Public awareness and perceptions of taxation in a changing Gulf economy

For the VAT scheme to succeed in Qatar, public awareness is necessary. Consumers need to understand how and why the VAT will affect their budgets. Perhaps more importantly, businesses need to understand how to modify accounting and payment systems to comply with the new tax law. Our findings, however, uncover a troubling reality: a widespread lack of knowledge of the VAT, for both citizens and expatriates. This indicates that for a successful rollout of the VAT scheme, greater communication to all segments of the economy is required. This communication should involve, first, making information about the VAT readily accessible to the public, and second, educating businesses about the requirements and implications of the tax, perhaps through a series of tax workshops for businesses. يعد الوعي العام ضرورة إلنجاح أية خطة لضريبة القيمة المضافة في قطر. إذ يجب أن يفهم المستهلكون كيفية تأثير ضريبة القيمة المضافة على ميزانياتهم وسبب ذلك. كما أن من األهمية أن تفهم الشركات لكيفية تعديل أنظمة السداد والمحاسبة لاللتزام بقانون الضرائب الجديد. ومع ذلك، كشفت النتائج التي توصلنا إليها عن حقيقة مثيرة للقلق وهي ضعف المعرفة بضريبة القيمة المضافة لدى المواطنين ٍّ والوافدين على حد ً سواء. ويشير هذا إلى أن طرح برنامج ناجح للضريبة على القيمة المضافة يتطلب تواصلا ً أكبر وأوسع مع كافة قطاعات االقتصاد. وينبغي أن يشمل هذا التواصل أولا إتاحة المعلومات حول ضريبة ً القيمة المضافة بسهولة للجمهور، وثاني ّ ا تعريف الشركات بمتطلبات هذه الضريبة وآثارها، ربما يتحقق هذا ُ من خالل سلسلة ورش عمل تعقد للشركات حول الضرائب

Interpersonal Synergies

We present the perspective that interpersonal movement coordination results from establishing interpersonal synergies. Interpersonal synergies are higher-order control systems formed by coupling movement system degrees of freedom of two (or more) actors. Characteristic features of synergies identified in studies of intrapersonal coordination – dimensional compression and reciprocal compensation – are revealed in studies of interpersonal coordination that applied the uncontrolled manifold approach and principal component analysis to interpersonal movement tasks. Broader implications of the interpersonal synergy approach for movement science include an expanded notion of mechanism and an emphasis on interaction-dominant dynamics

Communication Laboratories: Genesis, Assessment, Challenges

The purpose of this article is to briefly describe (a) a rationale for creating communication laboratories; (b) communication laboratory curricula and approaches; (c) development strategies for communication laboratories; (d) communication laboratory assessment, accountability, and research opportunities; and (e) communication laboratory issues and challenges. The article concludes with a list of guiding principles that lead to the successful implementation of communication laboratories. The communication laboratory is one educational strategy for addressing the issue of communication competency in the 21st century. Communication laboratories across the United States exist at schools such as Columbus State University, East Tennessee State University, Golden West College, Ithaca College, Luther College, San Jose State University, College of San Mateo, the College of William and Mary, Southwest Texas State University, and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. These laboratories were developed to meet critical institutional priorities, including enhancement of students\u27 oral communication skills, helping students across the curriculum with identified communication skill problems, and developing academic programs to increase student persistence and retention to graduation

Surface modes and chiral symmetry (Wilson Fermions in a box)

We give a Hamiltonian discussion of surface states in an extra dimension as a basis for chiral fermions in lattice models. Such modes appear with the Wilson fermion action when the hopping parameter exceeds a critical value. The association of such states with the closing and reopening of a band gap was noted by Shockley in 1939. Poster presented by Michael Creutz at Lattice 93. Uuencoded compressed postscript file.Comment: 4 pages, BNL-4978

End states, ladder compounds, and domain wall fermions

A magnetic field applied to a cross linked ladder compound can generate isolated electronic states bound to the ends of the chain. After exploring the interference phenomena responsible, I discuss a connection to the domain wall approach to chiral fermions in lattice gauge theory. The robust nature of the states under small variations of the bond strengths is tied to chiral symmetry and the multiplicative renormalization of fermion masses.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures; final version for Phys. Rev. Let

Mobility Competitiveness and Security: Expatriate Perspectives from Qatar

Introduction: In order to create and sustain a competitive, knowledge-based economy, Qatar must be able to continually attract, retain and integrate expatriate workers. As described in the Qatar National Development Strategy (QNV 2011 p. 105), "for the foreseeable future... Qatar will not have enough citizens to meet the expanding requirements of a rapidly growing, diversifying and technologically advanced economy." Attracting the right mix of expatriates and retaining the best ones, however, is a major challenge for economy with a highly ambitious post-oil agenda, located in an unstable region, and where over 90% of workers are both foreign and temporary. Yet, little is known as to Qatar's place attractiveness and local security affect the mobility of the country's diverse expatriate population. First, Qatar needs to constantly attract new flows of knowledge and labor needed for economic development and to retain existing pool of skilled foreign workers. This means ensuring that workers view Doha as a comparably more attractive destination than Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Muscat, Riyadh or Singapore. By definition, the expatriate workforce of Qatar is mobile; that is, with the exception of those born in Qatar, each has already migrated at least once. How do expatriates view Qatar in comparison with other centers, and would they move elsewhere for a better offer? Second, Qatar must ensure that the regional instability seen elsewhere does not impact its reputation as a secure and stable oasis in the Middle East. At the same time, most of the middle- and high-income expatriate workers currently employed in Qatar come the Arab world, many of whom are not new arrivals but long-term members of the expatriate community in Qatar. Some come from the region"s most insecure and unstable locations, which may affect their mobility. How do expatriate residents view the security and stability of Qatar, especially in relation to that of their home countries? Data and Methods: Therefore, SESRI conducted a nationally representative of middle- and high-income expatriates (with a basic salary of greater than 4000 QR per month) to examine the mobility of expatriates currently living in Qatar and the conditions under which they may leave the country. This survey included a randomized choice experiment in which respondents were given sets of hypothetical job offers with varying salaries in a number of regional destinations which are often viewed as competitors for Qatar. They were then asked whether they would choose to take the offer in the new location or stay in Qatar. The survey also included questions related to the security and stability of the respondent's home country and his and her ability to return home. Thus project investigate the relative attractiveness of Qatar in relation to other common expatriate destinations in the Gulf and East Asia in conjunction with salary; second, to examine how expatriate residents view the security and stability of Qatar, especially in relation to that of their home countries. In so doing we come better understand how deeply rooted and locally integrated expatriate workers are in Qatar. Accordingly we discuss legislation relevant to expatriate workers in Qatar and its implications for different resident groups. Preliminary Finding: Results indicate that Qatar is rather competitive among similar regional expatriate destinations, and that as long as salaries are competitive the country can retain Westerner and Asian migrants. Arab migrants respond very little to salary increases or decreases. None of the nationality groups seem overly driven by place attractiveness, and most seem to view living in Doha the same as other regional centers. Arabs expatriates in particular are deeply rooted, driven by security and community, but we found that many from this group are unable to return to their home countries. These results are discussed in the context of recent legislative initiatives in Qatar.qscienc

Convocation

https://dc.ewu.edu/music_performances/1707/thumbnail.jp

Lattice Formulation of the Standard Model

Combining the Kaplan surface mode approach for chiral fermions with added terms motivated by Eichten and Preskill suggests the possibility for a lattice regularization of the standard model which is finite, exactly gauge invariant, and only has physically desired states in its low energy spectrum. The conjectured scheme manifestly requires anomaly cancelation and explicitly contains baryon and lepton number violating terms.Comment: 11 pages, late

Financing Direct Democracy: Revisiting the Research on Campaign Spending and Citizen Initiatives

The conventional view in the direct democracy literature is that spending against a measure is more effective than spending in favor of a measure, but the empirical results underlying this conclusion have been questioned by recent research. We argue that the conventional finding is driven by the endogenous nature of campaign spending: initiative proponents spend more when their ballot measure is likely to fail. We address this endogeneity by using an instrumental variables approach to analyze a comprehensive dataset of ballot propositions in California from 1976 to 2004. We find that both support and opposition spending on citizen initiatives have strong, statistically significant, and countervailing effects. We confirm this finding by looking at time series data from early polling on a subset of these measures. Both analyses show that spending in favor of citizen initiatives substantially increases their chances of passage, just as opposition spending decreases this likelihood