Utility Of Assets Research Articles

Beyond financial wealth: The experienced utility of collectibles

We argue that the utility of specific assets, in our case collectibles, is not only derived from the financial outcome, but also from the conditions that prevail until a financial outcome may be realized. Therefore, we derive a multi-attribute utility function that measures financial returns — using a mean-variance utility function — on the one hand, and non-financial returns — using an experienced utility function — on the other. We then reveal the trade-off between financial and non-financial utility by analyzing 363 owners of collectibles. We divide the owners into the group of collectors and the group of investors, based on their self-reported motivation. Our results suggest that collectors receive almost no utility from financial returns, but rather from experience. The opposite is the case for investors. Our findings help to explain the reported financial underperformance of collectibles and suggest to adjust existing models of utility.

RentIt: A Peer To Peer Asset Sharing Platform

Abstract: This paper introduces RentIt, an innovative Peer-to-Peer (P2P) rental platform aimed at revolutionizing resource access and sharing. The RentIt system is designed to facilitate seamless connections and transactions among users within a secure and user-friendly environment. Users can effortlessly list, discover, and rent a diverse array of items from fellow users, optimizing the utilization of underutilized assets. The RentIt platform is built on cutting-edge technology, emphasizing trust and transparency in peer-to-peer transactions. Through this system, individuals gain the ability to share their resources with others, contributing to a more sustainable and collaborative community. The platform’s user-friendly interface ensures an efficient and reliable experience for both lenders and renters. This paper details the architecture and functionality of RentIt, highlighting its role in transforming conventional resource man-agement practices. It emphasizes the importance of maximizing the utility of idle assets, promoting a culture of responsible consumption, and fostering a sense of community through shared resources.

FORECAST IFRS FINANCIAL STATEMENTS IN CONDITIONS OF MARITIME

Extremely difficult conditions for the management of domestic enterprises due to large-scale military aggression by russia have led to extremely uncertain environmental conditions under the influence of unpredictable dynamics of events of a militarypolitical nature. Enterprises face the task of finding opportunities to implement and apply planning and forecasting with further improvement of forecasting methods and budgets to increase business activity in the future. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the feasibility and choice of methods fo r forming indicators of projected financial statements in accordance with IFRS in order to increase the investment attractiveness of enterprises. Projected financial statements as a source of information data for the development of enterprise development plans and assess the impact of management decisions on performance and financial condition provides the formation of information about projected indicators for investors. Against the background of Ukraine's future candidate status for EU membership, the urgency of preparing consolidated projected financial statements based on the requirements of IFRS wil l increase. The basic aspects of the formation of projected financial statements in accordance with IFRS, which allows to form an array of information about the financial results of the enterprise and possible trends in its economic development. In order to increase the investment attractiveness of individual business entities in the future, the importance of preparing forecasted financial statements according to IFRS with a detailed description of the business environment in conditions of hostilities or their absence has been proven. The key aspects for the formation of the indicators of the forecasted financial reporting in 2023 have been identified: a review of approaches to reducing the utility of assets, in particular financial ones, a detailed disclosure of financial risks, taking into account the factors of martial law, a search for reserves and an assessment of the prospects for intensifying business activity.

The Impact of Household Asset Allocation on the Heterogeneity of Residents' Consumption Based on CFPS Micro Data

In response to the impact of household asset allocation on residents' consumption heterogeneity, this article first uses the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to conduct preliminary analysis and statistics, and selects some control variables. Secondly, the instrumental variable method is used to study the total consumer expenditure of residents and determine the feasibility of controlling variables. Finally, based on this, the instrumental variable method is used to study the secondary and tertiary indicators of asset allocation and the secondary indicators of consumer expenditure, and the model is tested to determine the impact of household asset allocation types on residents' heterogeneous consumption. The research draws the following conclusions: (1) The average marginal utility of household physical asset holdings on consumption is slightly greater than the marginal utility of financial assets. (2) Household cash and deposit holdings have a more obvious marginal utility on consumption than their holdings of financial products. (3) The positive impact of the total purchase price of a family car on medical, entertainment, and home expenses is significantly greater than its impact on clothing, food, housing, and transportation expenses.

An Asymmetric Panel Error-Correction Model of Australian Office Rents

The econometric modelling of real estate can encounter a number of issues due to the functional utility and investment characteristics of property assets. One issue of particular importance is the inherent mismatch between inelastic supply and elastic demand. We examine the office markets in the five largest Australian cities using an asymmetric panel error-correction framework. It is found that prime office markets responded to both changes in demand and supply as expected. However, secondary markets responded in most specifications to demand with a subdued rent response arising from reduced stock availability. This finding raises several questions concerning the relationship between prime and secondary office markets.

The Utility of Including Regular Sport Team Events in Event Portfolios

Event portfolios are a useful way for destination managers to holistically manage their community’s collection of events and, through strategic integration and common objectives, more effectively produce benefits. However, regular sport events such as those played by professional sport teams in a sport league have received little attention from event portfolio managers and researchers. Understanding the value and utility of sport team event assets can inform the successful integration of these events into event portfolios. This research used qualitative methods to examine how team asset components can contribute to achieving event portfolio objectives. The results have significance for event tourism researchers and practitioners and demonstrate that contributions are largely founded on the focal professional sport league structure, which provides constant content and regular communications with key target markets. Analysis of the findings led to the development of a model on the utility of including team events in an event portfolio.

The pursuit of permanence: regulating land for socio-economic stability in a colonial Massachusetts town

ABSTRACT This paper first reviews how England’s middle-class Puritans developed various anxieties regarding their socioeconomic security in the emerging capitalist economy of early modern England. It then investigates three local land practices developed by Puritan colonists in New England to better secure their status in the New World, as revealed in a survey of town proceedings from Watertown, Massachusetts, from 1634 through 1773. These were restricting access to landownership, ‘warning out’ poor outsiders beyond town bounds, and managing land use. These practices enabled the middle-class, small-scale property owners who dominated local government in colonial Watertown to preserve the utility of land assets for future generations, manage the tax burden they associated with poor relief, and prevent conflicts arising among users of private and shared property. In doing so they maintained their households’ status in keeping with their notions of material and spiritual well-being. The paper aligns these practices with later local land practices, including restrictive covenants and zoning, that middle-class communities have used to manage the particular pressures they face in the development of capitalist economies.

Advancing multi-regional research in Canada through collaboration.

ObjectivesCOVID-19 accentuated the importance of breaking down data siloes and aligning incentives for data access, collection, and use. Health Data Research Network Canada (HDRN Canada) is responding to this challenge, bringing together people and organizations to transform health data use in Canada. ApproachHDRN Canada’s foundation is its partnership of 20 pan-Canadian, provincial and territorial data organizations that together are enabling multi-regional research. This is being enriched with HDRN Canada’s development of the Canada Health Data Research Alliance (HDR Alliance). The HDR Alliance coordinates expansion of sources and types of data available while retaining organizational independence. A project-based pilot approach is underway with two large pan-Canadian, longitudinal, consented cohort studies being linked at HDRN Canada sites. In addition, a collaboration with a pan-Canadian COVID19 clinical trials network is ensuring that clinical data are collected in ways that enables linkage with population-based administrative data. ResultsHDRN Canada has created a single data access portal for researchers with information on over 500 datasets and supported 72 research projects to date. Work on the HDR Alliance adds data from the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health and the Canadian Longitudinal Survey on Aging. The former includes 350,000 individuals, and survey data (including related to COVID-19), physical measures and genomics. The latter includes 50,000 individuals with survey data and physical measures. Four multi-region clinical trials are being planned with the support of HDRN Canada. Even with aligned incentives, challenges navigating data governance and access processes remain. Collaborations are necessary to address these complexities and enable access to richer data in an efficient and timely matter. ConclusionStrong partnerships are critical to unlocking the potential of Canada’s data assets and expertise. The HDR Alliance provides a collaboration mechanism to increase the “findability”, accessibility and utility of data assets, while addressing complex issues in the data landscape. This increases research opportunities and the impact of population-based, linkable data.

Use of Linked Administrative Children’s Social Care Data for Research: A Scoping Review of Existing UK Studies

Abstract Increasing access to children’s social care data presents enormous potential for research and policy evaluation, with opportunities increased where data can be anonymously linked to other sources of information, such as health and education data. The purpose of this scoping review was to provide an overview of all UK data linkage studies that have used routinely collected individual-level children’s social care administrative data. Six research databases were searched and twenty-five studies were identified as meeting the inclusion criteria, with the majority (n = 18) based on English data. Complexities and the time-consuming nature of these studies are highlighted, as are issues with missing data and inconsistencies in recording information across local authorities, impacting on the linkage process. Increased access to such data, and improvements to data capture, could improve the utility of these valuable administrative data assets in the social care sector.

Bartering: Price-Setting Newsvendor Problem with Barter Exchange

Barter exchange is a system of swapping goods or services for other goods or services in a moneyless and direct manner. Barter has become an effective model of a circular economy because it reduces the consumption impact. Bartering maximizes the utility of assets and existing resources, and can unleash the unspent social, economic, and environmental value of underutilized assets. The present article analyzes the price-setting newsvendor problem with a barter exchange option. The retailer facing a stochastic price-dependent demand sells a product on the market and, additionally, needs another product for its own purposes. Therefore, first, the retailer trades the unsold product for the product it needs by means of barter, and next disposes of the unsold product at a discounted price at the end of the selling season. The retailer’s optimal order quantity and optimal price are derived assuming additive uncertainty in demand. This type of demand function has special characteristics, for example, the actual demand may attain negative values in times of economic uncertainty. The possibility of negative demand realizations is taken into consideration in the study. It proves that, in certain cases, the optimal solution belongs to the set of high barter prices which implies that the actual demand may be negative.

МОДЕЛИ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ СТРОИТЕЛЬНОГО КОНСОРЦИУМА ПРИ РЕСТРУКТУРИЗАЦИИ КАПИТАЛА НА РЫНКАХ ЦЕННЫХ БУМАГ

The central issue when choosing a strategy for consolidating or restructuring the consortium's capital is the task of determining the «value» of acquired or sold assets, the effectiveness of actions to change the structure of controlled capital from the point of view of the company's interests. Uncertainty and subjectivity of estimates is an inherent property of the very concept of «asset value». It would be naive to assume (although this belief is explicitly or implicitly present in many economic publications): - that any statistical data, measurements, observations, calculations on models, statistical estimates, etc. can «objectively» identify asset values. The book value of assets is their formally recorded accounting estimate (for the purpose of calculating depreciation, taxation, etc.), which is not directly related to their value for the company. Market value (stock price) is also not an objective measure of asset value for a manager, but only provides an important guideline for possible financial transactions; - that the manager (meaning a good manager) can and will make or propose to the management decisions on investments-divestments by simply comparing the estimated estimates of the values of assets. He will do this on the basis of his beliefs, ideas about the future, intuition, and calculations, research, etc. can only affect these beliefs and give arguments for the formation of the opinions of those persons on whom decision-making depends. It can be argued that the main content of the work of a financial manager is the correct assessment of values from the point of view of the company. If value in the common sense could be measured by objective methods, bidding and negotiating when making deals would lose all meaning. The main content of any transaction (free, of course) is precisely the mutually beneficial exchange of values, which fundamentally have different utility (subjective assessment of benefits) from the point of view of the parties to the transaction (actors). This explanation goes back to the works of one of the founders of economic science, R. Marshall. A transaction in which actor 1 exchanges good A for good B belonging to actor 2 is possible only if for actor 1 utility A is less than utility B, and for actor 2, on the contrary, utility B is less than utility A. Therefore, all exchanges are possible only after clarifying the subjective assessments of the usefulness of the goods exchanged (fundamentally different for the parties to the transaction), and the introduction of «objective» values into consideration only takes away from the essence of the matter. Let us illustrate the proposed approach to the quantitative assessment of subjective measures of the utility of assets by the example of the formation of schemes for the exchange of one means of payment for others between a certain set of actors.

A Decentralized Informatics, Optimization, and Control Framework for Evolving Demand Response Services

This paper presents a decentralized informatics, optimization, and control framework to enable demand response (DR) in small or rural decentralized community power systems, including geographical islands. The framework consists of a simplified lumped model for electrical demand forecasting, a scheduling subsystem that optimizes the utility of energy storage assets, and an active/pro-active control subsystem. The active control strategy provides secondary DR services, through optimizing a multi-objective cost function formulated using a weight-based routing algorithm. In this context, the total weight of each edge between any two consecutive nodes is calculated as a function of thermal comfort, cost (tariff), and the rate at which electricity is consumed over a short future time horizon. The pro-active control strategy provides primary DR services. Furthermore, tertiary DR services can be processed to initiate a sequence of operations that enables the continuity of applied electrical services for the duration of the demand side event. Computer simulations and a case study using hardware-in-the-loop testing is used to evaluate the optimization and control module. The main conclusion drawn from this research shows the real-time operation of the proposed optimization and control scheme, operating on a prototype platform, underpinned by the effectiveness of the new methods and approach for tackling the optimization problem. This research recommends deployment of the optimization and control scheme, at scale, for decentralized community energy management. The paper concludes with a short discussion of business aspects and outlines areas for future work.

Recursos personales y contextuales predictors de afectos positivo y negativo en adolescentes

Este estudio tuvo como objetivo explorar la relación entre la experiencia de recursos del desarrollo —Developmental Assets®— personales y contextuales y los afectos positivo y negativo. Fue evaluada una muestra de conveniencia constituida por 503 estudiantes, entre los años escolares 9° y 12°, con edades comprendidas entre los 13 y los 19 años (M = 15,92; dp = 1,17), mayoritariamente del género femenino (63 %). Los resultados indican que los adolescentes que experimentan un mayor número de recursos tienden a revelar una experiencia superior de afecto positivo e inferior de afecto negativo. Los datos sugieren el impacto de los subconjuntos de recursos del desarrollo en la predicción de los afectos positivo y negativo (explicando el 30 y el 31 % de varianza en los resultados, respectivamente). Ambos recursos, internos y externos, contribuyeron con la varianza de los resultados, y constituyeron los recursos internos predictores más fuertes. Se sugiere la utilidad del modelo de recursos de desarrollo para comprender la experiencia de afecto positivo y afecto negativo en la adolescencia, con el propósito de promover un desarrollo exitoso.

On the Equivalence Between Value-at-Risk and Expected Shortfall in Non-Concave Optimization

This paper studies an optimal asset allocation problem for a surplus-driven financial institution facing a Value-at-Risk (VaR) or an Expected Shortfall (ES) constraint corresponding to a non-concave optimization problem under constraints. We obtain the closed-form optimal wealth with the ES constraint as well as with the VaR constraint respectively, and explicitly calculate the optimal trading strategy for constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) utility functions. We find that both VaR and ES-based regulation can effectively reduce the probability of default for a surplus-driven financial institution. However, the liability holders' benefits cannot be fully protected under either VaR- or ES-based regulation. In addition, we show that the VaR and ES-based regulation can induce the same optimal portfolio choice for a surplus-driven financial institution. This differs from the conclusion drawn in Basak and Shapiro 2001 where the financial institution aims at maximizing the expected utility of the total assets, and ES provides better loss protection.

Guidelines for the Development of Immersive Virtual Reality Software for Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology: The Development of Virtual Reality Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL), a Neuropsychological Test Battery in Immersive Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMD) appear to be effective research tools, which may address the problem of ecological validity in neuropsychological testing. However, their widespread implementation is hindered by VR induced symptoms and effects (VRISE) and the lack of skills in VR software development. This study offers guidelines for the development of VR software in cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology, by describing and discussing the stages of the development of Virtual Reality Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL), the first neuropsychological battery in immersive VR. Techniques for evaluating cognitive functions within a realistic storyline are discussed. The utility of various assets in Unity, software development kits, and other software are described so that cognitive scientists can overcome challenges pertinent to VRISE and the quality of the VR software. In addition, this pilot study attempts to evaluate VR-EAL in accordance with the necessary criteria for VR software for research purposes. The VR neuroscience questionnaire (VRNQ; Kourtesis et al., 2019b) was implemented to appraise the quality of the three versions of VR-EAL in terms of user experience, game mechanics, in-game assistance, and VRISE. Twenty-five participants aged between 20 and 45 years with 12-16 years of full-time education evaluated various versions of VR-EAL. The final version of VR-EAL achieved high scores in every sub-score of the VRNQ and exceeded its parsimonious cut-offs. It also appeared to have better in-game assistance and game mechanics, while its improved graphics substantially increased the quality of the user experience and almost eradicated VRISE. The results substantially support the feasibility of the development of effective VR research and clinical software without the presence of VRISE during a 60-minute VR session.

Portfolio Selection Using Z-Number Theory: Two Solution Methodologies

The Z-number theory is a new concept in fuzzy logic. This theory describes the uncertainty of information where any Z-number is displayed by a pair of fuzzy numbers. The first component of the Z-number creates a restriction on the uncertain variable through a fuzzy number, while the second component of the Z-number explains the reliability of the first component through another fuzzy number. Because there is no any accurate image of the future of financial markets, the Z-number theory can be widely used in the financial markets widely. In this paper, the theory of Z-number is investigated in portfolio selection problem using the utility function. The Z-number is almost always converted to classical fuzzy number in the existing literature. Although this approach reduces the computational complexity, converting Z-number to classical fuzzy number causes the loss of significant information. Hence, we propose two practical models with Z-number approach and optimize them both with and without converting Z-number to classical fuzzy number. Optimization without converting Z-number causes the information about utility of assets and their reliability to be available in each stage. However, optimization with converting Z-number causes portfolio selection model to be transformed into a linear programming model. Furthermore, a practical method for obtaining the utility of assets in shape of the Z-numbers is introduced. In addition, liquidity constraint and the maximal fraction of the capital allocated constraint are considered in portfolio selection models. Eventually, two numerical examples from NYSE and NASDAQ Stock Market are provided, and the results are compared with each other.

Demand for different types of public goods: evidence from Nigeria

Preferences of Nigerian households vary across different types of public goods. For example, some prefer roads while others favor education even after controlling for the existing supply of these goods. What explains this variation? We argue that the perceived distributional consequences of specific public goods differ conditional on the personal characteristics of households. In particular, households demand the type of public good that (a) increases the utility of assets they already own and (b) resonates with their past experiences involving the lack of particular public goods. We test our argument with data on 123,000 Nigerian households. We find strong evidence for our argument across six types of public goods.

Enhancing product innovation performance in a dysfunctional competitive environment: The roles of competitive strategies and market-based assets

Dysfunctional competition (typically involving violation of intellectual property rights) is common in emerging economies, making it difficult for innovators to profit from their innovation activities. Firms operating in emerging economies must choose appropriate strategies to address the idiosyncratic challenges of dysfunctional competition and achieve competitive advantage. The utility of competitive strategies (cost leadership and differentiation) and market-based assets (customer orientation, competitor orientation, and marketing creativity) were assessed for their ability to help an innovating firm deal with dysfunctional competition and improve the returns from innovation. Data from a survey of managers in 282 Chinese high technology companies demonstrates that an emphasis on cost leadership, a customer orientation and creative marketing predicts better product innovation performance in environments with a high level of dysfunctional competition. Differentiation and a competitor orientation were found to be less effective.

Deploying storage assets to facilitate variable renewable energy integration: The impacts of grid flexibility, renewable penetration, and market structure

As variable renewable wind and solar resources constitute a larger fraction of electricity supply, interest in flexible resources, including demand response, dispatchable generation, transmission interconnection, and storage technologies is growing. This paper evaluates the utility of storage assets given different electricity system configurations, market paradigms, and management schemes using a production cost model. When a large share of non-renewable generation is derived from inflexible sources, storage is imperative even at relatively low renewable penetrations. At high renewable penetrations, storage becomes increasingly important in flexible systems as well. In addition to renewable penetration, storage utilization rates are sensitive to the storage assets' market bidding structure and ownership paradigm, particularly in inflexible electricity systems. Storage assets consume during low-cost hours and generate during high-cost hours, regardless of bidding structure, but the price delta is largest for a centrally-controlled storage asset bidding with a price arbitrage motive. Storage utility cannot be deduced from an individual metric, but rather depends on the interaction between bidding mechanism, renewable penetration, and system flexibility.

Efficiency and usability study of innovative computer-aided transcription strategies for video lecture repositories

Video lectures are widely used in education to support and complement face-to-face lectures. However, the utility of these audiovisual assets could be further improved by adding subtitles that can be exploited to incorporate added-value functionalities such as searchability, accessibility, translatability, note-taking, and discovery of content-related videos, among others. Today, automatic subtitles are prone to error, and need to be reviewed and post-edited in order to ensure that what students see on-screen are of an acceptable quality. This work investigates different user interface design strategies for this post-editing task to discover the best way to incorporate automatic transcription technologies into large educational video repositories. Our three-phase study involved lecturers from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) with videos available on the poliMedia video lecture repository, which is currently over 10,000 video objects. Simply by conventional post-editing automatic transcriptions users almost reduced to half the time that would require to generate the transcription from scratch. As expected, this study revealed that the time spent by lecturers reviewing automatic transcriptions correlated directly with the accuracy of said transcriptions. However, it is also shown that the average time required to perform each individual editing operation could be precisely derived and could be applied in the definition of a user model. In addition, the second phase of this study presents a transcription review strategy based on confidence measures (CM) and compares it to the conventional post-editing strategy. Finally, a third strategy resulting from the combination of that based on CM with massive adaptation techniques for automatic speech recognition (ASR), achieved to improve the transcription review efficiency in comparison with the two aforementioned strategies.