Impact Of Value Added Tax On Tourism

The Republic of Croatia is currently carrying out preparatory measures for accession to the European Union. One of them is the harmonization of value added tax (VAT) with the requirements of Directive 2006/112/EC. Strong taxation affects tourism negatively. Hoteliers in Croatia set aside large funds for facility investments, which include partly high VAT rate of 23%, in order to achieve the market standards. Tourists face higher bid prices which puts the country in an unenviable position among Mediterranean competitors. It is important to find an optimal solution within the VAT system to encourage tourism development. Budget funds collected from tourism need to be refunded to the tourism industry

Правила делопроизводства польского МВД (август 1931) – реальная реформа или незначительные изменения?

Анализируются изменения, происшедшие в системе документооборота Министерства внутренних дел Польской республики после издания новых правил делопроизводства в 1931 г. Большое внимание уделяется этапам прохождения документа, правилам индексации дел, а также практике архивного хранения. Автор приходит к выводу, что введение новых правил делопроизводства не принесло революционных изменений в систему документооборота, но такой подход был оправданным.The article analyzes the changes that have taken place in the system of documentation in the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs after the publication of the new rules of records management in 1931. Much attention is paid to the stages of the passage of the document, the rules of indexing cases and archival practice. The author comes to the conclusion that the new rules did not bring revolutionary changes in the document management system, but this approach was justified

Abnormal Reward Valuation and Event-Related Connectivity in Unmedicated Major Depressive Disorder

BackgroundExperience of emotion is closely linked to valuation. Mood can be viewed as a bias to experience positive or negative emotions and abnormally biased subjective reward valuation and cognitions are core characteristics of major depression.MethodsThirty-four unmedicated subjects with major depressive disorder and controls estimated the probability that fractal stimuli were associated with reward, based on passive observations, so they could subsequently choose the higher of either their estimated fractal value or an explicitly presented reward probability. Using model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging, we estimated each subject's internal value estimation, with psychophysiological interaction analysis used to examine event-related connectivity, testing hypotheses of abnormal reward valuation and cingulate connectivity in depression.ResultsReward value encoding in the hippocampus and rostral anterior cingulate was abnormal in depression. In addition, abnormal decision-making in depression was associated with increased anterior mid-cingulate activity and a signal in this region encoded the difference between the values of the two options. This localised decision-making and its impairment to the anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC) consistent with theories of cognitive control. Notably, subjects with depression had significantly decreased event-related connectivity between the aMCC and rostral cingulate regions during decision-making, implying impaired communication between the neural substrates of expected value estimation and decision-making in depression.ConclusionsOur findings support the theory that abnormal neural reward valuation plays a central role in major depressive disorder (MDD). To the extent that emotion reflects valuation, abnormal valuation could explain abnormal emotional experience in MDD, reflect a core pathophysiological process and be a target of treatment

TECNOLOGIAS DA INFORMAÇÃO E DA COMUNICAÇÃO NAS PRÁTICAS EDUCATIVAS

O presente artigo tem por finalidade estudar como as Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação (TICs) podem auxiliar o processo de ensino-aprendizagem. Diante da nova sociedade da informação e da comunicação, os sujeitos acreditam não conseguir viver mais sem a tecnologia contemporânea. Procuramos descrever aspectos que remetem às vantagens bem como à importância da utilização das tecnologias multimídias no processo de educação. Apresentamos, também, preponderância em um olhar sobre o uso das TICs nas práticas educativas, apoiando-nos em estudos que verificam a contribuição para a qualidade da educação. Palavras-chave: Práticas educativas. Tecnologia da Comunicação. Tecnologia da Informação. Processo de aprendizagem. Tecnologias.

PEM automotive stack model with experimental validation

Dynamic models of PEM stacks are the basis to design controllers for appropriate performance, maximum efficiency and minimum degradation. Fluid dynamic models of different dimensions can be found in the literature; however, these models are rarely used to improve the control laws and strategies. This work presents a control oriented 1+1D model (distributed in the direction of the stack flow channels). The model is based on a similar model presented by M. Mangold [1], is implemented in MATLAB Simulink. The model is validated using experimental data of a Powercell stack.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Decision-Making Competence and Attempted Suicide

Objective: The propensity of people vulnerable to suicide to make poor life decisions is increasingly well documented. Do they display an extreme degree of decision biases? The present study used a behavioral decision approach to examine the susceptibility of low-lethality and high-lethality suicide attempters to common decision biases, which may ultimately obscure alternative solutions and deterrents to suicide in a crisis. Method: We assessed older and middle-aged individuals who made high-lethality (medically serious; N=31) and low-lethality suicide attempts (N=29). Comparison groups included suicide ideators (N=30), non-suicidal depressed (N=53), and psychiatrically healthy participants (N=28). Attempters, ideators, and non-suicidal depressed participants had unipolar non-psychotic major depression. Decision biases included sunk cost (inability to abort an action for which costs are irrecoverable), framing (responding to superficial features of how a problem is presented), under/overconfidence (appropriateness of confidence in knowledge), and inconsistent risk perception. Data were collected between June of 2010 and February of 2014. Results: Both high- and low-lethality attempters were more susceptible to framing effects, as compared to the other groups included in this study (p< 0.05, ηp2 =.06). In contrast, low-lethality attempters were more susceptible to sunk costs than both the comparison groups and high-lethality attempters (p< 0.01, ηp2 =.09). These group differences remained after accounting for age, global cognitive performance, and impulsive traits. Premorbid IQ partially explained group differences in framing effects. Conclusion: Suicide attempters’ failure to resist framing may reflect their inability to consider a decision from an objective standpoint in a crisis. Low-lethality attempters’ failure to resist sunk cost may reflect their tendency to confuse past and future costs of their behavior, lowering their threshold for acting on suicidal thoughts

What's energy management got to do with it? Exploring the role of energy management in the smart home adoption process

There are high hopes for smart home technology to deliver Home Energy Management (HEM) solutions, including through smart thermostats, plugs, lights, switches, and appliances. However, adoption of these technologies is lagging behind expectations. Moreover, it is unclear how energy management features in the smart home consumer adoption process. We know there is technical potential for the smart home to support energy management, but we know little about the degree to which energy benefits interest consumers and motivate them to adopt smart home technologies relative to non-energy benefits such as security, comfort, and convenience, which could have implications for increasing rather than decreasing energy consumption. To that point, we know little about whether and how the energy management functionalities of smart home products are actually used by adopters. The present research investigated consumers’ knowledge of, attitudes toward, and experiences with smart home technologies that have energy management functionalities (smart HEMS), in order to assess barriers to adoption and to achieving purported energy benefits. Specifically, we studied shoppers at smart home retailers to gauge their existing awareness of and attitudes toward smart HEMS, and we analyzed Amazon customer reviews of smart HEMS to better understand early adopters’ motivations and experiences. Results revealed challenges to achieving energy benefits with existing products and marketing strategies, and implications for shaping the future of these technologies to achieve energy demand reductions and load shifting capabilities at scale for the smart home and smart grid of the future

The Blazhko behavior of RV UMa

RV UMa is one of the most extensively studied RR Lyrae stars showing Blazhko modulation. Its photometric observations cover more than 90 years. The published photoelectric observations of RV UMa obtained at the Konkoly Observatory (Kanyo, 1976) were re-considered and completed with previously unpublished data. During the time interval of the observations the periods of both the pulsation and the modulation varied within the ranges of 0.000007 and 0.9 days, respectively. We have found a definite but not strict inverse relation between the pulsation and modulation periods of RV UMa.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A