This book brings together in one volume the current state of ageing research in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The authors are leading researchers in the field, placing this topic in the context of human ageing, describing how and why basic discoveries in this simple organism have impacted our prospects for intervention in the ageing process. The authors cover a broad range of topics with regards to organismal and reproductive ageing including anatomical, physiological and biochemical changes, as well as genetic and environmental interventions that promote longevity and ameliorate age-related disease. Ageing is the single most important factor determining the onset of human disease in developed countries. With current worldwide demographic trends indicating that the number of individuals over the age of 65 will continue to rise, it is clear that an understanding of the processes that underpin ageing and age-related disease represents a key challenge in the biomedical sciences. In recent years there have been huge advances in our understanding of the ageing process and many of these have stemmed from genetic analysis of C. elegans. With no analogous book in this subject area this work will be of interest to a wide audience, ranging from academic researchers to the general public.

This book brings together in one volume the current state of ageing research in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The authors are leading researchers in the field, placing this topic in the context of human ageing, describing how and why basic discoveries in this simple organism have impacted our prospects for intervention in the ageing process. The authors cover a broad range of topics with regards to organismal and reproductive ageing including anatomical, physiological and biochemical changes, as well as genetic and environmental interventions that promote longevity and ameliorate age-related disease. Ageing is the single most important factor determining the onset of human disease in developed countries. With current worldwide demographic trends indicating that the number of individuals over the age of 65 will continue to rise, it is clear that an understanding of the processes that underpin ageing and age-related disease represents a key challenge in the biomedical sciences. In recent years there have been huge advances in our understanding of the ageing process and many of these have stemmed from genetic analysis of C. elegans. With no analogous book in this subject area this work will be of interest to a wide audience, ranging from academic researchers to the general public.

Accounting is the language of business, increasingly standardized across the world through powerful global corporations: a technical skill used to reach the correct, unquestionable answer. Yet, as recent corporate scandals have shown, a whole range of financial professionals (auditors, bankers, analysts, company directors) can collectively fail to question dubious actions. How can this be possible?
To understand such failures, this book explores how accountants construct the technical knowledge they deem relevant to decision-making. In doing so, it not only offers a new way to understand deviance and scandals, but also suggests a reappraisal of accounting knowledge which has important implications for everyday commercial life.
The book's findings are based on interviews with chartered accountants working in the largest accountancy practices in London. The interviews reveal that although accounting decisions seem clear after they have been made, the process of making them is contested and opaque. Yet accountants nonetheless tend to describe their work as if it were straightforward and technical. Accountants' Truth digs beneath the surface to explore how accountants actually construct knowledge, and draws out the implications of that process with respect to issues such as professionalism, performance, transparency, and ethics.
This important book concludes that accountants' technical discourse undermines their ethical reasoning by obscuring the ways in which accounting decisions must be thought through in practice. Accountants with particular ethical perspectives more readily understand and construct particular types of knowledge, so the two issues of knowledge and of ethics are inseparable. Increasingly technical accounting rules can therefore counterproductive. Instead, our best approach to avoiding future scandals is to redefine and reinvigorate professional ethics in the financial world.

Accounting is the language of business, increasingly standardized across the world through powerful global corporations: a technical skill used to reach the correct, unquestionable answer. Yet, as recent corporate scandals have shown, a whole range of financial professionals (auditors, bankers, analysts, company directors) can collectively fail to question dubious actions. How can this be possible?
To understand such failures, this book explores how accountants construct the technical knowledge they deem relevant to decision-making. In doing so, it not only offers a new way to understand deviance and scandals, but also suggests a reappraisal of accounting knowledge which has important implications for everyday commercial life.
The book is based on interviews with chartered accountants working in the largest accountancy practices in London. The interviews reveal that although accounting decisions seem clear after they have been made, the process of making them is contested and opaque. Yet accountants nonetheless tend to describe their work as if it were straightforward and technical. Accountants' Truth digs beneath the surface to explore how accountants actually construct knowledge, and draws out the implications of that process with respect to issues such as professionalism, performance, transparency, and ethics.
This important book concludes that accountants' technical discourse undermines their ethical reasoning by obscuring the ways in which accounting decisions must be thought through in practice. Accountants with particular ethical perspectives more readily understand and construct particular types of knowledge, so the two issues of knowledge and of ethics are inseparable. Increasingly technical accounting rules can therefore counterproductive. Instead, our best approach to avoiding future scandals is to redefine and reinvigorate professional ethics in the financial world.