Interpreting infrastructure: Defining user value for digital financial intermediaries.

The 3DaRoC project is exploring digital connectivity and peer-to-peer relationships in financial services. In the light of the near collapse of the UK and world financial sector, understanding and innovating new and more sustainable approaches to financial services is now a critical topic. At the same time, the increasing penetration and take-up of robust high-speed networks, dependable peerto- peer architectures and mobile multimedia technologies offer novel platforms for offering financial services over the Internet. These new forms of digital connectivity give rise to opportunities in doing financial transactions in different ways and with radically different business models that offer the possibility of transforming the marketplace. One area in the digital economy that has had such an effect is in the ways that users access and use digital banking and payment services. The impact of the new economic models presented by these digital financial services is yet to be fully determined, but they have huge potential as disruptive innovations, with a potentially transformative effect on the way that services are offered to users. Little is understood about how technical infrastructures impact on the ways that people make sense of the financial services that they use, or on how these might be designed more effectively. 3DaRoC is exploring this space working with our partners and end users to prototype and evaluate new online, mobile, ubiquitous and tangible technologies, exploring how these services might be extended.Executive Summary: Drawing from Studies of Use - the value, use and interpretation of infrastructure in digital intermediaries to their users. The UK economy has a huge dependence on financial services, and this is increasingly based on digital platforms. Innovating new economic models around consumer financial services through the use of digital technologies is seen as increasingly important in developed economies. There are a number of drivers for this, ranging from national economic factors to the prosaic nature of enabling cheap, speedy and timely interactions for users. The potential for these new digital solutions is that they will allay an over-reliance on the traditional banking sector, which has proved itself to be unstable and risky, and we have seen a number of national policy moves to encourage growth in this sector. Partly as a result of the 2008 banking crisis, there has been an explosion in peer-to-peer financial services for non-professional consumers. These organisations act as intermediaries between users looking to trade goods or credit. However, building self-sustaining or profitable financial services within this novel space is itself fraught with commercial, regulatory, technical and social problems. This document reports on the value, use and interpretation of infrastructure in digital intermediaries to their users, describing analysis of contextual field studies carried out in two retail digital financial intermediary organisations: Zopa Limited and the Bristol Pound. It forms the second milestone document in the 3DaRoC project, developing patterns of use that have arisen on the back of the technical infrastructures in the two organisations that form cases for examination. Its purpose is to examine how the two different technical infrastructures that underpin the transactions that they support–composed of the back-office hardware and software, data structures, the networking and communications technologies used, supported consumer devices, and the user interfaces and interaction design–have provided opportunities for users to realise their financial and other needs. While we orient towards the issues of service use (and its problems), we also examine the activities and expectations of their various users. Our research has involved teams from Lancaster University examining Zopa and Brunel University focusing on the Bristol Pound over approximately a one-year period from October 2013 to October 2014. Extensive interviews, document analysis, observation of user interactions, and other methods have been employed to develop the process analyses of the firms presented here. This report comprises of three key sections: descriptions of the user demographics for Zopa and the Bristol Pound, a discussion about the user experience and its role in community, and an examination of the role of usage data in the development of these a products. We conclude with final analytical section drawing preliminary conclusions from the research presented.The 3DaRoC project is funded by the RCUK Digital Economy ‘Research in the Wild’ theme (grant no. EP/K012304/1)

Putting the ‘digital’ in Digital Intermediaries: the role of technical infrastructure in building business models

Digital Technology Innovation and Financial Business Practices The UK economy has a huge dependence on financial services, and this is increasingly based on digital platforms. Innovating new economic models around consumer financial services through the use of digital technologies is seen as increasingly important in developed economies. There are a number of drivers for this, ranging from national economic factors to the prosaic nature of enabling cheap, speedy and timely interactions for users. The potential for these new digital solutions is that they will allay an over-reliance on the traditional banking sector, which has proved itself to be unstable and risky, and we have seen a number of national policy moves to encourage growth in this sector. Partly as a result of the 2008 banking crisis, there has been an explosion in peer-to-peer financial services for non-professional consumers. These organisations act as intermediaries between users looking to trade goods or credit. However, building self-sustaining or profitable financial services within this novel space is itself fraught with commercial, regulatory, technical and social problems. This report addresses the mutual shaping of business models and innovations in digital technical infrastructure – both client-facing and administrative back-end – in two retail financial products currently in use in the United Kingdom: peer-to-peer consumer lending and a local digital/paper hybrid currency system. The two products and their issuing firms, Zopa Limited (Zopa) and The Bristol Pound Community Interest Company (the Bristol Pound), respectively, are established leaders in their respective product areas: Zopa was established in 2005 and the Bristol Pound in 2010. Each of these firms seeks to disrupt an established financial market through the application of digital technologies and processes: consumer lending for Zopa and retail payment for the Bristol Pound. Our research has involved teams from Lancaster University examining Zopa and Brunel University focusing on the Bristol Pound over approximately a one-year period from October 2013 to October 2014. Extensive interviews, document analysis, observation of user interactions, and other methods have been employed to develop the process analyses of the firms presented here. This report is comprised of three primary sections: descriptions of the business and technological processes of each of Zopa and the Bristol Pound, and a final analytical section drawing preliminary conclusions from the research presented.3DaRoC is funded by the UK’s Digital Economy ‘Research in the Wild’ initiative. It has a substantial research budget of over £320K, with £35K of additional industrial support

Security Analysis, Agency Costs, and UK Firm Characteristics

This paper assesses the monitoring power of security analysts from the manager-shareholder conflict perspective. Using a sample of UK firms tracked by security analysts, our evidence supports the view that security analysis acts as a monitoring mechanism in reducing agency costs. We also find that security analysts are more effective in reducing agency costs for smaller and more focused firms rather than larger and more diversified firms suggesting that for larger and more complex firms security analysis is less effective. The UK findings suggest that the monitoring role of security analysts is not restricted to the U.S. capital market environment.

Control task substitution in semi-automated driving: does it matter what aspects are automated?

Objective: The study was designed to show how driver attention to the road scene and engagement of a choice of secondary tasks are affected by the level of automation provided to assist or take over the basic task of vehicle control. It was also designed to investigate the difference between support in longitudinal control and support in lateral control. Background: There is comparatively little literature on the implications of automation for drivers’ engagement in the driving task and for their willingness to engage in non-driving-related activities. Method: A study was carried out on a high-level driving simulator in which drivers experienced three levels of automation: manual driving, semiautomated driving with either longitudinal or lateral control provided, and highly automated driving with both longitudinal and lateral control provided. Drivers were free to pay attention to the roadway and traffic or to engage in a range of entertainment and grooming tasks. Results: Engagement in the nondriving tasks increased from manual to semiautomated driving and increased further with highly automated driving. There were substantial differences in attention to the road and traffic between the two types of semiautomated driving. Conclusion: The literature on automation and the various task analyses of driving do not currently help to explain the effects that were found. Lateral support and longitudinal support may be the same in terms of levels of automation but appear to be regarded rather differently by drivers

The measurement of aircraft performance and stability and control after flight through natural icing conditions

The effects of airframe icing on the performance and stability and control of a twin-engine commuter-class aircraft were measured by the NASA Lewis Research Center. This work consisted of clear air tests with artificial ice shapes attached to the horizontal tail, and natural icing flight tests in measured icing clouds. The clear air tests employed static longitudinal flight test methods to determine degradation in stability margins for four simulated ice shapes. The natural icing flight tests employed a data acquisition system, which was provided under contract to NASA by Kohlman Systems Research Incorporated. This system used a performance modeling method and modified maximum likelihood estimation (MMLE) technique to determine aircraft performance degradation and stability and control. Flight test results with artificial ice shapes showed that longitudinal, stick-fixed, static margins are reduced on the order of 5 percent with flaps up. Natural icing tests with the KSR system corroborated these results and showed degradation in the elevator control derivatives on the order of 8 to 16 percent depending on wing flap configuration. Performance analyses showed the individual contributions of major airframe components to the overall degration in lift and drag

Shining new light on mammalian diving physiology using wearable near-infrared spectroscopy

Investigation of marine mammal dive-by-dive blood distribution and oxygenation has been limited by a lack of non-invasive technology for use in freely diving animals. Here, we developed a non-invasive near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) device to measure relative changes in blood volume and haemoglobin oxygenation continuously in the blubber and brain of voluntarily diving harbour seals. Our results show that seals routinely exhibit preparatory peripheral vasoconstriction accompanied by increased cerebral blood volume approximately 15 s before submersion. These anticipatory adjustments confirm that blood redistribution in seals is under some degree of cognitive control that precedes the mammalian dive response. Seals also routinely increase cerebral oxygenation at a consistent time during each dive, despite a lack of access to ambient air. We suggest that this frequent and reproducible reoxygenation pattern, without access to ambient air, is underpinned by previously unrecognised changes in cerebral drainage. The ability to track blood volume and oxygenation in different tissues using NIRS will facilitate a more accurate understanding of physiological plasticity in diving animals in an increasingly disturbed and exploited environment

Too cold is better than too hot: Preferred temperatures and basking behaviour in a tropical freshwater turtle

Thermoregulation is critical to the survival of animals. Tropical environments can be particularly thermally challenging as they reach very high, even lethal, temperatures. The thermoregulatory responses of tropical freshwater turtles to these challenges are poorly known. One common thermoregulatory behaviour is diurnal basking, which, for many species, facilitates heat gain. Recently, however, a north-eastern Australian population of Krefft's river turtles (Emydura macquarii krefftii) has been observed basking nocturnally, possibly to allow cooling. To test this, we determined the thermal preference (central 50% of temperatures selected) of E. m. krefftii in an aquatic thermal gradient in the laboratory. We then conducted a manipulative experiment to test the effects of water temperatures, both lower and higher than preferred temperature, on diurnal and nocturnal basking. The preferred temperature range fell between 25.3°C (±SD: 1.5) and 27.6°C (±1.4) during the day, and 25.3°C (±2.4) and 26.8°C (±2.5) at night. Based on this, we exposed turtles to three 24 h water temperature treatments (‘cool’ [23°C], ‘preferred’ [26°C] and ‘warm’ [29°C]) while air temperature remained constant at 26°C. Turtles basked more frequently and for longer periods during both the day and night when water temperatures were above their preferred range (the ‘warm’ treatment). This population frequently encounters aquatic temperatures above the preferred thermal range, and our results support the hypothesis that nocturnal basking is a mechanism for escaping unfavourably warm water. Targeted field studies would be a valuable next step in understanding the seasonal scope of this behaviour in a natural environment

The effect of DAFNE education, continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion, or both in a population with type 1 diabetes in Scotland

Aim: To investigate the effect of DAFNEand continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion in clinical practice. Methods: Within NHS Lothian, continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion started in 2004 and DAFNE education began in 2006. We extracted anonymized data from the national database for all those aged > 18 years with type 1 diabetes having a Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating course or continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion start date (n = 4617). Results: In total, 956 persons received DAFNEeducation, and 505 had received an insulin pump, 208 of whom had DAFNE education followed by insulin pump. Mean (SD) HbA1c before DAFNE education was 68 (15) mmol/mol (8.4% [1.4%]) and 66 (13) mmol/mol (8.2% [1.2%]) before continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion. In the year following DAFNE education, the mean fall in within‐person HbA1c was 3.8 mmol/mol (95% CI 4.0 to 3.4; 0.3% [0.4% to 0.3%]). Those with the poorest control (HbA1c ≥ 85 mmol/mol [9.9%]) experienced the largest decline (15.7 mmol/mol [1.4%]). Those in the lowest HbA1c band at initiation (< 53 mmol/mmol [7.0%]) experienced a rise. In the year following continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion initiation there was a mean fall in within‐person HbA1c of 6.6 mmol/mol (6.8 to 6.4; 0.6% [0.6% to 0.6%]). In those with the poorest control (HbA1c ≥ 85 mmol/mol [9.9%]), the mean fall in HbA1c was 22.2 mmol/mol (23 to 21; 2.0% [2.1% to 1.9%]). Continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion effectiveness was not different with or without DAFNE education. The effects of both interventions were sustained over 5 years. Conclusions: Both DAFNE education and insulin pump therapy had the greatest effect on HbA1c in those with higher baseline values. There was little difference to attained HbA1c when Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating education was introduced before insulin pump therapy