Corporate Governance and Leverage Mechanisms on Integrity of Financial Report: Conservatism Index Approach in BUMN

The integrity of financial statements is related to one of the characteristics required by IFRS, namely faithful representation. The financial statements that are presented must contain information that is relevant and reliable so that it has high integrity and can be used by stakeholders in making decisions. In reality, realizing the integrity of financial statements is a difficult thing. There have been several cases that cast doubt on the level of integrity of financial statements. One of them happened to PT Jiwasraya (Persero) recently. This research is aimed to examine the effect of corporate governance mechanisms proxied by (institutional ownership, proportion of independent commissioners, and audit committee meetings) and leverage on the integrity of financial statements using a conservatism index approach in the market book value. Firm size as a control variable. The population is BUMN listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2018 with a sample of 22 companies. The data analysis method used is panel data regression. The results of the common effect model test that only the audit committee meeting variable has a significant influence on the integrity of the financial statements, while the variable institutional ownership, the proportion of independent commissioners and leverage has an effect but is not significant on the integrity of the financial statement

Brazil elections cast doubt on Correios privatisation

Significance Since taking office, President Jair Bolsonaro has pledged a series of privatisations but with few advances to date. Finance Minister Paulo Guedes has recently stressed that the government wants to deliver the privatisation of Correios in 2022. In August, the Lower Chamber approved privatisation, but the Senate has postponed a vote on the issue. Impacts There will be no broad consensus among Brazilians in favour of privatising Correios. The benefits of the Correios privatisation remain unclear, undermining arguments in its favour. The government will try to accelerate privatisations as one of the pillars of its liberal economic agenda ahead of elections.

Smoking as an environmental hazard to the periodontal and peri-implant tissues: A brief review

While dental plaque is considered the etiological factor for the development of periodontal and peri-implant diseases, many studies from recent years point to smoking as the most significant environmental factor contributing to disease severity. This effect is evident at the epidemiological level as well as on our understanding of the biological mechanisms involved. The present review presents abundant scientific evidence showing that smoking negatively affects the local blood supply, interferes with the reaction of the immune system to bacterial insult, is toxic to gingival and periodontal ligament cells, impedes the response of the periodontal attachment apparatus to treatment, and is linked to dental implant failure. Over the past 30 years, more than 200 million people have died as a result of smoking tobacco use. There are more than 1 billion current smokers worldwide and these numbers are likely to increase over the coming years. And yet, the effect of smoking on periodontal and peri-implant health has been a controversial issue. It was argued, that it is difficult to prove such an effect due to poor adherence of smokers to oral hygiene, which creates a confounding factor inseparable from the effect of the smoking itself. Unfortunately, even some of the more recent publications cast doubt as for the importance of smoking cessation on peri-implant health, as a prerequisite for a successful treatment. The aim of the present review was to question the validity of these reports by presenting multiple evidence to support the quiet widely accepted common knowledge that is the numerous hazards to the oral biology which are the result of a heavy and prolonged smoking habit.

An Analysis of Joči’s Debated Paternity and His Role in the Altan Uruġ Royal Lineage of Činggis Khan

Research objectives: This article discusses Joči’s military-political role and status in the Mongol Empire (Yeke Mongol Ulus), beginning in the early thirteenth century and within the intra-dynastic relations of Činggis Khan’s chief sons. In particular, the article seeks to answer questions about Joči’s birth. Discrepancies between the Secret History of the Mongols and other written sources cast doubt on whether Joči was even a legitimate son of Činggis Khan, let alone his eldest one. In addition, this article includes an analysis of Joči’s place within the family and the traditional legal system of the medieval Mongols based on the principles of majorat succession outlined in the Mongol Empire. It establishes evidence of his legitimacy within the Činggisid dynasty’s imperial lineage (altan uruġ) – a point of view supported by his military-political career, his pivotal role in the western campaigns, his leadership at the siege of Khwārazm, and the process of division of the ulus of Činggis Khan. Research materials: This article makes use of Russian, English, and Turkic (Kazakh, Tatar, etc.) translations of key primary sources including the Secret History of the Mongols and works of authors from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries, including Al-Nasawī, Shіhāb al-Dīn al-Nuwayrī, ‘Alā’ al-Dīn ’Aṭā-Malik Juvāynī, Minhāj al-Dīn Jūzjānī, Zhao Hong, Peng Daya, John of Plano Carpini, William of Rubruck, Jamāl al-Qarshī, Rashīd al-Dīn, Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī, Uluġbeg, Ötämiš Hājī, Lubsan Danzan, Abu’l-Ghāzī, and Saγang Sečen. New secondary works regarding Joči published by modern Kazakh, Russian, Tatar, American, French, Chinese, Korean and other scholars were also consulted. Results and novelty of the research: Taking into consideration certain economic and legal traits of the medieval Mongols, their traditional practices, military-political events, and longterm developments in the Mongol Empire’s history, descriptions of Joči being no more than a “Merkit bastard” are clearly not consistent. The persisting claims can be traced to doubts about Joči’s birth included in the Secret History of the Mongols, the first extensive written record of the medieval Mongols which had a great impact on the work of later historians, including modern scholars. Some researchers suspect this allegation may have been an indirect result of Möngke Khan inserting it into the Secret History. This article argues that the main motivation was Batu’s high military-political position and prestige in the Yeke Mongol Ulus. After Ögödei Khan’s death, sons and grandsons of Ögödei and Ča’adai made various attempts to erode Batu’s significant position in the altan uruġ by raising questions regarding his genealogical origin. This explains why doubts about Joči’s status in the imperial lineage appeared so widely following his death in an intra-dynastic propaganda struggle waged between the houses of Joči and Тolui and the opposing houses of Ča’adai and Ögödei’s sons. This conflict over the narrative was engendered by the struggle for supreme power in the Mongol Empire and the distribution of conquered lands and property.

The Agricultural Settlement of the Arabah and the Political Ecology of Zionism

Agricultural settlement geared to capitalist commodity production and accompanied by massive ecological interventions has historically been central to the Zionist colonial project of creating a permanent Jewish presence in the “Land of Israel.” The hyperarid southern region known as the Central Arabah is an instructive edge-case: in the 1960s, after the expulsion of the bedouin population, cooperative settlements were established here and vegetables produced through “Hebrew self-labor,” with generous assistance from the state. In the 1990s the region was again transformed as the importation of migrant workers from Thailand enabled farmers to expand cultivation of bell peppers for global markets. But today ecological destruction, depletion of water resources, and global warming cast doubt over the viability of settlement in this climatically extreme region. I locate the settlements of the Arabah within the historical political ecology of the Zionist movement, arguing that their current fragility exposes the essential precarity of capitalist colonization.

Partisan Strategy and the Adoption of Same-Day Registration in the American States

This study seeks to explain state adoptions of same-day registration (SDR), with a focus on determining whether the Democratic (Republican) Party’s support of (resistance to) this impactful voting reform is driven by strategic electoral considerations. I find that states have an increased probability of enacting the reform when legislative Democrats are in the precarious position that comes with having just experienced minority status in one or both chambers. Relatedly, I demonstrate that the presence of a Republican legislature does not make adoption less likely until the size of the Black population reaches a certain threshold. In fact, provided the Black population is small enough, Republican control of the legislature encourages reform. The results offer conflicting evidence, however, that large Latino populations deter the GOP from establishing SDR. Considered together, the results cast doubt on the claim that either party’s position is informed by principle alone.

Whence Orycteropus? The correct authorship and date for the generic name of the aardvark (Mammalia, Tubulidentata, Orycteropodidae)

All else being equal, the principle of priority in zoological taxonomic nomenclature gives precedence to the earliest name for a particular taxon. Determining the origin of some late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century taxonomic names, however, can be vexing, particularly when the history of a name was never completely documented in contemporary synonymies. The authorship and date for Orycteropus Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1796: 102, the genus-group name for the African aardvark, Orycteropus afer (Pallas, 1766), has been variously ascribed to at least four authors other than É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Using digitally imaged publications now available in a variety of internet-accessible libraries, I traced the comprehensive history of the name and show how and, to some extent, why its origin became obscured. É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s original description was re-published twice, most likely to make the description more widely available. Rather than reinforce his authorship for the name, however, the surprising consequence of the multiple publications was to cast doubt on it.

The Pragmatic American Revisited: A Direct Replication of Pickett and Baker (2014)

In 2014, Pickett and Baker cast doubt on the scholarly consensus that Americans are pragmatic about criminal justice. Previous research suggested this pragmaticism was evidenced by either null or positive relationships between seemingly opposite items (i.e., between dispositional and situational crime attributions and between punitiveness and rehabilitative policy support). Pickett and Baker (2014) argued that because these studies worded survey items in the same positive direction, respondents’ susceptibility to acquiescence bias led to artificially inflated positive correlations. Using a simple split-ballot experiment, they manipulated the direction of survey items and demonstrated bidirectional survey items resulted in negative relationships between attributions and between support for punitive and rehabilitative policies. We replicated Pickett and Baker’s (2014) methodology with a nationally representative sample of American respondents supplemented by a diverse student sample. Our results were generally consistent, and, in many cases, effect sizes were stronger than those observed in the original study. Americans appear much less pragmatic when survey items are bidirectional. Yet, we suggest the use of bidirectional over unidirectional survey items trades one set of problems for another. Instead, to reduce acquiescence bias and improve overall data quality, we encourage researchers to adopt item-specific questioning.

From Extraordinary Success to No Considerable Results: Victorian Music Entrepreneurialism and the Crystal Palace Brass Band Competition 1860–1863

The July 1860 Crystal Palace Brass Band contest brought brass bands out of their heartlands to London in unprecedented numbers, The Times (12 July 1860, 9), lauding its success as ‘quite extraordinary’. This landmark event was repeated in three successive years, but in 1863 it was abruptly terminated, and no cogent explanation has been established for its failure. The entrepreneur organizing the contests, Enderby Jackson, later wrote in his autobiography that other business dealings prevented him from further involvement in the series. Jackson had made full use of his talents and contacts to bring these remarkable working-class musical ensembles to the emergent national attraction that was the Crystal Palace. However, Jackson's manipulation of publicity and managerial style obstruct easy analysis of the contests. Moreover, Jackson later sought to protect his legacy by conjuring a smokescreen in his memoirs to obscure the real reasons for the failure of the Crystal Palace contests after 1863. The entrepreneurial environment is never a stable one, and it should not be presumed that the accolades accorded to the opening contest would translate into its continuance on an annual basis. However, the fact that the contests were attended by many thousands of visitors each year and Jackson's assertion that they were a financial success stand in stark contrast to what is implied by their sudden end. This article demonstrates how close examination of previously unconsidered letters, surviving documentation, and other sources cast doubt on whether the contest series was ever an extraordinary success.