The taxation of natural resources : principles and policy issues

Natural resources are typically subject both to taxation under the income tax system and to special resource taxes. Properly designed income taxes attempt to include capital income on a uniform basis. But in most countries the income tax treats resource industries more favorably than most other industries - through favorable treatment of such capital expenses as depletion, exploration and development, and the cost of acquiring resource properties. The case for special resource taxes is precisely to tax resource rents over and above the levies implicit in general income taxes. There are two justifications for this: (a) the efficiency-based argument that a tax on resource rents is nondistorting and complementary; and (b) the equity argument that the property rights to resources ought to accrue to the public at large rather than to private citizens since the rents represent the bounty nature has bestowed on the economy rather than a reward for economic effort. If the main purpose of a resource tax is to capture rents for the public sector, the base of resource taxes should be economic rents (or their present value equivalent), contend the authors. Actual resource taxes differ from rent taxes in significant ways. Unlike a general income tax - which allows the resource industries to understate capital income - resource taxes often overstate rents. This is because they typically do not offer full deductions for all costs, especially capital costs. Some systems tax revenues without allowing any deductions for costs; others allow the deduction of current costs only. As a result, they discourage investment activity in resource industries, encourage the exploitation of high-grade relative to low-grade resources, and make it difficult to impose high tax rates for fear of making the marginal tax rate higher than 100 percent. The authors discuss three alternative ideal ways for the government to divert a share of rents to the public sector: levy a tax on rents, ideally in the form of a cash flow tax; require firms to bid for the rights to exploit resources; and take a share of equity in the firm. They discuss these options in terms of their implications for the ability of firms to obtain finance, the allocation of risk, the share of rents accruing to the public sector, the extent of involvement of foreign firms, and other factors. The time has come in many countries, they say, when gains from further refinement of imperfect existing taxes on resources are less than replacing them with simpler, more efficient forms of pure rent taxes.Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Tax Law

Manual control age and sex differences in 4 to 11 year old children

To what degree does being male or female influence the development of manual skills in pre-pubescent children? This question is important because of the emphasis placed on developing important new manual skills during this period of a child's education (e.g. writing, drawing, using computers). We investigated age and sex-differences in the ability of 422 children to control a handheld stylus. A task battery deployed using tablet PC technology presented interactive visual targets on a computer screen whilst simultaneously recording participant's objective kinematic responses, via their interactions with the on-screen stimuli using the handheld stylus. The battery required children use the stylus to: (i) make a series of aiming movements, (ii) trace a series of abstract shapes and (iii) track a moving object. The tasks were not familiar to the children, allowing measurement of a general ability that might be meaningfully labelled 'manual control', whilst minimising culturally determined differences in experience (as much as possible). A reliable interaction between sex and age was found on the aiming task, with girls' movement times being faster than boys in younger age groups (e.g. 4-5 years) but with this pattern reversing in older children (10-11 years). The improved performance in older boys on the aiming task is consistent with prior evidence of a male advantage for gross-motor aiming tasks, which begins to emerge during adolescence. A small but reliable sex difference was found in tracing skill, with girls showing a slightly higher level of performance than boys irrespective of age. There were no reliable sex differences between boys and girls on the tracking task. Overall, the findings suggest that prepubescent girls are more likely to have superior manual control abilities for performing novel tasks. However, these small population differences do not suggest that the sexes require different educational support whilst developing their manual skills

Project management case analysis in technology companies

Este artículo tiene como objetivo identificar y analizar tres empresas tecnológicas como Google, Globant y Zemoga, a través del reconocimiento de unas variables comunes de la metodología de Gestión de Proyectos evidenciadas en cada empresa. Entre las variables a destacar están: la innovación, la metodología de gestión de proyectos, la estructura organizacional, el trabajo en equipo, la complejidad y la cultura organizacional. Este análisis de las variables muestra como el ambiente de trabajo y los incentivos a la innovación dentro de la organización, pueden generar una relación simbiótica entre los empleados y la empresa lo que aumenta las probabilidades de tener éxito en la ejecución de proyectos.This article attempts to identify and analyze success technological companies like Google, Globant and Zemoga by recognizing some common variables of the Project Management model of each one. The variables to stand out are: innovation, methodology for project management, organizational structure, teamwork, complexity and organizational culture. This analysis recognizes common strengths in project management and highlight what elements can lead to successful management in technology companies

Screening for protein-protein interactions using Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM)

We present a high content multiwell plate cell-based assay approach to quantify protein interactions directly in cells using Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) read out by automated fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM). Automated FLIM is implemented using wide-field time-gated detection, typically requiring only 10 s per field of view (FOV). Averaging over biological, thermal and shot noise with 100's to 1000's of FOV enables unbiased quantitative analysis with high statistical power. Plotting average donor lifetime vs. acceptor/donor intensity ratio clearly identifies protein interactions and fitting to double exponential donor decay models provides estimates of interacting population fractions that, with calibrated donor and acceptor fluorescence intensities, can yield dissociation constants. We demonstrate the application to identify binding partners of MST1 kinase and estimate interaction strength among the members of the RASSF protein family, which have important roles in apoptosis via the Hippo signalling pathway. KD values broadly agree with published biochemical measurements

HST optical spectral index map of the jet of 3C 273

We present HST images at 622 nm and 300 nm of the jet in 3C273 and determine the run of the optical spectral index at 0.2" along the jet. The smoothness of spectral index changes shows that the physical conditions are varying smoothly across the jet. There is no correlation between the optical flux and spectral index, as would be expected for relativistic electrons suffering strong cooling due to synchrotron emission. We find no evidence for localized acceleration or loss sites. This suggests that the spectral shape is not changing much throughout the jet. We show that relativistic beaming and/or sub-equipartition magnetic fields cannot remove the discrepancy between light-travel time along the jet and the lifetime of electrons emitting optical synchrotron radiation. We consider this further evidence in favour of a distributed electron acceleration process.Comment: Accepted for publication by Astronomy and Astrophysics (13 pages, 8 figures

Power Values of Certain Quadratic Polynomials

In this article we compute the $q$th power values of the quadratic polynomials $f$ with negative squarefree discriminant such that $q$ is coprime to the class number of the splitting field of $f$ over $\mathbb{Q}$. The theory of unique factorisation and that of primitive divisors of integer sequences is used to deduce a bound on the values of $q$ which is small enough to allow the remaining cases to be easily checked. The results are used to determine all perfect power terms of certain polynomially generated integer sequences, including the Sylvester sequence.Comment: 16 Pages; corrected and expanded versio

Antecedents and outcomes of consumer environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviour

With the intensification of problems relating to the environment, a growing number of consumers are becoming more ecologically conscious in their preferences and purchases of goods. This paper presents the results of a study conducted among 500 Cypriot consumers, focusing on the factors that shape consumer environmental attitudes and behaviour, as well as on the resulting outcomes. The findings confirmed that both the inward and outward environmental attitudes of a consumer are positively influenced by his/her degree of collectivism, long-term orientation, political involvement, deontology, and law obedience, but have no connection with liberalism. The adoption of an inward environmental attitude was also found to be conducive to green purchasing behaviour that ultimately leads to high product satisfaction. On the other hand, an outward environmental attitude facilitates the adoption of a general environmental behaviour, which is responsible for greater satisfaction with life. The findings of the study have important implications for shaping effective company offerings to consumers in target markets, as well as formulating appropriate policies at the governmental level to enhance environmental sensitivity among citizens

The relationship between a child's postural stability and manual dexterity

The neural systems responsible for postural control are separate from the neural substrates that underpin control of the hand. Nonetheless, postural control and eye-hand coordination are linked functionally. For example, a stable platform is required for precise manual control tasks (e.g. handwriting) and thus such skills often cannot develop until the child is able to sit or stand upright. This raises the question of the strength of the empirical relationship between measures of postural stability and manual motor control. We recorded objective computerised measures of postural stability in stance and manual control in sitting in a sample of school children (n = 278) aged 3–11 years in order to explore the extent to which measures of manual skill could be predicted by measures of postural stability. A strong correlation was found across the whole sample between separate measures of postural stability and manual control taken on different days. Following correction for age, a significant but modest correlation was found. Regression analysis with age correction revealed that postural stability accounted for between 1 and 10 % of the variance in manual performance, dependent on the specific manual task. These data reflect an interdependent functional relationship between manual control and postural stability development. Nevertheless, the relatively small proportion of the explained variance is consistent with the anatomically distinct neural architecture that exists for ‘gross’ and ‘fine’ motor control. These data justify the approach of motor batteries that provide separate assessments of postural stability and manual dexterity and have implications for therapeutic intervention in developmental disorders

Factor Accumulation, Tariffs and Immiserizing Growth

International trade theorists recently have rediscovered a possibility, pointed many years ago by F.Y. Edgeworth, that growth in an open economy might actually decrease the welfare of the community. According to Bhagwati, immiserization could occur as the result of growth only in the presence of non-optimal policies. In the first case, where the terms of trade could be affected by the actions of the home country, the appropriate policy would be to impose an optimum tariff at all points in time. In the second case, where the country was so small that it could not affect the terms of trade, the optimal policy would be free trade. The purpose of this paper is to derive conditions for the occurence of immiserization due to factor accumulation, first in the sense of declining aggregate real incomes (section 1) and second in the sense of declining per capita incomes (section 2).

On the nonlinear dynamics of topological solitons in DNA

Dynamics of topological solitons describing open states in the DNA double helix are studied in the frameworks of the model which takes into account asymmetry of the helix. It is shown that three types of topological solitons can occur in the DNA double chain. Interaction between the solitons, their interactions with the chain inhomogeneities and stability of the solitons with respect to thermal oscillations are investigated.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figure