title: Decision usefulness of SME financial statements in Sri Lanka

authors: Wijekoon, Nisansala

abstract: This paper examines the users of Sri Lankan small and medium-sized entities' (SMEs) financial statements, and their information needs. Semi-structured interviews found the main recipients of SME financial information are banks, the Inland Revenue Department and other government institutions. However, the users' concerns, such as manipulation of financial results, tax orientation, insufficient detail, and out-of-date information, hinder the decision usefulness of SME financial statements. Given this context, the widespread problems of unreliability and non-compliance with accounting principles and standards present a substantial hurdle in evaluating the decision usefulness of SMEs' financial statements in Sri Lanka. The Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, regulatory bodies and government authorities need to pay greater attention to SMEs' financial reporting and take steps to make it credible and relevant to users' needs.

text: Decision usefulness of SME financial statements in Sri Lanka This paper examines the users of Sri Lankan small and medium-sized entities' (SMEs) financial statements, and their information needs. Semi-structured interviews found the main recipients of SME financial information are banks, the Inland Revenue Department and other government institutions. However, the users' concerns, such as manipulation of financial results, tax orientation, insufficient detail, and out-of-date information, hinder the decision usefulness of SME financial statements. Given this context, the widespread problems of unreliability and non-compliance with accounting principles and standards present a substantial hurdle in evaluating the decision usefulness of SMEs' financial statements in Sri Lanka. The Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, regulatory bodies and government authorities need to pay greater attention to SMEs' financial reporting and take steps to make it credible and relevant to users' needs.

year: 2025

title: Provable Non-Frameability for 5G Lawful Interception

authors: Boeira, Felipe

abstract: Mobile networks have grown in size and relevance, with novel applications in areas including transportation, finance, and health. The wide use of mobile networks generates rich data about users, raising interest in using such data for law enforcement and antiterrorism through Lawful Interception (LI). Countries worldwide have established legal frameworks to conduct LI, and technical standards have been created for its implementation and deployment, but without sufficient (and rigorous) security controls. While LI originated for benign purposes, we show in this paper that malicious entities could exploit it to frame users into suspicion of criminal activity. Further, we propose a solution for non-frameability, which we formally prove uphold desired properties even in scenarios where attackers completely infiltrate the operator networks. To perform the formal verification, we extend prior work with a more complete model of the fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks in the Tamarin prover.

text: Provable Non-Frameability for 5G Lawful Interception Mobile networks have grown in size and relevance, with novel applications in areas including transportation, finance, and health. The wide use of mobile networks generates rich data about users, raising interest in using such data for law enforcement and antiterrorism through Lawful Interception (LI). Countries worldwide have established legal frameworks to conduct LI, and technical standards have been created for its implementation and deployment, but without sufficient (and rigorous) security controls. While LI originated for benign purposes, we show in this paper that malicious entities could exploit it to frame users into suspicion of criminal activity. Further, we propose a solution for non-frameability, which we formally prove uphold desired properties even in scenarios where attackers completely infiltrate the operator networks. To perform the formal verification, we extend prior work with a more complete model of the fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks in the Tamarin prover.

year: 2023-05-29

title: Street-level bureaucracy and occupational therapy practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. A genealogical critique.

authors: Silcock, Elizabeth Mary

subjects: power

abstract: As a human science that is also part of administering and supporting bureaucracy, occupational therapy functions in multi-layered networks of power  that support many different social structures. Occupational therapists’ work often involves operationalising health, education and social services at the street-level, positioning them between the aspirations of both policy and social activism and material life outcomes. Through a genealogical critique, this thesis problematises the practice of occupational therapy through a Foucauldian lens that views everything as dangerous. By viewing occupational therapy practice as dangerous, the power relations at the street-level of the mundane and taken-for-granted have been problematised as part of much larger social structures of power and discourse. 
Several Foucauldian tools were deployed in order to ensure that a focus on occupational therapy practices was maintained; three distinct research methods were utilised to access a range of heterogeneous genealogical information.  Firstly, an historical archival analysis of the four iterations of the Competencies for Registration for occupational therapists document (1990 to the current day) produced by the regulatory authority, the Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand, was carried out.  Secondly, practice observations of occupational therapists working in different practice settings were analysed as three individual case studies. Concurrently with these two methods, a critical action method using a research blog was developed to create a medium for public discussion of practice through an open engagement with the profession. The combination of these three methods enabled access to a range of elements for analysis.  Many of these elements inter-linked, overlapped and connected to historically contingent networks of dominant power that have formed through the processes of colonisation, the establishment of the health system and normalised medical practices, and economic forms of governance. The nuances of how occupational therapy is practised at the street-level offered opportunities to contest the dominance of these networks. In all three case studies there was an unspoken understanding and a normalisation of materiality as an accepted and significant element of how the profession practised.  The material regimes of knowledge and material practices in these unspoken norms were highly productive and able to contest other lines of power.  Along with this alternate network of power, the most recent version of the Competencies for Registration offers a further opportunity for occupational therapists to contest dominant power relations in a way that could capitalise on the secure position the profession has developed through its material network of power.  Opportunities for alternate pathways of practice which privilege Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi are a possibility in the legally sanctioned Competencies. The close connection of occupational therapy practices to real life material outcomes for other people, position the street-level doing of occupational therapists at a juncture where action and decision making can re-configure power relations. Re-thinking practice in terms of what the doing of occupational therapy does in relation to networks of power, is an opportunity for practitioners to enact policy at the street-level in ways that use their ability to influence power from the bottom up whilst being alert to the dangers presented by doing so.

text: Street-level bureaucracy and occupational therapy practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. A genealogical critique. As a human science that is also part of administering and supporting bureaucracy, occupational therapy functions in multi-layered networks of power  that support many different social structures. Occupational therapists’ work often involves operationalising health, education and social services at the street-level, positioning them between the aspirations of both policy and social activism and material life outcomes. Through a genealogical critique, this thesis problematises the practice of occupational therapy through a Foucauldian lens that views everything as dangerous. By viewing occupational therapy practice as dangerous, the power relations at the street-level of the mundane and taken-for-granted have been problematised as part of much larger social structures of power and discourse. 
Several Foucauldian tools were deployed in order to ensure that a focus on occupational therapy practices was maintained; three distinct research methods were utilised to access a range of heterogeneous genealogical information.  Firstly, an historical archival analysis of the four iterations of the Competencies for Registration for occupational therapists document (1990 to the current day) produced by the regulatory authority, the Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand, was carried out.  Secondly, practice observations of occupational therapists working in different practice settings were analysed as three individual case studies. Concurrently with these two methods, a critical action method using a research blog was developed to create a medium for public discussion of practice through an open engagement with the profession. The combination of these three methods enabled access to a range of elements for analysis.  Many of these elements inter-linked, overlapped and connected to historically contingent networks of dominant power that have formed through the processes of colonisation, the establishment of the health system and normalised medical practices, and economic forms of governance. The nuances of how occupational therapy is practised at the street-level offered opportunities to contest the dominance of these networks. In all three case studies there was an unspoken understanding and a normalisation of materiality as an accepted and significant element of how the profession practised.  The material regimes of knowledge and material practices in these unspoken norms were highly productive and able to contest other lines of power.  Along with this alternate network of power, the most recent version of the Competencies for Registration offers a further opportunity for occupational therapists to contest dominant power relations in a way that could capitalise on the secure position the profession has developed through its material network of power.  Opportunities for alternate pathways of practice which privilege Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi are a possibility in the legally sanctioned Competencies. The close connection of occupational therapy practices to real life material outcomes for other people, position the street-level doing of occupational therapists at a juncture where action and decision making can re-configure power relations. Re-thinking practice in terms of what the doing of occupational therapy does in relation to networks of power, is an opportunity for practitioners to enact policy at the street-level in ways that use their ability to influence power from the bottom up whilst being alert to the dangers presented by doing so.

year: 2018