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As corporate America engages in major restructuring programs, spin‐offs are becoming a popular option. Several factors increase the chances that a spin‐off will succeed.

This article is the third in a trilogy of articles that discuss the professionalism (or deprofessionalism) of the accounting profession. The first examines the slow uphill climb of accounting and auditing practice to the level of being recognized as a highly trusted profession. The second examines the stagnation in professionalism leading to deprofessionalization of the accounting profession. This third article looks at the resulting directionless efforts of accounting and auditing firms in the wake of major deprofessionalization events. The interest in this study is the time period immediately following the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 which is described in this paper as the “Post-SOX” history of public accountancy in the United States. During this time period, nearly equally mixed activities of professionalism and deprofessionalism have resulted in a status quo with directionless efforts doing little if anything to reverse decline in professionalism. Public accountants continued to experience conflict with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over independence rules. The large Certified Public Accountant firms generated controversies and squabbles concerning “auditing and consulting,” while at the same time they faced questions regarding the marketing and selling of aggressive tax shelters. In addition, most of the self-regulating aspects of the profession declined dramatically following passage of SOX. While initially both tax fees and audit fees of CPA firms increased during this time period, concerns are again arising as the large CPA firms more recently have renewed the emphasis on advisory services. While revenues have both increased and changed in composition during the post-SOX era, public opinion has maintained a status quo. The post-SOX era has also seen a weakening in the Code of Conduct, providing more liberties for CPAs to maximize self-interest. Meanwhile, the PCAOB faced constitutional challenges, while at the same time the AICPA experienced strong divisions in its membership. To provide some sense to these directionless efforts, this study, similar to the prior two articles in this trilogy, concludes with a summary analysis based on the nine SOCRECELIST criteria, and the question whether public accountants have learned their history lesson.

This paper provides a detailed survey of the greatest dangers facing humanity this century. It argues that there are three broad classes of risks – the “Great Challenges” – that deserve our immediate attention, namely, environmental degradation, which includes climate change and global biodiversity loss; the distribution of unprecedented destructive capabilities across society by dual-use emerging technologies; and value-misaligned algorithms that exceed human-level intelligence in every cognitive domain. After examining each of these challenges, the paper then outlines a handful of additional issues that are relevant to understanding our existential predicament and could complicate attempts to overcome the Great Challenges. The central aim of this paper is to constitute an authoritative resource, insofar as this is possible in a scholarly journal, for scholars who are working on or interested in existential risks. In the author’s view, this is precisely the sort of big-picture analysis that humanity needs more of, if we wish to navigate the obstacle course of existential dangers before us.

Comprehensive literature survey that culminates in a novel theoretical framework for thinking about global-scale risks.

If humanity wishes to survive and prosper in the coming centuries, then we must overcome three Great Challenges, each of which is sufficient to cause a significant loss of expected value in the future.

The Great Challenges framework offers a novel scheme that highlights the most pressing global-scale risks to human survival and prosperity. The author argues that the “big-picture” approach of this paper exemplifies the sort of scholarship that humanity needs more of to properly understand the various existential hazards that are unique to the twenty-first century.

The purpose of this paper is to examine pre- to post-change in two components of implicit cognitive functioning following craving induction – attentional bias (AB) and executive control – of patients in a long-term drug-free residential treatment center that incorporated dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) with usual therapeutic community (TC) practices.

Three groups of alcohol and cannabis dependent female adolescents were compared: pre-treatment (n=12), following four months of treatment (n=11), and following 12 months of treatment (n=7).

The results indicate significantly lower AB (as measured by visual probe task) and improved response inhibition (as measured by stop signal task) under craving conditions, after 12 months of DBT.

Naturalistic character of the study did not allow the use of repeated measures design, drug using control groups, randomized clinical trial, or performing a longitudinal follow-up. However, the findings show that DBT for drug abusing female adolescents in a long-term residential setting may be an effective intervention to enhance cognitive and executive functions critical to the risk chain involved in relapse and recidivism, supporting the implementation of DBT in TC residential settings.

This is the first research paper that examined effects of DBT+TC on substance dependent female adolescents’ cognitive mechanisms using well-validated behavioral tasks. The research provides some empirical evidence for the improvement in AB and response inhibition under craving conditions following treatment.

Confidentiality in adoption has been the norm in this country since the 1930s. Traditionally, it has been perceived as beneficial to all sides of the adoption triangle: the adoptive parents, the adoptee, and the birth parents. Adoption agencies have supported the policy of confidentiality, and as a result the practice of concealment is almost universal in the United States. Alaska, Hawaii, and Kansas are the only states that allow adult adoptees access to their birth and adoption information.

This paper aims to formalize long-term trajectories of human civilization as a scientific and ethical field of study. The long-term trajectory of human civilization can be defined as the path that human civilization takes during the entire future time period in which human civilization could continue to exist.

This paper focuses on four types of trajectories: status quo trajectories, in which human civilization persists in a state broadly similar to its current state into the distant future; catastrophe trajectories, in which one or more events cause significant harm to human civilization; technological transformation trajectories, in which radical technological breakthroughs put human civilization on a fundamentally different course; and astronomical trajectories, in which human civilization expands beyond its home planet and into the accessible portions of the cosmos.

Status quo trajectories appear unlikely to persist into the distant future, especially in light of long-term astronomical processes. Several catastrophe, technological transformation and astronomical trajectories appear possible.

Some current actions may be able to affect the long-term trajectory. Whether these actions should be pursued depends on a mix of empirical and ethical factors. For some ethical frameworks, these actions may be especially important to pursue.

While there is a significant proportion of people with a mild intellectual disability (MID) or borderline intellectual functioning (BIF) who commit sexual offenses, little research has focused on the risk factors for sexual recidivism in people with MID-BIF. The purpose of this paper is to compare the scores on the STATIC-99R and STABLE-2007 between persons with sexual offense histories with and without MID-BIF.

Data using the STATIC-99R and STABLE-2007 were collected in 85 male patients divided into an MID-BIF group (IQ 50–85, n=50) and comparison group (IQ>95, n=35).

The MID-BIF group and comparison group did not differ significantly on the static risk factors and total score of the STATIC-99R. However, of the 13 dynamic risk factors of the STABLE-2007, the MID-BIF group scored significantly higher on the items Impulsive acts, Poor problem solving skills and Lack of concern for others, while the comparison group scored significantly higher on the item Deviant sexual preference.

The higher score on a number of dynamic risk factors for patients with MID-BIF could partly be explained by the characteristics associated with MID-BIF. Although dynamic criminogenic risk factors which are usually identified as targets for treatment appear the same for people with and without MID-BIF who commit sexual offenses, adaptations to the modality of treatment will still need to be made for people with MID-BIF.

Health-related online fake news (HOFN) has become a major social problem. HOFN can lead to the spread of ineffective and even harmful remedies. The study aims to understand Internet users' responses to HOFN during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic using the protective action decision model (PADM).

The authors collected pandemic severity data (regional number of confirmed cases) from government websites of the USA and China (Studies 1 and 2), search behavior from Google and Baidu search engines (Studies 1 and 2) and data regarding trust in two online fake news stories from two national surveys (Studies 2 and 3). All data were analyzed using a multi-level linear model.

The research detected negative time-lagged relationships between pandemic severity and regional HOFN search behavior by three actual fake news stories from the USA and China (Study 1). Importantly, trust in HOFN served as a mediator in the time-lagged relationship between pandemic severity and search behavior (Study 2). Additionally, the relationship between pandemic severity and trust in HOFN varied according to individuals' perceived control (Study 3).

The authors' results underscore the important role of PADM in understanding Internet users' trust in and search for HOFN. When people trust HOFN, they may seek more information to implement further protective actions. Importantly, it appears that trust in HOFN varies with environmental cues (regional pandemic severity) and with individuals' perceived control, providing insight into developing coping strategies during a pandemic.