The early development of hotels in Johannesburg ca 1928-1963

Abstract: Hotels attract a range of writings which are drawn from different disciplinary perspectives. The largest volume of literature is contributed by hospitality management scholars, is contemporary in focus and examines questions around the strategic management and day-to-day operations of hotels. The aim in this paper is to address the limited focus on historical aspects of hotels and tourism development. The analysis builds from a number of different historical documentary sources to review the establishment and character of hotels in Johannesburg from the late 1920s to 1963. The starting date for the analysis is the introduction of legislation which creates firm linkages of the South African hotel industry to liquor interests; the end date is the closure of Johannesburg’s most grand and iconic hotel. It is argued that historical research contributes a fresh dimension to hotel scholarship as well as providing a grounded understanding of the emergence and character of the local hotel industry

Searching for Better Plasmonic Materials

Plasmonics is a research area merging the fields of optics and nanoelectronics by confining light with relatively large free-space wavelength to the nanometer scale - thereby enabling a family of novel devices. Current plasmonic devices at telecommunication and optical frequencies face significant challenges due to losses encountered in the constituent plasmonic materials. These large losses seriously limit the practicality of these metals for many novel applications. This paper provides an overview of alternative plasmonic materials along with motivation for each material choice and important aspects of fabrication. A comparative study of various materials including metals, metal alloys and heavily doped semiconductors is presented. The performance of each material is evaluated based on quality factors defined for each class of plasmonic devices. Most importantly, this paper outlines an approach for realizing optimal plasmonic material properties for specific frequencies and applications, thereby providing a reference for those searching for better plasmonic materials.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, 2 table

There is a Risk-Return Tradeoff After All

This paper studies the ICAPM intertemporal relation between the conditional mean and the conditional variance of the aggregate stock market return. We introduce a new estimator that forecasts monthly variance with past daily squared returns - the Mixed Data Sampling (or MIDAS) approach. Using MIDAS, we find that there is a significantly positive relation between risk and return in the stock market. This finding is robust in subsamples, to asymmetric specifications of the variance process, and to controlling for variables associated with the business cycle. We compare the MIDAS results with tests of the ICAPM based on alternative conditional variance specifications and explain the conflicting results in the literature. Finally, we offer new insights about the dynamics of conditional variance. Dans ce papier, nous estimons le modèle ICAPM intertemporal avec une nouvelle classe d'estimateurs, intitulée MIDAS. Cette procédure d'estimation combine des données échantillonnées à différentes fréquences. Utilisant le nouvel estimateur, nous constatons une relation positive et significative entre le rendement et la volatilité.ICAPM, GARCH, volatility risk, ICAPM, GARCH, risque de volatilité

Testing For Nonlinearity Using Redundancies: Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects

A method for testing nonlinearity in time series is described based on information-theoretic functionals -- redundancies, linear and nonlinear forms of which allow either qualitative, or, after incorporating the surrogate data technique, quantitative evaluation of dynamical properties of scrutinized data. An interplay of quantitative and qualitative testing on both the linear and nonlinear levels is analyzed and robustness of this combined approach against spurious nonlinearity detection is demonstrated. Evaluation of redundancies and redundancy-based statistics as functions of time lag and embedding dimension can further enhance insight into dynamics of a system under study.Comment: 32 pages + 1 table in separate postscript files, 12 figures in 12 encapsulated postscript files, all in uuencoded, compressed tar file. Also available by anon. ftp to santafe.edu, in directory pub/Users/mp/qq. To be published in Physica D., [email protected]

Money Matters: A Reality Check, with Help from Virginia Woolf

This article provides a qualified defence of economic indicators of human well being. Purchasing power obviously matters as a prerequisite for obtaining basic needs; abundant examples of human behaviour even in the richest countries in the world suggest that it matters for many other reasons, as well. Despite the shortcomings of indicators like GDP and GNP, richer nations (like richer individuals) have options that are simply not available to poorer ones. A particularly serious limitation of such indicators arises from their failure to take into account the distribution of income and wealth, both within and among nations. Higher income does not automatically lead to increased well being, but extreme caution is in order about attempts to dismiss its contribution, or to pathologize certain forms of consumption. While arguing the merits of a lifestyle less organized around consumption, proponents of sustainable development must acknowledge the strength of the evidence that money matters

Conceptions et déterminations récentes du baroque et du néobaroque

Baroque needs to be thought across chronological and geographical divides to connect architecture and dance, painting and natural science, philosophy, sculpture and music (and not in the sense of representations of music) and, above all, in relation to encounters with difference – heavenly, earthly, social, political, religious, geographical. What possibilities in baroque are open now in relation to present dilemmas in art history and world events? Baroque enables – arguably, it demands – a radical rethinking of historical time – and a rethinking of familiar history. It permits a liberation from periodization and linear time, as well as from historicism. While the scholars below acknowledge that baroque is often equated with style or historical period, it is most productively thought beyond them. Mieke Bal has argued that baroque epistemology permits an “hallucinatory quality” of relation between past and present that also allows a release from a supposed academic objectivity, while insisting that the engagement with the past should remain discomfiting and profoundly disturbing.1 Instead of repressing the past and time, creative retrospection allows its implications to emerge. In its materiality and bodiliness, baroque undermines resolution, gropes towards fragmentation, overgrows, and exceeds. Baroque architecture may be seen as overflowing, an excess of ornamental exteriority and evasive proliferation. This brings to the fore the question of surface. Andrew Benjamin’s approach to surface as neither merely structural nor merely decoration in architecture is important here. Baroque time and form impinge on each other – that is, not simply the time that it takes to process point of view into form, but of form into point of view.2 Thus the pursuit is for a baroque vision of vision, a baroque audition of hearing, and a multitemporality. The question of materiality (not mere matter, materials, or technique) must also come into play.Fil: Farago, Claire. State University of Colorado at Boulder; Estados UnidosFil: Hills, Helen. University of York; Reino UnidoFil: Kaup, Monika. University of Washington; Estados UnidosFil: Siracusano, Gabriela Silvana. Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero. Instituto de Investigaciones en Arte y Cultura "Dr. Norberto Griffa"; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Baumgarten, Jens. Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo.; BrasilFil: Jacoviello, Stefano. Università degli Studi di Siena; Itali

George C. Biggar Papers

George C. Biggar, a South Dakota State University alumni (1921-22), was a program director and created programs for radio stations in Chicago, IL (WLS) and Cincinnati, OH (WLW). He helped to plan the Barn Dance and the Dinnerbell Program. This is a collection of papers relates to Biggar\u27s career in radio. Included are radio scripts, interviews, photographs and other material collected throughout his career. Material from a trip to Great Britain in 1943-1944 makes up a large portion of the collection and includes material related to agriculture during wartime

Direct negotiation with the Crown in Treaty of Waitangi claims

Desde principios del siglo XX y durante más de 40 años, el croata Juan Benigar realizó estudios lingüísticos en convivencia con comunidades mapuche del departamento de Aluminé, Neuquén. Una escasa parte de ellos llegaron a ser publicados (Benigar 1924; 1925; 1927; 1928; 1963 a, b y c; 1978; 1981 y 2007) y el resto permaneció en libretas manuscritas, conservadas a lo largo del tiempo en repositorios institucionales y de dominio familiar. Los intereses filológicos de Benigar, su actualización bibliográfica y su participación en redes de correspondencia con muchos intelectuales de la época, así como el mito creado en torno a su obra inédita, lo vuelven una referencia constante en los estudios sobre mapudungun en la Patagonia. Las lingüistas Lidia Bruno y Mirta Serafini realizaron una primera catalogación del archivo del autor en 1995, que no llegó a ser publicada. Nuestro propósito es establecer un análisis de este manuscrito y examinar allí tanto los intereses del autor en relación con la filología y la lengua mapuche y los aportes al análisis de la lengua que habría formulado, como las redes intelectuales que configuró desde su situación de aislamiento geográfico y participación periférica como autodidacta