8/31/2017· Accounting
Preventing Fraud in Troubled Companies
By: Robert Bates
Economic downturns and recessions are notorious for encouraging fraud. As new and prospective fraud examiners, it's imperative that you become aware of the various fraud risks that can occur and the red flags that indicate a fraud in progress.
8/30/2017· Warnings & Labels
Regulatory agencies (e.g., FDA, OSHA, CPSC, NHTSA, etc.) exist to serve and protect the public from bad actors in the corporate or industrial world whose decisions and actions may lead to products or services that could potentially harm or kill workers and consumers. It would seem obvious, therefore, that the leaders of these agencies would be strong, neutral and objective regulators without close ties to the very industries they must regulate. Under such a model, the best interests of the public could be served without concern for the profits of the regulated industries. Unfortunately, as anyone who reads any newspaper knows too well, that model has never been true. In fact, since the creation of virtually every regulatory agency, the leadership of these agencies have either come from or exited to the very industries they were to regulate.
8/30/2017· Audio Forensics
Forensic Sound Analyses of Cellular Telephone Recordings
Recordings involving cellular telephones or personal digital assistants (“PDAs”) are increasingly the source evidence in audio forensic examinations, compared to recordings originating with other devices such as hand-held digital recorders. On modern PDA cellular telephones recordings can be made either directly to the telephone or transmitted as voice mail messages. The current investigation focuses on differences in the two types of recordings in terms of dynamic range and linearity of levels. Such information can be important for characterizing the distance of sound sources relative to the microphone and are important for understanding transformation of recorded speech and non-speech sounds.
8/28/2017· Insurance
By: Guy C. Hatfield
I have been active as an insurance agent/broker for 40 years. 20 years ago I was referred to an attorney by a fellow CPCU colleague to be a so called "expert". The case involved an agent who failed to provide workers compensation benefits to an ongoing commercial concern. I was hired by the plaintiff's attorney to opine on the conduct of the agent. Since this was a fundamental error on the part of the agent, the case was soon settled in favor of the plaintiff. This was my introduction to being an expert. I found I enjoyed the experience and it was a nice contrast to sales and insurance administration.
8/24/2017· Automotive - Vehicular
Autonomous and Inevitable, Part 8: Access and Accountability
By: Ned Einstein
What is interesting, and the focus of this installment, is the glaring disparity between the magnitude of information available about a vehicle or driver's performance and the general disinterest in examining it. This disparity is not a technological problem. It is largely an institutional and attitudinal problem. Or one might characterize it as a cultural problem. Or a values problem in a money-oriented society. Nevertheless, it raises an important point about driverless vehicles: While a vehicle's brain may contribute to and/or improve safety (fewer accidents and incidents) and performance (e.g., better mileage, less pollution), this brain's extraordinary analytical capabilities may be pointless because no non-robot is likely to ever examine the data.
8/21/2017· Intellectual Property
Viral Videos Challenging the Enforcement of Copyrights
By: Scott D. Hampton
In an effort to move United States copyright law into the digital age, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998. The DMCA is the beginning of an ongoing effort to modernize the nation's copyright law.1 In an ever-changing digital world, copyright law must continue to evolve with technology.
8/2/2017· Construction
The Collapsed As-Built Windows Schedule Analysis Method
The Collapsed As-Built Windows Schedule Analysis (AACE® International Recommended Practice 29R-03, Method Implementation Protocol 3.9) is a modeled, subtractive, multiple-base method. It is a retrospective CPM schedule analysis which is typically used to prove entitlement for compensable delay and assess concurrency of delay within a window of time. The analysis simulates the as-built conditions within a schedule window and then delays are removed from the CPM model. If the forecasted project finish date “collapses” but-for or absent compensable delays, then entitlement for compensable time-related costs can be demonstrated. This article addresses the usage of the Collapsed As-Built Windows protocol and the advantages and disadvantages of the methodology.
7/24/2017· Transportation
Autonomous and Inevitable, Part 7: Cameras and Sensors
By: Ned Einstein
The previous six National Bus Trader articles on this subject stabbed at some highlights and low-lights within the extraordinary spectrum of socio-economic, institutional and other issues encompassed by our transition from humanoid-driven to robotic vehicles. At this point, I thought it might be helpful to take a quick glance at some of the hardware that serves as the robots' mechanical fixtures, apart from the electronics and the digitalia: Cameras and sensors. These components were employed in "transitional" or "steppingstone" efforts along the path to truly driverless vehicles. So I feel it is worth a look at how these technologies were used and abused at this earlier stage of HAV (highly-automated vehicle) development. Should the reader wish to view the math in the robots' brains, I recommend Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision by Richard Hartley and Andrew Zisserman. The bible for artificial intelligence. Way over my head. If also over yours, no apologies necessary.
7/14/2017· Automotive - Vehicular
Autonomous and Inevitable, Part 6: The Transition to Complete Autonomy
By: Ned Einstein
When an asteroid strikes a planet, things tend to change quickly. Most other changes occur gradually, even while a small handful are occasionally more significant. These latter changes are sometimes referred to as "paradigm shifts," largely because they affect so many things around them, and cause such dramatic changes in the things they affect directly.
7/12/2017· Forensic Psychiatry
Diagnosing and Treating Parental Alienation/Child Alienation: How a Forensic Psychologist Can Help
When divorce occurs in the family, an inevitable loss occurs in the lives of the parents as well as children. Positive adjustment to divorce comes when both of the parents as well as the children develop healthy coping methods to deal with the loss. This enables both parents and children to move forward with their new lives. Unfortunately, many parents who suffer from their own disturbed attachment history or mental health issues, are unable to put aside their anger and constructively cope with the loss. In such cases, parents often undermine the children's relationship with the other parent, in order to express their own unresolved parental anger and sadness about the divorce.
