Evidence from Tax-Exempt Firms on Motives for Participating in Sale-Leaseback Agreements

Previous research finds evidence that tax factors motivate the participants in leasing transactions. Tax-arbitrage arguments predict that leasing participants gain when the lessor’s tax rate exceeds that of the lessee. The research employs a sample of effectively tax-exempt REIT lessors to explore alternative leasing motives. Changes in REIT qualification rules are examined to develop an Agency-Cost, and competing Income-Retention Hypothesis for lessors. The rules and changes suggest that REIT management has the incentive, motive and opportunity to make real-estate investments quickly. The evidence developed is consistent with agency-costs arising from the possibility that they may overpay for properties.

The Preparation Of Educators To Implement An SEL Curriculum

Professional development and training for adults in a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum are essential to the successful implementation of SEL for students. The purpose of my study was to determine the perceptions of teachers\u27 professional development for implementation of a social emotional learning curriculum. The context of this study was a small independent school as well as schools throughout the US. The findings of my study indicated that educators in both contexts wanted training prior to student implementation, preferred training with peers, and wanted to only implement one schoolwide initiative per year. I recommended that leaders at all schools provide an SEL curriculum with educators receiving a year of training prior to the implementation

Stereotypes of Arab and Arab-Americans Presented in Hollywood Movies Released during 1994 to 2000.

Stereotypes routinely appear within Hollywood films. This study focuses on films released from 1994-2000 that feature Arab/Arab-American characters. A literature analysis reviewed the use of stereotypes in other portrayals of Arab/Arab-American characters. A qualitative analysis of six movies examined specific characteristics that were displayed by Arab/Arab-American characters. These characteristics included speaking with an accent, traditional/native attire, acts of hostility and aggression, affiliation with terrorism, and whether they were depicted as victimizers or victims. These films were selected in order to demonstrate the frequent existence of negative portrayals in popular films prior to 9/11. A primary coder, the author, analyzed 108 scenes, while the secondary coder analyzed 10% of the total scenes as a reliability check. The findings suggest that negative images of Arabs/Arab-Americans appeared frequently in the popular films within this study. The conclusions suggest that stereotypes are evident in films and are detrimental to Arab/Arab-American races and cultures

Changing seasons: examining three decades of women's writing in Greater Syria and Egypt

Throughout the last three decades, the Arab region has attracted the unwanted attention of the rest of the world because of its spiralling political upheaval. This unrest has caused migration, economic and cultural changes, and eventually a spring of revolutions and protests in demand of reform. Arab countries are now in the spotlight of global current affairs, and all the imperfections regarding their cultural, social, and gender inequalities have surfaced to the foreground. Arab women novelists have been addressing feminist issues for centuries, chipping away at the stereotypical image of the meek and voiceless Arab woman that comes hand in hand with Orientalism. Through their fiction, writers such as Nawal El Saadawi, Hanan Al- Shaykh and Fadia Faqir have promulgated a bold brand of Arab feminist thought. This interdisciplinary thesis explores the Greater Syrian and Egyptian woman's novel written between 1975 and 2007. Through the in-depth analysis of Arab women's novels available in English, I attempt to uncover the many reasons behind today's gender inequality in Greater Syria and Egypt. By examining contemporary Arabic narrative styles and cultivating traditional Arab story-telling methods, the creative element of this thesis uses fiction to expose social and political injustice. The novel within this thesis challenges different forms of patriarchy that are dominant in the region, and endeavours to document a historical, on-going revolution

Terahertz Induced Protein Interactions in a Random Medium

Folding of proteins into their correct native structure is key to their function. Simultaneously, the intricate interplay between cell movement and protein conformation highlights the complex nature of cellular processes. In this work, we demonstrate the impact of Terahertz (THz) signaling on controlling protein conformational changes in a random medium. Our system of interest consists of a communication link that involves a nanoantenna transmitter, a protein receiver, and a channel composed of moving red blood cells. Due to the system dynamics, we investigate the influence of both the fast and slow channel variations on protein folding. Specifically, we analyze the system's selectivity to asses the effectiveness of the induced THz interaction in targeting a specific group of proteins under fading conditions. By optimizing the selectivity metric with respect to the nanoantenna power and frequency, it is possible to enhance the controllability of protein interactions. Our probabilistic analysis provides a new perspective regarding electromagnetically triggered protein molecules, their microenvironment and their interaction with surrounding particles. It helps elucidate how external conditions impact the protein folding kinetics and pathways. This results in not only understanding the mechanisms underlying THz-induced protein interactions but also engineering these still-emerging tools.Comment: Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological and Multi-Scale Communication