Portfolio Infrastructure Investments: an Analysis of the European and UK Cases

Infrastructure has been receiving much attention in recent years. Investment banks and fund managers are increasingly promoting the investment characteristics of infrastructure assets and they argue that investing in infrastructure should be ideal for institutional investors such as pension funds. However, the claim lacks empirical support. We suggest that the limited research on infrastructure is mainly due to scant empirical data. The objectives of this paper are to examine the significance of economic infrastructure as an asset class by assessing the investment characteristics and performance of infrastructure indexes in Europe and UK from 2000-2014, to analyse how an infrastructure portfolio should be constructed and to determine whether the private sector should invest in an infrastructure portfolio containing a variety of infrastructure sectors or if the private sector should invest in one specific sector only

Living with infertility: an exploratory study of men’s experience

Research on the infertility realm is mostly dominated by the female experience and on gender differences. Despite the fact that half of the infertility issues are associated with men, research on the male experience remains limited. There has recently been a change since more studies have been carried out, but the gap remains vast. This study attends to the research imbalance and aims to minimise the gap even further. It gives men a voice in the infertility realm by shedding more light on their experience. It captures how men conceptualise their infertility, what it means to become a father and the impact their condition has on their sense of Self. The aims of the study were addressed by exploring the experience of five men with an exclusively male factor infertility. After careful consideration, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was deemed the most suitable methodology and two interviews were carried out with each participant. Following the analysis of the data, four major themes were established. These were the emerging notion of fatherhood, the disempowering impact of infertility, responding to the limitations of infertility and placing infertility in a relational frame. This study makes a significant contribution as it provides a rich exploration of the male experience and makes an important addition to the limited research on male infertility. It also highlights how essential it is to provide this client group with an easier access to psychological interventions. The provision of information in a written format and the availability of online forums are also discussed as possible ways of supporting men with an infertility diagnosis

Portfolio of Infrastructure Investments: Analysis of European Infrastructure

Infrastructure has received much attention in recent years. Investment in infrastructure is particularly effective and has been recommended to institutional investors for investments such as pension funds because of the characteristics of infrastructure assets. However, robust analytical and empirical analyses in support of these investments are limited, mainly due to scant empirical data. In this work, by collecting relevant data sets on infrastructures, the authors address two objectives. First, the authors examine the significance of listed infrastructure sectors and subsectors by assessing the investment characteristics and performance of different infrastructure indexes in Europe. The aim here is to demonstrate how an effective and successful infrastructure portfolio should be constructed. The second objective of this research is to evaluate the strategy of infrastructure investors, in other words, to prove evidentially whether the investor should invest in a portfolio containing different infrastructure sectors or whether it is still possible to obtain diversification benefits by investing in only a single infrastructure sector

Cyber insurance of information systems: Security and privacy cyber insurance contracts for ICT and helathcare organizations

Nowadays, more-and-more aspects of our daily activities are digitalized. Data and assets in the cyber-space, both for individuals and organizations, must be safeguarded. Thus, the insurance sector must face the challenge of digital transformation in the 5G era with the right set of tools. In this paper, we present CyberSure-an insurance framework for information systems. CyberSure investigates the interplay between certification, risk management, and insurance of cyber processes. It promotes continuous monitoring as the new building block for cyber insurance in order to overcome the current obstacles of identifying in real-time contractual violations by the insured party and receiving early warning notifications prior the violation. Lightweight monitoring modules capture the status of the operating components and send data to the CyberSure backend system which performs the core decision making. Therefore, an insured system is certified dynamically, with the risk and insurance perspectives being evaluated at runtime as the system operation evolves. As new data become available, the risk management and the insurance policies are adjusted and fine-tuned. When an incident occurs, the insurance company possesses adequate information to assess the situation fast, estimate accurately the level of a potential loss, and decrease the required period for compensating the insured customer. The framework is applied in the ICT and healthcare domains, assessing the system of medium-size organizations. GDPR implications are also considered with the overall setting being effective and scalable

Dynamically Personalizing Search Results for Mobile Users

International audienceWe introduce a novel situation-aware approach to personalize search results for mobile users. By providing a mobile user with appropriate information that dynamically satisfies his interests according to his situation, we tackle the problem of information overload. To build situation-aware user profile we rely on evidence issued from retrieval situations. A retrieval situation refers to the spatio-temporal context of the user when submitting a query to the search engine. A situation is represented as a combination of geographical and temporal concepts inferred from concrete time and location information by some ontological knowledge. User's interests are inferred from past search activities related to the identified situations. They are represented using concepts issued from a thematic ontology. We also involve a method to maintain the user's interests over his ongoing search activity and to personalize the search results

Local E-Government in Cyprus: A Comparison of Perceptions Between Citizens and Decision Makers

This paper identifies attitudes and perceptions on e-government among two key populations: citizens of the Republic of Cyprus and local government decision makers. The research methodology is based on both secondary and primary data collection, with the latter including a questionnaire survey of the public and another of major local governments\u27 officials who were directly involved in the decision making of the services provided through local egovernment initiatives. The results of the surveys are analysed and cross-related The research has reached three principal clusters of conclusions. The first relates to a number of discrepancies found when comparing the public\u27s perceptions, needs and potentialities on e-government and the corresponding perceptions of the municipality decision makers. The second cluster relates to the wider potentialities of local e-government in Cyprus. The third cluster is provides directions and towards a successful local e-government implementation in Cyprus

Educational programmes for frail older people, their families, carers, and healthcare professionals: A Systematic Review.

Purpose: More people are living with frailty and requiring additional health and support services. To improve their management, the ‘Frailty: Core Capability Framework’ in the United Kingdom recommends frailty education for older individuals, their families, carers and health professionals. We performed a systematic review of specific educational programmes for these groups. Methods: Electronic databases were searched using dedicated search terms and inclusion criteria. To improve accuracy, two reviewers carried out the screening and selection of research papers. Information from included studies was collected using a tailored data-extraction template, and quality appraisal tools were used to assess the rigour of the studies. The findings were analysed to identify key themes. Results: Eleven studies met the criteria and were included in the review. Their study populations ranged from 12 to 603 and the research designs were heterogeneous (6 Qualitative; 2 Randomised Controlled Trials; 1 Quasi-experimental; 1 Mixed methods; 1 Cross-sectional study). Whilst some methodological shortcomings were identified, all studies contributed valuable information. Their results underwent narrative synthesis which elucidated four thematic domains: (1) Accessibility of educational programmes, (2) Empowerment, (3) Self-care, and (4) Health Promotion (especially exercise and nutrition). Conclusion: Educational programmes for older people, their carers and health professionals are important for effective frailty prevention and management. To be maximally beneficial, they should be easily accessible to all target populations and include empowerment, self-care and health promotion. Further research should explore the formulation of widely-applicable, user-friendly programmes and delivery formats that can be tailored to different client groups

Genetic background modifies amyloidosis in a mouse model of ATTR neuropathy

AbstractPenetrance and age of onset of ATTRV30M amyloidotic neuropathy varies significantly among different populations. This variability has been attributed to both genetic and environmental modifiers. We studied the effect of genetic background on phenotype in two lines of transgenic mice bearing the same ATTRV30M transgene. Amyloid deposition, transthyretin (TTR), megalin, clusterin and disease markers of endoplasmic reticulum stress, the ubiquitin-proteasome system, apoptosis, and complement activation were assessed with WB and immunohistochemistry in donor and recipient tissue. Our results indicate that genetic background modulates amyloid deposition by influencing TTR handling in recipient tissue and may partly account for the marked variability in penetrance observed in various world populations