Chinese State Capitalism and the International Tax Regime

As signaled by its participation in the G-20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, China is gaining significant influence over international tax rules. Yet, how exactly China intends to shape international tax law remains an open question, even amongst leading Chinese tax scholars. As both a major capital importer and exporter as well as a developing economy with tremendous global economic power, China does not fit neatly into the traditional dichotomies of the international tax regime. This article argues that China’s international tax policy is likely to be strongly influenced by its unique system of state capitalism. Both the history of Chinese domestic tax reforms and the Communist Party’s current mechanisms of control over the Chinese economy suggest that China’s tax policy cannot be understood separately from its system of state capitalism. This article contends that as a result, China is likely to adopt distinctive international tax policies including maintaining a worldwide system of corporate taxation, providing tacit state support for international tax planning by major Chinese multinationals, and negotiating for broad exemptions in tax treaties for state-associated entities. If not proactively addressed by OECD countries, these policies may lead to significant fractures within the international tax regime

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease: Does Overlap of Mechanism Mean Overlap of Treatment Methods?

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States. More than 5.5 million People over the age of 65 are currently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease with predictions of 13.8 million to be diagnosed by the year 2050 (Sultana, et al., 2013) (Hebert, Weuve, Scherr, & Evans, 2013). With few treatments available, scientists are desperately looking for a solution to this growing epidemic. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is also a neurodegenerative disorder, but with a far less prevalence of only 4.6 persons per million per year. It was discovered that Alzheimer’s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease share many pathophysiological mechanisms with each other. Being that both of these illnesses are currently incurable, a thorough critical analysis of mechanisms and potential treatments were preformed to ascertain if knowledge in one disorder can help find a cure for the other. With the strong relationship between these two disorders, it was found that many treatments intended for one illness had positive results for the other (some with slight modifications). The discovery of this correlation improved scientist’s knowledge of the pathological mechanism of these ailments along with finding new and creative ways for treatment. Experiments geared towards the relationship between Alzheimer’s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has brought researchers closer to finding a cure for several neurodegenerative disorders

Enhancing biomechanical stimulated Brillouin scattering imaging with physics-driven model selection

Brillouin microscopy is an emerging technique for all-optical biomechanical imaging without the need for physical contact with the sample or for an external mechanical stimulus. However, Brillouin microscopy often retrieves a single, averaged Brillouin frequency shift of all the materials in the sampling volume, introducing significant spectral artifacts in the Brillouin shift images produced. To enable the identification between single- and multi-peak Brillouin signatures in the sample voxels, we developed here a new physics-driven model selection framework based on information theory and an overfit Brillouin water peak threshold. The model selection framework was applied to Brillouin data of NIH/3T3 cells measured by stimulated Brillouin scattering microscopy, facilitating the improved quantification of the Brillouin shift of different regions in the cells, and substantially minimizing spectral artifacts in their Brillouin shift images.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures, 6 supplementary figure

H-Ras Nanocluster Stability Regulates the Magnitude of MAPK Signal Output

H-Ras is a binary switch that is activated by multiple co-factors and triggers several key cellular pathways one of which is MAPK. The specificity and magnitude of downstream activation is achieved by the spatio-temporal organization of the active H-Ras in the plasma membrane. Upon activation, the GTP bound H-Ras binds to Galectin-1 (Gal-1) and becomes transiently immobilized in short-lived nanoclusters on the plasma membrane from which the signal is propagated to Raf. In the current study we show that stabilizing the H-Ras-Gal-1 interaction, using bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC), leads to prolonged immobilization of H-Ras.GTP in the plasma membrane which was measured by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), and increased signal out-put to the MAPK module. EM measurements of Raf recruitment to the H-Ras.GTP nanoclusters demonstrated that the enhanced signaling observed in the BiFC stabilized H-Ras.GTP nanocluster was attributed to increased H-Ras immobilization rather than to an increase in Raf recruitment. Taken together these data demonstrate that the magnitude of the signal output from a GTP-bound H-Ras nanocluster is proportional to its stability

Impact of rabies vaccination history on attainment of an adequate antibody titre among dogs tested for International Travel Certification, Israel - 2010-2014

Rabies is endemic in wildlife or domestic carnivore populations globally. Infection of domestic dogs is of particular concern in many areas. In regions where domestic animals are at risk of exposure to rabies virus, dogs should be routinely vaccinated against rabies to protect both pet and human populations. Many countries require demonstration of an adequate level of serum rabies neutralizing antibodies to permit entry of dogs during international travel. We analysed rabies titres of dogs seeking travel certification in Israel to assess demographic and vaccine history factors associated with antibody titres below the acceptable threshold for travel certification. Having received only one previous rabies vaccination and a longer duration since the most recent vaccination was received were primary risk factors for not achieving an adequate rabies virus neutralizing antibody titre for travel certification. These risk factors had stronger effects in younger animals, but were consistent for dogs of all ages. In particular, these findings reiterate the importance of administering at least two rabies vaccinations (the primo vaccination and subsequent booster) to ensure population-level protection against rabies in dogs globally

Discovery of the Cobalt Isotopes

Twenty-six cobalt isotopes have so far been observed; the discovery of these isotopes is discussed. For each isotope a brief summary of the first refereed publication, including the production and identification method, is presented.Comment: to be published in Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Table