Key audit risks and audit procedures during the initial year of the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of audit reports 2019-2020

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore audit procedure disclosures related to key audit risks, during the prior year and the initial year of the COVID-19 outbreak, by reporting on matters published in over 3,000 Australian statutory audit reports during 2019 and 2020. Design/methodology/approach This study partially uses latent semantic analysis methods to apply textual and readability analyses to external audit reports in Australia. The authors measure the tone of the audit reports using the Loughran and McDonald (2011) approach. Findings The authors find that 3% of audit procedures undertaken during 2020 were designed to address audit risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a percentage of total audit procedures undertaken during 2020, the authors find that smaller practitioners reported much less audit procedures related to COVID-19 audit risks than most larger audit firms. Finally, the textual analysis further found differences in the sentiment or tone of words used by different auditors in 2020, but differences in sentiment or tone were not found when 2020 was compared to the prior year 2019. Originality/value This study provides early evidence on whether auditors designed audit procedures to deal specifically with audit risks that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic and on the extent and nature of those audit procedures. The study will help policymakers to better understand whether Key Audit Matters provided informational value to investors during a time of global crisis.

Evaluation of a breastmilk hand expression toolkit: the M.I.L.K survey study

Background Breastmilk hand expression (BMHE) is recommended to promote lactation, relieve breast engorgement, and collect milk for future infant feedings. Resources to teach this skill are limited and infrequently developed in partnership with the obstetrical population. In collaboration with maternity care experts and individuals with recent breastfeeding experience, we designed a one-page toolkit that describes the process of BMHE and includes step-by-step instructions and images to illustrate the technique. This study aimed to evaluate the readability, clarity of content, layout, and informational value of this BMHE toolkit. Methods Individuals who intended to breastfeed, were currently breastfeeding, or had recently breastfed were electronically surveyed and completed a two-part survey that consisted of radio, multi-select, Likert scale, and open-ended questions. Part one captured sociodemographic factors, obstetrical history, and breastfeeding practices. Part two collected feedback on the BMHE toolkit. Participants were recruited electronically through social media and posters were circulated in antenatal and postnatal care settings in Ottawa, Canada between November 2020 and February 2021. Results Of the 123 participants, 117 (95.1%) had heard of hand expression prior to reviewing the toolkit and 99 (80.5%) had hand expressed before. Among the 48 participants who were no longer exclusively breastfeeding at the time of the survey, 22 (45.8%) had exclusively breastfed their infant for at least six months and 7 (14.6%) had discontinued exclusive breastfeeding within the first month. When asked about the BMHE toolkit, 118 (95.9%) participants said it was informative, 115 (93.5%) said it was easy to understand, and 114 (92.7%) said it was well laid-out. When asked about information seeking behaviours, participants indicated a preference for online resources (58.5%) and video resources (22.0%). Conclusions The BMHE toolkit was well received by participants and the feedback was favourable overall. The survey feedback will be used to create a revised version of the toolkit that has been validated by the obstetrical patient population. Future research should focus on identifying implementation strategies to optimize the use of the toolkit and increase its effectiveness as an educational resource to teach participants correctly BMHE.

Informational Value of Proadrenomedullin Blood Levels in Patients with Septic Shock, Once Measured Upon Admission to ICU

The objective: to assess the information value of proadrenomedullin (PAM), once measured upon admission to ICU in predicting mortality and differential diagnosis of septic and hypovolemic shock.Subjects and Methods. A prospective cohort retrospective study was carried out. 134 patients in a state of shock were included in the study. Of these, 125 patients had septic shock; 9 ‒ hypovolemic one. The diagnosis of septic shock was established according to the Sepsis-3 criteria. To compare hypovolemic and septic shock, blood levels of proadrenomedullin (PAM), procalcitonin (PCT) and lactate were tested in 9 patients with obvious hypovolemic shock. Samples (venous blood) were collected within 24 hours from the moment the vasopressors began to be used in ICU or by the ambulance team (EMS).Results. The ROC analysis showed comparable predictive value with APACHE II, SOFA and lactate scales in patients with septic shock with cut-off > 4.23 nmol/L. The range of PAM values in patients with septic shock was Me 4.56 (2.9‒6.7) in patients with hypovolemic shock – Me 0.6 (0.1‒1.4).Conclusion. Proadrenomedullin can be used for differential diagnosis of septic shock and hypovolemic shock. Blood levels greater than 2.9 nmol/L are of absolute value for the diagnosis of septic shock. Procalcitonin is inferior to PAM within the range of 1.0–6.45 ng/ml. PAM unlike SCT is a statistically significant predictor of global outcome in septic shock along with lactate and scales. But such scales as SOFA and ARACНE-II are more laborious in comparison with testing proadrenomedullin blood level.

The role of procalcitonin and lactate at single determination in the intensive care unit in the diagnosis and prognosis of hypovolemic and distributive (septic) shock

Introduction. The greatest difficulties arise in the differential diagnosis of hypovolemic or distributive (septic) shock. The aim of this study was to critically analyze the information value of the blood plasma content of lactate and procalcitonin (PCT) in patients with septic and hypovolemic shock.Materials and methods. The diagnosis of «Sepsis» and «Septic shock» in the study was established according to the criteria of «Sepsis-3». 143 IRCs were filled, 34 of them with septic shock, 44 IRCs with hypovolemic, 65 IRCs with sepsis and organ dysfunction (OD).Results. When determining the content of PCT in the blood plasma in patients with septic and hypovolemic shock, we found a statistically significant difference. The level of PKT in infectious shock —33.3 (95% CI 7.9 — 58.0) ng / ml was higher than hypovolemic-0.9 (95% CI 0.43 — 6.45) ng/ml on average more than 30 times. In contrast to PCT, the content of lactate in the blood plasma did not carry a differential diagnostic value. Once measured at admission to the ICU, the level of PCT has no informational significance and does not indicate a likely outcome of the disease, complicated by the development of septic and hemorrhagic shock. Together with the low predictive ability of the nature of shock, lactate was highly informative in relation to the outcome of the disease, complicated by the development of shock syndrome.Discussion. In our analysis, it is obvious that there were observations when the PCT level during hypovolemia was noticeably higher than normal, reaching a maximum of 6.4 ng / ml. Apparently, there was a combination of factors with an obvious activation of a trigger that affects its libration or the presence of endotoxinemia in hypovolemic shock in these specific patients. The informational value of PCT is not absolute and, according to meta-analyzes, is about 80%.Conclusion. The blood content of procalcitonin in shock of an infectious nature was more than 30 times higher than the hypovolemic level on average. The informational value of procalcitonin in terms of predicting the course of the disease in septic and hypovolemic shock is absent. In the absence of predicting the nature of the shock, lactate is informative about the outcome of the shock. The possibility of increasing the blood lactate content in severe hemorrhagic shock with renal damage was noted.

INTERNATIONAL AND GLOBAL LANGUAGES: CRITERIA, RATINGS, FORECASTS

The article examines the criteria on the basis of which ratings of international languages are compiled and their future is predicted. Language’s chances of becoming international are not highly dependent on its demographic power, structural advantages or ease of learning. What matters most is the influence that speakers of the language have on other peoples. The criteria of «internationality» of the language actually coincide with the criteria of its influence, communicative value, social prestige, sociolinguistic weight. The ratings of the influence of national languages are based on various criteria: state status, communicative potential, economic power, the number of people studying it as a foreign language. These ratings reveal more essential criteria of an international language: prevalence on several continents, the status of an official language in international organizations, value as a source of modern knowledge, a large number of its speakers as a second. A specific feature that brings the international language to the class of world languages should be recognized as its worldwide prevalence. This language is used all over the world, it is spoken (as the first or second) by the majority of the world’s population, its world status is recognized in all countries. The composition of the club of leading languages is constantly changing: some languages come to it, others decrease — depending on the military-political, demographic, economic and cultural success of their speakers. Although the number of speakers of English as a second language is growing steadily, its dominance should be considered as temporary. A new hierarchy of languages may emerge in the middle of 21st century, with other major languages — Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi/Urdu, competing equally with English in their respective regions. Although state status of the Ukrainian language creates favorable preconditions for its development, it could spread much faster due to its informational value, intellectual power, cultural attractiveness and economic success of Ukraine.

Social Exchange of Motivated Beliefs

We use laboratory experiments to study whether biases in beliefs grow more severe when people socially exchange these beliefs with one another. We elicit subjects’ (naturally biased) beliefs about their relative performance in an intelligence quotient (IQ) test and allow them to update these beliefs in real time. Part of the way through the task we give each subject access to the beliefs of a counterpart who performed similarly on the test and allow them both to observe the evolution of one another’s beliefs. We find that subjects respond to one another’s beliefs in a highly asymmetric way, causing a severe amplification of subjects’ initial bias. We find no such patterns in response to objective public signals or in control treatments without social exchange or scope for motivated beliefs. We also provide evidence that the pattern is difficult to reconcile with Bayesianism and standard versions of confirmation bias. Overall, our results suggest that bias amplification is likely driven by “motivated assignment of accuracy” to others’ beliefs: subjects selectively attribute higher informational value to social signals that reinforce their motivation.

Mathematically and biologically consistent framework for presence-absence pairwise indices of diversity

Aim A large number of indices that compare two or more assemblages have been proposed or reinvented. The interpretation of the indices varies across the literature, despite efforts for clarification and unification. Most of the effort has focused on interdependence between the indices and the mathematics behind them. At the same time, following issues have been underestimated: (i) the difference between statistical independence of indices and the independence based on their informational value, and (ii) the inferences from the indices about diversity patterns and phenomena. Here we offer an alternative framework for diversity indices. Methods We distinguish different classes of dependence, and show that three indices which are mutually independent in terms of their information content are sufficient for appropriate inferences. This applies regardless of whether the indices are statistically correlated or not. We classify 20 existing indices into three main and four minor mutually independent families, and demonstrate how similarity between assemblages violates the stability of the families, confusing conceptually different patterns. We show what can be inferred about spatial diversity phenomena from different indices, demonstrate problems with most of the indices of nestedness, and show which combinations of indices may be used for meaningful ecological inference. Results and Main conclusions We demonstrate that no single index can properly filter out a single effect of a phenomena because the phenomena inevitably bound each other (e.g. species richness gradient bounds possible values of Jaccard index of community similarity). Consequently, inventing indices which seemingly purify these effect (e.g. pure turnover or pure nestedness) leads to misleading inference. In contrast, a proper inference is obtained by using a combination of classical indices from different, mutually independent families. Our framework provides a practical clue how to compare different indices across the literature.

Features of Investigative Activities Results Application at the Stage of Execution of a Sentence (Case Study: Justifying the Need to Change Punishments and Measures of a Criminal‑Legal Nature, not related to Isolation from Society, towards Toughening)

The paper is devoted to the problematic issues that arise when using the results of investigative activities (IA) at the stage of execution of the sentence. The authors draw attention to the importance of the procedure for proving the facts of concealment of a convicted person from control by the criminal executive inspectorate in cases of submission of submissions to the court on toughening punishments. The information obtained in the course of the IA has a greater informational value for substantiating decisions on issues to be considered by the courts during the execution of a sentence, and their application would make it possible to better motivate the representations of the relevant institutions in the process of proving the need to change penalties and measures of a criminal legal nature that are not related with isolation from society, towards tightening. The paper focuses on the need for an integrated approach to the development of the norms of the current legislation in order to regulate in detail the procedure for conducting IA in relation to persons evading criminal punishment, and measures of legal influence, as well as using the results obtained to substantiate the submissions submitted by criminal executive inspectorates to the court.