Development of Tax Forecasting Models: Corporate and Individual Income Taxes

Assessment of the fiscal sector performance in the last decade has often laid the blame on poor revenue performance to below-target tax collection performance of government tax collection agencies, frequently attributed to graft and corruption among its officials and employees. The attribution, generally, is warranted. But other public economists have been looking into the possibility that the revenue targets in the last decade may not have been realistic in the first place, which may account for some of the recorded shortfalls in revenue collections. The importance of realistic revenue forecasts cannot be downplayed. At the macro level, realistic revenue targets are important inputs to effective and efficient public expenditure management. At the micro level, realistic revenue forecasts become effective standards of measurement against which the actual performance of collecting agencies are assessed. Further, realistic revenue forecasts imply good and realistic revenue forecasting methodologies. These methodologies may be used not only as a gauge to measure the revenue impact of proposed tax reforms but also as a tool to evaluate the efficiency and equity implications of said tax reforms. The main objective of the study is to develop tax forecasting model(s) for corporate and individual income taxes, which revenue collecting agencies and policymakers may opt to use in coming up with their forecasts of corporate and individual income taxes. A previous study by Manasan concluded that "elasticity approach in tax forecasting resulted in the lowest average RPMSE forecasting error, indicating in turn that the functional relationship between the different tax categories and their respective bases is better described by the power function and the simple linear one". This study has arrived at a similar conclusion. The linear models used in this study, however, yielded very high RPMSEs, unlike in Manasans earlier study where the linear equations seem to have better forecasting results. In fact, all forecasting equations that best explain income tax movements (both corporate and individual) are power functions, implying that the income taxation system has a regressive tendency

Biblioteca Universitaria: una década de evolución editorial

Having reached ten years of existence of the New Series of Biblioteca Universitaria a review is made of its trajectory, contents as well as of the editorial work performed which increased diffusion and quality of the journal not only in terms of the editorial criteria added but also in those related to graphical and editorial design. Biblioteca Universitaria is a technical-professional journal specialized in Library and Information Science and published by the General Directorate for Libraries (DGB) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Unrelated Helpers in a Primitively Eusocial Wasp: Is Helping Tailored Towards Direct Fitness?

The paper wasp Polistes dominulus is unique among the social insects in that nearly one-third of co-foundresses are completely unrelated to the dominant individual whose offspring they help to rear and yet reproductive skew is high. These unrelated subordinates stand to gain direct fitness through nest inheritance, raising the question of whether their behaviour is adaptively tailored towards maximizing inheritance prospects. Unusually, in this species, a wealth of theory and empirical data allows us to predict how unrelated subordinates should behave. Based on these predictions, here we compare helping in subordinates that are unrelated or related to the dominant wasp across an extensive range of field-based behavioural contexts. We find no differences in foraging effort, defense behaviour, aggression or inheritance rank between unrelated helpers and their related counterparts. Our study provides no evidence, across a number of behavioural scenarios, that the behaviour of unrelated subordinates is adaptively modified to promote direct fitness interests

Depression Episodes Detection in Unipolar and Bipolar Patients: A Methodology with Feature Extraction and Feature Selection with Genetic Algorithms Using Activity Motion Signal …

Depression is a mental disorder which typically includes recurrent sadness and loss of interest in the enjoyment of the positive aspects of life, and in severe cases fatigue, causing inability to perform daily activities, leading to a progressive loss of quality of life. Monitoring depression (unipolar and bipolar patients) stats relays on traditional method reports from patients; however, bias is commonly present, given the patients’ interpretation of the experiences. Nevertheless, to overcome this problem, Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) reports have been proposed and widely used. These reports includes data of the behaviour, feelings, and other type of activities recorded almost in real time using different types of portable devices, which nowadays include smartphones and other wearables such as smartwatches. In this study is proposed a methodology to detect depressive patients with the motion data generated by patient activity, recorded with a smartband, obtained from the “Depresjon” database. Using this signal as information source, a feature extraction approach of statistical features, in time and spectral evolution of the signal, is done. Subsequently, a clever feature selection with a genetic algorithm approach is done to reduce the amount of information required to give a fast noninvasive diagnostic. Results show that the feature extraction approach can achieve a value of 0.734 of area under the curve (AUC), and after applying feature selection approach, a model comprised by two features from the motion signal can achieve a 0.647 AUC. These results allow us to conclude that using the activity signal from a smartband, it is possibl

Association between footwear use and neglected tropical diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND The control of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has primarily focused on preventive chemotherapy and case management. Less attention has been placed on the role of ensuring access to adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene and personal preventive measures in reducing exposure to infection. Our aim was to assess whether footwear use was associated with a lower risk of selected NTDs. METHODOLOGY We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the association between footwear use and infection or disease for those NTDs for which the route of transmission or occurrence may be through the feet. We included Buruli ulcer, cutaneous larva migrans (CLM), leptospirosis, mycetoma, myiasis, podoconiosis, snakebite, tungiasis, and soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections, particularly hookworm infection and strongyloidiasis. We searched Medline, Embase, Cochrane, Web of Science, CINAHL Plus, and Popline databases, contacted experts, and hand-searched reference lists for eligible studies. The search was conducted in English without language, publication status, or date restrictions up to January 2014. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they reported a measure of the association between footwear use and the risk of each NTD. Publication bias was assessed using funnel plots. Descriptive study characteristics and methodological quality of the included studies were summarized. For each study outcome, both outcome and exposure data were abstracted and crude and adjusted effect estimates presented. Individual and summary odds ratio (OR) estimates and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated as a measure of intervention effect, using random effects meta-analyses. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Among the 427 studies screened, 53 met our inclusion criteria. Footwear use was significantly associated with a lower odds of infection of Buruli ulcer (OR=0.15; 95% CI: 0.08-0.29), CLM (OR=0.24; 95% CI: 0.06-0.96), tungiasis (OR=0.42; 95% CI: 0.26-0.70), hookworm infection (OR=0.48; 95% CI: 0.37-0.61), any STH infection (OR=0.57; 95% CI: 0.39-0.84), strongyloidiasis (OR=0.56; 95% CI: 0.38-0.83), and leptospirosis (OR=0.59; 95% CI: 0.37-0.94). No significant association between footwear use and podoconiosis (OR=0.63; 95% CI: 0.38-1.05) was found and no data were available for mycetoma, myiasis, and snakebite. The main limitations were evidence of heterogeneity and poor study quality inherent to the observational studies included. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Our results show that footwear use was associated with a lower odds of several different NTDs. Access to footwear should be prioritized alongside existing NTD interventions to ensure a lasting reduction of multiple NTDs and to accelerate their control and elimination. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews CRD42012003338

On supersymmetric quantum mechanics

This paper constitutes a review on N=2 fractional supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics of order k. The presentation is based on the introduction of a generalized Weyl-Heisenberg algebra W_k. It is shown how a general Hamiltonian can be associated with the algebra W_k. This general Hamiltonian covers various supersymmetrical versions of dynamical systems (Morse system, Poschl-Teller system, fractional supersymmetric oscillator of order k, etc.). The case of ordinary supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics corresponds to k=2. A connection between fractional supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics and ordinary supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics is briefly described. A realization of the algebra W_k, of the N=2 supercharges and of the corresponding Hamiltonian is given in terms of deformed-bosons and k-fermions as well as in terms of differential operators.Comment: Review paper (31 pages) to be published in: Fundamental World of Quantum Chemistry, A Tribute to the Memory of Per-Olov Lowdin, Volume 3, E. Brandas and E.S. Kryachko (Eds.), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 200

Influence of oxygen levels on chondrogenesis of porcine mesenchymal stem cells cultured in polycaprolactone scaffolds

[EN] Chondrogenesis of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is known to be regulated by a number of environmental factors, including local oxygen levels. The hypothesis of this study is that the response of MSCs to hypoxia is dependent on the physical and chemical characteristics of the substrate used. The objective of this study was to explore how different modifications to polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds influenced the response of MSCs to hypoxia. PCL, PCL-hyaluronic acid (HA), and PCL-Bioglass (R) (BG) scaffolds were seeded with MSCs derived from bone marrow and cultured for 35 days under normoxic or low oxygen conditions, and the resulting biochemical properties of the MSC laden construct were assessed. Low oxygen tension has a positive effect over cell proliferation and macromolecules biosynthesis. Furthermore, hypoxia enhanced the distribution of collagen and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) deposition through the scaffold. On the other hand, MSCs displayed certain material dependent responses to hypoxia. Low oxygen tension had a positive effect on cell proliferation in BG and HA scaffolds, but only a positive effect on GAGs synthesis in PCL and HA scaffolds. In conclusion, hypoxia increased cell viability and expression of chondrogenic markers but the cell response was modulated by the type of scaffold used.Contract grant sponsors: VI National R&D&i Plan 2008-2011, Iniciativa Ingenio 2010, Consolider Program, CIBER Actions, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, and European Regional Development FundRódenas Rochina, J.; Kelly, DJ.; Gómez Ribelles, JL.; Lebourg, MM. (2017). Influence of oxygen levels on chondrogenesis of porcine mesenchymal stem cells cultured in polycaprolactone scaffolds. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A. 105(6):1684-1691. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbm.a.36043S16841691105