Numpy and Scipy Ports for IronPython (.NET)

Here is Codeplex wiki entry for the port of  Numpy and Scipy for IronPython 2.7. Please note that not all Scipy features have been ported yet but sounds like a good start.

Amended IAS 19 released: Is the Glass half-full or half-empty?

The IAS Board has eventually released the long-awaited amended standard IAS 19 Employee Benefits (a 175+ pages document!).  The main changes consist of:

• eliminating an option to defer the recognition of gains and losses, known as the ‘corridor method’, targeting improvement of comparability and faithfulness of presentation. 
• suppression of the concept of expected return on assets  and explicit requirements to consider the tax on contribution effect on DBO.
• streamlining the presentation of changes in assets and liabilities arising from defined benefit plans, including requiring remeasurements to be presented in other comprehensive income (OCI), thereby separating those changes from changes that many perceive to be the result of an entity’s day-to-day operations.
• enhancing the disclosure requirements for defined benefit plans, providing better information about the characteristics of defined benefit plans and the risks that entities are exposed to through participation in those plans. 
• amending the treatment of Termination Benefits by excluding stay-bonuses from this category and distinguishing termination as a result of employer's or the employee's decision. 

These changes - effective as from FY 2013 -  bring IAS 19 more in line with the IFRS framework. However, we can doubt they will effectively contribute to give a more reliable economic view on the financial position of the reporting entities (mthe obligation mresaurement remain highly volatile)  if as noted by many obsevers a second Phase does not complete the revision process. It is indeed not clear whether the IASB (currently in a transition phase: members have to be replaced) intends to take this on the agenda at short notice. In this case, entities would have to cope with a half-revised standard. So,...

More specifically, from a Belgian viewpoint: 

• the accounting of DC plans would not be affected by the amendments because the IAS Board eventually decided to remove the modification of back-loaded plan rule that would have seriously affected them.
• the tax impact on DBO may be significant.
• we advise to pay special attention  to the treatment of Employee contribution and Termination Benefits as well as to the impact of the suppression of the expected return on assets.

A new R-gui: RStudio

Investigating using R under other platforms than Microsoft Windows, I have been looking for alternative tools to the well-known R-GUI Tinn-R. I have just discovered RStudio that seems to be a well-promising GUI tool. I have tested it under Mac OS X, Ubuntu 11.04... and Windows XP. Works fine (although still missing some functionnalities, such as export of console output  that should be implemented soon).

Python(x,y) News: Python(x, y) 2.6.6.0 Released!

Python(x,y) News: Python(x, y) 2.6.6.0 Released!: "Hi All, Gabi Davar and I are pleased to announce that Python(x,y) 2.6.6.0 has been released. This is the last major release based on Python..."

IAS 19 Employee Benefits ( Board March'11 meeting): amendment effective date 01/01/2013

During its March meeting, the IASB Board unanimously confirmed that the IAS 19 Employee Benefits amendments would be effective from 1 January 2013.  The amendment itself is still expected to be issued in April 2011.

 

IAS 19 Employee Benefits (Board Feb'11 meeting) : amendment expected in March '11

The IASB continued its discussion of the proposals in the exposure draft Defined Benefit Plans (the ED). At this meeting the Board discussed:

• the presentation of remeasurements;
• disclosure and administration costs; and
• the effective date and transition requirements.

Presentation of remeasurements

In December 2010 the Board tentatively decided to allow an entity to present remeasurements in profit or loss. In January 2011 the Board confirmed that decision but added some restrictions, such as making the election irrevocable, and asked the staff to assess whether the option should be restricted further. At this meeting the Board decided, in the light of that initial assessment, to revert to, and confirm, the proposal in the ED that remeasurements should be presented in other comprehensive income. The decision was supported by eight Board members. The remaining seven Board members would have preferred either to confirm the decision reached in January or to allow a free choice. 

Disclosure and administration costs

At the November and December 2010 Board meetings the Board asked the staff to obtain input from the Employee Benefits Working Group on particular aspects of the tentative decisions to date on disclosure and administration costs.

On the basis of this feedback the Board tentatively decided unanimously:

• to require the disclosure of the weighted-average duration of the defined benefit obligation, and that the amendments should include examples of the types of additional information that could be provided about the maturity analysis to meet the disclosure objective; and
• that administration costs related to the management of plan assets should be deducted from the return on plan assets.

The Board also decided, by a vote of nine to six, not to proceed with a requirement to disclose a disaggregation of the defined benefit obligation. Instead, the amendment should include an example of the type of disclosure that may meet the disclosure objectives.

Effective date and transition requirements

The Board decided to defer its decision on the effective date but tentatively agreed that it should not be earlier than 1 January 2013. The Board will discuss the effective date as well as early application as part of the broader consideration of the feedback received from the consultation on the Request for Views on Effective Dates and Transition Methods.

Subject to the Board's broader consideration of transition, the Board tentatively decided unanimously:

• that for entities already applying IFRSs, the amendments to IAS 19 should be applied retrospectively in accordance with the general requirements of IAS 8 Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors, except that:
• the carrying amount of assets outside the scope of IAS 19 need not be adjusted for changes in employee benefit costs that were included in the carrying amount before the beginning of the financial year in which this standard is first applied (ie previously unrecognised actuarial gains and losses and past service cost should be recognised by adjusting equity, not by adjusting the carrying amount of assets that include employee benefit costs); and
• comparatives need not be presented for the disclosures for the sensitivity of the defined benefit obligation for the year of initial application of the amendments to IAS 19;
• that for entities adopting IFRSs for the first time, the amendments to IAS 19 should be applied retrospectively in accordance with the general requirements of IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards, except that the Board will allow a temporary exemption for entities adopting IFRSs with a date of transition to IFRSs before the effective date of the amendments to IAS 19. That exemption would mean that comparatives need not be presented for the disclosures for the sensitivity of the defined benefit obligation.
• to confirm the proposal in the 2010 exposure draft to delete paragraphs 153-156 of IAS 19 and paragraph D10 of Appendix D of IFRS 1.

Next steps

All the Board members agreed that, subject to balloting, the Board has satisfactorily completed all the steps required in the IASB Due Process Handbook.

The Board instructed the staff to begin the balloting process for the amendment to IAS 19. The Board plans to issue the amendment by the end of March 2011.

Python-based data/science environment from Microsoft

Microsoft's Ironpython?

I've noticed a recent post in a blog from http://www.johndcook.com/blog/category/python/

Sho is an interactive environment for data analysis and scientific computing that lets you seamlessly connect scripts (in IronPython) with compiled code (in .NET) to enable fast and flexible prototyping. The environment includes powerful and efficient libraries for linear algebra as well as data visualization that can be used from any .NET language, as well as a feature-rich interactive shell for rapid development.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/the_blog_of_sho/archive/2011/01/26/introducing-sho.aspx

See also http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2010/07/01/scipy-and-numpy-for-net/