An Overall Policy Decision-Support System For Educational Facilities Management: An Agent-Based Approach

Although K-12 public school facilities infrastructure investments are second only to highways, schools continue to suffer from an approximately $38 billion annual funding gap. Massive reductions in funding are forcing school districts to make tough decisions to optimize maintenance expenditures. Over the last three decades, a huge body of research has determined that the condition of school facilities do affect student health and performance, and some have further demonstrated that schools are overwhelmed by deteriorating facilities that threaten the health, safety, and learning opportunities of students. The currently available educational facility management approaches oversee the influence of the complex and mutual interactions between a school facility and its occupants. This thesis aimed to develop an overall decision support system for decision-makers that promotes efficient planning and management of educational infrastructure system by embracing a proactive management style rather than reactive. The proposed system consists of three main components: (1) an overall condition prediction model for educational facilities as a whole, (2) a tactical level Agent-based model (ABM) for classroom interaction simulation, and (3) a strategic level ABM for maintenance budget allocation. ABM was selected for its flexibility, natural representation of the problem, and suitability for modeling real-world complex systems with heterogenous agents. The first tool was accomplished through the development of a three-stage condition prediction methodology. The first stage aims to recognize the deterioration pattern of the educational facility as a whole by utilizing a Markov chain modeling approach. The second stage focuses on determining the overall useful service life of educational facilities. The third stage identifies the higher and lower limits of the educational facilities’ deterioration rate. The resulted model can help decision-makers plan and forecast their maintenance needs and better manage the available resources. The proposed methodology can be applied to any multi-component asset. The second tool, the tactical level decision support ABM, was developed to provide decision-makers with new insights into the effects of different maintenance polices on the educational system. The model simulates day-by-day classroom interactions and highlights the importance of preventive maintenance on the educational system’s major stakeholders (agents). The third decision support tool presented in this research is the strategic level model for testing the effects of different maintenance budget allocation strategies on the school district revenues, overall performance, enrollment size, and land values over years. ABM enhances the overall comprehension of the current situation and its complex relations, increases resource allocation efficiency, highlights the important factors affecting the system that are overlooked in traditional management styles, thereby improving the quality of educational outcomes. The main challenge in developing the proposed ABM was identifying and quantifying the main stakeholders’ complex interactions due to the uncertainties inherent in human behavior. This thesis demonstrated the need for a holistic bottom-top asset management modeling approach rather than asset-centric top-down approach. The case study results of this research confirmed that ABM has great potential as an asset management tool for decision-makers that can provide a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the system dynamics

Impact Investing: a primer for family offices

The goal of this report is to help family offices ask the right questions as they contemplate their path into impact investing. It is important to recognize that impact investing may not suit all investors. There will be family offices which conclude impact investing is not appropriate at this stage for them. While we are passionate about the potential of impact investing, we acknowledge the best future for the sector is where each investor can make informed choices about their own best interest. Each investor and investment institution needs to evaluate if impact investing fits with its needs, interests and unique context. It is with that in mind that we offer this report as a resource and tool that family offices can use to begin the conversations internally, to craft and design their own engagement strategy on impact investing with family members, advisers and potential investees, as well as to ensure that not only is their wealth growing in value, but also that their wealth can reflect their values

Asset liability management using stochastic programming

This chapter sets out to explain an important financial planning model called asset liability management (ALM); in particular, it discusses why in practice, optimum planning models are used. The ability to build an integrated approach that combines liability models with that of asset allocation decisions has proved to be desirable and more efficient in that it can lead to better ALM decisions. The role of uncertainty and quantification of risk in these planning models is considered

Mapping Mutual Fund Investor Characteristics and Modeling Switching Behavior

Securing a mutual fund that meets investment goals is an important reason why some investors exclusively stay with a particular mutual fund and others switch funds within their fund family. This paper empirically investigates investor attitudes toward mutual funds. Our model, based on investor responses, develops an investor\u27s risk profile variable. Results indicate that regardless of whether the investors invest in nonemployer plans or in both employer and nonemployer plans, they consider their investment risk, fund performance, investment mix, and the capital base of the fund before switching funds. The model developed in this study can also assist in predicting investors\u27 switching behavior

Upgrading the investment policy framework of public pension funds

Public pension funds have the potential to benefit from low operating costs because they enjoy economies of scale and avoid large marketing costs. But this important advantage has in most countries been dissipated by poor investment performance. The latter has been attributed to a weak governance structure, lack of independence from government interference, and a low level of transparency and public accountability. Recent years have witnessed the creation of new public pension funds in several countries, and the modernization of existing ones in others, with special emphasis placed on upgrading their investment policy framework and strengthening their governance structure. This paper focuses on the experience of four new public pension funds that have been created in Norway, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. The paper discusses the safeguards that have been introduced to ensure their independence and their insulation from political pressures. It also reviews their performance and their evolving investment strategies. All four funds started with the romantic idea of operating as'managers of managers'and focusing on external passive management but their strategies have progressively evolved to embrace internal active management and significant investments in alternative asset classes. The paper draws lessons for other countries that wish to modernize their public pension funds.Debt Markets,,Emerging Markets,Investment and Investment Climate,Non Bank Financial Institutions

Applying Real Options Thinking to Information Security in Networked Organizations

An information security strategy of an organization participating in a networked business sets out the plans for designing a variety of actions that ensure confidentiality, availability, and integrity of company’s key information assets. The actions are concerned with authentication and nonrepudiation of authorized users of these assets. We assume that the primary objective of security efforts in a company is improving and sustaining resiliency, which means security contributes to the ability of an organization to withstand discontinuities and disruptive events, to get back to its normal operating state, and to adapt to ever changing risk environments. When companies collaborating in a value web view security as a business issue, risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis techniques are necessary and explicit part of their process of resource allocation and budgeting, no matter if security spendings are treated as capital investment or operating expenditures. This paper contributes to the application of quantitative approaches to assessing risks, costs, and benefits associated with the various components making up the security strategy of a company participating in value networks. We take a risk-based approach to determining what types of security a strategy should include and how much of each type is enough. We adopt a real-options-based perspective of security and make a proposal to value the extent to which alternative components in a security strategy contribute to organizational resiliency and protect key information assets from being impeded, disrupted, or destroyed