The Effective Tax Burden of Companies and on Highly Skilled Manpower: Tax Policy Strategies in a Globalized Economy

Company taxes and taxes on highly skilled labour both influence the attractiveness of a particular region as a location for investment. We measure the effective tax burden on capital investment and on highly qualified labour in 33 locations across Europe and the United States. We then correlate both types of tax burden in order to study the different tax policy strategies applied in different countries. We identify three causes for different strategies: political institutions, preferences for redistribution and equality, and the position in globalisation and growth. Small countries, high growth rates, and federal structure with high tax autonomy stand for countries with lower tax burdens, especially on companies. Large countries, representative democracies with coalitions, and a high preference for redistribution are likely to induce higher tax burdens. --effective tax burden,tax policy,company taxation,personal income tax

Coefficient of Restitution as a Fluctuating Quantity

The coefficient of restitution of a spherical particle in contact with a flat plate is investigated as a function of the impact velocity. As an experimental observation we notice non-trivial (non-Gaussian) fluctuations of the measured values. For a fixed impact velocity, the probability density of the coefficient of restitution, $p(\epsilon)$, is formed by two exponential functions (one increasing, one decreasing) of different slope. This behavior may be explained by a certain roughness of the particle which leads to energy transfer between the linear and rotational degrees of freedom.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

A Scalable Information Theoretic Approach to Distributed Robot Coordination

This paper presents a scalable information theoretic approach to infer the state of an environment by distributively controlling robots equipped with sensors. The robots iteratively estimate the environment state using a recursive Bayesian filter, while continuously moving to improve the quality of the estimate by following the gradient of mutual information. Both the filter and the controller use a novel algorithm for approximating the robots' joint measurement probabilities, which combines consensus (for decentralization) and sampling (for scalability). The approximations are shown to approach the true joint measurement probabilities as the size of the consensus rounds grows or as the network becomes complete. The resulting gradient controller runs in constant time with respect to the number of robots, and linear time with respect to the number of sensor measurements and environment discretization cells, while traditional mutual information methods are exponential in all of these quantities. Furthermore, the controller is proven to be convergent between consensus rounds and, under certain conditions, is locally optimal. The complete distributed inference and coordination algorithm is demonstrated in experiments with five quad-rotor flying robots and simulations with 100 robots.This work is sponsored by the Department of the Air Force under Air Force contract number FA8721-05-C-0002. The opinions, interpretations, recommendations, and conclusions are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the United States Government. This work is also supported in part by ARO grant number W911NF-05-1-0219, ONR grant number N00014-09-1-1051, NSF grant number EFRI-0735953, ARL grant number W911NF-08-2-0004, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the European Commission, and the Boeing Company

Inflammation and Lymphatic Function

The lymphatic vasculature plays a crucial role in regulating the inflammatory response by influencing drainage of extravasated fluid, inflammatory mediators, and leukocytes. Lymphatic vessels undergo pronounced enlargement in inflamed tissue and display increased leakiness, indicating reduced functionality. Interfering with lymphatic expansion by blocking the vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGF-C)/vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 3 (VEGFR-3) signaling axis exacerbates inflammation in a variety of disease models, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), rheumatoid arthritis and skin inflammation. In contrast, stimulation of the lymphatic vasculature, e.g., by transgenic or viral overexpression as well as local injections of VEGF-C, has been shown to reduce inflammation severity in models of rheumatoid arthritis, skin inflammation, and IBD. Strikingly, the induced expansion of the lymphatic vasculature improves lymphatic function as assessed by the drainage of dyes, fluorescent tracers or inflammatory cells and labeled antigens. The drainage performance of lymphatic vessels is influenced by vascular permeability and pumping activity, which are influenced by VEGF-C/VEGFR-3 signaling as well as several inflammatory mediators, including TNF-α, IL-1β, and nitric oxide. Considering the beneficial effects of lymphatic activation in inflammation, administration of pro-lymphangiogenic factors like VEGF-C, preferably in a targeted, inflammation site-specific fashion, represents a promising therapeutic approach in the setting of inflammatory pathologies

Duplicated Hox genes in the spider Cupiennius salei

BACKGROUND: Hox genes are expressed in specific domains along the anterior posterior body axis and define the regional identity. In most animals these genes are organized in a single cluster in the genome and the order of the genes in the cluster is correlated with the anterior to posterior expression of the genes in the embryo. The conserved order of the various Hox gene orthologs in the cluster among most bilaterians implies that such a Hox cluster was present in their last common ancestor. Vertebrates are the only metazoans so far that have been shown to contain duplicated Hox clusters, while all other bilaterians seem to possess only a single cluster. RESULTS: We here show that at least three Hox genes of the spider Cupiennius salei are present as two copies in this spider. In addition to the previously described duplicated Ultrabithorax gene, we here present sequence and expression data of a second Deformed gene, and of two Sex comb reduced genes. In addition, we describe the sequence and expression of the Cupiennius proboscipedia gene. The spider Cupiennius salei is the first chelicerate for which orthologs of all ten classes of arthropod Hox genes have been described. The posterior expression boundary of all anterior Hox genes is at the tagma border of the prosoma and opisthosoma, while the posterior boundary of the posterior Hox genes is at the posterior end of the embryo. CONCLUSION: The presence of at least three duplicated Hox genes points to a major duplication event in the lineage to this spider, perhaps even of the complete Hox cluster as has taken place in the lineage to the vertebrates. The combined data of all Cupiennius Hox genes reveal the existence of two distinct posterior expression boundaries that correspond to morphological tagmata boundaries

Eyes in the Sky: Decentralized Control for the Deployment of Robotic Camera Networks

This paper presents a decentralized control strategy for positioning and orienting multiple robotic cameras to collectively monitor an environment. The cameras may have various degrees of mobility from six degrees of freedom, to one degree of freedom. The control strategy is proven to locally minimize a novel metric representing information loss over the environment. It can accommodate groups of cameras with heterogeneous degrees of mobility (e.g., some that only translate and some that only rotate), and is adaptive to robotic cameras being added or deleted from the group, and to changing environmental conditions. The robotic cameras share information for their controllers over a wireless network using a specially designed multihop networking algorithm. The control strategy is demonstrated in repeated experiments with three flying quadrotor robots indoors, and with five flying quadrotor robots outdoors. Simulation results for more complex scenarios are also presented.United States. Army Research Office. Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative. Scalable (Grant number W911NF-05-1-0219)United States. Office of Naval Research. Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative. Smarts (Grant number N000140911051)National Science Foundation (U.S.). (Grant number EFRI-0735953)Lincoln LaboratoryBoeing CompanyUnited States. Dept. of the Air Force (Contract FA8721-05-C-0002

Chronic Wasting Disease: The Effects of Environmental Prion Density and Interactions Between Populations on Disease Dynamics

27 pages, 1 article*Chronic Wasting Disease: The Effects of Environmental Prion Density and Interactions Between Populations on Disease Dynamics* (Hurtado, Paul; Mejran, Marcin; Morales, Thela; Schwager, David; Lanham, Michael) 27 page

A novel angiotensin I-converting enzyme mutation (S333W) impairs N-domain enzymatic cleavage of the anti-fibrotic peptide, AcSDKP

BACKGROUND: Angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) has two functional N- and C-domain active centers that display differences in the metabolism of biologically-active peptides including the hemoregulatory tetrapeptide, Ac-SDKP, hydrolysed preferentially by the N domain active center. Elevated Ac-SDKP concentrations are associated with reduced tissue fibrosis. RESULTS: We identified a patient of African descent exhibiting unusual blood ACE kinetics with reduced relative hydrolysis of two synthetic ACE substrates (ZPHL/HHL ratio) suggestive of the ACE N domain center inactivation. Inhibition of blood ACE activity by anti-catalytic mAbs and ACE inhibitors and conformational fingerprint of blood ACE suggested overall conformational changes in the ACE molecule and sequencing identified Ser333Trp substitution in the N domain of ACE. In silico analysis demonstrated S333W localized in the S 1 pocket of the active site of the N domain with the bulky Trp adversely affecting binding of ACE substrates due to steric hindrance. Expression of mutant ACE (S333W) in CHO cells confirmed altered kinetic properties of mutant ACE and conformational changes in the N domain. Further, the S333W mutant displayed decreased ability (5-fold) to cleave the physiological substrate AcSDKP compared to wild-type ACE. Conclusions and Significance A novel Ser333Trp ACE mutation results in dramatic changes in ACE kinetic properties and lowered clearance of Ac-SDKP. Individuals with this mutation (likely with significantly increased levels of the hemoregulatory tetrapeptide in blood and tissues), may confer protection against fibrosis

DNA-Methylome based Tumor Hypoxia Classifier Identifies HPV-negative Head & Neck Cancer Patients at Risk for Locoregional Recurrence After Primary Radiochemotherapy

BACKGROUND Tumor hypoxia is a paradigmatic negative prognosticator of treatment resistance in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC). The lack of robust and reliable hypoxia classifiers limits the adaptation of stratified therapies. We hypothesized that the tumor DNA methylation landscape might indicate epigenetic reprogramming induced by chronic intratumoral hypoxia. METHODS A DNA methylome-based tumor hypoxia classifier (Hypoxia-M) was trained in the TCGA-HNSCC cohort based on matched assignments using gene expression-based signatures of hypoxia (Hypoxia-GES). Hypoxia-M was validated in a multicenter DKTK-ROG trial consisting of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)-negative HNSCC patients treated with primary radiochemotherapy (RCHT). RESULTS While hypoxia-GSEs failed to stratify patients in the DKTK-ROG, Hypoxia-M was independently prognostic for local recurrence (LR, HR=4.3, p=0.001) and overall survival (OS, HR=2.34, p=0.03) but not distant metastasis (DM) after RCHT in the both cohorts. Hypoxia-M status was inversely associated with CD8 T-cells infiltration in both cohorts. Hypoxia-M was further prognostic in the TCGA-PanCancer cohort (HR=1.83, p=0.04), underscoring the breadth of this classifier for predicting tumor hypoxia status. CONCLUSIONS Our findings highlight an unexplored avenue for DNA Methylation-based classifiers as biomarkers of tumoral hypoxia for identifying high-risk features in patients with HNSCC tumors. TRIAL REGISTRATION Retrospective observational study from the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK-ROG), not interventional