The price of wine

We examine the impact of aging on wine prices and the performance of wine as a long-term investment, using a unique historical database for five long-established Bordeaux wines that we construct from auction and dealer prices. We estimate the life-cycle price patterns with a regression model that avoids multicollinearity between age, vintage year, and time by replacing the vintage effects with annual data on production yields and weather quality. In line with the predictions of an illustrative model, we observe the highest rates of appreciation for young high-quality wines that are still maturing. The findings suggest that the non-financial “psychic return” to holding wines that are substantially beyond maturity is at least 1%. Using an arithmetic repeat-sales regression, we estimate an annualized return to wine investments (net of insurance and storage costs) of 4.1%, in real GBP terms, between 1900 and 2012. Wine underperforms equities over this period, but outperforms government bonds, art, and stamps. Wine and equity returns are positively correlated

Factors and perspectives influencing accountability and the sustainability of data quality improvements in higher education.

MBA University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2013.Worldwide, organisational management is increasingly confronted by the need for data quality to make informed decisions. It has been reported that a significant percentage of turnover is lost due to bad data. The higher education sector also requires quality data in order to keep up with the pace of change in this sector. It is against this background that this study investigates the factors and perspectives influencing accountability and the sustainability of data quality improvements at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). The study used a questionnaire to elicit responses from approximately 120 information system users (IS-Users) at the University on their perspectives of data quality awareness, quality practices, and the cost, accountability and sustainability of data quality improvement in order to support the implementation of the data quality initiative recently launched at UKZN. The sample was selected from a population of primary information system users. Data collection took place over two months, with a response rate of 50%. The findings and recommendations of the study revealed different opinions on various issues from the perspective of the three groups of IS-User constituents that were surveyed. The findings include significant and moderate issues relating to the lack of training, skills and leadership; work-around time problems arising from uncertainty with regard to who owns data at the Institution; and the need for stronger leadership and skills in the area of data quality. The recommendations range from investment in training, to the implementation of performance management to support current data quality activity, service level agreements to enhance data quality from third party suppliers, incentives to reward work that enhances data quality, feedback mechanisms such as metrics or a data quality monitor to report on the condition of data quality in real time and promoting data ownership in order to enhance organisational agility to reduce the work-around or run around time of IS-users

Research and Creative Activity, July 01, 2021-June 30, 2022: Major Sponsored Programs and Faculty Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Foreword by Bob Wilhelm, Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development: This booklet highlights successes in research, scholarship and creative activity by University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty during the fiscal year running July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022. It lists investigators, project titles and funding sources on major grants and sponsored awards that were active during the year; fellowships and other recognitions and honors bestowed on our faculty; books, chapters and creative literature published by faculty; performances, exhibitions and other examples of creative activity; patents and licensing agreements; and conference presentations. In recognition of the important role faculty play in the undergraduate experience at Nebraska, this booklet notes the students and mentors participating in the Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience (UCARE) and the First-Year Research Experience (FYRE) programs. Increasing impact through research and creative activity is one of the six core aims of the N2025 strategic plan. A few measurements of progress made this year: • UNL achieved a record $321 million in total research expenditures in FY 2021, a 31• Our faculty earned 1,560 sponsored research awards in FY 2021. N2025 aims also include contributing to economic growth throughout the state and broadening Nebraska’s engagement in community, industry and global partnerships. These are some measures of our efforts to commercialize university-sponsored research and partner with industry: • Nebraska Innovation Campus created 2,127 jobs statewide. The cumulative impact of NIC investments totals$328.9 million. • Industry sponsorship supported $19.8 million in research expenditures. • NUtech Ventures brought in$6.36 million in licensing income. I want to thank the Nebraska Research community for its willingness to collaborate, mentor and redefine success in research and creative activity. Your leadership is paving the way for future growth and providing an unparalleled educational experience. At Nebraska, it is the people who make the place. Because of your dedication and expertise, Nebraska is positioned to solve some of the world’s most wicked problems. I am impressed by your commitment to the Grand Challenges initiative, a strategic investment of up to $40 million over four years for projects in the high-impact areas of anti-racism and racial equity; climate resilience; early childhood education and development; health equity; quantum science and engineering; science and technology literacy for society; and sustainable food and water security. More than 180 faculty, staff and students are contributing to projects funded in Year 1. Another N2025 aim is to create a climate that emphasizes, prioritizes and expands inclusive excellence and diversity. In the Office of Research and Economic Development, we continue to seek ways to remove barriers to success and ensure all Nebraska researchers have the resources they need to thrive. Thank you for the feedback you’ve thoughtfully provided. I am pleased to present this record of accomplishments. Contents Awards of$5 Million or More Awards of $1 Million to$4,999,999 Awards of $250,000 to$999,999 Early Career Awards Arts and Humanities Awards of $250,000 or More Arts and Humanities Awards of$50,000 to $249,999 Arts and Humanities Awards of$5,000 to $49,999 Patents License Agreements National Science Foundation Innovation Corps Teams Creative Activity Books Recognitions and Honors Journal Articles Conference Presentations UCARE and FYRE Projects Glossar

Barcelona Regional : Past and Present

Aquest llibre és part de l'obra "Barcelona Regional, passat i present" / "Rondes Barcelona, present i futur" que inclou també la publicació Rondes Barcelona, present i futur.Publicació amb motiu de la celebració dels 25 anys de Barcelona Regional (BR) on es recull el passat i projecta el futur del seu paper com a eina clau pel desenvolupament urbà de la ciutat i l’àrea metropolitana de Barcelon

Metodología de implantación de modelos de gestión de la información dentro de los sistemas de planificación de recursos empresariales. Aplicación en la pequeña y mediana empresa

La Siguiente Generación de Sistemas de Fabricación (SGSF) trata de dar respuesta a los requerimientos de los nuevos modelos de empresas, en contextos de inteligencia, agilidad y adaptabilidad en un entono global y virtual. La Planificación de Recursos Empresariales (ERP) con soportes de gestión del producto (PDM) y el ciclo de vida del producto (PLM) proporciona soluciones de gestión empresarial sobre la base de un uso coherente de tecnologías de la información para la implantación en sistemas CIM (Computer-Integrated Manufacturing), con un alto grado de adaptabilidad a la estnictura organizativa deseada. En general, esta implementación se lleva desarrollando hace tiempo en grandes empresas, siendo menor (casi nula) su extensión a PYMEs. La presente Tesis Doctoral, define y desarrolla una nueva metodología de implementación pan la generación automática de la información en los procesos de negocio que se verifican en empresas con requerimientos adaptados a las necesidades de la SGSF, dentro de los sistemas de gestión de los recursos empresariales (ERP), atendiendo a la influencia del factor humano. La validez del modelo teórico de la metodología mencionada se ha comprobado al implementarlo en una empresa del tipo PYME, del sector de Ingeniería. Para el establecimiento del Estado del Arte de este tema se ha diseñado y aplicado una metodología específica basada en el ciclo de mejora continua de Shewhart/Deming, aplicando las herramientas de búsqueda y análisis bibliográfico disponibles en la red con acceso a las correspondientes bases de datos

Export earning instabilities and employment fluctuations in a trade-dependent economy: Hong Kong as a case study.

Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong.Bibliography: leaves 226-244

Equity-Style-Indizes und Liquidität in Europa

Contributing to the still scarce European evidence this thesis examines in detail different aspects of equity styles and systematic liquidity in Europe and their role with respect to European stocks and mutual funds. First, a consistent set of European style indices is outlined from which risk factors like market excess return, size, valuation and momentum, but also novel idiosyncratic risk and systematic liquidity factors are derived. The daily 2002 to 2009 time period examined contains the recent financial crisis. As based on a stochastic discount factor GMM based analysis, liquidity is found to help to price European stocks and a decrease in common liquidity during the recent period of market stress reveals the role of liquidity as a state variable of hedging concern to investors. Moreover, the risk factors including liquidity and idiosyncratic risk are found to be relevant in mutual fund performance evaluation as indicated by significant risk exposures of a set of mutual funds with European investment focus. However, regarding different models the risk-adjusted net performance of these funds is mainly found to be indistinguishable from zero, being in line with equilibrium models of fund performance. Furthermore, the dynamic abilities of fund managers with respect to liquidity and risk factor timing are examined by conducting unconditional as well as time-varying analyses based on a Kalman filter approach. The results reveal dynamics in the risk exposures of mutual funds, but evidence on daily risk factor timing is weak with respect to established risk factors as well as liquidity. Finally, the evidence that both liquidity and idiosyncratic risk affect the cross-section of asset returns suggests that both risk factors capture different return characteristics. As motivated by models of price discovery processes, liquidity might capture transaction costs, while idiosyncratic risk seems to capture effects of price discovery

Pengurusan wakaf di Malaysia : Kajian dari sudut struktur organisasi dan prestasi

Waqf properties have great economic potential for Muslim society. Malaysia has a huge waqf land but most of it still underdeveloped. The fact that waqf management is under State Religious Islamic Council (SIRC) jurisdiction has resulted in different management and organization structures. This study aims to explore organization structure aspect towards waqf institution performance, using qualitative approach. Purposive sampling had been used to choose the institution. Selangor represent subsidiary structure while Pulau Pinang and Perak represent SIRC structure. Interview was conducted involving 12 informants from high and operational management. Atlas.ti V8 software used for data analysis involved coding and categorizing themes. Eight weaknesses from organization structure factors had been identified, which are incomplete functions, unsystematic arrangement of the functions, limitation of Chief Executive Officer‟s authority, involvement of third party in staffing decision making, one personal lead two agencies, imbalance organization size, limited professional involvement and the absence of clear objective. Organizational restructuring had been done to overcome the weaknesses. Internal restructuring involve few changes such as creating new function, rebranding existing units, separating or combining functions, adding new staff, staff movement between units and changes in staffing status. External restructuring involve delegation of authority from SIRC to subsidiary, bigger restructuring fund, new objective and strategy focus only on waqf and new staffing scheme. This study found that waqf institutions tend to emphasize few organization structure factors which are specialization, centralization and organization size while neglecting strategy and environment factors in their restructuring process. Waqf institutions need to pay sufficient attention to all organization structure factors for the better performance. Hence, this research propose a restructuring guideline for waqf institution emphasizing on scrutinizing strength, weaknesses, threat and opportunity through analysis on waqf properties, staffing needs and environment before planning for strategy and new structur

Phonon transport simulations in hierarchical and highly disordered nanostructures

Nanostructuring is considered a very promising direction for high performance thermoelectric materials, which can convert waste heat into useful energy. These materials can reduce dependence on fossil fuels and enhance thermal energy harvesting, with huge environmental and societal benefits. In this work we investigate thermal transport in nanostructures and study methods to reduce the thermal conductivity (which enhances thermoelectric efficiency). Using silicon as an example, we consider the combined presence of nanocrystallinity and nanopores, arranged under both ordered and disordered (randomized) positions and sizes by using a phonon transport simulator constructed as a part of this work. We show that nanocrystalline boundaries degrade the thermal conductivity more drastically when the average grain size becomes smaller than the material average phonon mean-free-path. Introduction of pores in a hierarchical fashion degrades the thermal conductivity even further. Its effect, however, is significantly more severe when the pore sizes and positions are randomized, as randomization results in regions of higher porosity along the phonon transport direction, which introduce significant thermal resistance. We show that this randomization, or disorder, acts as a large increase in the overall effective porosity. Using our simulations, we show that existing compact nanocrystalline and nanoporous theoretical models describe thermal conductivity accurately under uniform nanostructured conditions but overestimate it in disordered geometries. We propose extensions to these models that accurately predict the thermal conductivity of disordered nanoporous materials based solely on a few geometrical features. Additionally, we show that the new compact models introduced can be used within Matthiessen’s rule to combine scattering from different geometrical features within ~10% accuracy. Looking at high temperature regimes, we show that the relative reduction in thermal conductivity is stronger at high temperatures in the presence of nanocrystallinity, a consequence of the wavevector-dependent nature of phonon scattering on the nanocrystalline grain domain boundaries. We next consider asymmetric nanoporous structures, and investigate the combined effects of porosity, inter-pore distance, and pore position on thermal rectification in nanoporous silicon. We define thermal rectification in terms of system mean-free-paths rather than non-linearity in temperature – as conventionally done. We show that systems: i) with denser, compressed pore arrangements (i.e. with smaller inter-pore distances), ii) with pores positioned closer to the device edge/contact, and iii) with pores in a triangular arrangement, can achieve rectification of over 55%. Introducing hierarchically smaller pores into existing porous geometries increases rectification even further. Importantly, for the structures we simulate, we show that sharp rectifying junctions, separating regions of long from short phonon mean-free-paths are more beneficial than spreading the asymmetry throughout the material along the heat direction in a graded fashion. Lastly, comparing a full wave-based quantum mechanical Non-Equilibrium Green's Function (NEGF) method, and a particle-based classical ray-tracing approach, we investigate the qualitative differences in the wave and particle-based phonon transport at the vicinity of nanoscale features, indicating when simplified particle based approaches fail, and when not. Insight extracted from this work can be used to provide better and more complete understanding of phonon transport in nanomaterials