Impact at Scale: Policy Innovation for Institutional Investment With Social and Environmental Benefit

Explores policy options to maximize impact investing opportunities for institutional investors and accelerate the development of impact investing practices and products. Presents case studies of and insights from investors and service providers

Exploring security issues in cloud computing

Cloud computing has promised to transform the ways in which we use and interact with information technology (IT). The claims of significant benefits for businesses by using cloud systems are being overshadowed with the increased concerns about security, particularly privacy. This paper explores the unresolved concerns that businesses and users are still facing in terms of ensuring their data remains secure within a cloud environment. Through illustrating these issues with recent security breaches, the evidence clearly suggests they are hindering cloud adoption. Unless more focus is placed on security then cloud platforms are unable achieve cost saving benefits, improved efficiency or performance for a business. This paper argues that rather than cloud computing reaching its potential there are still remaining issues that must be addressed

Dead Letters: Censorship and Subversion in New Zealand 1914–1920

“Archivist by day and labour historian by night” Jared Davidson combines his complementary occupations to bring us Dead Letters: Censorship and Surveillance in New Zealand 1914–1920, an engaging book that uses the intimacy of surveillance records to explore broader historical themes of wartime state control and resistance. Davidson places his work in the tradition of “history from below,” and this book achieves some of the best qualities of that tradition; the detailed personal histories bring to life characters that may otherwise have been forgotten, but who are in fact connected to transnational webs of communication and migration of people, political ideas, organisations, and bureaucracies of surveillance and control

Editing and marketing a photography book

Professional project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Journalism from the School of Journalism, University of Missouri--Columbia.Photojournalists often sacrifice their personal relationships, their health and sometimes even their lives to create compelling images that tell important stories. But if photography is not seen, then it cannot tell a story. As the publishing world changes and evolves, photographers are taking on new responsibilities including self promotion and marketing. This project includes both a practical component where an entire book of photography was compiled using the photographs from the 2010 Missouri Photo Workshop in Macon, Missouri and an analysis of book marketing and promotion within a Uses and Gratifications theory of research. Interviewing five professional photographers and editors about their own experiences in publishing and promoting photography books, the analysis shows there is a market for the medium, but that photographers are increasingly expected to do their own promotion and distribution. Some large book publishers still produce photography books, but even in those cases, the photographer often signs away many rights and royalties. So while more work is required, the analysis shows that photographers' increased involvement in publishing their own book is a positive thing.Includes bibliographic references

The relative importance of information items and preferred mode of delivery when disseminating results from trials to participants : a mixed methods study

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank Suzanne Breeman, Lynda Constable and David Emele, who identified eligible participants from the VUE and PROSPECT trials; Andrea Fraser and Janice Cruden for their help preparing the mail-merge documents for the invitation packs; and Rosemary Humphreys and Sandra Jayacodi for their valuable feedback on the first drafts of the patient information leaflets and ranking exercises. This study was conducted as a Masters of Public Health research project (Jessica Wood) at the University of Aberdeen with funding provided through the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition. Katie Gillies was supported by an Academy of Medical Sciences (SBF002\1014) award and a Medical Research Council Fellowship (MR/L01193X/1). The Health Services Research Unit is core-funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates (CZU/3/3). The views and opinions expressed therein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the funders. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Open Access via UoA Wiley Agreement Article Funding Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Auction algorithm sensitivity for multi-robot task allocation

We consider the problem of finding a low-cost allocation and ordering of tasks between a team of robots in a d-dimensional, uncertain, landscape, and the sensitivity of this solution to changes in the cost function. Various algorithms have been shown to give a 2-approximation to the MinSum allocation problem. By analysing such an auction algorithm, we obtain intervals on each cost, such that any fluctuation of the costs within these intervals will result in the auction algorithm outputting the same solution

Supporting SMEs during the Risk Assessment Stage of Platform as a Service Cloud Selection: A Case Study of SMEs in the West Midlands, UK

The Cloud Computing (CC) paradigm has become popular among Small to Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) due to the promise of cost effective access to the latest applications via a Cloud Service Provider (CSP). There are many factors and pitfalls of Cloud Computing adoption as well as benefits to SMEs which have been highlighted through a research project that involved SMEs from the West Midlands UK. This paper outlines the challenges SMEs face when considering Platform as a Service (PaaS) adoption, and highlights that lack of understanding of the technology has either meant SMEs have not adopted Cloud Computing or have experienced difficulties with the adoption as important considerations where not evaluated. Through a comprehensive investigation a theoretical framework – Cloud Step followed by an interactive tool – PaaS Cloud Dial have been developed to aid SMEs in understanding what factors need to be considered prior adoption of PaaS. Both have been validated through work with SMEs and the findings obtained from the validation procedure indicated that both the framework and application are valuable and suitable in supporting SMEs risk assessment and decision making process regrading Cloud adoption

Working with interpreters: the challenges of introducing Option Grid patient decision aids

Objective We aimed to observe how an Option GridTM decision aid for clinical encounters might be used where an interpreter is present, and to assess the impact of its use on shared decision making. Methods Data were available from three clinical consultations between patient, clinician (a physiotherapist), and interpreter about knee osteoarthritis. Clinicians were trained in the use of an Option Grid decision aid and the tool was used. Consultations were audio-recorded, transcribed, and translated by independent translators into English. Results Analysis revealed the difficulties with introducing a written decision aid into an interpreted consultation. The extra discussion needed between the clinician and interpreter around the principles and purpose of shared decision making and instructions regarding the Option Grid decision aid proved challenging and difficult to manage. Discussion of treatment options while using an Option Grid decision aid was predominantly done between clinician and interpreter. The patient appeared to have little involvement in discussion of treatment options. Conclusion Patients were not active participants within the discussion. Further work needs to be done on how shared decision making can be achieved within interpreted consultations. Practice Implications Option Grid decision aids are not being used as intended in interpreted consultations