The US compliance assurance process: a relational signalling perspective

Cooperative compliance programmes have been introduced in various tax jurisdictions, with its pioneers including Australia, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. Such programmes are part of a wider trend in regulatory systems that emerged in the 1980s, and attempt to better balance interests between the tax authority and corporate taxpayers, and seek to reflect a more collaborative working method, as promoted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This paper examines the US cooperative compliance arrangement, known as the Compliance Assurance Process (CAP), and probes the nature of the relationship that ensues between the regulator and regulatee under CAP, the motivations of each party to the arrangement, and the manner in which the relationship is (or is not) sustained. This paper sheds light on such matters pertaining to CAP by examining its evolution and operation through the lens of regulation theory, drawing in particular on the work of Etienne (2013), who develops typology of ideal type interactions and relational signals in regulatory settings. It is also informed by interview data from two separate studies involving interviews with senior in-house tax executives/advisors. Drawing on Etienne’s typology facilitates a better understanding of the limits of cooperative compliance in the context of large businesses, particularly in the US environment. This paper shows the importance of adequately capturing the motivations of regulator and regulatee, demonstrating they do not carry equal weight nor have they remained stable over time, and addresses the implications of these differences for the success of an initiative such as CAP. It also demonstrates that interactions between regulator and regulatee follow multiple logics, and highlights and critiques the high level of interaction required, especially during the initial stage of responsive regulation-based relationships. The paper concludes with some broader considerations around regulatorregulatee relationships, including the potential role for recent technological innovations in this context

The US compliance assurance process: a relational signalling perspective

Cooperative compliance programmes have been introduced in various tax jurisdictions, with its pioneers including Australia, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. Such programmes are part of a wider trend in regulatory systems that emerged in the 1980s, and attempt to better balance interests between the tax authority and corporate taxpayers, and seek to reflect a more collaborative working method, as promoted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This paper examines the US cooperative compliance arrangement, known as the Compliance Assurance Process (CAP), and probes the nature of the relationship that ensues between the regulator and regulatee under CAP, the motivations of each party to the arrangement, and the manner in which the relationship is (or is not) sustained. This paper sheds light on such matters pertaining to CAP by examining its evolution and operation through the lens of regulation theory, drawing in particular on the work of Etienne (2013), who develops typology of ideal type interactions and relational signals in regulatory settings. It is also informed by interview data from two separate studies involving interviews with senior in-house tax executives/advisors. Drawing on Etienne’s typology facilitates a better understanding of the limits of cooperative compliance in the context of large businesses, particularly in the US environment. This paper shows the importance of adequately capturing the motivations of regulator and regulatee, demonstrating they do not carry equal weight nor have they remained stable over time, and addresses the implications of these differences for the success of an initiative such as CAP. It also demonstrates that interactions between regulator and regulatee follow multiple logics, and highlights and critiques the high level of interaction required, especially during the initial stage of responsive regulation-based relationships. The paper concludes with some broader considerations around regulatorregulatee relationships, including the potential role for recent technological innovations in this context

Patient Demographics in Acute Care Surgery at the Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai

Acute Care Surgery is a discipline that includes trauma care, surgical critical care, and emergency surgery. It is organized in different models and provides mainly operative and nonoperative care. The aim of this study was to provide a demographic analysis of the care of surgical patients at the Emergency Department (ED) in a large teaching hospital in Shanghai, where general surgeons and orthopedic surgeons take care for most of all acute surgery. A bilingual questionnaire was developed to collect data for patients referred to the general or orthopedic surgeon in the ED (June–September 2008). Data about the gender, age, diagnosis, diagnostic tools, treatments, and outcomes were collected. A total of 255 questionnaires were collected; the most common diagnoses of patients were infections of abdominal organs and fractures. Complementary diagnostics like X-ray (59%), blood tests (36%), and ultrasound (17%) were frequently used. More than half of the patients were discharged afterwards most of them with followup. This study gives a first overview of acute care surgery of the emergency patients of the ED in a large Chinese metropolitan hospital

Demographic Analysis of Emergency Department Patients at the Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai

Emergency medicine is an upcoming discipline that is still under development in many countries. Therefore, it is important to gain insight into the organization and patients presenting to the Emergency Department (ED). The aim of this cross-sectional study was to provide an epidemiological description of complaints and referrals of the patients visiting the ED of the Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, China. A questionnaire was developed and completed for a convenience sample of all patients presenting to the Triage Desk of the ED. The study was performed in June 2008. A total of 2183 questionnaires were completed. The most common complaints were fever (15%), stomach/abdominal pain (15%), vertigo/dizziness (11%), and cough (10%). Following triage, patients were predominantly referred to an internist (41%), neurologist (14%), pulmonologist (11%), or general surgeon (9%). This study provides a better understanding of the reason for the ED visit and the triage system at the ED of the Ruijin Hospital. The results can be used in order to improve facilities appropriate for the specific population in the ED

Regulation of intermediaries, including tax advisers, in the EU/Member States and best practices from inside and outside the EU

This study provides an overview of the regulatory environment of tax intermediaries. It presents a comparative analysis of five selected countries (4 EU, 1 Non-EU). For each country, it provides an understanding of the landscape of the tax profession, the current regulatory framework and its impact on tax compliance and draws attention to some weaknesses across this regulatory space. It also highlights some proposed remedies and direction for further in-depth research in this area. This document was provided by the Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies at the request of the Economic and Monetary Affairs' Subcommittee on Tax Matters (FISC)

Associations of common breast cancer susceptibility alleles with risk of breast cancer subtypes in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

GeneWeaver: a web-based system for integrative functional genomics

High-throughput genome technologies have produced a wealth of data on the association of genes and gene products to biological functions. Investigators have discovered value in combining their experimental results with published genome-wide association studies, quantitative trait locus, microarray, RNA-sequencing and mutant phenotyping studies to identify gene-function associations across diverse experiments, species, conditions, behaviors or biological processes. These experimental results are typically derived from disparate data repositories, publication supplements or reconstructions from primary data stores. This leaves bench biologists with the complex and unscalable task of integrating data by identifying and gathering relevant studies, reanalyzing primary data, unifying gene identifiers and applying ad hoc computational analysis to the integrated set. The freely available GeneWeaver (http://www.GeneWeaver.org) powered by the Ontological Discovery Environment is a curated repository of genomic experimental results with an accompanying tool set for dynamic integration of these data sets, enabling users to interactively address questions about sets of biological functions and their relations to sets of genes. Thus, large numbers of independently published genomic results can be organized into new conceptual frameworks driven by the underlying, inferred biological relationships rather than a pre-existing semantic framework. An empirical ‘ontology’ is discovered from the aggregate of experimental knowledge around user-defined areas of biological inquiry

A network analysis to identify mediators of germline-driven differences in breast cancer prognosis.

Identifying the underlying genetic drivers of the heritability of breast cancer prognosis remains elusive. We adapt a network-based approach to handle underpowered complex datasets to provide new insights into the potential function of germline variants in breast cancer prognosis. This network-based analysis studies ~7.3 million variants in 84,457 breast cancer patients in relation to breast cancer survival and confirms the results on 12,381 independent patients. Aggregating the prognostic effects of genetic variants across multiple genes, we identify four gene modules associated with survival in estrogen receptor (ER)-negative and one in ER-positive disease. The modules show biological enrichment for cancer-related processes such as G-alpha signaling, circadian clock, angiogenesis, and Rho-GTPases in apoptosis

Evaluation of polygenic risk scores for breast and ovarian cancer risk prediction in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers

Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 94 common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with breast cancer (BC) risk and 18 associated with ovarian cancer (OC) risk. Several of these are also associated with risk of BC or OC for women who carry a pathogenic mutation in the high-risk BC and OC genes BRCA1 or BRCA2. The combined effects of these variants on BC or OC risk for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers have not yet been assessed while their clinical management could benefit from improved personalized risk estimates. Methods: We constructed polygenic risk scores (PRS) using BC and OC susceptibility SNPs identified through population-based GWAS: for BC (overall, estrogen receptor [ER]-positive, and ER-negative) and for OC. Using data from 15 252 female BRCA1 and 8211 BRCA2 carriers, the association of each PRS with BC or OC risk was evaluated using a weighted cohort approach, with time to diagnosis as the outcome and estimation of the hazard ratios (HRs) per standard deviation increase in the PRS. Results: The PRS for ER-negative BC displayed the strongest association with BC risk in BRCA1 carriers (HR = 1.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.23 to 1.31, P = 8.2 x 10(53)). In BRCA2 carriers, the strongest association with BC risk was seen for the overall BC PRS (HR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.17 to 1.28, P = 7.2 x 10(-20)). The OC PRS was strongly associated with OC risk for both BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers. These translate to differences in absolute risks (more than 10% in each case) between the top and bottom deciles of the PRS distribution; for example, the OC risk was 6% by age 80 years for BRCA2 carriers at the 10th percentile of the OC PRS compared with 19% risk for those at the 90th percentile of PRS. Conclusions: BC and OC PRS are predictive of cancer risk in BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers. Incorporation of the PRS into risk prediction models has promise to better inform decisions on cancer risk management

Epigenome Microarray Platform for Proteome-Wide Dissection of Chromatin-Signaling Networks

Knowledge of protein domains that function as the biological effectors for diverse post-translational modifications of histones is critical for understanding how nuclear and epigenetic programs are established. Indeed, mutations of chromatin effector domains found within several proteins are associated with multiple human pathologies, including cancer and immunodeficiency syndromes. To date, relatively few effector domains have been identified in comparison to the number of modifications present on histone and non-histone proteins. Here we describe the generation and application of human modified peptide microarrays as a platform for high-throughput discovery of chromatin effectors and for epitope-specificity analysis of antibodies commonly utilized in chromatin research. Screening with a library containing a majority of the Royal Family domains present in the human proteome led to the discovery of TDRD7, JMJ2C, and MPP8 as three new modified histone-binding proteins. Thus, we propose that peptide microarray methodologies are a powerful new tool for elucidating molecular interactions at chromatin