Odds Ratios in Generalized Linear/Nonlinear (GLZ) Models
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:29:00 -0500
SPOTLIGHT ON: John Elder, Ph.D.
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:33:00 -0500
Monte Carlo and Sample Size
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:48:00 -0500
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation imposes new, extensive reporting and record keeping requirements on all publicly-traded companies and mandate that Executives of those companies take personal responsibility for the procedures of collecting data for the company's financial Reports and for the integrity of their contents. In order to comply with the requirements, companies need flexible software systems that facilitate record keeping and document management in a secure and efficient manner. STATISTICA Document Management System (SDMS) provides a cost-effective and feature-rich platform for control and management of the myriad documents (e.g., MS Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, PDF documents, raw data sets) involved in budgeting and reporting processes. SDMS provides not only a platform for aiding compliance in ensuring a standard and secure approach to managing these documents and for capturing the necessary reviews, edits, and approvals through which these documents must proceed. It also offers functionality designed to improve productivity and to facilitate efficient (but still controlled) access to crucial business data. Moreover, it includes options to automatically keep records and powerful tools to build highly customized, secure data collection systems integrated with intelligent (analytic) monitoring of processes and tracking changes in the flow of information that is vital for the organization.
Delivering accurate financial reports ongoing is typically a complex process, involving several individuals, many documents with various revision cycles, and a series of review and approval steps. With the SOX mandates, the onus is on the management team of every publicly-traded company to provide assurances that the financial reporting process is controlled, with certainty that the contents of financial reports are accurate. Now, corporate executives have personal responsibility for the accuracy of their company's reports. What is needed is a software system to empower the corporation with a platform for managing the financial documents throughout the life cycle of the financial reporting process. The need is for an electronic document management system that provides security and controls, edit history, and the automation and capture of review/approval cycles.
To satisfy the diverse functionality and security requirements of the management of the documents involved in financial reporting, the STATISTICA Document Management System implements a set of options to manage documents in a flexible and secure database. Its self-explanatory user interface allows you to easily perform all document management operations (from any computer connected to the network or (optionally) via the Internet). Most document types can be automatically maintained both in (a) the archival, review-only (non-editable) PDF format, featuring the appropriate electronic signatures, and also (b) in the respective editable ("source") format allowing the user with the appropriate access privileges to create new, modified versions. None of the edits or changes, however, will ever overwrite either the archival review-only, or the source files of the previous version - they will only add a new pair of files to the repository. Strict security via electronic signatures is enforced, and different groups of users can be authorized to create, edit, or review documents in different parts of the repository. Documents in the document archive cannot be deleted by end-users. Every time a document is edited, a new version is created and logged with annotations (meta data) to identify the time and the author of the modifications, and other information (either optional or required by the local configuration). Approval requirements are configurable, so that documents must be reviewed, approved, and signed (via electronic signatures) by designated personnel before they are finalized. A complete auditing trail of all document edits is automatically created, and can be printed or saved in electronic form, for submission to regulatory bodies or agencies. STATISTICA Document Management System offers groupware functionality, supports workgroups, and allows you to define users and groups of users with specific privileges, such as the permission to create documents, edit documents, review documents, approve documents, and so on. Summary options are available to allow authorized users to review the complete audit trail for requested documents. Various options are available to perform simple or complex searches of the documents and different versions of documents managed by the STATISTICA Document Management System. For More Information For more information about facilitating Sarbanes-Oxley compliance with the STATISTICA Document Management System, please contact one of the STATISTICA Solutions Consultants at 918-749-1119.