Gender in the Property Industry and Professional Bodies - An Australian Perspective

Recently, significant public debate regarding the lack of women appointed to senior management positions such as on ASX listed company boards has highlighted the lack of gender equity. The property industry is dominated by male representation at the top levels despite the gender gap within university graduates approaching equal proportions. This paper evaluates the role that professional bodies are embracing to address the gender inequality and how this is reflected in the makeup of the board composition of the leading professional associations and industry bodies in Australia. While there is limited research on women in property this paper demonstrates the need for further in-depth analysis to identify the constraints to progressing gender equality. The findings indicate that the property profession while publicly promoting women in the property industry still maintain governing boards within their professional associations and industry bodies that are significantly under-represented by women

COWORKING: THE NEW DESIGN OF WORKPLACES

Globalisation of business, innovative technologies and increase in knowledge-based industries have had significant impacts on organisations’ business practices. This has subsequently affected the demand for space in built-facilities. As a result, the demand for flexible office space solutions such as coworking, or provision of communal, flexible office spaces on a short-term basis, have become a rapidly growing phenomenon. By conducting a case study analyses of two large property trusts in Australia, this research paper examines how the office layouts and configurations are adapted in coworking spaces to facilitate such innovative spaces. Findings identify that the main design strategies for coworking spaces are to enhance space autonomy, create communities, facilitate collaboration, create spontaneous encounters, create multi-purpose and multi-generational spaces, create productive work environments and reduce individual workplace footprints. The research findings emphasise the importance of having more dynamic and creative office layouts and configurations that are better aligned with the interests of landlords, space operators and diverse groups of office space users in flexible office arrangements

THE RISE OF COWORKING AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS ON TRADITIONAL LEASING MODELS

Coworking, or provision of communal, flexible office spaces on a short-term basis, is a rapidly growing phenomenon in the modern office markets. Coworking was initially driven by the preferences of freelancers, knowledge workers and start-up communities; however more recently the industry has targeted large corporate organisations as their new path of growth. Many landlords are being challenged by this growing demand for flexible, collaborative spaces, and are increasingly looking at how to leverage the benefits of including such spaces within their portfolio. For coworking spaces, landlords are required to revisit traditional lease structures and introduce more creative, alternative means of leasing in order to facilitate new leasing options that provide greater ability to manage volatile headcounts. This conceptual paper analyses the existing literature to identify alternative lease models that can facilitate the growing demand for flexible, scalable and collaborative spaces. The findings identify flex and core leasing model, revenue and profit share model, city campus model, joint venture model and management model as appropriate alternative lease and operating structures for coworking spaces. The findings also identify the advantages and challenges associated with each lease model from the landlord’s point of view. The findings emphasise the importance of having more dynamic and creative lease structures that are better aligned with the interests of landlords, space operators and diverse groups of office space users in flexible office arrangements

CD14+ CD15- HLA-DR- myeloid-derived suppressor cells impair antimicrobial responses in patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure.

OBJECTIVE: Immune paresis in patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) accounts for infection susceptibility and increased mortality. Immunosuppressive mononuclear CD14+HLA-DR- myeloid-derived suppressor cells (M-MDSCs) have recently been identified to quell antimicrobial responses in immune-mediated diseases. We sought to delineate the function and derivation of M-MDSC in patients with ACLF, and explore potential targets to augment antimicrobial responses. DESIGN: Patients with ACLF (n=41) were compared with healthy subjects (n=25) and patients with cirrhosis (n=22) or acute liver failure (n=30). CD14+CD15-CD11b+HLA-DR- cells were identified as per definition of M-MDSC and detailed immunophenotypic analyses were performed. Suppression of T cell activation was assessed by mixed lymphocyte reaction. Assessment of innate immune function included cytokine expression in response to Toll-like receptor (TLR-2, TLR-4 and TLR-9) stimulation and phagocytosis assays using flow cytometry and live cell imaging-based techniques. RESULTS: Circulating CD14+CD15-CD11b+HLA-DR- M-MDSCs were markedly expanded in patients with ACLF (55% of CD14+ cells). M-MDSC displayed immunosuppressive properties, significantly decreasing T cell proliferation (p=0.01), producing less tumour necrosis factor-alpha/interleukin-6 in response to TLR stimulation (all p<0.01), and reduced bacterial uptake of Escherichia coli (p<0.001). Persistently low expression of HLA-DR during disease evolution was linked to secondary infection and 28-day mortality. Recurrent TLR-2 and TLR-4 stimulation expanded M-MDSC in vitro. By contrast, TLR-3 agonism reconstituted HLA-DR expression and innate immune function ex vivo. CONCLUSION: Immunosuppressive CD14+HLA-DR- M-MDSCs are expanded in patients with ACLF. They were depicted by suppressing T cell function, attenuated antimicrobial innate immune responses, linked to secondary infection, disease severity and prognosis. TLR-3 agonism reversed M-MDSC expansion and innate immune function and merits further evaluation as potential immunotherapeutic agent

Detection of interictal discharges with convolutional neural networks using discrete ordered multichannel intracranial EEG

Detection algorithms for electroencephalography (EEG) data, especially in the field of interictal epileptiform discharge (IED) detection, have traditionally employed handcrafted features which utilised specific characteristics of neural responses. Although these algorithms achieve high accuracy, mere detection of an IED holds little clinical significance. In this work, we consider deep learning for epileptic subjects to accommodate automatic feature generation from intracranial EEG data, while also providing clinical insight. Convolutional neural networks are trained in a subject independent fashion to demonstrate how meaningful features are automatically learned in a hierarchical process. We illustrate how the convolved filters in the deepest layers provide insight towards the different types of IEDs within the group, as confirmed by our expert clinicians. The morphology of the IEDs found in filters can help evaluate the treatment of a patient. To improve the learning of the deep model, moderately different score classes are utilised as opposed to binary IED and non-IED labels. The resulting model achieves state of the art classification performance and is also invariant to time differences between the IEDs. This study suggests that deep learning is suitable for automatic feature generation from intracranial EEG data, while also providing insight into the dat

Wave Energy Amplification in a Metamaterial based Traveling Wave Structure

We consider the interaction between a particle beam and a propagating electromagnetic wave in the presence of a metamaterial. We show that the introduction of a metamaterial gives rise to a novel dispersion curve which determines a unique wave particle relationship, via the frequency dependence of the metamaterial and the novel ability of metamaterials to exhibit simultaneous negative permittivity and permeability. Using a modified form of Madey's theorem we find that the novel dispersion of the metamaterial leads to a amplification of the EM wave power