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Investment funds use actual trading market prices to value their portfolio investments where possible and “fair valuations” (estimated values) when actual market prices are not available. The methods used to “fair value” portfolios recently have come under scrutiny. SEC inquiries and enforcement actions and shareholder lawsuits have revealed significant problems in the ways in which fair valuations of the portfolios of investment companies, as well as private investment funds are conducted. Congress and academic commentators are beginning to question fund valuation methods. Despite the importance of the issue to investors, there is little uniformity of practice among funds, no generally accepted means to conduct fair valuations, and little disclosure by funds of the methods by which fair valuations are conducted, who conducts them, when they are conducted, or how much fair valuation affects portfolio or unit valuations. The SEC has never conducted a public study or rulemaking, or issued a significant report on fair value practices. Instead, it is the stuff of a pair of short, 30‐year‐old SEC accounting bulletins and a few cryptic references in periodic revisions to Form N‐1A. Yet, in a letter the SEC staff sent to the Investment Company Institute (ICI) in April 2001, the SEC staff dramatically expanded the use of fair value pricing for use with securities for which actual trading market prices are available.

According to architectural research, modifying environmental features has the potential to create an appropriate sensory environment for autistic children. Considering the design of public environments, it is difficult to accommodate the diverse requirements of each autistic child. The main objective of this paper is to find out the most prevalent architectural strategies and to prioritise them for the design of the public spaces addressing autistic children's needs.

This research is designed in two stages: (1) descriptive approach in which architectural strategies are extracted from theories on autism design to determine a theoretical test module; and (2) quantitative approach in which the frequency of gained strategies are studied in two groups of references: general references and key references (i.e. most cited and well-reputed researchers in autism architecture) while universal design strategies and the timeline of each strategy is considered for the conclusion.

The following strategies were highly significant: (1) acoustical control, (2) visual control, (3) legibility, (4) safety and security, (5) predictable spaces. Acoustic was frequently considered in both control and general groups while it was highlighted in timeline study and universal design strategies.

The main limitation is that these strategies have been prioritised according to their frequency in some limited articles and a control group including the pioneer of autism design researchers while verifying these strategies may not be strong enough. Likewise, the conclusion related to these data cannot be accurate enough. Establishing a case study survey that provides an opportunity to test all these strategies directly on a majority of autistic children and measure their prevalence is advised. Finally, it should be considered that although the five mentioned strategies are all the most prevalent strategies among autistic children, as each autistic child differs from others, generalising the conclusion for all the public area would be impossible, as though we need to study it for each group of them.

Seeking to improve the strategies' prioritisation as determined by previous researchers, this article aims to define the most essential strategies categories in this field to eliminate the confusion of researchers and designers.

Governance can often be assessed as one part of directing companies’ action toward something better. This study examines how governance quality at the country level and firm level can affect sustainability performance that aligns with sustainable development goals (SDG). Prior academic literature explains that if a country has a low institutional condition, it is a great challenge to implement sustainability. However, the internal awareness of the company to implement sustainability plays an important role as well. To examine the research question, this study uses the banking sector as a research sample with an observation period from 2017 to 2019. Prior literature overlooks research in the banking sector and does not feature country-level governance with firm-level governance. The data were collected either from the annual report or sustainability report, which comprises 141 companies, with the total observation of 423 firm-year. This study used panel data regression analysis and was based on the Hausman Test; it shows that random effect is used to test the hypothesis. This research finds that good quality governance at the country level, results in good sustainability performance. However, contrary to expectations regarding the quality of firm-level governance, which is thought to be positively related to sustainability performance, this study found a negative relationship. The argument that might answer the finding is the existence of governance conditions at the state level and at the firm level that mutually subsidize each other. This research contributes to policymakers continuing to provide counseling and improve institutional conditions to motivate companies to support the achievement of the SDGs. Companies should also pay attention to the effectiveness of their internal governance and strive to use stakeholder opinions as a guide in the realization of SDGs.

Scholars often suggest that violent extremism or terrorism – “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence to attain a political, economic, religious or social goal through fear, coercion or intimidation” (LaFree, G., & Dugan, L. (2007). Introducing the Global Terrorism Database. Terrorism and Political Violence, 19, 181–204, 184) – is a battle for legitimacy. However, the ambiguous definition of legitimacy often makes its application to counterterrorism measures difficult at best. The purpose of this chapter is to define legitimacy to connect policies designed to counter violent extremism.

The main impediment in the study of the influence of legitimacy on terrorism is the debate over the meaning and measurement of legitimacy. This debate is reviewed, and a recent resolution is presented, grouping the many conceptualizations of legitimacy into three broad categories and identifying empirical indicators for each. These categories are then used to distinguish counterterrorism policies that can be used to boost legitimacy.

This chapter organizes counterterrorism policies into a recently developed framework as a tool for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

The unique characteristic of Islamic bank leads in governance and disclosure. Using stakeholder, signaling, and market discipline theory, governance and adequate disclosure may increase bank soundness. This study aims to investigate the relationship of sharia disclosure and Sharia Supervisory Board in influencing Islamic bank soundness in the different regulatory framework of the country. Using purposive sampling, the research covered 84 Islamic banks in 16 countries during the period 2013–2015 with lag data of Islamic bank soundness. The result shows sharia disclosure influences on Islamic bank soundness for management efficiency, capital adequacy ratio, asset quality, and liquidity. The results also show that sharia disclosure mediates the indirect effect of SSB on Islamic bank soundness. The regulatory framework (sharia accounting standard and SSB regulation) shows moderating effect of regulation framework proved on the association of sharia disclosure with management efficiency, capital, and liquidity. The effect is indirectly depending on the regulatory framework for proxy management efficiency, capital, and liquidity. The implication of the research suggests that sharia disclosure could increase the market discipline mechanism of Islamic bank stream. The Islamic bank can increase the transparency using sharia disclosure as a branding for increasing public trust, even though in the deficient Islamic bank regulation countries.

Focuses on the approach to interpreting earnings equality found in the writings of a variety of economists and in particular, technological change and its effects on the demand skill resulting in earning inequality. Argues that the evidence in favour of the technological effect is weak and presents some alternatives for further consideration.