Gorecki Center A, b & C, csb center for Global Education
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- Abstracts Yost
- Social Sciences Presentations: Accounting Finance Schedule
- Abstracts Thelen
- Sattervall
Abstracts Physics Schedule
Abstracts Yost: The method of saturated absorption spectroscopy was used to observe the hyperfine structure of one of rubidium-87's excited states. Each frequency of light carries its own discrete amount of energy. If this light's energy matches the difference between two energy states in an atom, the atom will absorb the light and excite to the higher state. In this experiment, a diode laser was tuned to match the energy difference between rubidium-87's energy states, 5S ⇨ 5P. One component used to change the laser's frequency was to change the voltage applied to a piezo crystal. To perform a calibration of linearity comparing the piezo voltage to the laser frequency change, the measured frequency splittings between absorption lines and the known values were compared. Social Sciences Presentations: Accounting & Finance Schedule
Abstracts Thelen: The United States recently underwent a financial crisis and a big part of that was the mortgage industry. Banks were giving mortgages to consumers who were not qualified to receive these loans and who eventually could not pay back their mortgages. No one questioned the integrity of these loans because it initially created a boom in the economy. It became clear that lending standards that bank’s had were not protecting the consumers and because of that, were greatly harming our economy. My research will explore how lending standards have changed since the mortgage crisis of 2008 and 2009. Lanz: When one is interested in acquiring a company a purchase price must first be determined. The purchase price is determined considering a number of factors, but is primarily based on the enterprise value of the company being acquired and a premium. The enterprise value is the hypothetical amount needed by the acquiring individual or company to purchase every share of each type of stock and all outstanding debt. The amount over this value, the premium, takes into account goodwill—the intangible benefits that will come through the acquisition. My research will explore how the determination of this premium will change in relation to economic conditions. Huang: Credit ratings are forward-looking opinions about credit risk. Maintaining a particular rating level provides benefits to a firm, such as commercial paper access or access to a broader bond investor pool. A firm’s leverage ratios and capital structure are commonly considered by professionals as the main factors that will trigger either an upgrade or downgrade. The purpose of the research is to explore how the changes in commodities companies’ leverage ratios and capital structures affect changes in credit ratings, and what factor has the most relevance to the changes, using financial analyses and rating agencies’ guidelines. Mielke: My research for this project centers on the question: Are top executives really worth all that money? A new bill in Switzerland just passed, giving shareholders the right to vote on compensation packages for executives. Would shareholders of American companies vote to increase executive pay? Would this bill thwart our capitalistic economy? In my research I hope to find a correlation between company performance and compensation, dive into popular compensation plans, and finally provide a feasible solution to properly pay executives based on their companies’ performance. Gurewitz: Recent corporate scandals such as Tyco, WorldCom, and Enron shook the public investor’s confidence tremendously. As a result Congress passed a new law called the “Sarbanes Oxley Act.” This act requires public companies to comply with numerous rules, guidelines, and regulations. This Act, implemented in 2002, also had a great impact on accounting firms. These firms now had to ensure themselves that their clients were adhering to the increased compliance rules while fairly stating their financial statements. My research will explore how this act impacted accounting firms, not only in their due diligence within their audits, but with how their audit related fees increased as well. Hauer: Governments hold public companies to very high standards in regards to their financial statements. These statements must be rigorously audited with strict standards. Government entities on the other hand are audited using a different set of standards than public companies. My research will explore if government audits are receiving as high quality audits as public companies. Smith: In 1970, the National Basketball Association (NBA) finally recognized the Nation Basketball Players Association (NBPA) as a legitimate union, and negotiated a collective bargaining agreement. This agreement is a contract between the NBA and the NBPA that outlines the rules on how teams contract their players. These rules have a significant impact on the success of the team. My research will use the NBA as a case study to show how the rules competitive balance and how other unions can learn from how the NBA’s agreement is set up. Swanson: Fraud has been a large issue with public companies in the recent years. These fraud cases happen for various reasons. Many times, these fraud cases use similar tactics and thus have similar outcomes. My research will explore the similar why's and how's of these fraud cases and determine which occur most frequently. Examples of the fraud cases include Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco. Sun: My research question is how fraud affect Company’s sharing price. Since the concept of materiality is particularly crucial in the field of accounting, there is a need to include materiality level in order to evaluate how much a fraud can affect company’s sharing price. Therefore my research will focus on some smaller/medium fraud and compare the fraud costs to the revenue and look at the sharing price when the fraud was disclosed, and now I am thinking to make a scatter chart and gather my data together, and see at what range/level a fraud can affect company’s sharing price. Reid: Collusion can normally be defined as a secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose. Knowing this, my research sets out to discover the most prevalent form of collusion that corporations commit, while highlighting how audit teams commonly discover the many ways fraud is committed. This goal will be accomplished through the examination of various financial statements, audit reports, court findings, and news reports. Chen: In evaluating and auditing financial statements accounts, accountants and auditors often need to exercise a lot of professional judgments. All these judgments create room for intentional overestimation, underestimation, or fraud. A rule based accounting system has elaborate rules on what is allowed and what is not. In contrast, a principle based accounting system has less detailed guidance and require more judgments. GAAP is more of a rule-based accounting system while IFRS is a principle-based accounting system. It is interesting to find out whether people would commit more financial reporting fraud if they are given additional freedom of judgment. My research would focus on the frequency of fraudulent reporting under the two systems. This can be measured relatively easily by looking at the financial statement restatement rates of large corporations that either adapt GAAP or IFRS. I would also look into the types of financial statement accounts that incur restatement most often. By identifying the effects on fraudulent reporting under GAAP and IFRS, one can get an idea of pros and cons of principle-based and rule-based accounting systems. My research would likely have implication on the convergence project of GAAP and IFRS for determining whether or not we should maintain more GAAP rules. Pesek: Accounting fraud has been a relevant topic over the past few decades as the accounting community continues to make strides to reduce its occurrence. There are three different types of accounting fraud: Asset Misappropriation, Bribery & Corruption, and Fraudulent Financial Statements. Of these, asset misappropriation is by far the most common but fraudulent financial statements are the most expensive and are capable of causing the most harm to companies and their stakeholders. My research will first analyze five companies that have committed fraud in the past and look for measurable similarities. These measurable similarities will include: Type of fraud, true independence of auditors, independence of board members, and comparing cash flows, to revenue and income. My hope is to determine some common characteristics of fraudulent accounting activity in order to be better able to identify and prevent it in the future. Hengel: The taxation of a business entity varies based on the legal formation of that company. Some entities are taxed directly – such as corporations, whereas other entities shift their income to their owners who are then taxed – such as partnerships, limited liability companies, and sole proprietorships. With President Obama’s desire to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 28%, in conjunction with the increase in the highest individual tax rate to 39.6%, some flow-through entities may switch their business formation to take advantage of the lower corporate tax rate. My research will explore the likelihood of this transformation, as well as the potential impact it may have on the federal government’s ability to raise revenue. Sundlof: Public companies may choose to offer compensation to employees in the form of stock in the company. This is called stock-based compensation, and typically executives at the company have a higher percentage of this type of compensation than other employees. The idea behind stock-based compensation is that it provides an incentive for employees to perform better since they have a personal financial interest in the company. My research will explore how stock-based compensation affects a company's performance, if at all. In researching this question, I will gather data from companies' 10-Ks and proxy statements. The results of my research could be helpful for decision-makers within public companies who are contemplating the value of offering stock-based compensation. Ward: The primary purpose of publically traded companies is to maximize shareholder wealth. Oftentimes this comes with a price such as destruction of the environment, human rights violations, unjust labor practices, or even unsafe products. Many investors do not take time to research the companies they invest in because they are only concerned with seeing financial returns. However, there are companies which are deemed to be socially responsible, meaning that they are concerned with achieving financial returns and social good. My research will analyze the returns of socially responsible companies vs. those that aren’t and compare those returns to the S&P 500 Index as a whole to see if socially responsible investing is profitable. Ahmed: MN currently has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the country at 9.8%. This may be a deterrent towards companies wanting to invest in MN’s economy. Corporate income tax only accounts for 3% of the total state revenue, therefore my research would focus on lowering the corporate tax rate for business owners and highlight the effects it will have on the economy. In my proposal the compensating revenue for the state would be achieved by broadening the sales tax. Currently services and clothing are not taxed in MN. My research would further model the broadening of the sales tax and how that can compensate for the lost revenue in corporate tax. In both these cases, I will emphasize what effect the change in rates will have on the total taxable base and it will conclude if this tax reform will be favorable or unfavorable for the state. Blackley: Many accountants start their careers in public accounting and most plan to stay for a short amount of time. There has been much debate on when the right time is to leave public accounting. Leaving public accounting at various times has advantages and disadvantages. My research will focus on the transition phase out of public accounting as well as the salary impact of leaving at various levels. Sattervall: Goodwill impairment is a major concern in the corporate world and can lead to large losses on companies’ financial statements. These losses can impact not only companies, but can greatly affect current and future investors as well. If impairment could be predicted investors could make wiser investing decisions and companies could potentially avoid recording material losses. My research will analyze whether financial statement users can use segment information provided in financial statements in order to predict goodwill impairment and will determine which factors within the segment information are of the most importance. de St. Aubin: Over the last sixty years healthcare costs as a percentage of a person’s income have more than quadrupled. Historically, payment for medical services was either through fee-for-service or capitation. Capitation provides a lump sum of care for each individual. This puts all the responsibility on the provider to keep costs low, which resulted in a lower quality of care for patients. Fee-for-service is what most people are familiar with today. Providers are paid for services performed from an insurance company, the government, or the individual receiving the care. However, this has lead to inefficiency in the care process and is considered the main contributor to the rising costs of healthcare. Healthcare organizations hope to blend these payment methods together and receive payment in the form of bundles. Bundle payments would pay for all the care relating to a specific treatment or condition. My research will explore whether bundle payments will increase patient care and decrease patient costs. Also, I will research when companies should recognize the revenue received from a bundled payment. Baker: Universities continue to commit and support the sustainability movement. My research will be identifying sustainability costs of different universities and comparing that to university revenues to find out the true investment/ratio of sustainability. I will use this information to identify trends affecting the costs of higher education. Tran: In the battle against poverty, Micro Finance Institutions have made enormous positive progress in developing countries such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Chile, etc. Since Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 with the Grameen Bank Model, more and more attention had been paid to studying the impacts of MFIs on disadvantaged communities. However, scholars, governments and non-profit organizations have had a hard time evaluating MFI ’s success due to their impacts in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Using the framework proposed by Maria Otero and Elisabeth Rhyne, I will examine Grameen Bank Model’s success and its applicability in the context of South Africa. Steichen: In 2010 President Obama passed a bill known to the public as Obamacare. The goal of this bill is to make sure all Americans are covered by health insurance. It tries to accomplish this goal by requiring all businesses to provide health insurance to all of its employees. It also lowers the health insurance costs to individuals by prohibiting insurance companies from raising prices for people based on gender or pre-existing conditions. My research will explore the effect of Obamacare on businesses from a financial perspective. Some business will only be minimally affected, while others could potentially be put out of business by the requirement to provide health insurance to their employees. Tian: As business environment has become more global, companies set up facilities in different foreign countries in order to remain competitive. In this regard, an increasing number of employees are sent by companies on overseas assignments for various lengths of time; we refer to these people as expatriates. However, by taking into consideration tax equalization, cost of living expenses, health insurance, etc., such overseas assignments can potentially generate additional costs for companies. My research will explore the amount of such additional costs for companies to fill an international position with an expatriate. Directory: Documents -> ELCE Documents -> Concept stage Documents -> The great global switch-off Documents -> Nonprofit grant application Documents -> The Truth about the Rwandan Genocide Documents -> Annual InStructional unit plan Documents -> Chaos equipment included ELCE -> Ardolf Science Center 104, csb Download 1.11 Mb. Share with your friends:
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