Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2005. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xvii, 295 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 262-276).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge on tax compliance costs to small businesses by pioneering research in South Africa on four fronts. Firstly, the study is the first to comprehensively quantify small business tax compliance costs – establishing a baseline against which future research can be benchmarked. Secondly, the study established that small businesses perceive tax compliance benefits to exist, but found that the respondents were generally unable to quantify them. Thirdly, it evaluated the perceived impact of the major small business tax concessions on the level of tax compliance costs incurred by small businesses. Finally, the study used regression analyses to evaluate the drivers or determinants of internal and external tax compliance costs. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretroia, 2013 / lk2014 / Taxation / unrestricted

Magister Philosophiae (Integrated Water Resource Management) - MPhl(IWM) / The South African National Water Act attracted attention of the international water community as one of the most reformist pieces of water legislation in the world, and a major step forward in the transformation of the concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM) into legislation. However, 20 years later after the National Water Act was promulgated, implementation of the same act has been partially successful. In many aspects, the, implementation has been weak. The argument is that the water law enforcement is not been implemented to demonstrate the effectiveness of regulations for the protection of water resources. / 2022

No description available.

In light of the substantial sums of money that the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) was awarded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, ways to maximize the efficiency of the agency’s various processes are highly sought after. The TDHCA environmental review process, which is required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), is one of the longest processes that people applying for federal funding through TDHCA must face. It is, therefore, a process that would substantially benefit the agency by being made more efficient. In this report, areas where applicants find the TDHCA environmental process to be difficult are illustrated by a systematic tabulation of the deficiency reviews sent to a sample of applicants from 2009. Additionally, survey data collected from people who submit environmental applications, and also people who review environmental applications, provides quantitative data about specific areas of the process where applicants meet with difficulty; and also qualitative data about where survey-takers feel the process could be made easier and more efficient. The data seems to indicate that applicants have significant difficulty knowing how to start the environmental process, the documents necessary, and how to fill out the necessary documents. In terms of suggestions, the results indicate that a more elaborate, user-friendly environmental webpage, complete with examples of required documents, and examples of how to fill them out, would make the environmental process exponentially easier for applicants. With the process being easier for applicants, TDHCA Environmental Specialists will hopefully not need to send out as many deficiency reviews to applicants, and will instead be able to review applications faster and issue environmental clearance quicker; thus making the process more efficient. / text

The relationships among psychosocial variables, adherence with self-care behaviors, and glycemic control in 90 men with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) were investigated. Patients completed the Basic Personality Inventory, Social Support Questionnaire, and Magnitude Estimation Inventory. Adherence scores were based on self-reports of adherence with six criteria congruent with satisfactory metabolic control. Glycemic control was measured by Glycosylated Hemoglobin (GHb) analyses. Results revealed no differences between diabetics and non-diabetic comparisons on dimensions of personality. There were differences between the non-adherent and self-reported adherent diabetics on three personality dimensions, ratings of satisfaction with social support, and items on the MEI. GHb was not systematically related to dimensions of personality, adherence, or social support. Implications for treatment were discussed and recommendations for the use of multiple measures for assessing adherence were made.

Coronary heart disease is a leading cause of death among Americans for which coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery is a standard surgical treatment. The success of CABG surgery is impaired by the compliance mismatch between vascular grafts and native vessels. Tissue engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) have the potential to be compliance matched and thereby reduce the risk of graft failure. Glutaraldehyde (GLUT) vapor-crosslinked gelatin/fibrinogen constructs were fabricated and mechanically tested in a previous study by our research group at 2, 8, and 24 hours of GLUT vapor exposure. Constructs electrospun with tropoelastin in addition to gelatin and fibrinogen fibers were also fabricated and tested for the same amounts of GLUT vapor exposure. The current study details a computational method that was developed to predict the material properties of our constructs for crosslinking times between 2 and 24 hours by interpolation and regression of the 2, 8, and 24 hour crosslinking time data. Matlab and Abaqus were used to determine the optimal combination of fabrication parameters to produce compliance matched constructs. The validity of the method was first tested on a 16 hour crosslinked gelatin/fibrinogen construct of 130μm thickness. The predicted compliance was 0.00059 mmHg-1 while the experimentally determined compliance was 0.00065 mmHg-1, a relative difference of 9.2%. Prior data in our laboratory has shown the compliance of the left anterior descending porcine coronary (LADC) artery to be 0.00071 ± 0.0003 mmHg-1. The optimization algorithm predicts that a 258μm thick construct that is GLUT vapor crosslinked for 8.1 hours would match LADC compliance. The algorithm was expanded to predict the compliance of constructs consisting of alternating layers of tropoelastin/gelatin/fibrinogen and gelatin/fibrinogen. A four layered graft was designed and fabricated using this optimization routine. The layered construct was found to have a compliance of 0.00051 mmHg-1 while the predicted compliance was 0.00061 mmHg-1, a difference of 16%. This is a promising method for matching the compliance of our TEVGs with the native tissue of various specimens.