Spatial concentration in institutional industrial real estate investment in the England and Wales

In two recent papers Byrne and Lee (2006, 2007) examined the geographical concentration of institutional office and retail investment in England and Wales at two points in time; 1998 and 2003. The findings indicate that commercial office portfolios are concentrated in a very few urban areas, whereas retail holdings correlate more closely with the urban hierarchy of England and Wales and consequently are essentially ubiquitous. Research into the industrial sector is very much less developed, and this paper therefore makes a significant contribution to understanding the structure of industrial property investment in the UK. It shows that industrial investment concentration is between that of retail and office and is focussed on LAs with high levels of manual workers in areas with smaller industrial units. It also shows that during the period studied the structure of the sector changed, with greater emphasis on the distributional element, for which location is a principal consideration

Video sync processor Patent

Video sync processor with phase locked syste

Risk reduction and real estate portfolio size

Despite a number of papers that discuss the advantages of increased size on risk levels in real estate portfolios there is remarkably little empirical evidence based on actual portfolios. The objective of this paper is to remedy this deficiency by examining the portfolio risk of a large sample of actual property data over the period 1981 to 1996. The results show that all that can be said is that portfolios of properties of a large size, on the average, tend to have lower risks than small sized portfolios. More importantly portfolios of a few properties can have very high or very low risk

High energy density electrochemical cell

Primary cell has an anode of lithium, a cathode containing dihaloisocyanuric acid, and a nonaqueous electrolyte comprised of a solution of lithium perchlorate in methyl formate. It produces an energy density of 213 watt hrs/lb and can achieve a high current density

Physiotherapists’ perceptions of problematic musculoskeletal soft tissue disorders

Original article can be found at: http://www.ijtr.co.uk/ Copyright MA Healthcare Limited.Aims: Many common musculoskeletal disorders are resistant to existing management strategies,causing long-term pain and disability. While arthritic and spinal problems have been prioritized for research, several soft tissue disorders may be equally burdensome for individuals and difficult to treat successfully. dentifying those that are least responsive to reatment may help focus the limited resources available for research and treatment provision. This study aimed to rank the most problematic disorders, and identify contributory factors, to inform the debate on research and service priorities in the management of musculoskeletal disorders. Methods: The views of practising physiotherapists on the most problematic soft tissue disorders were sought using a postal questionnaire survey and telephone interviews. The questionnaire was sent to 193 experienced musculoskeletal physiotherapists working in National Health Service and private clinics in south-east England. Findings: The response rate was 48%. The top three problematic disorders were identifi ed as frozen shoulder, plantar fasciitis and tennis elbow. Subsequent interviews with 20 respondents indicated that inadequate differential diagnosis, triaging and differences in therapeutic practice may account for some of the observed variation in outcomes. Conclusions: A greater focus on these particular disorders and issues by both clinicians and the research community is warranted.Peer reviewe

Augmenting human memory using personal lifelogs

Memory is a key human facility to support life activities, including social interactions, life management and problem solving. Unfortunately, our memory is not perfect. Normal individuals will have occasional memory problems which can be frustrating, while those with memory impairments can often experience a greatly reduced quality of life. Augmenting memory has the potential to make normal individuals more effective, and those with significant memory problems to have a higher general quality of life. Current technologies are now making it possible to automatically capture and store daily life experiences over an extended period, potentially even over a lifetime. This type of data collection, often referred to as a personal life log (PLL), can include data such as continuously captured pictures or videos from a first person perspective, scanned copies of archival material such as books, electronic documents read or created, and emails and SMS messages sent and received, along with context data of time of capture and access and location via GPS sensors. PLLs offer the potential for memory augmentation. Existing work on PLLs has focused on the technologies of data capture and retrieval, but little work has been done to explore how these captured data and retrieval techniques can be applied to actual use by normal people in supporting their memory. In this paper, we explore the needs for augmenting human memory from normal people based on the psychology literature on mechanisms about memory problems, and discuss the possible functions that PLLs can provide to support these memory augmentation needs. Based on this, we also suggest guidelines for data for capture, retrieval needs and computer-based interface design. Finally we introduce our work-in-process prototype PLL search system in the iCLIPS project to give an example of augmenting human memory with PLLs and computer based interfaces

Improving technology transfer through national systems of innovation: climate relevant innovation-system builders (CRIBs)

The Technology Executive Committee (TEC) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recently convened a workshop seeking to understand how strengthening national systems of innovation (NSIs) might help to foster the transfer of climate technologies to developing countries. This article reviews insights from the literatures on Innovation Studies and Socio-Technical Transitions to demonstrate why this focus on fostering innovation systems has potential to be more transformative as an international policy mechanism for climate technology transfer than anything the UNFCCC has considered to date. Based on insights from empirical research, the article also articulates how the existing architecture of the UNFCCC Technology Mechanism could be usefully extended by supporting the establishment of CRIBs (climate relevant innovation-system builders) in developing countries – key institutions focused on nurturing the climate-relevant innovation systems and building technological capabilities that form the bedrock of transformative, climate-compatible technological change and development

U.S. CHAIN RESTAURANT EFFICIENCY

The growth of corporate food service firms and the resulting competition places increasing pressures on available resources and their efficient usage. This analysis measures efficiencies for U. S. chain restaurants and determines associations between managerial and operational characteristics. Using a ray-homothetic production function, frontiers were estimated for large and small restaurant chains. Technical and scale efficiencies were then derived for the firms. Finally, a Tobit analysis measured associations between technical efficiencies and firm characteristics. Results showed differences based on firm size, but factors such as experience, service format, unit size, and menu were strongly associated with efficiency, perhaps offsetting some firm size effects.Agribusiness,