Ergebnisse eines Vergleichs von Rechtsformen landwirtschaftlicher Unternehmen in mittel- und osteuropäischen Ländern

Ziel der Analyse zu den Rechtsformen landwirtschaftlicher Unternehmen war es, Kenntnisse darüber zu gewinnen, welche Rechtsformen sich im Transformationsprozeß herausgebildet haben, welchen Umfang sie einnehmen, durch welche Merkmale sie gekennzeichnet sind und ob die Besteuerung Einfluß auf die Wahl der Rechtsform hat. Im Bericht wird dargelegt, welche Rechtsformen landwirtschaftlicher Unternehmen in den untersuchten Ländern entstanden sind, welche natürliche und welche juristische Personen sind sowie wieviel Gründungsmitglieder und Mindestkapital vorhanden sein müssen. Weiterhin werden Erkenntnisse zur Haftung und Nachschußpflicht, Geschäftsführung und handelsrechtlichen Prüfung, Gewinnverteilung, Buchführungspflicht und weitere Fragen vorgestellt. Die geringere Anzahl von Unternehmen mit nach der Rechtsform hoher Mindestkapitalausstattung kann als Hinweis darauf gewertet werden, daß die Wahl der Rechtsform durch diese beeinflußt worden ist. Die Besteuerung ist, wie zu erwarten, zwischen den Ländern unterschiedlich. Um den Einfluß der Besteuerung auf die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der landwirtschaftlichen Unternehmen verschiedener Länder erfassen zu können, wäre es deshalb zweckmäßig, für definierte Unternehmen mit gleicher Faktorausstattung und gleicher Produktion, die Steuerbelastung zu ermitteln. Innerhalb der Länder bestehen zwischen den Rechtsformen bei der Gewerbesteuer, der Vermögensteuer, der Grundsteuer und der Mehrwertsteuer keine oder nur geringe Unterschiede. Die Körperschaftsteuer bzw. Einkommensteuer für Unternehmen wird hingegen im allgemeinen von den Bauernbetrieben und einigen natürlichen Personen nicht erhoben. Allerdings gilt für diese dann die Einkommensteuer für natürliche Personen. Auch bei der Kapitalertragsteuer bestehen Unterschiede zwischen natürlichen und juristischen Personen. Da unter den Gesellschaften vorwiegend Genossenschaften und Kapitalgesellschaften entstanden sind (nur wenige Personengesellschaften) kann geschlossen werden, daß die Wahl der Rechtsform nicht oder nur gering durch die Besteuerung beeinflußt worden ist. Die Entscheidung für Einzelunternehmen wurde, wie in Veröffentlichungen dargelegt, vor allem durch die während der Wende bestehenenden politischen, ideologischen und z.T. auch ökonomischen Bedingungen beeinflußt, weniger durch die Besteuerung. Das schließt nicht aus, daß deren Einfluß auf die Wahl der Rechtsform in Zukunft zunehmen wird. -- G E R M A N V E R S I O N: The objective of this analysis was to gain an insight into the following issues: which legal forms of agricultural enterprises have emerged in the transition process; what share they have in agricultural land; what their characteristics are; whether taxation has played a role in the choice of legal form. The report shows which legal forms of agricultural enterprises have developed in the countries studied, whether they are natural persons or legal persons, and the number of charter members and the minimum capital required. The paper also presents findings on liability and contingent liability to put up further capital, business management and auditing, profit sharing, the legal obligation to keep accounts, and other issues. The number of enterprises with relatively high minimum capital for a specific legal form is rather small; this indicates its impact on the choice of legal form. As could be expected, taxation varies between countries. In order to assess the impact of taxation on the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises in different countries, it would therefore be useful to calculate the tax burden for specific forms of enterprises that have the same factor endowment and the same type of production. Within countries, taxation of all legal forms of enterprise is very similar or identical for trade tax, capital tax, real property tax and value added tax. Agricultural enterprises and some natural persons generally do not pay corporate income tax, but income tax for natural persons instead. In the area of capital gains taxation, there are also differences between natural and legal persons. Since most enterprises are either agricultural cooperatives or corporations (and only few of them partnerships), one can conclude that taxation has had very little impact, or none at all, on the choice of legal form. As has been shown in previous publications, the decisions made by individual enterprises were mainly influenced by political, ideological and partly also economic conditions during the initial break-up of the communist bloc. Taxation played only a minor role then, but it may have an increasingly large impact on the choice of legal form in the future.

An object-based classification approach for mapping "migrant housing" in the mega-urban area of the Pearl River Delta (China)

Urban areas develop on formal and informal levels. Informal development is often highly dynamic, leading to a lag of spatial information about urban structure types. In this work, an object-based remote sensing approach will be presented to map the migrant housing urban structure type in the Pearl River Delta, China. SPOT5 data were utilized for the classification (auxiliary data, particularly up-to-date cadastral data, were not available). A hierarchically structured classification process was used to create (spectral) independence from single satellite scenes and to arrive at a transferrable classification process. Using the presented classification approach, an overall classification accuracy of migrant housing of 68.0% is attained

Observation of the formation of anisotropic silver microstructures by evanescent wave and electron microscopy

Using a well-known galvanic displacement reaction, ~25–40 μm long silver ribbons grown after mixing ~50 nm copper particles with AgNO3 solution were observed as a function of Ag+ concentration and their growth was characterized in real-time and in situ by evanescent wave (EW) microscopy. At low Ag+ concentration, chain-like structures consisting of both Ag and Cu were observed. When the sequence of mixing these two reactants was reversed, different Ag microstructures (platelets and dendrites) were formed and were also characterized by EW microscopy. Dependence of the morphology of all these microstructures on silver ion concentration was determined by EW microscopy in conjunction with scanning and transmission electron microscopy

OC6 project Phase IV: Validation of numerical models for novel floating offshore wind support structures

\ua9 Copyright: This paper provides a summary of the work done within Phase IV of the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration, Continued with Correlation and unCertainty (OC6) project, under International Energy Agency Wind Technology Collaboration Programme Task 30. This phase focused on validating the loading on and motion of a novel floating offshore wind system. Numerical models of a 3.6MW horizontal-axis wind turbine atop the TetraSpar floating support structure were compared using measurement data from a 1:43-Froude-scale test performed in the University of Maine\u27s Alfond Wind-Wave (W2) Ocean Engineering Laboratory. Participants in the project ran a series of simulations, including system equilibrium, surge offsets, free-decay tests, wind-only conditions, wave-only conditions, and a combination of wind and wave conditions. Validation of the models was performed by comparing the aerodynamic loading, floating support structure motion, tower base loading, mooring line tensions, and keel line tensions. The results show a relatively good estimation of the aerodynamic loading and a reasonable estimation of the platform motion and tower base fore-aft bending moment. However, there is a significant dispersion in the dynamic loading for the upwind mooring line. Very good agreement was observed between most of the numerical models and the experiment for the keel line tensions

Ceremonial Ayahuasca in Amazonian Retreats—Mental Health and Epigenetic Outcomes From a Six-Month Naturalistic Study

Ayahuasca is a natural psychoactive brew, used in traditional ceremonies in the Amazon basin. Recent research has indicated that ayahuasca is pharmacologically safe and its use may be positively associated with improvements in psychiatric symptoms. The mechanistic effects of ayahuasca are yet to be fully established. In this prospective naturalistic study, 63 self-selected participants took part in ayahuasca ceremonies at a retreat centre in the Peruvian Amazon. Participants undertook the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Self-compassion Scale (SCS), Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM), as well as secondary measures, pre- and post-retreat and at 6-months. Participants also provided saliva samples for pre/post epigenetic analysis. Overall, a statistically significant decrease in BDI-II (13.9 vs. 6.1, p < 0.001), STAI (44.4 vs. 34.3 p < 0.001) scores, and CORE-OM scores were observed (37.3 vs. 22.3 p < 0.001) at post-retreat, as well as a concurrent increase in SCS (3.1 vs. 3.6, p < 0.001). Psychometric improvements were sustained, and on some measures values further decreased at 6-month follow-up, suggesting a potential for lasting therapeutic effects. Changes in memory valence were linked to the observed psychometric improvements. Epigenetic findings were equivocal, but indicated that further research in candidate genes, such as sigma non-opioid intracellular receptor 1 (SIGMAR1), is warranted. This data adds to the literature supporting ayahuasca's possible positive impact on mental health when conducted in a ceremonial context. Further investigation into clinical samples, as well as greater analyses into the mechanistic action of ayahuasca is advised

On the characteristics of the wake of a wind turbine undergoing large motions caused by a floating structure: an insight based on experiments and multi-fidelity simulations from the OC6 Phase III Project

This study reports the results of the second round of analyses of the OC6 project Phase III. While the first round investigated rotor aerodynamic loading, here focus is given to the wake behavior of a floating wind turbine under large motion. Wind tunnel experimental data from the UNsteady Aerodynamics for FLOating Wind (UNAFLOW) project are compared with the results of simulations provided by participants with methods and codes of different levels of fidelity. The effect of platform motion both on the near and the far wake is investigated. More specifically, the behavior of tip vortices in the near wake is evaluated through multiple metrics, such as streamwise position, core radius, convection velocity, and circulation. Additionally, the onset of velocity oscillations in the far wake is analyzed because this can have a negative effect on stability and loading of downstream rotors. Results in the near wake for unsteady cases confirm that simulations and experiments tend to diverge from the expected linearized quasi-steady behavior when the rotor reduced frequency increases over 0.5. Additionally, differences across the simulations become significant, suggesting that further efforts are required to tune the currently available methodologies in order to correctly evaluate the aerodynamic response of a floating wind turbine in unsteady conditions. Regarding the far wake, it is seen that, in some conditions, numerical methods over-predict the impact of platform motion on the velocity fluctuations. Moreover, results suggest that, different from original expectations about a faster wake recovery in a floating wind turbine, the effect of platform motion on the far wake seems to be limited or even oriented to the generation of a wake less prone to dissipation.</p