A history of the Massachusetts income tax

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1940The purpose of this thesis is twofold: first, to trace chronologically those factors which have led to the adoption of the present income tax in Massachusetts; secondly, to show its current position as well as its progress. This thesis is constructed with the idea of presenting the case to the reader in such a manner that his comprehension of its breadth and depth will be easily facilitated and in trying to do this a synthesis of past and present work of numerous authors has been interpreted to the best of the writer's ability

Cognitive and neural factors underlying the manipulation of visual memory representations

Goal-directed behaviour relies on the ability to store relevant information in visual shortterm memory (VSTM) and to briefly maintain its representation for manipulations (Visual Working Memory, VWM). Crucial cognitive processes for this ability include perceptual encoding, maintenance and retrieval of task-relevant stimuli, as well as selectively suppress taskirrelevant information. Despite the relevance of these processes is known, their combined and individual contribution is less clear, as well as the specific role of the initial perceptual accuracy and individual variability in manipulating information held in memory. This thesis addresses these issues by examining the cognitive and neural processes underlying the maintenance of memory representations for short intervals. In the first part of this work, we used a novel behavioural paradigm to study the role of perceptual accuracy as well as of the combined and individual contribution of other cognitive factors underlying visual short-term memory. A second study extended the investigation to the maintenance period, providing task-based and endogenous electrophysiological correlates of successful maintenance. The second part of this thesis used a retro-cue based WM paradigm to investigate the attentional and inhibitory mechanisms involve in the maintenance process, and required when manipulating stored information. Considering the vulnerability of these processes in healthy ageing, the investigation is also extended to an older sample. This last part of the thesis provided cognitive and neural results that reconciled contrasting findings on the WM literature based on retro-cue. Specifically, a novel concept of cognitive flexibility and its electrophysiological predictors are proposed to underlie individual variability in manipulating memory representation

Light-induced reorientation and birefringence in polymeric dispersions of nano-sized crystals

Nanocrystals (50-250 nm) of a Palladium complex within a polyisobutylmethacrylate matrix were prepared by a phase separation method. In these dispersions, a light-induced birefringence with Deltan approximately 10(-3) was induced, without the application of an electric field. This effect was related to the photoconducting properties of the dispersion. Evidence for charge photogeneration without any applied field was obtained. The photorefractive behaviour of the material confirmed that the nanocrystals reorientation is a consequence of photoconducting properties. A light-generated electric field approximaely E 3 V/microm was estimated. These results illustrate the potential of materials with a nano-crystalline dispersion morphology as light-responsive media

High hole mobility and light-harvesting in discotic nematic dendrimers prepared: Via 'click' chemistry

We report a new family of liquid crystalline porphyrin-core dendrimers with coumarin units at the periphery of the dendrimer. These compounds have been prepared by copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne "click" cycloaddition (CuAAC). The mesomorphic properties have been investigated via polarized optical microscopy (POM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The peripheral coumarin units play a key role in the liquid crystal behavior, contributing to the appearance of discotic nematic mesophases with hole mobility values among the highest values reported for discotic liquid crystals (of the order of 1 cm 2 V -1 s -1 ). It has also been demonstrated that excitation of the coumarin moieties leads to energy transfer (antenna effect) to the luminescent porphyrin core. Therefore, this strategy, which involves ''click'' chemistry, has been proven to be a powerful and elegant synthetic tool for the preparation of optoelectronic materials based on complex dendritic architectures

Side-Chain Multifunctional Photoresponsive Polymeric Materials

The contribute reviews the recent literature concerning the state-of-the-art of the research on amorphous polymeric derivatives bearing side-chain photoactive moieties such as the azo-aromatic and the carbazole chromophore as functional groups, in addition to the presence of structural or chemical features suitable to also provide the macromolecules of chiral properties

Amine‐Functionalized Mesoporous Silica Adsorbent for CO2 Capture in Confined‐Fluidized Bed: Study of the Breakthrough Adsorption Curves as a Function of Several Operating Variables

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is one of the key promising technologies that can reduce GHG emissions from those industries that generate CO2 as part of their production processes. Compared to other effective CO2 capture methods, the adsorption technique offers the possibility of reducing the costs of the process by setting solid sorbent with a high capacity of adsorption and easy regeneration and, also, controlling the performance of gas‐solid contactor. In this work, an amine‐functionalized mesoporous sorbent was used to capture CO2 emissions in a confined‐fluidized bed. The adoption of a confined environment allows the establishment of a homogeneous expansion regime for the sorbent and allows to improve the exchange of matter and heat between gas and solid phase. The results illustrate how the different concentration of the solution adopted during the functionalization affects the adsorption capacity. That, measured as mg of CO2 per g of sorbent, was determined by breakthrough curves from continuous adsorption tests using different concentrations of CO2 in air. Mesoporous silica functionalized with a concentration of 20% of APTES proves to be the best viable option in terms of cost and ease of preparation, low temperature of regeneration, and effective use for CO2 capture

Triphenylamine- and triazine- containing hydrogen bonded complexes: liquid crystalline supramolecular semiconductors

Despite the fact that triphenylamine derivatives have been widely explored as hole-transporting materials, studies on charge transport properties in the liquid crystal phase have been overlooked. Here, it is reported that triphenylamine liquid crystals can attain very high hole mobility values in a hexagonal columnar mesophase, up toµ˜ 5 cm2V-1s-1. The columnar liquid crystalline phase was obtained by a proper design of a supramolecular mesogen, and this is unprecedented for triphenylamine liquid crystals. In fact, the supramolecules were formed by hydrogen-bonded 1¿:¿3 complexes of a star-shaped triazine core and three triphenylamine peripheral units. The resulting hexagonal columnar mesophase acts as a successful scaffold that confines TPA units at the periphery of columns. Challenging DFT theoretical investigations into a model based on such supramolecular systems involving a large number of atoms were undertaken to explore the stability and geometry of the complexes and their electronic properties