Commercial Property and Financial Stability - An International Perspective

Commercial property and property development have historically posed a greater direct risk to financial institutions’ balance sheets than have housing and mortgage markets. A number of factors contribute to this: banks’ commercial property lending is concentrated in loans for construction and development, which tend to be risky; imbalances can build up further because construction lags are longer; and incentives to avoid default are weaker for borrowers in the commercial property sector than they are for home loan borrowers. Conditions in global commercial property markets have been especially challenging in the current cycle.banks; commercial property; financial stability; loan losses

A manifesto for a socio-technical approach to NHS and social care IT-enabled business change - to deliver effective high quality health and social care for all

80% of IT projects are known to fail. Adopting a socio-technical approach will help them to succeed in the future. The socio-technical proposition is simply that any work system comprises both a social system (including the staff, their working practices, job roles, culture and goals) and a technical system (the tools and technologies that support and enable work processes). These elements together form a single system comprising interacting parts. The technical and the social elements need to be jointly designed (or redesigned) so that they are congruent and support one another in delivering a better service. Focusing on one aspect alone is likely to be sub-optimal and wastes money (Clegg, 2008). Thus projects that just focus on the IT will almost always fail to deliver the full benefits

National Register of Historic Places Eligibility Testing of Site 41LE326 Lee County, Texas

Between March 5 and 12, 2007, PBS&J conducted National Register of Historic Places eligibility testing at site 41LE326, under contract to the Texas Department of Transportation Environmental Affairs Division (TxDOT ENV) (CSJ No. 0211-03-032). This investigation was conducted in advance of proposed improvements to U.S. Highway 77 in central Lee County, Texas, under regulations of the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 USC §470 et seq.) and the Antiquities Code of Texas (Title 9, chapter 191, Texas Natural Resource Code). Site 41LE326 is a prehistoric campsite that was initially recorded by PBS&J in October 2006 during a cultural resources survey and is located on the south side of Middle Yegua Creek. National Register testing consisted of the mechanical excavation of nine trenches totaling 47.3 linear meters and two scraped areas totaling approximately 55 square meters, and the manual excavation of nine shovel tests and four 1-x-1-meter test units. Analyses of artifacts recovered during testing suggest that occupation of the site likely occurred intermittently from at least the Late Prehistoric period and perhaps as early as the Middle Archaic period. Artifact categories recovered consisted of lithic manufacturing debris, lithic tools, burned matrix, and thermally altered rock. Subsurface investigations at 41LE326 failed to encounter any evidence that intact buried prehistoric cultural deposits or features exist on the portion of the site within the TxDOT right of way. Based on stratigraphic data, lack of intact features, and low subsurface artifact density, it appears that the investigated portion of the site lacks integrity, and it is unlikely that additional archeological investigations within this portion of 41LE326 would contribute to our understanding of the area’s prehistory. Therefore, the investigated portion of 41LE326 within the area of potential effect consisting of the existing right of way does not contribute to the site’s eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and does not warrant designation as a State Archeological Landmark. No further investigation is recommended. Final curation of all collected materials will occur at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory in consultation with TxDOT ENV

Compact Modeling for a Double Gate MOSFET

MOSFETs (metal-oxide-silicon field-effect transistors) are an integral part of modern electronics. Improved designs are currently under investigation, and one that is promising is the double gate MOSFET. Understanding device characteristics is critical for the design of MOSFETs as part of design tools for integrated circuits such as SPICE. Current methods involve the numerical solution of PDEs governing electron transport. Numerical solutions are accurate, but do not provide an appropriate way to optimize the design of the device, nor are they suitable for use in chip simulation software such as SPICE. As chips contain more and more transistors, this problem will get more and more acute. There is hence a need for analytic solutions of the equations governing the performance of MOSFETs, even if these are approximate. Almost all solutions in the literature treat the long-channel case (thin devices) for which the PDEs reduce to ODEs. The goal of this problem is to produce analytical solutions based on the underlying PDEs that are rapid to compute (e.g. require solving only a small number of algebraic equations rather than systems of PDEs). Guided by asymptotic analysis, a fast numerical procedure has been developed to obtain approximate solutions of the governing PDEs governing MOSFET properties, namely electron density, Fermi potential and electrostatic potential. The approach depends on the channel’s being long enough, and appears accurate in this limit

Effect of transgene introgression site on gene migration from transgenic b. napus to b. rapa [abstract]

Abstract only availableThere is a growing concern of the possible transgenic introgression from GM plants into agricultural weeds, which has stimulated research in the process of crop to weed gene flow. Crop to weed gene flow often involves the hybridization of a polyploidy crop to a diploid weed. An example is canola (Brassica napus with AACC genomes) which can hybridize with B. rapa (AA) to produce fertile triploid F1 hybrids (ACC) in the wild. It is hypothesized that there are "safe sites" on the C genome because the C genome is likely to be lost from wild populations after a few generations of repeated backcrossing with B. rapa. However, there is homoeology between the A and C genomes of Brassica, which allows potential recombination between genomes and the movement of transgenes from the C to A genomes by chromosomal rearrangements. Recent advances in molecular markers and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) now allow us to observe the frequency of homoeologous exchanges following hybridization. Our research is focused on finding safe sites within the B. napus genome which are least likely to be transferred into B. napus and B. rapa hybrids and their progeny. To test this, we have crossed a transgenic B. napus with a natural B. rapa three times to make three different F1events. Then we backcrossed each of the three F1 three times with B. rapa. We are measuring the germination rate of each generation and using transgene specific PCR primers to check the presence or absence of the transgene in hybrids. We will also use molecular cytogenetics (FISH) to count chromosome numbers. This study will help determine the possibilities of a "safe" site in B. napus and offer insight in the mechanisms of crop to weed transgene introgression in B. napus x B. rapa hybrids.MU Monsanto Undergraduate Research Fellowshi

Characterization of fluorescence collection optics integrated with a micro-fabricated surface electrode ion trap

One of the outstanding challenges for ion trap quantum information processing is to accurately detect the states of many ions in a scalable fashion. In the particular case of surface traps, geometric constraints make imaging perpendicular to the surface appealing for light collection at multiple locations with minimal cross-talk. In this report we describe an experiment integrating Diffractive Optic Elements (DOE's) with surface electrode traps, connected through in-vacuum multi-mode fibers. The square DOE's reported here were all designed with solid angle collection efficiencies of 3.58%; with all losses included a detection efficiency of 0.388% (1.02% excluding the PMT loss) was measured with a single Ca+ ion. The presence of the DOE had minimal effect on the stability of the ion, both in temporal variation of stray electric fields and in motional heating rates.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

Use of crushed brick in reinforced earth railway structures

The Bermondsey Dive-Under Scheme is a key part of the Thameslink Programme which will remove the existing bottleneck that severely limits the number of trains that can pass through London Bridge Station. The scheme involves extensive demolition of 900m of masonry viaduct followed by the construction of 900m of new structures, 200m of reinforced earth structures, and 200m of embankment widening and raising. This paper describes a study undertaken in 2012 that examined the viability of recycling the demolished brickwork material into a crushed engineered fill material for use in the permanent works. The overarching objective of the study was to seek to reduce the significant volumes of both imported fill and exported demolition material that would be required for the BDU scheme. In addition to the associated sustainability benefits, the significant reduction in lorry movements from London’s congested streets would result in significant environmental and safety benefits. The paper details the sampling and testing of brickwork that was undertaken as part of the study and presents the findings from the study. A synopsis of the properties of the crushed brick and the material requirements for engineered fill is included. The paper also discusses some of the issues associated with introducing innovation within major works programmes. The Bermondsey Dive Under Scheme is currently under construction and is scheduled for completion in 2017.</p

Simulating the mesoscale impacts of sea wall defences on coastal morphology

Solid coastal defences are deployed in many countries to halt or slow coastal erosion. Although the impacts on local sediment fluxes have been studied in detail, the non-local impact of a modified sediment flux regime on mesoscale coastal morphology has received less attention. Morphological changes imparted by defensive structures at these scales (decadal processes over tens of kilometres) can be difficult to quantify or even identify with field data. Difficulties in assessing the impact of these structures arise in the separation of natural and anthropogenic influences, both of which can be highly dynamic and non-linear. Numerical modelling allows these influences to be separated and the impacts of coastal defensive structures to be assessed. We extend previous work (Barkwith et al., 2013) to explore the influences of sea walls on the evolution and morphological sensitivity of a pinned, soft-cliff, sandy coastline under a changing wave climate. The Holderness coast of East Yorkshire, UK, is one of the fastest eroding coastlines in Europe and is used as a case study for this research. Using a mesoscale numerical coastal evolution model, stochastic wave climate data are perturbed gradually to assess the sensitivity of the coastal morphology to changing wave climate for both the defended and natural scenarios. Comparative analysis of the simulated output suggests that sea walls in the south of the region have a greater impact on sediment flux due to the increased sediment availability along this part of the coast. Multiple defended structures, including those separated by several kilometres, were found to interact with each other, producing a complex imprint on coastal morphology under a changing wave climate. Although spatially and temporally heterogeneous, sea walls generally slowed coastal recession and accumulated sediment on their up-drift side

Chromosomal evolution in Brassicacae: Allopolyploidy, aneuploidy and transgene transmission [abstract]

Abstract only availablePolyploidy is a eukaryotic phenomenon common to plants that serves as an evolutionary mechanism for speciation. Diploid species undergo polyploidization through single genome duplication (autopolyploidy) or by the hybridization of genomes from two or more distinct progenitor species (allopolyploidy). Aneuploidy can arise where offspring possess extra or fewer chromosomes than their progenitors. Over successive generations, changes in chromosomal number and rearrangement can lead to speciation or differentiation of ecotypes within a species. Using advanced molecular cytogenetics and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH), we can distinguish chromosomes and genomic markers among different ecotypes and species. In the agricultural industry where genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are used, aneuploidy and homoeologous recombination of transgenic elements presents a potential mechanism of moving transgenes from GMO crops into the genomes of wild diploids. These wild diploids then have the potential to become "superweeds" that can disrupt ecological systems. The goal of this study was to investigate the movement of a transgene from an allopolyploid to a diploid in controlled greenhouse crosses. Transgenic Brassica napus allopolyploid plants (AACC) were backcrossed to natural Brassica rapa (AA) recurrently over three generations. We examined each of the three backcross generations for chromosome number and gene transmission. Molecular cytogenetic analysis was performed on flower buds from each backcross, chromosome numbers were recorded and gene transmission was analyzed by PCR. As expected, we found aneuploidy in Brassica napus x Brassica rapa hybrids suggesting potential for homoeologous recombination of transgenes into non-transgenic diploid species. Surprisingly, despite aneuploidy, we also found a high rate of both germination and transmission of the transgene into wild Brassica rapa, suggesting the need to find safe sites in Brassica napus to insert transgenes