Forestry employees are the most valuable asset to forest operations. An analysis was completed to determine employee training status, how safe employees feel within their roles and identify major reasons of dissatisfaction. Through the development of job descriptions and person specifications, it was possible to identify the job requirements along with the personal attributes and qualifications required by employers, to ensure employees were capable of undertaking their role. There is an identifiable gap within the level of formal education among employees. Over half (55%) of the employees have lower qualifications than those required to have undertaken further forestry on-job training. A majority of employees’, particularly those in machine operator roles feel safe in their forestry operational roles. A small proportion of employees in breaker out, thin to waste and pruning roles feel unsafe. All employees surveyed except loader operators, felt only moderately safe in their role. The difficult environment associated with forestry was determined to be the major reason for dissatisfaction (52%) among employees, along pay and length of day. Paradoxically, the environment was also a major reason for satisfaction among those surveyed. By identifying the major reasons of dissatisfaction among forestry employees it is possible to improve job satisfaction and employee retention. Training forestry employees needs to be from a more practical aspect. This will lead to increase the number of employees that are trained for the roles they are undertaking, by ensuring they are equipped with adequate knowledge, and have the skill to work safely and to a high quality standard.

The relationship between earnings management and tax manipulation has been discussed in academia recently. We contribute to this discussion by using a list of tax evader companies, to test the relationship. The list was supplied by the Swedish Tax Agency and consists of public companies from the Swedish stock exchanges. Our findings show that tax evader companies are more prone to manage their earnings and that they do it by reporting small earnings. The effect of labelling the companies as tax manipulators does also not change the extent that they manipulate their earnings in the future. There is therefore no disciplinary effect from the tax evader fine on a manipulating company to behave more credible in the future. Out of our results the most unexpected was however that when we compare the NASDAQ companies with the ones listed on less liquid stock exchanges the NASDAQ ones were more pervasive in managing their earnings. This goes against our own hypothesis as well as previous literature and shows that investors have to be careful also when investing in premium markets.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is used to treat children and adolescents with depression. Researchers determined that many individuals undergoing CBT and other therapies experienced sudden gains, meaning that they experienced a rapid and large improvement in their symptoms between sessions. The studies demonstrated that by the end of treatment, individuals who experienced sudden gains were significantly less depressed and had better long-term outcomes than individuals who did not experience sudden gains. Previous studies investigated sudden gains in individual therapy while the present study examined sudden gains in group treatment. In addition to replicating results of previous studies, the present study sought to examine the effect of sudden gains on depressive symptoms, family environment, cognitive triad, and negative life events at pre-treatment and at a one year follow-up using multivariate analysis of variance. Participants included 136 girls, aged 9 to 13, in two treatment conditions (CBT, CBT+ parent training (CBT+PT), and a Minimal Contact Control (MCC)). At pre-treatment, post-treatment, and at a one year follow-up, participants completed self-report measures of the family environment, cognitive triad, and negative life events. They also completed a semi-structured diagnostic interview designed to symptoms of depression. After beginning the study, participants’ depressive symptoms were monitored with a brief symptom interview and/or a self-report measure of depressive symptoms. Findings from the study provided further evidence that sudden gains occur during group CBT, and that the majority of sudden gains occur early in CBT. The number of sudden gains did not vary significantly by treatment condition, and similar to previous research, the presence of a parent intervention component did not appear to significantly change the relation between sudden gains and treatment outcome. One important finding was participants in the Minimal Contact Control group experienced sudden gains despite not being in treatment. Another important finding was that the participants who experienced sudden gains differed significantly from the participants who did not experience sudden gains on pre-treatment measures of family environment and the cognitive triad but no differences were found at post-treatment or at a one year follow-up. Implications of these results, limitations, and recommendations for future research are provided. / text

This study addresses the question of whether the relation between investor-level taxes and a firm's capital structure decisions varies predictably with financial constraints. Using the setting of the 2003 reduction in individual tax rates for ordinary income, dividends, and capital gains, this study documents that constrained firms decrease their debt use in response to the 2003 tax cuts, while unconstrained firms increase their debt use over the same period. I find these effects are only evident among firms with relatively high individual ownership, which is the group of firms that theory suggests will react to the tax cuts. This paper contributes to the literature on how investor-level taxes influence firms' financing decisions as well as the literature pertaining to the 2003 Tax Act.

Modern electronics continues to push past boundaries of integration and functional density toward elusive, completely autonomous, self-powered microsystems. As systems continue to shrink, however, less energy is available on board, leading to short device lifetimes (run-time or battery life). Extended battery life is particularly advantageous in the systems with limited accessibility, such as biomedical implants and structure-embedded micro-sensors. The power management process usually requires compact and efficient power converters to be embedded in these microsystems. This dissertation introduces switched-capacitor (SC) power converter designs that make all these techniques realizable on silicon.Four different integrated SC power converters with multiple control schemes are designed here to provide low-power high-efficient power sources. First, a monolithic step-down power converter with subthreshold z-domain digital pulse-width modulation (DPWM) controller is proposed for ultra-low power microsystems. The subthreshold design significantly reduces the power dissipation in the controller. Second, an efficient monolithic master-slave complementary power converter with a feedback controller that purely operates in subthreshold operation region is discussed to tailor for the aforementioned ultra-low power applications. Third, we introduce an efficient monolithic step-down SC power stage with multiple-gain control and on-chip capacitor sizing for self-powered microsystems. The multiple-gain control helps the converter to constantly maintain high efficiency over a large input/output range. The size-adjustable pumping capacitors allow the output voltage to be regulated at different desired levels, with a constant 50% duty ratio. The monolithic implementations in these three integrated CMOS power converters effectively suppress noise and glitches caused by parasitic components due to bonding, packaging and PCB wiring. Fourth, an efficient step-up and step-down SC power converter with multiple-gain closed-loop controller is presented. The measurements and simulation results in these four power converters demonstrate the techniques proposed in this research. The approaches presented in this dissertation are evidently viable for realizing compact and high efficient SC power converters, contributing to next generation power-efficient microsystems designs.

The decision of an estate owner to employ a trust as an estate planning instrument normally involves the disposal of all or part of his growth assets to the trust. This is done to ensure that the value of such growth assets is pegged down in his personal estate, whilst any growth in the assets occurs in the trust. The objective is to minimise any estate duty that will be payable after his death. The transfer of such assets and the concomitant negotiation of the settlement of the purchase price are normally agreed to occur on loan account which will be repayable on demand. Subsequent to the disposal of the assets, it is a well established estate planning technique for the estate owner to reduce the loan account by annually waiving R30 000 of such loan in favour of the trust. This results in reducing the debit loan (asset) in the hands of the estate owner and thereby also improving his position from an estate duty point of view. The liability (credit loan) of the trust is thereby annually reduced. Because an individual can donate R30 000 annually free of donations tax, no additional donations tax liability will be incurred when applying this technique. Most estate owners that have applied the abovementioned technique, include in their will a provision whereby they bequeath any outstanding loan from the trust at the date of the testator's death, to the trust as a legatee. On 1 October 2001 South Africa entered into a new tax dispensation with the introduction of capital gains tax (CGT). Comprehensive legislation was included in the Income Tax Act (8th schedule) to regulate this new form of taxation. Paragraph 12(5) of the 8th schedule specifically stipulates that a reduction or waiver of a loan/debt will attract CGT. Therefore the above mentioned techniques of donating a portion, and subsequently bequeathing the outstanding loan amount to a trust suddenly became the target of SARS' close scrutiny from a CGT perspective. Hence, it was no surprise that the first High Court decision on CGT had recently been delivered in this regard. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate and scrutinise, not only the decision in the abovementioned court case, but also the various opinions and arguments raised on this topic. The submission is that the findings and conclusions of such an investigation should enable those involved in estate planning and the preparation of wills to be wary of the CGT risks attached to the abovementioned techniques and to avoid the pitfalls. Certain recommendations and conclusions to achieve the same estate planning result, are proposed in this dissertation. Certain suggestions were also made with regards to the wording of provisions to be included in a will in order to bequeath a loan or debt to a trust without the risk of attracting unforeseen CGT. / Thesis (LL.M. (Estate Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

As the international markets opened up it became imperative that the for South African taxation system be brought into line with those of its major trading partners whose tax systems are residence based. For South Africans the change to a residence base and the introduction of Capital Gains Tax in 2001 drastically altered the previous source-based tax playing fields. The purpose of this research is to investigate all aspects of residence and its effect on natural persons as well as other legal personae and to discuss how the various forms of income are affected by the new tax dispensation. The position in other fiscal dispositions is also scrutinised to give the reader a more comprehensive understanding of residence-based taxation as applied by some of South Africa's major trading partners. For foreign nationals residing in South Africa, the new system has also had its negative impact. Previously, their foreign earnings were free from local tax because of the old source base system, but this has also changed. The South African legal system is also thoroughly canvassed regarding two important concepts, namely, "resident" and "ordinary resident" and what are meant by them in terms of tax law. These concepts have also enjoyed the scrutiny of the other fiscal dispensations legal systems reviewed. Residence tests to determine the tax status of a person in South Africa and in other fiscal dispensations are investigated in this study to give anyone wishing to emigrate to other climes, a better understanding of what they can expect from a taxation point of view from the fiscal authorities there. The impact of residence on most forms of income is discussed including that of foreign workers and on other legal entities such as companies, while Capital Gains Tax, and the importance of residence on this tax is also canvassed by this study. The study concludes with a review of the standard Double Tax Agreement concluded by South Africa with most other countries and lists those countries with which it has such agreements. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

Cette thèse s'inscrit dans le thème des travaux relatifs aux techniques linéaires pour la maîtrise des systèmes non linéaires. Il s'agit d'une approche qui consiste à approximer le système non linéaire par un ensemble de systèmes linéaires incertains pour lesquels sont déterminées des commandes via les méthodes classiques des systèmes linéaires (LQ, LQG, placement de pôles, H2, H¥, etc). La commande globale consiste en un séquencement des gains locaux en fonction de l'état mesuré sur le système. Nombre d'approches multi-modèles qui vont dans cette direction comportent un degré d'imprécision, d'approximation assez élevé. Pour ce type d'approche, l'évaluation des performances et leur validation ne peut passer que par des simulations, un moyen, qui pour être à peu près convaincant, se doit d'être très lourd. L'approche développée ici a pour ambition de proposer une synthèse pas à pas de commande qui permette d'assurer un certain niveau de performances garanties. Le premier pas dans cette direction est fourni par la technique qui permet d'approximer le système non linéaire par un ensemble de systèmes linéaires (système linéaire par morceaux) avec un niveau de précision prédéfini et paramétré. Le deuxième pas est l'utilisation de méthodes de commande robustes à base de LMIs, qui vont permettre d'assurer la stabilité locale dans un domaine non infinitésimal de l'espace d'état. L'approche permet de maîtriser la complexité de la commande globale et des techniques de séquencement en permettant l'obtention d'une cardinalité raisonnable pour l'ensemble des systèmes linéaires approximants. Cette approche est illustrée sur des applications réalistes: un pendule inversé simple, un moteur et un panneau solaire.

Sectional ownership has introduced several new concepts of property that differ significantly from prevailing as well as common-law concepts of property. The right of extension with regards to sectional titles is one such concept. The right entails a subtraction from the dominium of sectional owners and is widely regarded as a limited real right. It is submitted that the right cannot be categorised into any common-law category. The right is a statutory limited real right sui generis that has its own characteristics with regards to the way it is established, transferred, alienated, burdened or lapses. The right should also be recognised as constitutional property. The study concludes with an investigation into selected aspects relating to the right as an estate asset and points to problems relating to the valuation of the right for purposes of estate, capital gains and donation tax. / LLM (Estate Law), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The decision of an estate owner to employ a trust as an estate planning instrument normally involves the disposal of all or part of his growth assets to the trust. This is done to ensure that the value of such growth assets is pegged down in his personal estate, whilst any growth in the assets occurs in the trust. The objective is to minimise any estate duty that will be payable after his death. The transfer of such assets and the concomitant negotiation of the settlement of the purchase price are normally agreed to occur on loan account which will be repayable on demand. Subsequent to the disposal of the assets, it is a well established estate planning technique for the estate owner to reduce the loan account by annually waiving R30 000 of such loan in favour of the trust. This results in reducing the debit loan (asset) in the hands of the estate owner and thereby also improving his position from an estate duty point of view. The liability (credit loan) of the trust is thereby annually reduced. Because an individual can donate R30 000 annually free of donations tax, no additional donations tax liability will be incurred when applying this technique. Most estate owners that have applied the abovementioned technique, include in their will a provision whereby they bequeath any outstanding loan from the trust at the date of the testator's death, to the trust as a legatee. On 1 October 2001 South Africa entered into a new tax dispensation with the introduction of capital gains tax (CGT). Comprehensive legislation was included in the Income Tax Act (8th schedule) to regulate this new form of taxation. Paragraph 12(5) of the 8th schedule specifically stipulates that a reduction or waiver of a loan/debt will attract CGT. Therefore the above mentioned techniques of donating a portion, and subsequently bequeathing the outstanding loan amount to a trust suddenly became the target of SARS' close scrutiny from a CGT perspective. Hence, it was no surprise that the first High Court decision on CGT had recently been delivered in this regard. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate and scrutinise, not only the decision in the abovementioned court case, but also the various opinions and arguments raised on this topic. The submission is that the findings and conclusions of such an investigation should enable those involved in estate planning and the preparation of wills to be wary of the CGT risks attached to the abovementioned techniques and to avoid the pitfalls. Certain recommendations and conclusions to achieve the same estate planning result, are proposed in this dissertation. Certain suggestions were also made with regards to the wording of provisions to be included in a will in order to bequeath a loan or debt to a trust without the risk of attracting unforeseen CGT. / Thesis (LL.M. (Estate Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.