Journal articles: 'Asset pentagon' – Grafiati (2024)

Abstract:

ABSTRACTFraudulent Financial Reporting is a deliberate attempt by a company to deceive and mislead users of financial statements, especially investors and creditors, by presenting and manipulating the material value of financial statements. This study aims to determine how the auditor's opinion can moderate the comparative analysis of the pentagon fraud with the beneish ratio in the detection of fraudulent financial reporting. The type of data used in this study is comparative quantitative data. The data source in this study is secondary data. The population in this study are banking companies listed on the IDX. With a sample of 16 publicly traded companies engaged in financial and banking institutions and were listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2014-2017. The results of this study indicate that of 64 samples there were 12.5% which indicated that the financial statements had been manipulated. Auditor opinions can increase the influence of Financial Stability, external auditor quality, change in auditor, change of directors, days sales in receivables index, sales gross margin Index, Asset Quality Index, growth index, depreciation index, sales, and general administration expenses index, leverage index, total accrual to fraudulent financial reporting. Beneish Ratio affects Fraudulent Financial Reporting while Fraud Pentagon does not affect Fraudulent Financial Reporting

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The ability to respond and recover from disasters is highly dependent on the community’s capacity. This study assessed the community’s capacity level in Kasembon District, an area that was impacted by the Mount Kelud eruption in 2014. Capacity level assessment is done by identifying pentagon asset components, covering human capital, social capital, financial capital, natural capital and physical capital. Bayem is a village with the medium capacity in spite of the low ownership of natural capital, financial capital and physical capital as it has been supported by the active participation of the community within the village organization. Pondok Agung, Kasembon, Sukosari and Pait are four villages which are almost the same with Bayem, but the involvement of the community is not as active as in Bayem. Based on the results of the research, villages that are socially active, tend to have a higher capacity.

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The study was conducted to identify the present status of integrated farming and its impacts on farmers’ livelihood in comparison to mixed farming. Following two stages sampling procedure, a total of 420 farmers (210 for integrated farming and 210 for mixed farming) were selected from seven study areas of six districts on the basis of having intervention from different NARS institutes and without having any intervention from any organization. Descriptive statistics like sum, average, percentage, etc. were derived and calculated for analyzing the socioeconomic data. Propensity score matching (PSM) were applied with Kernel matching and Radius matching methods to evaluate the impact of integrated farming on farmers’ employment creation and income generation. The highest employment duration for male was 152.5 man-days/year for the farming system C-L-P-F-H under integrated farms and for mixed farms, it was 104.5 man-days/year. The average total income of the integrated farms was Tk. 124839 and for mixed farms, it was Tk. 99641. Average calorie intake of food secure households was 2927.83 kcal and 2839.14 kcal for integrated farming and mixed farming which is higher than the national average calorie intake (i.e., 2122 kcal). To assess the livelihood pattern through asset pentagon approach, noteworthy improvement was found based on different capitals of farm households practicing integrated farming in comparison to mixed farming. Finally, based on different problems, a constraint facing index was calculated in order to suggest policy recommendations.SAARC J. Agri., 13(2): 61-79 (2015)

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The cultivation of improved chickpea varieties has been increasing over time that kicks off the local varieties from the farmer’s field. Up-to-date socio-economic information regarding this issue is scanty in Bangladesh. That is why we analyze the profitability of improved chickpea variety and assess the impact of its cultivation on the livelihood of chickpea farmers in the high Barind region of Bangladesh. The values of benefit-cost ratio depict that the improved variety is more profitable in comparison to local chickpea variety; specifically, the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of improved chickpea production is 1.87, while it is only 1.66 for local chickpea. To understand the wellbeing of chickpea farmers, the multidimensional livelihood index (MLI) following sustainable livelihood framework of the Department for International Development (DFID) is used, which constitutes the asset pentagon of five capitals namely human, physical, natural, financial and social capital. The MLI of improved and local chickpea growers are 0.51 and 0.39 respectively which belong in the middle livelihood category. Meanwhile, the MLI reflects that the improved variety cultivars are in a better livelihood condition than the local variety growers. Among all the five capitals of the MLI, the difference between these two groups is the largest in the case of social capital followed by financial capital. Since both groups have achieved far less MLI values than 1, the recommendation is therefore to ensure different types of facilities for the development of people of high Barind tract as well as increasing the production of improved chickpea. SAARC J. Agri., 18(1): 129-142 (2020)

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The study aimed to examine the present status of rice crop residue management and its impact on farmers’ livelihood covering two sub-districts in Mymensingh district of Bangladesh. A total of 100 farmers (50 for crop residue practicing farmers and 50 for the farmers involved in traditional farming) were selected randomly for data collection. A combination of descriptive, statistical and mathematical techniques were applied to achieve the objectives and to get the meaningful results. The results of descriptive statistics showed that retention was found higher in far distance plots from homestead. No retention of crop residues was found in case of Aus and Aman rice. The whole retention was found only in case of Boro rice. The shortage of labour in season and the wage rate were also important factors for the retention of crop residues. However, farmers’ perceptions about the use of crop residues were mostly adding organic matter to the crop field followed by mulching and feeding animal. The recycling of resources among crop retention and livestock has the great potential to return a considerable amount of plant nutrients to the soil in the rice based crop production systems. Due to crop residue practices, crop and livestock both were benefited through resource interdependences. The sampled farmers were benefited from retention of crop residues by improving soil quality, soil moisture, etc.; and farmers used less amounts of fertilizer, irrigation water, etc. for the succeeding crops. Consequently, succeeding crop productivity, profitability and annual income were increased significantly. The result of logit regression model shows that age of household head, farm size, agricultural income and non-farm income were found as significant variables in explaining the variation in crop residue adoption of farm households. To assess the livelihood pattern of sample farm households through asset pentagon approach, noteworthy improvement was found s on different capitals. The study identified some problems regarding crop residue management and finally, recommended that if the farmers get proper training for such management, it would be helpful to improve their livelihood.Progressive Agriculture 27 (2): 189-199, 2016

Abstract:

With a view to address the present status of intervention received by dairy farmers from different government and non-government organizations and its impact on farmers’ livelihood pattern in relation to self-managed farmers, this present study was performed in two districts of Bangladesh namely, Manikganj and Sirajganj. Altogether 165 dairy farmers were selected from two districts. A combination of descriptive, statistical and mathematical techniques was applied to achieve the objectives and to get the meaningful results. The BCR were 2.3 for NGO supported and 2.4 for GO supported farmers. The productivity in terms of physical volume was higher in case of supported dairy farmers for both the areas which were tested by t-statistics. In determining the effects of the different variable inputs, four out of six variables (i.e., labor cost, paddy straw cost, green grass cost and concentrate feed cost) were found to have significant effect on gross returns from milk production for both supported and self-managed farmers. To accomplish the profit maximization, all types of dairy farmers have scope to attain full efficiency in milk production by reallocating the resources. Supported farm created greater opportunity for employment of both male and female than self-managed dairy farmers. Ravallion test results showed that the income was increased by the amount of Tk. 25400.6 due to intervention. Expenditure elasticity was also estimated at 0.40% which means that expenditure increased by 0.40%, on an average, due to 1% increase in income, other things remaining the same. The asset pentagon approach shows that there is a noteworthy improvement based on different capitals namely, human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital and financial capital of supported dairy farming. Although dairy farmers reported problems of low price of output, inadequate capital, etc., these could be minimized if both government and non-government organizations take proper measures in this regard, which will ultimately lead to improve farmers’ socioeconomic conditions and livelihood status.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjas.v43i3.21656 Bang. J. Anim. Sci. 2014. 43 (3): 232-241

Abstract:

<p class="judulabstrakindo"><strong> ABSTRAK</strong></p><p class="abstrakindo">Ekspansi perusahaan pemasok kayu dari HTI (Hutan Tanaman Industri) untuk kebutuhan bubur kertas (<em>pulp</em>) semakin besar setiap tahunnya. Deforestasi wilayah hutan menjadi penyebab degadrasi lingkungan yang berkepanjangan. Tak hanya itu, HTI seringkali memunculkan konflik lahan bagi masyarakat yang ada di sekitar wilayah konsesi. Konflik lahan seringkali muncul karena adanya ketidak-jelasan batas wilayah desa terhadap konsesi perusahaan HTI, dan juga kurangnya komunikasi antara kedua belah pihak dalam penyelesaian masalah lahan. Hal ini diperburuk lagi dengan kondisi bahwa desa sebagai sebuah unit dari wilayah tidak memiliki batas wilayah secara definitif. Selanjutnya terdapat berbagai macam kerentanan masyarakat dalam menghadapi ekspansi perusahaan jika didudukkan dalam kerangka kehidupan berkelanjutan (penilaian dari 5 jenis aset). Tujuan dalam penelitian ini adalah mengetahui aset ruang Desa Sungai Batang dari perspektif pentagonal aset. Selain itu, tujuan kedua penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui efektifitas pemetaan partisipatif dan studi tenurial di Desa Sungai Batang. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan data primer dan data sekunder, yang mana peneliti terlibat dalam proses <em>grandtour</em>, observasi dan wawancara kepada orang-orang kunci. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode studi kasus Desa Sungai Batang sebagai salah satu desa yang berada di dalam batas wilayah sebuah perusahaan yang bergerak di bidang HTI. Hasil dari penelitian ini, apabila Desa Sungai Batang didudukkan dalam kerangka penghidupan berkelanjutan, memiliki potensi besar dalam aset modal sosial dan modal alam. Sayangnya, kedua modal tersebut belum ditegaskan dengan batasan wilayah yang jelas sehingga sering terjadi ketidaksepahaman dan kecenderungan eksploitasi antara perusahaan kepada masyarakat.</p><p><strong>Kata kunci: </strong>desa sungai batang, batas wilayah, sistem tenurial</p><p> </p><p class="judulabsINgg"><strong> ABSTRACT</strong></p><p class="abstrakingg">The expansion of wood supply chain in HTI or Industrial Forest Plantation for the needs of pulp is getting bigger every year. Deforestation causes prolonged relegation. HTI also create a land conflict to people surrounding the concession. Land conflict often arise by obscurity of village boundaries within HTI concession, and also the lack communication between two parties in resolution of land issues. It is worsened by village condition as one of unit of the area does not have definitive boundaries yet.There is a wide range of social vulnerability faced the expansion of the company, in terms of sustainable livelihoods (assesing 5 types of assets). The purpose of this research is to determine Sungai batang space’s assets from the pentagon asset perspective. In addition, the second purpose is to determine the effectivennes of participatory mapping and tenure study in Sungai Batang village. This research was conducted using primary data and secondary data, which researchers involved in the process grandtour, observation and interviews with key persons. This study uses case study method Sungai Batang as one of the villages that lies within the boundaries of a company as Industrial Forest Plantation.The results of this study, as Sungai Batang village assesed in terms of sustainable livelihoods, has great potential in social capital and natural capital. Unfortunately, both the capital have not been confirmed with the clear boundaries it caused some disagreement and exploitation tendency between companies to the community.</p><p><strong><em>Keywords:</em></strong><strong> </strong><em>sungai batang village, boundaries, tenure system</em><strong> </strong><strong></strong></p>

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to see the effect of pentagon fraud that proxied by financial targets, nature of the industry, quality of external auditors, change of auditors, number of CEOs who frequently detect fraud in financial statements. Financial statement fraud in this study was measured using the proxies of Return on Assets, Receivables, selection of audit services at public accounting firms, changes in public accounting firms, changes in directors, and the number of CEO photos. The population in research study are use manufacturing companies who listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) in 2017-2019. This research uses a purposive sampling technique so, there are 48 financial reports from 25 manufacturing companies. The analytical method used in this research is multiple linear regression analysis with SPSS version 20. The results of this research indicate that financial targets, nature of industry, quality of external auditors and the number of CEOs who often don’t have a significant effect in the handling of fraudulent financial statements. Meanwhile, changes in auditors and changes in direction have a significant effect from pentagon fraud side on fraudulent financial statements. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk melihat pengaruh fraud pentagon yang di proksikan dengan financial target, nature of industry, quality of external auditor, change of auditor, frequent number of CEO terhadap pendeteksian kecurangan (fraud) laporan keuangan. Kecurangan dalam Laporan Keuangan di penelitian ini diukur menggunakan proksi Return on Assets, Receivable, pemilihan jasa audit pada KAP, pergantian KAP, perubahan direksi, dan banyaknya foto CEO. Perusahaan manufaktur yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia (BEI) pada tahun 2017-2019 digunakan sebagai populasi dalam penelitian ini. Penelitian ini menggunakan teknik purposive sampling sehingga terdapat 48 laporan keuangan dari 25 perusahaan manufaktur. Analisis regresi linear berganda merupakan metode analisis yang digunakan dengan SPSS versi 20. Financial target, nature of industry, quality of external auditor dan frequent number of CEO tidak bepengaruh signfikan dalam mendeteksi adanya kecurangan dalam Laporan Keuangan dalam penelitian ini. Sedangkan, change of auditor dan change of direction berpengaruh signifikan dalam medeteksi kecurangan dalam laporan keuangan.

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to see the effect of pentagon fraud that proxied by financial targets, nature of the industry, quality of external auditors, change of auditors, number of CEOs who frequently detect fraud in financial statements. Financial statement fraud in this study was measured using the proxies of Return on Assets, Receivables, selection of audit services at public accounting firms, changes in public accounting firms, changes in directors, and the number of CEO photos. The population in research study are use manufacturing companies who listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) in 2017-2019. This research uses a purposive sampling technique so, there are 48 financial reports from 25 manufacturing companies. The analytical method used in this research is multiple linear regression analysis with SPSS version 20. The results of this research indicate that financial targets, nature of industry, quality of external auditors and the number of CEOs who often don’t have a significant effect in the handling of fraudulent financial statements. Meanwhile, changes in auditors and changes in direction have a significant effect from pentagon fraud side on fraudulent financial statements.Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisis pengaruh moderasi locus of control, faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi sistem informasi keuangan pada kantor kecamatan di kota Semarang. Populasi penelitian ini adalah 16 Kantor Kecamatan di Kota Semarang dan diperoleh 54 kuesioner, kemudian dianalisis analisis regresi moderasi (MRA). Dari hasil penelitian pengaruh Locus of Control Moderation terhadap Efektifitas Sistem Informasi Keuangan pada Kantor Kecamatan Kota Semarang Provinsi Jawa Tengah diperoleh hasil penelitian hipotesis pertama yaitu pengaruh manajemen puncak terhadap efektivitas sistem informasi, untuk menguji pengaruh kepuasan pengguna terhadap efektivitas sistem informasi, untuk menguji pengaruh budaya organisasi terhadap efektivitas sistem informasi. Efektivitas sistem informasi, untuk menguji pengaruh locus of control terhadap hubungan antara manajemen puncak terhadap efektivitas sistem informasi, untuk menguji pengaruh locus of control antara kepuasan pengguna terhadap efektivitas sistem informasi dari hasil penelitian menghasilkan pengaruh yang positif dan signifikan.

Abstract:

On 11 September 2001 three hijacked commercial airliners were crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon in Virginia, and a field in Western Pennsylvania, killing approximately 3,000 people. The unprecedented magnitude of these terrorist attacks led the United States government to assert that the acts were not just criminal acts but ‘acts of war’. This characterisation is more than just a question of semantics. Labeling the September 11 attacks as ‘acts of war’ gives the US government the basis to respond militarily — a response that is significantly different to traditional law enforcement, both legally and practically. Another significant difference is that prosecution of alleged perpetrators can occur under the laws of war (or international humanitarian law), as opposed to domestic or international criminal law.

Abstract:

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research is see the effect of pentagon fraud proxied by financial targets, nature of the industry, quality of external auditors, change of auditors, number of CEOs who frequently detect fraud in financial statements. Financial statement fraud in this study was measured using the proxies of Return on Assets, Receivables, selection of audit services at public accounting firms, changes in public accounting firms, changes in directors, and the number of CEO photos. The population in this study are manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) in 2017-2019. This study uses a purposive sampling technique so, there are 48 financial reports from 25 manufacturing companies. The analytical method used is multiple linear regression analysis with SPSS version 20. The results of this study indicate that financial targets, nature of industry, quality of external auditors and the number of CEOs who often do not have a significant effect in the handling of fraudulent financial statements. Meanwhile, changes in auditors and changes in direction have a significant effect on fraudulent financial statements

Abstract:

<p class="IABSSS"><strong>Purpose</strong> - This study aims to determine the effect of each dimension of diamond fraud (pressure, opportunity, rationalization, capability) and personal ethics on the fraud tendency (assets misappropriation) and understanding of religiosity as moderating variable.</p><p class="IABSSS"><strong>Method </strong>- The study was conducted by survey method. The samples are amil zakat in Yogyakarta. Data analysis in this study applied multiple linear regression analysis with IBM SPSS version 22. The instruments were adopted from previous research.</p><p class="IABSSS"><strong>Result</strong> - The results of data analysis in this study show that there are positive influences between elements of diamond fraud (pressure, opportunity, rationalization, capability) on the fraud tendency (assets misappropriation) but personal ethics do not influence the fraud tendency. While the understanding of religiosity is able to moderate elements of diamond fraud (pressure, opportunity, rationalization, capability) and personal ethics.</p><p class="IABSSS"><strong>Implication</strong> - Future research can expand the object of research in several other provinces. In addition, fraud theory used is Fraud Diamond Theory. Whereas now there has been an increase in the cause of fraud, which is arrogance and evolved into Fraud Pentagon Theory, so that the next arrogance variable can be added as an independent variable.</p><p><strong>Originality</strong> - This reseacrh is still using samples in one province, and Amil Zakat sample was chosen as a sample because based on data submitted by BAZNAS.</p>

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Power transformers play an important role in electrical systems; being considered the core of electric power transmissions and distribution networks, the owners and users of these assets are increasingly concerned with adopting reliable, automated, and non-invasive techniques to monitor and diagnose their operating conditions. Thus, monitoring the conditions of power transformers has evolved, in the sense that a complete characterization of the conditions of oil–paper insulation can be achieved through dissolved gas analysis (DGA) and furan compounds analysis, since these analyses provide a lot of information about the phenomena that occur in power transformers. The Duval triangles and pentagons methods can be used with a high percentage of correct predictions compared to the known classical methods (key gases, International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), Rogers, Doernenburg ratios), because, in addition to the six types of basic faults, they also identify four sub-types of thermal faults that provide important additional information for the appropriate corrective actions to be applied to the transformers. A new approach is presented based on the complementarity between the analysis of the gases dissolved in the transformer oil and the analysis of furan compounds, for the identification of the different faults, especially when there are multiple faults, by extending the diagnosis of the operating conditions of the power transformers, in terms of paper degradation. The implemented software system based on artificial neural networks was tested and validated in practice, with good results.

Abstract:

Introduction. Nowadays, power transformer aging and failures are viewed with great attention in power transmission industry. Dissolved gas analysis (DGA) is classified among the biggest widely used methods used within the context of asset management policy to detect the incipient faults in their earlier stage in power transformers. Up to now, several procedures have been employed for the lecture of DGA results. Among these useful means, we find Key Gases, Rogers Ratios, IEC Ratios, the historical technique less used today Doernenburg Ratios, the two types of Duval Pentagons methods, several versions of the Duval Triangles method and Logarithmic Nomograph. Problem. DGA data extracted from different units in service served to verify the ability and reliability of these methods in assessing the state of health of the power transformer. Aim. An improving the quality of diagnostics of electrical power transformer by artificial neural network tools based on two conventional methods in the case of a functional power transformer at Sétif province in East North of Algeria. Methodology. Design an inelegant tool for power transformer diagnosis using neural networks based on traditional methods IEC and Rogers, which allows to early detection faults, to increase the reliability, of the entire electrical energy system from transport to consumers and improve a continuity and quality of service. Results. The solution of the problem was carried out by using feed-forward back-propagation neural networks implemented in MATLAB-Simulink environment. Four real power transformers working under different environment and climate conditions such as: desert, humid, cold were taken into account. The practical results of the diagnosis of these power transformers by the DGA are presented. Practical value. The structure and specific features of power transformer winding insulation ageing and defect state diagnosis by the application of the artificial neural network (ANN) has been briefly given. MATLAB programs were then developed to automate the evaluation of each method. This paper presents another tool to review the results obtained by the delta X software widely used by the electricity company in Algeria.

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The characterization of the stability of the fused aromatic region (FAR) in oil asphaltenes in terms of kinetic and thermodynamic stability is primary. Such an understanding is important if we are to get the optimal use from the heavy fraction of any crude oil. The FAR region is composed of pericondensed cyclopenta-fused polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compounds (CPPAHs) with N, S, and O heteroatoms. The Clar model, which states that the most important representation of a PAH is one having the maximum number of disjoint π-sextets, depicted by inscribed circles, and a minimum number of fixed double bonds, captures the essence of the kinetic and thermodynamic stability arguments. This model is readily employed for complex aromatics of the sort to be considered for asphaltenes. In the present research we prove that the aromaticity of CPPAHs can be assessed by using the qualitative easy-to-apply Y-rule. In the literature, it is proven that the Y-rule is applicable to elucidate the aromaticity of benzenoid PAHs and it has been validated for pericondensed benzenoid PAHs but not for pericondensed CPPAHs. Here, we verify that it is applicable for CPPAHs. The applicability of the Y-rule has been theoretically proven by comparing the π-electronic distribution obtained with it with the one obtained from nucleus-independent chemical shift (NICS) calculations at the density functional theory (DFT) level. The importance of doing this is that due to the polydispersity in the composition of the oil asphaltenes, and to understand their aromatic core structure, it is necessary to be able to asses the aromaticity of many cyclopenta-fused PAHs (possibly more than 500), of different sizes (up to 15 rings between hexagons and pentagons), and different spatial rearrangements in a quick but realistic and effective way. To try to do this with NICS will be very time consuming and computationally expensive, especially in the case of big systems.

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The 9/11 terrorist attacks leveled the twin towers of New Yorks World Trade Center, caused serious damage to the Pentagon, and disrupted the national economy. The response by corporate organiza-tions, hardest hit by the events of 9/11, has turned the familiar phrase business as usual into an anachronism. Effective human resource management (HRM) practices are critical for any organization to appropriately respond and recover from catastrophic events, such as those of 9/11. In the aftermath of 9/11, corporate organizations have recognized the need to change many of their HRM practices. Possible explanations for recent changes in HRM practices are twofold: 1) as precautionary measures intended to avert man-made disasters, and 2) to enhance the organizations capability to immediately and effectively respond should a disaster strike. Irrespective of the reasons organizations are changing their HRM practices, they are placing more importance than ever on the need to optimally utilize and safeguard their most valued asset employees. Exploratory research on the initial responses by corporate organizations to the events of 9/11 reveals: 1) that many did not have disaster plans in place, and 2) that an even larger number were poorly prepared to deal with the disasters immediate impact on employees, particularly the negative psychological consequences engendered by such a disaster. This exploratory paper culminates in a proposed HRM Practices Disaster Recovery Diagnostic Tool. This tool would allow an organization to assess the adequacy of their HRM practices in responding to man-made disasters.

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This papar examined the cost and revenue as well as impact of mutant rice on fourteen region of Bangladesh namely Mymensingh, Jashore, Cumilla, Bogura, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Dhaka, Khulna, Chattagram, Rangamati, Barishal and Faridpur. A total of 560 farmers were randomly selected to fulfill the objectives where 280 farmers were mutant growers and 280 were non- mutant growers. A pre-designed interview schedule was used to collect the necessary data. Descriptive statistics, profit function and livelihood assets were used to analyzed the collected data. The study revealed that total variable cost of rice cultivation was BDT.40589 and BDT.43927 per hectare for mutant and non mutant, respectively which was around 71 percent of total cost of production. On an average, the total cost of production was BDT.59584 per hectare, where 29 percent was fixed costs and 71 percent was variable cost. For Binadhan-7 cultivation per hectare average net return was found highest in Dinajpur region i.e. BDT.70919 and the lowest in Jashore region i.e. BDT.33703. BCR on total cost basis was found 1.90 which was the highest in Sylhet 2.56 and the lowest 1.51 in Jashore region for Binadhan-7 production. In case of non-growers BCR on total cost basis was found 1.43 which was lower than Binadhan-7 production in the study areas indicating Binadhan-7 growers earn much than the non growers. The asset pentagon approach showed that there is a noteworthy increases in capitals of sampled farm households and the highest for financial capital that was 20.05 percent and the lowest was for natural capital i. e., 5.38 percent. Among the list of preferences, the highest was 88.93 percent for short duration and it was ranked I, the lowest was high yielding i.e. 81.43 percent which was ranked as V. Among the constraints, the highest constraint reported by the farmer was labour crisis as well as high price of labour i.e. 80.71 percent and it was ranked I and the lowest ranked V was lack of quality seed at proper time i.e. 48.93 percent in Binadhan-7 cultivation. Finally it is remarked that short duration high yielding variety Binadhan-7 plays a vital role in the monga mitigation of the northern areas of Bangladesh.

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PurposeThis paper examines the implications, for States Parties, of the 1954 Convention safeguarding regime in the context of contemporary non-international armed conflict and ANSAs, with a general focus on the Middle East and in situ cultural property.Design/methodology/approachAs the nature of conflict changes and armed forces become further engaged in supporting peacekeeping operations and deliver training to host nation security forces, and human security becomes an increasingly important function of military operations, the protection of cultural heritage (as an expression of a people's identity) becomes a significant contribution to individual operations.FindingsInternational obligations to States Parties for the in situ protection of cultural heritage, under both International Humanitarian Law and HC54, become an ever increasing important responsibility for armed forces to help deliver.Research limitations/implicationsWhile NATO is increasingly focussed on the defence of western states parties from threats posed by the Russian Federation, and observing a commercially and military assertive China, a recent report issued by the Pentagon noted that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is regrouping in Iraq faster than in Syria and could regain territory in six to twelve months in the absence of sustained military pressure.Practical implicationsPreservation in situ is used by heritage professionals to refer to the protection of a cultural heritage asset in its original location while the in situ protection of cultural property is a cornerstone topic of the 1954 Hague Convention Special Protection category. The Convention was drafted with international armed conflict in mind but the initial signatories to the Convention had sufficient foresight to consider non-international armed conflict and its potential effect on in situ cultural property by parties to the conflict, including Armed Non-State Actors (ANSA)Social implicationsUN Security Council Resolution 2449 (December 2018) recognized the negative impact of the presence, violent extremist ideology and actions on stability in Syria and the region of both Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Al-Nusrah Front (ANF). This includes not only the devastating humanitarian impact on civilian populations but also the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage.Originality/valueANSAs comprise individuals and groups that are wholly or partly independent of State governments and which threaten or use violence to achieve their goals, such as Islamic State. As such, the military operating environment has changed since 1954.

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Abstract. In the financial sectors, fraud has become a world phenomenon, ranging from fraudulent financial reports, assets misappropriation and corruption. These three types of fraud are practices carried out deliberately against the law which harm many parties. This study aims to analyze fraudulent financial reporting, where the presentation of misstatements is presented to mislead financial reports. These are against the ethical perspective of Islamic law as stated in the Quran and Hadith. This research uses secondary data based on the principles of sharia accounting concepts and Islamic ethics. The analytical method used is a qualitative description method with literary and normative approaches by examining fraudulent financial reporting from the perspective of Islamic law. The results of this study strengthen the theory of fraud pentagon with the symptoms and red flags of fraud, namely pressure, opportunity, rationalization, competence, and arrogance of the perpetrators of fraud. The Quran as well as the hadith emphasize the values of honesty, justice, truth, responsibility, and belief in reporting. This research also overlooks the weak ethics of the accounting profession and also the value of religiosity held by weak accountants from the perspectives of Islam.Keywords: Accounting Fraud, Fraudulent Financial Reporting, Fraud Pentagon Theory, Islamic Legal Ethics Abstrak. Pada sektor keuangan, fraud (kecurangan) menjadi salah satu fenomena global, dengan kasus kecurangan laporan keuangan, penyelewengan aset dan korupsi. Ketiga bentuk kecurangan tersebut merupakan praktek yang dilakukan secara sengaja melawan hukum dan merugikan banyak pihak. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis kecurangan pelaporan keuangan, dimana informasi yang disajikan dalam laporan adalah hal yang tidak sesuai dengan kenyataan. Hal ini bertentangan dengan etika hukum Islam dalam Al-Qur'an dan Hadits. Penelitian ini adalah menggunakan data sekunder dengan mendasarkan pada prinsip-prinsip akuntansi syariah dan etika Islam. Metode analisis yang digunakan adalah metode deskripsikualitatif dengan pendekatan literatur dan kajian normatif. Hal ini dilakukan dengan memeriksa kecurangan pelaporan keuangan dari perspektif hukum Islam. Hasil dari penelitian ini memperkuat teori Fraud Pentagon tentang gejala dan Red Flag Fraud, yang terdiri dari tekanan, peluang, rasionalisasi, kompetensi, dan arogansi para pelaku penipuan. Hal ini bertentangan dengan prinsip hukum Islam yang menekankan pada nilai-nilai kejujuran, keadilan, kebenaran, tanggung jawab, dan kepercayaan dalam pelaporan. Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan lemahnya prinsip etis dalam profesi akuntansi dan jugai religiusitas yang dimiliki oleh akuntan.Kata kunci: Kecurangan akuntansi, Kecurangan Pelaporan Keuangan, Teori Fraud Pentagon, Etika Hukum Islam

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This study aims to analyze the proxies that are considered to be able to detect financial statement fraud with the pentagon fraud model. This model is a development of the fraud triangle and fraud diamond models by adding arrogance elements to complement the previous four existing elements, namely pressure, opportunity, rationalization, and competence. The population used in the study are companies listed on the 2016-2018 Jakarta Islamic Index (JII). Company samples obtained using purposive sampling technique are 14 companies and tested using multiple regression analysis. The results obtained from this study indicate that the stability proxied by changes in total assets and changes in directors as a proxy of the competency element has an influence in predicting financial statement fraud, while the opportunity, rationalization and arrogance elements do not affect financial report fraud. It is hoped that this research can be developed by extending the research years and proxies that represent each element of this model.

Abstract:

In the modern era, data redundancy has become one among the predominant ultimatums encountered in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs), which occurs because of event information reporting through the scalars residing at the superimposing zones of field of views (FoVs) of multiple camera sensors. As a result, same data is transferred many times, thus leading to redundancy in data transfer. Therefore, the aim is to select the representatives of scalar sensors called scalar premiers (SPs) that can report the event information in lieu of all the scalars while diminishing the redundant data transfer and improving the event coverage. We have proffered a pentagonal scheme of SP selection that chooses five SPs in each of the virtual compartments of the monitored zone efficiently. The chosen SPs operate as nominee of scalars for event information transmittal. Extensive experiments have been accomplished to affirm the efficiency of our proffered method. We changed the number of cameras deployed (noc) and the number of scalars deployed (nos). The results attained from the experimental studies in terms of number of camera sensors activated (nca), coverage ratio (cr), redundancy ratio (rr), event loss ratio (elr) and energy expenditure for camera actuation (eeca) assert the superiority of our profferred approach over existing approaches.

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IntroductionFor over five years, Romanians have been using their bodies in public spaces to challenge politicians’ disregard for the average citizen. In a region low in standards of civic engagement, such as voter turnout and petition signing, Romanian people’s “citizenship of the streets” has stopped environmentally destructive mining in 2013, ousted a corrupt cabinet in 2015, and blocked legislation legalising abuse of public office in 2017 (Solnit 214). This article explores the democratic affordances of collective resistive walking, by focusing on Romania’s capital, Bucharest. I illustrate how walking in protest of political corruption cultivates a democratic public and reconfigures city spaces as spaces of democratic engagement, in the context of increased illiberalism in the region. I examine two sites of protest: the Parliament Palace and Victoriei Square. The former is a construction emblematic of communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and symbol of an authoritarian regime, whose surrounding area protestors reclaim as a civic space. The latter—a central part of the city bustling with the life of cafes, museums, bike lanes, and nearby parks—hosts the Government and has become an iconic site for pro-democratic movements. Spaces of Democracy: The Performativity of Public Assemblies Democracies are active achievements, dependent not only on the solidity of institutions —e.g., a free press and a constitution—but on people’s ability and desire to communicate about issues of concern and to occupy public space. Communicative approaches to democratic theory, formulated as inquiries into the public sphere and the plurality and evolution of publics, often return to establish the significance of public spaces and of bodies in the maintenance of our “rhetorical democracies” (Hauser). Speech and assembly, voice and space are sides of the same coin. In John Dewey’s work, communication is the main “loyalty” of democracy: the heart and final guarantee of democracy is in free gatherings of neighbors on the street corner to discuss back and forth what is read in the uncensored news of the day, and in gatherings of friends in the living rooms of houses and apartments to converse freely with one another. (Dewey qtd. in Asen 197, emphasis added) Dewey asserts the centrality of communication in the same breath that he affirms the spatial infrastructure supporting it.Historically, Richard Sennett explains, Athenian democracy has been organised around two “spaces of democracy” where people assembled: the agora or town square and the theatre or Pnyx. While the theatre has endured as the symbol of democratic communication, with its ideal of concentrated attention on the argument of one speaker, Sennett illuminates the square as an equally important space, one without which deliberation in the Pnyx would be impossible. In the agora, citizens cultivate an ability to see, expect, and think through difference. In its open architecture and inclusiveness, Sennett explains, the agora affords the walker and dweller a public space to experience, in a quick, fragmentary, and embodied way, the differences and divergences in fellow citizens. Through visual scrutiny and embodied exposure, the square thus cultivates “an outlook favorable to discussion of differing views and conflicting interests”, useful for deliberation in the Pnyx, and the capacity to recognise strangers as part of the imagined democratic community (19). Also stressing the importance of spaces for assembly, Jürgen Habermas’s historical theorisation of the bourgeois public sphere moves the functions of the agora to the modern “third places” (Oldenburg) of the civic society emerging in late seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe: coffee houses, salons, and clubs. While Habermas’ conceptualization of a unified bourgeois public has been criticised for its class and gender exclusivism, and for its normative model of deliberation and consensus, such criticism has also opened paths of inquiry into the rhetorical pluralism of publics and into the democratic affordances of embodied performativity. Thus, unlike Habermas’s assumption of a single bourgeois public, work on twentieth and twenty-first century publics has attended to their wide variety in post-modern societies (e.g., Bruce; Butler; Delicath and DeLuca; Fraser; Harold and DeLuca; Hauser; Lewis; Mckinnon et al.; Pezzullo; Rai; Tabako). In contrast to the Habermasian close attention to verbal argumentation, such criticism prioritizes the embodied (performative, aesthetic, and material) ways in which publics manifest their attention to common issues. From suffragists to environmentalists and, most recently, anti-precarity movements across the globe, publics assemble and move through shared space, seeking to break hegemonies of media representation by creating media events of their own. In the process, Judith Butler explains, such embodied assemblies accomplish much more. They disrupt prevalent logics and dominant feelings of disposability, precarity, and anxiety, at the same time that they (re)constitute subjects and increasingly privatised spaces into citizens and public places of democracy, respectively. Butler proposes that to best understand recent protests we need to read collective assembly in the current political moment of “accelerating precarity” and responsibilisation (10). Globally, increasingly larger populations are exposed to economic insecurity and precarity through government withdrawal from labor protections and the diminishment of social services, to the profit of increasingly monopolistic business. A logic of self-investment and personal responsibility accompanies such structural changes, as people understand themselves as individual market actors in competition with other market actors rather than as citizens and community members (Brown). In this context, public assembly would enact an alternative, insisting on interdependency. Bodies, in such assemblies, signify both symbolically (their will to speak against power) and indexically. As Butler describes, “it is this body, and these bodies, that require employment, shelter, health care, and food, as well as a sense of a future that is not the future of unpayable debt” (10). Butler describes the function of these protests more fully:[P]lural enactments […] make manifest the understanding that a situation is shared, contesting the individualizing morality that makes a moral norm of economic self-sufficiency precisely […] when self-sufficiency is becoming increasingly unrealizable. Showing up, standing, breathing, moving, standing still, speech, and silence are all aspects of a sudden assembly, an unforeseen form of political performativity that puts livable life at the forefront of politics […] [T]he bodies assembled ‘say’ we are not disposable, even if they stand silently. (18)Though Romania is not included in her account of contemporary protest movements, Butler’s theoretical account aptly describes both the structural and ideological conditions, and the performativity of Romanian protestors. In Romania, citizens have started to assemble in the streets against austerity measures (2012), environmental destruction (2013), fatal infrastructures (2015) and against the government’s corruption and attempts to undermine the Judiciary (from February 2017 onward). While, as scholars have argued (Olteanu and Beyerle; Gubernat and Rammelt), political corruption has gradually crystallised into the dominant and enduring framework for the assembled publics, post-communist corruption has been part and parcel of the neoliberalisation of Central and Eastern-European societies after the fall of communism. In the region, Leslie Holmes explains, former communist elites or the nomenklatura, have remained the majority political class after 1989. With political power and under the shelter of political immunity, nomenklatura politicians “were able to take ethically questionable advantage in various ways […] of the sell-off of previously state-owned enterprises” (Holmes 12). The process through which the established political class became owners of a previously state-owned economy is known as “nomenklatura privatization”, a common form of political corruption in the region, Holmes explains (12). Such practices were common knowledge among a cynical population through most of the 1990s and the 2000s. They were not broadly challenged in an ideological milieu attached, as Mihaela Miroiu, Isabela Preoteasa, and Jerzy Szacki argued, to extreme forms of liberalism and neoliberalism, ideologies perceived by people just coming out of communism as anti-ideology. Almost three decades since the fall of communism, in the face of unyielding levels of poverty (Zaharia; Marin), the decaying state of healthcare and education (Bilefsky; “Education”), and migration rates second only to war-torn Syria (Deletant), Romanian protestors have come to attribute the diminution of life in post-communism to the political corruption of the established political class (“Romania Corruption Report”; “Corruption Perceptions”). Following systematic attempts by the nomenklatura-heavy governing coalition to undermine the judiciary and institutionalise de facto corruption of public officials (Deletant), protestors have been returning to public spaces on a weekly basis, de-normalising the political cynicism and isolation serving the established political class. Mothers Walking: Resignifying Communist Spaces, Imagining the New DemosOn 11 July 2018, a protest of mothers was streamed live by Corruption Kills (Corupția ucide), a Facebook group started by activist Florin Bădiță after a deadly nightclub fire attributed to the corruption of public servants, in 2015 (Commander). Organized protests at the time pressured the Social-Democratic cabinet into resignation. Corruption Kills has remained a key activist platform, organising assemblies, streaming live from demonstrations, and sharing personal acts of dissent, thus extending the life of embodied assemblies. In the mothers’ protest video, women carrying babies in body-wraps and strollers walk across the intersection leading to the Parliament Palace, while police direct traffic and ensure their safety (“Civil Disobedience”). This was an unusual scene for many reasons. Walkers met at the entrance to the Parliament Palace, an area most emblematic of the former regime. Built by Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu and inspired by Kim Il-sung’s North Korean architecture, the current Parliament building and its surrounding plaza remain, in the words of Renata Salecl, “one of the most traumatic remnants of the communist regime” (90). The construction is the second largest administrative building in the world, after the Pentagon, a size matching the ambitions of the dictator. It bears witness to the personal and cultural sacrifices the construction and its surrounded plaza required: the displacement of some 40,000 people from old neighbourhood Uranus, the death of reportedly thousands of workers, and the flattening of churches, monasteries, hospitals, schools (Parliament Palace). This arbitrary construction carved out of the old city remains a symbol of an authoritarian relation with the nation. As Salecl puts it, Ceaușescu’s project tried to realise the utopia of a new communist “centre” and created an artificial space as removed from the rest of the city as the leader himself was from the needs of his people. Twenty-nine years after the fall of communism, the plaza of the Parliament Palace remains as suspended from the life of the city as it was during the 1980s. The trees lining the boulevard have grown slightly and bike lanes are painted over decaying stones. Still, only few people walk by the neo-classical apartment buildings now discoloured and stained by weather and time. Salecl remarks on the panoptic experience of the Parliament Palace: “observed from the avenue, [the palace] appears to have no entrance; there are only numerous windows, which give the impression of an omnipresent gaze” (95). The building embodies, for Salecl, the logic of surveillance of the communist regime, which “created the impression of omnipresence” through a secret police that rallied members among regular citizens and inspired fear by striking randomly (95).Against this geography steeped in collective memories of fear and exposure to the gaze of the state, women turn their children’s bodies and their own into performances of resistance that draw on the rhetorical force of communist gender politics. Both motherhood and childhood were heavily regulated roles under Ceaușescu’s nationalist-socialist politics of forced birth, despite the official idealisation of both. Producing children for the nationalist-communist state was women’s mandated expression of citizenship. Declaring the foetus “the socialist property of the whole society”, in 1966 Ceaușescu criminalised abortion for women of reproductive ages who had fewer than four children, and, starting 1985, less than five children (Ceaușescu qtd. in Verdery). What followed was “a national tragedy”: illegal abortions became the leading cause of death for fertile women, children were abandoned into inhumane conditions in the infamous orphanages, and mothers experienced the everyday drama of caring for families in an economy of shortages (Kligman 364). The communist politicisation of natality during communist Romania exemplifies one of the worst manifestations of the political as biopolitical. The current maternal bodies and children’s bodies circulating in the communist-iconic plaza articulate past and present for Romanians, redeploying a traumatic collective memory to challenge increasingly authoritarian ambitions of the governing Social Democratic Party. The images of caring mothers walking in protest with their babies furthers the claims that anti-corruption publics have made in other venues: that the government, in their indifference and corruption, is driving millions of people, usually young, out of the country, in a braindrain of unprecedented proportions (Ursu; Deletant; #vavedemdinSibiu). In their determination to walk during the gruelling temperatures of mid-July, in their youth and their babies’ youth, the mothers’ walk performs the contrast between their generation of engaged, persistent, and caring citizens and the docile abused subject of a past indexed by the Ceaușescu-era architecture. In addition to performing a new caring imagined community (Anderson), women’s silent, resolute walk on the crosswalk turns a lifeless geography, heavy with the architectural traces of authoritarian history, into a public space that holds democratic protest. By inhabiting the cultural role of mothers, protestors disarmed state authorities: instead of the militarised gendarmerie usually policing protestors the Victoriei Square, only traffic police were called for the mothers’ protest. The police choreographed cars and people, as protestors walked across the intersection leading to the Parliament. Drivers, usually aggressive and insouciant, now moved in concert with the protestors. The mothers’ walk, immediately modeled by people in other cities (Cluj-Napoca), reconfigured a car-dominated geography and an unreliable, driver-friendly police, into a civic space that is struggling to facilitate the citizens’ peaceful disobedience. The walkers’ assembly thus begins to constitute the civic character of the plaza, collecting “the space itself […] the pavement and […] the architecture [to produce] the public character of that material environment” (Butler 71). It demonstrates the possibility of a new imagined community of caring and persistent citizens, one significantly different from the cynical, disconnected, and survivalist subjects that the nomenklatura politicians, nested in the Panoptic Parliament nearby, would prefer.Persisting in the Victoriei Square In addition to strenuous physical walking to reclaim city spaces, such as the mothers’ walking, the anti-corruption public also practices walking and gathering in less taxing environments. The Victoriei Square is such a place, a central plaza that connects major boulevards with large sidewalks, functional bike lanes, and old trees. The square is the architectural meeting point of old and new, where communist apartments meet late nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture, in a privileged neighbourhood of villas, museums, and foreign consulates. One of these 1930s constructions is the Government building, hosting the Prime Minister’s cabinet. Demonstrators gathered here during the major protests of 2015 and 2017, and have walked, stood, and wandered in the square almost weekly since (“Past Events”). On 24 June 2018, I arrive in the Victoriei Square to participate in the protest announced on social media by Corruption Kills. There is room to move, to pause, and rest. In some pockets, people assemble to pay attention to impromptu speakers who come onto a small platform to share their ideas. Occasionally someone starts chanting “We See You!” and “Down with Corruption!” and almost everyone joins the chant. A few young people circulate petitions. But there is little exultation in the group as a whole, shared mostly among those taking up the stage or waving flags. Throughout the square, groups of familiars stop to chat. Couples and families walk their bikes, strolling slowly through the crowds, seemingly heading to or coming from the nearby park on a summer evening. Small kids play together, drawing with chalk on the pavement, or greeting dogs while parents greet each other. Older children race one another, picking up on the sense of freedom and de-centred but still purposeful engagement. The openness of the space allows one to meander and observe all these groups, performing the function of the Ancient agora: making visible the strangers who are part of the polis. The overwhelming feeling is one of solidarity. This comes partly from the possibilities of collective agency and the feeling of comfortably taking up space and having your embodiment respected, otherwise hard to come by in other spaces of the city. Everyday walking in the streets of Romanian cities is usually an exercise in hypervigilant physical prowess and self-preserving numbness. You keep your eyes on the ground to not stumble on broken pavement. You watch ahead for unmarked construction work. You live with other people’s sweat on the hot buses. You hop among cars parked on sidewalks and listen keenly for when others may zoom by. In one of the last post-socialist states to join the European Union, living with generalised poverty means walking in cities where your senses must be dulled to manage the heat, the dust, the smells, and the waiting, irresponsive to beauty and to amiable sociality. The euphemistic vocabulary of neoliberalism may describe everyday walking through individualistic terms such as “grit” or “resilience.” And while people are called to effort, creativity, and endurance not needed in more functional states, what one experiences is the gradual diminution of one’s lives under a political regime where illiberalism keeps a citizen-serving democracy at bay. By contrast, the Victoriei Square holds bodies whose comfort in each other’s presence allow us to imagine a political community where survivalism, or what Lauren Berlant calls “lateral agency”, are no longer the norm. In “showing up, standing, breathing, moving, standing still […] an unforeseen form of political performativity that puts livable life at the forefront of politics” is enacted (Butler 18). In arriving to Victoriei Square repeatedly, Romanians demonstrate that there is room to breathe more easily, to engage with civility, and to trust the strangers in their country. They assert that they are not disposable, even if a neoliberal corrupt post-communist regime would have them otherwise.ConclusionBecoming a public, as Michael Warner proposes, is an ongoing process of attention to an issue, through the circulation of discourse and self-organisation with strangers. For the anti-corruption public of Romania’s past years, such ongoing work is accompanied by persistent, civil, embodied collective assembly, in an articulation of claims, bodies, and spaces that promotes a material agency that reconfigures the city and the imagined Romanian community into a more democratic one. The Romanian citizenship of the streets is particularly significant in the current geopolitical and ideological moment. In the region, increasing authoritarianism meets the alienating logics of neoliberalism, both trying to reduce citizens to disposable, self-reliant, and disconnected market actors. Populist autocrats—Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, the Peace and Justice Party in Poland, and recently E.U.-penalized Victor Orban, in Hungary—are dismantling the system of checks and balances, and posing threats to a European Union already challenged by refugee debates and Donald Trump’s unreliable alliance against authoritarianism. In such a moment, the Romanian anti-corruption public performs within the geographies of their city solidarity and commitment to democracy, demonstrating an alternative to the submissive and disconnected subjects preferred by authoritarianism and neoliberalism.Author's NoteIn addition to the anonymous reviewers, the author would like to thank Mary Tuominen and Jesse Schlotterbeck for their helpful comments on this essay.ReferencesAnderson, Benedict R. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2016.Asen, Robert. “A Discourse Theory of Citizenship.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 90.2 (2004): 189-211. 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Abstract:

The whole problem of speaking about the end…is that you have to speak of what lies beyond the end and also, at the same time, of the impossibility of ending. Jean Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End(110) Jean Baudrillard’s insights into finality demonstrate that “ends” always prompt cultures to speculate on what can or will happen after these terminations and to fear those traumatic ends, in which the impossible actually occurs, may only be the beginning of chaos. In the absence of “rational” explanations for catastrophic ends and in the whirlwind of emotional responses that are their after-effects, the search for beginnings and origins – the antitheses of Baudrillard’s finality – characterises human response to tragedy. Strangely, Baudrillard’s engagement with the end is linked to an articulation predicated on our ability “to speak” events into existence, to conjure and to bridle those events in terms of recognisable, linear, and logical arrangements of words. Calling this verbal ordering “the poetry of initial conditions” (Baudrillard 113) in which memory imposes a structure so that the chaotic/catastrophic may be studied and its elements may be compared, Baudrillard suggests that this poetry “fascinates” because “we no longer possess a vision of final conditions” (113). The images of contemporary catastrophes and their subsequent visualisation serve as the ultimate reminders that we, as viewers and survivors, were not there – that visualisation itself involves a necessary distance between the horrified viewer and the viewed horror. In the case of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre, the need to “be there,” to experience vicariously a trauma as similarly as possible to those who later became its victims, perhaps explains why images of the planes first slamming into each of the towers were played and repeated ad nauseam. As Baudrillard suggests, “it would be interesting to know whether…effects persist in the absence of causes … whether something can exist apart from any origin and reference” (111). The ongoing search for these causes – particularly in the case of the World Trade Centre’s obliteration – has manifested itself in a persistent cycle of image production and consumption, prompting those images to serve as the visible/visual join between our own survival and the lost lives of the attacks or as surrogates for those whose death we could not witness. These images frequently allowed the West to legitimise its mourning, served as the road map by which we could (re-)explore the halcyon days prior to September 11, and provided the evidence needed for collective retribution. Ultimately, images served as the fictive embodiments of unseen victims and provided the vehicle by which mourning could be transformed from an isolated act to a shared experience. Visitors on the Rooftop: Visualising Origins and the Moments before Destruction It goes without saying that most have seen the famous photograph of the bundled-up tourist standing on the observation deck of the World Trade Centre with one of the jets ready to strike the tower shortly thereafter (see Figure 1). Though the photograph was deemed a macabre photo-manipulation, it reached thousands of e-mail inboxes almost two weeks following the horrific attacks and led many to ponder excitedly whether this image truly was the “last” image of a pre-September 11 world. Many openly debated why someone would fabricate such an image, yet analysts believe that its creation was a means to heal and to return to the unruffled days prior to September 11, when terrorism was thought to be a phenomenon relegated to the “elsewhere” of the Middle East. A Website devoted to the analysis of cultural rumours, Urban Legends, somewhat melodramatically suggested that the photograph resurrects what recovery efforts could not re-construct – a better understanding of the moments before thousands of individuals perished: The online world is fraught with clever photo manipulations that often provoke gales of laughter in those who view them, so we speculate that whoever put together this particular bit of imaging did so purely as a lark. However, presumed lighthearted motives or not, the photo provokes sensations of horror in those who view it. It apparently captures the last fraction of a second of this man’s life ... and also of the final moment of normalcy before the universe changed for all of us. In the blink of an eye, a beautiful yet ordinary fall day was transformed into flames and falling bodies, buildings collapsing inwards on themselves, and wave upon wave of terror washing over a populace wholly unprepared for a war beginning in its midst…The photo ripped away the healing distance brought by the nearly two weeks between the attacks and the appearance of this digital manipulation, leaving the sheer horror of the moment once again raw and bared to the wind. Though the picture wasn’t real, the emotions it stirred up were. It is because of these emotions the photo has sped from inbox to inbox with the speed that it has. (“The Accidental Tourist”) While the photograph does help the viewer recall the times before our fears of terrorism, war, and death were realised, this image does not episodically capture “the last fraction of a second” in a man’s life, nor does it give credibility to the “blink-of-an-eye” shifts between beautiful and battered worlds. The photographic analysis provided by Urban Legends serves as a retrospective means of condensing the space of time in which we must imagine the inevitable suffering of unseen individuals. Yet, the video of the towers, from the initial impacts to their collapse, measured approximately 102 minutes – a massive space of time in which victims surely contemplated escape, the inevitability of escape, the possibility of their death, and, ultimately, the impossibility of their survival (“Remains of a Day” 58). Post-traumatic visualising serves as the basis for constructing the extended horror as instantaneous, a projection that reflects how we hoped the situation might be for those who experienced it, rather than an accurate representation of the lengthy period of time between the beginning and end of the attacks. The photograph of the “accidental tourist” does not subscribe to the usual tenets of photography that suggest the image we see is, to quote W.J.T. Mitchell, “a purely objective transcript of reality” (Mitchell 281). Rather, this image invites a Burginian “inva[sion] by language in the very moment it is looked at: in memory, in association, [where] snatches of words and images continually intermingle and exchange one for the other” (Burgin 51). One sees the tourist in the photograph as a smiling innocent, posing at the wrong place and at the wrong time. Through that ascription, viewers may justify their anger and melancholy as this singular, visible body (about to be harmed) stands in for countless, unseen others awaiting the same fate. Its discrepancies with the actual opening hours of the WTC observation deck and the positioning of the aircraft largely ignored, the “accidental tourist” photo-manipulation was visualised by countless individuals and forwarded to a plethora of in-boxes because September 11 realities could not be shared intimately on that day, because the death of aircraft passengers, WTC workers, and rescue personnel was an inevitable outcome that could not be visualised as even remotely “actual” or explainable. Computer-based art and design have shown us that approximations to reality often result in its overall conflation. Accordingly, our desperate hope that we have seen glimpses of the moments before tragedy is ultimately dismantled by an acknowledgement of the illogical or impossible elements that go against the basic rules of visualisation. The “accidental tourist” is a phenomenon that not only epitomises Baudrillard’s search for origins in the wake of catastrophic effects, but underscores a collective need to visualise bodies as once-living rather than presently and inevitably dead. Faces in the Smoke: Visualising the Unseen Although such photo-manipulations were rampant in the days and weeks following the attack, many people constructed their own realities in the untouched images that the media streamed to them. The World Trade Centre disaster seemed to implore photography, in particular, to resurrect both the unseen, unremembered moments prior to the airliners’ slamming into the building and to perform two distinct roles as the towers burned: to reaffirm the public’s perception of the attack as an act of evil and to catalyse a sense of hope that those who perished were touched by God or ushered peacefully to their deaths. Within hours of the attacks, photographic stills captured what many thought to be the image of Satan – complete with horns, face, eyes, nose, and mouth – within the plumes of smoke billowing from one of the towers (see Figure 2 and its detail in Figure 3). The Associated Press, whose footage was most frequently used to reference this visual phenomenon, quickly dismissed the speculation; as Vin Alabiso, an executive photo editor for AP, observed: AP has a very strict policy which prohibits the alteration of the content of a photo in any way…The smoke in this photo combined with light and shadow has created an image which readers have seen in different ways. (“Angel or Devil?”) Although Alabiso’s comments defended the authenticity of the photographs, they also suggested the ways in which visual representation and perception could be affected by catastrophic circ*mstances. While many observers openly questioned whether the photographs had been “doctored,” others all too willingly invested these images with ethereal qualities by asking if the “face” they saw was that of Satan – a question mirroring their belief that such an act of terrorism was clear evidence of evil masterminding. If, as Mitchell has theorised, photographs function through a dialogical exchange of connotative and denotative messages, the photographs of the burning towers instead bombarded viewers with largely connotative messages – in other words, nothing that could precisely link specific bodies to the catastrophe. The visualising of Satan’s face happens not because Satan actually dwells within the plumes of smoke, but because the photograph resists Mitchell’s dialogue with the melancholic eye. The photograph refuses to “speak” for the individuals we know are suffering behind the layers of smoke, so our own eye constructs what the photograph will not reveal: the “face” of a reality we wish to be represented as deplorably and unquestionably evil. Barthes has observed that such “variation in readings is not … anarchic, [but] depends on the different types of knowledge … invested in the image…” (Barthes 46). In traumatic situations, one might amend this analysis to state that these various readings occur because of gaps in this knowledge and because visualisation transforms into an act based on knowledge that we wish we had, that we wish we could share with victims and fellow mourners. These visualisations highlight a desperate need to bridge the viewer’s experience of survival and their concomitant knowledge of others’ deaths and to link the “safe” visualisation of the catastrophic with the utter submission to catastrophe likely felt by those who died. Explaining the faces in the smoke as “natural indentations” as Alabiso did may be the technical and emotionally neutral means of cataloguing these images; however, the spotting of faces in photographic stills is a mechanism of visualisation that humanises a tragedy in which physical bodies (their death, their mutilation) cannot be seen. Other people who saw photographic stills from other angles and degrees of proximity were quick to highlight the presence of angels in the smoke, as captured by WABC from a perspective entirely different from that in Figure 2 (instead, see Figure 3). In either scenario, photography allows the visual personification of redemptive or evil influences, as well as the ability to visualise the tragedy not just as the isolated destruction of an architectural marvel, but as a crime against humanity with cosmic importance. Sharing the Fall: Desperation and the Photographing of Falling Bodies Perhaps what became even more troubling than the imagistic conjuring of human forms within the smoke was the photographing of bodies falling from the upper floors of the North Tower (see Figure 5). Though newspapers (re-)published photographs of the debris and hysteria of the attacks and television networks (re-)broadcast video sequences of the planes’ crashing into the towers and their collapse, the pictures of people jumping from the building were rarely circulated by the media. Dennis Cauchon and Martha T. Moore characterised these consequences of the terrorist attacks as “the most sensitive aspect of the Sept. 11 tragedy … [that] shocked the nation” (Cauchon and Moore). A delicate balance certainly existed between the media’s desire to associate faces with the feelings of desperation we know those who died must have experienced and a now-numb general public who ascribed to the photographs an unequivocal “too-muchness.” To read about those who jumped to escape smoke and flames reveals a horrific and frightfully swift narrative of panic: For those who jumped, the fall lasted 10 seconds. They struck the ground at just less than 150 miles per hour – not fast enough to cause unconsciousness while falling, but fast enough to ensure instant death on impact. People jumped from all four sides of the north tower. They jumped alone, in pairs and in groups. (Cauchon and Moore) The text contextualises these leaps to death in terms that are understandable to survivors who read the story and later discover these descriptions can never approximate the trauma of “being there”: Why did they jump? How fast were they travelling? Did they feel anything when their bodies hit the ground? Were they conscious during their jump? Did they die alone? These questions and their answers put into motion the very moment that the photograph of the jumping man has frozen. Words act as extensions of the physical boundaries of the photograph and underscore the horror of that image, from the description of the conditions that prompted the jump to the pondering of the death that was its consequence. If, as Jonathan Crary’s analysis of photographic viewing might intimate, visualisation prompts both an “autonomy of vision” and a “standardisation and regulation of the observer” (Crary 150), the photograph of a man plummeting to his death fashions the viewer’s eye as autonomous and alive because the image he/she views is the undeniable representation of a now-deceased Other. Yet, as seen in the often-hysterical responses to the threats of terrorism in the days following September 11, this “Other” embodies the very possibility of our own demise. Suddenly, the man we see in mid-air becomes the visualised “Every(wo)man” whose photographic representation also represents our unacknowledged vulnerabilities. Thus, trauma is shared through a poignant visual negotiation of dying: the certainty of the photographed man’s death juxtaposed with the newly realised or conjured threat of the viewer’s own death. In terms of humanness, those who witnessed these falls firsthand recall the ways in which the falling people became objectified – their fall seemingly robbing them of any visible sense of humanity. Eric Thompson, an employee on the seventy-seventh floor of the South Tower, shared an instantaneous moment with one of the victims: Thompson looked the man in the face. He saw his tie flapping in the wind. He watched the man’s body strike the pavement below. “There was no human resemblance whatsoever,” Thompson says. (Cauchon and Moore) Obviously, the in-situ experience of viewing these individuals hopelessly jumping to their deaths served as the prompt to run away, to escape, but the photograph acts as the frozen-in-time re-visitation and sharing of – a turning back toward – this scenario. The act of viewing the photographs reinstates the humanness that the panic of the moment seemingly removed; yet, the disparity between the photograph’s foreground (the jumping man) and its background (the building’s façade) remains its greatest disconcerting element. Unlike those photographic portraits that script behaviours and capture us in our most presentable states of being, this photograph reveals the unwilling subject – he who has not consented to share his state of being with the camera. Though W.J.T. Mitchell suggests that “[p]hotographs…seem necessarily incomplete in their imposition of a frame that can never include everything that was there to be…‘taken’” (Mitchell 289), the eye in times of catastrophe shifts between its desire to maintain the frame (that does not visually engage the inferno from which the man jumped or the concrete upon which he died) and its inability to do so. This photograph, as Mitchell might assert, “speaks” because visualisation allows its total frame of reference to extend beyond its physical boundaries and, as evidenced by post-September 11 phobias and our responses to horrific images, to affect the very means by which catastrophe is imagined and visualised. Technically speaking, the negotiated balance between foreground and background in the photograph is lost: the desperation of the falling man juxtaposed with a seemingly impossible background that should not have been there. Lost, too, is the viewer’s ability to “connect” visually with – literally, to share – that experience, to see oneself within the contexts of that particular visual representation. This inability to see the viewing self in the photograph is an ironic moment of experiential possibility that lingers still in the Western world’s fears surrounding terrorism: when the supposedly impossible act is finally visualised, territorialised, and rendered as possible. Dead Art: The Destructions and Resurrections of Works by Rodin In many ways, the photographing of those experiences so divorced from our own contributed to intense discussions of perspective in visualisation: the viewer’s witnessing of trauma by means of a camera and photographer that captured the image from a “safe” distance. However, the recovery of artwork that actually suffered damage as a result of the World Trade Centre collapse prompted many art historians and theorists to ponder the possibilities of art’s death and to contemplate the fate of art that is physically victimised. In an anticipatory vein, J.M. Bernstein suggests that “art ends as it becomes progressively further distanced from truth and moral goodness, as it loses its capacity to speak the truth about our most fundamental categorical engagements…” (Bernstein 5). If Bernstein’s theory is applied to those works damaged at the World Trade Centre site, the sculptures of Rodin, so famously photographed in the weeks of excavation that followed September 11, could be categorised as “dead” – distanced from the “truth” of human form that Rodin cast, even further from the moral goodness and the striving toward global peace that the Cantor Fitzgerald collection aimed to embrace. While many art critics believed that the destroyed works should not be displayed again, many (including Fritz Koenig, who designed The Sphere, which was damaged in the terrorist attacks) believe that such “dead art” deserves, even requires, resuscitation (see Figure 6). Much like the American flags that survived the infernos at the World Trade Centre and Pentagon site, these lost and re-discovered artworks have served as rallying points to accomplish both the sharing of trauma and an artistically inspired foundation for the re-development of the lower Manhattan site. In the case of Rodin’s The Thinker, which was recovered at the site and later presumed stolen, the statue’s discovery alongside aircraft parts and twisted steel girders served as a unique and rare survival story, almost as the surrogate representative body for those human bodies that were never found, never seen. Dan Barry and William K. Rashbaum recall that in the days following the sculpture’s disappearance, “investigators have been at Fresh Kills [landfill] and at ground zero in recent weeks, flashing a photograph of ‘The Thinker’ and asking, in effect: Have you seen this symbol of humanity” (Barry and Rashbaum)? Given such symbolic weight, sculpture most certainly took on superhuman proportions. Yet, in the days that followed the discovery of artwork that survived the attacks, only passing references were made to those figurative paintings and drawings by Picasso, Hockney, Lichtenstein, and Miró that were lost – perhaps because their subject matter or manner of artistic representation did not (or could not) reflect a “true” infliction of damage and pain the way a three-dimensional, human-like sculpture could. Viewers visualised not only the possibility of their own cultural undoing by seeing damaged Rodins, but also the embodiment of unseen victims’ bodies that could not be recovered. In a rousing speech about September 11 as an attack upon the humanities and the production of culture, Bruce Cole stated that “the loss of artifacts and art, no matter how priceless and precious, is dwarfed by the loss of life” (Cole). Nevertheless, the visualisation of maimed, disfigured art was the lens through which many individuals understood the immensity of that loss of life and the finality of their loved ones’ disappearances. What the destruction and damaging of artwork on September 11 created was an atmosphere in which art, traditionally conjured as the studied and inanimate subject, transformed from a determined to a determining influence, a re-working of Paul Smith’s theory in which “the ‘subject’ … is determined – the object of determinant forces; whereas ‘the individual’ is assumed to be determining” (Smith xxxiv). Damaged sculptures gave representative form to the thousands of victims we, as a visualising public, knew were inside the towers, but their survival spoke to larger artistic issues: the impossibility of art’s end and the foiling of its death. Baudrillard’s notion of the “impossibility of ending” demonstrates that the destruction of art (in the capitalistic sense that is contingent on its undamaged condition and its prescribed worth and “value”) does not equate to the destruction of meaning as such, but that the new and re-negotiated meanings deployed by injured art frighteningly implicate us – viewers who once assigned meaning becoming the subjects who long to be assigned something, anything, be it solace, closure, or retribution. Importantly, the latest plans for the re-vitalised World Trade Centre site indicate that the damaged Rodin and Koenig sculptures will semiotically mediate the significations established when the original World Trade Centre was a vital nexus of activity in lower Manhattan, the shock and pain experienced when the towers collapsed and individuals were searching for meaning in art’s destruction and survival, and the hope many have invested in the new buildings and their role in the maintenance and recovery of memory. A Concluding Thought Digital manipulation, photography, and the re-contextualisation of artistic “masterpieces” from their hermetic placement in the gallery to their brutal dumping in a landfill have served as the humanistic prompts that actively determined the ways in which culture grappled with and shared unimaginable horror. Images have transformed in purpose from static re(-)presentations of reality to active, changing conduits by which pasts can be remembered, by which the intangibility of death can be given substance, by which unshared moments can be more intimately considered. Oddly, visualisation has performed simultaneously two disparate functions: separating the living from the dead through a panoply of re-affirming visual experiences and permitting the re-visitation of those times, events, and people that the human eye could not see itself. Ultimately, what the manipulations, misinterpretations, and destructions of art show us is that the conveyance of meaning between individuals, whether dead or alive, whether seen or unseen, is the image’s most pressing and difficult charge. Works Cited “Angel or Devil? Viewers See Images in Smoke.” Click on Detroit. 17 Sep. 2001. 10 February 2003 <http://www.clickondetroit.com/sh/news/stories/nat-news-96283920010917-120936.php>. Barry, Dan, and William K. Rashbaum. “Rodin Work from Trade Center Survived, and Vanished.” New York Times. 20 May 2002: B1. Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Baudrillard, Jean. The Illusion of the End. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. Bernstein, J.M. The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. Burgin, Victor. The End of Art Theory: Criticism and Post-Modernity. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1986. Cauchon, Dennis and Martha T. Moore. “Desperation Drove Sept. 11 Victims Out World Trade Center Windows.” Salt Lake Tribune Online. 4 September 2002. 19 Jan. 2003 <http://www.sltrib.com/2002/sep/09042002/nation_w/768120.htm>. Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. Mitchell, W.J.T. Picture Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago P, 1994. “Remains of a Day.” Time 160.11 (9 Sep. 2002): 58. Smith, Paul. Discerning the Subject. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1988. “The Accidental Tourist.” Urban Legends. 20 Nov. 2001. 21 Feb. 2003 <http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/crash.htm>. Links http://www.clickondetroit.com/sh/news/stories/nat-news-96283920010917-120936.html http://www.sltrib.com/2002/sep/09042002/nation_w/768120.htm http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/crash.htm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Smith, Royce W.. "The Image Is Dying" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0304/09-imageisdying.php>. APA Style Smith, R. W. (2003, Apr 23). The Image Is Dying. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0304/09-imageisdying.php>