Determinants of Tax Incentives and the Effect of Corporate Tax Rate on the Foreign Direct Investment

Corporate tax incentives are granted by governments to encourage foreign direct investment FDI. While the tax policy in Iraq varies for both domestic and foreign investments, the Iraqi government offers tax holidays between 3 to 10 years to attract foreign investors to do their desirable investments. The objective of this research is to analyze how Iraqi's corporate tax rate affects FDI, and study the comparison between Iraqi and KRG tax policies. The data are annual observations of the Iraqi tax rate which is the net percentage of profit, and FDI net percentage of GDP. The time-series data from 2005 to 2019 were employed. Three distinct sorts of tests are engaged in this research, the first stage unit root test is conducted to determine the stationary of the data, secondly, Johansen co-integration test was used to find co-integration between variables, and finally, the Granger Causation test is used to determine causality among variables over the period. The finding result shows that the tax rate and FDI are co-integrated and have a long-run relationship. Particularly, foreign direct investment is impacted by changes in the tax rate, while fluctuation in the number of FDI has not any influence on the tax rate

Exploring multi-stakeholder perceptions of practice-related facilitators to optimising the quality of integration of regulated pharmacy technicians in community pharmacy in Ontario: A qualitative study

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to investigate multi-stakeholder perceptions of practice-related facilitators to optimising the quality of Regulated Pharmacy Technician (RPT) integration into the community workforce in Ontario. Facilitators to incorporating technicians into the workflow and supporting their optimal scope of practice were explored. METHODS: A qualitative exploratory study comprising a series of one-to-one interviews using a piloted, semi-structured interview guide was conducted with four community pharmacy stakeholder groups; pharmacists, RPTs, pharmacy assistants and pharmacy owners. Interviews were conducted until saturation of themes. Verbatim transcripts were coded inductively using the software, NVivo v12 (QSR International) and general inductive analysis identified key findings. KEY FINDINGS: Twenty-seven interviews were conducted consisting of seven pharmacists, seven RPTs, eight assistants and five pharmacy owners working within community pharmacy and/or academia or hospital. All participants from every stakeholder group acknowledged that the promise of regulation of pharmacy technicians was unfulfilled in practice. Three major themes of practical significance were derived: (i) A viable business plan that incorporates RPT remuneration and ensures sustainability is a facilitator to fuller integration of RPTs, (ii) Planning the pharmacy workflow to support RPTs’ and pharmacists’ evolving scopes is a facilitator to RPT integration and (iii) Schedule planning to incorporate RPTs and appropriate staffing ratios in relation to prescription volume and pharmacy services allows for optimal utilisation of RPT skills and facilitates their integration. CONCLUSIONS: Achieving integration of RPTs into the business of a community pharmacy has educational, workplace and regulatory implications, requiring the effective engagement of all stakeholders in pharmacy

The Effectiveness of Engineering Design in Developing Engineering Habits of Mind among Eight Grade Students in Sultanate of Oman

This research investigates the effect of engineering design on the development of the engineering habits of mind among eighth grade students in the Sultanate of Oman. The study adopted the semi-experimental research design. The study sample had two experimental groups; the first group (23 students) was enrolled in a special program of engineering design; and the second group was a control group (25 students) which had not participated in any engineering design programs. The quantitative results revealed statistically significant differences at the level of significance (  between the performance of students of the two groups in identifying problem habits, optimization and development, and system thinking in favour of the experimental group in the scale of the habits of the engineering mind. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the performance of the two groups in the habits of visualizing, creativity in problem solving, and adaptation. Analysis of qualitative data reached similar findings. Taken together, these findings suggest a set of recommendations, including the integration of engineering design into science curricula for contribution to the development of engineering habits of mind. Further surveyed studies can be conducted to discover the most common engineering habits of mind among students of all stages in the study

Dynamics of axialized laser-cooled ions in a Penning trap

We report the experimental characterization of axialization - a method of reducing the magnetron motion of a small number of ions stored in a Penning trap. This is an important step in the investigation of the suitability of Penning traps for quantum information processing. The magnetron motion was coupled to the laser-cooled modified cyclotron motion by the application of a near-resonant oscillating quadrupole potential (the "axialization drive"). Measurement of cooling rates of the radial motions of the ions showed an order-of-magnitude increase in the damping rate of the magnetron motion with the axialization drive applied. The experimental results are in good qualitative agreement with a recent theoretical study. In particular, a classical avoided crossing was observed in the motional frequencies as the axialization drive frequency was swept through the optimum value, proving that axialization is indeed a resonant effect.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

Natural enemies of major insect pests of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in India

The natural enemies recorded on major insect pests of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in India including new records are given. The potential of utilising them in biological control programmes are discussed. &nbsp

Natural enemies of major insect pests of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in India

The natural enemies recorded on major insect pests of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in India including new records are given. The potential of utilising them in biological control programmes are discussed. &nbsp

Natural enemies of major insect pests of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in India

The natural enemies recorded on major insect pests of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in India including new records are given. The potential of utilising them in biological control programmes are discussed. &nbsp

Using Flow Specifications of Parameterized Cache Coherence Protocols for Verifying Deadlock Freedom

We consider the problem of verifying deadlock freedom for symmetric cache coherence protocols. In particular, we focus on a specific form of deadlock which is useful for the cache coherence protocol domain and consistent with the internal definition of deadlock in the Murphi model checker: we refer to this deadlock as a system- wide deadlock (s-deadlock). In s-deadlock, the entire system gets blocked and is unable to make any transition. Cache coherence protocols consist of N symmetric cache agents, where N is an unbounded parameter; thus the verification of s-deadlock freedom is naturally a parameterized verification problem. Parametrized verification techniques work by using sound abstractions to reduce the unbounded model to a bounded model. Efficient abstractions which work well for industrial scale protocols typically bound the model by replacing the state of most of the agents by an abstract environment, while keeping just one or two agents as is. However, leveraging such efficient abstractions becomes a challenge for s-deadlock: a violation of s-deadlock is a state in which the transitions of all of the unbounded number of agents cannot occur and so a simple abstraction like the one above will not preserve this violation. In this work we address this challenge by presenting a technique which leverages high-level information about the protocols, in the form of message sequence dia- grams referred to as flows, for constructing invariants that are collectively stronger than s-deadlock. Efficient abstractions can be constructed to verify these invariants. We successfully verify the German and Flash protocols using our technique

Mixed cropping of ginger (Zingiber officinale Rose.) and maize (Zea mays L.)

Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc., Zingiberaceae), a perennial herbaceous spice crop, is usually grown as an annual by small and marginal farmers in Kerala, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Karnataka, Sikkim and Mizoram in India. &nbsp