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BACKGROUND: Descending kerbs during locomotion involves the regulation of appropriate foot placement before the kerb-edge and foot clearance over it. It also involves the modulation of gait output to ensure the body-mass is safely and smoothly lowered to the new level. Previous research has shown that vision is used in such adaptive gait tasks for feedforward planning, with vision from the lower visual field (lvf) used for online updating. The present study determined when lvf information is used to control/update locomotion when stepping from a kerb. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: 12 young adults stepped down a kerb during ongoing gait. Force sensitive resistors (attached to participants' feet) interfaced with an high-speed PDLC 'smart glass' sheet, allowed the lvf to be unpredictably occluded at either heel-contact of the penultimate or final step before the kerb-edge up to contact with the lower level. Analysis focussed on determining changes in foot placement distance before the kerb-edge, clearance over it, and in kinematic measures of the step down. Lvf occlusion from the instant of final step contact had no significant effect on any dependant variable (p>0.09). Occlusion of the lvf from the instant of penultimate step contact had a significant effect on foot clearance and on several kinematic measures, with findings consistent with participants becoming uncertain regarding relative horizontal location of the kerb-edge. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings suggest concurrent feedback of the lower limb, kerb-edge, and/or floor area immediately in front/below the kerb is not used when stepping from a kerb during ongoing gait. Instead heel-clearance and pre-landing-kinematic parameters are determined/planned using lvf information acquired in the penultimate step during the approach to the kerb-edge, with information related to foot placement before the kerb-edge being the most salient.

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Yes / Background: Our motor actions normally generate sensory events, but how do we know which events were self generated and which have external causes? Here we use temporal adaptation to investigate the processing stage and generality of our sensorimotor timing estimates. Methodology/Principal Findings: Adaptation to artificially-induced delays between action and event can produce a startling percept¿upon removal of the delay it feels as if the sensory event precedes its causative action. This temporal recalibration of action and event occurs in a quantitatively similar manner across the sensory modalities. Critically, it is robust to the replacement of one sense during the adaptation phase with another sense during the test judgment. Conclusions/Significance: Our findings suggest a high-level, supramodal recalibration mechanism. The effects are well described by a simple model which attempts to preserve the expected synchrony between action and event, but only when causality indicates it is reasonable to do so. We further demonstrate that this model successfully characterises related adaptation data from outside the sensorimotor domain.

Teaching-only academics now constitute a significant proportion of the academic staff in UK higher education. This thesis is a three-part study in which I sought to contribute to a more indepth understanding of the teaching-only academic role. I did this through an investigation of the career trajectories, perceptions, work-related experiences and academic identity constructions of teaching-only academics working in a research-intensive institution in the UK. In the first part of the study I carried out a systematic review of the literature on teaching-only academics in the UK, Australia and Canada. In the second part of the study I investigated the virtual identity of teaching-only academics at the UK research-intensive institution. I did this by undertaking an analysis of how these teaching-only academics self-represented and projected themselves on their institutional webpages. In the third part of the study I carried out a life-history analysis of senior teaching-only academics in the engineering faculty of the case study institution. A principal finding from this thesis, which is collaborated across all the three parts of the study, is that the teaching-only academic role is a non-homogeneous role comprising individuals who come from different backgrounds, have followed different career trajectories into the role, and have different academic identities. Findings from this thesis also suggest that whilst teaching-only academics were introduced as an institutional response to the demands of the RAE/REF, the very act of creating the role has further exacerbated the separation between research and teaching, and between undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. Specifically, undergraduate teaching within the case study engineering department now tends to be the responsibility of teaching-only academics, with research-and-teaching academics increasingly focussing on research and postgraduate teaching. This separation has implications for research-led teaching, particularly in research-intensive institutions. The thesis also reveals that despite the pre-eminence of research, teaching remains important within the university, and individuals on the teaching-only academic role are able to accumulate substantial, and valued, teaching-related academic capital. This capital, in turn, is enabling them to secure and advance their positions within the same institution, and to pursue career advancement through seeking employment in other higher education institutions.

I januari 2010 fastställde Regeringsrätten i RÅ 2010 ref. 11 fem förhandsbesked från Skatterättsnämnden rörande tolkningen av bestämmelsen i 57 kap. 4 § 1st 1 p. IL som avgör när aktier i ett fåmansföretag är kvalificerade så att särskild beskattning ska ske av utdelningar och kapitalvinster. Med hjälp av bestämmelsens ordalydelse och det syf-te regeln hade när den ursprungligen infördes gjorde Regeringsrätten bedömningen att såväl överlåtande som övertagande företag kan drabbas av att aktierna blir kvalificerade på grund av att samma eller likartad verksamhet bedrivs. Denna tolkning går emot de tolkningsrekommendationer och det syfte som uttalades i det förarbete som låg till grund för den ändring av regeln som genomfördes 1995. Trots detta har samtliga avgöranden i RÅ 2010 ref. 11 funnits vara förenliga med de rättssäkerhetskrav som kan ställas när medveten och frivillig skatteplanering genom-förts. Regeringsrätten har dessutom, i den utsträckning det varit möjligt, genom sin tolkning säkerställt att bestämmelsen i 57 kap. 4 § 1st 1p IL fått ett effektivt tillämp-ningsområde. Att Regeringsrätten tolkar bestämmelsen med utgångspunkt i ordalydelsen och tillmäter regelns allmänna syfte avgörande värde innebär att domstolen fortsätter med den meto-dologiska praxis som påbörjades på 1990-talet. Även om uppsatsen endast bygger på ett rättsfall så kan denna kontinuitet sägas innebära att det bör finnas goda möjligheter att förutse enligt vilka riktlinjer Regeringsrätten kommer att tolka skattelag i framtiden när det är fråga om skatteplanering. Slutligen påpekas att tolkning av detaljerade uttalanden i förarbeten bör ske med försiktighet när det finns risk för att dessa inte stämmer över-ens med den aktuella regelns bakomliggande syfte.

On the 26th of January 2010, the Supreme Administrative Court in Sweden gave five rulings which greatly affect the possibility to keep a close company within a family by transferring the ownership of the company to the next generation. The five rulings concern the interpretation of the prerequisite, same or similar activity, which can be found in section 57, clause 4 of the Swedish Income Tax Act.     The prerequisite is fulfilled when an entire or parts of a business is transferred to another close company and the receiving company’s business activity is within the framework of the transferring company’s business activity or when the companies have a similar connection. Depending on which shares that are being evaluated, the prerequisite can refer to both the shares in the receiving or the transferring company. When the prerequisite is fulfilled, a standardized amount of the business income will be taxed as capital gains and the surplus will be taxed as earned income. This tax treatment will continue as long as the original shareholder or a family member is active in either of the companies.  The present interpretation of the prerequisite results in problems when shareholders want to transfer ownership of the company to the next generation and at the same time place some of the business income in a passive asset management company. The current interpretation of the prerequisite shows that the shares in the asset management company are affected and will continue to be affected by the previous business activity, when it is controlled by the next generation. Therefore, the special tax treatment will continue to affect the original shareholder.   The current interpretation of the prerequisite results in a more favorable tax treatment when the original shareholder sells the company to a third party instead of transferring ownership to the next generation.

Kvalificerade aktier i fåmansföretag skall enligt bestämmelserna i 57 kapitlet IL beskattas i både inkomstslaget kapital och tjänst. Genom att genomföra en upprepad intern aktieöverlåtelse kan en företagsägare avkvalificera sina aktier och beskattas enligt reglerna om kapital. I RÅ 2009 ref. 31 anses att ett förfarande med upprepade interna aktieöverlåtelser utgör skatteflykt vilket väcker frågan om när ett generationsskifte av ett fåmansföretag genom upprepad intern aktieöverlåtelse anses vara skatteflykt. Generalklausulen i skatteflyktslagen består av fyra rekvisit. Samtliga rekvisit måste vara uppfyllda för att lagen skall vara tillämplig. Den avgörande faktorn i bedömningen av när ett förfarande med upprepade interna aktieöverlåtelser vid generationsskiften av fåmansföretag anses vara skatteflykt är om aktierna är kvalificerade efter förfarandet eller inte. Om aktierna blir kvalificerade trots att generationsskiftet genomförts med upprepade interna aktieöverlåtelser är skatteflyktslagens första rekvisit inte tillämpligt och eftersom det krävs att samtliga fyra rekvisit är uppfyllda för att lagen skall bli tillämplig utgör förfarandet inte skatteflykt. Om aktierna däremot inte blir kvalificerade har företagsägaren uppnått en skatteförmån som gör att skatteflyktslagens första rekvisit är uppfyllt och skatteflyktslagen kan bli tillämplig. Skatteflyktslagen är således tillämplig i de fall där företagsägaren genomfört ett generationsskifte genom upprepade interna aktieöverlåtelser och andelarna inte längre är kvalificerade. Vidare krävs det att företagsägaren medverkat i rättshandlingarna, direkt eller indirekt, att företagsägaren haft för avsikt att erhålla en skatteförmån och att en beskattning på grundval av förfarandet strider mot de särskilda beskattningsreglerna i 57 kapitlet IL. / Qualified stock options in a company with limited owners shall, according to regulations in the 57th chapter in the Swedish Income tax act, be subject for taxation both as income for performing service and as capital. By repeatedly performing an internal stock handover, a company-owner can un-qualify his stocks. With unqualified stock options, he will only have to pay tax for income as capital, not for services. In RÅ 2009 ref. 31, the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court have decided that repeated reiterated internal stock transfers will be considered as tax evasion. This leads to the question of when a generation swift trough reiterated internal stock transfers will be considered tax evasion. In the general clause of tax evasion there are four prerequisite to be fulfilled. All of these have to be fulfilled in order to judge the case as tax evasion. The determining factor in this judgment is whether the stock options are qualified or not. If the stock options through the internal transfer become qualified, even though the transfer has been made by reiterated handovers, the first prerequisite is not fulfilled and therefore the case cannot be judge as tax evasion. It is considered as tax evasion in cases where the company has made a generation swift by repeatedly internal handovers of stock options, and the stock options are no longer qualified. It is important that the company owner has been involved, directly or indirectly, in the handover of the stock options, the owner must also have a purpose to get lower taxation, that the taxation was lower because of the above actions and finally that the actions are in conflict with the legislation for it to be considered as tax evasion.