Optimal composition of hybrid/blended real estate portfolios

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to establish an optimum mix of liquid, publicly traded assets that may be added to a real estate portfolio, such as those held by open-ended funds, to provide the liquidity required by institutional investors such as UK defined contribution pension funds. This is with the objective of securing liquidity while not unduly compromising the risk-return characteristics of the underlying asset class. This paper considers the best mix of liquid assets at different thresholds for a liquid asset allocation, with the performance then evaluated against that of a direct real estate benchmark index. Design/Methodology/Approach: The authors employ a mean-tracking error optimisation approach in determining the optimal combination of liquid assets that can be added to a real estate fund portfolio. The returns of the optimised portfolios are compared to the returns for portfolios that employ the use of either cash or listed real estate alone as a liquidity buffer. Multivariate Generalised Autoregressive models are used along with rolling correlations and tracking errors to gauge the effectiveness of the various portfolios in tracking the performance of the benchmark index. Findings: The results indicate that applying formal optimisation techniques leads to a considerable improvement in the ability of the returns from blended real estate portfolios to track the underlying real estate market. This is the case at a number of different thresholds for the liquid asset allocation and in cases where a minimum return requirement is imposed. Practical Implications: The results suggest that real estate fund managers can realise the liquidity benefits of incorporating publicly traded assets into their portfolios without sacrificing the ability to deliver real estate-like returns. However, in order to do so, a wider range of liquid assets must be considered, not just cash. Originality/value: Despite their importance in the real estate investment industry, comparatively few studies have examined the structure and operation of open-ended real estate funds. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyse the optimal composition of liquid assets within blended or hybrid real estate portfolios

Designs on the Planet: A workshop series on architectural education and the challenges of climate change

The design of human settlements is a key factor for addressing carbon emissions, finite resource availability, ecological deterioration and climate change. The role of architectural education in promoting the principles and practices which address these issues is significant. New pedagogic paradigms are required to produce graduates endowed with holistic competences including environmental knowledge related to sustainable design. These competencies are set to become a compulsory part of professional architectural education in the UK, although the successful incorporation of technical principles within creative design still faces a number of pedagogic barriers. To address these challenges, the Designs on the Planet workshop series was set up as a national forum. Its primary aim was to contribute to the development of environmental responsibility as a creative factor in the practice and pedagogy of architecture. The workshops were attended by academics, educators, practitioners and representatives of professional bodies. This paper reviews the year-long process of DoP, presenting the conclusions of the workshops, exploring the results of the application of the pedagogic principles within participating universities and discussing new teaching methodologies and curricular structures which could facilitate overcoming the divide between sustainability- related building sciences and architectural design in higher education and professional practice

Machine Learning Developments in ROOT

ROOT is a software framework for large-scale data analysis that provides basic and advanced statistical methods used by high-energy physics experiments. It includes machine learning tools from the ROOT-integrated Toolkit for Multivariate Analysis (TMVA). We present several recent developments in TMVA, including a new modular design, new algorithms for pre-processing, cross-validation, hyperparameter-tuning, deep-learning and interfaces to other machine-learning software packages. TMVA is additionally integrated with Jupyter, making it accessible with a browser

Obesity, unhappiness, and the challenge of affluence : theory and evidence

Is affluence a good thing? The book "The Challenge of Affluence" by Avner Offer (2006) argues that economic prosperity weakens self-control and undermines human well-being. Consistent with a pessimistic view, we show that psychological distress has been rising through time in modern Great Britain. Taking over-eating as an example, our data reveal that half the British population view themselves as overweight, and that happiness and mental health are worse among fatter people in Britain and Germany. Comparisons also matter. We discuss problems of inference and argue that longitudinal data are needed. We suggest a theory of obesity imitation where utility depends on relative weight

Oral prehabilitation for patients with head and neck cancer:getting it right - the Restorative Dentistry-UK consensus on a multidisciplinary approach to oral and dental assessment and planning prior to cancer treatment

Historically, oral and dental issues for head and neck cancer patients were often not considered until after cancer treatment was complete. As a result, outcomes for oral rehabilitation were sometimes suboptimal. Inconsistencies in service delivery models and qualification, training and experience of staff delivering dental care often compounded this problem, making research and audit almost impossible. Collaborative working by consultants in restorative dentistry from all over the UK as part of a Restorative Dentistry-UK (RD UK) subgroup, renamed more recently as the RD-UK Head and Neck Cancer Clinical Excellence Network (CEN), has re-emphasised the importance of specialist restorative dentistry intervention at the outset of the head and neck cancer pathway to optimise outcomes of patient care. The CEN has driven several initiatives, reflecting Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) principles aimed at reducing unwarranted variation. This improved consistency in approach and optimised collaborative working of the team now presents a better environment for multicentre audit and research. Ultimately, this should result in a continued improvement in patient and carer experience

LibrettOS: A Dynamically Adaptable Multiserver-Library OS

We present LibrettOS, an OS design that fuses two paradigms to simultaneously address issues of isolation, performance, compatibility, failure recoverability, and run-time upgrades. LibrettOS acts as a microkernel OS that runs servers in an isolated manner. LibrettOS can also act as a library OS when, for better performance, selected applications are granted exclusive access to virtual hardware resources such as storage and networking. Furthermore, applications can switch between the two OS modes with no interruption at run-time. LibrettOS has a uniquely distinguishing advantage in that, the two paradigms seamlessly coexist in the same OS, enabling users to simultaneously exploit their respective strengths (i.e., greater isolation, high performance). Systems code, such as device drivers, network stacks, and file systems remain identical in the two modes, enabling dynamic mode switching and reducing development and maintenance costs. To illustrate these design principles, we implemented a prototype of LibrettOS using rump kernels, allowing us to reuse existent, hardened NetBSD device drivers and a large ecosystem of POSIX/BSD-compatible applications. We use hardware (VM) virtualization to strongly isolate different rump kernel instances from each other. Because the original rumprun unikernel targeted a much simpler model for uniprocessor systems, we redesigned it to support multicore systems. Unlike kernel-bypass libraries such as DPDK, applications need not be modified to benefit from direct hardware access. LibrettOS also supports indirect access through a network server that we have developed. Applications remain uninterrupted even when network components fail or need to be upgraded. Finally, to efficiently use hardware resources, applications can dynamically switch between the indirect and direct modes based on their I/O load at run-time. [full abstract is in the paper]Comment: 16th ACM SIGPLAN/SIGOPS International Conference on Virtual Execution Environments (VEE '20), March 17, 2020, Lausanne, Switzerlan