Taxation of closely held corporations – efficiency aspects

This paper investigates two questions regarding closely held corporations. First, possible differences between closely and widely held corporations are explored. Second, a model is developed to investigate what factors and to what extent these factors influence a person to become an active owner of a closely held corporation. A background to the first question is that profits in closely held corporations in Sweden may be taxed as labour income, with a progressive marginal tax, while profits in corporations with broad ownership are taxed as capital income, at a flat rate. If the expected return after tax is lower in closely held corporations compared to corporations with a broad ownership, entrepreneurs and investors will demand a higher pre-tax risk-adjusted return. Evidence from Swedish data, covering all Swedish corporations, does not seem to reject these hypotheses. The model developed to address the second question utilizes extensive individual panel data. Some simple simulations are carried out, indicating that changes in taxation have important impact on the propensity to become a closely held corporation owner. A conclusion is that the tax-system restrains entrepreneurship and potentially employment and growth. Some suggestions to improve and expand the model are issued. Remaining key questions are e.g. how do changes in the tax rules for closely held corporations affect efficiency aspects with significance for e.g. employment, government tax revenue and income distribution.

Lesion-dependent regulation of transgene expression in the rat brain using a human glial fibrillary acidic protein-lentiviral vector.

The ability to regulate transgene expression will be crucial for development of gene therapy to the brain. The most commonly used systems are based on a transactivator in combination with a drug, e.g. the tetracycline-regulated system. Here we describe a different method of transgene regulation by the use of the human glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) promoter. We constructed a lentiviral vector that directs transgene expression to astrocytes. Using toxin-induced lesions we investigated to what extent transgene expression could be regulated in accordance with the activation of the endogenous GFAP gene. In animals receiving excitotoxic lesions of the striatum we detected an eightfold increase of green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing cells. The vast majority of these cells did not divide, suggesting that the transgene was indeed regulated in a similar fashion as the endogenous GFAP gene. This finding will lead to the development of lentiviral vectors with autoregulatory capacities that may be very useful for gene therapy to the brain

Knowledge transfer : with a focus on agriculture businesses

Denna studie har ett tredelat syfte. Den handlar för det första om att skapa en förståelse för var hinder finns i kunskapsöverföringsprocessen mellan utbildarna och lantbruksföretagen. För det andra är att få förståelse för hur lantbruksföretagarna vill ta del av ny kunskap från t.ex. FoU eller rådgivare. Studien ska även skapa kunskap i hur lantbruksföretagen ska utveckla sin kunskap och genom det bli mer konkurrenskraftiga. I dagens lantbruksföretag sker det en väldigt snabb utveckling, vilket gör att kunskapen måste utvecklas och förnyas kontinuerligt. Detta ställer höga krav på utbildarna, som ständigt måste försöka ligga steget före lantbruksföretagen. När det sker ett stort kunskapsutbyte mellan utbildarna och mottagarna finns det risk att hinder uppstår. Hindren kan vara avancerade och av olika karaktär, vilket gör att den optimala kunskapsöverföringsprocessen inte uppnås. Rådgivningen spelar idag en stor roll för företagen, framförallt inom produktionen. I framtiden tror forskningen att rådgivarna måste ta ett större ansvar och därmed erbjuda helhetskoncept till lantbruksföretagen. Lantbruksföretagen bör bedriva sin verksamhet mer som ett företag och inte som en livsstil, det gäller att verkligen tjäna pengar under hela processen. Det saknas även en målbild hos många lantbruksföretag för hur produktionen ska utvecklas. Kunskapsöverföringsprocessen är uppbyggd av fyra olika huvudfaktorer, som alla måste uppfyllas innan mottagaren får del av den nya kunskapen. Både sändaren och mottagaren måste vara öppna med att dela med sig av kunskap för att processen ska kunna starta, processen är en tvåvägskommunikation. Vi har genomfört tio stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer med företagsledare som har sin geografiska placering i Skåne och mellersta Sverige. Erfarenheten hos företagsledarna har varierat mellan ett och 32 år, vilket gör att arbetet täcker in en stor ålderskategori. Urvalet består av en tillgänglig grupp från eget kontaktnät. Företagen är både växtodlare och/eller djurproducenter. Arbetet är avgränsat till att fokusera på hur lantbruksföretagen vill ta del av ny kunskap och belysa hinder i kunskapsöverföringsprocessen. Resultatet är uppdelat efter huvudfrågorna i intervjuerna för att lättare kunna följa svaren från varje enskild fråga. Resultatet visar att lantbruksföretag helst inhämtar sin information från korta skrifter, som veckobrev, eller genom diskussioner i mindre grupper t.ex. ERFa-möten. Studiebesök är något de önskar mer av. Framförallt för att det är lärorikt att se hur andra gör och själv få idéer, vilka man till viss del kan implementera i det egna företaget. Seminarium och rapporter tycker företagsledarna är minst effektivt. Kunskapsöverföring är en viktig del för branschen, där utvecklingen går snabbt och kunskapen ständigt måste uppdateras och förmedlas ut till lantbruksföretagen på ett effektivt sätt. Det leder till att konkurrenskraften kan bibehållas gentemot övriga producenter. Ansvaret ligger hos både utbildarna och lantbruksföretagen för att kunskapsöverföringsprocessen ska bli lyckad. I framtiden bör mer fokus ligga på hur kommunikationen mellan sändare och mottagare fungerar. Båda parterna behöver bli bättre på att ta del varandras kunskaper för motarbeta att hinder uppstår längs vägen.The purpose of this text is to understand where there are barriers in the process of transferring knowledge and to create an understanding around the exchange of new knowledge between agricultural business and the trainers. This text will also discuss how agricultural business can develop their knowledge and therefore become more competitive. There is a very rapid development in today's farming business, which makes it necessary for the agricultural business to continuously develop and refresh their knowledge. This puts a lot of pressure on the educators who always have to be one-step ahead of the agricultural business. When the trainers convey large amounts of knowledge to the receiver of agricultural business, there is a risk of barriers arising. In some cases, the barriers can be very advanced impairing the process of transferring knowledge. Today, advice is very valuable for the companies, especially within the production sector. Studies show that the advisors will have to take more responsibility in the future by offering more holistic concepts to agricultural businesses. Farmers should run their farms more like businesses rather than a lifestyle as it important to ensure money is earned from the whole production. Many agricultural businesses do not have a goal of how the production process could or should be developed and or expanded. The process of transferring knowledge consists of four main factors, which all need to be completed before they can make use of the new knowledge. The transfer of knowledge is a two-way communication path; therefore, both the provider and receiver of the knowledge have to be open to the exchange in order to start the process. Ten semi structures interviews have been conducted with business leaders located in Skåne and central Sweden. The study covered a large range of agricultural entrepreneurs; the experience ranged from one to 32 years. The selection was made based on available agricultural entrepreneurs from a network of contacts. The farms are both plant based and/or animal breeders. This study focused on how interested agricultural businesses are in new knowledge and to highlight barriers in the process of transferring new knowledge. The results are split up into sections corresponding to the main questions in the interview in order to analyze the answers to each question. The results show that agricultural businesses prefer to obtain information from short publications such as weekly newsletters or from discussion groups such as the “ERFa meetings” (a group with high experience level). In particular, they would like to do more studies on-site, as it can be very beneficial to exchange ideas by discovering different methods and techniques used by other similar business. Based on the study, it can be concluded that seminars and reports are the least effective way to transfer knowledge according to the agricultural business owners. This is an important part of the industry where there is a rapid development and knowledge needs to be updated constantly and communicated to the agricultural businesses effectively. An efficient transfer of knowledge can lead to a maintained competitive edge. It is a combined responsibility that lies with both the trainers and the agricultural businesses in order to establish an effective process of knowledge transfer. In the future, more focus needs to be at the communication between the transmitter and the receiver. Both parties need to be better to listen to each other´s knowledge to combat the barriers along the way

Phylogenetic relationships of typical antbirds (Thamnophilidae) and test of incongruence based on Bayes factors

BACKGROUND: The typical antbirds (Thamnophilidae) form a monophyletic and diverse family of suboscine passerines that inhabit neotropical forests. However, the phylogenetic relationships within this assemblage are poorly understood. Herein, we present a hypothesis of the generic relationships of this group based on Bayesian inference analyses of two nuclear introns and the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. The level of phylogenetic congruence between the individual genes has been investigated utilizing Bayes factors. We also explore how changes in the substitution models affected the observed incongruence between partitions of our data set. RESULTS: The phylogenetic analysis supports both novel relationships, as well as traditional groupings. Among the more interesting novel relationship suggested is that the Terenura antwrens, the wing-banded antbird (Myrmornis torquata), the spot-winged antshrike (Pygiptila stellaris) and the russet antshrike (Thamnistes anabatinus) are sisters to all other typical antbirds. The remaining genera fall into two major clades. The first includes antshrikes, antvireos and the Herpsilochmus antwrens, while the second clade consists of most antwren genera, the Myrmeciza antbirds, the "professional" ant-following antbirds, and allied species. Our results also support previously suggested polyphyly of Myrmotherula antwrens and Myrmeciza antbirds. The tests of phylogenetic incongruence, using Bayes factors, clearly suggests that allowing the gene partitions to have separate topology parameters clearly increased the model likelihood. However, changing a component of the nucleotide substitution model had much higher impact on the model likelihood. CONCLUSIONS: The phylogenetic results are in broad agreement with traditional classification of the typical antbirds, but some relationships are unexpected based on external morphology. In these cases their true affinities may have been obscured by convergent evolution and morphological adaptations to new habitats or food sources, and genera like Myrmeciza antbirds and the Myrmotherula antwrens obviously need taxonomic revisions. Although, Bayes factors seem promising for evaluating the relative contribution of components to an evolutionary model, the results suggests that even if strong evidence for a model allowing separate topology parameters is found, this might not mean strong evidence for separate gene phylogenies, as long as vital components of the substitution model are still missing

Flight Speeds among Bird Species: Allometric and Phylogenetic Effects

Flight speed is expected to increase with mass and wing loading among flying animals and aircraft for fundamental aerodynamic reasons. Assuming geometrical and dynamical similarity, cruising flight speed is predicted to vary as (body mass)1/6 and (wing loading)1/2 among bird species. To test these scaling rules and the general importance of mass and wing loading for bird flight speeds, we used tracking radar to measure flapping flight speeds of individuals or flocks of migrating birds visually identified to species as well as their altitude and winds at the altitudes where the birds were flying. Equivalent airspeeds (airspeeds corrected to sea level air density, Ue) of 138 species, ranging 0.01–10 kg in mass, were analysed in relation to biometry and phylogeny. Scaling exponents in relation to mass and wing loading were significantly smaller than predicted (about 0.12 and 0.32, respectively, with similar results for analyses based on species and independent phylogenetic contrasts). These low scaling exponents may be the result of evolutionary restrictions on bird flight-speed range, counteracting too slow flight speeds among species with low wing loading and too fast speeds among species with high wing loading. This compression of speed range is partly attained through geometric differences, with aspect ratio showing a positive relationship with body mass and wing loading, but additional factors are required to fully explain the small scaling exponent of Ue in relation to wing loading. Furthermore, mass and wing loading accounted for only a limited proportion of the variation in Ue. Phylogeny was a powerful factor, in combination with wing loading, to account for the variation in Ue. These results demonstrate that functional flight adaptations and constraints associated with different evolutionary lineages have an important influence on cruising flapping flight speed that goes beyond the general aerodynamic scaling effects of mass and wing loading

Insights on proximity effect and multiphoton induced luminescence from gold nanospheres in far field optical microscopy

Goldnanoparticles can be visualized in far-field multiphoton laser-scanning microscopy (MPM) based on the phenomena of multiphoton induced luminescence (MIL). This is of interest for biomedical applications, e.g., for cancer diagnostics, as MPM allows for working in the near-infrared(NIR) optical window of tissue. It is well known that the aggregation of particles causes a redshift of the plasmon resonance, but its implications for MIL applying far-field MPM should be further exploited. Here, we explore MIL from 10 nm goldnanospheres that are chemically deposited on glass substrates in controlled coverage gradients using MPM operating in NIR range. The substrates enable studies of MIL as a function of inter-particle distance and clustering. It was shown that MIL was only detected from areas on the substrates where the particle spacing was less than one particle diameter, or where the particles have aggregated. The results are interpreted in the context that the underlying physical phenomenon of MIL is a sequential two-photon absorption process, where the first event is driven by the plasmon resonance. It is evident that goldnanospheres in this size range have to be closely spaced or clustered to exhibit detectable MIL using far-field MPM operating in the NIR region

Birth Outcome in Women with Previously Treated Breast Cancer—A Population-Based Cohort Study from Sweden

BACKGROUND: Data on birth outcome and offspring health after the appearance of breast cancer are limited. The aim of this study was to assess the risk of adverse birth outcomes in women previously treated for invasive breast cancer compared with the general population of mothers. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Of all 2,870,932 singleton births registered in the Swedish Medical Birth Registry during 1973–2002, 331 first births following breast cancer surgery—with a mean time to pregnancy of 37 mo (range 7–163)—were identified using linkage with the Swedish Cancer Registry. Logistic regression analysis was used. The estimates were adjusted for maternal age, parity, and year of delivery. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to estimate infant health and mortality, delivery complications, the risk of preterm birth, and the rates of instrumental delivery and cesarean section. The large majority of births from women previously treated for breast cancer had no adverse events. However, births by women exposed to breast cancer were associated with an increased risk of delivery complications (OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.2–1.9), cesarean section (OR 1.3, 95% CI 1.0–1.7), very preterm birth (<32 wk) (OR 3.2, 95% CI 1.7–6.0), and low birth weight (<1500 g) (OR 2.9, 95% CI 1.4–5.8). A tendency towards an increased risk of malformations among the infants was seen especially in the later time period (1988–2002) (OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.2–3.7). CONCLUSIONS: It is reassuring that births overall were without adverse events, but our findings indicate that pregnancies in previously treated breast cancer patients should possibly be regarded as higher risk pregnancies, with consequences for their surveillance and management

Camera collars reveal macronutrient balancing in free-rangingmale moose during summer

Understanding how the nutritional properties of food resources drive foraging choicesis important for the management and conservation of wildlife populations. For moose(Alces alces), recent experimental and observational studies during the winter haveshown macronutrient balancing between available protein (AP) and highly metaboliz-able macronutrients (total non-structural carbohydrates [TNC] and lipids). Here, wecombined the use of continuous-recording camera collars with plant nutrient analysesand forage availability measurements to obtain a detailed insight into the food andnutritional choices of three wild moose in Norway over a 5-day period in summer. Wefound that moose derived their macronutrient energy primarily from carbohydrates(74.2%), followed by protein (13.1%), and lipids (12.7%). Diets were dominated bydeciduous tree browse (71%). Willows (Salix spp.) were selected for and constituted51% of the average diet. Moose consumed 25 different food items during the studyperiod of which 9 comprised 95% of the diet. Moose tightly regulated their intake ofprotein to highly metabolizable macronutrients (AP:TNC + lipids) to a ratio of 1:2.7(0.37 ± 0.002SD). They did this by feeding on foods that most closely matched thetarget macronutrient ratio such as Salix spp., or by combining nutritionally imbalancedfoods (complementary feeding) in a non-random manner that minimized deviationsfrom the intake target. The observed patterns of macronutrient balancing alignedwell with the findings of winter studies. Differential feeding on nutritionally balanceddowny birch (Betula pubescens) leaves versus imbalanced twigs+leaves across mooseindividuals indicated that macronutrient balancing may occur on as fine a scale asforaging bites on a single plant species. Utilized forages generally met the suggestedrequirement thresholds for the minerals calcium, phosphorus, copper, molybdenum,and magnesium but tended to be low in sodium. Our findings offer new insights intothe foraging behavior of a model species in ungulate nutritional ecology and contrib-ute to informed decision-making in wildlife and forest management. cervid, deer, large herbivore, macronutrient balancing, nutritional ecologypublishedVersio

Loss of the retrograde motor for IFT disrupts localization of Smo to cilia and prevents the expression of both activator and repressor functions of Gli

AbstractSonic Hedgehog (Shh) signals are transduced into nuclear ratios of Gli transcriptional activator versus repressor. The initial part of this process is accomplished by Shh acting through Patched (Ptc) to regulate Smoothened (Smo) activity. The mechanisms by which Ptc regulates Smo, and Smo activity is transduced to processing of Gli proteins remain unclear. Recently, a forward genetic approach in mice identified a role for intraflagellar transport (IFT) genes in Shh signal transduction, downstream of Patched (Ptc) and Rab23. Here, we show that the retrograde motor for IFT is required in the mouse for the phenotypic expression of both Gli activator and repressor function and for effective proteolytic processing of Gli3. Furthermore, we show that the localization of Smo to primary cilia is disrupted in mutants. These data indicate that primary cilia act as specialized signal transduction organelles required for coupling Smo activity to the biochemical processing of Gli3 protein