Real Estate Portfolio Management Practices of Pension Funds and Insurance Companies in the Netherlands: A Survey

Pension funds and insurance companies in the Netherlands allocate, on average, over 15% to equity real estate. This suggests that they hold different beliefs and/or apply different decision rules than their U.S. counterparts, who typically have allocated only about 4% of their wealth to real estate. A personal survey was conducted to test whether the findings of similar (mail) surveys on U.S. real estate portfolio management practices also hold for Dutch institutions. Unlike the Americans, for example, the Dutch are found to not systematically adjust for risk and to invest in real estate because of its inflation-hedging capacities.

Real Estate Diversification Benefits

Diversification benefits are shown to vary inversely with the correlation between asset returns. The present study estimates average correlation coefficients between real-estate returns from property-specific data of an internationally diversified real estate and in the Netherlands. It is found that diversification benefits within the United States are much larger than on the European Continent. The low correlation found between U.S. real estate returns implies that portfolios of small numbers of U.S. properties would require large return premia. Also, the study helps to explain shy financial intermediaries exist in the real estate industry and when investors should consider employing them.

Новий словник епітетів української мови

У статті йдеться про засади створення «Нового словника епітетів української мови» (автори С. П. Бибик, С. Я. Єрмоленко, В. І. Єрмоленко). Словник значно доповнено за рахунок нових заголовкових слів та збільшення кількості узгоджених означень до всіх заголовкових слів. Розширено сполучуваність заголовкових іменників із прикметниковими словам. Нова структура словникової статті виокремлює епітети, що вживаються в структурі порівняння, а також епітети у структурі метафори

Smoothing Bias in In-House Appraisal-Based Returns of Open-End Real Estate Funds

Appraisal-based real estate return series often exhibit little variation, which is referred to as smoothing bias. This paper discriminates between in-house and outside appraisals as sources of smoothing bias in appraisal-based returns. There is reason to expect that in-house appraisal-based returns of open-end real estate funds are smoothed. For a large open-end real estate fund listed at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, an unusually detailed set of data is available, including observations of both in-house and outside appraisals. The empirical findings suggest that in-house appraisal-based returns are smoothed, whereas those based on independent outside appraisals are not.

Vibration isolation with high thermal conductance for a cryogen-free dilution refrigerator

We present the design and implementation of a mechanical low-pass filter vibration isolation used to reduce the vibrational noise in a cryogen-free dilution refrigerator operated at 10 mK, intended for scanning probe techniques. We discuss the design guidelines necessary to meet the competing requirements of having a low mechanical stiffness in combination with a high thermal conductance. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by measuring the vibrational noise levels of an ultrasoft mechanical resonator positioned above a SQUID. Starting from a cryostat base temperature of 8 mK, the vibration isolation can be cooled to 10.5 mK, with a cooling power of 113 $\mu$W at 100 mK. We use the low vibrations and low temperature to demonstrate an effective cantilever temperature of less than 20 mK. This results in a force sensitivity of less than 500 zN/$\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$, and an integrated frequency noise as low as 0.4 mHz in a 1 Hz measurement bandwidth

Comparison of methods for in-house screening of HLA*B57:01 to prevent abacavir hypersensitivity in HIV-1 care

Abacavir is a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor used as part of combination antiretroviral therapy in HIV-1-infected patients. Because this drug can cause a hypersensitivity reaction that is correlated with the presence of the HLA-B*57:01 allotype, screening for the presence of HLA-B*57:01 is recommended before abacavir initiation. Different genetic assays have been developed for HLA-B*57:01 screening, each with specific sensitivity, turnaround time and assay costs. Here, a new real-time PCR (qPCR) based analysis is described and compared to sequence specific primer PCR with capillary electrophoresis (SSP PCR CE) on 149 patient-derived samples, using sequence specific oligonucleotide hybridization combined with high resolution SSP PCR as gold standard. In addition to these PCR based methods, a complementary approach was developed using flow cytometry with an HLA-B17 specific monoclonal antibody as a pre-screening assay to diminish the number of samples for genetic testing. All three assays had a maximum sensitivity of >99. However, differences in specificity were recorded, i.e. 84.3%, 97.2% and >99% for flow cytometry, qPCR and SSP PCR CE respectively. Our data indicate that the most specific and sensitive of the compared methods is the SSP PCR CE. Flow cytometry pre-screening can substantially decrease the number of genetic tests for HLA-B*57:01 typing in a clinical setting