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The Elementary and Secondary School Library Media Act (ESSLMA) was introduced on October 2, 1992, by Paul Sarbanes (D‐MD) and Paul Simon (D‐IL) in the Senate as S‐03307, and on October 5th in the House as HR 6173 by Jack Reid (D‐RI). A number of other House members have indicated intent to sign on to the bill when it is reintroduced in the 103rd Congress.

Prior literature provides empirical evidence that financial performance improves for core remaining operations after a firm discontinues some of their operations. This study aims to examine whether the association between discontinued operations and future financial performance improvement is affected by a regulatory rule (i.e. Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 144 [SFAS 144]) that significantly altered the reporting requirements of discontinued operations. This study also examines whether the association is dependent on the profitability of the operations discontinued.

Ordinary least square regressions are used to test the association between discontinued operations and financial performance improvement, conditional on the profitability of operations discontinued in the pre-SFAS 144 and SFAS 144 regulatory regimes. Data on profitability of operations discontinued is hand-collected.

Results suggest that firms experience improvement in financial performance following the reporting of discontinued operations in the pre-SFAS 144 era. Using hand-collected data on the profitability of operations discontinued, this research study also shows that improvement in performance is stronger for firms that discontinue loss operations compared to those that discontinue profitable operations.

This study explores the impact of regulatory change on the association between discontinued operations and future performance. Furthermore, unique hand-collected data is used to understand whether financial performance improvement is conditional on the profitability of the operations discontinued. Results documented in this paper should be of interest to investors, regulators and analysts in understanding the long-term strategic implications of discontinued operations.

To extend humanitarian supply chain relationships beyond logistics concerns of delivery, quality and cost. As humanitarian actors continue to face increasing numbers of natural disasters, armed conflicts and attacks on aid workers, security (risk) and sustainability are issues of growing importance. Aiming to inspire discussion, the paper concludes with a research agenda.

This is a conceptual paper inspired by relevant statistics, news reports and academic literature.

Worldwide natural disasters and armed conflicts are on the rise. So are deliberate attacks on aid workers. Thus, humanitarian supply chain design must include considerations of security and sustainability. Agencies have several options for integrating matters of security and sustainability with the delivery of aid, from being reactive to creating internal solutions to forming proactive relationships with security and sustainability experts.

There are numerous opportunities for research in the areas of security, sustainability and supply chain relationships.

Through advocacy and supply chain relationships, humanitarian agencies can enhance security for aid workers and civilians affected by conflict and disasters. Looking to the future, they can also make a positive difference on issues of sustainability.

There is an opportunity to enlarge the “humanitarian space” – and increase security for aid workers and civilians, especially in areas of armed conflict. In the long term, aid agencies can also help eliminate social problems such as gender inequality.

This appears to be among the first papers to discuss matters of security and sustainability in the context of humanitarian supply chain collaboration.

The study aims to explore the theoretical bases justifying the use of performance-based financing (PBF) in the health sector in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The authors conducted a scoping review of the literature on PBF so as to identify the theories utilized to underpin it and analyzed its theoretical justifications.

Sixty-four studies met the inclusion criteria. Economic theories were predominant, with the principal-agent theory being the most commonly-used theory, explicitly referred to by two-thirds of included studies. Psychological theories were also common, with a wide array of motivation theories. Other disciplines in the form of management or organizational science, political and social science and systems approaches also contributed. However, some of the theories referred to contradicted each other. Many of the studies included only casually alluded to one or more theories, and very few used these theories to justify or support PBF. No theory emerged as a dominant, consistent and credible justification of PBF, perhaps except for the principal-agent theory, which was often inappropriately applied in the included studies, and when it included additional assumptions reflecting the contexts of the health sector in LMICs, might actually warn against adopting PBF.

Overall, this review has not been able to identify a comprehensive, credible, consistent, theoretical justification for using PBF rather than alternative approaches to health system reforms and healthcare providers' motivation in LMICs.

The theoretical justifications of PBF in the health sector in LMICs are under-documented. This review is the first of this kind and should encourage further debate and theoretical exploration of the justifications of PBF.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test theory-driven hypotheses on the influence of corruption and gender inequality on logistics performance.

This paper develops hypotheses based on a review of the literature and theory linking corruption, gender inequality and logistics performance. Testing the hypotheses draws on the following secondary data sources: the World Bank Logistics Performance Index, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index and the United Nations Development Programme Gender Inequality Index. Regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

A significant direct effect is evident between corruption perceptions and perceived logistics performance. Corruption is detrimental to logistics. Further, there is evidence of an indirect effect, via gender inequality. Gender inequality is also linked directly to lower logistics performance. Gross domestic product/capita enters the analysis as a control variable.

While the analysis uses secondary data, sources are credible and their methods – while not perfect – are logical and appear to be reasonable. It is possible that excluded variables could further explain the relationships under study. This implies future research opportunities, perhaps involving case studies of specific nations.

The results should inspire businesses, non-governmental organizations and governments to invest in, aid, advocate for and legislate toward greater gender equality – and against corruption. Logistics educators have an important role in disseminating this message.

Gender inequality and corruption are current, global social issues. Moving forward toward equality and away from corruption are the right moves. Such moves appear to also yield better logistics.

This paper is among the first linking corruption and gender inequality to logistics performance. It shows how social issues impact logistics performance at a national level.

IN the April number of Public Libraries, Mr. Andrew Keogh, sometime of Newcastle‐on‐Tyne, now Professor of Bibliography at Yale University, comes forward in defence of American libraries from the aspersions alleged to be cast on them in this periodical. Other journalistic comments have also appeared, which we may have occasion to mention at another time; and altogether some pother has been caused in America over our very straightforward and simple remarks. Mr. Keogh assumes, quite erroneously, that the first Library World editorial was based on the one or two instances of American reference to European libraries which he quotes. He knows, however, just as well as ourselves, that the American pose in library work is to adopt an attitude akin to contempt for anything outside the boundaries of the United States, and this is shown in nearly every publication dealing with library work. The Nation example was only one which happened to come along at the moment, and it is direct confirmation of what was stated in these columns in April, namely, that even in secular journals the writers were, as Mr. Keogh now certifies, prominent members of the A.L.A. Our attitude is, therefore, not that of defence simply, against certain outsiders writing in non‐professional journals, but against American professional librarians lending themselves to the poor work of trying to belittle the efforts of European librarians on every possible occasion. The mere fact that, as Mr. Keogh affirms, the great research libraries of Germany were attacked in the Nation, does not justify the publication of such ungenerous articles, especially coming from librarians who profess so much friendliness and high feeling.

The purpose of this study is to examine the value of auditor attestation in internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) disclosures. The authors argue that internal control material weakness (ICMW) disclosures issued without auditor attestation by non-accelerated filers provide weaker signal to the impaired financial reporting quality compared to those issued with auditor attestation by accelerated filers.

This study investigates the differences in the association between ICMW disclosures and impaired financial reporting quality, as proxied by financial statement restatements, for accelerated and non-accelerated filers. The authors use propensity score matching to find control groups for both accelerated and non-accelerated filers.

The authors find that ICMW disclosures signal impaired financial reporting quality for both accelerated and non-accelerated filers, but such signaling is weaker for non-accelerated filers compared to accelerated filers.

Although propensity score matching was used to match firms with and without ICMW disclosures, any unobservable fundamental differences between these groups may affect the results of this study.

This study shows that auditors’ involvement in the assessment of internal control effectiveness improves the signaling effect of ICMW disclosures on impaired financial reporting quality. As approved by the House Financial Services (HFS) Committee on November 4, 2009, non-accelerated filers are permanently exempt from auditor attestation requirement. This study provides some evidence that the exemption of non-accelerated filers from auditor attestation may have unintended consequences, and these results should be of interest to regulators and investors.

The ability to characterise highly conducting objects, that may also be highly magnetic, by the complex symmetric rank–2 magnetic polarizability tensor (MPT) is important for metal detection applications including discriminating between threat and non-threat objects in security screening, identifying unexploded anti-personnel landmines and ordnance and identifying metals of high commercial value in scrap sorting. Many everyday non-threat items have both a large electrical conductivity and a magnetic behaviour, which, for sufficiently weak fields and the frequencies of interest, can be modelled by a high relative magnetic permeability. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned idea.

The numerical simulation of the MPT for everyday non-threat highly conducting magnetic objects over a broad range of frequencies is challenging due to the resulting thin skin depths. The authors address this by employing higher order edge finite element discretisations based on unstructured meshes of tetrahedral elements with the addition of thin layers of prismatic elements. Furthermore, computer aided design (CAD) geometrical models of the non-threat and threat object are often not available and, instead, the authors extract the geometrical features of an object from an imaging procedure.

The authors obtain accurate numerical MPT characterisations that are in close agreement with experimental measurements for realistic physical objects. The assessment of uncertainty shows the impact of geometrical and material parameter uncertainties on the computational results.

The authors present novel computations and measurements of MPT characterisations of realistic objects made of magnetic materials. A novel assessment of uncertainty in the numerical predictions of MPT characterisations for uncertain geometry and material parameters is included.