Risk management and the corporate real estate portfolio

In a global business economy, firms have a broad range of corporate real estate needs. During the past decade, multiple strategies and tactics have emerged in the corporate real estate community for meeting those needs. We propose here a framework for analysing and prioritising the various types of risk inherent in corporate real estate decisions. From a business strategy perspective, corporate real estate must serve needs beyond the simple one of shelter for the workforce and production process. Certain uses are strategic in that they allow access to externalities, embody the business strategy, or provide entrée to new markets. Other uses may be tactical, in that they arise from business activities of relatively short duration or provide an opportunity to pre-empt competitors. Still other corporate real estate uses can be considered “core” to the existence of the business enterprise. These might be special use properties or may be generic buildings that have become embodiments of the organisation’s culture. We argue that a multi-dimensional matrix approach organised around three broad themes and nine sub-categories allow the decision-maker to organise and evaluate choices with an acceptable degree of rigor and thoroughness. The three broad themes are Use (divided into Core, Cyclical or Casual) – Asset Type (which can be Strategic, Specialty or Generic) and Market Environment (which ranges from Mature Domestic to Emerging Economy). Proper understanding of each of these groupings brings critical variables to the fore and allows for efficient resource allocation and enhanced risk management

Computer program ETC improves computation of elastic transfer matrices of Legendre polynomials P/0/ and P/1/

Computer program ETC improves computation of elastic transfer matrices of Legendre polynomials P/0/ and P/1/. Rather than carrying out a double integration numerically, one of the integrations is accomplished analytically and the numerical integration need only be carried out over one variable

The Contract for College

Rising college costs, combined with major policy changes in financial aid, have made college less affordable for today's generation of young people. The Contract for College would unify the existing three strands of federal financial aid--grants, loans and work-study--into a coherent, guaranteed financial aid package for students

ETC - A Fortran 4 program for computing the multigroup P/0/ and P/1/ elastic transfer coefficients

Fortran 4 program for calculating multigroup elastic transfer coefficient

Gender differences in health-related quality of life following total laryngectomy

Background: The impact of a total laryngectomy on an individual's life has primarily been measured from a male viewpoint reflecting the demographics of a diagnosis of laryngeal cancer. A small number of studies have looked specifically at females, but very few are comparison studies. Consequently, there is little consistent research regarding any potential gender differences. Aims: To investigate whether there are gender differences in perceptions of health-related quality of life and functional abilities following total laryngectomy. Methods & Procedures: A total of 43 participants (22 males, 21 females), who had undergone a total laryngectomy procedure at least one year previously, took part in the study. They completed The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core Questionnaire Version 3.0 (EORTC QLQ-C30) in conjunction with the disease-specific Head & Neck Cancer Module (QLQ-H&N35). Outcomes & Results: There were no significant differences between males and females on demographic and disease-related variables, except for the following: significantly more females lived alone and changed their employment status following surgery. Males had a significantly higher global health status/quality of life than females (p < 0.05) and significantly higher levels of physical (p = 0.01), emotional (p < 0.01), cognitive (p < 0.05) and social functioning (p < 0.05). After adjusting for differences in living arrangements and change in employment status, differences in emotional and social functioning remained significant. There was a general trend for females to have higher symptom/impairment levels and to report more treatment-related problems, but the majority of these differences were not significant. Conclusions & Implications: Following total laryngectomy, females appear to be worsely affected in aspects of quality of life than males. Emotional and social functioning are particularly vulnerable. The findings imply that rehabilitation programmes after total laryngectomy need to evaluate quality of life and address these specific areas in order to improve patient-reported long-term outcomes

Unsupervised cross-lingual speaker adaptation for HMM-based speech synthesis using two-pass decision tree construction

This paper demonstrates how unsupervised cross-lingual adaptation of HMM-based speech synthesis models may be performed without explicit knowledge of the adaptation data language. A two-pass decision tree construction technique is deployed for this purpose. Using parallel translated datasets, cross-lingual and intralingual adaptation are compared in a controlled manner. Listener evaluations reveal that the proposed method delivers performance approaching that of unsupervised intralingual adaptation

Methanol oxidation on Fe2O3catalysts and the effects of surface Mo

The adsorption of methanol on haematite has been investigated using temperature programmed methods, combined with in situ DRIFTS. Model catalysts based on this material have then been made with a shell–core configuration of molybdenum oxide monolayers on top of the haematite core. These are used as models of industrial iron molybdate catalysts, used to selectively oxidise methanol to formaldehyde, one of the major chemical outlets for methanol. Haematite itself is completely ineffective in this respect since it oxidises it to CO2 and the DRIFTS shows that this occurs by oxidation of methoxy to formate at around 200 °C. The decomposition behaviour is affected by the absence or presence of oxygen in the gas phase; oxygen destabilises the methoxy and enhances formate production. In contrast, when a monolayer of molybdena is placed onto the surface by incipient wetness, and it remains there after calcination, the pathway to formate production is blocked and formaldehyde is the main gas phase product in TPD after methanol dosing