Interest Rate Sensitivities of REIT Returns

In order to identify effective interest rate proxies for equity and mortgage REITs, this study analyzes seven different interest rate proxies that have been widely used in the REIT literature. They are the monthly holding period returns on long-term U.S. government bonds and high-grade corporate bonds, the percentage changes in yields for long-term U.S. government bonds and high-yield (Baa) corporate bonds, the difference between returns on long-term U.S. government bonds and T-bill rates, the spread between yields on high-yield (Baa) corporate bonds and returns on long-term U.S. government bonds, and the spread between returns on high-grade corporate bonds and returns on long-term U.S. government bonds. The overall OLS results suggest that mortgage REITs are sensitive to all proxies, while equity REITs are significantly affected by only changes in yields on long-term U.S. government bonds and high-yield corporate bonds. The time variation paths for sensitivities indicate that all interest rate sensitivities are time specific. Overall, the changes in yields on high-yield corporate bonds (Baa) has the strongest explanatory power for returns of equity and mortgage REITs for most of the 27-year sample period (1972 through 1998).

The Sensitivity of Bank Stocks to Mortgage Portfolio Composition

Previous studies have found that bank stock returns are very sensitive to changes in real estate returns in general. But how the composition and quality of bank real estate portfolios affect the sensitivity of bank stocks to real estate returns has not been rigorously examined. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine this important question. The results indicate that commercial mortgages contribute the most to the sensitivity of bank stock returns. Farmland loans have a negative impact on bank real estate return sensitivity. Thus, farmland loans could play a diversification role in terms of reducing the sensitivity of banks to real estate returns, if used appropriately.

The Wealth Effects of Domestic vs International Joint Ventures: The Case of Real Estate

This study examines the wealth effect of international versus domestic real estate joint ventures on the U.S. participating firm's shareholders. This is done using traditional even study methodology for real estate joint venture announcements. The results suggest that domestic real estate joint ventures generally result in a significant increase in the firm's value, while international real estate joint ventures usually have a much less significant to nonsignificant wealth impact. This may be due to the immovability of real properties in foreign countries and the large amount of initial investment in real estate that increase both political and economic risks for international real estate joint ventures. This study also finds that hotel joint ventures generally have a weaker wealth effect than non-hotel real estate joint ventures.

Spatial imaging of Zn and other elements in Huanglongbing-affected grapefruit by synchrotron-based micro X-ray fluorescence investigation

Huanglongbing (HLB) is a highly destructive, fast-spreading disease of citrus, causing substantial economic losses to the citrus industry worldwide. Nutrient levels and their cellular distribution patterns in stems and leaves of grapefruit were analysed after graft-inoculation with lemon scions containing 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' (Las), the heat-tolerant Asian type of the HLB bacterium. After 12 months, affected plants showed typical HLB symptoms and significantly reduced Zn concentrations in leaves. Micro-XRF imaging of Zn and other nutrients showed that preferential localization of Zn to phloem tissues was observed in the stems and leaves collected from healthy grapefruit plants, but was absent from HLB-affected samples. Quantitative analysis by using standard references revealed that Zn concentration in the phloem of veins in healthy leaves was more than 10 times higher than that in HLB-affected leaves. No significant variation was observed in the distribution patterns of other elements such as Ca in stems and leaves of grapefruit plants with or without graft-inoculation of infected lemon scions. These results suggest that reduced phloem transport of Zn is an important factor contributing to HLB-induced Zn deficiency in grapefruit. Our report provides the first in situ, cellular level visualization of elemental variations within the tissues of HLB-affected citrus. © 2014 © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology

La responsabilidad social empresarial en las estrategias de desarrollo del gobierno peruano: propuestas de la Carta de Navegación y el sector privado

Presenta las exposiciones de expertos acerca de la responsabilidad social en las empresas peruanas, en el marco de la XLVII Reunión de Intercampus

Challenges in the use of sortase and other peptide ligases for site-specific protein modification.

Site-specific protein modification is a widely-used biochemical tool. However, there are many challenges associated with the development of protein modification techniques, in particular, achieving site-specificity, reaction efficiency and versatility. The engineering of peptide ligases and their substrates has been used to address these challenges. This review will focus on sortase, peptidyl asparaginyl ligases (PALs) and variants of subtilisin; detailing how their inherent specificity has been utilised for site-specific protein modification. The review will explore how the engineering of these enzymes and substrates has led to increased reaction efficiency mainly due to enhanced catalytic activity and reduction of reversibility. It will also describe how engineering peptide ligases to broaden their substrate scope is opening up new opportunities to expand the biochemical toolkit, particularly through the development of techniques to conjugate multiple substrates site-specifically onto a protein using orthogonal peptide ligases

The assessment of areal surface texture parameters for characterizing the adhesive bond strength of copper plated micro-machined glass.

The micro-electronics industry is investigating glass as an alternative printed circuit board material and interposer. Electroless copper plating of glass is required for tracks and interconnects, but understanding of how the surface topography of the glass substrate affects the mechanics of the copper/glass bond quality is limited. Areal surface texture parameters provide the potential for characterizing key surface features associated with improving copper/glass bonding. Laser ablation techniques have been used to prepare glass surfaces with micro-scale structured features, and these features have been quantified using areal parameters. The copper/glass bond strength has been quantified using scratch testing techniques, with statistical analysis identifying strongly correlating areal parameters that may be used for predictive design of glass surfaces

In silico-guided optimisation of oxygen gradients in hepatic spheroids

One of the key advantages of assessing the hepatotoxic potential of xenobiotics in spheroids rather than monolayer cell culture is the existence of a more physiologically relevant testing environment. Three-dimensional cultures support spatial gradients in nutrients such as oxygen that can be exploited to better represent in vivo gradients that exist along a fundamental sub-unit of liver microarchitecture, the liver sinusoid. The physical and physiological processes that result in the establishment of such gradients can be described mathematically. Quantification of the rates governing these processes and optimisation of cell culture conditions can be performed in silico to better inform experimental design. In this study, we take into account cell line-specific physiological properties, spheroid size and the impact of experimental equipment geometries in order to demonstrate how mathematical models can be optimised to achieve specific in vivo-like features in different scenarios. Furthermore, the sensitivity of such optimised gradients is analysed with respect to culture conditions and considerations are given to prevent the emergence of hypoxic regions in the spheroid. The methodology presented provides an enhanced understanding of the mechanisms of the system within this simulated in vitro framework such that experimental design can be more carefully calibrated when conducting experiments using hepatic spheroids. © 2019 Elsevier B.V