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"Women in the Performing Arts" was the subject of a round table discussion held at the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World in January 2007. The participants were Nidal Ashqar, a pioneer actress and director, and the first Lebanese woman to manage her own theater Masrah al-Madina; Julia Kassar, renowned Lebanese actress and acting instructor; Joelle Khoury, pianist, composer, and founder of the Jazz quintet In-Version; Yasmina Fayed, singer in the troupe Shahadeen ya Baladna and assistant producer at Future Television; Pamela Koueik, singer and university student at LAU; Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, director of the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, and Mona Knio, guest editor of al-Raida. Due to space constraints, the following are excerpts from the two-hour discussion.

The relationship between the client and the auditor could explain variance in audit quality. We propose a complimentary explanation, with a focus on the governance of the audit firm. Audit firms are governed by partners and its partnership structure. We explore theoretically how the number of partners and especially, how the partnership concentration, i.e., number of partners/number of auditors and experts in an audit firm, influence the audit firm and the audit quality. We find that both number of partners and partnership concentration influence the partners and the organisation towards more commercial actions and reduce the audit quality, but only to a certain level. Our policy recommendation is that regulators should not only focus on the relationship between the client and the auditor, for example NAS and rotation of auditors, but also on the governance of the audit firms.

This book examines the relations between Western religion, secularism, and modern theater and performance. Sharon Aronson-Lehavi posits that the ongoing cultural power of religious texts, icons, and ideas on the one hand and the artistic freedom enabled by secularism and avant-garde experimentalism on the other, has led theatre artists throughout the twentieth century to create a uniquely modern theatrical hybrid-theater performances that simultaneously re-inscribe and grapple with religion and religious performativity. The book compares this phenomenon with medieval forms of religious theater and offers deep and original analyses of significant contemporary works ranging from plays and performances by August Strindberg, Hugo Ball (Dada), Jerzy Grotowski, and Hanoch Levin, to those created by Adrienne Kennedy, Rina Yerushalmi, Deb Margolin, Milo Rau, and Sarah Ruhl. The book analyzes a new and original historiography of a uniquely modern theatrical phenomenon, a study that is of high importance considering the reemergence of religion in contemporary culture and politics.

Abstract: This article reviews self‐assessment and reporting strategies of national audit offices in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia and develops a framework for the reporting of their performance. There is a common emphasis in the audit office objectives on serving their primary client and on improving the performance of the public sector, but there are differences in emphasis regarding the clients being served. The differing approaches to assessing and reporting their own performance can in part be attributed to differences between their mandates, objectives and identification of the clients being served. The audit offices have developed complementary internal quality assurance processes which generate additional performance information and have been subject to external peer reviews which assess and report on their performance.A framework is developed which clarifies the relationship between audit office objectives and the measures used. It involves a hierarchy of performance parameters, including effectiveness, efficiency and workload and gives priority to meeting the needs of the primary client. The study has revealed that significant progress is being made in particular areas of assessing and reporting audit office performance and this should encourage audit offices to share their experiences internationally to enhance their own accountability to their primary clients and the communities they serve.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining the similarities and differences among pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) contracts at the Teacher Retirement System, the Employees Retirement System, the University of Texas System, and the Texas A&M University System, and to assessing whether there are contract provisions that would provide better value to other state entities or that would be advantageous if the State used a single PBM for all state health plans.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to energy savings performance contracts at selected Texas state agencies and institutions of higher education, and to reviewing methods of reducing energy consumption, monitoring the amount of dollars saved, and determining the accuracy and completeness of information submitted by participating agencies.

This study begins with the problem of auditor performance on the Big Four Public Accounting Firm and requires an improvement in audit quality due to a decreased audit quality assessment on the Big Four Public Accounting Firm. Problem related to audit quality is also experienced by government internal auditors. This is due to several factors such as the minimum standards set by the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (FDSA) that have not been met by government internal auditors, auditor staff with accounting education backgrounds are still very few, auditors have not applied the Government Internal Oversight Apparatus (GIOE) code of ethics and so forth. The aims of this study to determine the extent of the audit quality produced by the government's internal auditors at the FDSA of Java island Representatives. Through the theory of behaviorism, this study has four objectives is to find out the implementation of professional accounting ethics, auditor competence, integrity, professional commitment on audit quality. Therefore, this study contributes to FDSA of Java Provinces to carry out the functions and duties of government internal auditor based on the GIOE codes and ethics and standards.