The multifaceted gut-brain peptide ghrelin and its receptor (GHSR-1a) are implicated in mechanisms regulating not only the energy balance but also the reward circuitry. In our pre-clinical models, we have shown that ghrelin increases whereas GHSR-1a antagonists decrease alcohol consumption and the motivation to consume alcohol in rodents. Moreover, ghrelin signaling is required for the rewardin...

OBJECTIVE To examine the factor structure of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and to identify the implications of this structure for its clinical use. METHOD The AUDIT was administered to mental health clinic outpatients (N = 197; 86% men) at high risk for alcohol-use disorders. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were used to determine the underlying factor stru...

New enforcement strategies allow agents to gain the regulator's trust and consequently face a lower audit probability. Prior research suggests that, in order to prevent lower compliance, a reduction in the audit probability (the "carrot") must be compensated with the introduction of a higher penalty for non-compliance (the "stick"). However, such carrot-and-stick strategies reflect neither the ...

industrial energy consumption lies between 30% and 70% of the total energy consumed in selected countries. cement production is one of the most energy intensive industries all around the world. this paper deals with an energy audit analysis in a cement plant in iran. in all recent works, after performing an energy audit, different strategies are offered to reduce energy losses. generally, these...

Audits complement access control and are essential for enforcing privacy and security policies in many situations. The importance of audit as an a posteriori enforcement mechanism has been recognized in the computer security literature. For example, Lampson [1] takes the position that audit logs that record relevant evidence during system execution can be used to detect violations of policy, es...

n the past two years, Australia and other jurisdictions have again witnessed a series of unsignalled corporate collapses. As with previous generations of corporate collapse several have been associated with questionable accounting policies and concerns with auditing quality. With the decomposition of the former global auditing firm once known as Arthur Andersen, the implications for the account...

background the purpose of implementing a system such as clinical governance (cg) is to integrate, establish and globalize distinct policies in order to improve quality through increasing professional knowledge and the accountability of healthcare professional toward providing clinical excellence. since cg is related to change, and change requires money and time, cg implementation has to be focu...

Prior research has estimated piece-meal the determinants of audit fees, non-audit fees and abnormal accruals. Intuition, informal analysis, and a variety of theories suggest that audit fees, non-audit fees, and abnormal accruals are jointly determined. We address this endogeneity issue by modeling the confluence of audit fees, fees for non-audit services and abnormal accruals in a system of sim...