Tax avoidance has been a concern to revenue authorities throughout the ages, and revenue authorities worldwide are engaged in a constant struggle to ensure taxpayer compliance while combating tax avoidance. South Africa is no exception to this struggle and the increasingly innovative ways in which taxpayers seek to minimise their tax burdens necessitate amendments in order to remain at the forefront of taxpayer compliance. In view of the above, the general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR) have been amended numerous times to address weaknesses. The most recent of these amendments are those of 1996 and 2006. The research on GAAR in South Africa has focused on critical analyses once the legislation fails to stand up to the rigours of court, and has thus used the principle of hindsight to criticise GAAR and recommend improvements. However, in their current form (post-2006 amendments) the GAAR have not been presented before the courts, and thus the use of hindsight is not an appropriate tool to determine if the current GAAR regime has improved upon the weaknesses identified in the past. This study applied a qualitative case study approach to determine if the 2006 amendments to GAAR have in fact addressed these weaknesses. The current GAAR regime was applied to previous cases to determine if the unfavourable judgments for the Commissioner would now be considered favourable. In executing this process, an instrument was developed in phase 1 of the literature study to apply the new GAAR to the cases. In the second phase of the study this framework was applied to case law in which the previous GAAR regimes failed to stand up to the rigours of court, thus determining whether the 2006 amendments to GAAR addressed the weaknesses of the previous GAAR regime. The final phase of the study consisted of a literature control to determine if similar such conclusions have been made by other commentators to support the findings of the study. The findings of the case studies revealed that, on a balance of probabilities, none of the cases selected for analysis would have been held in favour of the Commissioner if they were brought to the courts today on the same grounds that they were attacked at the time and the courts used the instrument developed in phase 1 to apply the GAAR to these transactions. The study therefore indicates that the use of similar (often identical) wording of the purpose test as in the previous GAAR, as well as the use of the purpose test in conjunction with the amended abnormality test still result in a GAAR regime that may be an ineffective deterrent to tax avoidance. / Thesis (M.Com. (South African and International Taxation))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

This present study compares the effect on intraperitoneal injections of the following drugs on a conditioned approach-avoidance response in mice. These drugs were epinephrine and Normotensin, an epinephrine neutralizing hormone.

Cheung, Lap Chi. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-95). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1. --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.1. --- Introduction to Intelligent Vehicle --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.2. --- Typical Vehicle Tracking Systems for Rear-end Collision Avoidance --- p.2 / Chapter 1.1.3. --- Passive VS Active Vehicle Tracking --- p.3 / Chapter 1.1.4. --- Vision-based Vehicle Tracking Systems --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1.5. --- Characteristics of Computing Devices on Vehicles --- p.5 / Chapter 1.2. --- Motivation and Objectives --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3. --- Major Contributions --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3.1. --- A 3-phase Vision-based Vehicle Tracking Framework --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3.2. --- Camera-to-vehicle Distance Measurement by Single Camera --- p.9 / Chapter 1.3.3. --- Real Time Vehicle Detection --- p.10 / Chapter 1.3.4. --- Real Time Vehicle Tracking using Simplified Image Alignment --- p.10 / Chapter 1.4. --- Evaluation Platform --- p.11 / Chapter 1.5. --- Thesis Organization --- p.11 / Chapter 2. --- RELATED WORK --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1. --- Stereo-based Vehicle Tracking --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2. --- Motion-based Vehicle Tracking --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3. --- Knowledge-based Vehicle Tracking --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4. --- Commercial Systems --- p.19 / Chapter 3. --- 3-PHASE VISION-BASED VEHICLE TRACKING FRAMEWORK --- p.22 / Chapter 3.1. --- Introduction to the 3-phase Framework --- p.22 / Chapter 3.2. --- Vehicle Detection --- p.23 / Chapter 3.2.1. --- Overview of Vehicle Detection --- p.23 / Chapter 3.2.2. --- Locating the Vehicle Center - Symmetrical Measurement --- p.25 / Chapter 3.2.3. --- Locating the Vehicle Roof and Bottom --- p.28 / Chapter 3.2.4. --- Locating the Vehicle Sides - Over-complete Haar Transform --- p.30 / Chapter 3.3. --- Vehicle Template Tracking Image Alignment --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3.5. --- Overview of Vehicle Template Tracking --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3.6. --- Goal of Image Alignment --- p.41 / Chapter 3.3.7. --- Alternative Image Alignment - Compositional Image Alignment --- p.42 / Chapter 3.3.8. --- Efficient Image Alignment - Inverse Compositional Algorithm --- p.43 / Chapter 3.4. --- Vehicle Template Update --- p.46 / Chapter 3.4.1. --- Situation of Vehicle lost --- p.46 / Chapter 3.4.2. --- Template Filling by Updating the positions of Vehicle Features --- p.48 / Chapter 3.5. --- Experiments and Discussions --- p.49 / Chapter 3.5. 1. --- Experiment Setup --- p.49 / Chapter 3.5.2. --- Successful Tracking Percentage --- p.50 / Chapter 3.6. --- Comparing with other tracking methodologies --- p.52 / Chapter 3.6.1. --- 1-phase Vision-based Vehicle Tracking --- p.52 / Chapter 3.6.2. --- Image Correlation --- p.54 / Chapter 3.6.3. --- Continuously Adaptive Mean Shift --- p.58 / Chapter 4. --- CAMERA TO-VEHICLE DISTANCE MEASUREMENT BY SINGLE CAMERA --- p.61 / Chapter 4.1 --- The Principle of Law of Perspective --- p.61 / Chapter 4.2. --- Distance Measurement by Single Camera --- p.62 / Chapter 5. --- REAL TIME VEHICLE DETECTION --- p.66 / Chapter 5.1. --- Introduction --- p.66 / Chapter 5.2. --- Timing Analysis of Vehicle Detection --- p.66 / Chapter 5.3. --- Symmetrical Measurement Optimization --- p.67 / Chapter 5.3.1. --- Diminished Gradient Image for Symmetrical Measurement --- p.67 / Chapter 5.3.2. --- Replacing Division by Multiplication Operations --- p.71 / Chapter 5.4. --- Over-complete Haar Transform Optimization --- p.73 / Chapter 5.4.1. --- Characteristics of Over-complete Haar Transform --- p.75 / Chapter 5.4.2. --- Pre-compntation of Haar block --- p.74 / Chapter 5.5. --- Summary --- p.77 / Chapter 6. --- REAL TIME VEHICLE TRACKING USING SIMPLIFIED IMAGE ALIGNMENT --- p.78 / Chapter 6.1. --- Introduction --- p.78 / Chapter 6.2. --- Timing Analysis of Original Image Alignment --- p.78 / Chapter 6.3. --- Simplified Image Alignment --- p.80 / Chapter 6.3.1. --- Reducing the Number of Parameters in Affine Transformation --- p.80 / Chapter 6.3.2. --- Size Reduction of Image A ligmnent Matrixes --- p.85 / Chapter 6.4. --- Experiments and Discussions --- p.85 / Chapter 6.4.1. --- Successful Tracking Percentage --- p.86 / Chapter 6.4.2. --- Timing Improvement --- p.87 / Chapter 7. --- CONCLUSIONS --- p.89 / Chapter 8. --- BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.91

Cette thèse de doctorat s’inscrit dans le cadre des activités de recherche sur les systèmes de lancement aéroporté autonome. L’originalité du travail est basée sur la planification de mission effectuée par un algorithme de type A*(A-étoile). Cet algorithme a été amélioré pour répondre aux besoins de la mission de largage d’un lanceur. Il effectue la planification du chemin le plus court dans un espace tridimensionnel. Le meilleur chemin est choisi à partir de plusieurs points de passage générés dans la région de mission. Une région peut être une phase du vol ou une partie du profil de vol. Le chemin le plus court est identifié par rapport à la présence de différents obstacles dans l’espace de recherche et son objectif consiste à atteindre un point désiré. Les obstacles ont différentes dimensions et orientations dans l’espace. L’étude de leur comportement est associée aux incertitudes en provenance de l’environnement. Ils peuvent représenter des régions interdites au vol ou des conditions atmosphériques défavorables. L’évolution de ces derniers n’est pas prévisible à l’avance, ce qui impose l’addition d’une fonctionnalité dans l’algorithme. Il est possible de replanifier le chemin à partir d’un point de passage appartenant à un chemin généré en fonction de la position détectée récemment de l’obstacle en déplacement pour arriver dans la configuration finale désirée. Cette détection est possible grâce aux capteurs positionnés sur le premier étage de ce système de lancement représenté par un avion-porteur. Les points de passage que le véhicule aérien doit suivre pour atteindre les objectifs importants ne sont pas choisis d’une manière aléatoire. Leur génération dans l’espace de recherche du chemin est définie en rapport aux limitations dynamiques de l’avion. Les modèles cinématique et dynamique du véhicule aérien qui décrivent son évolution sont aussi développés dans cette thèse. Ces modèles sont étudiés dans un système de coordonnées aérodynamiques. Le référentiel traite la présence du vent qui influe sur le comportement du véhicule. Cela nous permet de considérer d’une manière prédictive plusieurs incertitudes en provenance de l’environnement ou internes pour le véhicule. Les perturbations internes sont provoquées par le largage du lanceur. Le régime transitoire est relié à la perte de masse qui pour certaines missions peut atteindre le tiers de la masse totale du système de lancement. L’algorithme de planification traite une autre prévision – la possibilité que le largage ne soit pas réalisé. Cela peut arriver dans le cas où une tempête s’est installée dans la région de lancement ou il y a plusieurs obstacles dont l’évitement risque de consommer trop de carburant et d’empêcher le retour sur le site d’atterrissage. Les connexions entre les différents points de passage peuvent être souvent brutes et difficiles à réaliser par le véhicule aérien. Pour résoudre cette problématique dans le deuxième module développé sur la génération de trajectoire réalisable, nous utilisons l’approche des polynômes de troisième ordre. Ces polynômes par rapport aux autres techniques diminuent le temps du calcul pour générer une trajectoire réalisable entre deux points de passage consécutifs. Le chemin réalisable est facile à suivre par le système. Pour le suivi de la trajectoire, nous avons introduit dans un troisième module – la commande par mode glissant. Le principe de cette commande consiste le choix de la surface de commutation entre la trajectoire actuelle suivie par le véhicule et la trajectoire désirée déterminée par l’algorithme de planification A-étoile et générée par les polynômes cartésiens de troisième ordre. / This Ph.D. thesis deals with the systems of autonomous airborne launch vehicles. The originality of this work is based on the mission planning released by a graph-based A* (A-star) pathfinding algorithm. This algorithm was improved to respond to the specifications of this launching mission. It carries out the planning of the shortest path in a three-dimensional space. The optimal path is selected from the interconnections of several waypoints generated in the mission area. An area can be a specific mission phase or a part of the flight plan. The shortest path is identified according to the presence of various obstacles during the path search and its objective is to reach a desired point in the region. The obstacles have various dimensions and orientations in space. The study of their behavior is associated with disturbances coming from the environment. They could be forbidden flight regions or unfavorable atmospheric conditions. The evolution of the latter cannot be always predicted in advance, which still imposes an improvement that can be added in the operation of the algorithm. The path replanning is also possible. Starting from a safe waypoint from an already generated path according to a recently detected obstacle, a new path can be planned from this point considering the new obstacle coordinates to arrive at the desired final configuration. This detection will be taken into account by the sensors situated on the airborne launcher called a carrier to define the final necessary computing time. The waypoints which the airborne vehicle must follow to achieve the important mission goals are not selected in a random manner. Their generation in the search space is defined according to the dynamic limitations of the vehicle. The kinematic and dynamic models of the carrier are also developed in this thesis. These models are studied in an aerodynamic reference frame. This frame treats the presence of the wind which influences the vehicle evolution in space. That enables to consider in a predictive manner several uncertainties coming from the environment or internal for the vehicle. The internal disturbances are caused by the launching mode relied to a significant loss of mass which for certain missions can reach a half of the total mass of the launching system. The planning algorithm treats in a predictive manner – the possibility that the launching is not executed. That can happen if in the launching region a storm is settled or there are several obstacles that avoidance is likely to consume the fuel of the carrier and to prevent the successful return on the landing site. The interconnections between the various waypoints can be often rough and difficult to execute by the airborne launcher. To solve these problems a second module has to be developed to generate a feasible trajectory using the polynomials of third order.. Compared to other techniques this one decreases the calculation time of the trajectory between two consecutive waypoints. The feasible path is easy to follow by the airborne launcher. For the trajectory tracking we introduced into a third module the sliding mode control. The functionality of this control is in the choice of switching surfaces between the current trajectory tracking by the vehicle and the desired trajectory defined by the A* algorithm waypoints and generated by the third order polynomials.

Learning to escape aversive stimuli and effectively predicting the consequences of different cues provides animals with an increased chance of survival. Discriminative avoidance conditioning affords the opportunity to examine these specific behaviors. The present experiment investigated the influence of a visual signal on an auditory discriminative active avoidance conditioning task. Building on the work of Gabriel and colleagues (Freeman et al., 1997; Poremba and Gabriel, 1997, 1999), originally conducted in rabbits, an adaptation of the discriminative active avoidance paradigm was implemented using male rats. Animals were trained to avoid a signaled shock (US) by spinning a small wheel during an auditory cue, the positive conditioned stimulus (CS+). A second auditory cue signaled the absence of shock, the negative conditioned stimulus (CS-). A visual safety signal was added following a correct response to the CS+ (successful avoidance of the shock). Three groups were formed based on experience with the visual safety signal: animals that never had training with the visual signal, animals that had the visual signal added during their training, and animals that began training with the visual signal. Animals trained with the visual safety signal showed a decrease in the number of days need to learn the task and the percentage of animals that learned the task increased. These results suggest that a visual safety signal enhances learning during an auditory discriminative avoidance conditioning task. This task will be used to expand exploration of the active avoidance neural circuitry and investigate the circuitry underlying the visual safety signal.

No description available.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Obesity is emerging as the most significant health concern of the twenty-first century. A wealth of neuroimaging data suggest that weight gain might be related to aberrant brain function, particularly in prefrontal cortical regions modulating mesolimbic addictive responses to food. Nevertheless, food addiction is currently a model hotly debated. Here, we conduct a meta-analysis of neuroimaging data, examining the most common functional differences between normal-weight and obese participants in response to food stimuli. DATA SOURCE: We conducted a search using several journal databases and adhered to the 'Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses' (PRISMA) method. To this aim, 10 studies were found with a total of 126 obese participants, 129 healthy controls, equaling 184 foci (146 increased, 38 decreased activation) using the Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) technique. Out of the 10 studies, 7 investigated neural responses to food versus non-food images. RESULTS: In response to food images, obese in comparison to healthy weight subjects had increased activation in the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, right parahippocampal gyrus, right precentral gyrus and right anterior cingulate cortex, and reduced activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left insular cortex. CONCLUSIONS: Prefrontal cortex areas linked to cognitive evaluation processes, such as evaluation of rewarding stimuli, as well as explicit memory regions, appear most consistently activated in response to images of food in those who are obese. Conversely, a reduced activation in brain regions associated with cognitive control and interoceptive awareness of sensations in the body might indicate a weakened control system, combined with hypo-sensitivity to satiety and discomfort signals after eating in those who are prone to overeat.

Predators may play an important role in affecting the fitness of preys. Many organisms have thus evolved strategies to prevent predation. Recognition of predator presence may be achieved by vision, olfaction, tactile sense or detection of water motion. Some organisms sense predators directly; others associate the injuries of victims to the presence of predators. There are many brittlestars (Ophiocoma scolopendrina) at the intertidal zone of Kenting, southern Taiwan and they suffer high frequencies of injuries in the wilds. Since their predators are likely to be diverse, we want to know if O. scolopendrina has the ability to sense the presence of predators, indirectly. We have two hypotheses: firstly, the avoidance behavior is elicited specifically in response to predators, secondly, the avoidance behavior is a general response to unfamiliar elements in the water mass. Our experiments revealed that the tested individuals would avoid conspecific viscera liquids and also that of other echinoderms¡¦. They are more likely to respond to conspecific viscera liquids. And O. scolopendrina hardly respond to solutions prepared from other organisms, e.g., fish, pork, macroalgae, freshwater. This behavior may help brittlestars reduce the probability of encountering predators. The results are compatible with the first hypothesis only. The effect of tide was also explored by testing in different times, but the frequencies of avoidance responses were independent of the tide. Furthermore, the subtidal species Ophiocoma dentata was also tested for the behavior. They escaped from conspecific viscera liquid as well as that of O. scolopendrina. This species, however, could not distinguish the liquids from the two brittlestar species. In conclusion, the avoidance behaviors of the ophiocomid brittlestars are adaptations for avoiding predators, not for avoiding unfamiliar environments.

There are several plausible explanations for the initial evolution of aposematism and warning signals but, since these all have support in the form of experimental evidence, it is unlikely that there is one single, simple evolutionary pathway. I investigated the influence of predator psychology on the design of aposematic signals and concentrated on the effects of (innate) colour preferences, learning and memory, using two species of avian predators: ('naYve') domestic chicks (Gallus domesticus) and wild (and therefore experienced) great tits (Paros major). I found that young chicks had innate preferences for some specific colours that were. more saturated and from the long-wavelength part of the spectrum. Furthermore, these preferences were not based on an effect of contrast with the viewing background. However, I did not observe any colour preferences in the great tits, perhaps because they are naturally a generalist species. Domestic chicks trained with two rewarded colours generalise between them to strongly prefer an intermediate colour. I used this phenomenon to further investigate the learning and memorability of colours in chicks. I found an interesting effect, where there is a delay between an encounter with novel prey and when this experience affects behaviour, which could potentially affect avoidance learning. I additionally investigated the relationship between attractiveness and memorability of coloured signals and found that these are potentially distinct features of warning patterns. Finally, observed how great tits learnt and remembered some typically-aposematic colours and compared this to my findings from the chicks. The great tits not only failed to show any colour preferences, but red, yellow and neutral grey stimuli were also equally well learnt in a discrimination task and remembered. The great tits did not show the same generalisation to an intermediate colour as the chicks, but generalised their learning to the novel colour more strongly when the trained colours were unpalatable than when they were palatable

People everywhere strive for an ideal view of the self, but the conception of “ideal” differs importantly across cultures. In Western societies, the ideal self entails the possession of high self-esteem, whereas in East Asian cultures the ideal self entails maintenance of “face,” or successful performance of social roles and obligations. Within each cultural context, aspirations for an ideal self are facilitated by a network of psychological processes. One such psychological process is approach and avoidance motivations: approach motivation is useful for Westerners’ pursuit of high self-esteem whereas avoidance motivation is useful for East Asians’ concerns for face maintenance. Review of prior research renders support to this theorizing. Because approach and avoidance motivations are fundamental psychological processes, cross-cultural research on this topic is a great venue for investigating the ways in which culture shapes psychological processes. This dissertation examines the implication of cultural differences in approach and avoidance motivations in two domains. Studies 1 and 2 investigated the motivational consequences of a fit between culturally encouraged motivation and focus of self-regulation that a task at hand calls for. In comparisons of Canadians and Japanese, these studies found that individuals’ motivation for a task is enhanced when culturally encouraged motivation matched with focus of self-regulation required for the task. The second set of studies (Study 3 and 4) examined cognitive consequences of approach-avoidance motivation cultural difference. These studies found that a type of information that people are attuned to differs as a function of cultural differences in approach-avoidance motivations. Implications of the findings and future directions are discussed.