Coordenação fiscal regional na área da Grande Baía:uma perspetiva de fluxo de talentos

Dissertação de Mestrado em Administração PúblicaEstudamos o papel da coordenação fiscal regional na promoção do fluxo de trabalhadores talentosos na Área da Grande Baía de Guangdong, Hong Kong e Macau (GBA). Num contexto de crescentes atividades transfronteiriças e maior integração regional, é crucial que os governos descubram até que ponto diferentes sistemas fiscais na Grande Baía impedem a circulação de talentos regionais. Primeiro, comparamos as leis fiscais relevantes para clarificar onde estão as diferenças. De seguida, determinamos o impacto do imposto de duas formas. Em primeiro lugar, para determinar o nível de rendimento líquido de impostos, simulamos a taxa efetiva de imposto usando um perfil do rendimento para trabalhadores talentosos. Depois, reportamos as conclusões de uma entrevista em grupo com profissionais, especialistas e professores, a fim de compreender melhor as nuances das diferenças em termos de tributação regional. Concluímos que as diferenças na tributação dos rendimentos do trabalho causam impactos negativos tanto na mobilidade do fator trabalho como na vontade de trabalhadores talentosos irem trabalhar para a parte continental da GBA. Certas medidas fiscais, com o objetivo de promover a circulação de talentos, provavelmente levarão a efeitos indesejados. No contexto de uma melhor coordenação fiscal regional, salientamos uma série de passos futuros para mitigar os impactos negativos dos impostos no fluxo regional de talento.We study the role of regional tax coordination in promoting the flow of talented workers in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). In a context of increasing crossboundary activities and greater regional integration, it is crucial for governments to determine to what extent different tax systems in the GBA hinder regional talent flow. We first compare the relevant tax laws to clarify where the differences lie. Then we determine the impact of taxes in two ways. First, to determine the after-taxes income level, we simulate the effective tax burden using an income profile of talented workers. Then, we report on a group interview with professionals and experts aimed at better understanding the nuances of differential regional taxation. We conclude that the differences in labour income taxation are deleterious both to labour mobility and to the personal willingness of talented workers to work on the mainland side of the GBA. Certain tax measures, with the purpose of promoting regional talent flow, are likely to lead to certain unintended effects, such as a social justice problem. In the context of better regional tax coordination, we highlight a number of future steps to mitigate the negative impacts of tax on regional talent flow.N/

Teachers’ Feedback on a New Variety of English: The Case of Hong Kong English

The present short report reveals how teachers of English in Hong Kong (HKTEs) react to Hong Kong English (HKE). By employing a mixed method approach consisting of 100 survey responses and 28 interviews, types of feedback and activities teachers use when they encounter HKE in classroom were recorded and reported. The results showed that the two types of teachers of English – Native and Non-native English speakers – provided different kinds of responses because of the differences in attitude they held toward new varieties of English. The current study potentially sheds light on how different varieties of English could fit in traditional ESL curricula. Further research is warranted on how the feedback may affect English acquisition among Hong Kong students and whether the feedback brings positive or negative effects to the students

Genetics and biomarkers of frailty : towards individualized management of the frailty syndrome

Frailty is an age-related, dynamic state of multisystem physiological decline and is a strong predictor of disability and mortality. To move towards an individualized management of frailty, a better understanding of its biological underpinnings and an early identification of frail older adults are necessary. The overarching aim of this thesis was to unravel the genetic, epigenetic, and metabolic determinants of frailty and to develop an automated frailty assessment tool for the Swedish health system. In Study I, we calculated a frailty index (FI) for 42,994 Swedish twins and assessed sex differences in the genetic and environmental contributions to the FI. Overall, we observed a higher heritability of the FI in women (52%) than in men (45%). Moreover, the correlations between FI and its two main risk factors, body mass index and education, were mainly attributable to genetic factors and environmental factors shared within twin pairs, respectively, suggesting that different mechanisms may underlie these associations. In Study II, we examined genetic and environmental influences on the FI trajectories in 2,496 twins followed up to 27 years. A bilinear latent growth curve model best fit the data, indicating a four-to-five times faster FI increase after age 75. While genetic influences were relatively stable across age, individual-specific environmental influences increased substantially after age 75 especially in men, amplifying the overall FI variance in late life. In Study III, we performed an epigenome-wide analysis in 526 Swedish twins and identified 171 CpG sites associated with the FI at a false discovery rate of <0.05. Many of the identified sites have previously been associated with chronological age and age-related diseases. We further validated five of these sites in an independent sample of 304 Danish twins, which are mapped to genes that may involve in cancer and neurological pathways. In Study IV, we explored the associations of 168 metabolomic and 32 clinical biomarkers with two measures of frailty using observational and Mendelian randomization analyses. In three population-based studies comprising >100,000 individuals, we identified 34 biomarkers independently and robustly associated with the FI. Specifically, we highlighted a putative causal effect of glycoprotein acetyls, an inflammatory biomarker, on frailty. In Study V, we developed an electronic frailty index (eFI) using electronic health records from 18,225 patients admitted to nine geriatric clinics in Stockholm. Among the assessed frailty and comorbidity measures, the eFI had the best discriminative ability for mortality. In summary, this thesis provides novel insights into the biological mechanisms of frailty, suggesting that both genetic and environmental factors play important roles in frailty development, with chronic inflammation as the key underlying mechanism. Moreover, our developed Swedish eFI is a promising tool that can potentially be incorporated in the Swedish health system to guide clinical decisions

Wave-packet treatment of neutrino oscillations and its implications on determining the neutrino mass hierarchy

We derive the neutrino flavor transition probabilities with the neutrino treated as a wave packet. The decoherence and dispersion effects from the wave-packet treatment show up as damping and phase-shifting of the plane-wave neutrino oscillation patterns. If the energy uncertainty in the initial neutrino wave packet is larger than around 0.01 of the neutrino energy, the decoherence and dispersion effects would degrade the sensitivity of reactor neutrino experiments to mass hierarchy measurement to lower than 3 $\sigma$ confidence level

Effect of acupuncture on the healing of benign vocal fold lesions

Acupuncture treatment has been an active field of research in Western Medicine for many years. This study aims to study the healing effect of acupuncture treatment on vocal fold lesions. Fifty-five subjects that were randomized into three groups, genuine, sham and control group underwent 12-weekly acupuncture treatments, and data from the assessment at pre-treatment, post-treatment and 1 month post-treatment were analyzed. The genuine group received acupuncture treatment on nine acupuncture points. The sham group received the same acupuncture treatment except with blunt needles. Five visual-perceptual judgment of stroboscopic parameters were used to measure the recovery of the vocal folds. Results were inconclusive in terms of whether acupuncture treatment was effective in healing the vocal folds.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

IDENTIFICATION OF SIMULATED ANKLE SPRIAN FROM COMMON SPORTS MOTIONS BY FFT AND POLYNOMIAL FITTING ON DORSAL FOOT KINEMATICS DATA

This study presented a method to identify simulated ankle sprain motion from common sporting motions by using motion sensor data. Five subjects performed 100 simulated sprain trials and 245 non-sprain common sporting motion trials in a laboratory. Eight motion sensors were attached to different anatomical landmarks on the right foot to collect 3-D linear acceleration and angular velocity data, which was then processed by fast Fourier transform and polynomial fitting in frequency domain. The coefficients of fitted curve were compared, and the accuracy to identify ankle sprain motion achieved 97.0%. Comparing to a previous method, the current method requires shorter data collection and computation time, and could serve for real time ankle sprain monitoring