Housing Affordability and Upward Mobility from Public to Private Housing in Singapore

This paper examines the ability of buyers to afford and upgrade to private housing using the experience in land scarce Singapore as a case study. The concepts of the “threshold buyer” and “threshold upgrader” are introduced to construct an operational inter-temporal model of affordability and upward mobility, taking into consideration income, mortgage rates, prices of public housing flats and the legislative/financing framework in Singapore. The theoretical private property price computed by the upward mobility model is the lower bound dictated by affordability and cash outlay considerations such that the buyer/upgrader is no better or worse off arising from changes in the relevant factors over time. The model is empirically tested to evaluate the theoretical underpinnings as well as the ability of the model to predict private property price. Finally, the paper examines the implications for housing ownership policy in a wider context.Housing, affordability, upgrade, property price, mortgage rate, income

Price Discovery in Real Estate Auctions: The Story of Unsuccessful Attempts

Little is known of the effects of the auction mechanism in relation to post-auction market sales. This empirical study of unsuccessful auctions shows that approximately half of these properties were eventually sold via private negotiations, at higher prices relative to last bids. The probability of a subsequent post-auction transaction is significantly higher for apartments and terrace houses and when auction turnout is high; and lower in the absence of any bid and in some years. In addition, downward revisions to the opening bid improve the probability of subsequent sale. Prices of subsequent re-auctioned and privately negotiated sales decline with time to sale, consistent with the search process explanation.

Increased NFκ-B Activity in HCT116 Colorectal Cancer Cell Line Harboring TLR4 Asp299Gly Variant

Toll-Like Receptor 4 (TLR4), considered one of the most important TLR, recognizes lipopolysaccharide of gram-negative bacteria. Recognition of ligands by TLRs induces signaling pathways resulting in activation of transcriptional factors such as NF-κB which are involved in the expression of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. To prevent an inappropriate immune response, a complex network of molecules negatively regulates TLRs and their associated signaling pathways. Two cosegregating single nucleotide polymorphisms of the human TLR4 gene, namely Asp299Gly and Thr399Ile, have been associated with hyporesponsiveness to inhaled LPS. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of TLR4 gene variant on NF-κB activity in colorectal cancer cell line. HCT116 cells were transfected with wild-type and mutants Flag-CMV1-TLR4 expression vectors. Western blot analysis was performed to evaluate selected molecules involved in TLR4 signaling. NF-κB activity was assessed by dualluciferase reporter assay and cytokine profiles were evaluated by ELISA and Cytometric Bead Array method. Results showed that the activity of pNF-κB was higher in cells harboring TLR4 D299G compared to the other cells. However, the activity of pAKT, pERK1 and pIRAK was higher in wild-type. The results of cytokine measurements showed about four fold higher level of IL-8 in cells with wild-type TLR4. This study suggest that TLR4 Asp299Gly gene variant has an impact on TLR4 signaling and potentially on intestinal homeostasis due to impaired control signals at the epithelial cell level which may lead to chronic intestinal inflammation and interrupted intestinal homeostasis and may eventually lead to colorectal cancer. Copyright© 2012, Iranian Journal of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. All rights reserved

Fuzzy linear assignment problem: an approach to vehicle fleet deployment

This paper proposes and examines a new approach using fuzzy logic to vehicle fleet deployment. Fleet deployment is viewed as a fuzzy linear assignment problem. It assigns each travel request to an available service vehicle through solving a linear assignment matrix of defuzzied cost entries. Each cost entry indicates the cost value of a travel request that "fuzzily aggregates" multiple criteria in simple rules incorporating human dispatching expertise. The approach is examined via extensive simulations anchored in a representative scenario of taxi deployment, and compared to the conventional case of using only distances (each from the taxi position to the source point and finally destination point of a travel request) as cost entries. Discussion in the context of related work examines the performance and practicality of the proposed approach

Patient-Related Barriers to Timely Dialysis Access Preparation: A Qualitative Study of the Perspectives of Patients, Family Members, and Health Care Providers

Rational & Objective A key aspect of smooth transition to dialysis is the timely creation of a permanent access. Despite early referral to kidney care, initiation onto dialysis is still suboptimal for many patients, which has clinical and cost implications. This study aimed to explore perspectives of various stakeholders on barriers to timely access creation. Study Design Qualitative study. Setting & Participants Semi-structured interviews with 96 participants (response rate, 67%), including patients with stage 4 chronic kidney disease (n = 30), new hemodialysis patients with (n = 18) and without (n = 20) permanent access (arteriovenous fistula), family members (n = 19), and kidney health care providers (n = 9). Analytical Approach Thematic analysis. Results Patients reported differential levels of behavioral activation toward access creation: avoidance/denial, wait and see, or active intention. 6 core themes were identified: (1) lack of symptoms, (2) dialysis fear and practical concerns (exaggerated fear, pain, cost, lifestyle disruptions, work-related concerns, burdening their families), (3) evaluating value against costs/risks of access creation (benefits, threat of operation, viability, prompt for early initiation), (4) preference for alternatives, (5) social influences (hearsay, family involvement, experiences of others), and (6) health care provider interactions (mistrust, interpersonal tension, lack of clarity on information). Themes were common to all groups, whereas nuanced perspectives of family members and health care providers were noted in some subthemes. Limitations Response bias. Conclusions Individual, interpersonal, and psychosocial factors compromise dialysis preparation and contribute to suboptimal dialysis initiation. Our findings support the need for interventions to improve patient and family engagement and address emotional concerns and misperceptions about preparing for dialysis

COMPARATIVE STUDIES ON KEY INDICATORS USED IN PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM OF POLYTECHNICS’ ACADEMIC STAFF

Polytechnic Transformation Plan is launched to reinforce the role of polytechnics and technical education in Malaysia. The third thrust of the Plan puts forth the need to equip polytechnics’ teaching personnel and support staff with high skills and competency (MoHE, 2009). As a result, performance of teaching personnel needs to be evaluated to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of teaching personnel in polytechnics and thus, it is crucial to assert the key indicators used. Based on the literature review, the tentative key indicators identified include, teaching and supervision, research and innovation, administrative tasks, professional activities and services to community. These key indicators are tested in polytechnic context on comparative basis between Northern and Central Region in Malaysia. Researchers employed hybrid/mixed method as the research approach for this study because the method elaborate or develop analysis by providing richer details, and initiate new line of thinking through attention to surprise and provide fresh sight. Amongst the six strategies introduced by Creswell (2003), concurrent embedded strategy is implemented to empirically test the research objective. The purpose of this strategy is to use quantitative data and results to assist in the interpretation of qualitative findings through triangulation. Researchers interviewed the Directors and/or Deputy Directors/Heads of Department of the polytechnic on face-to-face semi-structured basis. In addition, questionnaires developed are distributed to academic staff of the polytechnics to gather their perspective on the key indicators of academic Performance Measurement System. The data collected via interviews are transcribed and translated into English for data analysis process using thematic coding. Besides that, quantitative data are described and analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) as a toolAcademic Staff, Performance Measurement System, Polytechnic, Key Indicators

INVESTIGATING CRITICAL CHALLENGES FACED BY POLYTECHNICS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Mustapha (2001) advocated that Malaysia is short of skilled workers to meet the demands of economic growth (as cited in Jailani, Rashid, Wahid & Noraini; 2009). Thus, there is a need for vocational and technical education, particularly at post-secondary technician levels (Jailani et. al.; 2009) to meet the shortage. Despite the need, there are many challenges faced by polytechnics. This study intends to investigate the critical challenges faced by polytechnics in the Northern and Central Region of Malaysia on case study basis and to put forth recommendations for practical implementations. Based on the literature review, the tentative key critical challenges has been identified which are the employability of polytechnic graduates, collaboration of industry with practical knowledge, competent academic staff, adequate infrastructure/funding and resources, reputation and perception of institution, design and development of curriculum. Researchers used the concurrent embedded strategy in mixed research approach, where directors and/or deputy directors and/or head or department have been interviewed while academic staffs are surveyed using convenience sampling method. Questionnaires are distributed to triangulate the data from qualitative method. After that, researchers analyses the qualitative data using Nvivo as a tool based on thematic coding and quantitative data using Excel and SPSS software as analysis tools to perform descriptive analysisCritical Challenges, Polytechnic, Northern and Central

Direct Selling a Controversial Business Model: Recent Development and Future Research Agenda

Direct selling is one of the earliest distribution models that is currently used in the modern commercial world. Direct selling started as a business model and subsequently evolve to becoming a global phenomenon. There are extant scholarly efforts on this research theme in recent years. However, an effort to organise the literature on this theme is lacking. This paper aims to provide insights into the recent development and future research opportunities in direct selling. This paper conducts a systematic structured literature review on the scientistic discoveries in the past ten years. Research papers are carefully synthesised, compare, and contrasted to present a state-of-the-art understanding of the research topic. The reviews conducted in this paper were categorised into four different levels, namely industry level, direct selling organisations’ level, distributor level, and consumer level. This scholarly effort makes a significant contribution to the extant literature on direct selling

Single Pixel Polarimetric Imaging through Scattering Media

Compared to pure intensity-based imaging techniques, polarimetric imaging can provide additional information, particularly about an imaged object's compositional, morphological and microstructural properties. The value of polarimetric imaging has already been demonstrated in various applications, such as early glaucoma detection and cancer discrimination. Its applicability, however, to practical in vivo imaging situations is limited as the object of interest is often located behind a scattering layer, such as biological tissue, which scrambles both the spatial and polarimetric information about the object that is contained in the propagating light. As such, this work set out to find a means of conducting polarimetric imaging through scattering media. Under the assumption that it is possible to illuminate the object plane with the required spatial patterns, single pixel cameras can enable imaging in scattering environments and were hence thoroughly investigated in this thesis as a route to polarimetric imaging through scattering media. A theoretical model for single pixel polarimetric imaging was first developed, and conditions under which the proposed method was feasible were identified and verified using 2D coupled line dipole simulations. The proposed method was further tested through experiments conducted using an in-house custom-built setup, composed of off-the-shelf components. To mitigate noise and to ensure that the obtained polarimetric image was physical, a constrained least squares algorithm was proposed and implemented. Experiments with various test objects hidden behind scattering phantoms showed that single pixel polarimetric imaging was able to successfully reconstruct the polarimetric images of the hidden object, whereas a spatially resolved detector in the same configuration resulted in an image that bore no resemblance to the test object. Further experiments that were conducted with the same test objects hidden behind chicken breast slices were, unfortunately, unable to recover an accurate polarimetric image of the hidden object. Additional investigations identified two factors that had likely affected the image reconstruction - spatial inhomogeneity and temporally varying transmittance of the chicken breast, both of which were unaccounted for in the data processing. On the basis of the experiments and simulations conducted in this work, single pixel polarimetric imaging was found to be a feasible approach for polarimetric imaging through scattering media. Finally, further improvements to establish single pixel polarimetric imaging as a practical technique are discussed.Open Acces