Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine whether audit quality influence real earnings management activities using a sample UK listed firms that have strong incentives manage upward through meeting past year’s as benchmark in the post-adoption period International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Design/methodology/approach authors use 4,774 firm-year observations during 2005–2018. ...

This article presents a probabilistic algorithm for representing and learning complex manipulation activities performed by humans in everyday life. The work builds on the multi-level Hierarchical Hidden Markov Model (HHMM) framework which allows decomposition of longer-term complex manipulation activities into layers of abstraction whereby the building blocks can be represented by simpler actio...

Purpose Neck pain (NP) is a common condition in old age, leading to impaired functional ability and decreased independence. Spinal manipulation and exercise are common and effective treatments for the general NP population; however, their effectiveness among seniors is unknown. The primary aim of this randomized clinical trail was to assess the relative shortand long-term clinical effectiveness...

Research in autonomous mobile manipulation seeks to develop mobile robotic systems that autonomously perform manipulation tasks in unstructured environments. Such robotic systems could have a profound impact on many application areas of societal, economic, and scientific importance, including domestic assistance, healthcare, flexible manufacturing, automated supply chain management, planetary e...

In recent years we have seen tremendous advances in the mechatronic, sensing and computational infrastructure of robots, enabling them to act faster, stronger and more accurately than humans do. Yet, when it comes to accomplishing manipulation tasks in everyday settings, robots often do not even reach the sophistication and performance of young children. This is partly due to humans having deve...

This paper describes a proposed framework for a collaborative design in a virtual environment. The framework consists of components that support a true collaborative design in a real-time 3D virtual environment. In support of the proposed framework, a prototype application is being developed. The authors envision the framework will have, but not limited to the following features: (1) real-time ...

Motivated by agency conflicts of real earnings management (e.g., opportunistic and signalling perspectives), this study investigates the association between firms that manipulate their business operations to meet benchmarks (i.e., zero earnings, last year's earnings) subsequent operating performance. We examine effects magnitude on firms' future performance for period 2009 2015 UK firms. Our an...