Winning in the long run: a quantified approach to the drivers of sustainable financial value on real estate: Working Paper 2

This working paper describes the first empirical study measuring the impact of sustainability characteristics on the financial performance of European office and retail properties. The authors present the project, the issue and the approach of their ongoing search for a �Green Alpha�. In a joint effort, university experts at Danube University Krems are in cooperation with Kingston University London tackling a robust analysis on hard data from real properties of institutional investment portfolios in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Their first results are expected by the end of 2010

Ancient Egypt 1922 Part 3

Part 3 of the 1922 Ancient Egypt books. Contents include Hittite letters on Egypt, heddle-jacks of looms, loom weights in Egypt, and a discussion of Nebti Sma.https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/kweeks_coll/1020/thumbnail.jp

Work restructuring and changing craft identity: the Tale of the Disaffected Weavers (or what happens when the rug is pulled from under your feet)

This article explores the changes in worker identity that can occur during manufacturing restructuring – specifically those linked to the declining status of craft work – through an in-depth case study of Weaveco, a UK carpet manufacturer. An analysis of changes in the labour process is followed by employee reactions centred on the demise of the traditional craft identity of male carpet weavers. The voices of the weavers dramatize the tensions involved in reconstructing their masculine identity, and we consider the implications this has for understanding gendered work relations

Linking Grain Legumes Research in Asia Summary Proceedings of the Regional Legumes Network Coordinators' Meeting

The coordinators of the Asian Grain Legumes Network (AGLN) met with representatives of donor groups, regional organizations, and ICRISAT staff in order to: • Review the progress of the AGLN since its establishment • Re-examine country problems and research priorities for groundnut, chickpea, and pigeonpea • Inspect the resources available to help provide solutions to priority problems • Examine existing work plans involving the exchange of genetic materials, training, and collaborative research • Develop future work plans in the light of the resources and priorities earlier identified • Reconsider the objectives and scope of the AGLN in the light of new developments in the region, and make recommendations for the network's future developmen

Viva Survivors – the effect of peer-mentoring on pre-viva anxiety in early-years students

Viva voce exams are used in many disciplines as a test of students’ knowledge and skills. Whilst acknowledged as a useful form of assessment, vivas commonly lead to a great deal of anxiety for students. This anxiety is also apparent for vivas in phonetics, where students must produce and recognise sounds drawn from across the world’s languages, and pervious work has shown that viewing a video of a mock-viva does not reduce this anxiety. To address anxiety prior to phonetics vivas, 63 students, across three cohorts, engaged in a brief, isolated, peer-mentoring session with previously successful students (‘viva survivors’). Anxiety about the viva was measured before and after the mentoring experience, using the short form of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory. There was a significant reduction in anxiety after mentoring, and a significant correlation between anxiety before mentoring and the decrease in anxiety after mentoring. Short-term mentoring is posited as a time- and cost-effective method to decrease viva-related anxiety across disciplines

The UK market for energy service contracts in 2014–2015

This paper provides an overview of the UK market for energy service contracts in 2014 and highlights the growing role of intermediaries. Using information from secondary literature and interviews, it identifies the businesses offering energy service contracts, the sectors and organisations that are purchasing those contracts, the types of contract that are available, the areas of market growth and the reasons for that growth. The paper finds that the UK market is relatively large, highly diverse, concentrated in particular sectors and types of site and overwhelmingly focused upon established technologies with high rates of return. A major driver is the emergence of procurement frameworks for energy service contracts in the public sector. These act as intermediaries between clients and contractors, thereby lowering transaction costs and facilitating learning. The market is struggling to become established in commercial offices, largely as a result of split incentives, and is unlikely to develop further in this sector without different business models, tenancy arrangements and policy initiatives. Overall, the paper concludes that energy service contracts can play an important role in the transition to a low-carbon economy, especially when supported by intermediaries, but their potential is still limited by high transaction costs

Physical activity monitoring to assess disability progression in multiple sclerosis

Background: Clinical outcome measurement in multiple sclerosis (MS) usually requires a physical visit. Remote activity monitoring (RAM) using wearable technology provides a rational alternative, especially desirable when distance is involved or in a pandemic setting. Objective: To validate RAM in progressive MS using (1) traditional psychometric methods (2) brain atrophy. Methods: 56 people with progressive MS participated in a longitudinal study over 2.5 years. An arm-worn RAM device measured activity over six days, every six months, and incorporated triaxial accelerometry and transcutaneous physiological variable measurement. Five RAM variables were assessed: physical activity duration, step count, active energy expenditure, metabolic equivalents and a composite RAM score incorporating all four variables. Other assessments every six months included EDSS, MSFC, MSIS-29, Chalder Fatigue Scale and Beck’s Depression Inventory. Annualized brain atrophy was measured using SIENA. Results: RAM was tolerated well by people with MS; the device was worn 99.4% of the time. RAM had good convergent and divergent validity and was responsive, especially with respect to step count. Measurement of physical activity over one day was as responsive as six days. The composite RAM score positively correlated with brain volume loss. Conclusion: Remote activity monitoring is a valid and acceptable outcome measure in MS

Minimal in vivo efficacy of iminosugars in a lethal Ebola virus guinea pig model

The antiviral properties of iminosugars have been reported previously in vitro and in small animal models against Ebola virus (EBOV); however, their effects have not been tested in larger animal models such as guinea pigs. We tested the iminosugars N-butyl-deoxynojirimycin (NB-DNJ) and N-(9-methoxynonyl)-1deoxynojirimycin (MON-DNJ) for safety in uninfected animals, and for antiviral efficacy in animals infected with a lethal dose of guinea pig adapted EBOV. 1850 mg/kg/day NB-DNJ and 120 mg/kg/day MON-DNJ administered intravenously, three times daily, caused no adverse effects and were well tolerated. A pilot study treating infected animals three times within an 8 hour period was promising with 1 of 4 infected NB-DNJ treated animals surviving and the remaining three showing improved clinical signs. MON-DNJ showed no protective effects when EBOV-infected guinea pigs were treated. On histopathological examination, animals treated with NB-DNJ had reduced lesion severity in liver and spleen. However, a second study, in which NB-DNJ was administered at equally-spaced 8 hour intervals, could not confirm drug-associated benefits. Neither was any antiviral effect of iminosugars detected in an EBOV glycoprotein pseudotyped virus assay. Overall, this study provides evidence that NB-DNJ and MON-DNJ do not protect guinea pigs from a lethal EBOV-infection at the dose levels and regimens tested. However, the one surviving animal and signs of improvements in three animals of the NB-DNJ treated cohort could indicate that NB-DNJ at these levels may have a marginal beneficial effect. Future work could be focused on the development of more potent iminosugars

Image-based Search and Retrieval for Biface Artefacts using Features Capturing Archaeologically Significant Characteristics

Archaeologists are currently producing huge numbers of digitized photographs to record and preserve artefact finds. These images are used to identify and categorize artefacts and reason about connections between artefacts and perform outreach to the public. However, finding specific types of images within collections remains a major challenge. Often, the metadata associated with images is sparse or is inconsistent. This makes keyword-based exploratory search difficult, leaving researchers to rely on serendipity and slowing down the research process. We present an image-based retrieval system that addresses this problem for biface artefacts. In order to identify artefact characteristics that need to be captured by image features, we conducted a contextual inquiry study with experts in bifaces. We then devised several descriptors for matching images of bifaces with similar artefacts. We evaluated the performance of these descriptors using measures that specifically look at the differences between the sets of images returned by the search system using different descriptors. Through this nuanced approach, we have provided a comprehensive analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the different descriptors and identified implications for design in the search systems for archaeology

Wave-current interaction in Willapa Bay

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): C12014, doi:10.1029/2011JC007387.This paper describes the importance of wave-current interaction in an inlet-estuary system. The three-dimensional, fully coupled, Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere-Wave-Sediment Transport (COAWST) modeling system was applied in Willapa Bay (Washington State) from 22 to 29 October 1998 that included a large storm event. To represent the interaction between waves and currents, the vortex-force method was used. Model results were compared with water elevations, currents, and wave measurements obtained by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. In general, a good agreement between field data and computed results was achieved, although some discrepancies were also observed in regard to wave peak directions in the most upstream station. Several numerical experiments that considered different forcing terms were run in order to identify the effects of each wind, tide, and wave-current interaction process. Comparison of the horizontal momentum balances results identified that wave-breaking-induced acceleration is one of the leading terms in the inlet area. The enhancement of the apparent bed roughness caused by waves also affected the values and distribution of the bottom shear stress. The pressure gradient showed significant changes with respect to the pure tidal case. During storm conditions the momentum balance in the inlet shares the characteristics of tidal-dominated and wave-dominated surf zone environments. The changes in the momentum balance caused by waves were manifested both in water level and current variations. The most relevant effect on hydrodynamics was a wave-induced setup in the inner part of the estuary.Primary funding for this study was furnished by the U.S. Geological Survey, Coastal and Marine Geology Program, under the Carolinas Coastal Change Processes Project.2012-06-1