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  Corporate Tax Planning: Measurement, Incentives and Governance Effects

  Ozkan, Aydin; Pinto, Helena; Elshandidy, Tamer; Li, Jing; Khawar, Muhammad (University of BradfordFaculty of Management Law and Social Sciences, 2020)

  This research reviews the existing Tax Planning (TP) measures and explores the consistency of UK firms’ engagement in TP; evaluates incentives for TP and its value relevance in a signalling theory framework; and studies corporate governance effects on TP for the firms in an institutional theory framework. It analyses a unique set of 1,482 hand-collected firm-year observations and proposes ‘undisclosed TP’ as a new TP measure. It finds that firms consistently engage in TP and their TP disclosures have improved; internationally oriented firms do not engage in TP to save taxes; risky firms, firms with low operating cashflows and growing firms, however, do not engage in TP to arrange funds internally – so they signal their non-engagement in TP to the market. Further findings confirm public awareness and market valuation of firms’ TP engagements. Boards’ tax affiliations result in reductions in tax payments (expenses) for strongly (weakly) governed firms. Professional accountancy qualifications on the board result in significantly higher tax payments for weakly governed firms. The auditors’ provided tax services (institutional ownership) result in higher tax payments for weakly (strongly) governed firms suggesting supplementary (complementary) role of auditors (institutional ownership) for the internal governance on TP. This research concludes that there is a need for further TP disclosures to reduce the information asymmetry associated with negatively valued TP activities; recommends auditors’ involvement in TP services; and recommends tax affiliates on the board to bring tax savings in a strongly governed environment. The current study’s findings have important theoretical and practical implications.
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  New Media and Social Movements. How the Indigenous People of Biafra Movement Has Used the Internet to Mobilise for an Independent Biafran State

  Goodall, Mark D.; Reeve, Carlton; Nwofe, Emmanuel S. (University of BradfordFaculty of Engineering and Informatics. School of Media, Design and Technology, 2019)

  This study has examined the implications of the internet for the IPOB movement, focusing on the extent to which it has empowered the movement to engage in collective action mobilisation, enhance identity construction, framing and discourses for an independent Biafran state against multiple forms of state repressions. The thesis adopted a flexible approach that incorporated three level analysis including a macro-level analysis, which looked at the socio political and institutional environment; a meso-level, which examined the organisational infrastructure; and a micro-level exploring how the social movement made sense of their reality. The thesis addresses the debate between technology and society, and between the agency and political opportunity structures in Nigeria. It discussed the radical and agnostic democratic potential of the internet for African social movements and the dialectic between Biafra activism and the socio-political rootedness of Nigerian democracy. This approach allowed for providing analogies and new perspectives from the research and interpreting implications of human action. The thesis has found inconsistent, sometimes contradicting, data on the implication of internet technology for the IPOB movement. While there is some clear and robust evidence suggesting that new media technology has enhanced the movement's capabilities to organise, coordinate and mobilise for Biafran cause on many levels. The study reveals some severe limitations in the appropriation of internet technology in IPOB’s collective action objectives. The implication of the findings is discussed.
• Grothendieck bound in a single quantum system

  Vourdas, Apostolos (2022-11)

  Grothendieck's bound is used in the context of a single quantum system, in contrast to previous work which used it for multipartite entangled systems and the violation of Bell-like inequalities. Roughly speaking the Grothendieck theorem considers a 'classical' quadratic form ${\cal C}$ that uses complex numbers in the unit disc, and takes values less than 1. It then proves that if the complex numbers are replaced with vectors in the unit ball of the Hilbert space, then the 'quantum' quadratic form ${\cal Q}$ might take values greater than 1, up to the complex Grothendieck constant $k_\mathrm G$. The Grothendieck theorem is reformulated here in terms of arbitrary matrices (which are multiplied with appropriate normalisation prefactors), so that it is directly applicable to quantum quantities. The emphasis in the paper is in the 'Grothendieck region' $(1,k_\mathrm G)$, which is a classically forbidden region in the sense that ${\cal C}$ cannot take values in it. Necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for ${\cal Q}$ taking values in the Grothendieck region are given. Two examples that involve physical quantities in systems with six and 12-dimensional Hilbert space, are shown to lead to ${\cal Q}$ in the Grothendieck region $(1,k_\mathrm G)$. They involve projectors of the overlaps of novel generalised coherent states that resolve the identity and have a discrete isotropy.
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  Machine Learning for 3D Visualisation Using Generative Models

  Ugail, Hassan; Mehmoud, Irfan; Taif, Khasrouf M.M.; Yarmouk University (University of BradfordFaculty of Engineering and Informatics. School of Media, Design and Technology, 2020)

  One of the state-of-the-art highlights of deep learning in the past ten years is the introduction of generative adversarial networks (GANs), which had achieved great success in their ability to generate images comparable to real photos with minimum human intervention. These networks can generalise to a multitude of desired outputs, especially in image-to-image problems and image syntheses. This thesis proposes a computer graphics pipeline for 3D rendering by utilising generative adversarial networks (GANs). This thesis is motivated by regression models and convolutional neural networks (ConvNets) such as U-Net architectures, which can be directed to generate realistic global illumination effects, by using a semi-supervised GANs model (Pix2pix) that is comprised of PatchGAN and conditional GAN which is then accompanied by a U-Net structure. Pix2pix had been chosen for this thesis for its ability for training as well as the quality of the output images. It is also different from other forms of GANs by utilising colour labels, which enables further control and consistency of the geometries that comprises the output image. The series of experiments were carried out with laboratory created image sets, to pursue the possibility of which deep learning and generative adversarial networks can lend a hand to enhance the pipeline and speed up the 3D rendering process. First, ConvNet is applied in combination with Support Vector Machine (SVM) in order to pair 3D objects with their corresponding shadows, which can be applied in Augmenter Reality (AR) scenarios. Second, a GANs approach is presented to generate shadows for non-shadowed 3D models, which can also be beneficial in AR scenarios. Third, the possibility of generating high quality renders of image sequences from low polygon density 3D models using GANs. Finally, the possibility to enhance visual coherence of the output image sequences of GAN by utilising multi-colour labels. The results of the adopted GANs model were able to generate realistic outputs comparable to the lab generated 3D rendered ground-truth and control group output images with plausible scores on PSNR and SSIM similarity index metrices.
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  Public Expenditure and Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Nigeria

  Jalilian, Hossein; Batonyi, Gabor; Obiechina, Michael E. (University of BradfordFaculty of Management, Law and Social Sciences, 2020)

  Theoretical and empirical literature suggest that public expenditure plays very important role in economic growth, especially in the developing countries. Available statistics show that Nigeria’s 5-year average annual real public expenditure/GDP ratio grew during the greater part of the study period 1981-2015, while the 5-year average annual real GDP growth and real GDP per capita growth rates are positive during the same study period, except for 1981-1985 and 1986-1990, respectively. The incidence of poverty, however, maintained upward movement, except for 2006-2010. The foregoing interactions have been seldom, the focus of empirical studies in Nigeria. This study examines the effects of public expenditure on economic growth and poverty reduction in Nigeria from 1981-2015, using variants of two models and simulation exercise: augmented Solow growth model and growth-poverty model. Real public expenditure/GDP ratio is used as the policy variable and the simulation duration is for 5-years, 2016-2020. We use the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure by Pesaran et al. (2001) to estimate the two models, given that the annual data used for the models’ estimations were integrated of order I(1) and I(0) and small sample size. The results from the two models confirmed that public expenditure increases economic growth, though not significant, while economic growth does not reduce poverty. The same findings are confirmed through the simulation exercise. We, however, offer measures that would ensure growth and poverty reduction in Nigeria; public expenditure switch that encourages more investments in capital public expenditure, social sector public expenditure and private capital investment.

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