US Real Estate Investment Performance: 1983-2012

This study provides an overview of real estate investment performance over a 1983-2012 time period. The results show that although equity REITs outperformed all other assets on average annual return, on a risk-adjusted basis both private retail and apartment real estate outperformed all other assets. The study also found a recent trend in increased correlation between common stocks and REITs

Lampedusa: Migrant Tragedy

Tragedies about the suffering of migrants are not a new phenomenon. So this article quickly turns to texts from classical antiquity by Aeschylus and Euripides. It focuses, however, on poetry written over the last decade. Following the routes taken by asylum seekers from Africa and Asia through such transit points as Lampedusa and across Europe to Calais, it looks at depictions of the suffering associated with travel, disaster, and problematic arrival, and at the interaction in tragic writing between old motifs and conventions (tragedy as understood by Aristotle or Hegel) and current issues and resources. Fresh insights are offered into the work of poets from migrant backgrounds (Warsan Shire, Ribkha Sibhatu) and into a range of modes from lyric (James Byrne) through experiments with translation and performance (Caroline Bergvall) into the late modernism of Geraldine Monk, J. H. Prynne, and Jeff Hilson

Rediscovering Frank O\u27Connor

Minor twentieth-century Irish writers such as Frank O\u27Connor have largely been neglected by a critical era which favors longer, more experimental fiction, following James Joyce\u27s models. Both in practice and in theory, Frank O\u27Connor set standards for the modern short story beyond its current misconception as a narrative form shorter than the novel. Still, as a master of his genre and a significant contributor to his nation\u27s literary renaissance, Frank O\u27Connor\u27s reputation has faded in recent years; This thesis will attempt to account for the decline in O\u27Connor\u27s reputation and to reexamine his artistry in terms of his range and depth of characterization and manipulation of narrative technique. O\u27Connor\u27s characters constituted a diverse population of romantic idealists, soldiers, and priests, among others, though he is best known for highly-anthologized stories about children. Each of O\u27Connor\u27s character groups provides a significant quantity of entertaining, realistic stories which deserve further critical attention. This thesis will explore the techniques O\u27Connor employed in his short fiction, with the dual purpose of demonstrating the focus and insight of individual stories and judging anew the literary reputation of the artist himself

Critical introductions to pioneering works of social realism from the early Abbey Theatre

This dissertation presents a critical study of five dramatic works first performed at Dublin\u27s Abbey Theatre in the early twentieth century. The plays considered here have often been called masterpieces by critics, yet they have received little serious scholarly attention and today are forgotten relics of the Abbey\u27s past. Nonetheless, these plays---Padraic Colum\u27s Thomas Muskerry (1910), St. John Ervine\u27s John Ferguson (1915), T. C. Murray\u27s Autumn Fire (1924), Lennox Robinson\u27s The Big House (1926), and Teresa Deevy\u27s Katie Roche (1936)---formed a backbone for the fledgling national theater. They were successful because they attracted and engaged their audiences, but furthermore they challenged conventional notions (sometimes creating alternate notions) of gender, class, nationality, and social status. As serious dramatic works, these plays represented probably the most successful achievement of Yeats\u27s vision for the theater as a mirror showing the nation a true image of its mind and features. Thus, the plays helped to invent Ireland (in the words of Declan Kiberd\u27s important study of Irish literature), and they contributed significantly to the Abbey\u27s establishment as one of the world\u27s great repertory theaters. This dissertation, then, redresses critical neglect of the five plays in an attempt to initiate deeper ways of understanding and interpreting them through social, political, and economic contexts, textual backgrounds, and critical, publication, and stage histories

Interorganizational relationships : the transition of special education students to adult human services.

Theory and research regarding interorganizational relations (IOR) can be applied to many situations in the field of human service delivery. An example of IOR in public human services occurs in the transition of special needs students from special education programs to adult human services. In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the transitional process is defined by legislation entitled Chapter 688. This research examines Chapter 688 from the conceptual framework of IOR theory. It examines some of the issues and problems involved in the implementation of IOR in the transition process. The organizational domain is delimited to include four key Chapter 688 organizations (agencies): public schools, rehabilitation commission, department of mental health, and department of mental retardation. Local (area) directors of each organization completed a survey questionnaire containing three parts; knowledge of Chapter 688, attitudes toward Chapter 688 and IOR, and the Klonglan Scale (a measure of intensity of IOR). Information on actual referral patterns and IOR in Chapter 688 was obtained through document analysis of Individual Transition Plans, ITP, and State data base files on Chapter 688 referrals. The results of the study indicated that the local area directors of the target agencies involved in the Chapter 688 interorganizational relationships, IOR, have a good working knowledge of the law. The area directors are of the opinion that the components of Chapter 688 implementation are satisfactory. They value IOR as a means of improving services, but need to develop a clearer idea of IOR. The area directors\u27 description of the intensity of IOR in the Klonglan Scale is not substantiated in terms of participation in ITP meetings and/or ITP services. Lastly, the local area directors identify the following barriers to interorganizational relationships: inadequate funding, lack of coordination of funding, lack of goal clarity and uniformity, and insufficient knowledge of, and trust in, other agencies