Boosting Cross-Border Philanthropy in Europe: Towards a Tax-Effective Environment

This publication, a joint effort of the European Foundation Centre (EFC) and Transnational Giving Europe (TGE), offers recommendations and ideas which could potentially ease tax-effective cross-border philanthropy in Europe. Tax experts from across Europe contributed to this publication.Cross-border philanthropy in Europe is growing. Philanthropic organisations are both investing more across national boundaries as part of their asset management strategy, and individual and corporate donors are increasing their philanthropic giving outside of their home countries.But the fiscal environment for cross-border philanthropy, even within the European Union, is still far from satisfactory. Although the EU's non-discrimination principle, which applies to philanthropy, some legislators and authorities still discriminate against comparable foreign EU-based philanthropic players. And processes to gain equal treatment - where they are indeed available - are burdensome, lengthy and costly.This paper aims to highlight good and bad existing practice and to develop recommendations and ideas which could potentially lead to a simplification of the procedures for implementation of the non-discrimination principle. This is therefore not an academic paper but rather a practitioner-driven view on the matter, which will need to be further developed and discussed with fiscal experts and policymakers in the field of philanthropy taxation. The paper is hence a recommended read for legislators and authorities, as well as for philanthropists and the wider non-profit sector.The analysis and recommendations contained in this publication follow on from a study released in 2014 bythe EFC and the Transnational Giving Europe network (TGE), "Taxation of cross-border philanthropy in Europe after Persche and Stauffer - From landlock to free movement?"

Digital Preservation: Theory Approaching Practice

A presentation at the Fall Task Force Meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information, Dec. 6-7, 2004, Portland, OR. Two versions of the same file.Digital content permeates every aspect of the academic enterprise. The challenges presented by the need to provide long-term access to this information are widely acknowledged. One key to understanding them lies in recognizing the mismatch between traditional information management practices – practices largely formed in a print-on-paper environment – and the characteristics of digital information. Given the need for different approaches, without a focused planning program there can be no reasonable expectation that digital information created today will remain usable in a few years. A campus-wide Digital Preservation Task Force at the University of Kansas was charged with exploring the implications of a University commitment to the preservation of digital assets, both academic and administrative. The initial stages of this investigation were presented in a project briefing at the Spring 2004 Task Force meeting. In this presentation we will present the three major components and next steps recommended for our emerging digital preservation program: • An integrated technical architecture of systems and services, designed around the whole lifecycle of digital information, from creation forward • A set of functional roles and institutional policies required to insure that these systems and services are implemented and maintained • An education program for faculty, staff, and administrators in the basic concepts and challenges of digital preservation and a training program in information management practices that will contribute to the ongoing availability of digital files

Preservation Planning for Digital Information: Final Report of the HVC2 Digital Preservation Task Force

Digital preservation is the ongoing process of managing data for continuing access and use. The University of Kansas Digital Preservation Task Force was charged in October 2003 to explore the implications of a University commitment to the preservation of digital assets, both academic and administrative. The report emphasizes actions the University should take; it is not a primer on digital preservation. We recommend, over a three-year timeline, implementation of the following components in a university-wide digital preservation program: • An integrated technical architecture designed around the whole lifecycle of digital information, from creation forward. • Definition and assignment of a set of specific roles or functions exercised by staff within the University, and development of a set of policies to guide those roles. • Education for faculty, staff, and administrators in the basic concepts and challenges in digital preservation and training in information management practices that will contribute to the ongoing availability of digital files

The Shrinking Space for Civil Society : Philanthropic Perspectives From Across the Globe

The shrinking space for civil society and reported violations to fundamental and democratic rights are a global phenomenon. Foundations and other philanthropic organisations have reported problematic laws in Algeria, China, Columbia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Russia, Syria and Zimbabwe, just to name a few. And EU countries are hardly immune. Of serious concern have been ongoing challenges to civic rights in Hungary, UK surveillance programmes, anti-protest laws in Spain, counterterrorism measures in France, and attacks in Poland on the freedom of public media and the independence of the judiciary. In this publication, a group of European Foundation Centre members working across the globe share their thoughts on and experience of the shrinking space for civil society. This publication signals the EFC's ambition to scan the landscape on developments important to its members in an effort to contribute intelligence and capture the experience of foundations to make sense of the increasingly complex and interconnected world in which we all live. The insights from foundations and other philanthropic organisations on this issue are particularly valuable as these organisations, due to their funding practice and policy work, are often ahead of the curve in terms of what's happening on the ground

Study design and baseline description of the BMI 2 trial: reducing paediatric obesity in primary care practices

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90109/1/ijpo1.pd

A Novel Tool for Studying Auxin-Metabolism: The Inhibition of Grapevine Indole-3-Acetic Acid-Amido Synthetases by a Reaction Intermediate Analogue

An important process for the regulation of auxin levels in plants is the inactivation of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) by conjugation to amino acids. The conjugation reaction is catalysed by IAA-amido synthetases belonging to the family of GH3 proteins. Genetic approaches to study the biological significance of these enzymes have been hampered by large gene numbers and a high degree of functional redundancy. To overcome these difficulties a chemical approach based on the reaction mechanism of GH3 proteins was employed to design a small molecule inhibitor of IAA-amido synthetase activity. Adenosine-5′-[2-(1H-indol-3-yl)ethyl]phosphate (AIEP) mimics the adenylated intermediate of the IAA-conjugation reaction and was therefore proposed to compete with the binding of MgATP and IAA in the initial stages of catalysis. Two grapevine IAA-amido synthetases with different catalytic properties were chosen to test the inhibitory effects of AIEP in vitro. GH3-1 has previously been implicated in the grape berry ripening process and is restricted to two amino acid substrates, whereas GH3-6 conjugated IAA to 13 amino acids. AIEP is the most potent inhibitor of GH3 enzymes so far described and was shown to be competitive against MgATP and IAA binding to both enzymes with Ki-values 17-68-fold lower than the respective Km-values. AIEP also exhibited in vivo activity in an ex planta test system using young grape berries. Exposure to 5–20 µM of the inhibitor led to decreased levels of the common conjugate IAA-Asp and reduced the accumulation of the corresponding Asp-conjugate upon treatment with a synthetic auxin. AIEP therefore represents a novel chemical probe with which to study IAA-amido synthetase function

Evolution of plant–pollinator mutualisms in response to climate change

Climate change has the potential to desynchronize the phenologies of interdependent species, with potentially catastrophic effects on mutualist populations. Phenologies can evolve, but the role of evolution in the response of mutualisms to climate change is poorly understood. We developed a model that explicitly considers both the evolution and the population dynamics of a plant–pollinator mutualism under climate change. How the populations evolve, and thus whether the populations and the mutualism persist, depends not only on the rate of climate change but also on the densities and phenologies of other species in the community. Abundant alternative mutualist partners with broad temporal distributions can make a mutualism more robust to climate change, while abundant alternative partners with narrow temporal distributions can make a mutualism less robust. How community composition and the rate of climate change affect the persistence of mutualisms is mediated by two-species Allee thresholds. Understanding these thresholds will help researchers to identify those mutualisms at highest risk owing to climate change

Search for Supersymmetry with Gauge-Mediated Breaking in Diphoton Events with Missing Transverse Energy at CDF II

accepted to Phys. Rev. LettWe present the results of a search for supersymmetry with gauge-mediated breaking and \NONE\to\gamma\Gravitino in the $\gamma\gamma$+missing transverse energy final state. In 2.6$\pm$0.2 \invfb of $p{\bar p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$$=$1.96 TeV recorded by the CDF II detector we observe no candidate events, consistent with a standard model background expectation of 1.4$\pm$0.4 events. We set limits on the cross section at the 95% C.L. and place the world's best limit of 149\gevc on the \none mass at $\tau_{\tilde{\chi}_1^0}$$We present the results of a search for supersymmetry with gauge-mediated breaking and χ˜10→γG˜ in the γγ+missing transverse energy final state. In 2.6±0.2  fb-1 of pp̅ collisions at √s=1.96  TeV recorded by the CDF II detector we observe no candidate events, consistent with a standard model background expectation of 1.4±0.4 events. We set limits on the cross section at the 95% C.L. and place the world’s best limit of 149  GeV/c2 on the χ˜10 mass at τχ˜10≪1  ns. We also exclude regions in the χ˜10 mass-lifetime plane for τχ˜10≲2  ns.Peer reviewe