Tax Treatment Of U. S. Companies Participating In The Maquiladora Industry: Recent Developments Involving The Intergovernmental Agreement On Transfer Pricing And Other Issues

The relationship between U.S. companies and Mexican maquiladoras has been evolving for more than thirty years.  The original advantages of lower taxes, cheaper labor, quick delivery and special tariff treatments enabled U.S. companies to increase cost-effectiveness and remain competitive worldwide.  The arrangement also brought employment opportunities and prosperity to the border region of Mexico.  Over time, however, many of the original advantages for both the United States and Mexico have either eroded or disappeared completely.   As political and economic changes have occurred, so have changes within the maquiladora industry.  In addition, the maquiladoras now face increasing competition from other foreign countries for U.S. business once reserved for the maquiladoras.   This paper will examine these issues and the implications of recent changes for both the maquiladora industry and for the U.S. companies who use their services

A content analysis of student\u27s perceptions of instructors

In his recent confirmatory factor analysis of the Instructional Development and Effectiveness Assessment rating instrument (IDEA), Marsh (1994) identified six factors matching those from his Students\u27 Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) rating instrument. However, four of these factors, Enthusiasm, Interaction, Learning, and Organization, were found to be highly intercorrelated. Due to this, other researchers have questioned whether these four factors are really independent constructs as Marsh asserts. Because of the question of independent constructs, many researchers feel that a greater reliance should be placed on the use of global rating items instead of items designed to measure specific dimensions of instructional effectiveness. Marsh counters with the assertion that responses to global items are nothing more than a weighted average of specific dimensions. In a parallel line of research, Cadwell and Jenkins (1985) hypothesized that the semantic similarity of individual items was the underlying influence to the robust factor structure found in Marsh\u27s SEEQ and other rating instruments. Their findings suggested that the synonymous wording of items within scales artificially inflates inter-item correlations resulting in an illusory robust factor structure. This study hypothesized that the use of global open-ended questions in conjunction with the use of the Enthusiasm, Interaction, Learning, and Organization scales from the IDEA would help disentangle the issues of semantic similarity and of independent constructs. Following a content analysis that categorized responses to the open-ended items into themes that matched the semantic meaning of the four IDEA scales, a correlational analysis revealed that responses to both the closed-ended IDEA scales and the open-ended items possessed fairly good convergent validity effectively disputing the Semantic Item Similarity hypothesis. Following this, three structural equations models were conducted. The first model demonstrated that a Rater Bias construct representing global response tendencies on the part of student raters accounted for a significant portion of the variance in each of the four scales and offered a possible explanation for the high factor intercorrelations found in Marsh\u27s (1994) study. The second model indicated that the Rater Bias construct also significantly influenced responses to the open-ended items as well. In the final model, a global item was introduced. The global item was found to have significant loadings on the Rater Bias, Learning, and Organization latent variables thereby providing some support to Marsh\u27s assertion that responses to global items are a composite of specific dimensions of teaching effectiveness

Alfalfa Hay for Horses (and Horse Owners!)

Alfalfa is one of the most common hays fed to horses in Kentucky. Other hays that are often used include timothy and orchardgrass. As a legume, alfalfa has many nutritional advantages over timothy or orchardgrass. Alfalfa hay contains more protein and calcium than grass hays and thus is an excellent source of these nutrients for broodmares and growing horses. Another legume that may be useful as a hay for horses is red clover. Nutritionally, red clover has many of the same advantages as alfalfa. However, red clover has some non-nutritional characteristics which have traditionally limited its popularity with horse owners. Red clover will occasionally cause horses to slobber excessively. “Clover slobbers” is not usually harmful to horses, but it is not a pleasing sight for horse owners. Even when red clover hay does not cause slobbering, some horse owners avoid it. Red clover hay may not have a nice green color preferred by horse owners, and it may also be somewhat dusty

The Future of Luxury

Seminar Session to Critically Think about the Future of the Luxury Industr

Knowing the enemy: ant behavior and control in a pediatric hospital of Buenos Aires

Ant control is difficult in systems even where a variety of control strategies and compounds are allowed; in sensitive places such as hospitals, where there are often restrictions on the methods and toxicants to be applied, the challenge is even greater. Here we report the methods and results of how we faced this challenge of controlling ants in a pediatric hospital using baits. Our strategy was based on identifying the species present and analyzing their behavior. On the one hand, we evaluated outdoors in the green areas of the hospital, the relative abundance of ant genera, their food preferences and the behavioral dominances. On the other hand, control treatments were performed using separately two boron compounds added to sucrose solution which was not highly concentrated to avoid constrains due to the viscosity. Most of the species in the food preference test accepted sugary food; only one species was recorded to visit it less than the protein foods. This result was consistent with the efficacy of control treatments by sugary baits within the rooms. For species that showed good acceptance of sugar solutions in the preference test outdoors, sugar bait control indoors was 100& effective. Conversely, for the only species that foraged significantly less on sugar food, the bait treatment was ineffective. This work reveals the importance of considering the behavior and feeding preferences of the species to be controlled by toxic baits.Fil: Josens, Roxana Beatriz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; ArgentinaFil: Sola, Francisco Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; ArgentinaFil: Marchisio, Nahuel Matías. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; ArgentinaFil: Di Renzo, María Agostina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental. Laboratorio del Grupo de Estudio de Insectos Sociales; ArgentinaFil: Giacometti, Alina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; Argentin

Current Status of a Model System: The Gene Gp-9 and Its Association with Social Organization in Fire Ants

The Gp-9 gene in fire ants represents an important model system for studying the evolution of social organization in insects as well as a rich source of information relevant to other major evolutionary topics. An important feature of this system is that polymorphism in social organization is completely associated with allelic variation at Gp-9, such that single-queen colonies (monogyne form) include only inhabitants bearing B-like alleles while multiple-queen colonies (polygyne form) additionally include inhabitants bearing b-like alleles. A recent study of this system by Leal and Ishida (2008) made two major claims, the validity and significance of which we examine here. After reviewing existing literature, analyzing the methods and results of Leal and Ishida (2008), and generating new data from one of their study sites, we conclude that their claim that polygyny can occur in Solenopsis invicta in the U.S.A. in the absence of expression of the b-like allele Gp-9b is unfounded. Moreover, we argue that available information on insect OBPs (the family of proteins to which GP-9 belongs), on the evolutionary/population genetics of Gp-9, and on pheromonal/behavioral control of fire ant colony queen number fails to support their view that GP-9 plays no role in the chemosensory-mediated communication that underpins regulation of social organization. Our analyses lead us to conclude that there are no new reasons to question the existing consensus view of the Gp-9 system outlined in Gotzek and Ross (2007)