The Reform of Corporate Taxation in the European Union

The Commission of the European Communities is currently drafting a proposal for an EU Directive to implement the first comprehensive corporate tax strategy for the Internal Market. The adoption of a common consolidated corporate tax base for EU multinational enterprises is one of today’s most highly debated issues on Brussels’ political agenda. Since the reform would affect all international companies conducting business in the Internal Market, it should also be of great interest for non-EU corporate and tax law scholars and lawyers. The paper critically evaluates the key advantages and disadvantages of the concept of an EU consolidated tax base and thus will enable the reader to form her own educated opinion on this ambitious political project. The analysis commences with a description of the status quo of corporate taxation in the European Union and a thorough assessment of its major downsides before turning to the key features and the current progress of the EU Commission’s reform proposal. Next, the paper discusses whether such a Directive could indeed effectively address the identified problems of cross-border taxation and improve the framework for business activity in the Internal Market. Considering possible disadvantages and remaining uncertainties of the proposal, the analysis focuses particularly on the issue of political feasibility and offers comparative law thoughts on a possible income distribution formula

The Reform of Corporate Taxation in the European Union

The Commission of the European Communities is currently drafting a proposal for an EU Directive to implement the first comprehensive corporate tax strategy for the Internal Market. The adoption of a common consolidated corporate tax base for EU multinational enterprises is one of today’s most highly debated issues on Brussels’ political agenda. Since the reform would affect all international companies conducting business in the Internal Market, it should also be of great interest for non-EU corporate and tax law scholars and lawyers. The paper critically evaluates the key advantages and disadvantages of the concept of an EU consolidated tax base and thus will enable the reader to form her own educated opinion on this ambitious political project. The analysis commences with a description of the status quo of corporate taxation in the European Union and a thorough assessment of its major downsides before turning to the key features and the current progress of the EU Commission’s reform proposal. Next, the paper discusses whether such a Directive could indeed effectively address the identified problems of cross-border taxation and improve the framework for business activity in the Internal Market. Considering possible disadvantages and remaining uncertainties of the proposal, the analysis focuses particularly on the issue of political feasibility and offers comparative law thoughts on a possible income distribution formula

ADHS aus heilpädagogischer Sicht.

Die vorliegende Diplomarbeit stellt eine heilpädagogische Auseinandersetzung zum Thema „ADHS – Aufmerksamkeitsdefizits- und Hyperaktivitätsstörung“ dar und befasst sich mit der medienpädagogischen Fragestellung: „Wie nutzen Kinder mit ADHS-Diagnose das Medium Fernsehen“. Die Subfragen umfassen Fragen zum Stellenwert von Fernsehen für Kinder mit diagnostizierter ADHS und dem Zusammenhang zwischen dem Fernsehkonsum und der Verhaltensproblematik ADHS. Ausgehend von der Hypothese, dass Kinder mit einer ADHS sich in ihrem Nutzungsverhalten des Mediums "Fernsehen" von Kindern ohne ADHS-Diagnose unterscheiden, wurden jeweils zwei Kinder mit ADHS-Diagnose und zwei Kinder ohne diagnostizierter ADHS zwischen neun und elf Jahren mittels qualitativem Leitfadeninterview zu ihrem Fernsehverhalten befragt. Anschließend wurden die Ergebnisse der Transkription anhand der Inhaltsanalyse nach Mayring ausgewertet und miteinander verglichen. Die Grundlage der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit bildet die heilpädagogische und medienpädagogische Positionierung sowie eine konkrete theoretische Auseinandersetzung mit der Verhaltensproblematik ADHS. Fazit dieser Arbeit ist, dass Kinder mit ADHS-Diagnose nicht anders als Kinder ohne diagnostizierter ADHS auf den medialen Einfluss des Fernsehens reagieren. Fernsehen spielt im Leben beider befragten Gruppen eine große Rolle, wobei der Comedyfaktor und das Interesse an den Lieblingssendungen als Motive angegeben werden. Alle befragten Kinder gaben an ein gutes Gefühl beim Fernsehen zu empfinden. Ein bedeutsamer Unterschied besteht hinsichtlich der emotionalen Wahrnehmung während des Fernsehens: Kinder mit ADHS-Diagnose sind nie aufgeregt wenn sie fernsehen, auch nicht wenn spannende Inhalte vermittelt werden. Weiter messen Kinder mit ADHS-Diagnose dem Fernsehen laut den Ergebnissen dieser Studie keinen speziellen Stellenwert zu. Negative Verbindungen zwischen dem Fernsehen und der Verhaltensproblematik konnten nicht aufgezeigt werden

Religious Roots of Comeniu's Universal Pedagogy in Via Lucis

65 Abstract The thesis examines Comenius' writing The Way of Light in the context of Comenius' universal pedagogy and religious roots. The thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter introduces the reader to the historical context of the writing of the work, which is related to Comenius' stay in England and his work for the Hartleb`s Circle. The second chapter introduces the reader to the content of the work and analyses it in terms of its pedagogical and religious motives. The third chapter traces the existing commentaries on the work, especially as found in Patocka`s interpretations, within his Comenius writings. The main themes and contexts with which these analyses are associated are: pansophism, pampaedia, pedagogy, chiliasm, omniscience, reform, and the syncretic method. The main aim of this thesis is to show that the writings of The Way of Light link pedagogy and religion in a specific synthesis. One of the sub-objectives is to show the writing as still relevant for today. Another aim is to see how Patocka comments on the writing, since his understanding of Comenius stems primarily from his pedagogical efforts. I am also interested in the genesis and historical context of the work, as Comenius wrote the work under specific circumstances, namely in Hartleb's circle in England. The method...64 Abstrakt Práce se zabývá Komenského spisem Cesta světla v kontextu Komenského universální pedagogiky a náboženských kořenů. Práce je rozdělena do tří kapitol. První kapitola uvádí čtenáře do historického kontextu vzniku díla, který souvisí s Komenského pobytem v Anglii a jeho prací pro Hartlibův kroužek. Druhá kapitola seznamuje čtenáře s obsahem díla a provádí jeho analýzu z hlediska pedagogických a náboženských motivů. Ve třetí kapitole sledujeme existující komentáře ke spisu, a to zejména jak je nacházíme v Patočkových interpretacích v rámci jeho komeniologických spisů. Hlavními tématy a kontexty, s nimiž se tyto analýzy pojí, jsou: pansofie, pampaedia, pedagogika, chiliasmus, všenáprava, reforma a synkritická metoda. Hlavním cílem práce je ukázat, že spis Cesta světla propojuje pedagogiku a náboženství ve specifické syntéze. Jedním z dílčích cílů je poukázat na aktuálnost spisu pro dnešní dobu. Cílem je i zjistit, jakým způsobem spis komentuje Patočka, protože jeho pochopení Komenského pramení především z jeho pedagogického úsilí. Také mě zajímá geneze a historický kontext vzniku díla, protože Komenský psal dílo za specifických okolností, a to v Hartlibově kroužku v Anglii. Metodou zpracování práce je v první kapitole literární rešerše. Dále ve druhé kapitole metoda obsahové analýzy spisu Cesta...HTF - Katedra systematické teologie, teologické etiky a teologické filozofieHusitská teologická fakultaHussite Theological Facult

On the relation between apparent ion and total particle growth rates in the boreal forest and related chamber experiments

The understanding of new particle formation and growth processes is critical for evaluating the role of aerosols in climate change. One of the knowledge gaps is the ion-particle interaction during the early growth process, especially in the sub-3 nm range, where direct observations are sparse. While molecular interactions would imply faster growth rates of ions compared to neutral particles, this phenomenon is not widely observed in the atmosphere. Here, we show field measurements in the boreal forest indicating a smaller apparent growth rate of the ion population compared to the total particles. We use aerosol dynamics simulations to demonstrate that this effect can be caused by the changing importance of ion-induced nucleation mechanisms during the day. We further compare these results with chamber experiments under similar conditions, where we demonstrate that this effect critically depends on the abundance of condensable vapors and the related strength of ion-induced nucleation. Our results imply that atmospheric ion growth rate measurements below 3 nm need to be evaluated very carefully as they do not represent condensational growth alone but are influenced by ion-particle population interactions.Peer reviewe

QuNex—An integrative platform for reproducible neuroimaging analytics

Introduction: Neuroimaging technology has experienced explosive growth and transformed the study of neural mechanisms across health and disease. However, given the diversity of sophisticated tools for handling neuroimaging data, the field faces challenges in method integration, particularly across multiple modalities and species. Specifically, researchers often have to rely on siloed approaches which limit reproducibility, with idiosyncratic data organization and limited software interoperability. Methods: To address these challenges, we have developed Quantitative Neuroimaging Environment & Toolbox (QuNex), a platform for consistent end-to-end processing and analytics. QuNex provides several novel functionalities for neuroimaging analyses, including a “turnkey” command for the reproducible deployment of custom workflows, from onboarding raw data to generating analytic features. Results: The platform enables interoperable integration of multi-modal, community-developed neuroimaging software through an extension framework with a software development kit (SDK) for seamless integration of community tools. Critically, it supports high-throughput, parallel processing in high-performance compute environments, either locally or in the cloud. Notably, QuNex has successfully processed over 10,000 scans across neuroimaging consortia, including multiple clinical datasets. Moreover, QuNex enables integration of human and non-human workflows via a cohesive translational platform. Discussion: Collectively, this effort stands to significantly impact neuroimaging method integration across acquisition approaches, pipelines, datasets, computational environments, and species. Building on this platform will enable more rapid, scalable, and reproducible impact of neuroimaging technology across health and disease

Managing expectations, rights, and duties in large-scale genomics initiatives: a European comparison

This article reports on the findings of an international workshop organised by the UK-France Genomics and Ethics Network (UK-FR GENE) in 2021. They focus specifically on how collection, storage and sharing of genomic data may pose challenges to established principles and values such as trust, confidentiality, and privacy in countries that have implemented, or are about to implement, large-scale national genomic initiatives. These challenges impact the relationships between patients/citizens and medicine/science, and on each party’s rights and duties towards each other. Our geographic scope of comparative analysis includes initiatives underway in England (Genomics England), France (Plan France Médecine Génomique) and Germany (German Human Genome-Phenome Archive). We discuss existing as well as future challenges raised by large-scale health data collection and management in each country. We conclude that the prospects of improving individualised patient healthcare as well as contributing to the scientific and research prosperity of any given nation engaged in health data collection, storage and processing are undeniable. However, we also attempt to demonstrate that biomedical data requires careful management, and transparent and accountable governance structures that are clearly communicated to patients/participants and citizens. Furthermore, when third parties partake as stakeholders, transparent consent protocols relative to data access and use come centre stage, and patient benefits must clearly outweigh commercial interests. Finally, any cross-border data transfer needs to be carefully managed to address incoherencies between regional, national, and supranational regulations and recommendations