◽  
Maria Larsson ◽  
Steven Nordin

Olfaction, the sense of smell, is characterized by a notable age-dependency such that aging individuals are more likely to have poor olfactory abilities. These impairments are considered to be mostly irreversible and as having potentially profound effects on quality of life and food behavior, as well as constituting warning signs of mortality, cognitive dysfunction, and dementia. Here, we review the current state of research on aging and olfaction, focusing on five topics which we regard to be of particular relevance for the field: nutrition and health, cognition and dementia, mortality, environment and genetics, and training-based enhancement. Under each of these headlines, we provide a state-of-the-art overview and discuss gaps in our knowledge which might be filled by further research. Understanding how olfactory abilities are diminished in aging, and how they may be alleviated or recovered, involves a set of challenging tasks for researchers in the years to come.


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