360 research outputs found
The Financial Performance of Real Estate Investment Trusts
The intent of this article is to update the performance evaluation of Real Estate Investment Trusts. This update is important for three reasons. First, REITs today are one type of vehicle that permits the analysis of real estate assets in a modern portfolio context. Second, the performance of REITs was considered exceptionally good in recent years on a risk-adjusted basis. This would suffice as a market imperfection in the pricing of REIT shares which is difficult to support in light of the efficient market hypothesis. Third, recent studies o the performance of REITs have only covered time periods from 1963 to 1979 and an update to include the most recent six-year time period would offer valuable insight into REIT performance.
An Elasticity Approach to Equity Risk Evaluation
This study defines and derives a measure of risk for real estate investment decisions using the concept of elasticity. Specifically, the elasticity of the after-tax equity yield with respect to the before-tax net operating cash flow growth rate is derived from a discounted cash flow equity valuation model. Also, an illustration of the use and interpretation of this elasticity measure is provided.
Conflicting Currents: The Obligation to Maintain Inviolate Client Confidences and the New SEC Attorney Conduct Rules
Bitwise Bell inequality violations for an entangled state involving 2N ions
Following on from previous work [J. A. Larsson, Phys. Rev. A 67, 022108
(2003)], Bell inequalities based on correlations between binary digits are
considered for a particular entangled state involving 2N trapped ions. These
inequalities involve applying displacement operations to half of the ions and
then measuring correlations between pairs of corresponding bits in the binary
representations of the number of centre-of-mass phonons of N particular ions.
It is shown that the state violates the inequalities and thus displays
nonclassical correlations. It is also demonstrated that it violates a Bell
inequality when the displacements are replaced by squeezing operations.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Simulation of Quantum Magnetism in Mixed Spin Systems with Impurity Doped Ion Crystal
We propose the realization of linear crystals of cold ions which contain
different atomic species for investigating quantum phase transitions and
frustration effects in spin system beyond the commonly discussed case of
. Mutual spin-spin interactions between ions can be tailored via the
Zeeman effect by applying oscillating magnetic fields with strong gradients.
Further, collective vibrational modes in the mixed ion crystal can be used to
enhance and to vary the strength of spin-spin interactions and even to switch
those forces from a ferro- to an antiferromagnetic character. We consider the
behavior of the effective spin-spin couplings in an ion crystal of spin-1/2
ions doped with high magnetic moment ions with spin S=3. We analyze the ground
state phase diagram and find regions with different spin orders including
ferrimagnetic states. In the most simple non-trivial example we deal with a
linear Ca, Mn, Ca crystal with spins of \{1/2,3,1/2}. To
show the feasibility with current state-of-the-art experiments, we discuss how
quantum phases might be detected using a collective Stern-Gerlach effect of the
ion crystal and high resolution spectroscopy. Here, the state-dependent
laser-induced fluorescence of the indicator spin-1/2 ion, of species
Ca, reveals also the spin state of the simulator spin-3 ions,
Mn as this does not possess suitable levels for optical excitation
and detection.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure
Quantum simulation of the wavefunction to probe frustrated Heisenberg spin systems
Quantum simulators are controllable quantum systems that can reproduce the
dynamics of the system of interest, which are unfeasible for classical
computers. Recent developments in quantum technology enable the precise control
of individual quantum particles as required for studying complex quantum
systems. Particularly, quantum simulators capable of simulating frustrated
Heisenberg spin systems provide platforms for understanding exotic matter such
as high-temperature superconductors. Here we report the analog quantum
simulation of the ground-state wavefunction to probe arbitrary Heisenberg-type
interactions among four spin-1/2 particles . Depending on the interaction
strength, frustration within the system emerges such that the ground state
evolves from a localized to a resonating valence-bond state. This spin-1/2
tetramer is created using the polarization states of four photons. The
single-particle addressability and tunable measurement-induced interactions
provide us insights into entanglement dynamics among individual particles. We
directly extract ground-state energies and pair-wise quantum correlations to
observe the monogamy of entanglement
Proposal for a Joint German-British Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detector
For many years there has been steady progress towards the detection of gravitational radiation. It has now become clear that the next major step should be the construction of a number of long-baseline detectors around the world. An array of detectors of this type is expected to allow the observation of gravitational waves from a range of astrophysical sources, leading to improved insight in many areas including stellar collapse, binary coalescence and the expansion of the Universe.
We propose that one of these detectors be built by a collaboration formed around the gravitational wave groups in Britain and Germany. In this document we present our case for this collaborative venture and outline the design philosophy of our proposed instrument - an interferometric detector with arms of length close to 3km.
Two detectors of the same general type are planned for the USA (LIGO project), one is planned for Italy (Italian/French VIRGO project) and another is proposed for Australia (AIGO project). It is expected that all the long baseline detectors to be built will operate as part of a coordinated worldwide network
Collective emotions online and their influence on community life
E-communities, social groups interacting online, have recently become an
object of interdisciplinary research. As with face-to-face meetings, Internet
exchanges may not only include factual information but also emotional
information - how participants feel about the subject discussed or other group
members. Emotions are known to be important in affecting interaction partners
in offline communication in many ways. Could emotions in Internet exchanges
affect others and systematically influence quantitative and qualitative aspects
of the trajectory of e-communities? The development of automatic sentiment
analysis has made large scale emotion detection and analysis possible using
text messages collected from the web. It is not clear if emotions in
e-communities primarily derive from individual group members' personalities or
if they result from intra-group interactions, and whether they influence group
activities. We show the collective character of affective phenomena on a large
scale as observed in 4 million posts downloaded from Blogs, Digg and BBC
forums. To test whether the emotions of a community member may influence the
emotions of others, posts were grouped into clusters of messages with similar
emotional valences. The frequency of long clusters was much higher than it
would be if emotions occurred at random. Distributions for cluster lengths can
be explained by preferential processes because conditional probabilities for
consecutive messages grow as a power law with cluster length. For BBC forum
threads, average discussion lengths were higher for larger values of absolute
average emotional valence in the first ten comments and the average amount of
emotion in messages fell during discussions. Our results prove that collective
emotional states can be created and modulated via Internet communication and
that emotional expressiveness is the fuel that sustains some e-communities.Comment: 23 pages including Supporting Information, accepted to PLoS ON
The Family Name as Socio-Cultural Feature and Genetic Metaphor: From Concepts to Methods
A recent workshop entitled The Family Name as Socio-Cultural Feature and Genetic Metaphor: From Concepts to Methods was held in Paris in December 2010, sponsored by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and by the journal Human Biology. This workshop was intended to foster a debate on questions related to the family names and to compare different multidisciplinary approaches involving geneticists, historians, geographers, sociologists and social anthropologists. This collective paper presents a collection of selected communications
Geodetic and seismic constraints on some seismogenic zone processes in Costa Rica
New seismic and geodetic data from Costa Rica provide insight into seismogenic zone processes in Central America, where the Cocos and Caribbean plates converge. Seismic data are from combined land and ocean bottom deployments in the Nicoya peninsula in northern Costa Rica and near the Osa peninsula in southern Costa Rica. In Nicoya, inversion of GPS data suggests two locked patches centered at 14 ± 2 and 39 ± 6 km depth. Interplate microseismicity is concentrated in the more freely slipping intermediate zone, suggesting that small interseismic earthquakes may not accurately outline the updip limit of the seismogenic zone, the rupture zone for future large earthquakes, at least over the short (∼1 year) observation period. We also estimate northwest motion of a coastal “sliver block” at 8 ± 3 mm/yr, probably related to oblique convergence. In the Osa region to the south, convergence is orthogonal to the trench. Cocos-Caribbean relative motion is partitioned here, with ∼8 cm/yr on the Cocos-Panama block boundary (including a component of permanent shortening across the Fila Costeña fold and thrust belt) and ∼1 cm/yr on the Panama block–Caribbean boundary. The GPS data suggest that the Cocos plate–Panama block boundary is completely locked from ∼10–50 km depth. This large locked zone, as well as associated forearc and back-arc deformation, may be related to subduction of the shallow Cocos Ridge and/or younger lithosphere compared to Nicoya, with consequent higher coupling and compressive stress in the direction of plate convergence
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