New Zealand’s Thin Capitalisation Rules and the Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards in New Zealand

In response to Australia’s decision to adopt international financial reporting standards (IFRSs) from 2005, New Zealand has subsequently decided to follow. New Zealand reporting entities are required to adopt IFRSs from 2007 with the option of early adoption from 2005. As New Zealand is one of many jurisdictions where different rules are employed to determine income for financial reporting and tax purposes, it would seem to a casual observer that the adoption of IFRSs in New Zealand is unlikely to have any income tax implications for New Zealand companies. This is not entirely correct. There are links between financial reporting standards and the determination of taxable income under New Zealand income tax law in respect of certain matters. One such area is the application of the New Zealand thin capitalisation rules in subpart FG of the Income Tax Act 2004. The rules rely upon values taken from a taxpayer’s financial statements to determine the taxpayer’s debt percentage and consequently the extent to which a deduction for interest expense will be apportioned. Therefore the adoption of IFRSs in New Zealand potentially could affect a taxpayer’s New Zealand tax liability if the thin capitalisation rules have application. This paper seeks to examine the changes in IFRS and their impact on the New Zealand thin capitalisation provisions. In particular it will examine the changes in the IFRS Standards concerning the measurement and valuation of assets and the effect on the safe harbour provisions. In addition, the paper will consider the implications for tax advisers and their clients in complying with the new standards and the transitional issues involved

Forty years of malaria control and Zululand

The epidemiology of malaria in Natal and Zululand before the introduction of insecticides is discussed. The present control measures are outlined. The danger of malaria being reintroduced is always present. It is stressed that the greatest threat stems from illegal immigrants, seasonal workers, and social events along the borders. The cooperation of all doctors, hospitals, and laboratories concerned with the diagnosis of malaria is solicited.S. Afr. Med. J. 48, 1168 (1974)

The intelligentsia is dead, long live the intelligentsia! : Alexander Solzhenitsyn on soviet dissidence and a new spiritual elite

This article explores the peculiar intermeshing of continuity and discontinuity in Russian culture through the prism of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s essay, 'Obrazovanshchina' ('The Smatterers'). Written in 1974 for the collective volume Iz-pod glyb (From Under the Rubble), Solzhenitsyn drew on arguments advanced by contributors to the famous pre-revolutionary work, Vekhi (Landmarks, 1909), both as a polemical tool to distance himself from his immediate contemporary rivals and as a template in his bid to establish a new spiritual elite in Brezhnev’s Soviet Russia. This article suggests that if one intention of Solzhenitsyn’s essay was to declare an irrevocable break with the culture of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia tradition, the discursive tools he used to do this (intertextual devices, ad hominem polemics, selective historical and ideological narratives) remained firmly anchored within that tradition.Peer reviewe

Molecular characterization of endocarditis-associated Staphylococcus aureus

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening infection of the heart endothelium and valves. Staphylococcus aureus is a predominant cause of severe IE and is frequently associated with infections in health care settings and device-related infections. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST), spa typing, and virulence gene microarrays are frequently used to classify S. aureus clinical isolates. This study examined the utility of these typing tools to investigate S. aureus epidemiology associated with IE. Ninety-seven S. aureus isolates were collected from patients diagnosed with (i) IE, (ii) bloodstream infection related to medical devices, (iii) bloodstream infection not related to medical devices, and (iv) skin or soft-tissue infections. The MLST clonal complex (CC) for each isolate was determined and compared to the CCs of members of the S. aureus population by eBURST analysis. The spa type of all isolates was also determined. A null model was used to determine correlations of IE with CC and spa type. DNA microarray analysis was performed, and a permutational analysis of multivariate variance (PERMANOVA) and principal coordinates analysis were conducted to identify genotypic differences between IE and non-IE strains. CC12, CC20, and spa type t160 were significantly associated with IE S. aureus. A subset of virulence-associated genes and alleles, including genes encoding staphylococcal superantigen-like proteins, fibrinogen-binding protein, and a leukocidin subunit, also significantly correlated with IE isolates. MLST, spa typing, and microarray analysis are promising tools for monitoring S. aureus epidemiology associated with IE. Further research to determine a role for the S. aureus IE-associated virulence genes identified in this study is warranted

Guided variational autoencoders for semantic proteomic applications

LAUREA MAGISTRALEL’analisi statistica su larga scala di dati proteomici è resa più complessa dall’esistenza di confondimenti tecnici derivanti dalle diverse fasi dei cicli di raccolta, elaborazione e misurazione del dato stesso. In particolare, vista l’enorme dimensionalità del dato proteomico moderno, per costruire modelli efficaci è necessario raccogliere grandi set di dati. Una soluzione è quella di aggregare diverse fonti, dove però i campioni possono presentare caratteristiche molto diverse anche solo per via dei confondimenti tecnici sopra descritti. Esistono soluzioni per la rimozione di questi "effetti batch" dal set di dati, ma sono limitate in termini di applicabilità, implementazione e fondamenti teorici. In questo contesto, questa tesi mira a introdurre un nuovo metodo alternativo per la preelaborazione dei ì dati proteomici, prendendo in prestito le idee dell’autoencoder variazionale e del deep learning. In particolare, proponiamo il Guided Variational AutoEncoder (GVAE) per rimuovere gli effetti batch non dallo spazio delle variabili originali, ma da uno spazio a dimensionalità ridotta (o spazio latente), dove eseguire le analisi statistiche desiderate. La definizione di GVAE risulta in “embeddings” (i.e. proiezioni nello spazio latente) le cui dimensioni sono indipendenti tra loro, e in cui un subset predefinito di queste dimensioni è guidato a raccogliere tutto il segnale legato ai confondimenti che vogliono essere rimossi. In questo modo, le dimensioni latenti guidate possono essere rimosse, lasciando una rappresentazione del campione ripulita dai confondimenti tecnici. Per illustrare il meccanismo del GVAE sono state utilizzate due coorti proteomiche su larga scala: le coorti BELIEVE e NATE. Utilizzando il GVAE dimostriamo che è effettivamente possibile distillare le qualità semantiche dei dati in dimensioni latenti appositamente progettate in modo organizzato. Nella coorte NATE apprendiamo una nuova rappresentazione a bassa dimensione dei dati proteomici, imponendo ad una delle dimensioni latenti di codificare un sottoinsieme di proteine correlate al genere. Sulla coorte BELIEVE abbiamo evidenziato le proprietà di rimozione dei confondimenti, dimostrando che i risultati del modello sono competitivi con le procedure attualmente utilizzate. Inoltre, l’uso di database esterni e di API per lo studio delle interazioni proteiche dimostra che le dimensioni latenti apprese su BELIEVE rappresentano gruppi di proteine con distinte proprietà funzionali da un punto di vista biologico.Statistical analysis of large-scale population-based proteomics datasets is burdened today by the presence of technical confounders at various stages in the data collection, processing, and measurement cycles. In particular, to build insightful models statisticians require large $n$ proteomic datasets which are currently assembled from multiple diverse sources where there may be markedly different qualities in the samples. Solutions for the removal of these "batch effects" from the dataset exist but are limited in their applicability, implementation, and theoretical underpinnings. Within this context, this thesis aims at introducing a new alternative method for preprocessing proteomic datasets by borrowing from ideas in the variational autoencoder and deep learning. Specifically, we propose the Guided Variational AutoEncoder (GVAE) to remove batch effects not from the original feature space, but from a low-dimensional distributional space, and to perform statistical analyses on the resulting embedding representation of the data. The GVAE produces "embeddings" (i.e., projections into latent space) whose dimensions are independent of each other, and in which a predefined subset of these dimensions is guided to collect all the signal related to the counfounders that the practitioner wishes to be removed. In this way, the guided latent dimensions can be removed, leaving a representation of the sample cleaned of technical confounders.In order to illustrate the mechanism of the GVAE two large-scale proteomic cohorts are employed; the BELIEVE and NATE cohorts. Using the GVAE we show that it is indeed possible to distill semantic qualities of the data into specially designed latent dimensions in an organized fashion. On the NATE cohort we learn a new low-dimensional representation of the proteomic data where selected embedding dimensions encode for non-overlapping subsets of proteins related to gender. On the BELIEVE cohort we highlight the batch-removal properties of the model and show that the model's outputs are competitive with currently-employed procedures. Furthermore, the use of external databases and APIs for the study of protein interactions shows that the learned BELIEVE latents represent groups of proteins clustering around distinct biological functional pathways

Static Multiple-Sample NMR Probe

A static solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) probe includes multiple probe subunits each configured for holding a sample. Each probe subunit includes at least an associated magic angle spinning (MAS) module, a radio-frequency (RF) coil and an RF transmission line together defining an RF circuit. Each of the multiple probe subunits is individually held in a conducting housing isolating the RF circuit of the each of the probe subunit from any other of the plurality of probe subunits. The static solid-state NMR probe may include four or more probe subunits including four or more MAS modules

Family Perceptions of Mental Health Service Use Among Mexican Americans

AbstractMexican immigrants are less likely to use psychiatric services compared to people from other race or ethnic groups in the United States, yet little is known about the reasons why the Mexican American population are less likely to seek mental health services. A qualitative descriptive study, guided by Leininger\u27s culture care diversity and universality care theory, was used to explore the perceptions of mental health service use and barriers to psychiatric services for Mexican American immigrants living in the United States. After institutional review board approval was obtained, flyers were placed in five churches in a northwestern U.S state where Mexican Americans attended. Six volunteers for the study were family members of Mexican immigrants who experienced mental health issues, and consented to participate in face-to-face interviews using semi-structured and open-ended questions. Interviews were recorded then manually transcribed for analysis using Miles, Huberman and Saldana’s method of qualitative thematic analysis. Three themes resulted from the analysis: Mental health is a private and individual issue, culture plays a role in accessing mental health care, and religion contributes to decisions to seek mental health services. Results of this study may contribute to positive social change as providers become aware of the unique cultural and religious beliefs that influence Mexican Americans’ access to psychiatric health services. Future studies are needed to identify educational strategies that promote access to mental health services for Mexican American patients and families