3,825,555 research outputs found
Practical issues relating to the taxation of Real Estate Investment Trusts ("REITs") in South Africa.
No full textIncludes bibliographical references.In this dissertation, the author focuses on the practical tax issues relating to the recently adopted South African Real Estate Investment Trust tax dispensation, by discussing international principles of Real Estate Investment Trust taxation and two foreign regimes, i.e. the US and UK Real Estate Investment Trust regimes which, it is understood, were used as a basis for the South African legislation. In addition, the dissertation discusses the details of the South African property investment vehicles regime pre- 1 April 2013, and the new Real Estate Investment Trust tax regime applicable from 1 April 2013. Furthermore, it looks at suggestions and possible improvement to the taxation of Real Estate Investment Trusts in South Africa and whether the proposed amendments released by National Treasury, on 4 July 2013, satisfactorily address the issues raised in this dissertation
Soundings: the Newsletter of the Monterey Bay Chapter of the American Cetacean Society. 2013
No full textIssues January - November/December 2013. (PDF contains 96 pages
Who is to teach “these guys” to “shoot less?”
No full textSpecial Edition issue - Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Sub-Saharan AfricaWhile conducting research on counter-terrorism (CT) systems of the Central and Eastern European Member States of the European Union, a unique perspective on the European involvement in countering terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa was offered to the author by a Czech defence ministry official. In his view, the fact that his country made a decision to contribute “boots on the ground” to the European Union Training Mission in Mali (EUTM Mali) was astonishing, to say the least: “Things like Mali, you sometimes wonder how these thing happen, even if you are part of them (Havranek 2013).” Thus a decision to participate in this latest CT motivated (building a Malian military capable of taking on the jihadists of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM) EU venture in Africa seems not to have been preceded by a careful analysis and weighting of the options on behalf of his country. In fact, it seemed like a knee jerk reaction to a call for troops from France and subsequently from Brussels. In the end, we might even speculate if, in this very case, the Czech Republic duly settled on a number of troops to be sent to Mali (very low – in dozens) and comfortably ticked off the box on its involvement in yet another Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) military mission in Africa, and its contribution to external aspects of combating terrorism on EU level.Publisher PD
Non-admitted patient care 2013–14: Australian hospital statistics
No full textIn 2013–14, about 46 million occasions of service were provided for non-admitted patients by 558 public hospitals.
Summary
Non-admitted patient care includes emergency occasions of service for non-admitted patients, outpatient care (including specialist clinics) and other non-admitted patient care (such as the dispensing of medication, provision of diagnostic procedures, district nursing and community health services).
How much non-admitted patient activity was reported?
In 2013-14, about 46 million non-admitted patient occasions of service were reported by 558 public hospitals. They included more than 6 million emergency occasions of service, almost 18 million occasions of service for outpatient care and 22 million occasions of service for other non-admitted patient care.
Emergency services
Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, the number of emergency occasions of service increased by an average of 2.6% each year (after adjusting for the missing data for Victoria). The Australian Capital Territory reported the highest average annual increase of 4.2%.
Public acute group A hospitals and Principal referral and women\u27s and children\u27s hospitals accounted for more than half of all emergency occasions of service reported (31% and 28%, respectively).
Outpatient care services
Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, the number of occasions of service for outpatient care increased by 2.5% on average each year (after adjusting for the missing data for Victoria).
In 2013-14, summary clinic-level information on outpatient care was provided for almost 26 million service events by 357 public hospitals. Detailed episode-level data were available for more than 10 million (39%) of these service events.
In 2013-14, about 42% of outpatient care service events (clinic-level) were for Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist interventions and 34% were for Medical consultations.
The most common outpatient care service for Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist interventions was Midwifery and maternity (1.7 million service events) and the most common Medical consultation was for Orthopaedics (960,000 service events).
In 2013-14, about 56% of outpatient care service events (at the episode-level) were for females and 30% of service events were for people aged 65 and over.
About 4% of outpatient care service events were for Indigenous Australians.
People living in Major cities accounted for about 70% of outpatient care service events.
Other non-admitted patient services
Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, the number of occasions of service for other non-admitted patient care increased by 3.2% on average each year (after adjusting for the missing data for Victoria).
In 2013-14, about 37% of individual occasions of service reported for other non-admitted patient care were for Pathology, 22% were for Pharmacy and 16% were for Community health services
State of Australian cities 2013
No full textThe world continues to urbanise. In 2008, for the first time in history more than half of the world\u27s population lived in cities. By 2030, it is estimated that five billion people—80 per cent of humanity—will be urbanised.
For highly urbanised countries, a wrong step in urban policy can have national implications, especially when around 40 per cent of the national population live in just two cities (as is the case for Australia). Aside from city states like Singapore and Monaco, Australia is the most urbanised nation on earth. More than three in four of Australians live in the 18 cities of 100,000 people or more. Few other countries have as much need to understand how their cities work as Australia.
State of Australian Cities 2013 was launched by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, on 30 July 2013. The report brings together current research, including newly released data from the 2011 Census, to present a comprehensive snapshot of Australian cities.
It is the fourth in a series of annual Australian Government publications reporting on the progress of Australia\u27s major cities towards the goals and objectives of the National Urban Policy. The previous three editions of State of Australian Cities have together been downloaded more than 3 million times.
State of Australian Cities 2013 details changes in urban population and settlement and examines indicators relating to productivity, sustainability and liveability. It concludes with a discussion of governance in Australia\u27s 18 major cities and an evaluation of progress in implementing the National Urban Policy.
In 2013, for the first time, the spatial focus of State of Australian Cities 2013 is significantly enhanced through the addition of a large number of interactive maps of the major cites. Around 1,000 maps are available in two versions: a medium resolution PDF version and a high resolution interactive version
Innovate and prosper: ensuring Australia's future competitiveness through university-industry collaboration
No full textExecutive summary
The continuation of Australia’s economic growth is under threat. In order to sustain the levels of prosperity we have previously experienced, we have to build on our competitive edge in key industries to remain globally competitive. Alongside these developments, Australia’s higher education system is under increased pressure to become more productive and develop courses that address employability. Innovation represents the most reliable and sustainable solution to transition into a high value, high wage economy. Yet Australia ranks 29th out of 30 in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in terms of the proportion of large businesses and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) collaborating with higher education and public research institutions on innovation.
This report acts as the next level of detail to publications such as the Department of Industry’s Boosting the Commercial Returns from Research report and the Business Council of Australia’s Building Australia’s Comparative Advantages, which have highlighted Australia’s poor performance in collaborative innovation.
We present five recommendations that are a call to action to universities, industry and Government to take the necessary steps to build an innovation economy. They are not a call for additional funding from Government, rather a more effective way of using our existing resources. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have engaged with leading figures from industry, including the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group), and partnered with the ATN to develop this five point action plan for Government, the university sector and industry 5 that will provide incentives and impetus for collaboration.
Our recommendations include:
Rebalance the national research agenda to underpin Australia\u27s economy and future prosperity
Create incentives for university-industry collaboration
Train researchers for diverse careers
Enhance career mobility between industry, academia and government
Provide incentives for co-investment in research infrastructure between universities, industry and state and federal government
Each recommendation contains a number of practical strategies for consideration by Government, universities and industry. The hope is that the report will encourage dialogue between the three groups and prompt bold policy changes in the coming 12 months and beyond.
 
Hospital resources 2013–14: Australian hospital statistics
No full textPresents a detailed overview of public and private hospital resources in Australia.
Numbers of hospitals
In 2013-14, there were approximately 1,359 hospitals in Australia. There were 747 public hospitals, which accounted for about 65% of hospital beds (58,600). In 2013-14, there were 612 private hospitals, which accounted for about 35% of beds (31,000).
How diverse were public hospitals?
In 2013-14, the 747 public hospitals were very diverse in size and type of services they provided. They ranged from Principal referral hospitals to Outpatient hospitals, Early parenting centres and Psychiatric hospitals. The 29 Principal referral hospitals accounted for almost 2 million separations or 35% of all public hospital separations in 2013-14. There were 42 Outpatient hospitals, all in regional and remote areas, which provided a range of non-admitted patient services.
What services were provided?
Public hospitals provide a range of services for admitted and non-admitted patients, including emergency services.
In 2013-14, the most common specialised services offered by public hospitals were domiciliary care, followed by nursing home care. There were 82 intensive care units (level III), and 30 neonatal intensive care units (level III).
The most common service related group in public hospitals was Renal dialysis with almost 1.1 million separations, followed by General Medicine (424,000). In the private sector, Diagnostic gastrointestinal and Orthopaedics were the most common service related groups.
How were hospitals funded?
Between 2008-09 and 2012-13, funding for public hospitals increased by 4.3% on average each year (after adjusting for inflation). Between 2008-09 and 2012-13, funding for private hospitals increased by 4.3% on average each year.
How much did hospitals spend?
Recurrent expenditure was more than 11 billion in 2013-14.
How much revenue did hospitals receive?
Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, public hospital revenue increased by an average of 10.6% per year (adjusted for inflation)-from 5.6 billion.
How many people were employed in public hospitals?
Nationally, public hospitals employed more than 287,000 full-time equivalent staff in 2013-14. More than 130,000 Nurses accounted for 45% of public hospital staff, while more than 37,000 Salaried medical officers represented about 13% of the public hospital labour force. Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, the average salary for public hospital staff increased by an average of 3.4% each year
Deaths of children and young people, Queensland 2013–14
No full textThe deaths of 446 children and young people were registered in 2013–14, representing a rate of 41.0 deaths per 100,000 population aged 0–17 years. Over the ten year period of data collection there has been a general reduction in the rates in the most recent years in comparison with the first half of the decade.
Report findings include:
· diseases and morbid conditions accounted for 76.9% of deaths (343 deaths), while deaths from external causes accounted for 73 deaths (16.4%)
· transport incidents were the leading external cause of child deaths overall with 31 deaths
· suicide was the second leading external cause of death overall with 23 deaths
· the number of drowning deaths for children aged under five years (3 deaths) was the lowest recorded since reporting began in 2004
· fatal assault and neglect accounted for the deaths of 4 children and young people, and
· the mortality rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children was around twice the mortality rate for non-Indigenous children.
The report, whilst prepared by the Queensland Family and Child Commission (QFCC), relates to research and activities conducted by the Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardian (CCYPCG) during the 2013–14 period.
The CCYPCG ceased operations on 30 June 2014 in line with recommendations made by the Queensland Child Protection Commission of Inquiry in its report Taking Responsibility: A Roadmap for Queensland Child Protection. The QFCC was established on 1 July 2014, and the child death register functions formerly held by the CCYPCG became the responsibility of the QFCC with its establishment.
 
Overview of the Author Profiling Task at PAN 2013
No full text[EN] This overview presents the framework and results for the Author Profiling
task at PAN 2013. We describe in detail the corpus and its characteristics,
and the evaluation framework we used to measure the participants performance to
solve the problem of identifying age and gender from anonymous texts. Finally,
the approaches of the 21 participants and their results are described.The author profiling task @PAN-2013 was an activity of the WIQ-EI IRSES project (Grant No. 269180) within the FP 7 Marie Curie People Framework of the European Commission. We want to thank the Forensic Lab of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona for sponsoring the award for the winner team. The work of the first author was partially funded by Autoritas Consulting SA and by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España under grant ECOPORTUNITY IPT-2012-1220-430000. The work of the second author was in the framework the DIANA-APPLICATIONS-Finding Hidden Knowledge in Texts: Applications (TIN2012-38603-C02-01) project, and the VLC/CAMPUS Microcluster on Multimodal Interaction in Intelligent Systems. The work of fifth author was funded in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) project "Mining Conversational Content for Topic Modelling and Author Identification (ChatMiner)" under grant number 200021_130208.Rangel, F.; Rosso, P.; Koppel, M.; Stamatatos, E.; Inches, G. (2013). Overview of the Author Profiling Task at PAN 2013. CLEF Conference on Multilingual and Multimodal Information Access Evaluation. 352-365. https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/46636S35236
Specialist homelessness services 2013–14
No full textSummary
This report is the third annual report on the clients of specialist homelessness services across Australia. In that time, specialist homelessness services agencies have supported more than half a million Australians who have been homeless or at imminent risk of losing their housing. This report focusses on the clients of those agencies in 2013–14 and examines key changes that have occurred over the last three years.
In 2013–14 an estimated 254,000 Australians accessed specialist homelessness services—an increase of 4% from 2012–13.
The numbers of clients increased in all states and territories except for New South Wales, and ACT, which recorded slight decreases. Victoria accounted for 76% of the national increase in clients.
There was an increase in the proportion of males who were at risk of homelessness when they first sought support.
The proportion of male clients who were at risk of homelessness when presenting increased from 43% of male clients in 2012–13 to 48% in 2013–14.
More clients sought support for assistance to maintain their housing tenure
32% of clients in 2013–14 were identified as needing assistance to sustain tenancy or prevent tenancy failure or eviction, up from 28% in 2011–12.
The proportion of clients who identified housing affordability related issues (financial difficulties, rents too high or housing crisis) as the main reason for seeking support remained steady at 36% in 2013–14.
The number of people seeking help for domestic and family violence increased
An estimated 84,774 adults and children (33% of all clients) sought assistance as a result of experiencing family or domestic violence. This was an increase of 9% from 2012–13, including an increase of 14% in the number of children experiencing family or domestic violence.
An estimated 26,655 clients had a long term health condition or disability that restricted their everyday activities
New data collected in 2013–14 also revealed that 38% of these clients had a disability or long term health condition and needed assistance with self-care, mobility or communication
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