Characterization of Emissions of Wax-Based Products During Combustion

Currently, over 40% of the global burden of disease is attributed to environmental factors; of this, 2.6% of disease is attributed to indoor pollutants. When considering that people currently spend about 85 percent of their time indoors, this is a concerning statistic. Environmental and health concerns have pushed scientists to develop new cleaner and greener burning wax-based products. E3 Fuels has developed an additive that is claimed to reduce the emissions, both particulate and gaseous, associated with the combustion of hydrocarbons in solid wax-based products. In this study, the aforementioned emissions were qualified and quantified in paraffin candles using various techniques including nuclear magnetic resonance and Fourier transform infrared analysis. The difference in the physical and chemical characteristics, the microstructural changes that take place between the pure paraffin and the paraffin containing additive, and the manufacturability of the candles were also analyzed

But everyone else is doing it: A closer look at the occupational taxpaying culture of one business sector

When individuals embark on their careers they not only become acculturated into their occupational sectors' day-to-day norms and practices, but also their taxpaying ones. Although the research on taxpaying cultures is still in its infancy, understanding more about taxpaying cultures could improve our understanding of the processes underlying tax compliance. To this end, this study aimed to build a detailed picture of the taxpaying culture (i.e. the norms and values) of one business sector—the hairdressing/beauty industry. Nineteen small business and self-employed hairdressers/beauticians were interviewed and a variant of Grounded theory was used to uncover the main themes that ran through the interviews as a whole. The main themes that emerged—which appear to characterize this sector's culture—include a reliance on accountants/tax advisors, the notion of an acceptable level of cash-in-hand payments, and the use of different mental accounts for different types of income. Although some of these themes have already arisen in the small business literature they have often been couched in individualistic terms. We build a case that these issues are more cultural than individual—they are tied to occupational group membership as they are socially constructed within occupational groups and are a key component of the group's taxpaying culture. Implications and directions for future research are discussed

Tax compliance across sociodemographic categories:Meta-analyses of survey studies in 111 countries

Tax compliance varies across sociodemographic categories. However, research on the relationships between compliance and age, sex, education as well as income level shows inconsistent results, both regarding the direction of the relationship and its size. The current meta-analyses target to merge findings in survey studies on age, sex, education, and income and estimate the strength of the impact on compliance by taking into account geographical regions. In four meta-analyses, comprising 459 samples (N = 614,286) from 111 countries published between 1958 and 2012, average estimated effect sizes were small, ranging from r = 0.12 for the relationship between compliance and age, r = 0.06 for sex, r = -0.02 for education to r = -0.04 for income. These effects are more pronounced in Western countries. It thus appears sociodemographic characteristics have little impact on compliance, but nevertheless should be controlled for in tax research