110 research outputs found
Towards a Pan-European property index : methodological opportunities
No full textThesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, Center for Real Estate, 2004 [first author]; and, (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, Center for Real Estate, 2004 [second author].This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-87).This study examines the methodological opportunities of index construction for the Pan-European property index, whose release is planned by the company Investment Property Databank (IPD). To address the question of temporal aggregation in appraisal indices, three index construction methods, namely "Stale Appraisal", "Linear Interpolation", and "Repeated Measures Regression", are tested for their accuracy in dealing with infrequent appraisals. Our model is based on a simulation approach, calculating appraised indices from a simulated "true index" of randomly generated returns, and directly comparing the statistical characteristics of these index returns to the true return. As broader context, this paper also gives an overview of the current theories in respect to general valuation issues on a disaggregate, aggregate and international level. We also investigate the European real estate market regarding currently applied market size measuring, structure and country performance. In particular, we explore crucial valuation issues that are relevant for the planned Pan-European property index to obtain the respect of the international investment community.by Friederike Helfer and Markus Witta.S.M.in Real Estate Developmen
A Translation of Monika Helfer\u27s \u3ci\u3eDie Bagage\u3c/i\u3e with Afterword
No full textThis thesis is a literary translation of Austrian author Monika Helfer’s 2020 novel Die Bagage. The work tells the story of the Moosbrugger family during the First World War in a small village in Austria. A mix of memoir and imagined account come together in this work by Helfer as she narrates the story of her grandmother, Maria, who is the beauty of the village with seven children. When Josef, Maria’s husband, goes off to the battlefield, Maria and the children stay behind with the mayor watching over them. The village constantly concerns itself with what is happening with the Moosbruggers, also known as the riff-raff. When Georg from Hanover appears in Maria\u27s life and then suddenly leaves, Maria becomes pregnant with Helfer’s mother, Grete, and almost no one believes she is the daughter of Josef, even Josef himself. What would come of the riff-raff? From a female perspective, Helfer recalls the past with her vivid imagination and descriptive language, drawing from anecdotes from her aunt Kathe and her personal experiences growing up with the baggage of being one of the riff-raff.
A critical translator’s afterword follows the translation. In this section, there are descriptions of the original work’s author and the novel’s literary context, an overview of the various techniques used in translating the novel, and the different challenges the translation posed. The challenges include the title, pacing, and tone as well as various technical grammar elements such as the special subjunctive. For each challenge posed, strategies used to overcome these difficulties are discussed. For the scholarly element, current literature from translation studies (namely Antonova, Castro, Guerra, Hariyanto, Hermans, Slavova and Phoenix, von Flotow, and Walinski) is referenced, examined, and alluded to throughout the writing of the afterword. Lastly, I will compare the newest 2023 British-published translation of the novel from Gillian Davidson to my American English translation, analyzing how a professional in the field dealt with the challenges I experienced.
Advisor: Ted Dawso
The interplay between wind and clouds in the trades
No full textCumulus clouds ('fair-weather clouds') form as a result of atmospheric convection and have vertical extents between a few hundred metres (humilis species) and several kilometres (congestus species). They are a major source of uncertainty in the estimation of climate sensitivity by climate models. In order to reach more agreement in cloud changes due to global warming as predicted by different climate models, a better understanding of the physics of these clouds is needed. Shallow cumulus clouds are particularly common over the oceans of Earth's trade-wind regions, which are situated roughly between the 10° and 30° parallels on both hemispheres and are characterised by steady easterly surface winds. These winds are part of the Hadley cell, a large-scale circulation system in which air flows away from the equator at high altitudes and towards the equator near the surface. As a consequence, vertical shear (i.e. vertical differences in wind speed and direction) is common in this region. While recent studies have shown that (surface) wind speed is an important predictor of cloudiness in this region, little work has been done to elucidate how shear affects clouds. Vice versa, clouds also affect the wind by vertically transporting it. While this convective momentum transport (CMT) undoubtedly plays an important role in the force balance that sets the trade winds, only little is known about the details of how CMT sets the vertical structure of the wind and of the spatial scales of the momentum-transporting eddies. In this thesis, more light is shed on the bidirectional interaction between shallow cumulus convection and the wind. Particular focus is put on the effect of wind shear on convection and on the different spatial scales (convective and turbulent) at which convection affects the wind at different heights. To this end, results from numerical large-eddy-simulation (LES) experiments are utilised in this thesis. Due to their fine horizontal resolution (of hundreds of metres and less), LES is able to numerically resolve clouds and the largest turbulent eddies explicitly. This leads to a high degree of realism in the simulation. Together with the possibility to artificially simplify the experimental set-up as well as the completeness of the output (in terms of time, space and quantities), this makes LES the ideal tool to understand physical mechanisms in the atmosphere. To identify and understand the effect of wind shear on cumulus convection, LES experiments were carried out in which typical conditions of the trades were simulated, while the amount of wind shear was systematically varied. In these idealised LES, vertical wind shear effectively limits the deepening of trade-wind convection. Several mechanisms are responsible for this, which depend on the direction of the shear vector (vertically decreasing or increasing wind speed) as well as the altitude at which shear is present. A situation with easterly surface winds that weaken with height and eventually turn westerly is referred to as backward shear, and the opposite situation with easterlies that strengthen with height is called forward shear. Different directions of wind shear cause different surface winds due to CMT, which in turn affect the surface evaporation: Faster surface winds occur in the presence of forward shear and lead to stronger evaporation of sea water, resulting in deeper convection. Forward shear in the subcloud layer also leads to a spatial separation of precipitative downdrafts and emerging updrafts, as clouds move faster than their subcloud-layer roots; this is favourable for convective development. Conversely, under backward shear, the surface evaporation is weakened and precipitative downdrafts interfere with updrafts, hindering convective deepening. However, once clouds grow to sufficient depths, they may produce precipitation so strong that the associated downdrafts spread out laterally near the surface, forming a distinct circular region of cold air, a cold pool. The spreading of this cold pool can cause uplift at its edges, triggering new convection. Backward shear limits the triggering of such secondary convection at cold-pool fronts, while forward shear facilitates it. Finally, shear of any direction in the cloud layer weakens cloud updrafts through an enhanced downward-oriented pressure perturbation force. The limiting effect of wind shear on cloud depth also affects the thermodynamic properties of the cloud layer: The relative humidity is larger and its decrease near the trade-wind inversion is more distinct if clouds are shallower. Large-domain LES hindcasts of specific days during the NARVAL measurement campaigns (which took place in December 2013 and August 2016 in the North Atlantic trades) give a uniquely realistic and complete view on the momentum balance of the trade winds. The combined effect of advection resolved by the model — which here is interpreted as CMT — and unresolved small-scale turbulence is to decelerate the wind in a layer that extends from the surface up to a height of about 2 km in winter and 1 km in summer. However, the role of each term in the balance depends on the altitude. CMT itself acts to accelerate near-surface winds, and only due to strong small-scale turbulence, there is still an overall frictious force at this height. Halfway into the subcloud layer, CMT starts to act as a frictious force. This friction is strengthened by small-scale turbulence from cloud base upwards and quickly diminishes with height. Thus, the cumulus clouds themselves do not introduce significant friction at the altitude where the zonal trade-wind jet resides, which coincides with cloud base. In fact, combined with momentum transport against the wind gradient (counter-gradient momentum transport), they may help to sustain this jet. Overall, wind shear appears to be an important player in setting the typical structure of the trade-wind atmosphere by modulating the depth of convection and may thus even affect cloud-radiative effects. Conversely, convection and turbulence give rise to an overall frictious force on the trade winds. CMT alone acts to accelerate the winds near the surface, which may weaken the Hadley circulation, while in the cloud layer, CMT hardly affects the wind
What Makes a Man?:Sexuality and Representation in Europe-Middle East Encounters
No full textQuestions about sexuality, gender, and religion in the East and West have dominated debates in Germany and other European countries since the beginning of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in the summer of 2015. Despite all claims as to the unprecedented nature of the displacement and its root causes, German media attention is becoming increasingly transfixed by an all-too-familiar construction of ‘oriental’ masculinity. Back in 2003, the Berlin-based ‘West-East Divan’, a project of the Working Group ‘Modernity and Islam’ (today EUME), initiated an author exchange between Rashid al-Daif from Beirut and Joachim Helfer from Berlin. Two books resulted from the encounter: al-Daif’s Awdat al-almani ila rushdih (The German’s Return to His Senses, 2005) and Helfer’s response Die Verschwulung der Welt (The Queering of the World, 2006). Both texts caused a heated debate at the time of their publication: al-Daif’s apparent homophobia seemed to have found a match in Helfer’s orientalism. Their exchange certainly complicated the assumption that an encounter between two intellectuals, two literary writers from different cultures would ultimately have to be able to dispel all intervening prejudices. A decade later, their remarkably candid debate crossed the Atlantic: in 2015, the English translation of the exchange was published with additional critical essays under the title What Makes A Man? Sex Talk between Beirut and Berlin. The workshop reassembles the original partners of the encounter – Helfer and al-Daif – and a larger group of critics from both sides of the Atlantic to explore the issues at stake. It will test the assumption that al-Daif and Helfer’s publications can help us carve out the cultural, literary, and media conditions in which narratives of gender and sexuality across cultural and religious differences and their critiques are developed
Bürgerschaftliches Engagement von Flüchtlingen als Weg zur Integration
No full textIn dieser Masterthesis wird untersucht, ob ein bürgerschaftliches Engagement von Flüchtlingen in den örtlichen Einrichtungen, Institutionen und Vereinen zu deren Integration beitragen kann. Ausgangspunkt ist das Projekt „We need you.“, bei dem Flüchtlinge in Stuttgart-Plieningen als ehrenamtliche Helfer selbst Verantwortung übernommen haben. Die Ergebnisse machen Mut und deuten darauf hin, dass unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen die soziale und kulturelle Integration gefördert wird
Kleine Helfer in der Fischernährung
No full textFütterungsversuche mit Regenbogenforellen zeigen: Magen-Darm-Bakterien von Raubfischen passen sich an vegetarische Nahrung a
Ausreichender Schutz humanitärer Helfer in Konflikten? Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Humanitärem Völkerrecht.
No full textThe deteriorating security situation for aid workers remains one of the vital but overlooked issues in humanitarian aid. Despite advancements in ensuring respect for International Humanitarian Law, violations of its rules remain a widespread problem. The increase in attacks against aid workers in recent years once again raises questions concerning the scope of their protection and ways to improve it. One principal reason behind this negative trend has been the shift in the nature of conflicts and the role of the “war on terror” in undermining the laws authority. Other reasons stem from internal developments of humanitarian actors, namely a lack of transparency or the cooptation of aid. This results in increased politicization and the disintegration of the civilian nature of humanitarian assistance.
There is a need to reassess the role IHL can play in keeping aid workers safe. With non-State armed groups at the center of contemporary conflicts, engaging them is not longer only an option, but becomes a necessity. Traditionally, studies have focused on why actors violate International Humanitarian Law rather than on what encourages them to respect it. Relying only on sanctions has proven to be rather ineffective. With a focus on the incentive structure of International Humanitarian Law, the author will analyze the reoccurring violations from a different angle in order to understand the rationale inducing armed groups to respect it, and to propose viable approaches for the future. There now is a development towards a customary international rule that can curtail a State’s scope of action in treating non-State armed groups. The accumulation of customary law relating to non-international armed conflict, the convergence of International Humanitarian Law applicable in international armed conflict and non-international armed conflict, the protection awarded by International Human Rights Law and the practice of amnesties suggest that the extension of combatant status and Prisoners of War privileges should be possible.
Analyzing these developments, the author proposes the application of International Humanitarian Law without making a distinction as to the source of obligation to all parties involved in a conflict, as a promising way to achieve greater adherence to International Humanitarian Law and thus a solution to keep aid workers safe.Humanitäres Völkerrecht schreibt klare Regeln für Auseinandersetzungen in Kriegszeiten nieder, unter Anderem verbietet es Angriffe auf humanitäre Helfer. Eine Zunahme eben dieser Angriffe in den letzten Jahren wirft jedoch Fragen hinsichtlich der Rolle auf, die Humanitäres Völkerrecht im Bezug auf die Sicherheit von diesen Helfern noch spielen kann. Die Masterarbeit „How to protect Aid workers in conflict situations: A critical analysis of International Humanitarian Law“ ergründet Missachtungen des Rechts, legt Schwachstellen offen und unterbreitet Verbesserungsvorschläge um seine Einhaltung zu gewährleisten. Besonders eingegangen wird auf die Rolle nicht-staatlicher Akteure in asymmetrischen Konflikten, die den Großteil moderner kriegerischer Auseinandersetzungen darstellen. Die Arbeit zeigt, dass Anreize, nicht Verbote, für die Beeinflussung des Verhaltens nicht-staatlicher Akteure von zentraler Bedeutung sind. Die Anwendung Humanitären Völkerrechts auf alle Teilnehmer eines bewaffneten Konflikts, und nicht nur mit Fokus auf staatliche Akteure wie bisher, wird als vielversprechender Weg vorgestellt, um eine verbesserte Einhaltung des Gesetzes zu erreichen und dadurch humanitäre Helfer zu schützen
The Morphology of Simulated Trade-Wind Convection and Cold Pools Under Wind Shear
No full textA growing body of literature investigates convective organization, but few studies to date have sought to investigate how wind shear plays a role in the spatial organization of shallow (trade-wind) convection. The present study hence investigates the morphology of precipitating marine cumulus convection using large-eddy-simulation experiments with zonal forward and backward shear and without shear. One set of simulations includes evaporation of precipitation, promoting cold-pool development, and another set inhibits the evaporation of precipitation and thus cold-pool formation. Without (or with only weak) subcloud-layer shear, conditions are unfavorable for convective deepening, as clouds remain stationary relative to their subcloud-layer roots so that precipitative downdrafts interfere with emerging updrafts. Under subcloud-layer forward shear (FS), where the wind strengthens with height (a condition that is commonly found in the trades), clouds move at greater speed than their roots and precipitation falls downwind away from emerging updrafts. FS in the subcloud layer appears to promote the development of stronger subcloud circulations, with greater divergence in the cold-pool area downwind of the original cell and larger convergence and stronger uplift at the gust front boundary. As clouds shear forward, a larger fraction of precipitation falls outside of clouds, leading to more moistening within the cold pool (gust front).Atmospheric Remote Sensin
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