Creating An Executive Compensation Plan: A Corporate Tax Planning Case

In this case, the student takes on the role of a compensation committee team member in a publicly-traded corporation. The case task is to create a compensation plan for the company’s CEO using past data regarding CEO compensation and specific incentives from proxy statements, along with financial statement performance data. The case requires the student consider multiple issues, both tax and non-tax. To develop a comprehensive plan for the executive, students must incorporate numerous course topics and apply them to the particular fact pattern. Pre- and post-case responses from students confirm that this case furthers their understanding of the interplay between corporate tax rules and executive compensation while cultivating critical thinking skills. The case has been used in both graduate tax and graduate accounting courses. To accommodate different teaching philosophies and course emphasis (tax or accounting), three variations of the project are provided

Impact assessment of a super-typhoon on Hong Kong’s secondary vegetation and recommendations for restoration of resilience in the forest succession

Typhoons of varying intensities severely impact ecosystem functioning in tropical regions and their increasing frequencies and intensities due to global warming pose new challenges for effective forest restoration. This study examines the impact of a super-typhoon (Mangkhut) on the regenerating native secondary forest and exotic monocultural plantations in the degraded tropical landscape of Hong Kong. The super typhoon, which hit Hong Kong on 16 September 2018 lasted for 10 hours (09:40 to 19:40) and was the most severe storm affecting Hong Kong over the past 100 years. Hong Kong’s secondary forest is a mosaic of forest patches recovering through natural succession since 1945, and plantation stands of exotic monocultural species. We determine the loss in biomass by performing NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) difference analysis using two Landsat-8 multispectral images acquired before and after the typhoon. This the assessment of typhoon impacts according to successional age group, structural stages of vegetation, landscape topography, and on stands of exotic plantations. Results indicate that hilltops, open shrubland and grassland were hard hit, especially on southwest and southeast facing slopes, and almost 90 % of the landscape showed abnormal change. Patches of exotic monoculture plantation (Lophostemon confertus, Melaleuca quinquenervia, and Acacia confusa) were the most severely damaged by the typhoon, showing more than 25 % decrease in NDVI, followed by young secondary forest. Field observations confirmed that in exotic plantations, almost the entire canopy was destroyed and there is no generation of young under story trees to replace those lost. The affected young forests and shrublands are mainly dominated by fast growing, soft wooded early successional species such as Mallotus paniculatus or Machilus chekiangensis as well as weak, multi-trunked, fungus infected, or other structurally deficient trees, which were uprooted or seriously damaged by typhoon gusts. The net effect of typhoons in Hong Kong’s degraded landscape, appears to reinforce the arrested succession of dense, less diverse stands of weaker early successional species due to the absence of late and middle successional species and native dispersal agents. In order to obtain a stronger, more resilient forest, it would be necessary to enhance biodiversity by artificially planting a species mix, which resembles primary forests in the region. This could be achieved by thinning of young secondary forest followed by enhancement planting of pockets of high diversity forest

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure