An analysis of the income tax treatment of South African collective investment schemes in securities

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation analyses the legal nature of the relationship between a South African collective investment scheme in securities and the investors in such a scheme and on the basis of these findings identifies how the income tax treatment of such schemes differs, in law and in practice, from the tax treatment which would apply in the absence of any specific provisions in the Income Tax Act relating to these parties

A New Technique for Measuring Runup Variation Using Sub-Aerial Video Imagery

Video monitoring of beaches is becoming the preferred method for observing changes to nearshore morphology. Consequently this work investigates a new technique for predicting the probability of inundation that is based on measuring runup variation using video. Runup is defined as the water-level elevation maxima on the foreshore relative to the still water level and the waterline is defined as the position where the MWL intersects the beach face. Tairua, and Pauanui Beaches, on the north east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, were used as the field site in this study and represent two very different beaches with the same incoming wave and meteorological conditions. Tairua is most frequently in an intermediate beach state, whereas Pauanui is usually flatter in nature. In order to rectify runup observations, an estimate of the runup elevation was needed (Z). This was estimated by measuring the variation of the waterline over a tidal cycle from time-averaged video images during a storm event and provided beach morphology statistics (i.e. beach slope (α) and beach intercept (b)) used in the rectification process where Z=aX+b. The maximum swash excursions were digitized from time-stacks, and rectified to provide run-up timeseries with duration 20 minutes. Field calibrations revealed a videoed waterline that was seaward of the surveyed waterline. Quantification of this error gave a vertical offset of 0.33m at Tairua and 0.25m at Pauanui. At Tairua, incident wave energy was dominant in the swash zone, and the runup distributions followed a Rayleigh distribution. At Pauanui, the flatter beach, the runup distributions were approximately bimodal due to the dominance of infragravity energy in the swash signal. The slope of the beach was a major control on the runup elevation; runup at Pauanui was directly affected by the deepwater wave height and the tide, while at Tairua there was no correlation. Overall, the results of the study indicate realistic runup measurements, over a wide range of time scales and, importantly, during storm events. However, comparisons of videoed runup and empirical runup formulae revealed larger deviations as the beach steepness increased. Furthur tests need to be carried out to see if this is a limitation of this technique, used to measure runup. The runup statistics are consistently higher at Tairua and suggests that swash runs up higher on steeper beaches. However, because of the characteristics of flatter beaches (such as high water tables and low drainage efficiencies) the impact of extreme runup elevations on such beaches are more critical in regards to erosion and/ or inundation. The coastal environment is of great importance to Māori. Damage to the coast and coastal waahi tapu (places of spiritual importance) caused by erosion and inundation, adversely affects the spiritual and cultural well-being of Māori. For this reason, a chapter was dedicated to investigating the practices used by Māori to protect and preserve the coasts in accordance with tikanga Māori (Māori protocols). Mimicking nature was and still is a practice used by Māori to restore the beaches after erosive events, and includes replanting native dune plants and using natural materials on the beaches to stabilize the dunes. Tapu and rahui (the power and influence of the gods) were imposed on communities to prohibit and prevent people from free access to either food resources or to a particular place, in order to protect people and/ or resources. Interpretations of Māori oral histories provide insights into past local hazards and inform about the safety and viability of certain activities within an area. Environmental indicators were used to identify and forecast extreme weather conditions locally. Māori knowledge of past hazards, and the coastal environment as a whole, is a valuable resource and provides a unique source of expertise that can contribute to current coastal hazards management plans in New Zealand and provide insights about the areas that may again be impacted by natural hazards

Higher-order aberrations in amblyopia:an analysis of pre- and post-wavefront-guided laser refractive correction

For more than a century it has been known that the eye is not a perfect optical system, but rather a system that suffers from aberrations beyond conventional prescriptive descriptions of defocus and astigmatism. Whereas traditional refraction attempts to describe the error of the eye with only two parameters, namely sphere and cylinder, measurements of wavefront aberrations depict the optical error with many more parameters. What remains questionable is the impact these additional parameters have on visual function. Some authors have argued that higher-order aberrations have a considerable effect on visual function and in certain cases this effect is significant enough to induce amblyopia. This has been referred to as ‘higher-order aberration-associated amblyopia’. In such cases, correction of higher-order aberrations would not restore visual function. Others have reported that patients with binocular asymmetric aberrations display an associated unilateral decrease in visual acuity and, if the decline in acuity results from the aberrations alone, such subjects may have been erroneously diagnosed as amblyopes. In these cases, correction of higher-order aberrations would restore visual function. This refractive entity has been termed ‘aberropia’. In order to investigate these hypotheses, the distribution of higher-order aberrations in strabismic, anisometropic and idiopathic amblyopes, and in a group of visual normals, was analysed both before and after wavefront-guided laser refractive correction. The results show: (i) there is no significant asymmetry in higher-order aberrations between amblyopic and fixing eyes prior to laser refractive treatment; (ii) the mean magnitude of higher-order aberrations is similar within the amblyopic and visually normal populations; (iii) a significant improvement in visual acuity can be realised for adult amblyopic patients utilising wavefront-guided laser refractive surgery and a modest increase in contrast sensitivity was observed for the amblyopic eye of anisometropes following treatment (iv) an overall trend towards increased higher-order aberrations following wavefront-guided laser refractive treatment was observed for both visually normal and amblyopic eyes. In conclusion, while the data do not provide any direct evidence for the concepts of either ‘aberropia’ or ‘higher-order aberration-associated amblyopia’, it is clear that gains in visual acuity and contrast sensitivity may be realised following laser refractive treatment of the amblyopic adult eye. Possible mechanisms by which these gains are realised are discussed

Ética e Capitalismo

Oriundo dos Estados Unidos, o movimento da ética nos negócios e na empresa se desenvolve ruidosamente nos anos 1990. Externamente, o discurso sobre o sentido e a responsabilidade social da empresa se dirige aos clientes, aos acionistas, aos terceirizados, aos jovens diplomados e, indiretamente, ao político, que deve ser convencido sobre a capacidade da economia de mercado se auto-regular. Internamente, o discurso se dirige ao conjunto dos assalariados. Os valores de honestidade, de integridade, de responsabilidade, de atenção no trabalho, de desabrochamento, de autonomia, de solidariedade são difundidos de maneira sistemática nas empresas por meio dos jornais, das cartas éticas, dos códigos e dos cursos. Comitês de ética são criados. Consultores se especializam. Escolas abrem cátedras de ética. Obras são publicadas. Essa « ética da empresa » suscita agora a atenção dos sindicatos e é objeto de questionamentos e de iniciativas por parte das principais organizações internacionais: princípios diretores da OCDE relativos à direção de empresas (1990), código de conduta “Global compact” da ONU (2000), banco de dados sobre as iniciativas sociais das empresas da OIT, Livro verde da CCE (2001)

Rotating convection : 1995 Summer Study Program in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics

The 1995 program in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics addressed "Rotating Convection," with particular emphasis on high-Rayleigh-number convection and on convection in the ocean.Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OCE-8901012

Collective diffusion coefficient of a charged colloidal dispersion: interferometric measurements in a drying drop

In the present work, we use Mach-Zehnder interferometry to thoroughly investigate the drying dynamics of a 2D confined drop of a charged colloidal dispersion. This technique makes it possible to measure the colloid concentration field during the drying of the drop at a high accuracy (about 0.5%) and with a high temporal and spatial resolution (about 1 frame/s and 5 $\mu$m/pixel). These features allow us to probe mass transport of the charged dispersion in this out-of-equilibrium situation. In particular, our experiments provide the evidence that mass transport within the drop can be described by a purely diffusive process for some range of parameters for which the buoyancy-driven convection is negligible. We are then able to extract from these experiments the collective diffusion coefficient of the dispersion $D(\varphi)$ over a wide concentration range $\varphi=0.24$-$0.5$, i.e. from the liquid dispersed state to the solid glass regime, with a high accuracy. The measured values of $D(\varphi)\simeq 5$-$12 D_0$ are significantly larger than the simple estimate $D_0$ given by the Stokes-Einstein relation, thus highlighting the important role played by the colloidal interactions in such dispersions

Linguistic Analysis of English Phraseology and Plain Language in Air-Ground Communication

International audienceThe aim of this paper is to describe the different uses of English phraseology and plain language within pilot-controller (or air-ground) communications via a comparative study between two collections of texts (corpora): one representing the prescribed norm and made up of examples of English from two phraseology manuals; the other consisting of the orthographic transcription of recordings of real air-ground communications. The comparative study is conducted at a lexical level. It focuses on the discrepancies observed in the distribution of the corpora lexicon. Our preliminary results indicate that, in real air-ground communications, pilots and controllers tend to use more "subjectivity" markers (pronouns, courtesy expressions) than prescribed by the linguistic norm. This observation reflects their needs to use the language in its social role. A description of the different markers introducing subjectivity in air-ground communication can help understand the use of a more natural language in radiotelephony. In the long run, the results from the comparative study can be used to improve English radiotelephony teaching

Understanding nitrogen transfer dynamics in a small agricultural catchment: Comparison of a distributed (TNT2) and a semi distributed (SWAT) modeling approaches

The coupling of an hydrological and a crop model is an efficient approach to study the impact of the interactions between agricultural practices and catchment physical characteristics on stream water quality. We analyzed the consequences of using different modeling approaches of the processes controlling the nitrogen (N) dynamics in a small agricultural catchment monitored for 15 years. Two agro-hydrological models were applied: the fully distributed model TNT2 and the semi-distributed SWAT model. Using the same input dataset, the calibration process aimed at reproducing the same annual water and N balance in both models, to compare the spatial and temporal variability of the main N processes. The models simulated different seasonal cycles for soil N. The main processes involved were N mineralization and denitrification. TNT2 simulated marked seasonal variations with a net increase of mineralization in autumn, after a transient immobilization phase due to the burying of the straw with low C:N ratio. SWAT predicted a steady humus mineralization with an increase when straws are buried and a decrease afterwards. Denitrification was mainly occuring in autumn in TNT2 because of the dynamics of N availability in soil and of the climatic and hydrological conditions. SWAT predicts denitrification in winter, when mineral N is available in soil layers. The spatial distribution of these two processes was different as well: less denitrification in bottom land and close to ditches in TNT2, as a result of N transfer dynamics. Both models simulate correctly global trend and inter-annual variability of N losses in small agricultural catchment when a sufficient amount data is available for calibration. However, N processes and their spatial interactions are simulated very differently, in particular soil mineralization and denitrification. The use of such tools for prediction must be considered with care, unless a proper calibration and validation of the different N processes is carried out

Les associations et leur contribution à la démocratie : un défi contemporain

Dès les années 1980, des Etats ont commencé à introduire des dispositifs institutionnels et organisationnels se réclamant des idéaux néolibéraux ; ils ne sont entièrement réalisés mais continuent à être promus avec force dans de nombreux pays et leurs conséquences sont notables pour les associations. La première partie de ce chapitre synthétise comment elles en ont été affectées. Ces évolutions ont généré des analyses faisant des associations un sous service public, ce qui traduit une incompréhension de la teneur exacte du projet néolibéral ; ce dernier en visant une limitation de la démocratie affaiblit autant les associations que les autorités publiques, ce que ses inflexions récentes confirment. Néanmoins comme il est indiqué dans la seconde partie, certaines associations prouvent leurs capacités de résistances. Afin d’étayer ces démarches pratiques, il est important de mentionner quelles sont les ressources théoriques disponibles. L’enjeu est que de nouvelles synergies entre acteurs et chercheurs contribuent à l’échec de la remise en cause contemporaine des dynamiques démocratiques

Physical activity during school recess : a systematic review

Context: Interest has increased in examining the physical activity levels of young people during school recess. Identifying correlates of their recess physical activity behaviors is timely, and would inform school-based physical activity programming and intervention development. The review examined the correlates of children\u27s and adolescent\u27s physical activity during school recess periods. Evidence acquisition: Asystematicsearchofsixelectronicdatabases,referencelists,andpersonal archives identified 53 studies (47 focused on children) published between January 1990 and April 2011 that met the inclusion criteria. Data were analyzed in 2011. Correlates were categorized using the social-ecological framework. Evidence synthesis: Forty-four variables were identified across the four levels of the social- ecological framework, although few correlates were studied repeatedly at each level. Positive associ- ations were found of overall facility provision, unfixed equipment, and perceived encouragement with recess physical activity. Results revealed that boys were more active than girls. Conclusions: Providing access to school facilities, providing unfixed equipment, and identifying ways to promote encouragement for physical activity have the potential to inform strategies to increase physical activity levels during recess periods