Working hard for the money : tax noncompliance in the small building and construction industry

The closing decades of the 20th century saw significant policy developments in the movement to improve business compliance with regulatory and tax requirements. Previously, controversy about whether a more or less interventionalist approach was needed dominated discussions of and proposals to enhance regulation. At the core of the debate were the theoretical assumptions about the motivations driving compliance. Advocates of the more interventional approach referred to as command-and-control regulation assume self-interest motivates compliance and a fear of sanctions deters noncompliance. Those arguing for a less interventional approach known as cooperative regulation assume civic duty, moral beliefs, fairness and legitimacy of government determine compliance. More recently, regulatory and tax agencies have adopted a convergence of the two approaches known as responsive regulation. Responsive regulation suggests a wide range of motivations from inadvertent error to self-interest influence compliance and, thus, require a broad scope of interventions beginning with dialogue aimed at securing and maintaining engagement in the regulatory process and ending with a willingness to resort to sanctions when other efforts fail. Investigation into motivations that influence compliance, especially in the tax arena, have been limited because of the recency of developments. The available research, however, tends to support the basic assumptions of responsive regulation. Drawing from interviews with 25 owners of small building and construction firms, the current study provides an increased understanding of compliance in an industry well recognized for noncompliant taxpayers. Specifically, it explores participants\u27 taxpaying behaviors and the motivations driving their taxpaying and then compares their taxpaying compliance with compliance in other regulatory areas. Results suggest that taxpaying among the participants is a complex and dynamic process which will probably not be accounted for by one theoretical model, that the tenets of responsive regulation may be the more efficacious intervention and that the tradition of criminological research may serve well to inform future regulatory and tax compliance research

E.M. Forster : critic and creator : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University

This thesis examines E.M. Forster's criticism and novels in the light of his own literary interests. As a critic Forster discussed and analysed writers not only in Aspects of the Novel (the title given to the series of Clark lectures Forster gave at Cambridge in 1927) but in essays collected in Abinger Harvest and Two Cheers for Democracy, and also in a series of regular weekly book reviews for the Listener and the Daily News over a forty year period. The aspects fundamental to good and satisfying literature Forster defined as plot, people, fantasy and prophecy, pattern and rhythm. But Forster, as an individual, reacted to much more in the works he examined beyond his lectures. He was much attracted by and sympathetic towards literary experimentation, social analysis, wit and humour, moral integrity and a general human curiosity that could be defined as "spirit of place." His antipathies were intellectual superiority, artistic deliberation and arrogance, aesthetic rigidity and mannerisms and what he called a "temperate heart." These same interests and antipathies govern both the style and content of his novels. As a creator Forster uses, not necessarily consciously, the aspects of novel creation that he discusses in Aspects of the Novel. His interest is still people and place; his social analysis is witty and perceptive; his message is for connection and commitment and moral integrity; and his plots balance the truth of the individual to be himself against the demands of a socially conformist society. Generally he combines plot, characterization and message by a skillful balancing of technique and content. When he is less successful as a novelist it is usually because the "prophet" and his message have dominated at the expense of the plot. Forster's own use of pattern and rhythm, however, do not fail, and the subtle exploitation of the interior connection of shape in his novels adds both to the reader's pleasure and to the conviction of the novels as a whole. Forster's interest in people, his humanism, his prophecy and his technical ability combine to produce a very individual critic and novelist

Extracellular cracking and content removal of benthic diatoms by intertidal foraminifera

Abstrac

Theories of Communication and Uncertainty as a Foundation for Future Research on Nursing Practice

As we enter the age of “precision medicine,” we will need “a greater tolerance of uncertainty and greater facility for calculating and interpreting probabilities than” (Hunter, 2016, p. 711) ever before. Nursing scholarship has produced the most widely known theory of uncertainty in illness (Mishel, 1988, 1990), but it emphasizes the psychological state of and deemphasizes communication. Communication scholars have attempted to overcome this deficit, but two of the most prominent of these perspectives, uncertainty management theory (Brashers, 2001) and the theory of motivated information management (Afifi & Morse, 2004), emphasize processes related to information seeking or avoidance in the service of uncertainty reduction, creation, or maintenance; in so doing, they tend to neglect important variations in the meanings of uncertainty. The article reviews these theories and also problematic integration theory, which centers the task of differentiating forms of uncertainty and other problematic meanings and the importance of form-specific adaptation of communication. The paper concludes with an agenda for collaborations between nursing and communication researchers aimed at advancing theory and practice

Border walls and smuggling spillovers

A growing number of states are erecting physical barriers along their borders to stem the illicit flow of goods and people. Though border fortification policies are both controversial and politically salient, their distributional consequences remain largely unexplored. We study the impact of a border wall project on smuggling in Israel. We use the initial phase of the wall construction to causally estimate spillover effects on cross-border smuggling, especially vehicle theft. We find a large decrease in smuggling of stolen vehicles in protected towns and a similar substantial increase in not-yet-protected towns. For some protected towns, fortification also arbitrarily increased the length of smuggling routes. These township-level shocks further deterred smuggling (6% per kilometer). Our findings suggest that border fortification may have uneven distributional consequences, creating unintended winners and losers

PHA Guidance for Correlating H2S Concentrations in Process Streams to Severity of Adverse Health Outcomes in the Event of a Leak

PresentationProcess hazard analysis (PHA) teams are responsible for determining and categorizing the potential impact of a loss of containment. For streams containing hydrogen sulfide (H2S), the health and safety consequences of a worker being exposed to H2S are a function of airborne concentration in the breathing zone and duration of exposure. PHA teams often do not have the technical knowledge to link the known concentration of H2S in the process stream to an adverse health outcome. This paper describes the methodology and the assumptions made in developing such guidance. H2S concentration in the stream was correlated to concentration of H2S in the breathing zone. Vapor releases used dispersion modeling, while liquid releases required additional modeling to determine the amount of H2S liberated from the released liquid. Modeling was done on different process streams under a variety of conditions. Concentration in the breathing zone was linked to the most probable health and safety outcome by surveying relevant literature published by private and government sources. This correlated the stream concentration of H2S directly to the consequence categorization used in the PHA. Results were summarized, providing simplified guidance that is valid over a wide range of process conditions and release scenarios

Accreditation and certification in the non-profit sector: organizational and economic implications

The non-profit sector of the US economy is a special class of entities with an expansive array of organizations and activities dedicated to the common good and well-being of others. Even though this sector has constructed creative and forward thinking initiatives, obstacles remain which interfere with the accomplishment of significant achievements. In order to stay competitive, non-profit organizations are constantly assessing their current capacity to deliver unique needed services. Today, many umbrella associations of non-profits have implemented accreditation and certification programs intended to improve organizational contribution to member organizations. Throughout the sector, non-profit organizations are now seeking to become more ethical, accountable and credible in the eyes of stakeholders. Guided by institutional and agency theories, the research reported herein is designed to offer preliminary insights regarding the organizational and economic implications of pursuing accreditation. Technological enhancements in this context are also examined