Welfare Reform and Unitended Consequences: Its Impact on a Local Child Protection Program

On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The Act represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between the federal government, the fifty states, and persons living in poverty. A shift of this magnitude cannot be analyzed properly without considering the significant impact of unintended consequences that may result from the new policy. Often, unintended consequences occur when two different policies, in this case, public welfare and child protective services, collide. One such possible unintended consequence of this policy shift may be to reduce the effectiveness of a successful child protection program in Walton County, Georgia. The kinship care program in Walton County has considerably reduced the number of children in foster care, altered foster roles, and resulted in savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, without careful planning, the current welfare reform effort will limit the ability of extended family members to offer care for abused and neglected children via the kinship care program. This paper explores the complexity of such a major shift in federal welfare policy by analyzing its impact on a successful county-based child protection program

Implicaciones tributarias que se originan en los centros de educación superior privados respecto a la ley de impuesto a la trasferencia de bienes muebles y a la prestación de servicios y la ley del impuesto sobre la renta.

En el ámbito de la Educación Superior se generan diversas operaciones, las cuales representan un papel muy importante al momento de estar al frente de una institución, ya que estas influyen de gran manera en la situación económica y legal y por lo tanto es necesario conocer cuáles son las operaciones principales de estas instituciones. ¿Qué leyes las rigen?, ¿Cuál es el tratamiento tributario y contable para sus operaciones?, ¿Qué papel juegan las donaciones en estas instituciones y su tratamiento?, ¿Cuál es la forma correcta de manejar dichas operaciones? El presente trabajo aborda estas y otras interrogantes que surgen ante las diversas maneras en que las universidades realizan sus registros contables, con el objeto de proponer una guía que le permita al profesional de la Contaduría Pública contar con criterios claros con respecto a la forma de realizar los registros de las operaciones propias de un Centro de Educación Superior, con el propósito de minimizar errores y la posibilidad de incurrir en multas, sanciones, u otro tipo de consecuencias legales. El valor agregado que surge de esta investigación consiste en una guía que ilustra el tratamiento tributario de las operaciones realizadas por las Instituciones de Educación Superior, y de esta manera evitar la mala interpretación de leyes tributarias vigentes para no incurrir en multas y sanciones como consecuencia de la mala interpretación de las mismas. Para ello, se identifica el marco legal que rige el tratamiento fiscal sobre las operaciones que realizan estas instituciones y así se establecieron criterios adecuados en la aplicación del mismo. Los cuales dieron la pauta para desarrollar procedimientos claros y precisos sobre el tratamiento tributario y contable que debe aplicarse a las operaciones realizadas, para lograr el adecuado cumplimiento de las obligaciones tributarias y volver más eficiente la labor del profesional de la Contaduría Publica El tipo de estudio que se llevó a cabo se dividió en dos partes: la primera fue de índole bibliográfica, para lo cual se utilizaron, estatutos y reglamentos internos de la universidad, manual de políticas contables, revisión de archivos contables entre otros. La segunda parte consistió en el desarrollo de un caso práctico relacionado con las operaciones realizadas por la Universidad Evangélica de El Salvador en el año 2008, a partir de lo cual se pretendió identificar los aciertos y desaciertos en que incurren los centros de educación superior en lo relativo al tratamiento tributario que se genera por las operaciones realizadas en dichos centros. Dado que el estudio se aplica a una unidad en particular para el caso los centros de educación superior, la Universidad Evangélica de El Salvador, esta se convirtió en la unidad de análisis de la presente investigación. Para el desarrollo de la investigación se diseñó un cuestionario que fue utilizado como guía para llevar a cabo entrevistas con el personal clave que participa en las operaciones con implicación tributaria y su tratamiento contable, así mismo se realizaron visitas de campo donde se observó directamente cada una de las actividades realizadas en estas instituciones y de esta forma se conoció el proceso sobre la facturación y pago de las operaciones, su control, registro y consideración para efectos fiscales. En lo que respecta a los resultados obtenidos en la investigación se puede mencionar que el Centro de Educación Superior que fue objeto de estudio, posee deficiencias en cuanto a la aplicación de la normativa tributaria vigente, ya que el personal encargado del registro de operaciones no es sometido a capacitaciones, que les permitan conocer las posibles reformas u otro tipo de situaciones que alteren la forma de emplear dichas leyes. Cabe mencionar que la falta de conocimientos tributarios entre los empleados genera atrasos importantes en el desempeño laboral de los mismos, ya que el trabajo está a cargo de un equipo, por lo que el error cometido por un integrante, afecta el funcionamiento del resto del equipo. Se puede concluir que el Centro de educación Superior en cuestión no brinda la importancia que amerita al área tributaria, ya que no realiza capacitaciones al personal encargado de la operatividad de dicha institución, por lo tanto, desconoce la magnitud de los problemas en los que puede incurrir por la mala interpretación de la normativa tributaria. Es importante mencionar que, como producto de la mala aplicación de la normativa, frecuentemente se originan problemas que conllevan a la modificación de declaraciones, lo cual interrumpe el ritmo de trabajo y genera contratiempos en la generación de la información, lo que trae como consecuencia el retraso en la generación de registros, y el riesgo de contar con información errónea que le genere posible toma de decisiones equivocadas, y por consecuencia incurrir en futuras multas y sanciones. Es importante que las Instituciones de Educación Superior cuenten con personal conocedor de la normativa tributaria para que su operatividad no se vea interrumpida por la mala interpretación de las mismas, así mismo someter a dicho personal a capacitaciones constantes para conocer las reformas y todos los cambios importantes generados para que sus actividades se generen en forma fluida evitando así futuros contratiempos derivados de aplicación incorrecta de la ley. De igual manera debe realizarse una guía práctica que contenga procedimientos claros y precisos en cuanto a la clasificación de las operaciones, de acuerdo a las leyes aplicables para agilizar el registro de las operaciones y estas puedan realizarse en forma eficiente y eficaz. En general, es importante que se cuente con el personal idóneo para el desarrollo de sus operaciones, sin dejar a un lado la capacitación constante para que las actividades se lleven a cabo de forma exitosa

Fandom and activism: Experimenting with memetic communication appeals about human rights issues during the 2022 winter Olympic games

In the sports context, activism is a popular focus of inquiry. In fact, scholars have posited that sports present an ideal platform for human rights and political activism and protest (Agyemang, Singer, & DeLorme, 2010; Coombs & Cassilo, 2017; Kaufman & Wolff, 2010). This study aims to analyze the persuasiveness of memetic communication in the global sports context by investigating the influence of exposure to social advocacy memes on issue importance and general attitudes toward global human rights. This experiment relied on MTurk participants in an online experiment using Qualtrics software hosted by the Communication Research Lab at a Midwest University. We measure the persuasive influence of a variety of persuasive strategies (e.g., assertive, comparative, calls to action, and appeals to self-efficacy) as well as explicit affiliations within a real-time global sports context (e.g., 2022 Winter Olympics). These findings add to existing scholarship by focusing on post-exposure behavioral intentions (e.g., diffusion intentions, advocacy intentions, consumption intentions, and information-seeking intentions) likely to spur activism and advocacy. These findings support the position that memetic communications help to serve as a motivational catalyst for information-seeking behaviors about global human rights issues in real-time global sports contexts. Discussion and limitations are provided

Analyzing the Prophylactic and Therapeutic Role of Inoculation to Facilitate Resistance to Conspiracy Theory Beliefs

Conspiracy theories pose a variety of social and psychological consequences for individuals and society, and research suggests that around half of the U.S. population believes at least one. A two-phase inoculation experiment was conducted. Inoculated participants reported more negative general attitudes toward conspiracy theories and lower Phase II generic conspiracist beliefs, which are both indicators of harm-reduction and the beneficial healing impacts of therapeutic inoculation. The addition of therapeutic inoculation as a harm-reduction or healing technique in practitioners’ stakeholder response toolkit is a valuable contribution to both theory and practice

Lipid Oxidation Inhibition in Frozen Farmed Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch ): Effect of Packaging

3 pages, 1 table.Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) has recently attracted a great interest as a farmed product. This research focuses on its commercialisation as a frozen product. For it, an advanced storage technology combining vacuum and a polyphenolic rich-film was applied for a 9-months storage period (–18°C). The study was addressed to lipid hydrolysis and oxidation changes and to endogenous antioxidant content in salmon muscle. No effect of packaging conditions could be observed on free fatty acid formation. However, vacuum packaging conditions provided a partial inhibition of primary (peroxide) and secondary (anisidine value) lipid oxidation development; this inhibitory effect was accompanied by a lower tocopherol isomers loss. The employment of a film including polyphenolic compounds led to a partial inhibition of α-tocopherol breakdown and to a lower secondary (anisidine value) and tertiary (fluorescent compound formation) lipid oxidation development. A partial inhibitory effect on lipid oxidation development is concluded for the employment of a polyphenolic compound rich-film packaging when applied to farmed coho salmon.This research was carried out in the frame of the Project No. 2006 CL 0034 (2007–2008), granted by the U. Chile-CSIC Cooperation Program. Coho salmon fish was provided by Aquachile SA (Puerto Montt, Chile).Peer reviewe

Molecular stabilization of chemically exfoliated bare MnPS3 layers

Transition metal chalcogenophosphates of general formula MPX3 have attracted recent interest in the field of 2D materials due to the possibility of tuning their properties upon reaching the 2D limit. Several works address this challenge by dry mechanical exfoliation. However, only a few of them use a scalable approach. In this work, we apply a general chemical protocol to exfoliate MnPS3. The method employs in the first step chemical intercalation and liquid phase exfoliation and in the second step the addition of molecules used as capping agents on the inorganic layers. Therefore, molecules of different nature prompt the quality of the exfoliated material and its stabilization in an aqueous solution, opening the possibility of using these functionalized layers in several fields. Here we illustrate this possibility in electrochemistry. Thus, we show that when polyethylenimine is used as the capping agent, it is possible to reach a compromise between the stability of high quality MnPS3 flakes in aqueous suspension and their optimum performance as an electrocatalytic system for HER activity

Advances in anaerobic membrane bioreactor technology for municipal wastewater treatment: A 2020 updated review

The application of anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBR) for mainstream municipal sewage treatment is almost ready for full-scale implementation. However, some challenges still need to be addressed to make AnMBR technically and economically feasible. This article presents an updated review of five challenges that currently hinder the implementation of AnMBR technology for mainstream sewage treatment: (i) membrane fouling, (ii) process configuration, (iii) process temperature, (iv) sewage sulphate concentration, and (v) sewage low organics concentration. The gel layer appears to be the main responsible for membrane fouling and flux decline being molecules size and morphology critical properties for its formation. The review also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of five novel AnMBR configurations aiming to optimise fouling control. These include the integration of membrane technology with CSTR or upflow digesters, and the utilisation of scouring particles. Psychrophilic temperatures and high sulphate concentrations are two other limiting factors due to their impact on methane yields and membrane performance. Besides the methane dissolved in the effluent and the competition for organic matter between sulphate reducing bacteria and methanogens, the review examines the impact of temperature on microbial kinetics and community, and their combined effect on AnMBR performance. Finally, the review evaluates the possibility to pre-concentrate municipal sewage by forward osmosis. Sewage pre-concentration is an opportunity to reduce the volumetric flow rate and the dissolved methane losses. Overall, the resolution of these challenges requires a compromise solution considering membrane filtration, anaerobic digestion performance and economic feasibility

Lung Extracellular Matrix Hydrogels-Derived Vesicles Contribute to Epithelial Lung Repair

The use of physiomimetic decellularized extracellular matrix-derived hydrogels is attracting interest since they can modulate the therapeutic capacity of numerous cell types, including mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). Remarkably, extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from MSCs display similar functions as their parental cells, mitigating tissue damage in lung diseases. However, recent data have shown that ECM-derived hydrogels could release other resident vesicles similar to EVs. Here, we aim to better understand the contribution of EVs and ECM-vesicles released from MSCs and/or lung-derived hydrogel (L-HG) in lung repair by using an in vitro lung injury model. L-HG derived-vesicles and MSCs EVs cultured either in L-HG or conventional plates were isolated and characterized. The therapeutic capacity of vesicles obtained from each experimental condition was tested by using an alveolar epithelial wound-healing assay. The number of ECM-vesicles released from acellular L-HG was 10-fold greater than EVs from conventional MSCs cell culture revealing that L-HG is an important source of bioactive vesicles. MSCs-derived EVs and L-HG vesicles have similar therapeutic capacity in lung repair. However, when wound closure rate was normalized by total proteins, the MSCs-derived EVs shows higher therapeutic potential to those released by L-HG. The EVs released from L-HG must be considered when HG is used as substrate for cell culture and EVs isolation

Meltable, Glass-Forming, Iron Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks

We describe the first meltable iron-based zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF), denoted MUV-24. This material, elusive from direct synthesis, is obtained from the thermal treatment of [Fe3(im)6(Him)2], which yields Fe(im)2 upon loss of the neutral imidazole molecules. Different crystalline phase transformations are observed upon further heating, until the material melts at 482 °C. Vitrification upon cooling of the liquid phase gives rise to the first Fe-metal-organic framework glass. X-ray total scattering experiments show that the tetrahedral environment of the crystalline solids is maintained in the glass, whereas nanoindentation measurements reveal an increase in Young's modulus, in agreement with stiffening upon vitrification

Wrapping up Metal-Organic Framework Crystals with Carbon Nanotubes

[EN] The presence of tetrazine units in the organic nodes of UiO-68-TZCD controls the formation of ultrathin coatings of single-wall nanotubes that decorate the surface of the crystal. These crystal hybrids can be prepared straightforwardly in one step and are extraordinarily respectful with the properties of the framework for combination of mesoporosity and surface areas approximate to 4.000 m(2) g(-1), with excellent stability in water, and conductivities at room temperature of 4 x 10(-2) S cm(-1) even at very low carbon weight contents (2.3 wt.%).B.L.-B. and N.M.P. contributed equally to the work. This work was supported by the EU H2020 program (ERC-2021-COG-101043428 & ERC-2016-STG-714122), the Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEU/2021/054 and SEJIGENT/2021/059) and the Spanish government (CEX2019-000919-M, PID2020-118117RB-I00 & EUR2021-121999). B.L.-B. thanks the Spanish government for an FPU (FPU16/04162). N.M.P. and M.G. thanks La Caixa Foundation for a Postdoctoral Junior Leader-Retaining Fellowship (ID 100010434 & ID 100010434 and fellowship code LCF/BQ/PR20/11770014 & LCF/BQ/PR21/11840011). The authors also thank the University of Valencia for its research facilities (NANBIOSIS). J.A. and H. G. are grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RTI2018-98237-CO2-1) and Generalitat Valenciana (Prometeo 2021-038) for the financial support.Lerma-Berlanga, B.; Padial, NM.; Galbiati, M.; Brotons-Alcázar, I.; Albero-Sancho, J.; García Gómez, H.; Forment-Aliaga, A.... (2023). Wrapping up Metal-Organic Framework Crystals with Carbon Nanotubes. Advanced Functional Materials. 33(41). https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202302246334